Chapter 5 The View beyond Friendship Carrot Cake #7
“When she said that, it felt like my heart was being ripped out. I had created a stupid fantasy in my head, where she was living a certain life and smiling in a certain way. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to solve all of Koharu’s problems and grant every one of Shizuku’s wishes.
I wanted to show them things. I wanted them to see things.
I just wanted to see the looks on Koharu’s and Shizuku’s faces… ”
At that moment, I noticed that Iori’s shoulders were trembling.
Unable to do anything, I stared at Iori’s hands, which were clasped together on the table.
“That was all I wanted. Really. It gave me pure joy. I was happy to be able to do something for the people I loved.”
Right.
He knew. He remembered the pain of trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Although those expectations were the complete opposite in this case, Koharu had suffered the same pain he felt.
“And I did see the view beyond friendship—I got to see what it was like to be a part of her family, even though we weren’t lovers. It was bright and beautiful. I enjoyed every second of it.”
A family of just a year.
Knowing Iori, he must have created an image of the kind of “Daddy” he wanted to be by observing all the fathers around him and gathering all of the knowledge he’d gained as a preschool teacher. He must have put his all into it.
“Argh!” I howled in frustration. “I wish I could trap Iori, Koharu, and Shizuku into a snow globe, so that you guys can be together forever!”
My eyes were wet with tears, and I frantically dabbed at them with the hem of my apron.
“Why are you crying?” Iori laughed.
I’m sure he was crying just a moment ago. Why would he laugh at my own tears?
“I—I can’t help it.”
“You’re such a crybaby,” Hozumi said.
“Sorry,” I said sarcastically. “Coolheaded people like you will never understand—”
But just as I shot a glare at him, I found that Hozumi, to my disbelief, was gazing up at the ceiling. His neck was bent at an impossible angle.
No way. Is he crying?
“I’m not crying.”
I sprang to my feet to peer into his face, but he leaned farther back, determined to hide his eyes.
“You’re crying.”
“I am not.”
Although he said this, Hozumi walked over to the prime spot where he’d get the most air from the aircon.
“Ha! You’re trying to buy time! Look at you, so desperate to dry your tears!”
As Hozumi and I continued to quarrel, Iori broke into peals of laughter. We laughed with him.
—
It was the break of dawn, and the sweet smell of carrots and spices spread through the room. Normally, I would have been fast asleep by now, but I didn’t feel remotely tired.
The carrot cake had been baked in a rectangular loaf pan. The cake was filled with raisins and nuts, the creamy frosting on top garnished with pink peppercorns.
“I had no idea you could pull off such a showstopper,” I said.
“She was always going on about this cake. Plus, I wanted to feel her close to me even after we separated.” Iori answered.
The words that came out of his beautiful face suggested that Iori was the clingy type—he was as bad as me.
The first time I came to Amayadori, I cried my eyes out. Maybe he was so kind to me because he knew how I felt?
Iori told us that he explained to Shizuku that he was going to have to work somewhere far away for a while.
Although he thought it was a good idea to leave Shizuku before she got too attached, he knew from his own experience how lonely it was to have someone you cared about suddenly disappear.
So he sent her presents from time to time.
Though it meant he’d be cutting into his savings, he decided to go traveling around the world.
He collected snow globes, picture books, and postcards abroad and sent them to Shizuku every Christmas.
My heart warmed at his unexpected devotion, and the tears came back. Seeing me with wet eyes, Iori started to laugh again.
“Shall we eat, then?”
Once Iori had settled on the sofa, I put my fork into the carrot-colored sponge. I gently carried the cake, along with the frosting, into my mouth.
“It’s delicious! I didn’t know carrot cake was so good!”
Whenever I found myself in a cake shop, I’d always been tempted by the classic ones, like strawberry shortcake, chocolate cake, or cheesecake.
I had never thought of carrot cake as being very, well, cake-like.
I don’t know how I didn’t realize this before, but for the first time, I was seeing that carrot cake was as satisfying as the classic cakes.
Sweet-toothed Hozumi spoke with uncharacteristic eloquence: “It’s sweet, but I can really feel the zing of the spices. And the cream cheese gives it a tang that works wonderfully well together. It has the potential of being as delicious as ice cream soda.”
He ate with unbelievable enthusiasm and in no time at all had started on his second slice.
