Chapter 1 My Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Butter Chicken Curry #2
I reached for my phone. As if on cue, a notification popped up on the screen. It was a message from Kyohei, and I jumped up in panic as my phone vibrated in my hand.
Sensing that the man with the shaved head was staring at me from the counter, I quickly sat back down.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the message.
I’ve packed up your things. I’ll post them to you later. I’d appreciate it if you could cancel all subscriptions under your name ASAP.
After this businesslike message, he sent a sticker—the one of a bear with beads of sweat dripping from its downcast face.
“What is this?”
Why would you send me that sticker? You’re not even the sticker-sending type.
We had sent numerous messages to each other over the last four years, so I knew all about his style.
Most of the time, he opted for an exclamation point.
When I suggested that we both purchase one of those paid stickers so that we could match, he said no.
He said he was too embarrassed, and he never changed his mind about it.
Anyway, I knew that I wasn’t supposed to worry about his health.
I wasn’t part of his life in that way anymore.
But…didn’t we just break up yesterday? No—it happened in the early hours of the morning, so technically, it was today.
We even ended up sleeping in the same bed because we both missed the last train.
It had only been a few hours since we parted ways.
Were you that desperate to break up with me?
Did he hate me so much that he wanted all my stuff gone, as soon as our relationship ended? As he packed my things into cardboard boxes, did he not think about getting back together? Not once? Not even a little bit?
It felt as though the apologetic bear sticker was some kind of official stamp that announced he was “Never Coming Back.” My crying had subsided as I slept, but now a wave of fresh tears came flooding back.
I knew that there was no point in me crying, but I had no control over it. It was as if my emotional brakes were broken.
Oh, God. Everything in my view was filtered through Kyohei: the coffee cups, the bathroom sign, the plants outside the window. I had gained the ability to link the most random things in the world to a memory with Kyohei.
Don’t do it, I chided myself. I had already come into the café drunk and passed out. If I burst into tears now, it would just make me weirder. I didn’t want to cause any more inconvenience.
I opened my eyes wide to stop them from welling up. I knew that if I blinked, my eyelashes would push the teardrops out like a windshield wiper, so I stretched my eyes as open as they would go. My plan was to stay like that until my tears dried up.
“Oh.”
The shaved-headed man and I locked eyes. He looked frightened, and I suspected this was due to my eyes. The paperback he was holding slipped out of his hand and hit the floor with a flop.
I felt the need to apologize immediately. “I’m sorry. You must be creeped out by me.”
“Excuse me?”
“First, I caused a disturbance by walking in drunk. And now I’ve suddenly gotten all teary. I’ve never even come to this café before. You think I’m a freak, don’t you?”
“Oh, umm…I never said that.”
“I’ve always been like this. I get all emotional and lose control. My boyfriend used to tell me off for it. Is this why people think I’m needy? What do you think?”
“I’m not really in the position to—”
I hauled myself onto the barstool next to him and picked up the man’s book.
“Hold on, why are you sitting down?”
I handed it back to him.
“He used to take me out to classy restaurants almost every week,” I continued, barely taking a breath.
“He sent me chat messages daily and told me I was pretty and that he loved me. But recently, he hadn’t said any of those things.
At first, I thought he was having a tough time at work—he’s a salesman and has targets to hit.
I thought, well, I want to be the one who’s there for him, you know?
So I started leaving meals for him in his fridge and surprised him with full-course dinners even if it wasn’t a special occasion.
I made a huge effort, even mentioning three nice things about him every day, but do men consider this kind of behavior a nuisance? ”
“Umm…are you still drunk?”
Crap. Talking about it made me well up again. I pressed my eyes with a tissue.
“Was everything I did in vain?” I said between sobs. “Was I just being clingy?”
“How should I know? Iori, this lady is—hey, will you help me out here?”
A thought occurred to me, and I retrieved the agnès b. paper bag that I had been lugging around with my handbag. Something about this man had put me at ease. Perhaps it was his monk-like look. I suddenly felt the urge to let out the resentment that had built up inside of me.
“Please, look at this,” I said, as I pulled out a gift-wrapped box from the bag and presented it to him.
“Umm, okay…”
“I got these for Kyohei’s birthday. It’s a pair of couple’s watches.
