“Dad. Could you… teach me how to cook?”

The instant that Takamatsu Tomori got home from band practice, she shut the front door behind her, walked in a brisk straight line from the apartment entryway, past a doorway, and into the kitchen, and posed her father a question, unadorned with greetings or pleasantries.

“…Welcome home, Tomori.”

Said father, full name Takamatsu Yoshiji, stood over the sink, washing a small load of dishes. He wore a worn beige apron that was stained with splashes of soapy water, and seemed not one bit surprised nor concerned by his daughter’s behavior. He turned to her and greeted her with a knowing smile.

She kept silent, though. And she simply stood there, looking at him, the fire of unsullied resolve burning in her eyes. It seemed she wasn’t in the mood for social ritual. He was plenty used to her getting like this by now, though it had gotten a little rarer since she’d turned twelve or thirteen. She wasn’t going to stand down until she got an answer; he knew that much.

“Yes, yes, of course I’ll teach you.” So he gave her her answer. At this that fire in her eyes turned into sparkles of delight, and she beamed and let out an unconscious, idiosyncratic little mouth-sound of both joy and relief while squeezing her hands into fists. A trademark tic among many others, and Yoshiji had gotten to know this one before she’d even said her first word, but still it never got old.
“What’s got you so interested, though? You’ve never been the type.” He mused. Though he loved his child no matter how difficult she was to raise, he did admit to himself, grudgingly, that he was relieved there was at least one life skill he didn’t have to somehow coerce her into learning. “…You know, until you were ten you didn’t even want to come into the kitchen while I was cooking because it scared you so much.”
“Ah…”
The stars in Tomori’s eyes parted, and the strength in her fists faded away. She seemed to have all at once become lost in thought, like she was busy fighting something off in her head; a subtle groan of hesitation escaped her, then another. But just as quickly it all returned to her, and she spoke with renewed determination.
“Um, so—”

Actually… it still scared her.
Her father’s recollection had drawn her eyes toward the cast-iron pan hanging from the wall behind the counter, toward the way the sunlight from the window painted a stark white stripe across its unknowable, pitch-black surface and emphasized the rough, irregular patterns of the metal. She remembered the sound it made when it was hot and covered in oil, the violent, squirming, liquid-y white noise that seared her eardrums and made her want to run and hide in her bed–and soon after that followed the smell, the waxy, slippery smell of grease that always managed to feel its way into her gut and give her bouts of nausea.
It all still scared her just as much as it did five years ago. She’d just learned to put up with it, because being a burden had at some point started to scare her more than anything.
Of course, the thought of standing in front of the stove, inches away from that noise and that smell, made her stomach turn and turn and turn with anxiety. But things were different now. She had a mission.
And though she would never put it this way herself, anyone who knew Tomori knew that when she had a mission, she let absolutely nothing get in her way.

Cup ramen.
Instant curry.
Tuna mayo onigiri, and Morinaga jelly.

As Tomori recalled, she had walked into the RiNG studio that afternoon to find Taki and Anon (that is, Taki-chan and Ano-chan) chatting away and, not wanting to bother them, shrunk into a corner and listened. She found herself almost wishing she hadn’t.
The things she heard Taki-chan say as she elucidated her eating habits had torn a hole in her gentle fragile heart. She said that she “doesn’t care what she eats as long as it’s filling.” That on most nights she just makes cup ramen or instant curry, or sometimes she picks something up from a convenience store on the way home. And that when she’s really busy she’ll subsist purely on pouches of Morinaga energy jelly as she burned the midnight oil.
Of course there was nothing wrong with cup ramen and instant curry. Tomori liked them just fine, and though sometimes she wished they would be a little gentler (because the way the salt and the MSG and the other seasonings flooded her tastebuds was way too much to handle if she wasn’t in the right mood), she couldn’t deny their convenience. And she liked convenience store food too, especially when they had limited-run themed items, though to her dismay she had been banned from outright collecting them for sanitary reasons. It was all fine. There was nothing wrong with any of it. But. But.
Putting it all together, the picture it painted made her so, so… unbelievably… sad.

Scared of the stove and the roaring of the pan as Tomori was, she did respect them. She felt grateful to them, for helping Dad show her his love, for letting the two of them–the three of them, if she was lucky and Mom’s shifts were light–share those little moments around the kitchen table. Even when they felt a little awkward, or when the food didn’t agree with her palate (which was rare these days, as Yoshiji had over the years turned Tomori-cooking into a veritable art form), she treasured them all the same. There was just something… special about it all.
She couldn’t quite put it into words. Maybe into lyrics, if she tried.

