My Best Friend Ran Away from Home and Suddenly Showed Up! #4 8 Minutes Walk from Kamakura Station, Vacancy Available
Thinking that saying anything more would be like talking to a brick wall, Ms. Kurabayashi began talking about her daughter who works as a pastry chef in France. She's in her mid-forties. She isn't married either. Lately, the theme of her LINE messages with her daughter has been French pastries. She says there are so many tongue-twisting words that she can't remember them, so she struggles to type them out... or something like that. I nodded along at appropriate intervals.
"Fondant au chocolat, you know, that thing that looks like a steamed bun but has chocolate sauce inside. If I can't say it properly, my daughter makes fun of me. So, I memorized it as 'plenty of chocolate sauce' (shokora-sauce ga fundan). And then—"
As I was receiving a lecture on how to remember the names of French pastries, my smartphone rang in my pants pocket.
"Oh, excuse me for a moment."
I went back to the living room and looked at the screen. It displayed "Mikiko." It's rare for her to call me suddenly when we usually use LINE.
"What's wrong?"
"What's wrong, you ask, so suddenly. How about saying hello first?"
Unlike Ms. Kurabayashi, a low voice replied.
"Sorry, sorry. Okay then, hello. What on earth is the matter?"
Mikiko Hayashi, who lives in Fukui, has been my friend since college.
Mikiko calls me her "best friend." On LINE, she types it as "soul friend."
I don't know if our relationship can be called best friends or soul friends. But I don't dislike Mikiko. It's very comfortable when we're together. If she does something hopeless, I can say "You're an idiot" without any hesitation. I don't have any anxiety that if I say this, she'll hate me or stop being my friend. I sometimes think that if I had a sister, it might feel like this.
"What's wrong, what's right, nothing. I'm coming over there tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Again, so suddenly. Don't decide things on your own."
"Decide or not, they say 'strike while the iron is hot,' right?"
"What on earth did you decide to do?"
"Run away from home."
"Again..."
Mikiko's "running away from home" is nothing new. Since she had an arranged marriage at twenty-six and moved to Fukui, she has run away every time she had a conflict with her husband or mother-in-law. Nearby capsule hotels, hot springs, Disneyland... This house has also been used as a temporary shelter several times.
"How many times is this? Last time, I think—"
A slightly irritated voice cut me off, saying "Anyway."
"I've already decided. It's a long story, but anyway, I'm coming over. Tomorrow, or actually, now is fine too, right? I can get there in an hour."
"Huh?"
"Actually..."
Mikiko grinned, probably. That was the timing.
"I'm already in Tokyo. I wandered around all day yesterday. Knowing you, Kara, you're probably still not working, right?"
"I am working. I'm running a cafe, properly."
"Just take a day off. So, two o'clock. You'll come pick me up, right?"
"No way."
"No way? That's mean. You mean don't come?"
"No, it's not that I don't want you to come, it's that picking you up is a hassle. You've been to my place many times, so you know, right? It's an eight-minute walk from Kamakura Station, go straight down Komachi-dori, you'll see a red torii gate, and turn left there..."
"Got it, got it. The red torii gate is the landmark. See you later then."
From the sliding window, I can see Ms. Kurabayashi's round back as she drinks her coffee.
"Today, the home cafe is temporarily closed. But Mikiko, this is way too sudden."
When I realized it, I had said it out loud.
◇ ◇ ◇
Click here for the series ↓
8 Minutes Walk from Kamakura Station, Vacancy Available
