Memories... The Yakitori Shop on the Corner of 2nd Street

It seems that human memory is truly vague and prone to being rewritten in ways that are convenient for us.
This is knowledge I read in a book on brain science, but since passing forty, I have come to feel the meaning of those words in my own skin.
Happy memories shine brighter, while events that should have been painful pass through the throat before one knows it, fading away like a story from a distant land.

However, even in the fog of such ambiguous memories, there are moments when a sensation revives as vividly as if it were yesterday.
It might be a scent, a sound, or a faint taste reproduced on the tongue.
For me, it is always the smell of smoke at dusk and the savory aroma of burning sauce.
As if lured by that scent, my consciousness is always pulled back to that corner on 2nd Street.
To that place which became a vacant lot long ago, and where a stylish coin laundry now stands.

✅ 50-yen Chicken Skin Skewer

I remember it being the summer of my first year of junior high school.
Without yet understanding the meaning of the word 'puberty,' I only felt a strange sense of exhilaration mixed with pride and anxiety, as if I had taken just one step up the stairs to adulthood.
The concrete proof of that exhilaration was the 3,000 yen allowance I began receiving from my parents every month.

My body, having joined a sports club, was in a constant state of starvation.
The sound of the bell ending class was the gong signaling the start of my battle with hunger.
By the time I whipped my exhausted body and pedaled my bicycle home from practice, my stomach was playing an orchestra.
I knew that white rice prepared by my mother was waiting in the rice cooker at home, but my mother, who worked constantly, always returned home late at night.
How to survive until then.
That was the most important issue for me at the time.

A budget of 3,000 yen was far too meager to satisfy the appetite of a growing boy.
If I bought one 100-yen sweet bun, I could get a certain amount of satisfaction.
But that felt somehow lacking.
I didn't want a sweet bun; I wanted something more, something that would resonate to the core of my body, something salty and savory.

My savior was that old yakitori shop on the corner of 2nd Street.
The owner was a man in his fifties, silent, with deep wrinkles always etched into his brow.
The hair peeking out from his white twisted headband was almost entirely white, and his face, likely smoked by oil and fumes, looked like well-worn leather.
Whether customers came or not, the man would silently skewer the meat and silently roll it over the charcoal fire.

Among the items on the menu, the only one I could order without hesitation was the 'chicken skin skewer'.
Fifty yen each.
The fat dripping from the chicken skin, sizzling as it hit the charcoal, sent up white smoke and a savory aroma.
The man would casually dip the grilled skewer into the pot of sauce, skillfully place it on a plate, and bluntly hand it over, saying, 'Here you go.'
There was no wasted movement in that series of actions.

I would have those two 50-yen treasures carefully wrapped in oil paper and hurry home.
Then, I would open the lid of the still-warm rice cooker, scoop steaming white rice into a bowl, and place the chicken skin skewers on top.
The rice soaked in the sweet and salty sauce, the texture of the crispy grilled skin, and the flavor of the fat that oozed out the more I chewed.
I would wash it down into my stomach as if it were a drink.
It was not just an act to satisfy hunger.
It was an important ritual that filled the silence of that dim kitchen while I waited alone for my mother to return.

✅ I, at 50 years old

Time passed, and I turned fifty.
I am now at an age where I often furrow my brow, just like that man.
Before I knew it, the yakitori shop on the corner of 2nd Street had disappeared, becoming a landscape that existed only in my memory.
The boy I was would never have dreamed that I would become a yakitori shop owner in the future.

Life is an interesting thing.
After graduating from university and working in a completely different industry for a time, I ended up at this small yakitori shop with only a counter after many twists and turns.
When I decided to quit my job and open a shop, those around me were amazed at my recklessness, but I had a strange conviction inside me.
Why yakitori?
I didn't have a clear answer myself, but perhaps the smell of that smoke and the warmth of the charcoal fire had been smoldering somewhere in my heart all along.

Thankfully, my shop has become reasonably popular.
I am particular about the ingredients, the salt, and I put my heart into every single skewer.
I am especially fussy about the chicken skin.
How to drain the fat, the grilling time, how to coat it with sauce.
Customers sometimes praise me, saying, 'The chicken skin here is exquisite.'
Every time they do, I speak to that silent man in my heart.
'I'm not even fit to hold a candle to you,' I say.

People have various forms of youth.
Bittersweet romance, the sweat and tears dedicated to club activities, nights spent talking with friends until dawn.
But for me, my youth was that smoke, the man's back, and a 50-yen chicken skin skewer.
I was poor, but I was fulfilled.
It was simple, but it was rich. I can't help but feel that way.

Now that I have succeeded, am I truly fulfilled?
I have a family, the shop is doing well, and I live a life without any wants.
Even so, sometimes I yearn intensely for that unbearable hunger of those days and the absolute sense of happiness that a single skewer could provide.
The lost landscape and that taste I can never experience again.
Perhaps that is my origin and my eternal longing.

✅ Summary

There is an elderly regular who shows his face at my shop two or three times a week.
He must be in his late seventies.
He always sits quietly in the corner of the counter, ordering two go of hot sake and, invariably, a few skewers of yakitori.
He doesn't talk much, just drinks his sake slowly, squinting as he savors the skewers.

The item that old man particularly likes to order is the chicken skin skewer.
Every time he takes a bite of the chicken skin skewer I grilled, he lets out a soft sigh and looks off into the distance.
I hadn't paid much attention to it, assuming he was just an old man who loved yakitori.

One evening, when the shop had quieted down a bit, the old man said quietly,
'The chicken skin you grill has a nostalgic taste.' I just replied, 'Thank you.'
I thought it was just a common compliment from a customer.
However, the old man continued,
'A long time ago, I also ran a small shop on the corner of 2nd Street. It reminds me of the taste from those days. The method is different, but I feel like the roots are the same.'

The moment I heard those words, I felt as if the blood in my body was flowing in reverse.
No way.
Could such a miracle really happen?
Is this old man smiling quietly in front of me that same person? The silent, seemingly grumpy man who was the very essence of my youth?

I stare intently at his face.
Indeed, I feel like there is a resemblance.
But the man in my memories had a much sterner face, and above all, thirty-plus years of time can change a person's face significantly.

“Is that so? Speaking of the corner of 2-chome...” I started to say, then clamped my mouth shut.
I must not pry any further.
What if I have the wrong person? And if it were him, and I confirmed it, wouldn't something change?

An additional order comes from the old man.
“I'll have two chicken skins, salted.”
I replied, “Coming right up,” and with trembling hands, I grabbed the skewers and placed them over the charcoal fire.

The taste of youth, I whisper in my heart.
That taste of youth that once saved me. Now, I am recreating that taste and serving it to the person who might be its creator.
We are quietly facing each other through the skewers, in the relationship of shopkeeper and customer.

Perhaps there is no need to confirm.
Sometimes, it is richer to leave the truth unknown.
I want to leave this miraculous encounter as it is.
Whether or not what connects me to this old man is truly that fifty-yen coin from that day, it doesn't matter; right now, this person is eating the skewers I grilled and calling them 'nostalgic'.
Isn't that fact enough?

I said nothing, simply focusing on grilling the chicken skin to the perfect level of saltiness.
As the charcoal crackled and popped, beyond the rising smoke, the old man's wrinkled face seemed to soften with satisfaction.

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