Back in reality, once her two bandmates noticed her, they cut their conversation short, greeted her, and started getting their instruments ready. Tomori didn’t remember the rest of the practice session very well. Only that she definitely wasn’t at her best.

Later, as Taki accompanied her on her way home, she thought and thought about how to broach the subject. She mulled it over during the walk to the station, and on the tram, and even as they climbed the stairs up the Chitose footbridge.

“—Taki-chan.” She stopped as they walked side by side over the highway.
“…Hm? What’s up, Tomori?”
“When… when was the last time you… ate a home-cooked meal?”
Taki took a second to gather her thoughts. She seemed taken aback by the directness of the question. Still, she answered.
“…Ah. Honestly, I don’t remember. It’s… been a while. How come?”
Tomori looked down at her feet, trying to hide the forlorn look those words had put on her face. She didn’t even remember.
“…I-It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Um, see you on Thursday!”
Rushing through her words, she bolted away and towards her home, leaving Taki standing on the bridge, bemused.

“…And, so, that’s why.” Tomori finished explaining and stopped to catch her breath. She had at some point set her bookbag down on the kitchen table.
“So you want to cook for her, huh? That’s sweet.”
“Y-yeah. I really do.”
“Well, I was just planning on making some fried rice for dinner. I bet you could handle that with a little help.”
Tomori beamed again, visibly brimming with excitement.
“But first, Tomori.”
“W-what’s up, Dad?”
“You walked in here with your shoes on, you know.”
He pointed downwards, and she looked down at her feet. Just as he said, her school moccasins were still on them, dirtying the kitchen tiles. She jumped, stammered out something like “a-ah! Sorry sorry sorry!”, and sprinted back towards the entryway.
Yoshiji looked at her as she shrank away, and felt a strange kind of pride well up in his chest. He thought to himself—ah, Hikari, we’ve raised such an interesting girl.

They began to set the mise-en-place. Tomori held onto the kitchen knife with a shaky, anxious grip, and let her father guide her hands through the motions of dicing a yellow onion. They cut it first into two halves, then into concentric slices, then into little cubes. She shuddered as she first heard the crunching sound of cell walls breaking open, releasing their enzymes and their pungent smell, making her nose and eyes crawl with a tingling itch; but she kept going as she was told and shown, and she slowly settled into a comfortable rhythm.

Left to work on her own, she cut up a green bell pepper and two large carrots. Their grassy vegetal scent calmed her anxiety, reminding her of the sweet, gentle flavor they both took on once they cooked. She had long struggled with the bad habit of eating them all first, then moping and playing with her food as she had to finish the rest of the meal without them.

The dish called for four scrambled eggs, and so Yoshiji tried to show her how to crack the shell just so, so that it would break open and yield its white and its yolk without leaving any shards behind. Tomori shuddered and averted her eyes as the calcium-protein walls shattered against the gave with a pathetic thud, and the fragile barrier gave way to life itself, a golden sun shining in a sea of clear water. She tried to bear it and watch and learn, she really did, but in the end, she excused herself while her father cracked and cooked the eggs by himself.

Once they were mixed together, denatured by the heat of the pan into a solid yellow mass, she could bear to be in the kitchen again. She decided, at that moment, that she would not be serving Taki eggs of any sort.

Tomori wore a strained, pensive look on her face. She was visibly gripping the bookbag on her lap and staring down at the worn-down floor of the tram, painted amber by the setting sun. She didn’t seem to notice the occasional, furtive glances in her direction.

Taki was very, very curious about what was on her mind, of course. She always was; she relished every time she spoke to her, gave her a glimpse into her world. But she knew that it was best to let her be. To let her sit alone with her thoughts, until, no, unless she decided she wanted to share them. It’s not like it was any of her business, either way. There’s no need to bother her. It’s better that way.

The tram rattled and slowed into the Kishibojin-mae stop, and Taki shook her head to clear her thoughts. She said, in a nearly whispered voice, “Tomori, we’re here,” hoping to coax her as gently as possible out of her own mind, and stood up from her seat. Or she tried to.

She felt a sudden pressure on her right thigh. Then, after an instant, the unmistakable warmth of a human hand.

The strength drained all at once from her legs, and she looked down, then slowly, cautiously followed the hand pressing down on her leg, along its gray blazer sleeve, until her eyes met Tomori’s.

She let out a little whimper, and immediately covered her mouth.

“…T-Tomori? Wh-wha, what’s, what’s up?” She stammered, her gaze suddenly darting across every corner and seat in the tram car, trying its best not to linger in any one place. She could feel the heat flashing across her face, and hoped to God it didn’t show.

