Chapter 2 The Red Flags Megastore Hamburger Steak
The Red Flags Megastore Hamburger Steak
The month was February. I’d been working at the café for several weeks. And on a bitterly cold Friday, I found myself in a predicament.
“We’ve had no customers today,” I said.
Iori looked completely unbothered no matter how intensely I glared at him. Sipping his coffee under the dim light, he tapped away on his keyboard graciously.
“Kimura from the bookstore came, remember? So did Adachi the butcher.”
“You mean only Kimura and Adachi.”
“I guess you could say so.”
“Plus, those middle-aged men stayed for three whole hours. They only ordered one cup of coffee each.”
“Men in their prime have lots to talk about.”
“The coffee is five hundred fifty yen per cup,” I said, “which would make sales for the day…”
“Don’t be silly, Momo-chan,” Iori broke in. “Kimura and Adachi have a big stash of those free drink coupons from ages ago. They paid nothing!”
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
Unable to suppress my irritation, I found myself standing up. “Iori! Will you stop being so handsome? I can’t be mad at you because you’re too hot!”
“What kind of complaint is that?” Hozumi said mockingly as I cradled my head and let out a groan. He was sitting next to me, taking small bites of the ice cream floating on his melon-flavored soda.
“I burned all my bridges when I quit my job. And yet Kimura and Adachi are the only customers I’ve seen. And no one came to our first Funeral Committee meeting. It’s been the same story every single day since I started.”
“Don’t forget Takamura who owns the fruit parlor,” Iori said.
“Takamura also belongs to the coupon tribe!” I howled in frustration. “Plus, we don’t even charge Hozumi for his ice cream sodas because it’s supposed to be his pay for the Funeral Committee…”
“Now you’ve made me feel guilty,” Hozumi said, clearly not feeling enough guilt to stop eating his ice cream.
“This café is going to go bankrupt at any moment…”
Thanks to the restaurant management experience I gained at my previous job, my brain had already done the math, even though I didn’t really want to know.
We had almost no sales all week because the café had given out a bunch of free drink coupons in the past. There was a female customer who had come in for a solo lunch, but she was the only new customer that had walked through the door.
Our reputation on Google was getting worse and worse, with more complaints about Iori appearing every day. The situation was dire.
If things don’t improve, we won’t be making enough to pay my salary.
I had braced myself for instability when I quit my company, but I hadn’t expected things to be this bad. To reduce costs, we had switched off all the lights except the ceiling, but it hardly made a difference.
“We’ll somehow get through it, Momo-chan,” Iori said. “Your curry is popular among those who have tried it. Now, we just need the Funeral Committee to take off, and all our problems will be solved.”
Seemingly finished with his admin work, Iori finally glanced up from his computer and removed his glasses. “Oh, look, we have a customer.”
I turned around, remembering that it was the Funeral Committee tonight.
Taking its time, the wooden door made a groaning sound as it creaked open, the bell ringing faintly.
I could make out the silhouette of a woman by the doorway. Long hair covered her eyes. She wore a face mask. A faint image of her face floated in the dimly lit room.
“E-excuse me,” the lady whispered, “I’m here for the burial.”
She held out her hand. There was something odd about her, but I had to go and greet our customer.
“Good evening. It’s a cold night, isn’t it? Please, come in.”
“Wait a second, Momoko.”
The moment I stood up from the sofa, I felt a forceful tug. It was Hozumi, pulling at the hem of my apron.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Something is off. She’s holding…something.”
“Holding what?”
“Momo-chan! Look at her hand!”
“Huh? Hand? What’s the matter with you—”
Straining my eyes under the dim light, I finally saw what it was that she had in her hand and gulped. It looked like a lump of raw meat. I felt my throat tightening. My whole body froze up and a chill ran down my spine.
It was definitely meat. Some kind of ground flesh.
“The sign at the front said that you were hosting the Ex-Boyfriend’s Funeral Committee?”
At that moment, the lady tripped over the front step, falling to her knees. Her hair, which grew down to her waist, draped over her. The flesh slithered out of her hand and landed on the aging wooden floor. It shone eerily, reflecting the dim light.
“Oh, no…” The lady groaned, awkwardly twisting her body as she raked up the sticky fragments of meat strewn across the floor.
I stared at it.
She turned around. Giving us a fierce glare, she murmured, “You bury ex-boyfriends, don’t you?”
Don’t tell me that is her ex-boyfriend!