He continued to speak at the speed of a machine gun, saying something about which of the ingredients were key and so on, but he was getting so technical I couldn’t understand half of it.
He might as well have been speaking to me in a foreign language.
Doesn’t he know any simple words?
Bringing his coffee to his lips, Iori said abruptly, “Right. Storytime is over. I’m going to forget Koharu. Because of you two, I can now rest my lost love in peace. I can finally move on from Koharu. Thank you.”
I shifted my gaze toward the window. It was still drizzling.
Pressing my palms together, I started to speak, but something didn’t feel right. I felt a subtle prickle at the back of my chest.
Something is off. Something is definitely off!
“You’re lying about something.” I narrowed my eyes at Iori.
“Huh?”
“Iori.”
Half rising from my seat, I leaned forward, drawing my face close to his. His light brown eyes twitched.
“You’re still in love with Koharu, aren’t you?”
Iori blinked excessively. He was definitely hiding something.
“Err—I’m…not.”
I’ve figured out the source of my suspicion.
“Iori, you haven’t touched your cake.”
Hozumi and I had long finished eating (in fact, Hozumi had devoured three slices), yet Iori hadn’t had a single bite.
“Is it because you’ll remember things if you eat the cake? Because you’ll think, Oh, that’s Koharu’s flavor, and your memories will come flooding back, and you might fall right back in love with her? Is that why?”
It must have been his master plan to call it a night and pretend he was going to eat it up in his room.
Iori fell silent as his eyes darted around nervously. Clearly, he hadn’t planned for the part where he got interrogated.
“Of course not. I can eat it.”
Iori forced a smile and picked up his fork. He prodded it into the cake and brought it toward his mouth.
Just then, Hozumi grabbed his wrist.
“Where were you today, Iori?” he asked.
I turned to Hozumi. He had a point.
Why was Iori so late coming to work today?
“I could smell incense on you,” Hozumi continued.
Iori averted his gaze from Hozumi, as if he was avoiding the awkwardness.
“You were visiting someone’s grave, weren’t you?”
Confronted by the evidence, our suspect finally let out a big sigh.
“You guys pay way too much attention to me. It’s freaky. You must really love me,” Iori said jokingly.
Why is that such a surprise to him?
Ever since we met, I’d felt that it was best not to get too close to him.
And it wasn’t just Iori. I’d been like this since breaking up with Kyohei. I’d become afraid of telling people how I feel. Afraid of being told that I was too clingy. That I scared them because I was too serious.
But now is the time to be a warrior brandishing a naginata sword. Now is the time to be brave.
“Of course I love you!”
Iori lifted his head in surprise. “What?”
“Oh. I mean, not like that, of course. I mean, as a human! As my boss…no, as a member of Amayadori.”
Now it looked as if I had confessed my love for Iori at the worst possible time. I desperately searched for the right words to fix the mishap.
“What I’m trying to say is that if something seems to be off with you, I can’t help myself from worrying or looking at you closely. If a little girl shows up out of the blue and calls you ‘Daddy,’ then I’m going to want to know what the hell is going on.”
I continued passionately.
“I mean, I really don’t want you to go away! You’re the reason that I have a job here. You’re the reason I enjoy working for Amayadori as well as the Funeral Committee. Amayadori won’t be Amayadori without you, Iori.”
Silence filled the air.
Have I just said something really cringe?
“Iori, can you say something? I’m starting to feel embarrassed—”
“I went to see…Taiyo,” Iori confessed with downcast eyes.
Hozumi pushed for more. “Do you go every year?”
“It’s weird, right? I’m just an outsider, yet I keep visiting the husband of the person I love at his grave.”
Iori expelled a short breath before continuing his confession.
“I couldn’t explain why, but whenever I stand in front of Taiyo’s grave, pressing my hands together, my honest feelings start to rise up from me.
I’m sure Taiyo’s thinking, What do you want?
I was going to stop visiting him as soon as I had gotten over Koharu.
I’d decided that today’s visit would be the final one, this time for real.
But then, when I got back, Shizuku was here. ”
No wonder he seemed to be completely out of it.
He must have tried so many times to give up, to lock away his feelings.
Ever since he was a young child, he pretended to be someone else, yet the one role he couldn’t play was the guy who wasn’t in love with Koharu. How painful must that be?