“Taki-chan.”
Tomori’s face was painted with an intense, unreadable expression. And her voice rang sharp yet smooth, clean through Taki’s heart.
“Y-yes?” Her head was starting to feel funny.
“Let me go to your house.” She spoke without a hint of her usual hesitation.
“…O-okay. Haha. Yeah. Why not? Sure.” Her mouth had gone fully into autopilot, as every neuron in her brain was firing on all cylinders trying to process her current situation. Tomori responded with a silent nod.

At some point, the hand had apparently left her thigh, and they had ridden two stops down to Omokagebashi station. Taki did not remember even a second of it.

“Is… Is there a grocery store around here?”
Tomori asked, scanning the neighborhood with her eyes as they both stepped out of the tram.
“Huh? Oh,” Taki snapped out of her stupor, though she was still looking away and rubbing her hand over her thigh. “Yeah, it’s… there’s one just down that street, over there.” She pointed south.
At this Tomori turned and immediately walked away, towards the street, and Taki stood there and watched, dumbfounded. But as she steadily grew smaller in the distance, a sense of worry overpowered her confusion, and she set off, if only to make sure Tomori didn’t run into any trouble.

“I’m home.” Taki mouthed a formality to no one in particular as she unlocked her front door and stepped into the still darkness of her family home. She took off her shoes, let Tomori in and closed the door behind her. As Tomori walked in, she looked around, at the furniture and the decorations, with a twinge of fascination in her eyes.
“…It’s dark.” She spoke, in a nearly inaudible whisper.
“Ah, um, I don’t normally have the lights on.” Almost never; she liked it better that way. It’d been so long since she had someone over, she hadn’t even considered how it might come off. “Is it too dark for you, Tomori? I can turn them on if you’d like…”
“No, it’s… fine. It’s kind of… peaceful.” Her eyes lingered on the moonlit shapes dotting the living room.
“…Yeah. Okay.” Taki felt a weight come off her shoulders. She walked over and set two bags of groceries down on her coffee table. “So, um… what are you planning on doing with these?” She looked over at Tomori, and carefully worded a question.
“I’m making you dinner, Taki-chan.”
“H-ha?!” Though in hindsight there weren’t many other reasonable answers to that question, she hadn’t even considered this one. It caught her completely off guard.
Tomori recoiled at Taki’s reaction, a cloud of dejection visibly settling over her. “Do you not… want me to?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that I don’t,” Taki panicked, then averted her eyes, and slowly, excruciatingly, a mass of guilt knotted up in her stomach. “I just… you really don’t… need to go out of your way for me like that, y’know…”

And then Tomori ran up to her. The sound of her shoes hitting the hardwood floor made Taki freeze up, and before she realized what was happening, her hand was clasped between Tomori’s palms.
“But I’m not. I want to.”

The fire in her eyes set Taki’s thoughts alight. She started frantically working backwards through her memory, trying to figure out if she was dreaming, or somehow hallucinating. Maybe she’d gotten hit by one of those little white kei trucks while walking home, and this was nothing but the sensory artifice of the final few electrical impulses firing through her synapses.

Tomori let go of her hand and let her expression soften. She furrowed her brow, trying to find her words. “Um… Could you, show me to the kitchen?”
Taki stood there wordless for entirely too long before finally processing the question. “Huhwha? …Oh! Yeah, of course!”
She’d made up her mind while she was in there. This had to be a dream. And if it was, then maybe it was okay for her to enjoy it. Just a little.

“T-Taki-chan.”
Tomori’s voice had softened. It seemed like whatever had taken over her on the tram had finally loosened its grip on her, and she sounded like normal again; her gentle whispered timbre, the cute little gasps, stutters and considered pauses dotting her every sentence.
This put Taki’s mind at ease. The familiarity. Not that she’d never seen Tomori act like that before, far from it. But she’d never felt its weight herself, and she didn’t know how to handle it.
Tomori always shone so brightly, from afar, from a safe distance. But up close, she burned.

