Sugar and Pepper (29)
TWENTY-EIGHT
* TWENTY-NINE *
01.
[ Just came back and have to go to soccer practice already. F@ck. Im so tired. Sorry we couldnt hang out. I cant believe in another week summer will be over. ]
[ Its ok. Im busy too. ]
[ Btw thought I saw you at school last week. Did you join a club? ]
Satoshi did not want to lie to Sho, but he had been warned by Miyuki to keep the secret. So he changed the subject with his next reply. [ I have to speak to you. I want you to meet someone. When are you free? ]
02.
More than a week ago, Satoshi had been invited to participate in the preparation of Jun's surprise birthday party, planned and thrown by Miyuki and her club. The members had come to know Jun very well when he had chosen to ignore Satoshi at the beginning of summer. They had become fond of the handsome boy whom Miyuki had a big crush on and usually raved about. In any case, the birthday celebration was a last event before the start of school.
At first, Satoshi was only in charge of making the decorations, but he surprised them when after only one lengthy sitting he completed his tasks.
"Did you want to cook something, too?" Miyuki asked.
"I don't know how to cook," he confessed.
"Then come to my club and we'll teach you. It's simple, really," she said. "Club activities have already started."
So since then every other evening, he went with Jun to his daily baseball practice, but left to take part in Miyuki's culinary club. Jun asked him about it and he lied that he'd go to watch Sho during his soccer practice. Bringing up Sho immediately halted any further inquiry Jun had.
But in his place, Kazunari quickly found out the true reason why he would sneak away during their practices.
"You see, Matsumoto becomes a little desperate," he said after revealing his knowledge. "So I'll know that you aren't sitting in the stands."
"Ooshima-san said it's supposed to be a secret," Satoshi mumbled.
"It is," Kazunari agreed. "But she was the one who told me. As soon as I told her I was Matsumoto's classmate and teammate, she invited me to the party. Matsumoto still doesn't know though. So what are you giving him?"
His sketchbook of sketches that Jun had admired and wanted. But Satoshi did not tell Kazunari that. He had, however, told Miyuki after both of them had agonized about their gifts together a few days after Satoshi had asked for her help.
Once Kazunari knew that he could not wrest the answer away from a tight-lipped Satoshi, he said, "It's not fair. Give me a present as well. You missed my birthday."
Satoshi blinked at him, surprised. "When?"
"This summer. July 17th. No one celebrated with me. My mom just bought me a slice of cake."
"I..." Satoshi started and trailed off. Even if he did buy something for Kazunari, he didn't know what. He knew that Kazunari owned a guitar, wrote his songs, spent most of his time on his Nintendo DS, and played baseball. Kazunari already seemed to own everything that he needed, even if he considered his family to be poor. Satoshi would probably agonize over his gift much more than he did for Jun.
"Fine, you don't have to," Kazunari grumbled after Satoshi's hesitation drew on for more than a minute. "Stingy, cheap ass."
He turned to head back to the baseball field, but then he stopped all of a sudden and turned back to Satoshi. "About my favor..." he started, this time trailing off.
Satoshi shook his head to say that he hadn't heard a reply from Sho.
03.
After four days in training, his improvement in the culinary arts still seemed a long distance away.
Miyuki spat out the string of noodle she had put into her mouth in an unladylike fashion. "This is not cooked and it tastes awful! What have you been doing for the last few days?" She stared, horrified, at the beautiful looking spaghetti dish that Satoshi had presented to her. The visual was astounding, but the flavor was atrocious.
Satoshi had no answer to give her. Truthfully, he had been distracted when he cooked it. He wasn't even really sure the meat was thoroughly cooked. It was a relief she hadn't tasted it.
Her club president stepped up to their counter, beaming from ear to ear. "What's up?" he asked, amused by her expression.
She pointed to Satoshi's dish and directed him. "Aiba-chan, try this."
