Pathway to Japanese Literature

The vegetables were washed by the elder sister Ochiyo, drained in a bamboo draining basket, and placed atop the cutting board at the center of the room.

For an amateur household, it was a remarkably well-equipped kitchen. However, it seemed slightly cramped. The young cooking instructor Besshiro leaned back in his chair, ceased smoking, and listened intently to the noises outside. Outside, the early winter wind howled through the town's clamor. It was a lively yet desolate sound—something like an urban winter wind.

The younger sister Okinu had followed her elder sister step by step like a child, peering at each of her actions, but now stood by the cutting board gazing intently at the vegetables in the bamboo basket. The vegetables were small, their forms resembling napa cabbages shrunk to just slightly longer than a middle finger. Yet their charmingly plump torsos and air of preciousness made one think they belonged to grass shoots—something akin to butterbur sprouts. The water droplets strained through the bamboo basket’s weave—which had spread across the still-new cutting board’s surface in patterns like damp wood grain—had begun losing momentum. Meanwhile Ochiyo—who had been timidly fetching what seemed like cooking tools and seasoning containers from shelves, cupboards, and drawers to arrange atop the cutting board—grew slightly uneasy seeing the cooking instructor remain motionless even after she finished laying everything out. She signaled with her eyes for her sister—who could address the instructor more readily than she—to inform him all preparations were complete. The younger sister pretended not to notice.

The young cooking instructor threw his cigarette butt into the wastebasket and stood up. He glared sharply at the cutting board. He pulled out two or three tools he deemed unnecessary and silently flung them to the far side of the cutting board.

Then, he transferred the vegetables from the bamboo draining basket into a white porcelain bowl. His arrogant gestures—so affected they seemed deliberately stiffened—also appeared rough and careless. With his left hand, the instructor poised a spoon above the vegetables in the bowl. He added salt, pepper, and mustard. He added vinegar. Then, when it came time to stir the vinegar in the spoon with the tines of the fork he’d lifted in his right hand, he suddenly grew fastidious. In the narrow spoon, the tines of the fork moved like a sewing machine. It was so nimbly precise it felt almost underhanded, making one’s armpits prickle with unease. Endless ripples like crepe wrinkles rose across the vinegar's surface.

The younger sister Okinu stifled a laugh at his contradiction. Besshiro kept his hands moving while shooting a sharp sidelong glare.

The elder sister's blood ran cold. The vinegar from the spoon was poured evenly over the vegetables in the bowl.

The young cooking instructor once again positioned a silver spoon horizontally over the bowl, then poured olive oil from a decanter this time. “One part vinegar to three parts oil.”

Having declared this like a solemn proclamation, when he sprinkled three spoonfuls of olive oil over the vegetables with his spoon, the instructor had once again adopted an arrogant, careless, and cold demeanor. The method of dressing mixed dishes must, much like women’s makeup, preserve the freshness of the base ingredients as much as possible. An overdressed mixture is like a face caked with white powder—it lacks any vital energy.

“The principle applies equally to mixing batter for fried foods.” Having declared this, Besshiro vigorously tossed the vegetables in the bowl as if demonstrating his own assertion. Yet the way they were uniformly agitated from beneath still revealed his seasoned expertise.

The cluster of endive stems in the white porcelain bowl bore an oily sheen that spread across their surfaces, sharply deflecting the sunlight streaming through the glass. The pungent aroma of spiced vinegar burned the pale yellow hue of the vegetables into one’s vision. It was early winter, yet carried a crisp freshness as if early spring had already arrived. Besshiro switched the spoon for a knife this time and roughly cut through the cluster of vegetables still in the bowl. He peered at a fragment of appropriately sized portion, stabbed it decisively with a fork, and

“Go on, eat it.” He thrust it out before the elder sister. His manner resembled less an invitation to taste food than a blade brandished in threat by some stage villain.

Ochiyo recoiled in flustered hesitation and turned her face toward her younger sister in a yielding manner. “Oh… Well then—” “Here.”

Besshiro moved the fork toward the younger sister’s chest. Okinu bobbed her larynx deep within her smooth neck. Through long, smoky eyelashes, she fixed her gaze on the fork; the moment her pupils’ focus aligned with the fragment, she extended small, rounded fingertips to pluck the endive. Okinu’s small, slightly prominent nose—its seed-shaped nostrils—dilated with appetite.

The endive fragment was carefully crushed within Okinu’s mouth. In the moment the acrid bitterness became salivary fluid and was swallowed, ah—the deliciousness that emptied her heart set her breast aflutter. What was vexing was how a faint bitterness lingered in her mouth afterward, like the shadow of a crescent moon. This faint bitterness lightly wiped away the lingering memory of the meat from lunch she had just eaten, transforming it into a fond recollection. While producing this effect, the endive fragment itself dissolved so softly in the mouth that she felt no burden from having eaten it. Not even what could be called residue remained.

“Though it’s vexing, it’s delicious, you know.”

Okinu pressed the corner of her saliva-moistened lips with the back of her hand and said. “Tasty, right? That’s why I say you should complain after eating!”

Besshiro’s small eyes gleamed triumphantly. “The girl who’s always finding fault with others doesn’t have a single word to say about how delicious the food I made is." “Well? Have you surrendered?”

Besshiro pressed his attack and declared.

Okinu gathered both sleeves to her chest and spun around to turn her back on the young cooking instructor, “I’ll concede defeat—for now,” she responded with a laugh.

Seeing that the exchange between the young cooking instructor—normally a comrade-in-arms in verbal sparring—and her younger sister had concluded without escalating into further noisy arguments, nor hardening into any grudge-bearing contest of wills, Ochiyo felt relieved. Feeling relieved, a desire to try tasting it welled up even within this elder sister. “Well then, maybe I’ll try a bite too.” As if discussing someone else’s affair, she gently extended her fingertips to the bowl, picked up a small fragment, and ate it.

“Oh, it really is delicious, isn’t it?” With vacant eyes, as she wiped her mouth with the edge of her cooking apron, Ochiyo’s face reddened slightly. Okinu peered over her sister’s shoulder at the endive bowl, “Mr. Besshiro, keep that for me—I’ll eat it at dinner.” she said.

Besshiro, who had taken out a cigarette, upon hearing this, grabbed the bowl and—with the cigarette still held in his mouth—stretched his arm to dump it into the wastebasket. “Oh!”

“Cuisine too is musical—do you think the same deliciousness could last until evening? It peaks in an instant and vanishes in an instant. In that lies the very quality that makes cuisine the highest art.”

Okinu gazed at the early spring hue of the endives still peeking out from the wastebasket while— “How spiteful of you, Besshiro!” she said with vexed resignation. “I’ll tell Father on you,” she glared at the young cooking instructor. Ochiyo too found herself unable to remain silent; placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder, she glared at the young cooking instructor. Under the four-eyed glare of the young ladies, Besshiro—as if genuinely dazzled—fluttered his small eyes shut and lowered them. His demeanor grew ever more arrogant; stiffening his shoulders, he struck a match to light the cigarette in his mouth.

“If you want to eat it so badly, make it yourselves tonight and eat it. But that imitation can’t be a perfect replica of what’s here now. Infuse it with your own artistic flair—even in cuisine, originality is crucial.”

He threw the paper bag still containing vegetables inside onto the cutting board before Okinu.

It was utterly absurd how this self-taught cooking instructor—with no particular academic background—constantly concocted pretentious theories and affected artistic airs at every turn. Yet there was no denying this young man devoted both body and soul to food. The sight of him in his youthful frame wearing a woman’s work sash while adjusting bran levels in a pickling tub defied replication even by request.

Was he born with this extraordinary culinary tenacity, or was there some deliberate vendetta driving him to cling so desperately to this instinct? In Okinu’s heart resurfaced fragments of words Besshiro had casually discarded. “The world changes and people come and go, but human gluttony remains constant.” “Nothing’s more honest than food—you know instantly if it’s tasty or foul.” “Deliciousness is a mystery”—though this could apply to the allure between humanity’s other instincts and their objects, when Besshiro declared it, he made this single aspect alone seem to encompass it all. Could this young man have been lopsided by temperament—his other temperaments, senses, and talents having their buds plucked off, forcing his life to grow solely toward the realm of flavor? When demonstrating cooking, Besshiro never performed any taste-testing. His entire body had become his tongue’s proxy—through the sequence of culinary motions, their flow and rhythm alone, he could apparently discern a dish’s success or failure in flavor. A deformed genius singled out by appetite alone, destined to contribute to human culture. They say geniuses are generally lopsided beings. Come to think of it, even this comely culinary youth possessed a foolish beauty—one reminiscent of unglazed pottery and artificial flowers alike. Perhaps his carnal desires had become so fixated on culinary appetite that they left no room for ordinary human compassion.

With Okinu—the younger sister who was normally the most talkative—now immersed in such thoughts, no formal connection remained between the three of them: Besshiro did nothing but exhale cigarette smoke and tilt back in his chair repeatedly, while Ochiyo, as if unable to bear the discomfort of remaining frozen in place, furtively tidied up the cooking tools.

A gust of wind sent sand and dust rattling against the windowpane, the sound piercing the silence. “Even for a genius…” Okinu muttered as if to herself. “For a man to be so good at cooking—what a vulgar genius you are.” She said this while staring at Besshiro’s face. Then, as if expelling something pent-up, she burst out laughing and continued laughing. Besshiro glared at Okinu in irritation but seemed to swallow whatever had welled up inside him.

“Well, time to head home.”

He stood up dejectedly, took his hat from the stove's corner, and turned toward the elder sister who had risen to see him off. "Since I won't be meeting your father today, please convey this properly."

With that, he exited through the servants’ entrance.

Walking through the early winter town where crunching grit could be felt between his shoe soles and the unyielding earth, Besshiro began making his way home. Though the distance was considerable between Shiba's Atagodai—where the Araki family's Keisetsukan stood, to which he went to teach cooking to the sisters—and Nakabashi Hirokoji in Kyobashi Ward where his home was located, he walked slowly without approaching the nearest tram line. One reason was that even tram fare counted as an expense to be spared given his circumstances, though he also had no urgent business requiring haste. Another reason lay in his desire to pass through an peculiar alleyway known as Tunnel Alley.

It was likely a remnant of the feverish rush to import Western goods during the early Meiji period.

A broad brick tunnel spanned the town's narrow alleyways, atop which people appeared to live as if in a two-story house. From horizontal windows carved into walls beneath tiled roofs, children's kimonos hung out to dry on bamboo poles could occasionally be glimpsed.

The mouse-colored tile roofs, the ocher walls, the crimson bricks of the tunnel—all smoked and bleached until their primary colors had faded entirely—Besshiro always thought that if translated into a flavor on the tongue, they would taste like black bread made from rye. And facing this hollow shell of luxury stripped of its essence, the small two-story tenement houses clinging to both sides left and right—with their dull, sticky appearance—he also thought them reminiscent of pickled thrush intestines. It wasn’t that Besshiro forcibly translated the transient ambiance into flavors to savor, but when he came here, the scents of rye and nuts permeating even thrush intestines arose on their own accord. The large ginkgo tree of Sakumacho grazed the tenements, looking like a broom.

