Cooking Lesson (1)
The stream wrapped up in spectacular fashion after setting a new record of a full twenty-four viewers.
At this rate, hitting a hundred might not be as hard as I'd thought.
I had a good feeling about it. I could do this!
That, however, had nothing to do with my League of Legends placements, which went down in complete flames.
With a wretched record of two wins and eight losses, I got dumped straight into Bronze IV.
"...I'll climb right back out of League if I just play a little!"
I had absolutely no basis for that, of course.
Still, there was no way I couldn't even escape Bronze, right? I'd spent a decent stretch of time living in Gold.
For someone unemployed, I'd had a surprisingly full day. I'd gotten up in the morning, sat through a meeting with an illustrator about stream work, and the moment I got home I'd devoted myself to the job for a full three hours.
The "job," of course, being nothing but playing League the entire time.
Strictly speaking I hadn't earned a single cent, but this was all an investment in the future. Yeah.
Anyway, the important thing was that today's schedule wasn't over yet.
There was one more very important appointment this evening.
Learning to cook!
It was time to go meet Master next door.
Ding-dong.
When I'd decided to learn cooking from Master, we'd made plans to meet this evening. We hadn't settled on an exact time, but the sun was going down and I was hungry, so this counted as evening.
I went straight to the apartment next door and pressed the doorbell.
Normally, the polite thing would have been to message ahead and let them know I was coming. I didn't. Why?
Because I'd never gotten his number.
We'd both forgotten, I guess. And it was next door anyway.
So I headed over, rang the bell, and soon there was an answer from inside.
"Who is it? Daddy said not to open the door for people I don't know!"
"Nashi-chan. It's watashi!"
"Ah, it's Big Bro!"
Fortunately Nashi-chan seemed to remember my voice, because she dropped her guard at once and opened the door.
Ah—as for why I call her Nashi-chan: if I called her Hana-chan, we'd get mixed up. So I use her last name instead. Bae is nashi in Japanese, hence Nashi-chan. For the record, that's the pear you eat, not a boat floating on the ocean.
I'd already gotten pretty close with little Hana, who shared my name. She was so outgoing that she struck up conversation on her own even without me approaching first, so we'd become friends right away yesterday, chatting about all sorts of things the first time we met.
The one problem, if you could call it that, was that she kept calling me Big Bro.
Honestly, I'd jumped when I first heard that title. I mean, I used to be a guy. I'd even gotten really anxious, wondering if she'd somehow figured it out, even if I didn't know how. Just because I'd gotten a weird ability didn't mean other people couldn't have one too.
"Big Bro!"
"Konbanwa, Nashi-chan."
After a discreet check yesterday, it didn't seem like she knew I'd been a man. As for why she still called me Big Bro... I had no idea. Did it even mean anything in particular?
Anyway, I smiled back at little Hana, who was beaming at me.
"Where's Master?"
"Mm. Daddy isn't home yet."
"He's running pretty late."
Leaving a little kid alone this late wasn't great. Seven years old was still young enough that she hadn't even started elementary school—naturally an age that still needed a parent's care.
But it wouldn't be easy. I hadn't asked directly, but I could roughly guess. There was no trace of an adult woman anywhere in the house, and the family photo in the living room only showed the two of them. In other words, for some reason, little Hana's mother wasn't in the picture.
Master was raising little Hana on his own. Working a job while raising a child alone had to be incredibly hard.
"I heard from Daddy this morning! You said you were gonna learn cooking from Daddy!"
"That's right. Watashi is going to become the greatest chef."
"Then you came to learn cooking today too? Come in!"
Little Hana waved me in like she owned the place.
Was it okay to just walk in without Master's permission? I hesitated a moment, then nodded and followed her inside. Being alone is lonely, after all—I should keep her company until Master got home.
More than anything, I knew. I knew that kind of childhood loneliness.
Bae Hyunsoo, twenty-nine, office worker.
He was currently on his way home after work. He had never once done overtime or stayed late. Fortunately the company understood his situation as a single father, so it had never become a real problem, but even so, getting off around six was typical.