Masaki dug right in. He stopped chewing after a few bites, but unlike Miyuki he did not spit it out. He swallowed his mouthful whole, painfully, and gave Satoshi a wane smile. The grin he had on earlier had disappeared.
"You should probably start over from the beginning," he conceded weakly.
04.
[ Who? Why? ]
[ Only my friend. He is a fan of the soccer team. ]
[ That's great! I'll meet him! Does he come to watch our games? Does he go to our school? ]
Satoshi could no longer hide the truth. What if Sho showed up to the meeting and saw Kazunari and ran, just like how Kazunari revealed he used to do? Kazunari had come to Satoshi because he did not want Sho to run.
He wrote, afraid he was doing the wrong thing and his hands shaking as he did so, [ He is Ninomiya Kazunari. He is my friend. He really wants to talk with you. ] He hoped that by pushing Sho to meet someone whom Sho obviously did not want to see he was not severing his friendship with his junior.
As he feared, Sho did not write a reply.
05.
His deadline had come at last. Tomorrow was Jun's birthday.
"Today is your last day," Miyuki warned him as she came over to watch him make his sauce. "If you mess it up, you're out of the menu tomorrow."
Satoshi swallowed. Her presence unnerved him more than cementing a place on tomorrow's menu. He reached for the spices. As Miyuki momentarily turned to speak to a friend, he threw a white powder into the sauce and then red powder. He didn't know what they were, but he thought spices couldn't be so bad. He stirred.
"What are you doing?" Miyuki exclaimed. "What did you throw in there? Why are you making your sauce both sweet and spicy!?"
Her voice echoed throughout the entire room and drew everyone's attention.
Again, Masaki joined them. "What's wrong?"
Miyuki latched onto his arm near tears. "President, I don't know how to teach him anymore! He will never learn how to cook!"
Satoshi dropped the spoon he had used to stir the sauce and looked at the bubbling mess in dismay. He could not dispute her claim. It would probably help if he just gave up now. His future as a chef didn't seem very bright.
Masaki took in his sullen expression and gently pried his arm from Miyuki's grasp. "Help him throw it away and clean up." Satoshi knew it was over. They had given up on him. "Once you're done, call for me. I'll help him start over."
Both of them stared at him in disbelief.
"You're staying back?" Miyuki asked.
Satoshi and she watched as the culinary club president flashed his warm trademark smile. "It's okay. Both of us will stay."
06.
More than half an hour later, all the members of the culinary club had left. Only Satoshi and the president remained. Despite being younger than most of the club members, Aiba Masaki had won the position after a democratic vote. He was the most popular and well-liked of the members and thus mainly held the club together by their undying loyalty to him.
As one person had jokingly said to Satoshi during first introductions, "He's like a piece of joy."
Satoshi had only known him for a week, but he felt like he had known Aiba Masaki for a few years. He understood what they meant.
They started with boiling the noodles together and adding a significant amount of salt into the water.
"Ooshima-san didn't really mean what she said earlier," Masaki assured Satoshi as they watched the noodles soften in the pot. "You wouldn't guess it, but she taught me how to cook. She was my first teacher when I joined this club. She still is exasperated by some of the things I come up with, but food can't be fun unless you experiment. I think she's just too in love with food."
Satoshi inwardly laughed. A small smile tugged at his lips. He unintentionally let his defenses down in the presence of a good-natured Masaki, but he did not feel afraid to do so either. Only with Jun, and now Masaki, did he forget most of his insecurities.
"Ohno-kun, you seem to be the opposite of Matsumoto," Masaki initiated the small talk as they moved on to cut the meat, tomato, and onions for the sauce. "And yet the way Ooshima-chan tells it, the both of you are really close. Matsumoto talks about you all the time. I think he cares a lot about you." He went on a tangent, "Did you know, she said the first time she saw him he'd been waiting to walk home with you?"
Satoshi did not comment, although he was surprised by the story, so Masaki happily and nonchalantly went on.