He entered this side street, and in the interval between passing through the tunnel, the alley ending, and its curve into a slightly wider avenue, could briefly forget his turbulent past, his burning ambitions, the unmanageable world, and his current vexing circumstances—slipping into hazy calm. It was a merging of two sensations: the serenity of existing at the absolute bottom of a world with no further depths to sink, and his soul being seized by a nobility divorced from reality—these opposing forces neutralizing into equilibrium. Besshiro considered whether this could be called wabi—or something akin to it. During his passage through this alleyway, he became aware of himself turning into his true self—so completely that it manifested in his very bearing. If he were to turn back and pass through the tunnel once more, could he immerse himself again in that hazy consciousness? No—it proved impossible. The profound impact could only be experienced once. Even if he turned back and wandered through Tunnel Alley, it was merely a street that felt like a shoddy imitation—filthily jumbled with Japanese and Western elements. Therefore, he only passed through once a day—on either his way to or from teaching at Keisetsukan.

Crossing Dobashi Bridge and starting to walk into Nishi-Naka-dori, scattered lights began appearing in the town. Besshiro walked the brief distance from there to his home in Nakabashi Hirokoji along an unnaturally winding path. He would emerge onto main thoroughfares only to veer back into side streets, then dive into narrow alleyways. At every strategic point he peered into, there were food establishments of varying sizes. As he passed these storefronts, he sharply scrutinized what specialty items each shop had prepared that evening to attract customers.

At one shop, from behind crested oil-paper screens, red crabs and large clams were displayed out front. At another shop, inside the display window, snipe skewered on grilled sticks lay arranged on a plate alongside red turnips and parsley.

“Everywhere—here too—they’re still churning out the same hackneyed fare.” “Nothing but wisdom-starved fools.”

Besshiro muttered this with an expression both vexed and smug. And if it were him—in his mind, he would comb through the seasonal food almanac for unexpectedly ideal ingredients. When they caught sight of him, voices called out from within the food stalls’ houses. “Ah, Master! Do come in!” Yet their greetings rang either as obligatory courtesies or hollow formalities. The people at every shop were worn down by his relentless critiques.

“Even if you invite me in, there’s nothing here I’d want to eat.” “Well, that’s only to be expected from a humble curtained food stall like ours, you see.” There were many shopfronts he passed by after such exchanges. The habit of confronting people with heightened aggression to avoid having his lack of education exposed had become ingrained in him. He knew that this would soon become the very reason people avoided him, yet he found himself powerless to change it. He made his lonely way home.

As his foot touched the drainage plank in the narrow alley between the main street's kimono shop and tatami matting wholesaler, faint sounds hinted at small objects bouncing across its surface. When he looked up at the darkened night sky, his old hat's brim shifted loose again, letting tiny cold pellets brush against his face. "Is it hailing already?" In that instant, the full shape of his present circumstances rose in his chest—a plain wife foisted upon him by his aunt, a child to support, this poverty-stricken existence. Thinking how within three more steps he'd have to confront this reality firsthand, Besshiro felt not resignation but fury surging through his breast. Suddenly there floated before him the semblance of Okinu—younger sister of Keisetsukan. A creature who always wore contempt like a mask and spoke with cutting directness, yet who made him dream of a young poem—textured like fine skin, supple yet lonely, rhythmically elevated beyond transcription into words—such was her mystifying nature.

"Why can't I be with Okinu, whom I love so much, and live in a wealthy mansion where I can lead the life I desire? They implant this desire to love in humans, yet refuse to grant what it craves directly. I don't know who did it, but whoever created this world is a detestable fellow." Because he crossed the threshold bearing that resentment, his voice when entering the house carried a spiteful edge.

“Hey.” “Did you get the beer ready?” “You didn’t forget.” Facing their child beneath the five-candlepower electric light, his wife Itsuko—who had been feeding him one mouthful for every two she took herself—swallowed what was in her mouth flusteredly as if to hide it. Covering her mouth with her sleeve, she came running out.

“Welcome home, sir.” “Because Atsushi was crying so much from hunger, I was feeding him—I didn’t notice you’d returned. Forgive me.” Even as she spoke, she worked the half-swallowed morsel lodged between her back teeth and cheek toward her throat. “I’m asking if you got the beer ready.” “Yes yes.”

Itsuko slung Atsushi—still gripping his chopsticks—diagonally onto her back, then clattered her geta across the hail-pelted gutter boards as she headed to the liquor store on Higashi-Naka-dori to fetch beer.

With a rigid expression pushed to that wretched mental precipice where one more nudge would make him either erupt in anger or let tears fall, Besshiro sat cross-legged before the chabudai. On the chabudai lay scattered dishes and small bowls, rice spilling sideways from an abandoned bowl. The pitiful scene of devastation dimly lit by the five-candlepower bulb appeared like traces left when some creature—desperately devouring meager scraps to sustain itself—had been driven off by an intruder mid-meal.

“Outrageous.”

Besshiro spat out these words and crossed his arms.

The Ichikakusō came into being when Araki Keisetsu—Chinese classics scholar and father of Okinu and her sister—found his Keisetsukan shop on Nakabashi’s main street, which sold art books and rubbings, too cramped; seizing the opportunity when a house became available across this alleyway, he purchased it, renovated it, and began using it as his residence. It even had a modest garden, with its twelve-tatami main hall featuring a tokonoma crafted from imported hardwood that exuded refined elegance. Afterward, Keisetsu’s Chinese-Japanese dictionary became a success, and through his financial acumen, he gradually grew wealthy. He transferred ownership of the main street shop and built a mansion on a scenic overlook at Shiba Atagoyama, relocating the Keisetsukan name there. The alleyway’s Ichikakusō had remained shuttered for some time until Besshiro ingratiated himself with Keisetsu and became something like a retainer of the Araki family—prompting Keisetsu to rent him this Ichikakusō along with a meager monthly stipend. However, there were conditions attached. To maintain thorough cleanliness; to seldom use the main hall— Thus, the Besshiro couple made their regular dwelling in the six-tatami room adjoining the main hall. When the couple had a child in the autumn of the year before last, Keisetsu grimaced in displeasure at the prospect of the house becoming soiled.

"With that paltry stipend he provides, he’s putting on such airs." "I’ll have to give him a good scare one of these days."

Even so, he couldn't suddenly come up with any real solution. The more he thought about such things, the more it only made the scene before him appear wretched.

Besshiro clicked his tongue and turned his head back toward the low dining table. The dilated stomach he was pressing with folded arms gurgled near his solar plexus. "What the hell have those bastards been eating?"

From atop the shallow dish, simmered sweet potatoes clung with grains of rice as they tumbled out.

"What’s this? They’re stuffing their faces with sweet potatoes." "Pathetic bastards." Though Besshiro’s face showed utter contempt, he—who normally permitted his family only cheap food—seemed somewhat reassured to see them adhering to his edict. "Hmph, hmph, hmph. Let’s see how they’re cooking these potatoes." "I’ll try one myself." He shook off the rice grains clinging to the sweet potato and tossed it into his mouth, which had snapped open. It was surprisingly well-cooked.

“This is damn tasty—I’d been underestimating this.” Besshiro made an indescribably awkward face. Itsuko returned with hail accumulated behind her bangs. With the hand not supporting the child, she held out two beer bottles she had brought.

“For the time being,I've brought this much.The rest will be delivered bythe errand boy,I'vebeentold.”

Besshiro had regularly instructed his wife: when you intend to drink one bottle of beer, you must prepare three more bottles afterward. Only with such preparation could he first attain the mindset of boundlessness and boldness needed to drink that single bottle in one go. If one intended to drink a single bottle yet had only that solitary bottle, concern over its finite quantity would leave one in a constrained state of mind—unable to even properly consume that single bottle beyond its measured volume. It was ultimately a flawed way of drinking. Since bottled beer didn't spoil, keeping extra posed no issue. One should secure additional bottles as a psychological reserve. Now, Itsuko's method of ordering beer from the liquor store aligned perfectly with Besshiro's usual instructions.

“Good good,” said Besshiro. He commanded his wife to set up his dinner seat in the main hall. This was a rare occurrence. His wife “If we were to dirty it, might that not be a problem?” she tentatively pressed, but her husband merely twitched an eyebrow and gave no reply. Fearing to spoil this good mood, Itsuko switched to carrying the child on her back using a cloth strap and set about preparing the main hall.

The tatami mats were completely covered with persimmon-tanned paper to prevent stains; even the folding screens, nageshi crossbeams, and objects in the tokonoma alcove had dust-proof cloth bags draped over them. It was as though every furnishing in the hall had conspired to treat us residents like alien interlopers—avoiding being seen or touched as though such contact were sacrilege. Through this arrangement, Keisetsu’s heartlessness—he who had leased them this house—stood vividly exposed, and Itsuko burned with resentment.

Feeling the petty satisfaction of revenge, she stripped off every last one of these coverings. Having covered the child’s face with a hand towel to keep dust from their eyes and nose, she briskly beat and swept through the hall. Having somehow sensed her husband’s mood tonight, she had also replaced the light bulb with a 50-watt one. Standing in the brilliantly illuminated hall and looking around, Itsuko too felt her spirits lift for the first time in ages. However, timid-hearted Itsuko began to feel as though she was conducting some secret affair behind the house owner’s back and could not linger in surveying the room for long. She placed the zabuton cushion, set the beer bottle beside it, then withdrew to the adjacent tea room where she resumed the interrupted mother-child dinner.

During this time, Besshiro—who had been creating a clamor in the kitchen while making preparations—opened the sliding door and brought out a brazier with a ceramic pot resting atop it. He brought out a jar mounded with white substance in a mountain shape, a bowl containing a brown lump, a plate lying flat with white substance, fragrant pickles, and a lacquered tray arranged properly. He brought out a soy sauce pourer, a personal salt dish, a Chinese soup spoon, and a tray bearing assorted items. For the fourth time, he brought out a beer bottle opener and glass with the stiff-elbowed formality of a samurai entering a reception room while carrying something in one hand, then peeled off the strange covering cloth wrapped around his Western-style trousers’ waist and flung it into the kitchen. When he shut the sliding door completely, he walked through the hall, came to the veranda area, and threw open the glass-paned door. The dark garden, under the electric lamp’s light, caused the faint shadows of small artificial hills and ponds to emerge like low-relief carvings, while sparse hail skimmed vertically across their surfaces as it fell. Fortunately, there was no wind, so the flames of the indoor brazier and hibachi remained calm, merely cold.

He sat cross-legged on the zabuton cushion, placed a hand on the beer bottle, and turned toward the wall with a grin. “Hey—I’m begging you—don’t let the child cry tonight.”

He brought the first glass of beer to his lips and gulped it down in quick, noisy swallows. Wiping the foam from his lips with his palm, he let out a belch—as though relishing something exquisite—with an exaggerated “Uegh.” To his wife Itsuko, listening through the wall, this theatrical savoring seemed almost like he was mimicking a rakugo storyteller’s comic gestures. Next, he gripped the ceramic pot’s lid resting on the brazier, gave a boisterous shout, and heaved it upward. The scent of simmered radish mingled with steaming broth vapors rose into the air.

