Chapter Fifteen Sunday Dinner #2
"Haruki's father?"
"Yes."
Haruki returned his attention to washing rice.
"He got tired of every meal becoming a meeting."
"He overturned the table once," Reina said.
Haruki looked over his shoulder.
"It was one bowl."
"It hit the wall."
"The table stayed upright."
Hiroshi nodded thoughtfully.
"He had a strong arm."
Renji looked at the plaque again. The lettering had faded in places. Not new. Not symbolic. A boundary preserved because someone had once needed it enough to carve it into wood.
"What happens if someone discusses business?" he asked.
"They wash everything," Reina said.
"You made that rule."
"Yes."
"It is self-serving."
"Good rules often are."
Haruki handed Renji a clean bowl.
"No warehouse. No Accord. No threats until dessert."
"And if something urgent occurs?"
Everyone fell silent. The ease vanished so quickly Renji almost regretted asking. Haruki answered.
"Then dinner ends."
There was history behind the words — calls received midway through meals, plates abandoned, chairs left empty while everyone else waited for news. Renji understood. He looked towards the plaque again.
"No business," he said.
Reina nodded. The room resumed breathing.
Hiroshi asked whether vampires could eat garlic. Renji nearly cut through the board. Haruki froze beside the sink. Reina looked between them. Hiroshi continued stirring the sauce.
"What?"
Renji placed the knife down carefully.
"Why would you ask that?"
"You dislike the amount Reina uses."
"I dislike excess."
"That is not an answer."
"Garlic has no unusual effect on me."
Hiroshi nodded.
"So you are a vampire."
Haruki's face lost all colour. Reina stared at Hiroshi. Renji assessed the distance to the doors — three exits, two visible guards in the courtyard. Haruki stepped forward.
"Uncle—"
Hiroshi laughed.
"You should see yourselves."
No one else joined him. He looked around the kitchen. The laughter diminished.
"Oh."
Reina's knife lowered.
"You were joking."
"Obviously."
Haruki's expression became dangerously calm.
"Why?"
Hiroshi gestured vaguely towards Renji.
"Old books. Pale. Mysterious. Dislikes sunlight."
"I do not dislike sunlight," Renji said. "I am simply unable to survive it. Yet."
"You own an umbrella."
"It rains."
"You never eat at functions."
"The food is poor."
"You threatened a man twice your size without raising your voice."
"That is not supernatural."
"In this Family, it barely qualifies as unusual," Reina said.
Hiroshi looked between Renji and Haruki again. His eyes sharpened.
"You are a vampire."
Renji turned to Haruki. Haruki appeared to be considering murder.
"Hiroshi," Reina said slowly, "you are going to forget this conversation."
The older man set down the spoon.
"I was correct?"
"No," Haruki said. Too quickly.
Hiroshi looked delighted.
"You are."
Renji folded the apron neatly at his waist.
"I should leave."
Haruki moved between him and the nearest door.
"No."
"You have failed to maintain confidentiality."
"I haven't told anyone."
"You brought me into a house occupied by people trained to identify deception."
"Hiroshi thought you were a vampire because you own an umbrella."
"And he was correct."
"That was not skill. It was idiocy rewarded by chance."
"Thank you," Hiroshi said.
"It was not praise."
Reina stepped closer. Her expression had become serious.
"Renji."
He looked at her.
"Haruki did not tell us."
"I know."
"And Hiroshi will not repeat it."
Renji glanced towards him. The older man placed one hand over his heart.
"I understand secrets."
"You told three separate newspapers where Haruki attended university."
"They asked politely."
"That was not a secret."
"It was at the time."
Haruki rubbed one hand over his face.
"Hiroshi."
The older man's amusement faded. He looked at Renji again — properly this time, not as a curiosity, but as someone standing unprotected inside a house that was not his own.
"You have my word," he said.
The shift in him was absolute. The foolish uncle disappeared. In his place stood a man who had survived decades within the Ishida Family and understood the cost of misplaced trust.
"I will tell no one."
Renji studied him. Human promises were fragile. That did not make them meaningless.
"Thank you," he said.
Hiroshi nodded once. Then he picked up the spoon.
"So, do you drink wine?"
"Yes."
"Excellent. Ayako bought an expensive bottle and hid it from me."
Reina stared at him.
"You were not supposed to know about that."
"I know everything in this house."
"You just burned rice in it."
"One does not diminish the other."