"You're good with the knife. You actually started off better than me. In the beginning, I cut my fingers a lot. Most of us have probably eaten food that were stained with my blood. I'm not lying. Oh yeah, you should smash the garlic first before cutting it because it just tastes better that way. Ooshima said so." After showing the process to Satoshi, Masaki went ahead and grounded the garlic by himself as Satoshi watched idly. "Pour oil into the pan, please, but don't put on the fire. What did we talk about?"
"Aiba-chan," Satoshi called him in a murmur.
"Hm?" Masaki turned to him with an attentive gaze and half-smile on his face. Despite his endless chatter, in that moment he seemed prepared to listen wholeheartedly to whatever Satoshi had on his mind.
Satoshi appreciated his undivided attention. It was because of that and who Masaki was, despite truthfully barely knowing him, that Satoshi could ask his question. "Aiba-chan," he repeated again, his voice growing soft, "Have you ever been so hurt by someone that you couldn't forgive them?" He wondered if someone as easygoing and kind as Masaki was capable of holding a grudge.
"Mmmmmmm," Masaki sounded in thought as he added the ground meated to the garlic and oil. He looked at the pan, distracted as he separated the meat with the spatula in his hand. Then he asked, "What do you think forgiveness means, Ohno-kun? Does it mean to forget? To move on? To become indifferent?" He covered the pan with its lid and moved to collect the onion and tomatoes from the cutting board into a bowl. "Don't you think there's no real forgiveness in the world? It just means to no longer care. To scratch out. Break even. But it's not the same as revenge either. Or it's not to forget. What is forgiveness? Does it ever happen? Is there really a person who wouldn't bring up the past in a heated argument?"
Masaki paused, then looked at the bowl in his hand as it finally dawned on him that he'd been doing everything by himself. He offered the bowl for Satoshi to take.
Satoshi's hands closed around the cool plastic dish. "Maybe there really is no such thing as forgiveness."
Masaki broke the solemn mood with a sudden smile. "I think we're both right and wrong. But it's not something only both of us can decide."
He took off the lid of the pan. Steam billowed out. He beckoned for Satoshi to throw in the onions and tomatoes all at once. "Oh, I almost forgot. We forgot to season the meat. Ooshima-san will yell at me if she knew. I'm supposed to be helping you and yet I'm almost as bad." He gestured to the spices all set out nicely on the counter in front of them, the same set that Satoshi had used earlier and had exasperated Miyuki with.
"It's your dish, you know," Masaki said. "We usually just add a lot of salt, some basil, and some black pepper."
As Satoshi reached for those, he interjected, "But don't you think that's boring?"
Satoshi blinked at him, uncomprehending.
Masaki explained seriously, "I think the food we make reveals a lot about us. It does. That's why I like to cook. So let's see you try whatever you want."
But what if I'm just bad at cooking? Satoshi thought. He didn't ask. He changed the direction of his hands and reached for the white and red powder that Miyuki had yelled at him about earlier. Masaki only watched as he made the same mistake and sprinkled a bit of each in.
"That's interesting. You chose opposites," the president said.
"It's sugar and pepper," Satoshi unnecessarily explained.
Masaki nodded as if he had understood something. "Both sweet and spicy. But you know, actually they couldn't be opposites. We taste sweetness while spiciness causes pain. They might actually go together."
At that moment, Satoshi's mobile rang and broke the flow of their random conversation. He saw Jun's message; Jun was waiting for him at the soccer field. Satoshi also noticed that he had received another message a while ago.
"I have to go," Satoshi mumbled to the president. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry. This is almost finish. I'll clean up here," Masaki assured him. He added, "And don't apologize. How about you try saying 'thank you'?"
Satoshi flushed and muttered, "Thank you."
Masaki smiled again and waved. "I'll tell you how it tastes."
On his way out, Satoshi checked the second message he had missed. It was from Sho.
[ I'll meet him. ] Sho replied.
