Loss 1: Yanami Anna

Loss 1: Yanami Anna

Loss 1:

Yanami Anna

“H ELLO?”

Beyond the door, as it creaked open, lay unchanged scenery. Our combined living and dining rooms were as they were, a spacious eighteen tatami mats in size. Some rerun of a travel show played on the TV. All was as it should be.

If it weren’t for the girl currently occupying a seat at the table.

“Hey, Nukumizu-kun! Good to see ya again!” The intruder opened her mouth wide and chomped down on a mountainous spoonful of curry.

“What in the world are you doing here?!”

Yanami Anna. Current status: cheeks puffed full of rice and roux, recently had her man stolen by a fresh-off-the-plane transfer student, a losing heroine if ever there was one.

She swallowed, failed to notice the rice on her cheek, and grinned at me. “This curry’s good. It usually is after the second day, huh?”

“Right. So are you gonna tell me why you’re in my house eating said curry?”

“Oh, mwuhmfm.”

Please swallow.

Well, with that, the identity of the mystery guest was no longer a mystery. I took a seat across from her, sighing. A moment later, she finished chewing. Thank god.

“You really gotta tell me in advance before you show up,” I said.

Yanami was unamused by such reasonable expectations. “Dude, do you even check your LINE? I literally did.”

I unlocked my phone and checked the icon. Sure enough, it had the little bubble on it.

“Sorry, I totally missed that. Why didn’t you email me to let me know to check it?”

“Uh, because the app tells you? In your notifications?”

“My notifications? Oh. This.”

It was not, in fact, just for telling you when your stamina was back in your mobile game of choice. Who knew? You learn something new every day.

I pretended to not be fazed. “Okay, so why are you here anyway?”

At the end of last semester, we had officially become friends. Not the kind to just pop in and hang out at a moment’s notice, but here she was anyway. The curry part was irrelevant. Yanami will do as Yanami does.

Having nearly polished off her plate, she was now in the process of scooping up the last of the curry and rice with deft precision. With those final scraps secured in her stomach, she put her hands together in thanks. “Thank you for the food,” she said. “Anyway, I’m handing out somen to all my friends.”

“Somen?”

I finally noticed the paper bag sitting on the table. Was this one of those mid-year gift things people did sometimes? Did we even have anything to give in return? Maybe a salad oil set. Yanami probably liked oil.

I took a peek. A box just big enough to fit was crammed inside, the words “Value Pack” written on top.

“So not one of those mid-year gift things,” I said. “What’s this about?”

“A good question. Fantastic, even.”

“It was a normal one.”

Yanami simply wiped her mouth and didn’t acknowledge me. “So basically, this month my dad got paid in noodles.”

“He got… What?”

“You heard me. His pay for July is somen. The noodle. A bunch of ’em.”

The cicadas got real quiet all of a sudden.

“A whole month’s wage is a lot of money,” I said.

“We have 300,000 yen’s worth of the stuff.”

“And it’s not, like, code for something, is it? All this is legal?”

“Uh, yeah? You know my family’s not the mafia kind, right?” She gazed out the window. I followed suit because why not. “I have had…so much somen.”

The August sky—and how blue it was—told of summer’s heat, yet the clouds that dotted it betrayed the coming of fall.

“So you’re just sharing it around,” I said. “Why don’t you drop some off to your neighbors?”

“We did. But lately, a bunch of them haven’t been answering their doors.”

Excommunicado via somen.

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. A respectful moment of silence passed. “I hope that explains why I’ve been craving curry.”

“Kind of. Yes. Do you want seconds?”

“Already did. I’m good.” How silly of me. In a couple of ways, actually. I may have overreacted to what amounted to a friendly somen delivery. “Hey, y’know what? You probably didn’t see the LINE this morning either. The lit club’s having an emergency meeting.”

“Oh, I totally did miss that.”

I fumbled around for my phone and checked the club group chat. The president had asked us to meet in the club room tomorrow afternoon. Yanami had already replied, confirming her attendance.

I shot off a quick “will do,” then said, “Anyway, don’t you have other places to be?”

“You want me gone that badly, huh?” Yanami pouted her lips.

“Only a little. I just figured you had other people to dump somen on.”

“Yeah, I have one more—wait, what was that first part?”

“Nothing. I heard the weather’s gonna get hotter, so you might wanna get a move on.”

New life flared in Yanami’s eyes. “After the pears.”

“After the what?”

I whipped around. Standing behind me was Kaju, now dressed in her uniform and holding a plate. “I’ve just peeled these if you’d like some, Yanami-san,” she said with an award-winning smile.

“I would! Thanks, Kaju-chan.”

I’d forgotten all about her. They’d evidently hit it off. Kaju pattered over like a little puppy and sat down next to me.

“Mmmh, these are good,” said Yanami.

“A relative of ours gave them to us—straight from the Kojima orchard,” Kaju explained. A sheet of paper and a voice recorder suddenly materialized in her hands. “Now, if it’s all right with you, I have a few questions.”

She was actually serious about the interview.

“Sure,” Yanami agreed. “For homework or something?”

“Yeah…let’s go with that! So, firstly, I’ll need your date of birth, blood type, at-home relatives, any hobbies or skills, the story of how you two met…”

Kaju was off to the races. I quickly interjected, “Okay, okay, Yanami-san’s a very busy girl with a very full schedule. Save that for next time.”

“But Oniisama!” she whined. “I haven’t heard of any of your exciting school-life escapades yet!”

And she never would.

“Whatever you say. Back to your room now. Go on. Up.”

Still grousing and grumbling, Kaju finally marched off. One disaster avoided.

“You make her call you oniisama ?” Yanami muttered.