Ichiban Yakiniku.
All-you-can-eat Kuroge Wagyu!
Domestic pork!
From 2,680 yen per person (before tax)!
“Onii… this restaurant you mentioned is…?”
While nervously glancing back from time to time, afraid that Harutaki’s far-too-obvious tailing might get noticed by Onii, Chouko followed Sato down the street. It was not until he suddenly stopped that she reacted and looked ahead.
The first thing that entered her view was a customer-attracting poster based on a juicy slab of meat, stamped with bold black lettering. The advertisement was pasted on both sides of a lighted sign, giving off a warm, toasted glow as night fell.
“Yeah, this is the yakiniku place. Supposedly it’s been open since the last century. Don’t let the small storefront fool you, its reputation’s always been great… and the prices are really reasonable too.”
Sato nodded as he answered her question.
He had eaten here twice before with senpais like Obara and Yamashita, along with their girlfriends. Remembering how everyone had left satisfied back then, he felt Chouko would probably like it too.
Back then, Obara-senpai’s girlfriend had said that eating yakiniku was a truly blissful experience.
He thought to himself that if Chouko did not like it, she would say so, right?
Just like when they were kids. From time to time, Chouko would complain to him about being forced to eat strange vegetables or wild greens at home.
But recalling the stiff smile and uneasy tone she had used when refusing popcorn in the theater, Sato hesitated for a moment, then asked again.
“Um… is there anything you feel like eating, Chouko? As long as it’s not too expensive.”
Even if they split the bill, he could only afford around 5,000 yen at most.
“I’m fine with anything. Didn’t I say it before? I’ll leave it all up to you, Onii.”
“Then… shall we go in? It’s not crowded yet, so we probably won’t have to wait long.”
Seeing that her expression seemed normal, Sato quietly let out a breath of relief and stepped inside first.
“Yakiniku, huh…”
Following him across the threshold and into the shop, Chouko was hit by the rich smell of grilled meat and could not help but let out a bitter smile in her heart.
Good thing I didn’t wear the outfit Harutaki likes. Otherwise, it’d definitely reek of smoke or grilled meat.
It was not that she had anything against yakiniku. On the contrary, she would even be happy to have it once in a while.
What disappointed her was that from beginning to end, Onii had never really put thought into her preferences.
Something a senpai recommended, somewhere he himself had eaten and liked. Even when he asked her opinion, it felt more like a last resort.
They had spent so much time together as children, yet it was as if he did not know her tastes at all, with no opinions of his own.
“Hah…”
Still, Chouko softly exhaled. Eating yakiniku should not cause any more trouble, right?
After all, with this kind of food, the restaurant only provided the ingredients and seasoning. Everything else could be adjusted to personal preference.
……
Sizzle.
Fat screamed under the intense heat. Combined with the charcoal-black surface of the meat, the curled slab looked like a demon crawling up from hell.
Staring at the piece of Wagyu, both Chouko and Sato were dumbfounded.
“O-Onii… you don’t know how to grill meat?”
“Uh… I usually just buy half-price bento at night…”
Sato tried to pick up the charcoal-like Wagyu with the tongs, but then…
Szzzt.
As fat dripped onto the fire below, orange flames suddenly shot up, startling him so badly that he dropped the tongs with a clang onto the grill.
Seeing this, Chouko could not help laughing.
“Onii, you’re way too hopeless.”
Harutaki could cook dishes on par with high-end restaurants, yet Onii could not even grill simple yakiniku and was scared by a burst of flame.
“It looked really easy when I watched senpai grill it before… and you’re laughing at me. Fine, why don’t you try it?”
Picking up the tongs with his chopsticks, Sato shoved them toward Chouko in embarrassment, forcing the mocking girl to face the challenge herself.
“I’ll try then. What’s so hard about it? Watch closely, Onii.”
It’s just grilling meat.
Even though Chouko had studied Japanese cuisine since elementary school, something as simple as yakiniku, with no complicated steps or techniques, should be nothing to her.
Sizzle.
She went straight to work, placing a slice of Wagyu in the center of the grill, eyes fixed on the bright red meat as flames licked at it and the surface quickly turned brown.
“Like this, and then-”
About a minute later, just as she was about to smugly show off her skills, fat dripped down with a pop, causing the flames to leap up again, exactly like what had happened to Sato earlier.