* *
THIRTY
* TWENTY-NINE *
01.
[ Just came back and have to go to soccer practice already. F@ck. Im so tired. Sorry we couldnt hang out. I cant believe in another week summer will be over. ]
[ Its ok. Im busy too. ]
[ Btw thought I saw you at school last week. Did you join a club? ]
Satoshi did not want to lie to Sho, but he had been warned by Miyuki to keep the secret. So he changed the subject with his next reply. [ I have to speak to you. I want you to meet someone. When are you free? ]
02.
More than a week ago, Satoshi had been invited to participate in the preparation of Jun's surprise birthday party, planned and thrown by Miyuki and her club. The members had come to know Jun very well when he had chosen to ignore Satoshi at the beginning of summer. They had become fond of the handsome boy whom Miyuki had a big crush on and usually raved about. In any case, the birthday celebration was a last event before the start of school.
At first, Satoshi was only in charge of making the decorations, but he surprised them when after only one lengthy sitting he completed his tasks.
"Did you want to cook something, too?" Miyuki asked.
"I don't know how to cook," he confessed.
"Then come to my club and we'll teach you. It's simple, really," she said. "Club activities have already started."
So since then every other evening, he went with Jun to his daily baseball practice, but left to take part in Miyuki's culinary club. Jun asked him about it and he lied that he'd go to watch Sho during his soccer practice. Bringing up Sho immediately halted any further inquiry Jun had.
But in his place, Kazunari quickly found out the true reason why he would sneak away during their practices.
"You see, Matsumoto becomes a little desperate," he said after revealing his knowledge. "So I'll know that you aren't sitting in the stands."
"Ooshima-san said it's supposed to be a secret," Satoshi mumbled.
"It is," Kazunari agreed. "But she was the one who told me. As soon as I told her I was Matsumoto's classmate and teammate, she invited me to the party. Matsumoto still doesn't know though. So what are you giving him?"
His sketchbook of sketches that Jun had admired and wanted. But Satoshi did not tell Kazunari that. He had, however, told Miyuki after both of them had agonized about their gifts together a few days after Satoshi had asked for her help.
Once Kazunari knew that he could not wrest the answer away from a tight-lipped Satoshi, he said, "It's not fair. Give me a present as well. You missed my birthday."
Satoshi blinked at him, surprised. "When?"
"This summer. July 17th. No one celebrated with me. My mom just bought me a slice of cake."
"I..." Satoshi started and trailed off. Even if he did buy something for Kazunari, he didn't know what. He knew that Kazunari owned a guitar, wrote his songs, spent most of his time on his Nintendo DS, and played baseball. Kazunari already seemed to own everything that he needed, even if he considered his family to be poor. Satoshi would probably agonize over his gift much more than he did for Jun.
"Fine, you don't have to," Kazunari grumbled after Satoshi's hesitation drew on for more than a minute. "Stingy, cheap ass."
He turned to head back to the baseball field, but then he stopped all of a sudden and turned back to Satoshi. "About my favor..." he started, this time trailing off.
Satoshi shook his head to say that he hadn't heard a reply from Sho.
03.
After four days in training, his improvement in the culinary arts still seemed a long distance away.
Miyuki spat out the string of noodle she had put into her mouth in an unladylike fashion. "This is not cooked and it tastes awful! What have you been doing for the last few days?" She stared, horrified, at the beautiful looking spaghetti dish that Satoshi had presented to her. The visual was astounding, but the flavor was atrocious.
Satoshi had no answer to give her. Truthfully, he had been distracted when he cooked it. He wasn't even really sure the meat was thoroughly cooked. It was a relief she hadn't tasted it.
Her club president stepped up to their counter, beaming from ear to ear. "What's up?" he asked, amused by her expression.
She pointed to Satoshi's dish and directed him. "Aiba-chan, try this."
