「CHAPTER 5」
“…I"m hungry…”
He opened his eyes as his stomach made a miserable grumbling noise. As he
stared up at the ceiling, eyes half open, he noticed that something smelled good. The
aroma of grilled fish and miso soup increased his appet.i.te. No wonder he felt hungry.
Still half-asleep, Yos.h.i.+no slowly got up and left the dimly lit bedroom. Then he went
towards the coffee table, which was set up with breakfast, plopped down on the floor, and
grabbed chopsticks. But the most important thing was not in front of him.
“Rice…”
As his gaze wandered around searching for his favorite food, Hatori appeared
from the kitchen along with a bowl of rice.
“Got up by yourself, huh. I was just about to wake you. Here"s the rice.”
“Mm…”
He took the bowl of rice as if it were a matter of course and began to eat.
“You forgot to say it.”
“Itadakimasu…”
As he moved his chopsticks back and forth, his head began to clear up. After
swallowing the food in his mouth, he noticed Hatori who was making green tea.
“Oh, Tori. Morning.”
“Morning. So you finally woke up, huh. Oh, careful not to spill anything,” Hatori
referred to the shaky way Yos.h.i.+no used his chopsticks, since he was still a little halfasleep.
Yos.h.i.+no obediently nodded and searched for the soy sauce to cover his omelet
with. It was Yos.h.i.+no"s routine to put soy sauce on the sweet omelet.
“Kay. …Oh, Tori, pa.s.s me that.”
“Mhm,” Hatori silently handed over the soy sauce bottle, which stood in front of
him.
“Thank you.”
“Chew your food.”
“"Kay.”
They continued eating in silence for sometime, but then Hatori suddenly 
muttered, “…Let"s do it better this time.”
“Eh? Do what?”
It was clear in Hatori"s head, but Yos.h.i.+no couldn"t understand what he was talking
about from such limited context.
“Your birthday. Let"s go somewhere to eat.”
“You already congratulated me. You even gave me a present and everything, so
don"t worry about it.”
“It"s not good enough. Yanase surprised you with cake and wine, right?”
“How do you know that!?”
It wasn"t wine, but champagne, even so, Yos.h.i.+no was surprised that he knew how
the situation had played out. A deep furrow on Hatori"s forehead appeared, perhaps he
realized that the answer to his question was correct.
“……….”
“But it wasn"t a big deal or anything. He just got me a small cake, and the people
at the hotel brought champagne as part of their service.”
“I want to celebrate properly anyway. If you don"t want to eat out, then we can eat
at my place. I"ll make your favorite food.”
“Why can"t we at my place?”
Having Hatori cook in Yos.h.i.+no"s own home was most comfortable for him. Hatori
had all the necessary kitchen utensils here, so there wasn"t a problem.
“We can"t.”
“Why?”
“We absolutely can"t.”
For some reason Hatori was very uncompromising. Yos.h.i.+no was flexible because
it didn"t really matter to him all that much.
“A- alright then. Let"s go out to eat somewhere. Last time I went out to eat was
that time we had our meeting in that café,” he said looking at the calendar, which lay on
top of the table. He flipped the page to check the next month"s schedule.
“Umm…I"m busy with work for a while so…how about April 17th?”
“Is that okay? That"s the day of the deadline.”
Hearing Yos.h.i.+no"s suggestion, Hatori gave him a puzzled look. It looked like he 
wanted to say “Are you serious?”
“It"s fine. The deadline is the 16th, isn"t it? Even if worst comes to worst, I"ll
definitely be free the night of the 17th.”
“Is it really okay?”
Obviously, Hatori was suspecting that Yos.h.i.+no was going to miss the deadline,
but it was more like he lacked faith in him than be angry with him. Yos.h.i.+no somewhat
didn"t trust himself also, but having Hatori lack faith in him was really annoying.
“You"re so untrusting. Seriously, I said it"s okay!”
“Alright, I"ll take your word for it. I"ll make a restaurant reservation. What do you
want to eat?”
He looked dissatisfied, but it seemed that he had accepted that for now.
“Let"s see…Every once in a while I"ll eat a French full course meal!”
He wanted to go to a place where you couldn"t go in alone. He had a hunch that he
might be able to get some ideas for his next story by going to a high-cla.s.s restaurant.
“Alright. I"ll make a reservation for the 17th at 7 o"clock, so make sure you keep
to the deadline.”
“You"re so pushy! You can"t trust me that much?”
He raised his voice at Hatori, angry at being reminded over and over again, but
Hatori cooly answered, “Ask yourself.”
“…Well, that"s what I think! Now then, I have to do work once I get home. There
aren"t any problems with the storyboard, right?”
He purposefully changed the subject since he knew that he couldn"t win this
argument. Hatori"s expression still looked somehow uneasy, but Yos.h.i.+no pretended not to
notice and continued talking about work.