“…What’s up, Tomori?” Taki swallowed her thoughts and responded, with a soft tenderness tracing through her words.
“…Do, do your parents both work late? I… sort of… expected them to be around. Or, or your, um, sister…”
“…Ah.” Of course. It’s natural that this would come up. A high school girl spending this much time home alone would catch anyone’s attention. Taki turned away as she answered.
“They’re… They’re away. Onee-chan, too. She’s been living in a dorm for a bit.” She tried to stay composed, but still a splash of vinegar found its way into her tone.
Once she looked back, Tomori was smiling. A beautiful, gentle smile. It captivated her, so suddenly that she almost forgot to be confused by her reaction.
“…Taki-chan, you call her ‘Onee-chan’… That’s… That’s cute…”
A hot flash swept through Taki’s head.
“H-hah? Really? Y-you think so? Isn’t it normal? It’s pretty normal to call your sister that, I think?” She started scratching the back of her head, and letting her eyes dance restlessly around the room.
“Um… I guess so… It’s… just not what I imagined, that’s all…” Tomori’s smile faded slightly. Her fingers fidgeted off each other.
“Aha, really? Well, um, uh, thanks.” Taki had completely failed to fight off the ridiculous-looking grin creeping around the corners of her mouth. She hoped Tomori wouldn’t notice.
“…Um, I’ll be… heading to the kitchen now. Can I… turn the light on in there?”
“Huh? Oh! Y-Yeah, of course. I’ll just… be in my room working on a song. Tell me if you need anything, okay, Tomori?”
She nodded, turned and left, gingerly making her way into the kitchen. Taki watched her back, rubbing her cheek all the while, feeling its warmth.

Taki ran into her bedroom, dove into her bed and grabbed a pillow, shoved her face into it and made a series of strange, inhuman sounds with her mouth. She kicked her feet up and down, playing the memory back in her head, over and over. Cute. She called her cute. Seriously.
She squeezed the pillow hard, then let out a long, tired sigh, letting her muscles relax.

The heat welling up in her head slowly gave way to bitter cold. A mysterious feeling tied itself into a knot in her stomach. She laid there, her vision still eclipsed by the darkness of her satin pillow case, trying to process it.
Surely, she thought, she should be happy to be called ‘cute’ by Tomori. Overjoyed, even. And part of her was. It really was. But another couldn’t help but feel like she’d somehow… disappointed her. Like she’d failed to live up to the Taki in her mind. Childish. She’d let her guard down.
She let out another sigh, this one low, weak and creaky with despondence, and let her thoughts pile on and bury her into a suffocating slumber.

A voice.
“…T-Taki…-chan?”
It cut through the haze, whispery and hesitant.
“Mmrgh…”
A hand. It touched her shoulder and prodded gently, timidly against it.
“T-Taki-chan… Um…”
“Mmmgh…”
Taki rolled over, struggling against the weight of her own eyelids. She rubbed them with one hand, trying to wash off the weight of sleep.
Tomori was standing over her, a look of innocent worry on her face. Her sight woke Taki up like a ristretto shot.
“…Tomori.”
“I-I’m sorry for waking you up, but.. dinner’s… ready…”
“…Oh. Jeez, how long was I out for…”
“Um, I think it’s been… an hour…?”
Taki sat up and held her head in her hands.

“You didn’t run into any trouble?,” she asked as they headed into the dining room.
Tomori shook her head. “Not at all… I-I think it turned out really well, actually…! Your kitchen’s really tidy, Taki-chan.”
“Ah. Thanks.” Well, of course it was. It didn’t see much use, after all.

The two girls sat across from each other at the dining table. The plates in front of them held a colorful stir-fry of chicken and vegetables, still lightly steaming. Tomori’s gaze was fixed on Taki, and her arms were fixed on her lap as she eagerly awaited her judgment.
“G-go ahead. Dig in, Taki-chan.” Her voice quivered with anticipation.
“…Y-yeah. Um, thanks for the food.” She clasped her hands together as she looked over her plate.

It was a stir fry, certainly. But there was something… unusual about it. It lacked a certain balance Taki had grown used to from her mother’s cooking. Namely, the ratio of red bell peppers was completely off. They were definitely taking up a full two thirds of the meal, drowning the rest of the ingredients in a sea of fibery crimson. And it gave off an unusual smell - not bad, but uncharacteristically sweet.
Taki looked at the lopsided dish with a smile on her face. So that’s how she likes it, she thought. A quiet sigh left her mouth as she picked up her chopsticks.
“A-ah, wait!” Tomori suddenly piped up.
“Eh…?”
“Actually, t-there’s something I’ve always… wanted to try…”
She fished out a piece of chicken from her own plate and held it out towards Taki.
“Taki-chan. S-say aah.”

“…” At this, she became completely and utterly paralyzed in an instant. In that frozen single moment, Taki became certain that she must be the victim of some cosmic joke.
“…Taki-chan?” Tomori’s expression turned to worry.
“…………”
“S-sorry, sorry!” She began to panic. “Is, is this weird? Ano-chan… does it with me all the time, so—”
Before she could finish explaining herself, Taki wordlessly lurched forward and took the food into her mouth, her eyes still clinging onto the middle distance.
“O-oh…” Tomori sighed in a mix of relief and confusion.

