It had been a while since he last dreamed of his old workplace.
Yukitsuna, a traditional Japanese restaurant.
It was the place where Nobuyuki had worked ever since graduating high school.
It was a well-known establishment, renowned as a long-standing ryotei, but times were tough.
The previous owner had passed away, and his eldest son, who took over, couldn’t adapt to the changing circumstances.
New customers didn’t come, and the regular patrons were gradually retiring from their positions.
Once things start to go wrong, everything gradually falls apart.
Nobuyuki had worked at such a restaurant.
He pounded the octopus, which he had received from Reinhold, with a daikon radish.
Doing this makes it much softer than just rubbing it with salt.
It was something he had learned from his master in the kitchen of Yukitsuna.
Today, he planned to simmer it gently and serve it at the tavern.
Autumn in the old capital is very cold. Dishes that go well with hot sake are always welcome.
Usually, Shinobu would have arrived by now, but she was nowhere to be seen today.
Last night, he had teased her a bit too much about the pudding.
They had finally settled the matter by agreeing that she would buy a slightly fancy pudding from the cake shop in the shopping district, but knowing Shinobu…
She probably woke up this morning and realized how silly the whole argument was, and now she’s embarrassed.
That hadn’t changed since she was the daughter of Yukitsuna’s owner.
Having finished pounding the octopus thoroughly, he checked the taste of the dashi broth he had drawn.
Recently, he had been adjusting the taste of the dashi slightly every day, based on customer feedback.
He wanted Izakaya Nobu to blend into the old capital.
The tavern was currently bustling with regular customers, but he feared they might eventually get bored.
That fear was always present in Nobuyuki’s mind.
He didn’t want to repeat Yukitsuna’s mistakes.
To avoid that, he needed a solid foundation within himself.
What he had learned at Yukitsuna and the preferences of the people in the old capital.
Nobuyuki was constantly searching for a single pillar that would connect these two.
As he was taking notes on the dashi’s flavor in a college-ruled notebook, he heard a noise at the back door.
He assumed Shinobu was finally making her grand entrance.
He thought about teasing her with a sarcastic remark, but considering what happened yesterday, he refrained.
He checked the pudding in the refrigerator one more time and waited for Shinobu.
However, strangely, the noise at the back door continued.
There was no way that Shinobu would have forgotten her key. Shinobu, who had been educated to become the proprietress of a ryotei, was second to none when it came to managing the tavern.
So, the person at the back door wasn’t Shinobu?
Nobuyuki recalled the customer who had visited the tavern last night.
Ingrid, the apothecary.
Her apprentice, Camilla, had said that her being a witch was just a joke, but her words still lingered in his mind.
“Only those who are needed can pass through.”
Come to think of it, for some reason, neither the sake delivery person, the mail carrier, nor the newspaper solicitor had ever stepped inside the tavern from the back door.
If they tried to enter forcefully, they would stumble, or in severe cases, even fall.
In any case, he needed to confirm the identity of the person at the back door.
He was about to go to the back after clapping his hands at the kamidana but, remembering something, he retrieved yesterday’s omamori.
Translator’s Note
An Omamori is a Japanese amulet, typically sold at shrines and temples, believed to provide protection or good luck.
He didn’t remember receiving it, but for some reason, it was placed in front of the kamidana this morning. Strange things do happen.
He stuffed the omamori into his pants pocket and opened the back door slightly.
“Yo, long time no see.”
Nobuyuki was speechless for a while.
Could such a thing happen?
Standing there was Tohara, the head chef whom Nobuyuki had admired as his master at Yukitsuna.
He invited Tohara in, who narrowed his eyes, looked around the tavern, and muttered, “Not a bad place, huh?”
With his worn-out jumper and close-cropped hair, Tohara looked almost the same as when Nobuyuki had stormed out of the restaurant a year and a half ago.
However, perhaps it was just his imagination, but Tohara seemed slightly shorter.
“Chef, what about the restaurant?”
“Hey, hey, Tohara is fine. You’re the master of your own establishment now. I left the restaurant in Oyamada’s hands today.”
“…Is Oyamada-san going to be alright?”
When Nobuyuki was still at the restaurant, the head chef was almost never absent, 365 days a year. Even on his days off, he would find some reason or another to check on the restaurant, a fact that Nobuyuki still remembered. Oyamada, who was next in line after the head chef, was also skilled, but he had a habit of cutting corners in the details. The fact that he had left the restaurant in Oyamada’s care suggested that something had changed.
“Well, you see, we don’t have a single reservation for today.”
“Not even one?”
“That’s right. Since the previous owner’s time, our secret pride was that we never had a break in reservations.”
The situation at Yukitsuna seemed to be much worse than Nobuyuki had thought.
To revive the failing ryotei, there had even been talk of bringing in the son of a bank’s vice president as Shinobu’s husband, as a desperate measure.
If Shinobu were to disappear, this outcome might have been inevitable.
“Well, let’s not talk about such serious matters. You’re not open for business yet, but you can serve me a beer, right?”
“Yes, right away.”
He took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and opened it.
He usually served draft beer from the keg to other customers, but Tohara only drank bottled beer.
As he poured the beer into the glass with a tokutoku sound, a smile appeared on Tohara’s stern face.
“I never thought I’d be able to drink beer served by Yazawa again. It was worth the long journey.”
“How did you find this place?”
“The young master and the grand proprietress know about this place. They found it using a private detective. But well, even after coming close, they couldn’t bring themselves to peek inside.”
Nobuyuki responded with a vague smile and prepared a small appetizer.
It was octopus and wakame seaweed with vinegar.
It was what he planned to serve tonight, and the taste test was quite good.
“Oh, this is delicious. Is the octopus good?”
“Yes, I found a new supplier.”
“I see. It’s quite impressive to be able to serve this much octopus at an izakaya, especially when the prices of everything are rising.”
“Thank you.”
Even though he had left the restaurant without permission, it made him incredibly happy to be praised like this.
Tohara, with a foamy mustache, drained his glass deliciously and finished the remaining vinegar dish cleanly.
“Tohara-san, so what will you order today?”
“Well, you know, it’s obvious. Today, I want you to serve me the dish that Yazawa Nobuyuki wants me to eat the most.”