Masaki dug right in. He stopped chewing after a few bites, but unlike Miyuki he did not spit it out. He swallowed his mouthful whole, painfully, and gave Satoshi a wane smile. The grin he had on earlier had disappeared.
"You should probably start over from the beginning," he conceded weakly.
04.
[ Who? Why? ]
[ Only my friend. He is a fan of the soccer team. ]
[ That's great! I'll meet him! Does he come to watch our games? Does he go to our school? ]
Satoshi could no longer hide the truth. What if Sho showed up to the meeting and saw Kazunari and ran, just like how Kazunari revealed he used to do? Kazunari had come to Satoshi because he did not want Sho to run.
He wrote, afraid he was doing the wrong thing and his hands shaking as he did so, [ He is Ninomiya Kazunari. He is my friend. He really wants to talk with you. ] He hoped that by pushing Sho to meet someone whom Sho obviously did not want to see he was not severing his friendship with his junior.
As he feared, Sho did not write a reply.
05.
His deadline had come at last. Tomorrow was Jun's birthday.
"Today is your last day," Miyuki warned him as she came over to watch him make his sauce. "If you mess it up, you're out of the menu tomorrow."
Satoshi swallowed. Her presence unnerved him more than cementing a place on tomorrow's menu. He reached for the spices. As Miyuki momentarily turned to speak to a friend, he threw a white powder into the sauce and then red powder. He didn't know what they were, but he thought spices couldn't be so bad. He stirred.
"What are you doing?" Miyuki exclaimed. "What did you throw in there? Why are you making your sauce both sweet and spicy!?"
Her voice echoed throughout the entire room and drew everyone's attention.
Again, Masaki joined them. "What's wrong?"
Miyuki latched onto his arm near tears. "President, I don't know how to teach him anymore! He will never learn how to cook!"
Satoshi dropped the spoon he had used to stir the sauce and looked at the bubbling mess in dismay. He could not dispute her claim. It would probably help if he just gave up now. His future as a chef didn't seem very bright.
Masaki took in his sullen expression and gently pried his arm from Miyuki's grasp. "Help him throw it away and clean up." Satoshi knew it was over. They had given up on him. "Once you're done, call for me. I'll help him start over."
Both of them stared at him in disbelief.
"You're staying back?" Miyuki asked.
Satoshi and she watched as the culinary club president flashed his warm trademark smile. "It's okay. Both of us will stay."
06.
More than half an hour later, all the members of the culinary club had left. Only Satoshi and the president remained. Despite being younger than most of the club members, Aiba Masaki had won the position after a democratic vote. He was the most popular and well-liked of the members and thus mainly held the club together by their undying loyalty to him.
As one person had jokingly said to Satoshi during first introductions, "He's like a piece of joy."
Satoshi had only known him for a week, but he felt like he had known Aiba Masaki for a few years. He understood what they meant.
They started with boiling the noodles together and adding a significant amount of salt into the water.
"Ooshima-san didn't really mean what she said earlier," Masaki assured Satoshi as they watched the noodles soften in the pot. "You wouldn't guess it, but she taught me how to cook. She was my first teacher when I joined this club. She still is exasperated by some of the things I come up with, but food can't be fun unless you experiment. I think she's just too in love with food."
Satoshi inwardly laughed. A small smile tugged at his lips. He unintentionally let his defenses down in the presence of a good-natured Masaki, but he did not feel afraid to do so either. Only with Jun, and now Masaki, did he forget most of his insecurities.
"Ohno-kun, you seem to be the opposite of Matsumoto," Masaki initiated the small talk as they moved on to cut the meat, tomato, and onions for the sauce. "And yet the way Ooshima-chan tells it, the both of you are really close. Matsumoto talks about you all the time. I think he cares a lot about you." He went on a tangent, "Did you know, she said the first time she saw him he'd been waiting to walk home with you?"
Satoshi did not comment, although he was surprised by the story, so Masaki happily and nonchalantly went on.
