Chapter 5 The View beyond Friendship Carrot Cake #5
My chest tightened at his words. Of course he wouldn’t do something so unscrupulous. He wasn’t like me, after all.
Iori stood up, the now-empty plate of cookies in his hand.
“Talking about cake has made me hungry. Momo-chan, do we have any more cookies?”
“Yeah, they’re in the basket at the back.”
“Thanks.”
I could hear him rustling around in the kitchen.
When he reemerged, he was holding a J-shaped carrot.
“Momo-chan, what are these? There are loads in the kitchen.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” I said.
Hozumi and I exchanged glances. I had forgotten that we had carried the box of vegetables to the back of the kitchen.
“My dad sent me a big box of them yesterday. He had a surplus of misshapen carrots. He was never going to get through all of them, so he sent them to me.”
Iori stood frozen to the spot, his eyes pinned on the deformed carrot.
“Iori?”
“Are you hungry?” he asked Hozumi and me.
“I suppose I wouldn’t be against eating…oh!”
Hozumi glanced meaningfully at me.
I was sure we were all thinking the same thing. We were going to re-create Iori’s “ex-girlfriend” recipe.
—
I swiftly pulled my phone out and captured the aproned Iori on burst mode.
“So beautiful,” I sighed, my inner monologue slipping out of my mouth.
To my left was Hozumi. I could sense him giving me an ice-cold glare, but frankly, I couldn’t care less.
The veins on Iori’s arms, stretching out from his casually rolled-up sleeves, mesmerized me. I noticed his hands—for the first time I was seeing how bony they were—and the tips of his long fingers as he ran his knife across the surface of the carrot, effortlessly peeling away its skin.
“We can sell these. We can definitely sell these pictures!”
I continued to hold the shutter button down, which meant that an inordinate number of images were being produced in my camera roll. Pictures of Iori peeling carrots were going to be the next big thing. I was sure of it.
“Cut it out,” Iori said bashfully without stopping his work.
“We can turn them into merchandise! You know, print them on stuff,” I said. “We can make them into mugs!”
“Who’s going to want those mugs?” Hozumi said.
“Actually, if we’re going to target the local ladies, maybe they’ll prefer something more portable, like postcards. Or we could go all out and make T-shirts! We can display them by the till with a little slogan like: Fill your days with Iori! Good idea, huh?”
“Momo-chan.” Iori’s hands paused. A thin layer of carrot skin fell on the chopping board.
“Stop, please. Now.” Iori’s deep voice boomed through the midnight café.
Oops. I had gotten a little carried away. I obediently returned to my seat next to Hozumi.
“Weren’t you listening to him? He told us that he was doing the housework at home ever since he was little,” Hozumi chided me.
“I was, but hearing it and seeing it are two different things,” I reasoned.
The truth was, watching Iori work so confidently in the kitchen had made me feel a twinge of pain.
He had told me before that he didn’t know much about cooking, and I genuinely believed him, because he made that horrible curry on the day we met.
But I now realized that, aside from the mistake that one time, he was a good chef.
After I joined Amayadori, he pretended that he didn’t have any cooking skills, because he knew that I would want to take the lead in the kitchen.
He was probably paying far more attention to my needs than I could ever imagine, and this realization made me feel a pang of guilt.
Iori told us that although he and Koharu got along well, and thus became very close friends, their relationship never turned into anything else throughout their high school years.
Iori decided not to go to university. Instead, he juggled different jobs like modeling and working as a host in a club.
At one point, he even became the top earner at the bar (not that this came as a surprise) and built up a healthy sum in his savings account.
Deciding it was time to find a stable job, he earned a qualification in childcare and started to work in a preschool in Tokyo.
That was where he was reunited with Koharu.
Ten years had passed since they had seen each other last.
“I recognized her straightaway,” Iori said, now grating a carrot.
“Although the aura of sophistication she used to have had disappeared, she still had the air of a dignified woman, and her strong, honest gaze hadn’t changed.
If anything, she looked…livelier. The girl who used to giggle quietly with her hand over her mouth was now comfortably baring her white teeth as she burst into a hearty laugh.
It was like witnessing an inanimate doll come to life. ”
“Did you not try to contact her before then?”
“I assumed she would marry Taiyo, so I stayed away. I wasn’t about to fight a losing battle.”
“I guess even you have these kinds of problems,” I conceded.