“My craftsmanship flows smooth—now witness my technique!” he declared with dramatic inflection—though evidently unable to withstand the lid’s heat, he went “Tsk-tsk-tsk!” and hurriedly set it down—even this scene Itsuko could discern through the wall. With the condensation from the lid he’d apparently placed directly on them—wouldn’t the tatami get ruined? Pushing aside her icy apprehension, an absurd mirth swelled within Itsuko. She stifled a chuckle. To society he was pure arrogance; to their family, a domestic tyrant—yet when handling food, this husband became docile and guileless as a child. She covered the child she was coaxing to sleep beside her, smothering this vaguely pitiful emotion before it could stir tears. She slid her hand between the child’s padded jacket and underrobe to draw them nearer. The dozing child’s body lay pliantly soft, snugly warm.

In the main hall, Besshiro continued drinking beer accompanied by radish dishes. The ingredients amounted to nothing more than a single ordinary Nerima daikon he had barely managed to find in the kitchen, yet he prepared and presented it according to the formal tray arrangement of one soup and three dishes. That is, for the vinegared dish he grated the daikon radish, while for the simmered dish he cut it into rounds and boiled them with bonito flakes. On the plate for the broiled dish, daikon radish had been carved into the shape of small fish and arranged. The pot served as the soup substitute.

Thus he considered himself to have perfected the one soup and three dishes arrangement. There was something stubborn about him. When encountering luxurious foods, he would be satisfied with a single variety; but when faced with meager ingredients, he desired formal beauty. He was aware of the lifestyle of Fukuchi Gen'ichirō—known as the lay Buddhist Ōchikusai—who had been a commentator on civilization and enlightenment in the early Meiji era and later became a playwright for the ninth Danjūrō. This author—a former hatamoto and true Edoite—even amidst dire poverty, would unfailingly present his household’s humble side dishes in the formal one soup and three dishes arrangement when serving guests. Thus, it is said that cut pieces of salted salmon were frequently used for grilled dishes.

He collected numerous culinary anecdotes and true stories from various cooks while teaching in his usual overbearing manner, storing them up as knowledge acquired by ear. Whenever circumstances demanded it, he would rely on that knowledge to devise solutions. He was more a man of strong memory than of originality. While gazing at the formally arranged meal, he continued eating simmered daikon pieces from the pot between sips of beer. Regarding this dish too, he possessed fundamental knowledge. This was said to be a food favored by Lord Saionji Tōan. When he heard this through others, he wondered: Could the final taste to grace the palate of that old lord—a man of such refined tastes alongside his statesmanship—truly be something so simple? It struck him as unexpected, yet it was an unexpectedness he found himself conceding to. And he nursed a desire to taste for himself at least once those foods that so-called great people were said to favor. On one hand, this manifested his heroism; on the other, it constituted a quest to understand eminent individuals. To taste a food someone cherished and thereby trace back to discern their true nature—this struck him as the most honest and straightforward method of character appraisal.

The pot’s simmered broth had been seasoned with his own special vegetable extract that he had prepared and stored beforehand. The daikon radishes had begun to plump up with the arrival of early winter. From among the ginkgo-shaped pieces floating up from the pot’s bottom through seven or eight bubbles, he selected what he deemed just right with his chopsticks. He would dip a corner of the piece into the soy sauce pooled in his personal dish, blow on it to cool, and eat. Raw and pure, the humble flavor inherent solely to nature’s unadulterated essence melted delicately and softly each time a piece entered his mouth. There was an earthy smell of vegetable roots. To his surprise, it was sweet.

“Ah— so that’s how it is.”

He uttered an admiring soliloquy.

He ate the vigorously boiling pieces in rapid succession, blowing on them as he went. It resembled absorption more than eating. There was an insatiable quality akin to a mole devouring its prey.

During that time, he occasionally extended his chopsticks toward the grated daikon bowl but ultimately never touched the simmered daikon pot. Having apparently savored it to his satisfaction, he began closing the brazier's vent and gazed out at the hail-strewn garden. Not being much of a drinker, he propped his left elbow on his left knee in the cross-legged position, his upper body already swaying unsteadily. The frequent belching was no longer forced enthusiasm but the real thing—the slackened walls of his dilated stomach undulating back against the irritation from what he had consumed. At times a sweet-bitter viscous mass would rise up into his mouth. Within it were mixed pieces of raw-chewed daikon. After meals he would invariably perform this belching ritual and had developed the habit of regurgitating without hesitation even in others' presence. Listening through the wall, Itsuko thought exasperatedly that he had started again. For having grown accustomed to seeing his father do this after family meals, their child Atsushi couldn't help but imitate him.

The belching was unpleasant, but as he continued drinking beer and smoking tobacco to overcome that discomfort, there arose within his body an unreal, beautiful anxiety. "At times like this," he murmured, "I seem able to feel ordinary human sentiments—to grow fond of my wife and child—" "I can cherish both wife and child—" He often made such declarations to Itsuko. While layering quilts over their sleeping child, Itsuko wondered: Then does he maintain that turtle-like disposition Keisetsu had nicknamed him with during all other times?

Besshiro, smoking a cigarette, assumed what he called ordinary feelings and savored the hail-strewn garden.

The hour entered night, and the darkness seemed to deepen further. The garden’s board fence was no longer visible; he could sense the darkness stretching infinitely toward the horizon. The small artificial hill, thicket of tree branches, pond, and garden plants appeared as nothing more than a miniature set—covered with thin metal sheets and outlined with wire—even when illuminated by electric lights. A darkness that only swallowed, knowing nothing of release. What if humans were seized by this terrifyingly dark, insensible force of infinite digestion? Cry as they might, scream as they would—it made no difference. Their bodies dissolved gradually like small insects ensnared in sundew’s grasp—knowing they were dissolving yet powerless to resist—trapped while shrilly keening. Forever— Besshiro never failed to contemplate death from time to time. He charged recklessly against society in an attempt to have it understand—if only barely—the intense thing he was born with that even he himself couldn’t manage. Society coldly rebuffed him—this was no mere bystander’s affair. He flared up into a warrior’s stance and charged onward. Even if he acted mad—this time they would take his body. All manner of tactics. When rejected by society and utterly exhausted of all vitality—nothing remaining but an oppressive yet faintly itching ache permeating his very marrow—it was then that Besshiro envisioned death. It was something that would settle all accounts. When lying down with this envisioned death and looking back upon his life—“Well—that was all there was”—he could resign himself with dispassionate clarity. A bitter smile floated to his lips. Without envisioning such death periodically—how could someone as intense as himself have survived in this world long enough for thirty years to come within reach? He wondered.

The death he envisioned—that which compelled resignation when reflecting on life with "Well, that was all there was to it"—in turn rendered itself utterly trivial through this very act of resigned contemplation. If life could be dismissed as "Well, that was all there was to it," then death too amounted to nothing more than "This is simply all this amounts to." He delighted in pedantic pronouncements, but he possessed neither the temperament nor the mental capacity for profound contemplation.

This arose entirely from the sensation of experiences pressed to the brink, and precisely for that reason, remained unshakable. In his youth he had worked as a rubbing craftsman until his late teens, but those characters frequently found in the rubbings—phrases like “life and death as one” or “human existence a mere bubble”—he had interpreted through this very sensation. Precisely because of this, it ultimately came down to “might as well eat something delicious.” Maintaining pretentious airs against society hadn’t been such an arduous performance after all.

But tonight's darkness—its depth, its tenacious viscosity—differed entirely from that cleanly accepted death he had envisioned, instead seething with mysterious power. The void of despair and cruel love had merged into one, wielding an obstinacy that would never be sated—eternally repeating its labor of dissolving through relentless dissolution whatever it seized, only to remold it back into its original form and dissolve it anew. Does such a force truly exist in this world? Besshiro, having voraciously tasted countless foods until now, had come to feel each ingredient possessed its own will and power that shaped their existence. Having extended this concept to things beyond food—since they too bore what might be called taste in some sense—it seemed inevitable such a force must exist. But the taste of tonight's darkness! Nothing so perfectly embodied boundless infinity and ceaseless repetition. Humans could devour their favorite foods—those very morsels insects crave—endlessly without ever feeling satiated. Could there not be something that followed the same primordial path as those insects' cravings?

Could this be what one might call the appetite of heaven and earth? Compared to this, human appetite seems utterly trivial.

“Damn it,” he murmured.

He found himself scrutinizing his own unpleasant past origins—for the first time in years.

He was born the only child of a historically renowned Kyoto temple and lost his father young. His mother—a young unofficial second wife never formally registered—found both temple and lineage embroiled in sectarian disputes, resulting in an unexpected outsider becoming the temple’s successor. Mother and child were expelled from the temple with scarcely more than their undergarments. All this stemmed from their father—that serene celebrated priest—having disdained administrative duties, yet somehow his widow bore him no resentment. “After all, he was childlike at heart—no true fault lay there.” She relayed what passed for his sole testament—words spoken when Besshiro was born: “By this boy’s coming of understanding age, I’ll have grown ancient—likely dead already. Then he’ll suffer and curse us—‘Why spawn me unasked into this wretched shaba-world?’ But when that day comes, tell him: ‘We’re matched in this—you too were thrust unasked into this bitter shaba-realm to burden your parents. Mutual suffering it is.’” These words struck Besshiro as callous beyond measure, yet left lingering in his heart some inexplicable resonance defying simple condemnation.

At first, the temple disciples took turns bringing the late master’s bereaved family into their respective temples to repay their debt of gratitude and looked after them. However, it did not last long. In every temple there existed families that stifled their boarders. The last place they ended up being taken in was the home of an old rubbing artisan who had been his father’s Go rival. Though poor, it was a relief that he lived alone as a widower. His mother took care of the old man’s cooking and laundry, and as he had just graduated from higher elementary school, he was apprenticed to the old man as a rubbing artisan. The old man was an eccentric; when he went out to play Go, he wouldn’t return home for days, but even more so, when elementary school sports festivals began in spring and autumn, he was scarcely ever at home. He would seek out and attend those held in Kyoto’s city center and surrounding areas. He would delight in chattering about things like, “Today’s performances at XX Elementary School were perfectly synchronized,” or “At today’s footrace at △△ Elementary School, there was a child with unprecedented speed.”

During those absences, he would work in the glue-smelling workshop producing rubbings—though the ink’s hue might vary slightly, whether it was Cicada Wing Rubbings or Crow Gold Rubbings, it remained nothing more than a merciless black that gave color to a past which would never return to living beings. Those characters of the rubbings—brought into that blackness, piercing through the cold-white void to emerge—were far too desolate for the young Besshiro. “After rain’s passed—go downriver an’ catch some minnows. I’ll cook ’em up nice an’ tasty-like for eatin’,” said his mother as she mended clothes. Besshiro took the bamboo draining basket, crossed the embankment, and went down to the river.

