Cooking Cousins
When Ai woke up, she couldn’t remember falling asleep.
Her room was half-dark, the heavy curtains blocking even the morning light. It felt like time had stopped while she drifted off somewhere between fever and faint. Her throat burned dry, her lips were cracked. Her body ached in that familiar way, not sharp pain, but the dull, heavy ache of long hunger.
Her stomach growled with a hunger that seemed to consume her very being, but she'd long since surrendered to the void within. Starvation was just another weapon in her arsenal of self-destruction.
For a few seconds she just lay there, face pressed into the mattress that smelled of sweat. Then she heard it.
A sound. Faint, persistent. Somewhere beyond the threshold where her door would have been.
Ring… ring… ring…
It was distant, like it came from another world. Her landline.
Ai tried to get up, pushing with her arms, but her legs didn’t follow. Her vision blurred and the room tilted. She fell face-first with a dull thud, cheek against the cold floor.
She stayed there for a while. The ringing kept going.
She tried again to stand, but her legs buckled beneath her weight. With a defeated whimper, Ai collapsed face-first onto the grimy floorboards again.
Eventually, she began to crawl.
With agonizing slowness, Ai dragged herself forward on hands and knees across the cluttered expanse of floor space between bedroom and living room. Dust motes swirled lazily in weak sunlight filtering through grimy windows as she crawled past mounds of discarded trash and empty takeout containers, some with moldy leftovers from meals long past their expiration dates.
Piles of pizza boxes teetered precariously near the edge of tables, threatening to topple over at any moment and unleash a cascade of congealed cheese and stale crusts across the floor.
The floor was littered with plastic bags and old laundry, the air full of dust and the faint sour scent of old rotten food. Her palms stuck to something tacky as she dragged herself forward.
In one corner, a pile of soiled laundry had been abandoned for weeks or even months - dirty socks tangled together in knots, t-shirts stained with mysterious substances that could only be guessed at.
Used tissues littered most available surfaces like macabre remnants of a snowfall.
When she reached the living room, she couldn’t even see the phone at first. The coffee table was buried under takeout boxes, flattened drink cartons, and the husks of convenience-store meals. Somewhere under all that was the old beige landline.
Ai clawed through the debris, the phone still ringing.
She almost knocked it off the table before gripping it with both trembling hands and pressing it to her ear.
“H—hello…” Her voice came out cracked.
There was a pause. Then, a voice, warm but old, heavy with the tone of someone who’d done this many times before.
“...Ai?”
It was her grandmother.
Ai froze, eyes wide. The shock of hearing another human voice almost hurt.
“...O—obaa-chan…” she rasped.
“Ah, good. You picked up.” Her grandmother’s tone was calm, even, like she expected Ai to sound like this. “I was starting to think you’d be able to sleep through the rigning.”
Ai’s throat worked but no sound came. Her tongue felt heavy.
“You still there, girl?”
“...Y—yeah. Sorry. I was... asleep,” Ai murmured, though even that word felt dishonest. Sleep implied rest.
Her grandmother sighed through the line, not unkindly. “You sound worse than last time. You need to open the windows. Let some light in.”
Ai nodded weakly, even though the old woman couldn’t see.
Ai's eyes wandered while she held the phone to her ear. She looked around the living room.
There, in another corner, lay remnants of times when she'd spiraled into (even deeper) madness: crumpled notes scrawled in frenzied handwriting, half-finished plans for murder or mayhem that never came to fruition.
In the midst of those fugue states, Ai had battered her head against walls until bruises bloomed on pale skin, leaving behind a trail of blood on the surface.
The phone cord brushed against her arm as she sat slumped beside the couch, knees drawn up.
“Are you eating?”
Ai blinked slowly, staring at the dust motes drifting through the slits of the curtain. “...I will,” she murmured, her voice still hoarse from disuse.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Ai pressed her lips together. “...No.”
There was a sigh, deep and slow. The kind that meant I knew it.
“Well,” her grandmother said, “you’ll eat when you get here.”
That startled Ai. “...Here?”
“Yes. I’ll be making food, so you don’t get to refuse. You can help me with something, too.”
Ai hesitated, her fingers tightening around the receiver. She glanced at the clock on the wall — the hands had stopped long ago, pointing at a meaningless time. “...Momo will be there?”
“Of course, where else? You’re family. You two should see each other more.”
Ai’s eyes dropped to the clutter around her. Family.
The word crawled under her skin.
Grandma continued, practical as ever, “You can take the evening train. The bus doesn’t go up this far anymore, and I’d rather you not walk alone. Bring a jacket, it gets cold here after sunset.”
“...Okay,” Ai whispered.
There was a brief pause, and then her grandmother’s voice softened just slightly.
“Has Taika-... Has your mother been around?”
The question came out so casually, so carefully, it almost sounded like an afterthought. But Ai froze anyway.
Her throat tightened. Her fingers twitched against the plastic of the phone.
“No,” she said, too quickly. Then, quieter, “No.”
A silence settled over the line — not surprise, just quiet acceptance.
“I see,” her grandmother said finally. “Well. That’s that, then.”
She didn’t prod further.
“Also bring some of your old clothes,” Grandma said at last, her tone brisk again. “If you got any that don't fit we could see if your cousin can use them.”
Ai made a small sound of acknowledgment, unsure if it even counted as a word.
“Now go get ready,” the old woman added. “And don't worry, you can bring leftovers home with you.”
“...Okay,” Ai said again.
“Good girl.”
The line clicked dead.
For a long while, Ai stayed there, crouched among the wreckage of her apartment, the dial tone still humming softly in the receiver.