Of course he knew that was just how it was as a salaryman. But it weighed on Hyunsoo that he had never once been able to pick Hana up from kindergarten. And it probably wouldn't be possible going forward, either. Hana was already seven; she would graduate kindergarten this year and start elementary school. Fortunately both the kindergarten and the elementary school were close enough that Hana walking alone wouldn't be a huge issue.
But the loneliness that never quite left, sitting heavy in his chest, was apparently something he couldn't do anything about.
"Haa..."
Hyunsoo shook off the gloomy thoughts and headed home. The hour was already a crimson evening, the sunset fully dyed. Hana would be waiting for him at home again today, all by herself, wouldn't she?
He needed to hurry in and make dinner. He was thinking about what to feed her today when he realized he'd already arrived.
But the moment he went to open the door, he noticed noisy voices coming from inside.
...What?
Was she watching TV? Hyunsoo figured that was probably it and opened the door.
"Hana. Daddy's home."
Normally Hana would have come running at the sound of the door lock. Today she didn't appear. Instead, a peal of laughter from further in—a little girl's bright, ringing laugh, so clear and high it lifted the spirits of anyone who heard it.
Puzzled by the unusual turn of events, Hyunsoo took off his shoes and headed for the living room. And realized a guest had come to his home.
"Ah..."
"Ah, konbanwa! Master!"
The woman bowing politely at the waist in greeting was the neighbor from next door he'd met yesterday. Yukino.
"What brings you here...?"
"Huh? You said you'd teach me today!"
"Ah."
Hyunsoo belatedly recalled the conversation he'd had with Yukino yesterday. That absurd request that he take her as a disciple. It had turned out she wanted him to teach her cooking. If he remembered right, she wanted to try cooking for herself now that she was living on her own, but when it came down to it she couldn't even bring herself to start.
Swept up in the moment, he'd agreed, and somehow they'd decided to start cooking lessons today.
"I'll do my very best! Master!"
"Don't call me Master. I told you to call me Teacher."
"Ah. But Master sounds better..."
Just as he'd faintly sensed yesterday, she was no ordinary woman. Was it simply a cultural difference based on nationality?
Yukino, who'd been stroking her chin in serious thought, soon held up her fingers.
"Then please pick one of the three."
"...Pardon?"
"Shifu. Master. Sabu-nim."
"......"
All of them were weird.
Helpfully, Yukino even explained what each one meant.
"Shifu is Japanese for Master. You already know Master, and Sabu-nim is, well, Sabu-nim. Now! Please decide!"
"...Does it have to be one of those three?"
"Daddy! I like Master!"
Hyunsoo's thoughts were different. Whatever else, Master was absolutely out. He didn't know how the Japanese typically used the word, but as far as Hyunsoo knew, master meant owner—lord.
A Japanese woman from next door calling him Master? A man who had a daughter, no less...?
This was seriously dangerous. It was painfully obvious how other people would see it. So whatever else, Master was absolutely not happening.
"...Just call me Sabu-nim."
"Hai. Sabu-nim!"
"Waa! Then what about me? What about me?!"
"Nashi-chan is Sabu-nim's daughter, so... hmm. Young lady?"
What kind of stream-of-consciousness conversation was this? Hyunsoo waved his hands to forcibly cut off the dizzying exchange.
"Alright, enough nonsense. Let's get the situation straight."
"I'm a young lady!"
"...So you want to learn cooking, is that it?"
"Hai. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."
It was a situation he hadn't thought about at all, so he was a little flustered, but Hyunsoo managed to recover his composure.
"Alright. But I can't teach you anything amazing. I'm not a chef to begin with."
"Watashi wants to learn cooking for living alone."
"Sounds good. Cooking for living alone. Then we'll start the lesson today."
They'd already agreed, and she was the neighbor next door, so Hyunsoo decided to help as seriously as he could.
And looking at Hana smiling as he'd walked in, he realized something.
The slightly strange Japanese woman standing in front of him might be a great help to Hana.