Searching for a Salad That Won't Make You Lonely <Episode 4>

At lunch time, <Green Thumb> is sometimes bustling with people ranging from young shop staff to veterans.
I once heard from Mr. Kato at <Wakaizumi>, the pickle shop in the department store basement, that they bring all sorts of consultations to Yotsuba-san, and that she must be incredibly busy with things other than just flowers.

You see, Yotsuba-san has a hidden mysterious power. There was a time when Baba-san from the women's clothing department casually filled out a Numbers 3 lottery ticket with a number Yotsuba-san had guessed at random, and it actually won. Ever since then, the women in the department who heard the rumor that 'Yotsuba-san's predictions come true!' started visiting her.

That became a legend in its own right.
My own employment was something close to that.

But Yotsuba-san herself feels bitter about it, and now, when she realizes a request is of that nature, she treats it a bit coldly.

She would lament quite intensely, saying, 'Everyone just relies on others, it's so annoying, I hate it. It's not that lottery tickets are bad. I buy them sometimes too. I'm saying, why don't you try it yourself? That's much more interesting. Trusting people... I'm not Aiko Gibo.' After rattling that off, she pressed me, 'Shio-chan, you don't know her, do you? Aiko Gibo. Do you know who Aiko Gibo is?'

Because Yotsuba-san had an expression like she had frozen in place, I replied that I had laughed to death watching the drama 'Extremely Inappropriate!'. I added that I did know Aiko Gibo and that I would have liked to meet her.

She scolded me, saying, 'Shio-chan, please, stop saying things like "laughed to death."

We twins, having lost our parents, were passed around among mean relatives.

The homes of those mean relatives were truly like washbasins. They were golden washbasins in households that had nothing but money. They pretended not to know what pain was, and they only accepted us with expressions that showed they thought of us as burdens. At worst, we were kicked out of those houses in a matter of weeks.

Even when I didn't want to go home, this department store was my playground, so each time, I would grow attached to Yotsuba-san.

That is why, when she hugged me while I was at the very bottom of my sorrow back then and asked, 'Shio-chan, why don't you try working here?', it was, in a sense, close to a divine revelation.

I still think so even now. I feel like everyone has a day where, if it hadn't been for that one day, they wonder how they would have spent the rest of their lives.

For me, that was the day I listened to Yotsuba-san's love for plants while having a small rice ball stuffed into my mouth. I can say without a doubt that it was. Considering that my heart was only moved by Yotsuba-san's words at that time, I still believe it was a great miracle.

Making the place where she, who knows everything about <Tenjinya Department Store>, works my workplace was like finding a Buddha in hell.

In a way, it was also a safety net. The outside world was still scary to me. Having grown up around here, I didn't want to leave this town, and I wanted to live surrounded by people I knew. Perhaps you could say it was because I didn't want to get hurt.

Before the interview, she secretly told me about the personality of Chief Kuroki of the deli shop <Vegild>. According to what I heard, he was a moderately unpleasant person. When I met him, he was indeed quite eccentric.

After the interview, he brought me to the storefront. He started talking while looking over the floor. He said, 'Shibuya-san, when you've been standing here for nearly 20 years like I have, you sort of understand how people live their lives.' The intuition about what a customer is about to buy is, well, it's accurate. Chief Kuroki then approached me and whispered in a small voice, 'Look at that lady over there holding the purple umbrella, the one who's hesitating. She's holding a pack of salmon in her left hand right now, but I bet she's going to put that fillet back and choose the miso-marinated black cod instead.'
I didn't believe him, but I cast my gaze in that direction anyway.
In front of the <Uomasu> shop, that lady, who indeed looked like she was hesitating, put the salmon fillet back and chose the miso-marinated black cod in just a few seconds.

I thought, 'Isn't this staged?', but considering that even this eccentric person has been working here every day without being late, I felt like I couldn't say anything, and I realized that I, who had had a fair amount of time where I didn't work, was affirming this person somewhere inside.

And then Chief Kuroki said this, while perfectly shedding the eccentricity he had shown until now.

Shibuya-san, I tell everyone who works here, whether they are full-time employees or part-timers. I want you to provide customer service that can make the customers happy. That is truly difficult. That is the only mission. Because the customer comes first. You often hear that eating is happiness. But we, who sell that food, are the connectors who link the dishes. I think about things like that, and I want you to think about them too. I'll just say that much. Other than that, be cheerful. That's all you need to do. If you can smile, then smile.

That was quite a heavy mission. But I wanted to become a worker who could feel that someday.

As I was thinking about such things, I arrived at the basement floor.

At that time of day, the department store basement hadn't turned into a crowd yet, and it didn't smell like families yet.
I didn't like the smell of families.
I don't really understand what a family is. I can't even feel that we are blood-related. The only person I felt was blood-related was my younger brother, Nanao. But now he lives across the sea, somewhere far away.

Even though we aren't family, there are times when I can think of Yotsuba-san as family. I can't explain it well, but maybe it's because she was the first person to hug us.

When I was little, I once planned to ride the mini-merry-go-round on the roof with my younger brother, Nanao, but a sudden rainstorm that wasn't in the weather forecast started to fall.

Nanao said "darn it," but still told me, "Let's ride it anyway," and pulled my small hand. Even though we were the same age, he was like an older brother to me.

At that time, an attendant in a raincoat stopped us, saying, "Sorry, you two. It's started to rain, you see. Come back again when it's sunny."
Nanao had a personality where he would bet everything on a single chance. He would never think that there would be a next time. Seeing him so genuinely frustrated as his wish crumbled away, I was vividly shown how we could be so different despite being twins.

And that was also a source of pride for me.

Nanao was looking at the wet merry-go-round.
The horses are crying.
Just as I thought he muttered that they were crying with their whole bodies, large tears were also streaming down Nanao's cheeks.

And it was Yotsuba-san, still young at the time, who hugged Nanao, burying his small body completely in her embrace.

Nanao buried his face near her stomach, slowly raised his gaze, realized that Yotsuba-san was there, and cried again.