In those days, small fish still inhabited the Kamo River. Depending on the season, one might find goby, river catfish, or dace—and after days of rain, even crucian carp and eels would surface as improbable bounty. On this bank, a cluster of neighborhood children already fished noisily. Across the embankment, a family gathering herbs worked their way down to the water's edge. Near the levee where the road forked toward Kurama, parasol-bearing figures multiplied. Besshiro—a boy rendered timid by circumstance—avoided these crowds, using the jagged screen of budding willows along a shaded tributary to conceal himself as he fished. Violets perfumed the air sweetly. Tadasu no Mori blurred into haze before vanishing entirely. Oh—he was weeping—he realized. When he shut his eyelids came a plop: a teardrop striking tin scrap. Yet even so, this deft youth managed to net a handful of minnows in brief time. Bringing them home, his mother would simmer them skillfully; in early spring's twilight glow, while minding some absent household's affairs, mother and son alone would take their evening meal.

His mother had never liked speaking of her origins to her son. Yet she remained stubbornly particular about food—even from morning, she couldn’t lift her chopsticks unless there was at least a morsel of animal fare. As if excusing this, she would say: “What can I say—I was raised to indulge my whims in a land where eating itself was hardship!”

Besshiro had managed to gather only fragments about his mother’s origins from others. There had been a devotee—the proprietor of an old shop in a prominent location within Osaka’s Senba district—who was deeply devoted to Besshiro’s father. Struck by a mysterious string of misfortunes, his shop collapsed, and he himself contracted a fatal illness, leaving behind only his daughter. Besshiro’s father, though unskilled in such matters, had involved himself in various financial affairs to assist them, but ultimately to no avail. Yet it is said that the ailing shop proprietor—having resigned himself to all being the work of past sins—sent his daughter up to the temple of Besshiro’s father, who had been living as a widower since losing his wife, so that she might atone for those sins and repay long-standing debts, if only to have her tend to his daily needs. Then he passed away. Even his mother—who never spoke of other circumstances—would occasionally let slip this lament: “Though I ascended to temple life to atone for sins, I can’t even abandon my wretched appetite. It shames me, but I suppose some remnant of sin must linger—there’s nothing to be done about this.” While she would occasionally let slip this lament, she never ceased her scavenging for food—even if she meant to keep it to a minimum.

As he entered his late teens, Besshiro found himself increasingly sought after to assist with various elegant gatherings. In this ancient capital where citizens at large prided themselves as connoisseurs of refined tastes, there were many so-called gatherings for zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting. It began when he substituted for the old rubbing artisan in assisting an exhibition hosted by an antique dealer who frequented the old man’s workshop, which then led to requests coming in from various quarters. The young man—whose brash talent was tempered by a timid disposition—possessed something that naturally drew the eye. Delicately textured and rosy, his skin—from his roundish face down to his chest—held the fragrance and dewy freshness of new leaves. The sight of him wearing clothes tailored from the old rubbing artisan’s antiquated kimono and hakama while mediating seating arrangements was also well-regarded among connoisseurs of refined tastes. People began playfully calling him Sen no Yoshirō—using the childhood name of Rikyū, founder of the tea ceremony. Whether Rikyū in his youth truly possessed beauty like his remains uncertain, but at the very least, the Yoshiro conjured by that anecdote—where Rikyū, during his own Yoshiro years, swept an autumn garden clean only to scatter a handful of crimson leaves across its surface, demonstrating his precocious aesthetic sensibility—had no choice but to be such a beautiful youth as he. He not only accepted this playful epithet bestowed upon him but even came to proudly proclaim himself by it.

This assisting role—which allowed him to eat stylish bento boxes and even receive small monetary tips each time—pleased him. After receiving two bento boxes to eat and being served a bowl of matcha, he slipped through the red-and-white striped curtains encircling the tatami room to take a short break. It was a veranda running along the garden. The sun blazes brilliantly, as if sunlit droplets drip from the lush greenery of young leaves filling the garden. The veranda too is thoroughly illuminated and warmed. He lay spread-eagled on the veranda, stroking his full stomach as he began to doze off. The noon bells of Chion-in and Shōgo-in have yet to cease ringing. Summer haze hangs low, while the Thirty-Six Peaks of Higashiyama bask in a gentle repose, as if squinting against the light. There is no one on this veranda.

Yet in the central corridor connecting the waiting room of the separate annex to the performance hall, footsteps resounded ceaselessly like a procession of carts rumbling through. From the direction of that waiting room, preparations for the afternoon performance seemed already underway; the sounds of koto and kokyū having their strings tightened in response to a shakuhachi drifted over like scattered remnants of sound. Amidst these sounds mingled a blind person’s stuffy nasal voice; young girls’ bright laughter.

Young Besshiro found fleeting pleasure in dozing alone like this—encircled yet undisturbed by the scenery and sounds around him. The masticated food filling his belly melted its essence like oil under the sun’s warmth, moistening bone and flesh until it seeped luxuriantly across his entire body. He felt himself becoming gilded flesh transformed into something valuable. Those smoldering, furious thoughts suppressed deep within now seemed like internal spices stimulating and heightening this corpulent abundance. That sweetly thrilling fragrance—a peony field must lie somewhere in the garden.

The old capital’s sky stretched clear in cerulean. Between harmonizing eyelashes, within a satiated breast—a single white cloud drifted lightly by. That single drift simultaneously passed into his dozing dream, transformed into a glistening swan that glided by upon its wings.

The melancholy of early summer.

“Mr. Yoshiro, sleeping in a place like this.” “There’s work to be done—you ought to be up already,”

The tip of his nose was pinched. The beautiful middle-aged lady’s soft, supple fingers.

Besshiro gradually stopped returning home. Rather than enduring a wretched existence with his mother—who resembled some court lady turned ravenous spirit—in the impoverished home of a rubbing artisan, he found it far more pleasant to drift between gaudy, bustling banquets filled with young women, using each day’s distractions to artfully paper over the next. A single-minded something—a solid conviction taking root at his core. The gnawing anxiety that life would prove perilous without securing some singular vocation—a skill surpassing others that might establish his standing—when fanned by that smoldering fury lying dormant in his heart’s depths became flames of torment scorching him beyond endurance; yet the more intensely he felt this searing heat, the more he plunged into worlds of multiplicity and flux, as though scrubbing at the burning sensation to scrape it away. During this time, through his innate dexterity, he naturally acquired skill sufficient to perform most artistic pursuits at a rural beginner’s level. He became Convenient Yoshiro. Every master’s household welcomed him. At the Go Institute he served as practice partner for novice guests; at koto houses he tightened slackened strings without requiring a master’s intervention. At flower arrangement schools he prepared foundational displays for young ladies; at tea ceremony houses he advised matrons on tea preparation and kaiseki etiquette. He performed mounting work to transform stone rubbings into model calligraphy books, then meticulously carved those rubbings into printing blocks like an engraver. From there he naturally expanded into mounting scrolls, took up swordsmithing, and practiced woodcarving with seal engraving. His calligraphy crudely imitated Song dynasty rubbings. Painting became his foremost talent—so much so that he occasionally considered devoting himself entirely to this path.

If asked, they would fulfill any request. Where in the world existed a place that would not welcome such a Convenient Yoshiro? He wandered about, unwittingly forgetting each day’s sorrows as they arose. His mother left him be with an air of comprehension, convinced Besshiro was gathering knowledge from society through his studies and would soon seize upon something significant; meanwhile, the old rubbing artisan grumbled repeatedly about lacking hands for his work, yet never uttered what could truly be called a rebuke.

Masters and influential disciples would take him out to dine at renowned restaurants across the city—Hyōtei, Tawara-ya, and others—surrounding him like an entourage. Not only did he want for nothing in fine dining, but through innate genius, he had grasped cuisine’s deepest mysteries. As he went about this, something abruptly dawned upon Besshiro. Though welcomed everywhere in this manner, he had never once been shown what could be called respect. Born into a major temple and—if only in childhood—having experienced being treated as the eldest heir, while inheriting the pride his mother possessed as the daughter of an old merchant house, he was by nature a haughty man. That he should be dismissed as merely Convenient Yoshiro was intolerable. The smoldering, furious thoughts that always lay buried in the depths of his heart now seemed to arise at least half from that very source. I want to be called “sensei” somehow.

In him—whose timid disposition had been nearly eradicated through being tempered by crowds—this new desire rising from his core now spurred him further toward assertiveness. He learned domineering management techniques and mastered contemptuous dismissal through nasal snorts. He acquired the art of self-assertion through universal criticism. He even strained to affect airs with appearances befitting his station. Taking out a hand mirror, he scrutinized his reflection. He lamented how the youth staring back remained too handsome and youthful, lacking the gravitas worthy of being called sensei. He labored to make even his speech harsh and precocious. At his affected transformation, the timid began cowering and keeping their distance. The defiant retaliated with curses. "What airs! From a mere stone-rubbing artisan!" And cooks alone deigned to grant him the title of sensei.

"Yoshiro has changed." “He’s gone all peculiar-like” became the elegant society’s prevailing verdict. There had been a lover dwelling in his heart, fragile as a dayflower, but she crumbled under these rumors and vanished without bearing fruit.

For those young enough to have once abandoned themselves to this imperious, exaggerated bearing, it became nearly impossible to ever again immerse themselves deeply and refine their fundamental essence. Besshiro couldn't pretend ignorance about which aspect of himself spawned this misdirected reputation. *It's because I lack education.* This truth burned as his most agonizing and humiliating realization. Now more than ever, he pitied himself—barred by cruel fate from advanced schooling or systematic study. Yet when he tried directing this resentment outward, its roots spread too vast and tangled for his mind of that time to fully grasp. Rather than wallowing, he had no choice but to study furtively while lagging behind, struggling to catch up. He strove to read books voraciously. But how could such verbose tomes—tediously detailing processes he'd already intuited through talent, instinct, and hardship—appear as anything but circuitous and crudely redundant to a man like him? Merely opening their pages made him drowsy. Forcing himself onward only brought headaches from their bleakness, while his throat grew desperate with cravings for flavor. He would suddenly rise to hunt delicious food.

In the end, he had no choice but to further develop his accustomed methods of visual and auditory learning. And thus, the approach of clumsily and humbly acquiring knowledge up until now was merely changed—from this point onward—to a method of wresting it from others amid confrontational turmoil. Had he truly wanted to gain something called respect to such an extent? Indeed. Before he consciously found respite from life in savoring flavors, the honorific of being called 'sensei' had indeed held more allure for him than any lover. Through this approach, he lost many old acquaintances but gained a handful of eccentric kindred spirits. In the world, amidst the clamor of clashing gongs and writhing cymbals, there indeed exist interactions akin to a Chinese ensemble—where kindred spirits and friendships resonate through discord. The ones Besshiro gravitated toward were these older individuals with calluses of hardship, their hearts' sensory membranes thickened through life's abrasions.