“Th-this is fine…”
Unfazed by fire thanks to her cooking experience, Chouko quickly rescued the meat with the tongs. What she got back, however, was only half a slice.
Half in the tongs, the other half stubbornly stuck to the grill.
“H-half is still edible, right?”
Under Onii's speechless gaze, she dipped the half slice into sauce, blew on it until it cooled a bit, then popped it into her mouth.
Chew.
Chew.
Based on her experience with fine dining, the moment the Wagyu touched her tongue, Chouko knew she had failed.
It was clearly overcooked. Even Wagyu, treated like this, ended up tougher and worse than ordinary beef.
“Beef’s too easy to overcook. Let’s try pork.”
Clinging to hope, Chouko placed a slice of pork belly onto the grill. Following her usual cooking instincts, she waited for the surface to brown.
Pork, unlike beef, had to be fully cooked. After three minutes, flipping it five or six times, she finally saw blackened marks on the surface. She immediately lifted it and placed it onto Sato’s plate.
“Try it, Onii.”
“Gulp…”
Swallowing nervously, Sato blew on the pork, dipped it in sauce, and put it in his mouth under Chouko’s gaze.
This taste…
“Pff.”
He chewed twice, then spat it out, earning a sharp glare from Chouko. Flustered, he hurriedly explained.
“The outside’s burnt, but the inside’s still kind of raw…”
“Then neither of us can grill it properly. What are we supposed to do?”
Chouko puffed out her cheeks and leaned back against her chair, feeling drained just looking at the table full of bright red raw meat.
She could pan-fry fish or prepare several courses of kaiseki without issue, but yakiniku like this… whenever she ate it before, the chef had always grilled it and served it ready. She had never needed to do it herself.
Ask a staff member for help?
Having a stranger hover over them while they ate felt embarrassing, and she did not want to trouble the staff either. She could not bring herself to ask.
As for asking for tips and techniques…
She did not believe that with Onii’s clumsiness, merely listening to instructions would let him grill good meat with a stopwatch.
In the end, she would probably still be the one grilling for both of them.
Just thinking about the hassle ahead, she gave up on asking.
So how were they supposed to eat this meal?
There was no way Harutaki would come help again, right?
Onii was sitting right across from her.
“Excuse me, Shihou-san? What a coincidence.”
Just as Chouko was at a loss, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind her.
“Huh?”
Turning around with a stiff smile, Chouko saw Harutaki standing there, looking helpless.
“Um… and you are?”
Sato stared at the handsome, unmistakably popular guy in front of him, an ominous feeling rising in his chest.
A friend of Chouko’s?
He had never heard her mention having a close male friend.
“You must be Sato-senpai. I’m Shihou’s classmate. Nice to meet you, and please take care of me.”
“I-I’m Sato. Nice to meet you too.”
Faced with Harutaki’s extended right hand, Sato froze for a moment before hurriedly shaking it, feeling that the face somehow looked very familiar.
If he was Chouko’s classmate, had he seen him at school before?
“I came to Shinjuku to hang out and got hungry, so I wanted yakiniku. I saw this place while passing by and came in, but the staff said there’d be a wait of over thirty minutes. Still, what a coincidence. I noticed there are exactly two empty seats here. Would you mind sharing a table?”
Harutaki, who had just witnessed their entire grilling disaster through the window outside, added smoothly,
“I’m pretty good at grilling meat. If Sato-senpai and Shihou don’t mind, I can help grill together.”
“Th-this…”
Sato looked helplessly at Chouko, while Chouko glared at Harutaki in unease. But when she followed his gaze back to the table and saw the charcoal-like Wagyu, her resistance collapsed.
“…I’m fine with it.”
“Then we’ll be in your care, um… kouhai?”
“Hoshikawa. Hoshikawa Harutaki.”
“Hoshikawa, huh… wait, Hoshikawa?!”
As he watched Harutaki pull out a chair and sit down, Sato shuddered, the chair legs screeching as he shifted sideways. Luckily, everyone around them was chatting and eating loudly, so no one noticed.
“You’re that scumbag Hoshikawa?! You already have a girlfriend, so why are you harassing Chouko?”
He immediately turned to Chouko, questioning her in a panic while desperately lowering his voice.
