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A sprig of parsley is placed. Honami takes a deep breath and lifts the white plate over to her room.
Two knocks and a soft calling.
“Yoisaki, your lunch is ready...Do eat when you can...”
She trails off to pack up in the kitchen.
The line between the two girls was thinner than silk. With no words, no conversation. Even now, Honami can barely remember Yoisaki’s face, though it was covered by her long, shiny hair every time they met face-to-face.
Without any gratitude, any response, housekeeping like this felt worthless. Honami had never felt herself a slave or a worker, no. But at the same time, the idea of ‘caring’ for someone was completely gone. Like it was never a part of the equation in the first place. The house felt not like shelter, but a coffin in which one young girl burns her life away composing.
But somewhere in that locked off room, she was sure that someone needed her help. It was only a matter of their eyes finally meeting. Though for now, all she could do was feed and clean for her, as if a robot on auto-pilot.
She locks the front door with the keys she was given and scurries away beneath the golden sun and the cold weather. Her plate of pasta lies in never-ending wait.
“Yoisaki, I’m coming in.”
The silence accepts her gracefully.
Today, Honami had thought about making her a pie. A treat that can easily fill and boost anyone in just a few bites.
The real reason was simply that she bought too much on her shopping trip. Perhaps she got too ahead of herself, but having so many apples stuck in her fridge would cause a problem eventually. It was wise to use them while she still could.
She lays her groceries onto a table and equips herself.
First, you cut up the apples and bake them with syrup.
One by one, step by step, Honami follows what she had learnt since young.
In baking, it was important to care for the food like a pet, or like someone dear to you.
The recipe is one thing, but the emotion behind each step is too important. The shaping of the crust, the size of the cut apples, the patience behind the process.
In truth, there was a second reason why Honami had chosen apple pies today for her. Apple pies were Honami’s most adored treat. No matter the calories or time, it was bliss formed into the form of food.
Maybe, she could share this bliss with Yoisaki too.
She cuts up a quarter of the small pie and plates onto a white, tinier plate. Accompanying it was a small fork Honami brought. The Yoisaki household struggled to have any family dinners on the table for a while, it seemed. The cutlery and table felt dusty, and they were all old fashioned and uncomfortable for the hands.
Things like the plate, the cutlery used, the way a meal was shaped and angled, they meant alot to the both the consumer and the crafter. To the crafter, it displays their care in the work, and to the consumer, it could make them feel lighter while eating the dish. She had made sure everything was up to standard.
Honami stands in front of her door once more and gives two knocks before calling.
“Yoisaki, I have made apple pie for you. Please enjoy when you can…”
Maybe this time…
No, she still needed to pack up and clean the house. Yoisaki would come out when she leaves anyway.
She drags herself away to the pantry.
It was commonplace for such awkward air to fill the house. Yoisaki was never the talking type, her face blotted from the world by her long, beautiful hair. Honami had thought her to be very pretty, was it not for the bitter expression that stayed plastered to her face. She had not heard much, or even asked at all. Still, the stories from her grandmother had moved her too much forward. She had to save this girl, lest she be lost just like her father, or her mother.
Or the 3 friends she valued so dearly.
But how?
With each coming day, she felt herself a failure. With nothing to give to others, and nothing she was fit to recieve from others, she floated like a lost fish in sea.
With only cold descent to look forward to, how could Yoisaki ever be saved?
How could I ever be saved?
The humming of her vacuum does its best to calm her.
The apple pie lay there in patient wait. But it was never touched. Not by Yoisaki, not by the small fork next to it. She sheds a tear for its loss.
The next day, and it was now close to winter as the weather chills further and further. Honami lies on the dining table wrapped in cloth, absorbing the winter sun like a young plant.
The pot’s warmth spreads around the house, its scent alleviating the odour of snow and ice and still weather. Today, Honami had tried making stew for Yoisaki. For someone constantly working, maybe something more warming to the heart could help her.
Honami had stocked up on herbs and root vegetables, as well as leftover meat she refused to part from.
With a bit of rice and cream, she had made a masterpiece of a dish. Now left the last step, which was to wait for it to simmer.
It was a slow process, with a simple recipe, and a simple taste. Beef stew like this thrives from its simplicity instead of flavour or how diverse or interesting a meal can be. Stew is a family food, often made for a large group of people. In a way, it was memories in a bowl, where the mild taste of the soup brings warmth through one’s thoughts.
Of course, it was only two people, and she wasn’t even sure if Yoisaki was willing to eat it. Plus, the stew might be too much for her small figure, or maybe it would take too much time to eat and would hinder her music…
No, now is not the time to let doubts strangle her. It’s always worth a shot, lest she never gets the chance to cook for Yoisaki ever again.
Honami wakes from her short hibernation and packs a bowl to her door.
“Yoisaki, I’ve made stew today. Please do eat…” She feels her voice quiver.
Like a weird offering, she places down the bowl carefully before leaving to pack up the kitchen.
Please, Yoisaki. Just this once…
Honami wipes the pot and the table harder and harder, faster and faster. She needed to hurry and see if Yoisaki had even heard her, had even touched her food.