At that time, the master of Maison Higaki—a modern Western-style restaurant in Kyogoku—was also one such individual. This American-trained chef harbored a peculiar yearning for art and artists' lifestyles, spending his spare moments from managing the restaurant painting in oils. The room where he slept had been converted into a studio. He would seize upon any customer to expound on New York's artists' colony. This town, striving to emulate Paris's artistic quarters through American sensibilities and yearning-fueled exaggerations, possessed something bizarre yet exhilarating. The master spoke of this with apostolic fervor. He implemented these concepts throughout the restaurant's facilities.

On the eve of Dionysian revelries.

The blue-wax-candle-lit room; that youths drawn to novelty and young artists gathered at this establishment was but an easily foreseeable outcome. In this ancient capital, the air that filled young lungs was heavy with desolation. To repel and destroy this required an extreme reaction. Therefore, Kansai modernism was generally considered more discordant and potent than Tokyo's.

Besshiro began frequenting this establishment. Since they mutually saw through each other’s weakness of lacking foundational knowledge, the fiery rhetoric they exchanged carried no oppressive weight. They could freely ascend to the clouds and bridge the heavens through sheer intuition. By first confronting their opponents with arrogant bravado before baring fangs of contempt to clash opinions in unsparing debate, they felt they could fully unleash their capabilities. Meanwhile, employing cunning to pilfer each other’s aural knowledge and wrest advantages became their shared delight. While Besshiro extolled the ineffable profundity of Eastern aesthetics, Higaki’s master vaunted the visceral immediacy of Western tastes. Thus did knowledge flow between them, stored within their respective arsenals.

The one constant in their agreement was their art-for-art’s-sake attitude. They felt nothing but what they called art—something ascendable through sheer intuition—could reclaim them from being erroneously bred in the lower class to stations befitting their self-regard. They prided themselves on the elevation and scope of their discernment. In this matter alone did they grant each other latitude. From qin music and chess to calligraphy and painting; from women and theater to ceramics, cuisine, even philosophy—they lauded each other’s ability to critique all without distinction. “We’re geniuses, aren’t we?” “Damn right we’re geniuses!”

Higaki’s master had a chest ailment. His continued bachelorhood stemmed from this condition, but his carnal desires burned so intensely that even the desolate oil paintings he created and the eclectic collections he amassed carried an erotic undercurrent. His emaciated, towering frame—mottled with bluish shadows—constantly writhed in torment, its inner cravings left perpetually unfulfilled. In contrast, Besshiro—though of average stature—possessed an abnormally robust physique capable of indulging every sensual desire. Except for certain appetites, precisely because he could taste to satiety the peak of indulgence, he conversely attained detachment.

Higaki no Shujin took Besshiro around, from the evening-cooling platforms along the Kamo River to the shadows of crimson-black lanterns near Miyagawacho, guiding him through both refined and vulgar diversions. Even there, those who left gloomy regrets through savoring to excess and those who attained lucid serenity through reaching satiety formed stark contrasts. Besshiro perceived both instinct's shallowness and depth in response to Higaki no Shujin’s murky lingering attachments, while Higaki no Shujin felt jealousy and awe toward Besshiro’s physicality. They secretly clicked their tongues in admiration, each thinking, “That fellow’s remarkable.”

Their relationship—marked by surface turbulence and hidden depths yet ultimately grounded in mutual recognition—became intertwined like a rope, gradually deepening its knots. For the educated class of society possessing proper cultivation, the middle-aged man of artisan origins with haughty demeanor and the youth—who sought to look down upon others out of feeling threatened—were matchless partners in indulging in the pleasure of isolating themselves within their solitary class to revile the threatening forces approaching them. They began to feel lonely if they didn’t meet nearly every day.

Besshiro would always take an antipodal stance against Higaki no Shujin, asserting the profound loftiness of Eastern art in their confrontations—yet when encountering the Western art that Higaki no Shujin counterattacked with, experienced through reproductions of the masterpieces it emulated, there were aspects he could not help but perceive without hesitation. What Higaki no Shujin had brought back were primarily works by modern French masters—but to those who had only glimpsed such things through the interstices of Eastern discipline and morality, their allowance of instinct, sensuality, indulgence, even carnality could inspire nothing but shock. It was an exposure so shameless and reputation-less that it felt utterly awkward. “These works ain’t no amateurs’ doing,” Besshiro might have spoken to Higaki’s master in this restrained manner, but his physical sensations applauded as though they’d found their spokesperson.

He frequented this restaurant and found the Western cuisine he came to eat there delicious; moreover, the Western cultural lifestyle he was told about by the owner also seemed convenient and fresh. Besshiro returned to the workplace of his upbringing with these perceptions and knowledge. To those engaged in traditional书画 arts, he preached the importance of dessin and uttered names like Van Gogh and Cézanne. To those in quarters where tea ceremony and flower arrangement were practiced, he advocated hosting tea parties, extolled the virtues of apéritifs, and uttered Western terminology like "composition" and "nuance."

In Eastern arts too existed those very qualities inherently born from practical necessity—it was merely that their names and traditions differed. Therefore, what Besshiro said was nearly comprehensible even to those engaged in these arts, and discerning individuals came to dismiss Western notions as nothing extraordinary—yet the prevailing trend of that era, pursuing novelty and temporal adaptability under modernity’s banner through Western imports, turned toward his receding figure like “the bamboo railings at Aoi Festival.”

While whispering polished slander through lips worn smooth from artifice, the refined society of this ancient capital found itself compelled to seek stimulation and inspiration before his presence. His popularity had been restored. He suggested rather eccentric ideas—permitting encores during sankyoku performances and arranging fresh flowers around nude statues—but became the unseen force behind popularizing methods like conducting tea ceremonies at tables, incorporating Western dishes into kaiseki menus, and spreading practices previously attempted only within select circles. He came to be addressed as "Master" in certain quarters.

He rode this momentum to muscle his way into the group of young artists gathering at Maison Higaki. His high-handed arrogance and crude manners proved fundamentally incompatible with the fastidious intellectual youths. Though convinced he had overwhelmed and baffled them, he ultimately sensed a tangible, jarring rejection in their silence. This indescribable force carried an eerie power that callously shredded his courage to join modern youth's ranks. He could not help but think.

It was a spring evening.

At Higaki’s second floor, there was a welcome gathering. The wife—a poetess and Buddhist scholar—had been invited to dine after lecturing at a sect-affiliated girls’ school in this ancient capital. Her painter husband had come along too. Table speeches concluded briskly, giving the gathering an air of relaxed intimacy. Yet Besshiro had long scrutinized this woman’s postures through magazines and found them fundamentally intolerable. That those who practiced art should shackle themselves to religion—her advocacy of Buddhism struck him as siding with the temples that had tormented him since childhood, even endorsing his own wretched circumstances. At last he interjected sarcastically from within the small talk circle. Her face—a girl’s features grown to adult proportions—seemed untouched by hardship, making him itch to torment her somehow.

The poetess adopted a faintly insolent expression but swallowed her anger to reply, “No—precisely because of that, I wouldn’t tell someone who needs nothing to do it.” Besshiro pressed harder with aggressive questioning, yet she merely repeated, “I cannot disclose anything to one who asks in such a way.” To Besshiro, it seemed an ignorant girl had stubbornly dug in her heels. The momentary void of awkwardness was swiftly filled by lively chatter around them, until none appeared to notice his presence—arms crossed in bitter discontent, radiating displeasure. His fury seemed to rise even to the tips of his curled long hair. As if further provoking him, the poetess was coaxed into singing *The Four Seasons of Kyoto* or some such piece for the group’s amusement. Though she sang softly, her voice flowed smooth and bright with cheer. The painter husband clapped along with all those seated.

Besshiro, who could not help interpreting everything as contempt directed at himself, resolved that by any means necessary he would subjugate this Madame and compel her to acknowledge him. He invoked Higaki no Shujin, intercepted the painter couple upon their return, and implored them to visit the master’s studio room to view his works. In that room were also displayed numerous works created by Besshiro.

He feigned humility and pressed Madame for criticism. Displayed before them were framed calligraphic works and seal-engraved plaques. Madame appeared fond of such pieces, studying them with familiarity before turning to her husband. “Papa,” she said, “it’s beautifully executed, but doesn’t it lean rather heavily into flavor?” Her husband responded sympathetically, “Yes... flavor indeed.” Besshiro erupted in booming laughter while remaining rooted in place, yet felt for the first time that someone had pierced his innermost core. The bitterness intensified when even dimpled Higaki no Shujin—having joined this ostensibly favorable critique—nodded along: “Now that you mention it, your art truly is about flavor,” echoing the painter husband’s ambiguous “continental” verdict that left Besshiro uncertain whether to take it as praise or condemnation.

Besshiro, his very core pierced, nevertheless once again obstinately plotted a counterattack against Madame. He invited the couple—who would be staying in this ancient capital five or six more days to observe spring's waning before returning—to a hand-prepared lunch. Just how much discernment of this so-called flavor did this Madame—who so casually dismissed his works as mere flavor—truly possess? Testing her through cuisine would be the swiftest method. After all, whether it was the home cooking of some idle society matron or restaurant fare bound by convention, she had likely never tasted anything truly exquisite. If she proved lacking in discernment, then her critiques of his work would hold no terror; but should she possess such judgment, she would surely bow before his culinary mastery. Thus through this means could he conquer Madame and compel her acknowledgment.

Fortunately, the couple accepted the invitation and came.

The seating arrangement utilized a tea room belonging to an iemoto school located beneath the Kamo River embankment.

He took command of the assistant cooks under his instruction and serving girls he had summoned, and embarked on preparing the couple’s feast.

He had thoroughly observed during the previous night’s dinner at Higaki’s welcome party what dishes Madame selected and favored throughout the meal course. At times he had even inquired. It wasn’t something done deliberately, but his instinct—keen as a spy hound’s nose toward human appetites—had naturally taken over. From a professional perspective, he couldn’t determine whether Madame’s culinary preferences were those of an amateur or a connoisseur. Yet he had nearly grasped the nature of her craving instinct.

Besshiro prepared dishes attuned to Madame’s cravings, disregarding conventional menu structures and distinctions between Japanese, Chinese, or Western cuisines. Ah—in that moment, what compassionate affection for humanity welled up from his heart’s depths! No trace of competitive spirit remained. Nor any desire for conquest. If his cuisine could make that overgrown girl widen her eyes and innocently taste something transcending worldly satisfactions received through the senses, then the achievement belonged solely to the cooking itself. His own existence mattered not at all. Moved by this conviction, he added off-season crab Madame professed to love and Matsue-style bite-sized soba to the menu. Suddenly he remembered—that childhood night when he’d wailed uncontrollably, craving Hōrai beans said to calm fretful children. His aged monk father had shuffled through midnight streets to procure them. Besshiro twisted his face aside to prevent tears from striking the kneading board. Was cuisine ultimately an act of nurturing? And might the only recipients capable of receiving such wholehearted devotion through food be fools or children?

However, Besshiro—anticipating that Madame might visit as a guest—had promptly procured items like Sakamoto’s Shoshi River shoshi fish and Kurama’s sansho bark, preparing them among the dishes so that even if scrutinized by her eyes, he would not be ashamed.