Ai set the receiver down, staring blankly at the mess around her.
The light from the curtained window made the air shimmer with dust.
She rubbed her eyes, then looked down at her hands, at the faint crescent scars from her own nails across her arms, the tremor in her fingers.
Ai stood in the doorway of her bathroom, staring at the mirror that wasn’t really a mirror anymore.
The light above it flickered, that thin, unstable hum of a bulb half-dead, turning her reflection into a jittery, broken ghost that came and went with every pulse of light.
The laminated photo of Shu hung there, perfectly centered, taped over the spiderwebbed hole. His face, smiling faintly in that school ID stiffness, was the only thing that wasn’t cracked.
Ai raised a trembling hand and peeled it away carefully.
The tape made a wet sound as it came loose. She held the photo like a holy relic, brushing the edge clean with her thumb before setting it down on the counter.
For a moment, Ai hesitated - gazing at that broken glass seemed to hold some primal terror for her. She felt nothing at the sight of handprints and nail scratches mingled with faint crimson stains, and even if she had felt revulsion at them it would have been compared to what awaited within.
There was nothing between her and it.
Her reflection.
Or what passed for it.
The cracks in the glass multiplied her into fragments — arms here, half a mouth there, one eye stretched wide in the middle of the webbed break. It was like looking at a stranger built from her wrong parts.
A scream built in her throat as Ai's gaze fell upon the web of cracks radiating from a fist-sized hole at the center of that shattered visage.
Ai tried to breathe, but the sound that came out was a thin gasp, half sob, half animal noise. Her skin crawled as if every pore were being pulled open, her heartbeat hammering up into her throat.
For a moment, she thought she could handle it — that she could look. Just long enough to see that she was still human, that she still had a body. But the shape staring back from the mirror wasn’t something deserving of such considerations.
Ai’s stomach twisted violently. She leaned over the sink, retching dry, spit stringing from her lips. Nothing came up. There was nothing left to come up.
Her reflection wavered, distorted, sneering, the cracks making her eyes look hollow. Something in her head started to buzz, a sound that filled her skull like electricity and shame all at once.
“Stop it,” she whispered, voice shaking.
The reflection didn’t listen.
“Stop it, stop it, stop—”
Her fist hit the mirror before she could think.
The crack deepened, webbing outward even more in a sound like snapping bone.
She hit it again. And again.
Shards fell into the sink, slicing her knuckles, streaking the porcelain red. She didn’t stop.
She ripped the cabinet off the wall with both hands, the screws screaming in protest, and threw it across the room. It slammed into the bathtub with a crash that made the pipes rattle, the remaining shards of glass scattering everywhere.
Her breath tore out of her, ragged, feral.
Blood ran down her arms, across her wrists, over her fingers, thin lines first, then thicker.
For a long moment, Ai just stood there, chest heaving, staring at the wreckage.
Then, slowly, she bent down and picked up Shu’s photo from the counter, her hands trembling so badly she almost dropped it. There was a smear of blood across his cheek now — hers — but she didn’t try to wipe it off.
She pressed it to her chest instead, held it there like it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely.
“…I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice barely a breath. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good today.”
The bathroom was silent except for the faint drip of blood on tile.
Her reflection — what was left of it — had been reduced to glittering fragments across the floor.
She felt grateful not to have to look at herself anymore.
Ai stepped into the tub, her bare feet sinking into a layer of shattered glass and mirror fragments. The sharp edges bit into her soles as she made her way to stand beneath the showerhead, water cascading down in scalding rivulets that stung against raw skin.
For a moment, Ai simply let the heat wash over her - a rare respite from the chill that seemed to permeate every inch of this hovel. But as steam began to fog up the bathroom, obscuring any view beyond translucent curtains, she found herself slipping back into that familiar dissociative state.
Time lost all meaning as Ai stood there lost in thought - memories of Shu Jinkō swirling through her mind like a kaleidoscope.
As minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness, Ai's thoughts grew increasingly disjointed, jumping from one random recollection to another without any logical connection. She saw him laughing with friends at a party, his eyes sparkling with joy... then she was the one laughing, her own voice echoing in that darkened room as she tried to mimic the pitch of Shu's using one of her recordings for reference.
In that moment, as steam swirled around Ai like some ethereal cocoon obscuring reality from view, she felt an overwhelming urge to simply stay here forever - trapped beneath this relentless torrent of boiling water until nothing remained but a lifeless husk drained of all emotion and desire.
But even that fleeting respite was denied her as the shower finally cut off with a grating click. Ai stood there shivering, water dripping from her hair and running down pale skin now flushed a deep crimson from the heat.
Getting dressed was always the hardest part.
Not because of the clothes — those were simple, predictable, safe — but because of everything that had to happen before them.
Ai’s room was still half-dark, curtains drawn tight to keep out the day. She sat at the edge of her mattress, surrounded by the small stack of folded garments that she kept separate from the chaos — family clothes, as she called them. Her armor for the rare occasions when she had to see them.
A thick, charcoal knit sweater.
A long, beige skirt that reached her ankles.
And the scuffed brown ankle boots that had once belonged to her mother.
She’d worn this same set for years. The fabric was heavy enough to hide her outline, to press everything down and keep it out of sight. It didn’t matter if it was too warm, or if the sweater itched. It was the only outfit that made her feel invisible in the right way.
Before she could touch it, though, came the real ordeal.
The binder.