“Of course I do. Everyone wants the person they love to love them back, right?” Iori said, letting out a small sigh. His words made my heart flutter. I pressed my hands on my flushing cheeks.
A deep scraping sound rang out as Iori rubbed the crooked carrot over the tiny blades of the oroshigane.
“But I wanted her to be happy more. Koharu was meant to have a good life—she was supposed to live in a fancy mansion that could fit a huge tree at Christmas. She was supposed to be eating carrot cake with a smile on her face! That’s what I thought she deserved.”
Iori tilted the oroshigane and scraped off the grated carrots into a bowl.
“So when I saw her again at the preschool where I worked, I was really surprised. The place where I worked was—well, let’s just say it wasn’t in an affluent area.
I had it in my mind that she would send her child—if she ever had one—to a prestigious preschool, like one of those university-affiliated ones. ”
“Did something happen to her?”
Iori answered with a nod.
“Taiyo passed away. He had a rare type of stomach cancer—scirrhous carcinoma, to be exact. She said everything happened so fast.”
“No…” I gasped, hanging on his every word.
“What made the whole ordeal that much more tragic was the timing of his death…it happened as she was giving birth to Shizuku. She went to his hospital room as soon as she could, but it was too late.”
Iori slowly shook his head.
“All of a sudden, her husband was gone. She now had a tiny newborn to raise on her own. I can’t imagine how that made her feel.”
Their family was supposed to be growing. They must have had so much to look forward to. They must have been so excited for the future. And yet…
“So Shizuku hasn’t met her father,” Hozumi said, putting two and two together.
“That’s right. Koharu has always raised her on her own.
She didn’t want to ask her parents for support, and she seemed to have her reasons for that.
She chose to earn a living on her own as a single mom.
We were reunited when Shizuku was three years old.
I couldn’t believe it when we ran into each other at that school, and she was in shock, too.
Apparently, Taiyo had asked for a divorce before he passed.
He had wanted her to find happiness through a new partner, but Koharu refused… ”
I pictured Koharu by Taiyo’s sickbed, firmly holding his hand.
“The look on Koharu’s face when she told me that he had passed, I’ll never forget it. Koharu was supposed to be happy. I needed her to be happy.”
Iori stopped stirring the cake mixture.
“She also told me that she had taken his last name, Okada, and that she wanted to hold on to it, no matter what. She said, ‘This might sound ridiculous, but it’s the only thing that keeps me going. I know it’s stupid…
but right now, every time I see the name Koharu Okada on my documents, it gives me solace. ’ ”
“This is unbearable!” I proclaimed.
“How’s that for a heartbreak story?” Iori asked. “It’s as sad as the ones we’ve heard so far, don’t you think?”
Don’t do that, Iori. Don’t force yourself to smile like that.
Dark and deserted, the street was dead silent at night.
The rain had eased off. Now it was only light drops, sprinkling here and there sporadically, and our umbrellas weren’t needed anymore.
After putting the carrot cake mixture into the oven, we realized that we didn’t have any cream cheese, so the three of us went to the nearby supermarket to buy some. The plastic shopping bag swayed back and forth as we made our way back to Amayadori.
Iori continued his tale. “Our friendship rekindled. We talked a lot, just like the good times. The three of us—Koharu, Shizuku, and I—started hanging out together more and more. We went to parks, aquariums, amusement parks…all sorts of places. Being a single parent, it wasn’t easy for Koharu to take Shizuku anywhere too far, so they were happy to explore with me. ”
I peered into Iori’s face. “Did you not fall back in love with her?”
“Well, yeah.”
At this, Iori seemed to remember something, and his cheeks turned red. He quickly averted his eyes.
“Wait, are you blushing right now? Oh my God, you so are!” I couldn’t stop myself from grinning at his unexpected reaction.
“Stop being so loud…” Iori bashfully covered his face with his right arm. “The truth is, I had never stopped loving her. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, even after becoming an adult.”
He may have been covering his face, but his bright-red ears gave him away.
The sound of our sandals clacking across the concrete echoed through late-night Sangenjaya.
“And then what happened?” I prodded.
“Did you confess your feelings to her?” Hozumi asked.
“Did you tell her you love her this time?” I added.
Hozumi and I interrogated Iori, sandwiching him between us. At our relentless questioning, Iori’s face started to redden again.
Iori had suddenly quickened his pace; he was marching three steps ahead of us.
Then he stopped, turned around, and said, “I told her.”
“Oh my God!”