Madame began eating carefully, with evident gratitude. “How exquisite this roe-garnished vinegared salad is!” “How finely the skin of this shrimp yam has been simmered!” Once the oil from the fried food began glistening on her lips, she could only repeat, “It’s delicious!” “It’s delicious,” was all she said as she devotedly continued eating. Besshiro felt the tension that had once again tightened within him—wondering how things would turn out—diminish heavily with each cleared dish, even sensing a waning of his spirit.

Madame was a hearty eater, but the painter husband was an even heartier one. They all finished without leaving a morsel, and as he lifted the sencha tea bowl, he said: “Thank you for the feast. Master—if I may say so—this here is far more your true art.” Then he turned to Madame with a laugh that sought her corroborating nod—not as irony but as earnest critique—to make Master accept this judgment. Madame smiled too, though her voice kept its grave sincerity. “I mean this not as epigram but truth— This is splendid art.”

The instant Besshiro realized they had struck the bullseye, he jolted. However grandly he might pontificate daily, in his heart of hearts he couldn't dismiss society's vulgar common sense that elevated koto-playing, chess strategy, calligraphy and painting as noble arts worthy of the sensei title - all while relegating cuisine beneath them. Those very pinnacles had been reduced to mere "flavor" yesterday; now in this lowly realm they deigned to recognize artistry. Talent or cultivation - whichever it might be - he felt the deathblow had been dealt to his life's work. What more remained to say?

The Kamo River had swelled slightly, its faintly turbid current splitting into countless channels that flowed downward across the gravel bed. Though the green hues of the banks where flotsam caught against gabions remained unchanged from times past, there seemed to be fewer fish now, and no children could be seen fishing. Above the hazy tips of budding willows along the embankment, the mid-spring sky hovered between clear and overcast.

The murmuring river sound, listened to with crystalline clarity in the silent gathering, transported them unchanged to a land of nostalgia. Besshiro recalled his mother—now truly the only one remaining in this world—living across the river downstream in Ōtakehara, though her house’s roof ridge remained hidden from view. There, like a court lady turned female hungry ghost, she clung to savoring flavors while awaiting her only son’s return with any respectable livelihood secured. He himself had not gone home for some time—but was that elderly master of rubbing artisans still wandering through elementary school sports days, striving to forget aging’s approach in the innocent figures of children at play?

Besshiro, veiling himself in laughter, recounted how as a child he would catch small fish in this riverbed to bring home for their evening meals when it was just him and his mother. “I’ve eaten countless delicacies over the years, yet when I think back now, nothing has ever matched the taste of those minnows Mother simmered for me.” Then, weaving in what he had felt during today’s cooking, he added, “So does the distinction between taste and art lie in whether there’s care present or absent?”

To this, Madame did not immediately respond, but first recounted their experience at Foyot—a renowned Parisian restaurant—during their travels abroad. The dining room of that restaurant had been prepared with soft carpets and woolen fabrics to muffle any sound, from the gaps between doors to the floor coverings. The colors too had been stripped of stimulation. The ceiling and table candlelight had been carefully regulated. Everything had been meticulously arranged to concentrate fully on flavor. The waitstaff were elderly men—refined and stripped of gruffness or overt masculinity—who had likely ruined themselves in this profession long ago; now they appeared to have mastered the art of transference between self and others, finding pleasure precisely in others’ enjoyment. The meal proceeded with the solemnity of a sacrament and the quiet intimacy of a rendezvous. Now before the table lay a pale, faint yellow soup as if reflecting the clear sky of early summer. When had he approached? The elderly waiter stood holding up a plate bearing cross-cut beef bones on a silver platter. The elderly waiter matched his timing to the guest’s rising appetite, gave a slight nod of his eyes, and scooped out the marrow from within the bone with a spoon. He carefully slid it to float in the center of the soup. It was as if the very essence of a maiden’s youthful heart had been condensed into a jewel—quiveringly translucent, yet within lingered a sediment of adolescence’s moisture. Was this perhaps the Western equivalent of a Japanese dish like sea bream eye meat soup? The elderly waiter bowed respectfully, took several steps back, and stood at attention. How satisfied the guest might be in sipping this heavenly nectar—he waited piously, as though praying for success. Of course, the cuisine was refined. The service was impeccable. From the main course through dessert, not a single thing could be considered lacking—truly a perfection of virtue and beauty—and thus they concluded their meal in awe.

“And yet afterward, we were left with a slightly unpleasant aftertaste—as if we’d been licked clean and manipulated.”

“As praising you to your face feels rather awkward, I won’t say much—but if I may—today’s dishes do have inconsistencies, yet I sense something like ‘truth’ permeating through them.” Unexpected critiques kept pouring from Madame’s lips. Besshiro had never heard anyone apply words like “truth” to cuisine. To concepts like “truth” and “sincerity”—he had always nursed antipathy, his warped heart—shaped by birth and upbringing—recoiling even at their utterance. If he were to embrace such things, wouldn’t he be mobbed and pecked by a world lacking them, like a chick sporting aberrant plumage? O weakling—thy name is truth. Wasn’t art precisely this—discarding such frailty to stand resolute, this artifice that consoles through enduring falsehoods? Typical of a poet-artist—spewing such stale, bitter notions. An art critique even some morality-obsessed schoolgirl could offer. Beneath dignifying with rebuttal.

As Besshiro arrived at these thoughts, the couple’s authority vanished from his view, and he felt his shoulders and elbows swelling up imposingly as usual. “Ha ha ha ha! Now that’s what you call ‘truthful cuisine,’ is it?”

The car arrived to pick them up, and the couple took their leave. When Besshiro asked where they were heading next, they replied they would visit Mibudera Temple to see the Mibu Kyogen performances. When Besshiro mocked, “Perfect amusement for pious souls,” Madame frowned slightly and said, “You may regard it as such, but we think of attending those kyogen plays with their monotonous dengandegan percussion as akin to listening to hell’s own music.” Her painter husband—who had apparently noticed Besshiro’s tone and taken offense—retorted, “You—even as pious souls, we’re people who’ve already trudged through hell once in full measure.” “But we can’t linger too long in paradise—so we’re out walking to find hell again.” “Don’t take this so lightly,” he admonished. Madame took her husband by the elbow. “You mustn’t reprimand such a beautiful young man.” “You’ll damage the human artwork.” Whether amused by her own words, she roared with laughter and scrambled into the car.

Besshiro never met this couple again, yet those two spring encounters haunted his life like sudden knife slashes in a crowded street. Through profound art’s lens, he sensed something vital—as if lawless winds had ripped away the self-styled pavilion he’d painstakingly designed. Now he recoiled from religion’s musty stench, yet pursuing Madame’s notions of “truth” or “sincerity” filled him with dread cold enough to crack teeth—it reeked of cheap moralizing. Perhaps peace lay in grasping that which anchors mind and fate. Did it dwell beyond death’s reach? Death—that final reckoner erasing all debts—if one rooted oneself in this certainty, resolved to bloom fleetingly through devotion to beloved pursuits, then what room remained for quibbling over taste versus art in such expressions? “When pressed,” he concluded, “death alone suffices.” Since childhood’s trials, Besshiro had never fled adversity but plunged deeper—now with youthful intellect, he believed he’d forged this gasped vision of void into rigorous philosophy. As if stamping approval, Higaki no Shujin’s death unfurled before him like a master’s final brushstroke.

Higaki no Shujin had first developed a cancerous growth on the left side of the back of his neck about a year prior. At first, there was no pain. Following the doctor’s opinion and treatment plan—that it was somewhat malignant and thus better left uncut—he had been undergoing X-ray treatments and such, but... The cancer temporarily shrank, then swelled larger than before. Finally, the pain came. The doctor, perhaps unable to conceal it any longer, declared that lung cancer had manifested there. Even upon hearing this, Higaki no Shujin showed no surprise. “There are things I wanted to do but couldn’t,” he said, “but compared to others, I’ve done quite my share.” “I suppose it’s time to settle my accounts for the season.” He said this with a laugh. Then he began settling his personal affairs. When he transferred his shop to someone else and settled all debts and credits, a small surplus of money remained. “I want to die somewhere lively.”

With that, he moved to a back-alley tenement in Kyogoku. He hired a beautiful nurse and his favorite model’s daughter as regular attendants until his appointed time of death, and there he commenced what he himself called the "genius’s death" endeavor.

He, reluctant to sell anything, had finally adorned the room with his most cherished collectibles. Still, the cramped space became as densely packed as a Jewish antiquarian’s tiny shop.

He placed his customary canopied bed within that room. Though likely counterfeit, he claimed this was used by a minstrel from Spanish royal territories who had wandered to America during the Civil War era. A poem in Latin letters was indeed carved into the pillar. There he sat upright and continued painting.

The cancer would sometimes begin to hurt intensely. Ordinary painkillers taken orally had no effect. He begged the doctor to administer a narcotic injection. They refused to comply readily, fearing it would weaken his body further. The middle-aged man—his entire body turned bluish-black, with pale purple shadows now seeping from the skin stretched over his emaciated bones’ hollows—had his back hunched by the swollen tumor on his neck, appearing like a dwarf merged with a hungry ghost. As it was midsummer, he lay naked; the grotesque spectacle lay completely exposed, chilling those who saw him. When the pain struck, he would writhe in agony on the bed in that state. His entire body oozed greasy sweat as if doused with water, his tall, slender frame twisting and grinding its limbs in futile attempts to scrub away the pain—a sight one might imagine resembling a snake undergoing a torturous birth. No matter how profoundly they understood each other as close friends, Besshiro found no pleasure in nursing his companion’s suffering.

Suffering—even that belonging to oneself alone—was already more than enough to handle. Unpleasantness particularly seeped easily into human senses. For an artist, it was poison—something to be avoided whenever possible. Thus whenever Higaki no Shujin’s agonies began, Besshiro would slip from the sickroom to drink tea or chatter elsewhere. But his ailing companion no longer permitted this evasion. “Such cowardice!” “Look closely—there’s exhilaration in becoming like this——” he rasped between labored breaths.

Besshiro clenched his hands until they hurt until greasy sweat oozed from his entire body while he endured watching. Death itself held no terror, but the thought that death’s process contained unpleasantness briefly flitted through his mind. But such thoughts faded as the ailing master’s agony deepened. In Besshiro’s mind—numbed and blank from overwhelming gruesomeness—something different now projected itself. Behold—that which squirmed there was no longer a living creature. Was it corpse wax excavated from Egyptian catacombs? A curdled cheese corpse hauled from Tibetan caves? Merely a substance long bereft of life’s breath. Moreover, its rhythmic movements suggested an ancient automaton equipped with intricate clockwork beyond modern comprehension. The bluish-black smoke-stained automaton moved with uniform rhythm—squirming, twisting convulsively, then jerking upward. Collapsing, then groaning with a labored “huum” as though expiring. The same sequence repeated endlessly. The model girl’s face—twisted between tears and absurdity into a grotesque mask—peered halfway from her sleeve. The nurse fanned him with a paper fan, her face sternly serious yet faintly angry.