It lay coiled on the floor like some cruel medical bandage, faded elastic, corners frayed from overuse. Ai stared at it for a long time before picking it up. Her hands trembled slightly as she slipped it over her head, pulling it down inch by inch. The constriction began immediately, a creeping tightness that made it hard to breathe.
She forced herself through it. It always hurt, but the pain was grounding. It meant she was becoming smaller, less visible, less herself.
Next came a loose t-shirt, cinching it tight around her torso until every curve was flattened into an unremarkable rectangle
The sweater came next. It was thick, soft, and smelled faintly of cedar from being stored in a box. Pulling it on felt like hiding under a heavy blanket, like covering up something shameful. The skirt followed, falling loose and shapeless, and finally the boots, stiff leather that still took effort to lace.
By the time she finished, her breath came shallow through the binder’s pressure, but she felt... organized. As if the chaos inside her had been arranged into something orderly, if only for appearance’s sake.
She sat still for a while, catching her breath, hands resting on her knees. Her heart thudded dully in her chest, each beat reminding her she was still in this body she couldn’t stand. But at least now it was hidden, muffled under the weight of clothes that didn’t belong to any particular shape or person.
In hiding every curve and contour of her body from view, Ai was also attempting to erase any lingering reminders of her own femininity - that which Shu Jinkō could never truly accept or desire in someone so clearly beneath him.
Her eyes drifted to the small, cluttered altar in the corner — Shu’s photo, half-wilted flowers, the empty convenience-store onigiri wrappers arranged neatly around a candle stub.
“I’ll be quick,” she whispered to it, voice barely there.
Then she got up, grabbed her worn bag, and stepped over the piles of trash toward the door.
Family. Dinner.
Ai made her way through the narrow backstreets of the forbidden zone.
The rain from the previous night had left puddles that shimmered with oil and dust.
She clutched the cloth bag close to her chest. Inside were folded clothes: skirts, sweaters, things that had once fit her but now refused to. She’d washed them, even ironed the edges as best she could, though she hadn’t worn them in years. They were for Momo.
It had been so long since she last took this route, yet her feet moved on their own.
Left at the rusted vending machine, down the narrow alley, then across the vacant lot where the weeds grew high enough to brush her knees. Muscle memory guided her where her mind refused to be present.
When she finally stopped, it was in front of a small, two-story house at the edge of the block. The outer walls had faded from white to a weary beige; cracks webbed through the plaster, and the metal bars on the windows had gone from silver to deep rust. Laundry hung outside on a sagging wire, swaying gently in the wind.
Obaa-chan, and Momo’s home.
Ai’s hand hovered over the sliding door for a second before she slid it open, careful not to make noise. The faint, earthy scent of tatami and fabrics greeted her, that strange blend full of nostalgia.
“Ah,” came the voice from deeper inside. “Ai?”
Grandmomo appeared in the corridor, small and stooped, her hair bound in a tight bun streaked with silver. She wore an old-patterned kimono with faded indigo flowers, sleeves rolled up. Her face was lined but sharp, and her eyes still carried authority even in this worn-down corner of the world.
“Obaa-chan,” Ai murmured, bowing slightly.
“You came all this way by yourself.” The old woman gave a small approving nod. “Well done.”
Ai managed the ghost of a smile.
“Come on in, don't stand there,” Obaa-chan said dryly, but the softness in her tone betrayed her fondness. She gestured toward the tatami room. “Sit, sit. Momo’s not back yet. You know her.”
Ai slipped off her boots and stepped onto the tatami. The living room hadn’t changed. The same low table in the middle, the same thin cushions pressed flat with age, the same old TV against the wall with a doily covering its top. A framed photograph of Ai’s late grandfather and Momo's parents still sat near the kamidana shrine, half-hidden behind a small vase of chrysanthemums.
She sat, folding her hands neatly over her knees. Her movements were automatic, the kind of stillness learned from years of trying not to take up space.
“So, you told me your mother hasn’t been around, has she?” Obaa-chan asked casually from the kitchen, the sound of boiling water hissing faintly in the background.
Ai’s expression didn’t change. “…No.”
“I figured.” There was no surprise in the old woman’s voice. Just acceptance. “It’s all right. I’ll make you some tea. You look pale.”
Ai wanted to say she was always pale, but she only nodded.
The kettle whistled, and the faint scent of barley began to fill the house.
She watched the dust dance in the light that cut through the paper screen, her reflection faint in the darkened TV screen. For a moment, the clutter and rot of her own apartment felt like a distant nightmare, and she could almost pretend she was just another granddaughter visiting for dinner.
Her eyes wandered to the framed photo of Obaa-chan’s garden, one taken before Momo and Ai grew distant. In it, they were both small. Momo in a hand-me-down tracksuit, already grinning like a troublemaker, and Ai. awkward, taller even then, hiding behind her.
A different lifetime.
From the kitchen, Obaa-chan’s voice broke the silence.
“You’ll stay for dinner, right?”
Ai blinked once, softly. “Yes. I brought some clothes for Momo, too.”
“Mm. good,” Obaa-chan said. Then, with a small smile as she left for the kitchen again, “I’ll tell her not to make that face she always does when someone tries to give her something. Sit tight. It’s been too long since this house had some warmth in it.”
Ai lowered her head. “Yeah.”
She didn’t mention that she hadn’t felt warm in years.
The door slid open with a rush of air, and Ai flinched instinctively at the sound.
“Yo, I’m back,” came the familiar voice, warm, brash, and alive in a way Ai could never be.
Momo kicked off her sneakers by the genkan, a plastic bag dangling from one hand. Her long black hair, tied back with that same red ribbon she always wore brushed over her shoulder as she looked up and froze.