"You're good with the knife. You actually started off better than me. In the beginning, I cut my fingers a lot. Most of us have probably eaten food that were stained with my blood. I'm not lying. Oh yeah, you should smash the garlic first before cutting it because it just tastes better that way. Ooshima said so." After showing the process to Satoshi, Masaki went ahead and grounded the garlic by himself as Satoshi watched idly. "Pour oil into the pan, please, but don't put on the fire. What did we talk about?"
"Aiba-chan," Satoshi called him in a murmur.
"Hm?" Masaki turned to him with an attentive gaze and half-smile on his face. Despite his endless chatter, in that moment he seemed prepared to listen wholeheartedly to whatever Satoshi had on his mind.
Satoshi appreciated his undivided attention. It was because of that and who Masaki was, despite truthfully barely knowing him, that Satoshi could ask his question. "Aiba-chan," he repeated again, his voice growing soft, "Have you ever been so hurt by someone that you couldn't forgive them?" He wondered if someone as easygoing and kind as Masaki was capable of holding a grudge.
"Mmmmmmm," Masaki sounded in thought as he added the ground meated to the garlic and oil. He looked at the pan, distracted as he separated the meat with the spatula in his hand. Then he asked, "What do you think forgiveness means, Ohno-kun? Does it mean to forget? To move on? To become indifferent?" He covered the pan with its lid and moved to collect the onion and tomatoes from the cutting board into a bowl. "Don't you think there's no real forgiveness in the world? It just means to no longer care. To scratch out. Break even. But it's not the same as revenge either. Or it's not to forget. What is forgiveness? Does it ever happen? Is there really a person who wouldn't bring up the past in a heated argument?"
Masaki paused, then looked at the bowl in his hand as it finally dawned on him that he'd been doing everything by himself. He offered the bowl for Satoshi to take.
Satoshi's hands closed around the cool plastic dish. "Maybe there really is no such thing as forgiveness."
Masaki broke the solemn mood with a sudden smile. "I think we're both right and wrong. But it's not something only both of us can decide."
He took off the lid of the pan. Steam billowed out. He beckoned for Satoshi to throw in the onions and tomatoes all at once. "Oh, I almost forgot. We forgot to season the meat. Ooshima-san will yell at me if she knew. I'm supposed to be helping you and yet I'm almost as bad." He gestured to the spices all set out nicely on the counter in front of them, the same set that Satoshi had used earlier and had exasperated Miyuki with.
"It's your dish, you know," Masaki said. "We usually just add a lot of salt, some basil, and some black pepper."
As Satoshi reached for those, he interjected, "But don't you think that's boring?"
Satoshi blinked at him, uncomprehending.
Masaki explained seriously, "I think the food we make reveals a lot about us. It does. That's why I like to cook. So let's see you try whatever you want."
But what if I'm just bad at cooking? Satoshi thought. He didn't ask. He changed the direction of his hands and reached for the white and red powder that Miyuki had yelled at him about earlier. Masaki only watched as he made the same mistake and sprinkled a bit of each in.
"That's interesting. You chose opposites," the president said.
"It's sugar and pepper," Satoshi unnecessarily explained.
Masaki nodded as if he had understood something. "Both sweet and spicy. But you know, actually they couldn't be opposites. We taste sweetness while spiciness causes pain. They might actually go together."
At that moment, Satoshi's mobile rang and broke the flow of their random conversation. He saw Jun's message; Jun was waiting for him at the soccer field. Satoshi also noticed that he had received another message a while ago.
"I have to go," Satoshi mumbled to the president. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry. This is almost finish. I'll clean up here," Masaki assured him. He added, "And don't apologize. How about you try saying 'thank you'?"
Satoshi flushed and muttered, "Thank you."
Masaki smiled again and waved. "I'll tell you how it tastes."
On his way out, Satoshi checked the second message he had missed. It was from Sho.
[ I'll meet him. ] Sho replied.
* *
THIRTY