And the flavor of pan-fried chicken breast washed over Taki’s mouth, dimmed and tempered by the skewed sweet flavor of the seasoning blend. As it traveled along her tongue and alit on her taste buds, it painted a faint picture in her mind. A picture of home. A home she didn’t have, one that she’d forgotten she wanted. It all rushed back into view, all from one bite of this overseasoned yet undersalted piece of chicken.
She closed her eyes. They started to tickle.

“…Taki-chan? Ah… I-is it… that bad?” Tomori’s voice found its way past her thoughts.
“E…eh? N-no, no…” Taki opened her eyes and found her vision blurry. She rubbed them with one hand on instinct.
“But,” Tomori said, leaning in, her brow furrowed with concern, “you’re… crying…”
“N-no, it’s… it’s nothing.” She took her chopsticks, and started stuffing food into her mouth, alternating between pieces of chicken and strips of pepper, trying to assuage Tomori, and to drown out the roiling wave of emotion welling up within her.
But it only fueled the fire. The pungent sweetness of the pepper seemed to send her tear ducts into overdrive. She kept chewing through it, so hard her jaw started to hurt, but to no avail. Soon enough a sob escaped her, then another, and another.
“Taki-chan…” Tomori sat and watched her, her attention pulled fully away from her food.
“I…” Taki finally swallowed her food, with considerable difficulty. “I’m… fffine…” Her voice tapered out into a pathetic little creak. She kept wiping her tears. But they wouldn’t stop.
With her eyes too wet to see, she heard the floorboards creak and footsteps pass her by. Ah, she thought, she’s finally had enough of me. Of course she has. Just look at me.
She closed her eyes and felt the tears squeeze out of them, and sat there wishing for oblivion.

Then something enveloped her. Something gentle and soft.
She recognized its texture as it dragged over her shoulders. Her blanket, which she slept in and curled into every night. And in its confines she felt a warmth radiating towards her.
She opened her eyes and wiped away her tears.

“T-T-T-T-Tomori?!?!?!”
“Taki-chan. It’s okay.” She was bundled up inside the blanket with her, and her face was unbearably close, so close Taki could feel her breaths brushing against her skin.
“H-ha?!?!” She was beet red, and she knew it.
“It’s okay. The food… scared you, right?”
“W-what…?”
“I used to get really scared when I tried new foods. A-and when that happened Mom would wrap me up in a blanket with her. Like this.” She tugged on the cloth, pulling Taki closer. “I-It always calmed me down right away.”
Taki was, quite possibly, the exact opposite of calm in this moment. But she certainly didn’t hate it.
“Take a deep breath, Taki-chan. In… and, out.”
Taki responded with a labored inhale whose sound befit only a dying dog.
“T-there you go. Good… good girl.” Taki immediately responded to this with another, yet more tortured breath, sucked in through her teeth, sounding more and more like the screams of the damned.
“…I…I liked the food, though, you know…” Taki muttered.
“Really?” Tomori smiled, then furrowed her brow. “But… t-then, why were you crying?”
“…I just…” Taki sunk into the blanket, averting her eyes from Tomori’s. “I just don’t… know why you’d go out of your way for… someone like me…”
Tomori followed her down into the depths of the blanket. Their body heat had built up within its confines, and it was a little uncomfortable. Taki didn’t mind, though.
She felt Tomori’s hands clasping around hers again, and froze up. Her breath tickled her neck.
“But, Taki-chan…” She felt her squeeze down. It kind of hurt.
“You’re… really special…”
“N-no way…”
“You’re always… working so hard, and worrying about the band, a-and looking after everyone, so… this is… it’s… only fair…” Her voice quivered, just the same way it did on stage.
Overcome by the warmth of her words, the warmth of her body, the weight of her self-doubt, and the lingering taste of mirin, Taki struggled to find her words. “It’s… it’s noth–”
“S-so you liked it?” Tomori cut her off, her mind having already drifted elsewhere.
“…Yeah. It was really good, Tomori.” She wasn’t lying. It might not have been up to modern culinary standards. But it was just so much like her.
“Then… then I’ll make more. I-I’ll come back next week, okay? Every week. Um, if… if you want.”

Any trace of strength left in Shiina Taki’s body had long since evaporated. She slumped backwards into the cotton fabric of the blanket. Her will to resist had been well and truly worn away.
Who was she to say no to her, anyways?
“…Sure. I’ll be counting on you.”