“Oh.”
Their eyes met.
For a second she stood there like someone who’d just walked into a ghost.
Ai rose slightly from the tatami, uncertain. “Hi.”
It was such a small word, fragile and almost lost in the room’s still air.
“Hey,” Momo said back, voice lower than usual. She rubbed the back of her neck, then glanced toward the kitchen. “Granny, she’s here?”
“Right here,” the old woman called, unfazed. “Take your shoes off properly when you come in.”
Momo muttered something under her breath but obeyed, then padding into the living room. Ai sat back down. The air between them was heavy, brittle.
For a few seconds, neither spoke. Momo’s eyes flicked over her cousin, the thick sweater, the long skirt, the hollow look in her eyes. There was something like guilt in her face, buried under a frown.
She wanted to say sorry. For not visiting. For not calling. For leaving Ai alone back then when she’d needed someone. But the words wouldn’t come out. She didn’t even know where to start.
Instead, she reached for something else, movement, action, anything to make up for silence.
“You look stiff as hell.” Momo’s tone came out rougher than she intended. She crouched down beside the kotatsu, fumbling for one of the thin cushions stacked in the corner. “Here. Don’t sit right on the floor like that. Bad for your back.”
Ai blinked, confused. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Momo shoved the cushion toward her anyway. “Just take it, yeah?”
Ai hesitated before taking it with a stiff little nod. “…Thank you.”
“Sure.” Momo scratched her cheek, embarrassed by how awkward it sounded. She sat across from Ai, cross-legged, still in her long black sailor uniform, that rough-edged version of a delinquent queen.
Ai glanced at her briefly before looking down again. “You really like that uniform.”
Momo smirked faintly. “What, this thing? Yeah. Can’t ditch it. It’s like, my armor, I guess.”
“It suits you,” Ai said softly. She spoke again after another beat of silence “You look taller.”
Momo laughed under her breath, a small, surprised sound. “You too. Taller, I mean. I thought I was catching up when we were kids, but you went and grew like bamboo.”
“Sorry,” Ai murmured, automatic, though she wasn’t sure what for.
Momo’s smile faded a little. She looked at Ai, really looked, the way her hands twisted in her lap, covered in cuts, some with scabs, others already healing, the faint marks on her wrists, the way she seemed half-present, like someone dreaming while awake.
The impulse hit before she could think it through. She reached out across the table.
“Hey.”
Ai stiffened.
“I—” Momo stopped herself. Her hand hovered uselessly between them. The idea of pulling Ai into a hug, or any form of contact, to bridge that distance, to let her feel that she wasn’t alone, burned somewhere in her chest. But the look on Ai’s face stopped her cold. Wide eyes, tense shoulders, that look of panic under the surface.
Momo pulled back slowly, pretending to scratch her neck instead. “…Never mind.”
Obaa-chan appeared just then with another tea tray, saving them both. “You two look like you’re meeting after a war,” she said dryly, setting down the cups. “Drink before it gets cold.”
“Thanks,” Momo said, grateful for the interruption.
Ai murmured something similar, wrapping her fingers around the warm cup.
Momo leaned back, sighing softly. “Guess it’s been a while, huh?”
“…Yeah.”
The quiet settled heavy again.
Steam curled lazily from the tea cups. Momo sat back with one hand around hers, the other tapping faintly against her knee. Ai, on the other side of the low table, stared down at her own cup as though divining answers from the liquid surface.
Finally, she spoke, voice small, uncertain.
“I, um… I brought something.”
Momo looked up. “Huh?”
Ai fumbled with the strap of her bag, pulling it closer onto her lap. The motion was awkward, jerky, like every movement needed manual instructions. “Clothes,” she said softly. “For you.”
The old canvas bag rustled as she reached in and carefully lifted a folded bundle, muted colors, simple designs, the kind of modest, old-fashioned clothes that didn’t really suit Momo’s rough-edged energy.
Momo blinked. “For… me?”
“Y-yes.” Ai’s tone tightened, nervousness spilling out in stammers. “They—they don’t fit me anymore, so I thought maybe… maybe you could use them.”
Momo tilted her head, scratching the back of her neck. “Ah, Ai, you didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to,” Ai blurted, then flinched, lowering her gaze again. “I mean, it’s fine. They’re clean. I—I only wore them once. Just to try them on.” Her words tumbled over themselves, building speed. “Only for a minute, even. I washed them right after. Washed and ironed. I just thought—well, I know you like clothes that fit better, and these are maybe—uh—different, but—”
“Ai,” Momo cut in, blinking rapidly, caught off guard by the sheer spiral of apology.
“—it’s okay if you don’t want them,” Ai continued helplessly, voice getting quieter. “I understand. They’re mine, so they must be—” She bit down on the last word, “—dirty.”
Her fingers clenched over the fabric as if she expected it to crumble away in her hands.
Momo froze, then sighed through her nose, running a hand through her hair. She wasn’t good at this, at gentleness. She wanted to shake Ai and tell her to stop talking like that, to stop shrinking into herself like she didn’t deserve to breathe. But the words caught somewhere between her throat and her pride.
Or rather, lost in the space between her head and her heart.
So instead she reached forward, took the clothes from Ai’s hands with deliberate casualness.
“Oi,” she said, as if she were addressing a stubborn underclassman instead of her cousin. “Don’t apologize for giving me something. You’ll make me feel bad.”
Ai blinked up at her, wide-eyed.
Momo looked at the bundle — soft wool, plain but well-kept.
Not her usual style at all.
