The landline rang on a night when snow was drifting down.
The black receiver almost never rang. Only a handful of people even knew the number.
I stopped what I was doing in the kitchen and headed for the manager's room.
"Hello, this is the house manager at Nightlight."
On the other end was an old acquaintance. It was news about the former proprietress of a long-established ryotei restaurant who'd looked after me back when I was in the spotlight. She had passed away quietly last month.
"...I see."
That was all I said. My voice came out hoarser than I'd expected.
I hung up and stood there staring at the black receiver for a while.
One more person who'd known me as "the man I was back then" was gone.
When I went back to the living room, the four of them were gathered around a hotpot.
A winter nightly hotpot. Pork and spinach swished through kombu dashi, eaten with ponzu. You can eat it every night and never tire of it—hence nightly hotpot. A dish that somehow echoed the name of this house.
Komugi sat in front of the steaming pot, letting out a longing whine.
"Mr. Manager, who was on the phone?" Yume asked casually.
"Oh. Someone I used to know."
I answered with a smile. It probably wasn't a very good one.
Rei paused, her chopsticks in midair. She was always the quickest to notice this sort of thing.
"...Mr. Manager. You don't look so good."
"Don't I? I just got a little chilled from the snow, that's all."
With that, I put a bundle of spinach in my own bowl.
The four of them exchanged looks. Lately, they'd been exchanging looks a lot. Ever since that night—the night I'd seen Rei's mother out the front door.
Who is this man, anyway?
I'd been pretending not to notice that the question had been hanging in the air between the four of them all this time.
When the hotpot was finished, I made rice porridge to close out the meal.
All the flavor that had melted into the pot—inosinic acid from the pork, glutamic acid from the kombu. When I swirled in the beaten egg, a soft yellow film rose up, and the steam turned a shade sweeter.
"Here, rice porridge. Chew it well."
I ladled it into bowls and passed them around.
The four of them ate, huffing at the heat. Usually, just hearing that sound was enough to fill me up.
But tonight. Deep in my chest, something had gone still and cold. Because of the news, I told myself.
"Hey, Mr. Manager."
Rei had finished her porridge, and still holding the bowl in both hands, she spoke up quietly.
"There's something we've never been able to ask you."
"Yes?"
"A while back. You said you only did 'a little' cooking in the past, right?"
"...I did."
"That's been bugging me this whole time. There's no way you get flavors like that from 'a little.' —Mr. Manager, what did you used to do?"
The living room went quiet. The only sound was Komugi's tail thumping once at someone's feet.
Four pairs of eyes were looking straight at me. Not accusing. Not amused.
Just—wanting to know. Wanting to really know this person.
I took a sip of tea from my cup. Usually, I'd dodge the question. "Just a lowly warehouse guy." Or, "I'm the one who cooks for everyone."
But tonight. The news about the proprietress had loosened my tongue, just a little.
"...It's a long story, you know."
When I said that, Yume stood up without a word and added hot water to the teapot. Her face said she wasn't letting me off the hook.
I let out a breath and started talking.
"You see. A long time ago, I was a concierge—at hotels and inns, looking after guests from overseas."
"Concierge..." Mahiru echoed.
"It's a job where you make guests' impossible requests come true. Someone has to have a flower that only exists in three places in the world, tonight. Someone wants to rent out a closed museum all to themselves by tomorrow morning. That kind of thing—well, the person who somehow manages things that normally can't be done."
"...That's..."
Ms. Makabe's eyes went wide. Her manga artist's gaze sharpened.
"That's not an ordinary job, is it."
"No. That's why it was fun, at first."
I smiled.
"If I made one phone call, people all over the world would move for me. Closed doors would open, flowers that shouldn't exist would arrive, and the guest would say, 'Thank you.' I could make someone happy. It made me happier than I can tell you."
Another sip of tea.
"But, you know."
"Little by little, my days off disappeared."
I went on, flatly. Trying not to make it sound serious. As if I were talking about taking out the trash.
"Guests all over the world called on me anytime, never mind the time difference. In the middle of the night, at dawn. If I was even a second late answering, I lost their trust. So I kept my means of contact on me at all times, never let it out of reach."
I looked down at my palm.
"Back then, I think I—wasn't a person. 'A handy tool that'll grant any impossible wish, twenty-four hours a day, anytime.' That's what everyone thought I was. And I tried to think so too."
The living room had gone utterly still.
"One night, impossible requests came in from several guests all at once. All of them wanted it done immediately, and perfectly. My phone rang and rang without a break—"
There, I stopped.
"It rang, and rang, and wouldn't stop ringing. And the moment I heard that sound—something inside me..."
I almost said snapped, then stopped.
"...it just went pop," I said, as lightly as I could.
"Next thing I knew, I'd thrown that phone into the sea. I dropped everything. Without a word to anyone, I vanished from my workplace."
"Vanished...?"
Yume's voice was trembling.
"I ran away. From a job I was proud of, making people all over the world happy. Pathetically, you know."
I tried to laugh. But I couldn't quite manage it.
"Even now," I said quietly.
"When I hear a notification sound—that little ping a phone makes. Even now, my heart starts pounding and I break out in a cold sweat."
The four of them caught their breath.
"The reason I don't carry a smartphone isn't that I'm bad with machines. It's that I'm scared of that sound. It's embarrassing, at my age."
Ah, that's it.
I'd finally found the words. The deepest reason, the one I'd never been able to put properly even to myself.
"You see, everyone,"
I raised my face. Four faces were looking straight at me.
"I—got tired of making people happy for a living."
Once I'd said it, the words were much lighter than I'd expected. And yet I was the one who swayed as I said them.
I'd never been able to tell anyone. Because it was pathetic. Getting sick of making people happy. Thinking something so ungrateful.
"...Sounds stupid, doesn't it."
I looked down.
"It was an amazing job, one where I could make people happy. And I threw it away for the reason that I was tired. And at the place I ran off to, here I am, cooking for everyone. I'm a pathetic middle-aged guy. That's what I am."
When I finished, I stayed looking down and wrapped both hands around my teacup. The warmth of the cooling tea seeped slowly into my fingers.
The living room was silent. No one said anything.
What words that silence was about to turn into—with my head bowed, I didn't know yet.