The tension broke. Not entirely. Enough. Haruki remained close to Renji, his shoulder nearly touching Renji's.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"You did not tell them."
"No."
"You did bring me."
"I didn't expect Hiroshi to uncover nearly a thousand years of secrecy through umbrella ownership."
"That was careless of you."
Haruki looked at him. Renji allowed the faintest smile. Relief moved visibly across Haruki's face. The sight affected Renji more than it should have.
Reina passed him another bowl.
"Finish the lotus root."
The conversation was over. Not dismissed.
Accepted. Renji returned to his cutting board.
Hiroshi began asking whether he had met anyone historically important.
Reina forbade him from answering. Haruki insisted that technically this was not business.
Reina said it counted as interrogation. Hiroshi argued that dinner rules did not account for supernatural revelations and should be amended.
Through it all, no one asked Renji to leave.
No one moved away from him. No one watched his hands as though expecting claws.
Hiroshi complained about the wine. Reina complained about Hiroshi. Haruki began the rice for a third time. Renji chopped lotus root while the house absorbed the impossible and continued preparing dinner. The simplicity of it was almost unbearable.
Ayako Ishida arrived precisely when the food was ready. Renji suspected this was not accidental. She entered the dining room wearing a deep blue kimono patterned with silver grass, her white hair arranged neatly at the back of her head. Age had reduced none of her authority.
Every conversation quietened when she appeared. She looked towards the table. Then at the kitchen. Then at Renji, still wearing the radish apron. Her eyebrows lifted.
"Doctor."
"Mrs Ishida."
"Why are you dressed as produce?"
"Reina."
Ayako nodded.
"Of course."
She moved to the head of the table. Haruki pulled out her chair.
She placed one hand briefly against his cheek before sitting.
The gesture was so natural Haruki barely reacted.
Renji did. Affection in powerful families was often performed for witnesses or withheld to preserve hierarchy.
Here it appeared in small, habitual touches — a hand at Haruki's face, Hiroshi placing the least burnt aubergine nearest Ayako, Reina removing a dish from her reach because it contained too much salt.
No one announced care. They simply practised it.
Ken arrived two minutes later and apologised eleven times. Reina made him sit beside Hiroshi as punishment.
"I like Hiroshi," Ken said.
"That is why it is punishment for me," Hiroshi replied.
The table filled quickly — not with soldiers or advisers, but with people who had known one another long enough to argue without fear of abandonment.
Daisuke joined them after protesting that he was on duty.
Ayako told him to sit. He obeyed. Two younger cousins arrived from the west wing, followed by an elderly housekeeper who refused the chair Haruki offered until Ayako threatened to leave hers.
No one introduced Renji formally. He was simply placed beside Haruki.
A bowl appeared before him. Then chopsticks.
Then tea. Reina served the kinpira and informed everyone that Renji had cut the vegetables because she had delegated, not because his technique was superior.
Hiroshi denied this. Haruki supported him.
Reina threatened both with washing duty.
No business was discussed. The rule held. They spoke instead about an actor Hiroshi disliked, a neighbour's dog that repeatedly escaped into the courtyard, the cost of winter vegetables and whether Haruki had ever returned a book he borrowed from Reina six years earlier.
"I returned it," Haruki said.
"You left it in my car."
"That is still returning it."
"Not to me."
"You owned the car."
"I didn't find it for three months."
"It was safe."
"It warped in the heat."
"That sounds like a manufacturing flaw."
Renji ate quietly. Not because he lacked anything to say.
Because he had become occupied by the feeling of the room — the clatter of bowls, voices overlapping, someone reaching across him for sauce without apology, Hiroshi complaining that no one appreciated his aubergine while everyone continued eating it, Haruki leaning close to ask whether Renji wanted more rice before simply serving it when he hesitated.
Memory arrived without warning. Not an image.
A sensation. Warmth from a hearth against one side of his face.
His mother correcting his brother's posture with two fingers between his shoulders.
Steam rising from barley. His youngest sister laughing with her mouth full while their father pretended outrage.
The Takahara household before fear entered it.
Before doors were barred at night. Before whispers replaced music. Before blood on winter snow.
Renji had spent centuries remembering faces.
He had preserved voices, names and the exact order in which rooms once connected.
But he had forgotten this — the noise of people who assumed there would always be another meal, the casual cruelty of teasing that carried no danger, the certainty that a place at the table would remain even after anger.