“Honestly, I don’t usually wear stuff like this,” she said, holding up a sweater with a faint grin. “But hey, no harm in giving it a try, right?”
Ai hesitated. “You… you mean it?”
“Yeah.” Momo shrugged, feigning ease, though there was an awkward warmth behind her words. “If it doesn’t work out, Granny can always turn it into something useful. Like a pillowcase or… whatever she does with old clothes.”
From the kitchen came the old woman’s voice, amused: “Or I could refit them so you have no excuse but to wear them.”
Momo grinned, calling back, “You could if you wanted to!”
Ai let out a quiet sound that was almost a laugh.
Momo looked back at her and found herself smiling too, the tension easing just a little.
The old wooden door to the kitchen slid open once again, anouncing the return of their grandma.
Grandmomo shuffled in carrying a lacquer tray with a small plate of rice crackers. Her footsteps made Ai straighten automatically.
“You two look a bit more at ease now,” the old woman said dryly, setting the tray on the table. “Good. Makes this easier.”
Momo eyed her warily. “Huh? What?”
“The reason I called you both for.” Grandmomo sat down across from them, back straight despite her years. She adjusted the hem of her kimono and gave them a look each. “There’s a Home Economics workshop starting tomorrow at the community center. You’ll both attend.”
Momo blinked. “Wait—what?”
Ai’s head tilted slightly, slow, unsure if she’d heard right. “Home… Economics?”
“Yes.” Grandmomo poured herself some tea. “Cooking, sewing, keeping a household running. The basics.”
Momo groaned, leaning back until the tatami creaked. “Seriously? You dragged me back here to tell me that? You know I can cook. Sort of.”
“That’s not the point.” The old woman didn’t even raise her voice, but somehow the air around her turned iron-solid. “You live like a stray cat, Momo. Knowing how to fight and shout doesn’t mean you can take care of yourself. And Ai—”
Ai, who had been shrinking further into herself, froze when the gaze turned to her.
“—lives alone,” Grandmomo finished, tone softening just a fraction. “You could both use something like this.”
Momo winced. “Harsh.”
“Accurate,” Grandmomo countered.
Ai mumbled, “I… don’t know if I’d be alright. With other people there.”
“You don’t need to fit in. You just need to learn something.” Grandmomo sipped her tea with finality. “Besides, it’s mostly grandmothers and a few volunteers. No one will bother you. At most they’ll just make listen to old stories while you cut your vegetables.”
Momo crossed her arms. “Sounds like torture.”
“Then it’ll build character.”
Momo looked away, scowling. “Can’t I skip this one? You know how I get when people start talking too much while I try to focus on something else.”
Grandmomo arched an eyebrow. “So you’ll leave Ai to go alone?”
That shut her up fast. Momo looked at Ai, who sat still as stone, fingers tracing the edge of her cup. Ai didn’t meet her eyes, she never did, but something about the way her shoulders tensed made Momo’s stomach twist.
“Yeah,” Grandmomo continued, perfectly aware she’d struck home. “Didn’t think so. You’re going, both of you. I already put your names down.”
Momo threw up her hands. “You what—”
“Before you start, don’t waste your breath. I’ve made this decision for the sakes of you both.”
Ai couldn’t help it, a small, almost hidden smile flickered across her face, gone as quickly as it came.
Momo sighed, rubbing her temple.
Grandmomo ignored her, turning to Ai. “You’ll go too, right?”
Ai hesitated. “If… Momo goes.”
“See?” Grandmomo said, as if that settled the matter entirely.
Momo gave Ai a sideways glance, one that tried to be teasing but came out softer than she intended. “Guess that’s that, huh? You owe me one, Ai.”
Ai ducked her head slightly, voice faint. “Okay.”
“Good.” Grandmomo clapped her hands once, satisfied. “Now that’s settled, eat something before you go. You’re skin and bones, Ai. And you,” she pointed at Momo, “need actual vitamins that aren’t from vending machine snacks.”
Ai and Momo walked side by side, not quite in step. The difference in their gaits was noticeable. Momo’s stride was confident, long, the walk of someone that felt comfortable in their own skin; Ai’s was cautious, like she expected the ground to break beneath her.
They hadn’t said much since leaving the house. Momo had her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets, trying to think of something to talk about that didn’t sound forced. The silence between them wasn’t tense exactly, but heavy.
Finally, she cleared her throat. “So, uh…”
Ai blinked, looking up just slightly.
“I heard you, uh—” Momo hesitated, already feeling the sentence curdle in her mouth. “—finally got a friend.”
Silence.
Momo winced. “Wait, that came out wrong— I mean, you had friends before, obviously, I just meant—”
But Ai wasn’t reacting. She was just staring ahead, as if the phrase hadn’t even landed.
“…Friend?” Ai repeated, quietly, like she was trying out a foreign word.
“Yeah, uh… that girl from the Student Council, right? Glasses, quiet type?” Momo rubbed the back of her neck. “Heard from Madoka you two’ve been hanging out.”
Ai’s steps faltered for half a second, so small anyone else wouldn’t have noticed.
Then, after a pause too long to be natural, she said, “Oh. Kaoru.”
“Yeah.”
Ai smiled, or at least, tried to. It was a strange thing, a thin curve that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “We’re… friends.”
Momo side-eyed her. “Right.”
“Totally,” Ai added, a beat too late, like someone fumbling through the right emotional cue. “We talk. Sometimes. About… normal things.”
“Normal things, huh?”
“Mm-hm.”
“What kind of normal things?” Momo pressed, partly teasing, partly curious.
Ai took a while to answer. “School,” she said at last. “And… people.”