At this point, Honami was begging. She couldn’t stand to imagine her client as a young girl malnourished, yet constantly pushing herself to the upper limit with no avail. Sure, the fact that her resolve was so strong is amazing, spectacular even. But what was the point in going forward if you’re being killed in the process anyway? What life would you have left at the end to enjoy your success?
Oblivion was never the destined path for anyone with a true heart.
Honami rushes to her door. Cleaning didn’t matter, she simply tossed them to dry without wiping anything. The floor of the living room was already cleaned during the simmering time, she didn't have to care about anywhere else in the house.
Please, Yoisaki.
In the end, she could never push her wishes onto anyone. She could only pray. Pray unto any god willing to listen to her selfish request. Honami’s heart felt ballistic, like her blood rushed as fast as her worry.
She steps forward to the door.
There, sat still and patient was a bowl of beef stew, alongside it a perfectly placed fork and spoon.
It was like a painting. So pristine, so perfect, from the ingredients’ placement to the arrangement of the cutlery.
But if her work was so beautiful, why was staring at it making her feel so hopeless?
Honami collapses to the ground. Her head had spun enough and her heart had pushed far enough.
Enough. She’s had enough.
Was it her food that was so disgusting, she would not even bear to look at it?
Was it that she was too forceful in wanting to help her, and that Yoisaki had grown sick of her?
Was it that she had completely given up on living, and had decided to spend her life rotting away to dust?
Honami puts her back onto the door so easy to open with a simple twist, yet so large and impenetrable. Her knees are stained a dark black and she hugs them to fend off the winter air.
Aah, what was I doing this whole time?
Maybe...she could just leave her alone, just this once. Honami stays still, her fingers trembling with an unknown emotion. Or, an emotion she didn’t want to recognise just yet.
She lays her eyes on the small bowl next to her.
Thoughtless, she picks it up and begins eating.
Honami had been starving that day. In order to make it in time for lunch, she needed to get up and buy groceries early, then head over to the Yoisaki Household to leave time for it to simmer.
The more time a stew simmers, the more filling it was meant to be.
Meant to be.
The stew was cold. Thin. It tasted like water with chunks of nothing inside of them.
Maybe it was the winter air, maybe it was her imperfection...she never knew how cold a stew could be.
Ah, this was what I was making you eat this entire time...
She continues spooning the meal, bit by bit, somehow pushed to finish the bowl. But with each scoop she winced. The cold burned her throat, the meat felt hard and stale, the potatoes were either too big or too small.
In the end, she couldn’t tell if it was the weather, or her tears that froze the soup to such a state.
I'm so sorry...
Honami was a kindhearted, warm but frail girl. She was strong and knows to keep going, but crumples through the attacks of emotion and thought. She was taken advantage through friendship, and felt destroyed through loss.
But at the same time, having such weak defense would also invite emotions and thoughts in.
In a moment, by her back, Honami felt just a small tinge of warmth, along with the slow scraping of metal. She could her a slow crunch of...apple, she thought, and the munching of something.
Right, the apple pie disappeared when she had come to her home today. But, was she eating the pie after a whole day of waiting?
Having left to freeze in the weather, it was likely to have gone completely stale.
Yet she persists to eat it.
If that was so...Honami would drink her cold stew as well, alongside her.
The wooden barrier between them seemed to crumble slowly as a gentle heat went into Honami’s back. Sure, her tongue was frozen solid, but so was Yoisaki’s. Still, so long as her back stayed warm, she felt as if she could push through her cold stew.
She had failed to share warmth like she wished, now that both their meals felt so chilled. In truth, eating was now painful, as if consuming poison willingly to fill their stomachs.
But this cold was also something precious Honami had felt needed to be treasured. This was the same cold Yoisaki had been enduring the entire time. The same cold Yoisaki had fought through, broke down in, pushed and pushed through in her own room.
This was Yoisaki’s...Yoisaki Kanade’s emotions.
She had long finished her bowl, and the other side’s scraping had long stopped. Yet, the warmth that stuck to their backs lingered on and on, even if they had stopped feeding on the cold. Honami’s heart rests momentarily for this one dream-like moment.
After washing the bowl, she wiped off every other plate and pot, along with the rest of the household. Cold weather can invite some risky conditions for a home, and it was left to her to maintain the house funded by Yoisaki’s father and mother. It was her form of tribute to them, even if they didn’t know a ‘Mochizuki Honami’ had existed in the world. She hopes her mother could see her working hard.
Returning to the hallway to clean, Honami spots a small plate with a small fork next to it. On it lay crumbs and bits of syrup and accompanying the whole set was a small note with a black piece of writing on it. It was shaky and rough, but Honami could tell the time taken to write these few words.
“Thank you for the apple pie. It was delicious.”
“No need to lie, it was cold, wasn’t it?” A giggle spreads through the room.
Right, she enjoyed the meal. Her heart jumps up and down almost literally.
But until the day they can both eat on the same table, at the same time, she would not stop cooking for Yoisaki.
But for now, this was more than good enough.