“Do you still love her?” I ventured.
Iori shut his eyes and thought for a while.
He opened his eyes and said, “I do. I love her so much it hurts. I want her to be by my side. Forever.”
His words were loud and clear.
Okay.
That makes things simple.
I took Iori’s plate and pulled the cake toward me.
“Okay. I guess we don’t need to do a burial, then. I’ll have your cake.”
I started eating the slice.
Iori seemed to be at a loss for words. As I brought another bite to my mouth, I added, “Just because your emotions are in a mess, it doesn’t mean you need to put them back in order.”
Iori turned his gaze toward me.
“Koharu said so, too, didn’t she?”
“She did, but…”
“Well, there you go. Who cares if your emotions are all over the place? You look pretty well put together on the outside.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll always be here for you,” Hozumi said with uncharacteristic sincerity.
“Oh, Hozumi!” I said.
“No, wait, that was a mistake.”
I started slapping his back in delight.
Hozumi tried to retract his words. “Actually, that was…a new Buddhist chant. I got the words confused.”
“Thank you.”
I heard relief in Iori’s voice.
“Are you done yet?”
“Not yet.”
“What are you going to put in it, Hozumi?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Show me. Just a little.”
“No.”
“Ooh, star-shaped beads? They’re pretty. What do you think of mine? I can’t seem to make up my mind.”
“Quit talking. Focus on your own work!”
A week had passed.
We were gathered in Amayadori before opening time, diligently working on our snow globes. We had decided to make our own, filled with memorable items, as an homage to Iori’s relationship, since a formal burial wasn’t right.
“I have so much stuff, they’re not all going to fit.”
“I can’t think why you would have so many things to put in a snow globe,” Hozumi replied.
I’d planned on stuffing the things I had that were still bothering me into my snow globe: the receipt from the expensive pair of pumps I bought before my date with Kyohei, tickets from when we went to Disneyland together, a stray button Kyohei left behind. But I couldn’t seem to get them to fit.
“Your snow globe is way too heavy. Only you would put this kind of stuff into it. Also, didn’t you say you threw everything away?”
My shoulders tensed at Hozumi’s probing question.
“I spent all that time helping you sort through the stuff,” he continued.
“These are the only things that are left, I promise! I found them buried inside my desk. Plus, the instructions on the snow globe kit clearly state that ‘you can fill it with anything you like.’ See?”
I held the instructions to his face.
“Even so, this is crossing the—”
Cutting off Hozumi’s mumbling, I turned to Iori.
“What about you?”
“I’ve finished.”
“Already?”
Indeed, his snow globe was lidded and all ready to go.
Its contents were simple. Looking inside the glass ball, I saw the pink peppercorns he’d used to garnish the carrot cake and…
“Is that a key? What is it for?”
I could see a key floating inside the globe, slightly discolored and rusty.
“Here.”
“Here?”
“Yeah. It’s the key to Amayadori. The one the owner gave me when we first opened.”
I was so surprised, I was unable to say anything. It was completely unexpected. I had assumed that he was going to fill it with something that Koharu or Shizuku had given him.
“This one is just a spare key, of course,” Iori added. “I have my master key. Shizuku might need me for something in the future. Should that day come, it would be easy for her to come find me if Amayadori was still here. So…”
Iori picked up the snow globe again and firmly tightened its lid.
“…this is my declaration that I will never close Amayadori. The day I break this snow globe to remove the key is the day Amayadori ceases to exist,” Iori said, and pulled his lips into a smile. “Please stay by my side, Momo-chan and Hozumi.”
I smiled. “And you stay by ours, too!”
The bluest midsummer sky spread across the windows.
I stood up and gave myself a good stretch. With my heavy snow globe complete, I felt a step closer to laying my resentment to rest.
“Maybe I’ll put some protein powder in mine,” Hozumi suggested out of nowhere.
“You want to put protein in your snow globe?”
“Yes.”
“Seriously? Star-shaped beads and protein?”
“I thought we were allowed to put in anything we liked.”
It seemed that Hozumi had a case of snow globe envy.
Iori arranged our snow globes on the display shelf.
Without needing words, the three of us gathered in front of them and pressed our hands together.
“Our condolences,” we said together.
Catching the sunlight, the snow globes gave a sparkle of joy.