What the?
“Breakfast
is served.”
Why is
Kuri-chan working in the kitchen? Kyoko bit her lower lip. Oh
well, it's Kuri-chan. Count on her to do something strange.
They were the
only guests at the resort, so Kuri-chan pushed a trolley with the
entire breakfast for them all. If it could be called breakfast.
Somehow part of it looked eerily like Urufu's midsummer's disaster
earlier that summer. There was no miso soup and none of the pickled
vegetables she had gotten used to during their time here. Even rice
was lacking.
Across the
table Urufu had broken down in laughter and sat bent over the table
coughing his his mirth out while Yukio slapped his back in that
friendly and all too hard way that only boys did.
“Kuri-chan,
what is this?” Kyoko asked.
“Me and the
owner seems to share an interest in cooking, so I helped out.”
A glimmer of a
hesitation had passed over Kuri-chan's face during the explanation,
and Kyoko suspected there was more to it than she said. Kyoko decided
it wasn't worth probing. “OK, that's how it was done, but
what is it?”
Kuri-chan
started dumping plates onto the table. “Cereal, milk and sour milk,
bread and butter, ham, pickled gherkins, cheese, boiled eggs and; Ulf
listen up, pickled herring!”
That only had
him bury his nose even deeper into the table.
Kyoko noted
that the trolley had a lower section as well. She nodded at it and
shot Kuri-chan a questioning look.
“Later,”
Kuri-chan said and emptied the last of the plates onto the table. She
sat on her knees and pulled put three metal containers from the lower
section and placed them on top. “Bacon, baked beans and scrambled
eggs.” She waved and ran for the kitchen.
Am I
supposed to eat this in the morning? Frowning Kyoko started
loading some of the least offensive items onto her plate. She glanced
over the table where Urufu expertly filled his bowl with cereals and
poured milk into it. After that he stacked his plate with everything
cold apart from one boiled egg.
Funny way to
eat breakfast, Kyoko thought and began copying him.
“Salt or
sour?” Yukio asked and pointed at the herring.
“Mmm, all
sour. Don't usually serve the salty kind for breakfast,” Urufu
answered between two mouthfuls.
Kyoko saw how
both Ryu and Noriko carefully selected whatever they deemed edible,
and then Kuri-chan returned with two pitchers filled with juice.
“Fill up,”
she said. “This is your last decent meal this side of Tokyo.”
“Decent?”
Ryu murmured, and his sister agreed.
“Shut up
silly!”
“Meal?”
Noriko pondered, and her brother agreed.
“You're
hopeless, both of you.”
“This side
of Tokyo?” Urufu shot in.
“Eh, yeah,
sorry about that. Our tickets won't leave us enough time to eat in
Nagoya. We have less than fifteen minutes.”
“Fill up it
is then,” Urufu said and started shovelling food into his mouth.
Yukio followed
his example, and faced with the prospect and an entire day's travel
on an empty stomach Kyoko reluctantly grabbed a bowl, filled it with
cereals and milk and started eating for real.
With that
silence settled over the table. It was only broken by Kuri-chan
taking her seat and loading food onto her plates. Even the Wakayamas
were unusually subdued and made their best to try the odd food out.
When they were
done Kyoko quickly made for her room and the last of her luggage.
Everyone else's already stood in the lobby, and when she came down
again two taxi cars already waited on the courtyard.
It was with
mixed feelings she climbed into one. The time at the hotel had seen
her grow. She didn't know how, but she knew that she had definitely
taken an important step towards adulthood. And she had become closer
to Yukio.
She waved to
the staff through the window, and shortly after the taxi started
rolling she could only see the courtyard through the back window, and
after that, not at all.
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