Besshiro noticed. The ailing companion was attempting to perform even at the peak of this suffering. He was crafting a desperate rhythm from his body's instinctive writhing against the pain, transforming it into dance. Was this meant to distract from his agony even slightly, or was he laboring to show me his friend's oft-mentioned "peerless art"? The ailing companion danced again—squirming, twisting sharply, jerking convulsively—then collapsed with a labored "huum" as though expiring. While superficially mimicking Muslim prayer postures, he was actually synchronizing his movements to the cheap band music drifting from the activity hall nearby.

What shocked Besshiro even more was that his ailing companion, while doing this, had arranged for a full-length mirror to be propped against the opposite wall—allowing him to savor the effect of his own wretched dance reflected back at him. To enhance the visual composition, a blue wall tapestry and vase filled with summer flowers had been prepared beside the bed so they too would appear within the mirror’s frame alongside his figure. A common-sense anger flared up in Besshiro. “Why indulge such foolishness for a patient?” Besshiro challenged the model girl. “But he’s the one who ordered it,” she retorted defiantly. The ailing companion shot him a reproachful look, as if chiding him for making petty objections.

When his one-in-three request was granted and he received an injection from the doctor, the ailing companion became cheerful and chuckled airily. Having developed an appetite, he commanded Besshiro to make whatever dish he desired. Since he had ordered his usual favorites—gratinéed onion soup with leeks and cheese, beef tongue hashed rice, and green bean salad with sauce verte—Besshiro found them easy to prepare. However, dishes like wringing out duck blood to boil the duck meat in it, or chopping a large eel into chunks and setting it in vinegar-flavored jelly were Besshiro’s first attempts; even as he followed instructions from his ailing companion in bed, getting the balance right proved quite challenging. When he stirred the duck blood on a cooking pan heated by an alcohol lamp, it attained the thickness and viscosity of refined arrowroot starch. He seasoned this with salt and pepper, added slices of duck meat, gave it a brief simmer—but when Besshiro tasted it, there was no metallic tang. “This belongs to the category of elaborate luxury dishes—one of the signature specialties from a famous duck restaurant in Paris,” said the ailing companion. “The eel aspic is street food peddled in Italian immigrant slums—lower-class fare through and through.” It wasn’t good. The ailing companion perhaps took pleasure in the memories associated with those dishes; even when they were prepared for him, he barely ate them, yet continued haphazardly recalling and ordering one after another. During seasons without wild ducks, Besshiro ran about searching for young domestic ducks resembling wild ones and seeking green beans with supple pods amidst those that had grown tough through summer. Perhaps seeking to relive even more distant childhood memories, the ailing companion had him grill letter-shaped pancakes in a frying pan and roast sweet potatoes on a ceramic griddle.

Besshiro ran about fulfilling these wishes precisely because he believed them to be his ailing companion's final mementos of life, but when the companion—having amused himself with these diversions and still riding the lingering effects of medication in continued cheerfulness—made Besshiro labor as his playmate, even Besshiro came to resent him. The ailing companion demanded that Besshiro use oil paints to depict a human face upon the cancerous tumor swelling on the back of his neck—now bulging to the size where a rubber ball seemed about to emerge from beneath the skin. “Call some friends over to show them—I’ll have some fun pretending I’ve grown a human-faced carbuncle!” Even when Besshiro refused, he would not listen. Besshiro reluctantly took up the brush. When the bandage was removed, within the mass—now crocodile-skin colored from X-ray burns and ointment—there seemed to lurk a congealed mass of obstinate anti-human will. The tumor—its dense congealing at the core maintaining a rounded form, covered by flesh and skin of ideal tautness—evoked both an impulse to plunge a sharp scalpel into it and a sense that one had no recourse but to mockingly jeer at its stubborn congealment. The tumor’s skin took the oil paint well. Through the strokes of his brush tip pressing against this monster’s visage via oil paint, he comprehended how profoundly his ailing companion had detested this tumor. And through hating it to the extreme, he felt he understood why one had to divert their feelings with mischievous intent. “Paint it boldly—a face that mocks human suffering! Make it look like a human face, not some tumor.” He applied a base coat to resemble a human face, added shading, and began sketching the nose, mouth, and eyes. The ailing companion had been enduring this far with clenched teeth, but upon uttering “T-t-t-t-t-t,” he convulsed his body. He said: “I can’t take it anymore. Enough—have someone finish painting it after I’ve become a painless corpse.” Therefore, the human face painted upon the tumor bore eyes only on one side, and even those had slid askew. Besshiro did not attempt to finish painting the face even after he died, just as his ailing companion had said. The face of the artificial human-faced carbuncle—glaring with its single narrowed eye while roaring with laughter—seemed to have gained deeper meaning through this displaced happenstance. As a human face gazing upon life’s imperfections and the impermanence of all phenomena—why would one need to add even a single brushstroke more?

Besshiro gazed intently at the unfinished face peering prominently from his ailing companion’s bony shoulder, muttered “Good” to himself, then placed the corpse in its coffin and had them both cremated.

The injections continued without allowing the ailing companion’s pain to subside. Reduced to consuming only liquids，he lay on the bed，gasping for breath. Besshiro could only think about how much a person could change，as it resembled the dried fur seal displayed on the night stall’s signboard advertising fur seal products. The ailing companion stopped taking anything by mouth，and it seemed his pain vanished as well. The doctor announced that the end was near. The nurse and the model girl began making preparations to leave，their tearful eyes blinking incessantly.

The ailing companion often lay in a hazy state where it was unclear whether he was asleep or awake. However, hearing a murmuring sound deep in his throat, Besshiro brought his ear close and found him singing a song. Besshiro had never once heard his ailing companion sing this kind of song. When he strained to discern the indistinct melody, it turned out to be a lullaby. "Hush now, hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye."

Realizing Besshiro’s face had drawn near, the ailing companion forced a smile. And when he tried to piece together the meaning of the words gasped out between labored breaths, this is what they amounted to. “No matter where I look, everything has been cleared away—it’s as if there’s nothing at all. No matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find anything among my belongings to give you, so I was troubled. Oh yes—there’s Aunt living alone in Tokyo. This hasn’t disappeared—it’s still here. It’s faintly and dimly visible in the distance. I’ll give this to you. This is good stuff. I’m giving this to you, so give it to your aunt.”

The ailing companion died.

In Kyoto, apart from old business associates or companions from his social circle, there was not a single person who could be considered family. When he inquired with the aunt in Tokyo, her reply—citing her advanced age and that all funeral arrangements would be handled appropriately—led Besshiro to take charge and have the body cremated.

Carrying those remains, Besshiro came to Tokyo. Though Higaki no Shujin, born in Tokyo, had become practically without family ties, his family temple and grave were located in the Akasaka-Aoyama area. Though this concerned the head of the household and he had brought the bones at his aunt’s request—who wished them buried in the family temple’s grave—Besshiro settled into that aunt’s downtown home in Tokyo, completed the burial, and within the little over a month during which he intended to sightsee this metropolis before returning to Kyoto, he had already become his aunt’s captive.

This aunt had been a cooking instructor at a girls' school, where during those pioneering days of girls' education she taught all manner of domestic science subjects alongside others. Even after being dismissed from the school for falling behind the times, this instead became her means of livelihood, and she opened a private school that took in downtown girls to provide pre-marital training. The aunt herself was an unfortunate woman—her husband had died young, her four or so children had gradually dwindled away, leaving only a daughter of marriageable age, her youngest child, who managed the school’s miscellaneous affairs. She was an anemic, docile woman—scolded by her aunt and made to run errands, and while being called "Sis" by the daughters of her mother’s students, she was somewhat looked down upon. Whenever told anything, she would grow flustered—that was the kind of girl she was.

The aunt had long ago taken in her nephew Higaki no Shujin when he was orphaned in early childhood, raising him among her own children until his boyhood; but after Higaki no Shujin ran away from home to wander even abroad, severing all contact, she claimed that all love and resentment toward this nephew had vanished. However, she declared that if matters were left unattended, the Higaki household’s line of heirs would be extinguished.

The Higaki household was the main family, and the aunt had married out from that house into a branch family. The aunt declared that even if her own household were to fall into ruin, it mattered not—but she wished to preserve at least the Higaki main family’s name. That was the proposal. “If you aren’t too opposed—” “Marry my daughter, give one of your children to the Higaki household, and let their family name be restored through this alone.” “This would fulfill my filial duty to the main family, while allowing you to show profound devotion to your dear friend.” “First, the daughter I ask you to take is the Higaki family’s one and only female cousin.” “Might this not be some karmic bond?”

When his aunt first broached this matter, Besshiro dismissed it with a laugh. That friend who had soared so freely through artistic reverie until his demise—after life’s music had faded, only its lingering resonance remained, yet the resolution carried a peculiar beauty akin to empty space itself. Against this companion’s life and death, the aunt’s proposal felt like some trite social obligation. No matter how he tried stitching it together, it could never extend that friend’s existence. As for the youngest daughter his aunt kept mentioning—she held no appeal whatsoever for him. “But even if you say that—” Besshiro made a baffled face while clutching his head, yet the aunt’s persuasion flowed without pause or respite. “You must establish yourself in Tokyo. Tokyo is an excellent place,” she declared, appraising his talents before hastily securing him domestic service positions at three or four prominent households—starting with Keisetsukan—thus mooring him to this new sphere. The aunt had grown intimate with Keisetsu during Keisetsukan’s downtown days, having taken his elder daughter Ochiyo into her school for training.

What an unresisting, characterless woman she was. Besshiro had eventually become ensnared by the very extraordinariness—in that sense—of this woman named Itsuko: his aunt’s youngest daughter and cousin to Higaki no Shujin. For a man like Besshiro—whose tyrannical thorns protruded even into life’s trivialities—a woman as thin and pliant as cotton without substance instead posed the danger of becoming all too easily entangled and enveloped. The venting of Besshiro’s frustrations toward the world, born from his dissatisfaction, transformed into domineering demands that fell upon those closest at hand. She would always respond with a startled, sorrowful expression—“Yes, yes”—and strive to fulfill his demands with a half-crouched scurry. The sight of her—never once reflecting on her own menial role, anxiously awaiting the next command—made Besshiro feel as if he were generating electricity within himself; contemptuous yet perversely gratified. Even as the venomous barbs of his curses and mockery—spat out with spiteful excess at the world—pierced every inch of her body, she merely endured them mercilessly, restraining herself so thoroughly that not even a whimper of pain could be heard. Her sole virtue was a fine-grained complexion; a flavorless, cold, fragile melancholy; an honesty too dull to even scorch. Meanwhile, the aunt continued her persuasion with a faint smile, never relented. As Besshiro thought—What’s the point?—Itsuko had become a necessary fixture in his daily life. They had entered into a marriage-like relationship. Reluctantly and thoroughly, just as his aunt had hoped, Besshiro became a resident of Tokyo and ended up calling Itsuko his wife. And just as Higaki no Shujin had uttered in his delirium before dying—“I’ll give you my aunt”—he would sometimes contemplate the strangeness of how those words had come true exactly as scripted.

