They probably saw me as a convenient fool—someone willing to marry off their nearly reclusive daughter.
They must have been at their wits’ end with her slow and unproductive ways.
I had married a completely useless woman.
When I finished getting ready and returned to the living room, breakfast still wasn’t ready.
Honestly, for the morning after a move, convenience store bread and coffee would have been fine.
“My mom gave me some nukadoko [fermented rice bran for pickling vegetables]. I really wanted you to try my homemade pickles, Rentarō-san.”
So that’s what had been in her oddly heavy carry-on luggage yesterday.
And at the station, she had been beaming as she bought vegetables.
All the women I had dated—Akane included—were the type who suited Italian or French cuisine.
And I, too, preferred Italian and French food.
I had zero interest in nukadoko.
“I’ll start setting the table with whatever’s ready,” I said.
At this rate, I was going to be late for work.
I rummaged through the boxes, unwrapping dishes from their newspaper wrapping, and quickly washed them.
“These bowls are cute, right?” Otoha said as she sliced pickles at her usual clatter pace.
“They’re a matching meoto-jawan [traditional ‘husband and wife’ rice bowls]. I fell in love with them two years ago and bought them, even though I had no plans to marry at the time. I thought I’d never get to use the husband’s bowl, but now someone is finally here to use it. Isn’t that wonderful?”
She talked to the rice bowl.
This woman talks to dishes.
I had no words.
Silently, I continued washing the bowls and plates.
If she had woken up at five, she should have at least washed the necessary dishes beforehand.
Had she been talking to the cutting board and knife too?
That’s probably why everything took her so damn long.
Frustrated thoughts kept piling up in my mind, one after another.
“I’ll serve the rice,” she said, rolling up her sleeves.
She opened the rice cooker and, with the seriousness of a contestant in a high-stakes cooking competition, carefully scooped rice into the bowls.
I watched from behind, my brow furrowing.
“…Do you really need to be that precise? Can’t you just scoop it quickly and be done with it?”
“Yes. I have to be careful not to crush the rice grains, and I need to consider the balance with the cute rice bowl. The rice was grown with such care, and the bowl was crafted with such dedication—I want to present them at their very best.”
“…”
I never should have asked.
I understood her even less now.
To Otoha, even a single grain of rice and a ceramic bowl had a soul.
I might be reaching my limit.
Maybe I should just tell her I want to annul the marriage.
But…
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