“‘People’?”
“Yes. Mostly about the Student Council.”
Momo snorted despite herself. “Sounds about right.”
They walked a few more steps. Ai looked faintly pleased that her answer had made Momo laugh, even if she wasn’t quite sure why it was funny.
“Kaoru’s nice,” Ai continued after a moment, quieter. “She watches over me.”
“That so?”
Ai nodded.
Momo glanced at her cousin again, the uneasy lilt in Ai’s tone giving her pause. The words weren’t sad, exactly..
Momo scratched her cheek. “Well, good. You could use someone like that.”
Ai smiled again, small, fragile, and utterly unreadable. “I know.”
The silence returned, but this time it didn’t feel quite as heavy.
The community center looked like it had been built three different times and glued together in a hurry.
The floors were polished but scuffed, the lights faintly yellow, and the smell of miso soup and detergent filled to the air.
Inside, the place was alive with chatter.
Grandmothers in patterned aprons moved about, unpacking vegetables and gossiping louder than the clatter of pots.
A few middle-aged volunteers fussed over the burners, and the instructor — a cheerful woman in her sixties with a bandana tied over curly hair — was already setting up cutting boards like it was a military operation.
The moment Ai and Momo stepped in, the temperature of the room seemed to shift.
It wasn’t hostile, just curious.
Two young women among a sea of retirees were bound to draw attention.
Momo straightened immediately, her natural confidence snapping into place like armor.
“Hello,” she said with a quick bow that was more of a head tilt.
Some of the older women recognized her instantly.
“Oh, it’s the Chikata girl!” one of them said, delighted.
“She’s the one who scared those bikers off the shopping street, isn’t she?” another added.
“Ah, such a strong one. I wish my grandson had your backbone.”
Momo laughed it off, scratching her cheek. “Eh, don’t spread rumors. I’m just doing what I can, I live here too after all.”
“Oh, listen to her!” The old ladies chuckled, clearly charmed.
By the time Momo was pulled into a conversation about how the neighborhood used to be tougher in the seventies, Ai had already started retreating into the background.
She didn’t like noise — or eyes.
Especially not all at once.
While Momo talked, Ai slipped quietly to a table near the back, where a pile of clean aprons waited.
She picked one, beige and unassuming, and held it up like a fragile artifact.
It took her three tries to tie the strings behind her back; her fingers kept fumbling, trembling just slightly.
Every motion felt like she was on stage, like someone might notice how long she took, how careful she had to be just to look normal.
A soft voice startled her.
“Need help, dear?”
One of the grandmothers had approached, smiling kindly. Ai froze, eyes wide.
“I—uh—no, thank you,” she managed, the words barely audible.
The woman chuckled good-naturedly. “Shy one, aren’t you? You’ve got good manners. I like that.”
Ai nodded quickly, head bowed. The woman moved on, satisfied, and Ai exhaled.
The apron fit snugly now. She adjusted it once, twice, compulsive, nervous.
It was like she was armoring herself, not dressing for cooking.
After a bit, Momo excused herself from the cluster of old ladies with a polite (by her standards) wave — half respect, half escape — and made her way back to Ai.
The difference in atmosphere between them was night and day. Where Momo had been swallowed in chatter, Ai looked like she was standing in the middle of a snowstorm that no one else could feel.
She looked at her cousin's hands, all full of already healing cuts and gashes. Her fingers, raw around the edges, nails bitten down and flaked, were struggling with another apron, tugging at the ties like a machine grinding through an impossible task.
Momo stopped in front of her, one hand on her hip.
“…You know,” she said, looking at the Apron Ai was wearing, “if Madoka saw you like this, she’d start rambling about ‘nice latent wife power’ or some crap like that.”
Ai blinked at her, face unreadable, processing the sentence like it was in another language. Then she looked back down, still pulling at the knot.
“It’s stuck,” she murmured. “I was— trying to untie it. For you.”
Momo crouched a bit, squinting. The knot was a mess of tight, small loops, whoever tied it last must’ve had a grudge. “You’ll hurt your fingers like that.”
“They’re already…” Ai trailed off. Her thumb grazed the half-healed cuts along her hand, the tiny scabs hidden under the film of sweat. She didn’t finish the thought.
Momo exhaled through her nose, reached out, and took the apron from her. “Give it.”
Her hands were firm in a way that made Ai’s look even frailer. She undid the knot in a few quick twists. “There. Done.”
Ai blinked again, slow. “You make it look easy.”
“Because it is.” Momo slung the apron on and started tying it behind her.
Ai didn’t answer. She was still staring, distracted, at Momo’s hands, steady, strong, without hesitation.
Momo caught the stare and sighed. “Oi.”
Ai’s eyes snapped up, startled.
“Don’t make that face,” Momo muttered, softer than her tone. “You’re daydreaming again.”
“I’m not,” Ai said quietly, but it wasn’t convincing.
Momo looked at her, at the way Ai’s hair hung unevenly, strands clinging to her face with the faintest trace of sweat, the dull split ends, the faint twitch of her shoulders every time someone spoke too loud across the room. It made her chest tighten in a way she didn’t like.
Without really thinking about it, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a spare ribbon, crimson, same as hers, and held it up. “Here.”
Ai tilted her head. “What for?”
“Your hair.”
Ai’s hand twitched toward it instinctively, then stopped halfway. “You don’t need to—”
“Shut up and turn around.”
There was no bite to it. Just something that sounded like habit.
Ai hesitated, then obeyed. Momo gathered her long, dark hair carefully, smoothing it out before tying it back with the ribbon.