“And didn’t I tell you to stay away from people like him? Is he bothering you? Has he done anything inappropriate? Do you want me to-”
“That’s enough, Onii! You-”
Chouko bit her lower lip, about to defend Harutaki, but Harutaki, sitting beside Sato, cut in first.
“Please wait, Sato-senpai. Talking badly about someone behind their back is already rude. Now you’re slandering my character and reputation to my face. Don’t you think that’s disrespectful?”
“Disrespectful? With a jerk like you who uses his popular-guy status to toy with girls, what manners are there to talk about?”
Just thinking that Chouko had been classmates with this scumbag for a month made Sato feel sick.
From their exchange just now, it was obvious that the relationship between this infamous playboy and Chouko was far more than just classmates.
“Oh? This is our first time meeting, right, Sato-senpai? Why are you so sure I’m a scumbag?”
“There are posts about it on the anonymous school forum. Everyone says so.”
Recalling what he had heard from members of other clubs, Sato felt far less pressure facing this supposedly popular guy, even finding the nerve to stand his ground and argue back.
“Everyone? Who exactly is ‘everyone’? Could you at least say who they were? The posts on the forum are basically all slander, right? After what happened last month blew up like that, as someone who blindly believed rumors, didn’t you do any self-reflection at all, senpai?”
“W-Who would even remember who said what? If you’ve been spread around as a famous scumbag, that just means you act like one. The one who should be reflecting is you, Hoshikawa.”
“Eh? Then by that logic, gloomy loners like Sato-senpai must eat lunch hiding in the bathroom too, and probably have some weird fetishes. Like secretly taking photos up girls’ skirts…”
“Even if I’m a gloomy loner, I wouldn’t do something like that! I only focus on studying… The things you’ve done, Hoshikawa, they’re all backed by evidence on the forum.”
“Evidence? You mean Nogami asking me to help her buy drinks? Or me asking my friend Sae, who also likes sports, to help apply for pool access? Or are you talking about those defamatory rumors posted by people who made things up?”
Under Harutaki’s rapid-fire questions, Sato faltered, unable to get a single word out.
Watching the scene unfold, Chouko felt an inexplicable sense of pleasure well up inside her.
Even though this was exactly the kind of moment when she should step in and stop things.
Even though no matter who was being scolded, she should have felt uncomfortable.
And yet… why?
Why did seeing Onii getting verbally cornered by Harutaki make her feel excited? Why was she actually hoping Harutaki would keep lecturing that idiot Onii?
Still, she told herself, this was Onii’s fault to begin with. He’d slandered Harutaki without bothering to check the facts. Getting scolded was only what he deserved.
“You see a girl walking with an older man and immediately decide she’s doing paid dating. You see someone with a good personality and good looks and label him a flashy extrovert, lumping him together with lowlife delinquents who bully the weak, or with scum who toy with girls’ feelings and bodies. Do you really think that’s fair?”
Sizzle.
As he continued to scold Sato without holding back, Harutaki reached under the table, adjusted the heat, and smoothly laid fresh slices of raw meat across the grill in one practiced motion.
Even though Harutaki didn’t say anything, just watching him work made Sato feel like a complete idiot for having struggled earlier to grill even a single slice properly.
“Sato-senpai, do you honestly think this kind of self-righteous labeling is reasonable? Or polite? At the very least, did you ever hear Shihou’s side of the story? Without even listening, you decided I was a scumbag harassing her. Do you really think that’s appropriate?”
Granted, he technically was a “scumbag” who was “harassing” Shihou.
But admitting that was out of the question.
He was openly and honestly pursuing a single girl he liked. What was wrong with that?
As he spoke, he flipped the wagyu, bringing the perfectly seared, Maillard-browned underside to the top. After waiting a moment, he removed the meat in order, two slices per person, eight in total, then immediately covered the grill again with fresh cuts.
“Try it in a bit.”
“Thank you…”
Chouko picked up the grilled meat with her chopsticks, carefully examining how it differed from what she’d cooked earlier.
“Th-Thank you…”
Staring at the perfectly portioned meat on his plate, Sato, already shaken, suddenly found himself thinking that the infamous scumbag of the rumors was very different from what he had imagined.
Maybe… Hoshikawa was actually a good guy?
