I Planned My Escape Because I Knew Her Secret - Episode 22

By the summer of the first year, I had gotten used to life in Okayama and the Okayama dialect.

To be honest, I was eating udon more than rice in my diet.

Completely different from my life before fleeing, I was cutting back on living expenses and had no friends, so to others, it seemed like a lonely and dull solitary life. But I felt liberated from the curse of Madoka, and since it was my first time living alone and my first time living away from my hometown, I spent my days leisurely, feeling relaxed, carefree, and a sense of freedom.

In July, while I was enjoying my life in Okayama, I was eating my usual Kamatama udon at the udon shop when Yuko-san was being harassed by a drunken customer since the morning.

The proprietress came out right away and the two of them were handling it, but they couldn’t communicate at all with the drunk. Meanwhile, the shop was in a situation where customers were coming in one after another, and I couldn’t just stand by and ended up butting in.

Well, since I was a family restaurant manager, dealing with complaints and drunk customers was an everyday occurrence.

“Hey, uncle, how about we go outside for a bit?” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder and dragging him out. “It’s going to get hot today, so you should head back and get some sleep soon, or you’ll end up collapsing from heatstroke, right? You want to enjoy some good drinks tonight too, don’t you?” We chatted casually for about ten minutes, and then I said, “Take care on your way back, uncle,” and sent him off. For now, I just wanted him to go home.

So, I went back to the shop, finished my meal, cleaned up the dishes, and was about to leave when the owner called out, “Hey, wait a minute!” She started packing a mountain of the shop’s products like inari sushi, shrimp tempura, and chicken tempura (now that I think about it, they were all expensive items) into a takeout box and said, “Take this home! Thanks for earlier!” I replied, “No, no, I didn’t mean to

The next day, I went to the restaurant again, and while the morning was the same as usual, in the evening, Yuko-san asked me a lot of probing questions.

“Hey, you’re not from around here, are you? Where are you from?”

“It’s Aichi. I just got here at the end of May.”

“Wow, you’re from Nagoya. Are you here for work?”

“Um, it’s not work, you know.”

The perception that Aichi equals Nagoya outside the Tokai region was something I was repeatedly reminded of when I came to Okayama and at my part-time job, but it became too bothersome to deny it every time, so I stopped denying it when people said Nagoya.

“Hey, you live in the apartment next door, right? If you’re not working, what are you doing now?”

“I’m a freeter.”

“Huh? Really? You’re in your 20s, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow”

I was called to the register by another customer, so my conversation with Yuko-san ended there, but the next day, I went to the shop again in the morning, and while eating my usual bukkake udon and watching the kitchen, this time I was called by the proprietress.

“Hey, would you like to work at our place?”

“Huh? Here?”

“Right! How about trying your hand at making udon?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. We can’t give you a bonus, but you’ll get three meals a day.”

I didn’t think it was a joke, but I asked with half a mind.

“I’m not that young, but can I really learn to make udon from now on?”

“It’s okay, it’s okay! Hey, Dad!”

The head chef, who was called by the landlady, smiled and said, “Oh! No problem, no problem!” and I thought, “Ah, this might be the path suitable for my new life,” and bowed my head right there, saying, “Please!”

By the way, at this time, I introduced myself for the first time, saying, “My name is Masaki Yamashiro! I’m 27 years old and single!”

And then, on that very day, I informed my part-time job that I would be quitting at the end of July, and from that day on, I started working at the store only in the evenings throughout July.