The crimson stood out starkly against Ai’s black strands, too bright, almost, but the sight stirred a quiet memory between them both.
When they were little, Momo had always done this. At family gatherings, before meals or temple visits.
Two cousins sitting on the tatami, one fidgeting, the other grinning smugly at her handiwork. Matching ribbons, matching looks, like they were on the same side even within the same family.
“There we go,” Momo said when she finished tying the knot. “Perfect.”
Ai reached up to touch it, fingers brushing the silk. Her voice came out low, uneven. “…Thank you.”
Momo smiled just a little, just for a moment.
Ai turned to look at her, and for the first time that day, her expression softened. Something in her eyes almost resembled warmth.
Then the instructor’s voice boomed from the front of the room — “Alright everyone, let’s start with miso soup!” — and the spell broke.
Momo straightened. “Let’s get this over with.”
Ai nodded once, tugging lightly at the ribbon as if to anchor herself.
The clatter of knives, the hum of chatter, the sounds of kitchen life. Steam from boiling pots already fogged the windows.
Ai stood beside Momo at their assigned counter — one of the smaller ones near the back wall — with a cutting board, a bowl of tofu cubes, and a small mountain of green onions between them. The instructor, that cheerful older woman with the patient tone of someone who had seen a thousand burned meals and lived to tell the tale, explained the first steps.
“Now, first we prepare the base. Remember — dashi before miso! Don’t let it boil too much, or the flavor will turn bitter. Easy does it!”
Momo leaned on the counter, staring at the array of ingredients like she’d been asked to assemble a bomb. “Yeah, sure. Easy.”
Ai, meanwhile, had already moved. Her movements weren’t confident, exactly — they had that careful, tentative precision precision of hers. Something she'd gained from trying to reconstruct Shu's meals from scraps she picked form the trash . She handled the ladle like a fragile tool, watching the simmering water as though it was the most fascinating thing in the world at that moment.
Momo squinted at the little packets of bonito flakes. “This the stuff we dump in?”
Ai nodded. “You… sprinkle it slowly. So it doesn’t clump.”
“Sprinkle, huh?” Momo tore the packet open with her teeth, ignoring the scissors entirely. “Alright.”
The resulting cloud of fish flakes puffed into the air and stuck to her sleeve, her face, her hair. Ai flinched, half-recoiling.
“Momo—”
“What? It’s fine,nothing wrong with eyeballing the seasoning.”
Ai hesitated, lips pressing together to hide the smallest twitch of a smile. “You… seasoned your hair, too.”
“Oh, shut up.” Momo tried to shake them off, but not all of the flakes fluttered down. “See? Perfect. Extra flavor.”
The instructor passed behind them and gave an approving nod, apparently mistaking chaos for enthusiasm. “Good teamwork, girls!”
Ai nearly choked.
Once the dashi started simmering, Momo leaned over the pot, fanning at the steam like she was inspecting an opponent’s spirit. “So what’s next?”
“Vegetables,” Ai murmured, checking the printed recipe card. Her eyes darted over the lines like she was memorizing scripture. “Daikon, carrot, then tofu.”
“Right, chopping time.”
Momo grabbed a knife. It was probably the largest one on the table — heavy, long, sharp. She gave it a few testing swings (Madoka would have died of laughter), the blade glinting in the light.
Ai froze, spoon in hand. “You shouldn’t—”
Momo brought the knife down with a resounding thunk. A neat slice. Then another, not so neat. The daikon went spinning across the board, hitting Ai’s sleeve and rolling off the counter.
Ai stooped to pick it up, brushing it off, her movements small and cautious. “Maybe… smaller knife?”
Momo blinked at her, as if such a suggestion had never been conceived in the history of mankind. “Smaller knife?”
Ai gestured gently toward the little santoku knife next to the cutting board. “It’s easier to handle.”
Momo frowned, considering. Then sighed, exchanging blades. “Fine.”
Her next few cuts were better, not perfect, not elegant, but passable. Ai, for her part, started slicing the carrots into uniform half-moons. Her hands trembled slightly at first, the rhythm uneven. But once she found her focus, something in her settled.
Watching her work, Momo leaned in a little. “You’ve done this before.”
Ai shook her head. “Not… really.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I just,” Ai said softly. “I like when things look… nice.”
Momo nodded slowly, pretending she hadn’t heard the faint undertone of loneliness in that. “Well, that’s good.”
Ai gave a small hum of acknowledgment, glancing toward Momo’s mismatched cuts — some too thick, some paper-thin. “Your style… is varied.”
Momo looked at her and barked a laugh. “You trying to compliment me?”
Ai’s eyes darted down, cheeks faintly red. “…Maybe.”
“Alright, I’ll handle the rice,” Momo said, rolling her shoulders. “Can’t mess that up too bad, right?”
Ai tilted her head. “You… washed it first?”
Momo paused mid-step, blinked, and turned back slowly. “…Washed it?”
Ai just stared. She didn’t say anything, but the silence was somehow louder than any scolding.
Momo sighed, scratching her head. “Right, right, rinse until it runs clear, I remember. You don’t gotta glare like that.”
“I wasn’t glaring,” Ai murmured, eyes still on the pot.
“You’ve got this thing where your silence feels like judgment.”
Ai didn’t react — not right away. Then, just barely, her lips curved.
It was small. Barely a breath of a smile. But it was there.
Momo grinned wider. “Ah-ha, caught it. You can smile.”
“Don’t… tease.” Ai’s cheeks colored faintly. “Also, the soup is about to boil.”
“Don't avoid the topic.”
“It will.”