“Hey, Sato-senpai. After slandering Harutaki like that without any proof, you should apologize to him, shouldn’t you?”
Ayaka spoke sharply.
In her heart, Sato had already been permanently blacklisted.
She’d felt a bit of sympathy for this guy whose childhood friend had been taken by her own idiot brother. But slandering Harutaki right in front of her crossed the line.
A plain-looking guy who dressed sloppily, left Shihou-senpai hanging for nearly a year, then took her out only for ramen and barbecue. What right did he have to criticize Harutaki?
Not to mention, Shihou-senpai had told her herself. If not for her brother, she probably would have gone alone to a karaoke mixer and ended up falling victim to some real scum. Because this so-called childhood friend had kept ignoring her, neglecting her, and even after Shihou-senpai fled her family to Tokyo, he felt no responsibility to look after her.
Someone who didn’t care about a girl’s feelings at all. Who, exactly, was the one playing with girls’ emotions?
Average, self-important guys were the worst.
If she hadn’t been worried about embarrassing Shihou-senpai, Ayaka would have slammed the table and confronted him already.
“I… I’m sorry, Hoshikawa… I shouldn’t have believed rumors and slandered you…”
Catching the disappointed look in Chouko’s eyes, Sato clenched his fists, teeth grinding. A moment later, it was as if all his strength drained away. He turned stiffly and bowed to Harutaki.
Then he bowed to Ayaka as well.
“And to Hoshikawa’s girlfriend, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…”
“Onii, Ayaka-chan is Harutaki’s little sister.”
Chouko interrupted him gently.
Sister…?
Sato looked at Harutaki and Ayaka, but couldn’t find any resemblance. Aside from the fact that both of them were top-tier in looks, physique, and presence among extroverts.
“I’m Hoshikawa Ayaka, Harutaki’s sister. Nice to meet you, Sato-senpai. I’ve heard about you from Shihou-senpai, but let’s skip any future meetings or guidance.”
Ayaka turned her cold gaze on him without mercy.
“I’m sorry… I really am…”
Taking his sister out during a holiday, excellent at grilling meat, polite, and not disliked by Chouko.
By every measure, it was obvious that he had jumped to conclusions and done something incredibly rude.
Badmouthing someone’s brother right in front of their sister…
Just imagining someone speaking badly about him to Chouko made bitterness flood his chest.
“All right. Since Sato-senpai has apologized and everything’s been cleared up, let’s enjoy the barbecue properly. It’s all-you-can-eat. Eating too little would be a waste.”
Harutaki flipped the meat as he spoke, deliberately easing the atmosphere. After all, this situation also involved Shihou’s feelings and reputation. He couldn’t ignore that.
“Delicious…”
Chouko dipped the third slice of wagyu Harutaki had given her into sauce, blew on it a few times, then stuffed it into her mouth without ceremony.
The aroma burst forth, melting the instant it touched her tongue.
Excess fat had rendered away under the high heat, leaving the seven-tenths-done center glowing a vivid pink. Even just looking at it from the side made her appetite surge, wanting more.
Western food, Chinese cuisine, and now even barbecue at a professional level. Why was he good at everything?
Watching Harutaki casually discuss literary classics with Onii, she complained inwardly. This guy really was unfair.
He really was “harassing” her.
A scumbag so gentle and attentive it was impossible to resist.
And yet, all of it was something she accepted willingly.
The bad guy tempting her into “betrayal” and “corruption”…
She couldn’t help wondering. Was this seemingly flawless Harutaki really without a single flaw?
“Kobayashi’s life was certainly full of hardship and sorrow, but those occasional playful touches make you feel his childlike heart was never lost, and his longing for beauty remained.”
“Mm, yeah. Compared to ‘In my hometown, the grass can be made into cakes,’ I actually can’t forget the sorrow and confusion in ‘My hometown, wherever I brush against it, there are thorny flowers.’”
Sato grew more animated as he spoke, completely forgetting his earlier prejudice. These few minutes of conversation felt more enjoyable than an entire day of walking around with Chouko.
Their interests were worlds apart. Aside from childhood memories, they barely shared topics.
Like the haiku he brought up at lunch. Chouko thought about what grass cakes tasted like, whether they were good to eat. He focused on the nostalgia and longing for home within the poem.
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