“Ahhh!”
I backed away, hitting the wall behind me. A sharp pain ran all over my body, but I had bigger problems to deal with.
“I…I think you misunderstood! Yes, we are the Funeral Committee, but it doesn’t involve an actual burial!”
How did we end up here? I did want customers, but not this!
Not knowing what to do, I panicked. I wanted to escape, but I was so petrified, my legs wouldn’t move. Just as I was about to ask Iori and Hozumi for their help, I found them uselessly trembling in the corner, seemingly paralyzed.
Come on, guys, help me out here!
Her hands gleamed with the sticky raw flesh as they drew closer and closer to me.
Bracing for the last moments of my life, I closed my eyes.
Looking back, I couldn’t say that I knew what I wanted from life.
I burned myself out working for a toxic company.
Even my boyfriend, whom I thought I’d marry, dumped me.
But then I found Amayadori. I was determined to change my life.
I had been so excited about finally starting a life that I enjoyed. And yet—
“Excuse me.”
“Huh?”
When I opened my eyes, the lady, who now had her mask pulled down, was peering at me with an apologetic expression.
“Would it be okay if I go and wash my hands? And I’m sorry I dropped my hamburger steak all over the floor.”
“Hamburger steak?”
“Yes. I was in the middle of making them for Sho and myself, when I suddenly ran out of my house.” The lady pointed to the meat on the floor.
Coming back to my senses, I flicked more lights on. Iori and Hozumi, who had been glued to the wall, now seemed to feel safe enough to come closer.
Iori kneeled down and observed the meat. “That is…hamburger steak.”
“There’s onion in it, too,” Hozumi said.
Indeed, it was an uncooked hamburger steak patty.
“The bathroom is that way.”
My body eased in relief. I started to wonder if the three of us were fit to lead this committee.
Had I jumped the gun when I handed in my notice?
—
The lady tied her hair back into a ponytail, revealing her big doe-eyes. That’s when it clicked for me.
“You were here the other day!”
Something about her baby-faced features and rounded forehead reminded me of a young bird. Now that I could see her face clearly, she looked familiar, and I realized she was the same young woman who had recently come in for a meal during lunch hours.
“I did mention it earlier,” she told us.
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry, you probably couldn’t hear me. I speak so quietly, and I’m wearing a face mask.”
“It’s not your fault! We should get our ears checked, really.”
It looked as though she was having a particularly rough day.
She seemed like a different person than the one I had met previously.
Her face was free of makeup, and she was dressed in what looked like loungewear—a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.
What concerned me the most was the gloomy air that surrounded her.
It was as though she had been sent to the underworld against her will.
“My name is Nagi Kojima…. I’m twenty-four years old,” she said. “I am an assistant at an accountant’s office. In my free time, I like to manage my savings.”
“Please, come sit down and let us hear about your ex.” I motioned for her to sit down.
The four of us settled on the sofa at the table near the back of the café. Iori made us coffee, and we drank it while we listened to Nagi’s story.
Nagi wasn’t kidding about saving money being her hobby.
We learned that she enjoyed spending her weekends at a café, writing in her kakeibo, a private budget planner.
She had been walking through the neighborhood a few weeks ago, hoping to find a suitable place for her favorite pastime, when she chanced upon Amayadori.
It was then that she saw our poster and learned of the Funeral Committee.
“Oh, it’s The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee, not The Ex-Boyfriend’s Funeral Committee!” Nagi said. “How embarrassing. You must have thought I was some kind of psychopath.”
“Oh, no, it’s not your fault at all. We completely misjudged the situation. Didn’t we?”
“Th-that’s right,” Iori stuttered. “I’m glad you came to us, though. You must have been going through a really difficult moment, to have burst out of your house in the middle of making hamburger patties like that?”
As Iori smiled at her, Nagi looked away sheepishly and gave a faint nod.
“Something happened just before I came here. I couldn’t take it anymore, and I just stormed out in a rage while cooking for him.
I had always known that I needed to leave him, but this is the first time I did anything about it.
In the past, even when I’d decided to dump him, I couldn’t follow through.
I kept thinking that he wouldn’t be able to live without me.
I do love him, though. I love him, but…” She trailed off, pausing to think. “Maybe…I should just go home.”
“Just hold on a second, Nagi,” I said.
“There is so much disconnect between reason and emotion that you’ve broken your mental equilibrium,” Hozumi observed.
“Stop analyzing her like that,” I commanded.