And true enough, Ai leaned forward quickly, lowering the flame before it could reach a rolling boil. The movement was automatic, like she’d been paying more attention than she let on.
“See?” she murmured.
Momo set to work at the rice cooker, muttering as she went. The faint rush of water followed, then the metallic click of the lid closing. “Alright. Rice is handled. Probably. What’s next?”
“Fish,” Ai said quietly. She picked up the recipe sheet, the corner of the paper damp with condensation. “It says we can start grilling once the soup is done.”
“Finally something fun.” Momo cracked her knuckles. “You want me to light the grill?”
Ai didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze lingered on the soup again — on the surface that had calmed from its earlier swirl into a quiet golden mirror. She could see her reflection faintly, fractured by steam, and hated the way it looked back at her — tired, gaunt, barely there.
“Sure,” she said finally, stepping back.
Momo crouched over the small tabletop grill the center had provided, an older model with a wire grate and a small gas line. She checked the dial twice before igniting it with a sharp click. A blue flame bloomed underneath, soft and steady. “Alright, we’re in business.”
Momo placed the first fish on the grate, and the sizzle was immediate.
The smell of oil and salt filled the air.
She stood, hands on hips, satisfied. “There we go. Real progress.”
Ai hovered beside her, clutching a pair of tongs. “You should turn it soon.”
“It’s barely been a minute.”
“It’ll burn.”
“It’s supposed to char a little.”
“It’ll burn.”
The back-and-forth lasted a few seconds until Momo sighed, rolled her eyes, and flipped the fish anyway. The underside was, in fact, blackened beyond salvation.
“...Okay, fine. Maybe you’re right.”
“I didn’t want to say it,” Ai murmured, though she clearly had.
Momo glared at her, then burst out laughing. “God, you really are my cousin. Same sharp tongue, just wrapped in gloom.”
Ai looked down at the fish, at the ruined skin. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I... Don't know.”
Momo stared at her for a long second — confused, then realizing she wasn’t joking.
“Hey,” she said, softer. “You’re not supposed to apologize for everything. We’re just cooking.”
Ai didn’t answer, but she nodded once, eyes still on the grill.
For a while, the only sounds were the sizzle of fish, the gentle bubbling of the soup pot, and the background laughter of retirees gossiping about grandchildren and TV dramas.
It was the kind of normal noise Ai hadn’t been surrounded by in years.
Everything was ready, and it was now time to serve it. Momo of course decided to give the miso soup a little taste.
Momo lifted the spoon, half-expecting it to taste like disappointment — but it didn’t.
The miso was balanced, a little timid but surprisingly rich for something they’d made in a public kitchen full of retirees. It was… good. Too good, actually.
She took another sip, frowned, then glanced at Ai.
Ai was tidying the counter, gathering bowls for serving. Under her breath, she mumbled something, too quiet, words tangled together like she didn’t mean to say them aloud.
“…glad I put—”
Momo froze mid-swallow. “Huh?”
Ai didn’t answer, probably didn't hear her. She just kept moving, humming faintly, stacking bowls.
She looked down at the soup. Then back at Ai.
Momo’s brain immediately went to the worst possible place.
Wait. Put what?
This was Ai she was talking about — Ai, who had once made a “snack” out of licking crumbs off of a yakisoba bread wrapper. Ai, who had been found once chewing on a strand of hair that she swore was the President’s because “it made her feel close to him.”
Oh god.
Momo’s grip on the spoon tightened. “Uh… hey, Ai?”
Ai looked up, soft-voiced. “Yes?”
“What— uh, what’d you just say? A second ago.”
Ai blinked, genuinely confused. “Say?”
“You said you were glad you put something. What’d you put?”
Ai tilted her head, lost. “In the soup?”
“Yeah, in the soup,” Momo said, her tone halfway between panic and forced calm. “What did you put?”
“The ingredients?”
“The other thing. You mumbled something about adding something.”
Ai frowned faintly, like she was trying to remember. “Oh… that.”
Momo leaned forward, tension winding in her shoulders. “That what, Ai?”
Ai hesitated, hands still resting on the bowls. “…Momo?”
“What!?”
“You’re shouting.”
“I know! Tell me what you put in the damn soup!”
The old ladies at the next counter turned briefly, startled. Momo forced a strained smile, waited until they went back to chopping daikon, and hissed under her breath, “You didn’t put anything weird, right? Please tell me you didn’t put anything weird.”
Ai blinked slowly, blank as a cat caught mid-thought. “Define weird.”
Momo’s eye twitched. “If it came from a trash can, if it’s something Shujinkō touched, if it was even near something Shujinkō touched, or if it’s a bodily fluid of any kind, I swear to god—”
“Momo—”
“—because if I just drank that—”
“Momo, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t put anything weird in the soup.”
“Then what did you put!?”
Ai hesitated again, then said it so simply it almost didn’t sound real. “Love.”
Momo blinked. “What.”
Ai’s face didn’t change. “I just said I put a lot of love into it.”
Silence.
The tension in Momo’s body snapped like a rubber band. Her shoulders sagged, her face falling into her hands. “You have got to stop doing that to me, Ai.”
“Doing what?”
Ai looked confused, then — just faintly — amused. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Yeah, well, you succeeded anyway.”
Ai tilted her head. “But… you liked it?”
Momo looked down at her half-finished soup, sighed, and took another sip. “…Yeah. It’s good.”
Ai smiled. “Then it worked.”
Momo groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “You’re gonna give me an ulcer one day.”
Ai’s voice softened. “Then I’ll cook for you again. To help.”