Is it clingy, do you think? The set cost me sixty-seven thousand yen.
Does that make me seem needy? I did consider splashing out on a pair of Cartier watches, but I didn’t want to overwhelm him with such an expensive gift.
So I held back, you know? It’s not exactly extravagant, considering we’d been together four years, don’t you think?
Is there something wrong with my perception of things? What does the Buddha say?”
“I don’t believe the Buddha would ever gift couple’s watches.”
“Right. Well, if the Buddha doesn’t even know…I guess it is what it is.”
“But—” The monk-like man scratched his bushy eyebrows uncomfortably and muttered, “Generally speaking, that is not an inexpensive gift. And the fact that they are a matching set…well, I suppose that would probably put you in clingy territory.”
“I knew it!” I scratched my head vigorously. What part of our relationship had I done right? Where had I failed? I was getting more and more confused. The man tried to take back his words, telling me not to listen to him, but the sound of his mumbling now seemed far off.
All I could think about was the fact that I had spent four whole years—no, it was much longer than that. Twenty-nine years…I had lived twenty-nine years thinking the way I behaved was the best way to keep a man, and that was just…
“Nwaahhhh!” I exclaimed in frustration.
“Hozumi, go easy on her, will you?”
I looked up. It was Iori. I guess the man I had been moaning to was called Hozumi.
“You should never drink on an empty stomach. Sorry to serve you leftovers.” In graceful gestures, Iori laid down a plate of a classic chicken curry on the table.
As soon as I saw it, my heart dropped. Unwanted images came rushing back.
Crap.
I had an extensive collection of Kyohei’s expressions stored in my brain, and so many of them were curry related.
That face as he gleefully filled his cheeks with curry.
Him telling me, It has a real kick to it today!
with beads of sweat forming on his temples.
His bed hair as he had his second serving of morning curry.
I could simultaneously play back hundreds of different Kyoheis in my mind.
“Is everything okay? Do you not like curry?”
“Oh, no, that’s not it. It looks delicious.”
Calm down, I told myself, and gripped the spoon.
You just got dumped in a love hotel. You are drunk. You still have a throbbing pain in your head. You are not calm right now. You are the opposite of calm. You know more than anyone that nothing good can come of a situation like this.
I was reminded of the time when I found myself rejected by the hundredth company I interviewed with during my shukatsu, that grueling period of job-hunting for soon-to-be graduates.
The next thing I knew, I had dumped my phone and flown to India.
Thinking that I had gone missing, my brother filed a report with the police. It was total chaos.
I weighed my options. I could be heartbroken and hungry, or heartbroken and not hungry. Neither of them was going to take away my pain, so I decided to go with the less unpleasant one. The latter was still the lesser evil. At least on a physical level, I would feel better if I ate something.
Scooping up a heaped spoonful of curry and rice, I swallowed it in one bite.
“Huh?” I choked out.
“Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no. It’s just…maybe my stomach is upset.”
Dodging the nice manager’s gaze, I poured myself a cup of water from the pitcher and downed it. Then I chugged another cup.
I attempted another bite.
What…is this?
Watery and tasteless. I couldn’t smell the slightest bit of spice. I wondered if I could even call it curry—it was more like hot water with a little bit of flavor.
To put it simply, it was disgusting.
I had made a disastrous curry once. Kyohei was going to come over to my place, so I had gotten all worked up and prepared it the day before, but I miscalculated the seasoning ratio.
I had to remake the whole thing in a hurry, and— I’m doing it again!
Stop thinking about Kyohei! I willed my brain to turn Kyohei autoplay off.
“Do you not like it?”
“Oh, no! It tastes…wonderful!”
“Really? I’m glad to hear that.”
Oh, no. Now he thinks I like it.
But what other choice did I have? He had been an angel to me. It wasn’t as if I could stare into his smiling face and say, “Actually, it’s disgusting.”
Glancing over to my left, I saw that Hozumi had finished his glass of ice cream soda.
He had also polished off his plate of curry.
In fact, he had tucked into it as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do.
I recalled the chalkboard sign outside, which confidently advertised the curry as their “most popular dish.”
I took a deep breath in an effort to compose myself as the world around me began to spin, my heart racing faster and faster.
Then a dark thought rose up in my mind.
What if it’s me and not the curry? It can’t be my palate…can it?