Chapter 47

It had been a long time since he had dreamed about the previous restaurant.

Yukitsuna, the ryotei (high-class Japanese restaurant).

For Shinji, it was the workplace where he had been working since graduating from high school.

It was a well-known establishment, but the times were not good.

After the previous president passed away, the eldest son who took over could not adapt to the changing circumstances.

New customers did not increase, and the regulars gradually withdrew.

Once the gears went wrong, everything gradually fell apart.

Shinji worked at such a place.

He beat the octopus given by Reinhold with a daikon radish.

Doing this made it much softer than just salting it.

It was something he learned from his master in Yukitsuna's kitchen.

Today, he planned to serve it as a simmered dish in the restaurant.

The cold autumn in the ancient city would welcome dishes that go well with hot sake.

It was around the time when Shizuno usually would have arrived, but today she was still not in sight.

Last night, he had teased her a bit too much about the pudding.

They had eventually settled on buying a slightly better pudding from a cake shop in the shopping district, but knowing Shizuno...

After a night's reflection, the fight probably seemed silly and embarrassing.

This hasn't changed since the time when Shizuno was the daughter of the president of Yukitsuna.

Having finished beating the octopus sufficiently, he next checked the taste of the dashi (soup stock) he had prepared.

Recently, he had been adjusting the taste of the dashi slightly every day based on the customers' reactions.

He wanted to create a izakaya (Japanese pub) that would blend into the ancient city.

While the restaurant was bustling with regulars now, he feared that one day they might get tired of it.

This fear was always present in Shinji's mind.

He did not want to repeat the fate of Yukitsuna.

For that, he wanted a firm pillar within himself.

The things he learned at Yukitsuna and the preferences of the people in the ancient city.

Shinji continued to search for a single pillar that would connect the two.

While making notes about the dashi in his university notebook, he heard a sound from the back door.

Shizuno must have finally arrived.

He thought about cracking a joke, but it was only the day after yesterday.

He checked the pudding in the refrigerator again and waited for Shizuno.

However, the sound from the back door continued, which was strange.

Shizuno, who had been trained to become the mistress of the ryotei, was impeccable in managing the store. It was unlikely that she had forgotten her key.

So, the person at the back door was probably not Shizuno.

Shinji remembered a customer who had visited the restaurant the night before.

Pharmacist Ingrid.

Her apprentice, Kamilla, had said that Ingrid being a witch was a joke, but those words stuck with him.

"Only necessary people can enter."

Upon reflection, it was strange that no sake shop, mail delivery, or newspaper salespeople had ever entered the store through the back door.

If they tried to force their way in, they would trip on the bellows or even fall.

Regardless, he had to confirm the identity of the person at the back door.

He bowed to the kamidana (Shinto altar) and headed to the back, remembering to retrieve the talisman from the previous day.

He had no memory of receiving it, but it was placed in front of the kamidana this morning. Strange things do happen.

He put the talisman in his pocket and slightly opened the back door.

"Hey, it's been a while."

Shinji's mouth remained open for a while.

Could this be possible?

There stood Tawara, the head chef of Yukitsuna, whom Shinji had always respected.

When invited in, Tawara squinted and looked around the store.

"Not bad, not bad," he muttered.

Wearing an old jacket and with a buzz cut, Tawara looked almost the same as when Shinji had left the restaurant a year and a half ago. However, he seemed to have shrunk slightly in height, though it might have been an illusion.

"Head Chef, what happened to the restaurant?"

"Hey, just call me Tawara. You're the owner of your own place now. I left the store to Koyamada today."

"Is it okay to leave it to Koyamada?"

When Shinji was at the restaurant, the head chef had almost never left the store, even on his days off. He would create some errands to check on the store. Shinji still remembered this.

Koyamada, who was second in command, was skilled but had a habit of cutting corners. The fact that Tawara had left the store to Koyamada suggested that something had changed.

"Well, the thing is, there are no reservations today."

"No reservations at all?"

"That's right. It was a secret pride of the previous president that the reservations never stopped."

The situation at Yukitsuna seemed to be worse than Shinji had imagined.

To revive the struggling restaurant, they had even considered a drastic plan to bring in the son of the bank's vice president as Shizuno's husband.

Without Shizuno, this outcome was perhaps inevitable.

"Let's put aside such serious matters. Is it still too early for business? Can you serve me a beer?"

"Sure, right away."

He took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and opened it.

While he usually served beer from the tap to other customers, Tawara only drank bottled beer.

As he poured the beer into the glass, a smile appeared on Tawara's stern face.

"Never thought I'd be drinking beer with your serving again. It was worth the trip."

"How did you find this place?"

"The young president and the head mistress both knew about it. They used a detective agency to find you. But apparently, even when they got close, they couldn't bring themselves to peek in."

Shinji responded with an ambiguous smile and served a small dish of appetizers.

It was a vinegar dish with octopus and wakame seaweed.

He planned to serve it tonight, and it tasted quite good.

"Hmm, delicious. The octopus is good."

"Yes, I found a new supplier."

"Indeed. To be able to serve such octopus in an izakaya during a time of rising prices is quite impressive."

"Thank you."

Although he had left the restaurant without permission, it made him incredibly happy to receive such praise.

Tawara, with a foamy mustache, drained the glass and finished the remaining vinegar dish.

"Tawara, what would you like to order today?"

"Well, of course. I want you to serve me the dish you most want to serve me today, Shinji."