He could not claim indifference toward his birth mother remaining alone in Kyoto or the elderly rubbing artisan who had supported him until near adulthood. However, given Besshiro’s present circumstances—and precisely because his relationships with them were rooted in such deep karmic bonds—to dwell on these thoughts proved agonizing. For Besshiro, burning with ambition to make his mark in this sprawling metropolis, the fact that he could call another’s aunt his own with manageable familial obligation—despite her being merely his late friend’s relative—came as a relief. The old woman, with her light sense of responsibility and willingness to handle affairs, proved convenient. Yet Besshiro found it repugnant to contemplate how Higaki no Shujin—who in life had seemed to devote himself to whimsy, treat death as play, and pass all existence like improvisational verse—had in delirious unconsciousness dragged behind a single mundane thread into this world, entangling it around his friend, and how this thread now pulsed unexpectedly warm with portent.

Among the three or four influential downtown households that his aunt had arranged for him, Besshiro ingratiated himself most deeply with the master of Keisetsukan.

The master of Keisetsukan was an Edo-born Chinese classics scholar who in his youth had undoubtedly been one of the new thinkers of his time. Through lectures and writings, he had gained considerable renown. He would wear oilcloth Chinese-style clothing and even attend continental policy meetings. His theories had become outdated, and due in part to his wife’s mysterious death, he severed all ties with public matters, writing kanji dictionaries and exam preparation books that seemed likely to sell, which he independently published and distributed. With that earned money, he purchased rental houses and land plots, and also devised other means of wealth accumulation. He became a minor wealthy man.

He lived as a widower. After having his elder daughter Ochiyo attend the private school, he made her take on the role of housewife while treating his younger daughter Okinu as his cherished favorite. Aided by Keisetsu’s eccentricities, this scholar-turned-merchant’s household saw extremely few visitors apart from those like Higaki’s aunt. Though a newcomer, to Keisetsu, Besshiro was an unmanageable yet novel monster. When it came to refined pursuits like the four arts of qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting, he could converse on nearly any topic—yet his manner of speaking was such that it inadvertently drew Keisetsu forward with enthusiasm, lacing each conversational turn with paradoxical triggers that invigorated his interlocutor’s mood. Above all, when it came to the flavor of food, Besshiro demonstrated his expertise by actually preparing dishes. He, who possessed an uncanny psychological insight into stubborn individuals, exploited this middle-aged gentleman’s epicurean tongue from that very angle, manipulating his desires as if playing piano keys. Keisetsu, a widower with time to spare, spent all day beneath the blazing sun huffing and puffing as if fat were burning inside his body—wearing a traveler’s helmet to prune potted plants, obsess over his pets, and indulge in eccentric collections. At times, society would shower him with superficial material gains while forgetting the reverence of yore, and he would rail against this scholar-merchant era with maddened indignation. Combined with the backlash from such grievances, Keisetsu’s obsession with food grew more intense.

Keisetsu beamed with satisfaction as he forced his elder daughter Ochiyo into the role of a household-bound housewife while lavishing contemporary fashions upon his younger daughter Okinu and sending her to a French Catholic girls’ school in Shiba’s high district. Though he naturally favored Okinu by disposition, this too likely stemmed from his obsessive tendency to skew all matters to extremes. He had become obsessed with turtle cuisine even before Besshiro arrived; while he somehow managed turtle hotpot, his attempts at steamed turtle amounted to little more than repeated botching. Besshiro effortlessly demonstrated—with practiced ease—the selection of firewood for preparing hot ashes to bury a turtle wrapped in white cotton, the adjustment of the ashes’ heat, and the steaming time required; Keisetsu tore into the finished dish and ate it with raw soy sauce, declaring it the most delicious thing he’d tasted in recent memory. Until then, Besshiro had gone by the name Yoshirō from his Kyoto days; but from that point onward, Keisetsu became fixated on summoning Yoshirō as his interlocutor and arbitrarily assigned him the appellation “Besshiro.” The sisters too grew accustomed to calling him by this name. The possessive Keisetsu provided Besshiro and his wife with housing and minimal sustenance, compelling them to refuse employment at other households.

From the moment Besshiro first set foot in Keisetsukan and laid eyes on the younger sister Okinu, he thought Oh? A girl who dwelled in a world so utterly removed from his own—and yet one who matched his preferences so perfectly—had never existed before. She always appeared dressed in an innocent, dreamlike manner, yet carried a faint tinge of ironic bitterness. While early greens might be pure and innocent, there was something akin to an authority that harbored within its inscrutable core a future upbringing violently torn away.

Okinu showed no particular curiosity toward Besshiro—the young man who had entered their reclusive household—and even when he was occasionally nearby, she would leave him cast aside as if forgotten, dreaming or playing by herself. Perhaps having been raised solely by a domineering father without a mother, at that time a neutral-type loneliness tinged with nobility seeped through her being. Besshiro’s handsome appearance seemed never to have concerned her from the very beginning. The elder sister Ochiyo was the one who blushed and showed signs of bewilderment.

When facing Okinu, Besshiro found himself involuntarily stiffening his posture and adopting an overbearing manner—a compulsion he couldn’t suppress. As if partially glimpsing his innermost thoughts yet not fully penetrating them, she would slowly lift her usually downcast, misted eyes to stare directly at him. Confronted by this gaze, Besshiro felt an irreconcilable disparity that made his heart recoil at his own vulgarity. Yet while attending to Keisetsu’s needs, Besshiro had been tasked with teaching culinary techniques to the sisters. As he began guiding Okinu’s hands through the motions during instruction, an unexpected ease settled between them. Like any ordinary girl, she proved endearingly clumsy in her kitchen work—a quality as charming as pale skin glimpsed through an accidental gap in a kimono’s seams. He found himself savoring her artless blunders without reprimand or scorn. Okinu never conceded defeat in these exchanges, always retaliating sharply, yet seemed to nurture a growing fascination with his exceptional skills. Emboldened, Besshiro launched into self-aggrandizing discourses on culinary artistry. All restraint dissolved—though nothing substantial emerged beyond this. Even as he thought *This girl—this very girl—is precisely to my taste*, Besshiro unwittingly let months slip by in an unremarkable domestic routine with Itsuko until a child was born. Now Aunt waited with bated breath for another infant—the promised heir to the Higaki lineage—to enter this world.

Tonight, lured by the depth and viscous thickness of the fog-shrouded darkness, Besshiro found himself—unusually—revisiting the aftertaste of his life thus far. Having fixed upon death as the ultimate reckoning that settles all accounts—a final foothold—he surveyed this existence from that void of non-being; through a heart compelled to dismiss ephemeral life as trivial, he now regarded death itself as equally weightless. This conviction he believed he had forged from childhood experiences into a coherent philosophy by now.

The conviction that life's prime was to be seized while alive—that if possible, one should persist in endless preparation—had gradually grown tenuous. Not a single thing I had ever intended had come to pass. Even the sole flavor of food I believed I had ceaselessly pursued—now overshadowed by the worldly matters that clung to it—seemed to have swept me into unexpected currents, leaving me feeling like a mere tool to be wielded as others pleased.

Hail falls. Within a darkness both profound and viscous. The hail continues to fall incessantly, as if believing that someday it might whiten this darkness—a darkness that remains unwhitened no matter how much it falls.

The night deepened. The noises from nearby houses quieted down, leaving only the occasional roar of trams resounding along the main street. In the adjacent tearoom, his wife—appearing to have fallen asleep—would whisper “Daddy will hear, Daddy will hear” to their child whenever he threatened to cry, pressing him silent against her breast before resuming faint slumbering breaths. While Besshiro was home, the child—wary of his temperamental father yet hearing his mother’s voice—would clench his teeth with childish resolve and suppress his tears, a habit that Besshiro found pitiable for the first time tonight.

His late father, the old monk, had once told his mother: should a child ever resent him by lamenting “Why did you bring me into this wretched world?” he would retort “You were born without my asking—it’s mutual.” “It’s mutual,” his late father had told his mother—or so he’d heard—but considering it tonight, those words now seemed to Besshiro like ones his father had arrived at after thorough deliberation. Even in the child there existed a will unknown even to himself. In this mutual incomprehension Father left me behind, and I have left this child behind. The mother who had conveyed his father’s words—intending to renounce all worldly desires in her youth for the sake of atoning for her family’s sins—could not sever her greed for food; lamenting even as she passed this desire down through her own cravings. When I was a boy and returned home speaking of delicacies I’d been treated to elsewhere, Mother would grill me in exhaustive detail—her face flushing with such vivid satisfaction you’d think she herself had eaten them. And Higaki—my only friend for whom I had performed the deathbed water ritual—had effortlessly concealed from me, in the unconsciousness of his death throes, this scheme to wed his niece to me and obtain an heir’s lineage. As I thought this through I realized there was not a single thing in this world that could be settled within my own lifetime. Not a single thing I’ve accomplished was done by myself alone. They all continue to perpetuate one another through this mutual incomprehension my late father spoke of. The first thing I noticed was the words said by that painter and poet couple—whom I had met only twice during a certain spring in Kyoto: “We, thinking it unforgivable to prolong our occupation of paradise’s seats, are now searching for places in hell.” Considering that, even those teachers must have struggled bitterly with this inescapable mutual bond. When the lady spoke of “truth” and “sincerity,” was she referring not to some facile morality but to something lying in a deep undercurrent riddled with quirks and complexities? What is that?

The night deepened profoundly, growing ever more profound—a darkness thickening with viscous richness. The hail fell with infinite appetite—devoured from below, ravenously, insatiably. If one were to shift their perspective slightly, it could also be seen as eternally, ceaselessly spitting hail from above. A darkness that knew no satiety—devouring while vomiting, devouring still—its endless appetite unfathomed. Besshiro had never before known such a voracious appetite. Could it be that what devours death and vomits forth life is also like this?

Surrendering himself to the darkness and staring until self-awareness dissolved, he noticed something glossy within that blackness—a richness that made his heart feel ceaselessly manipulated. Okinu? What’s this? Another contrivance? The daikon chili pot had long reduced, its bottom resembling tidal debris on a dried-up shore. Finding several beer bottles delivered by a brewery boy in the kitchen, Besshiro carried them to the sitting room. Despite his alcohol intolerance, he resolved to drink through the hail-veiled night while contemplating the darkness. Yet to commune with this voracious void—"Radish stew simply won’t do."

He calmly called out to the adjacent room.

“Itsuko, I’m sorry to trouble you, but go wake Izu Shō on Nakadōri Street. If they have anglerfish liver—or if there’s any leatherjacket fish liver in stock—get them to give you some. If you say the teacher wants it, they’ll surely oblige—” He made the request with uncharacteristic politeness.

Responding with a sleepy "Yes, yes," Itsuko hurried out flusteredly; hearing her departing footsteps, Besshiro added more charcoal to the brazier. When the light from the 50-candlepower bulb fell upon his tilted face, a single tear—unlike any he had ever seen before—glistened on Besshiro’s eyelid.