~~~

The castle ledge was uneven stone and impossibly high

ramparts on one side

infinite drop on the other

yet Yuki didn’t care

didn’t seem to have any problem at all, gliding casually in unmeasured steps, arms at odd angles

whereas Miho

could only look at her back

couldn’t look down

and each time the hurricane level wind blew in from the side

he thought, this is it

this is the time I plummet onto jagged rocks fifty-thousand feet to the left

and his dad didn’t help

blue-skinned and jacketless behind him

whispering into his neck

‘we should build a bigger house, let Yuki spread out a bit.’

‘She’s happy as it is,’ I answered, but he insisted

‘no, she’ll leave if you don’t build it, leave without looking back, just like she is now,’

and when Miho looked again at Yuki’s back

she was gone

off the ledge and down

making a whistling noise like the wind as she fell.

‘Told ya,’ said his dad

wrapping a cracked, blue arm around his neck

‘told ya told ya told ya told ya…’

~~~

The wasp did a quick 180 and buzzed through the gap in the door panel as Miho’s arm shot up into the air, grasping at nothing.

‘Get your blue arm off me,’ he slurred, quite loud, but not at the required volume to wake Akira on the futon next to him.

A breeze blew in from the balcony, bringing with it Yuki-less reality.

Miho sat up and looked around the barely lit room.

She’s not falling, he thought, stretching his arms diagonally both ways. And I’m not standing on a cliff edge. Thank gods. Though I’ll have to go down to the kitchen at some point. Maybe quite soon, in fact…

Before Miho could reach the balcony panel and gauge the time, there was a knock at the door.

On the nearby futon, Akira opened his mouth and sucked in dry air.

‘Miho…’ came Aya’s voice from behind the door.

‘Coming.’

‘Quickly. You’re wanted in the kitchen.’

‘Okay,’ he said, pulling himself up and trying to figure out where the entry point of his yukata was.

‘For cooking,’ she added, hitting the door panel again.

‘What?’

‘Just get out here. Himiko will tell you.’

Miho said another okay and finished getting dressed. ‘Forty-eight more days of this,’ he muttered as he flattened his hair into what he hoped was a semi-respectable appearance.

On the futon sickbed, Akira sucked in more dry air, and then let out a hacking cough.

Filling a new cup with water from the wooden bucket, Miho drank some himself then bent down and poured the rest slowly into Akira’s mouth.

Bad idea.

The ashigaru coughed it back up instantly and lashed out with his left hand, clipping Miho on the cheek.

‘You want the medicine again?’ Miho asked, looking at the empty cup. ‘Cos I don’t think it’s such a good idea.’

‘Water…’ said Akira, wiping his mouth.

Ignoring another knock on the door panel, Miho refilled the cup and this time told Akira that the water was right there, next to his lips.

‘Water…’ the ashigaru repeated, taking the cup with his eyes closed and drinking it down in less than a second. ‘More.’

‘How about I just bring the bucket over?’

‘Water.’

‘Okay then.’

He went back over to the bucket and gripped the handle, shouting, ‘okay, I’m coming,’ again at the seven hundredth knock on the door.

‘Doesn’t feel like it,’ replied Aya.

‘Ten seconds.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll be out in ten seconds.’

‘Sure.’

Miho placed the water bucket next to Akira’s futon, then shifted it back a few inches to avoid any accidental arm swipes.

‘Drink as much as you need. I’ll be back in a few hours with breakfast.’

‘Water,’ murmured Akira.

Miho nodded, tapping the side of the bucket, then shouted, ‘ten more seconds,’ when the inevitable knock on the door returned.

~~~

‘Me?’

‘Unless Chef magically appears in the next five minutes then yes, you.’

Miho looked at Himiko’s face, waiting for the wink or twitch. ‘But…I don’t understand.’

‘It’s quite simple. Chef is not here. Aya can’t cook. Sachiko has either deserted us completely or is still messing about by the stream.’

‘Or run off with Chef,’ added Aya, stirring what was apparently soup, but looked more like flavoured water.

‘Yes, that is also a possibility. Though I’m not sure why they couldn’t just carry on their little trysts here at the ryokan. And get paid for it.’ Himiko scratched her green tattoo, looking at each work station in the kitchen as if it were a physical enemy. ‘Gods, I hope you can actually cook Miho. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to make an attempt at it.’

‘I’m not a chef…but I know a little.’

‘Well, we’ve got one guest, so as long as you don’t poison him then we should be safe. I’ll head into Nirasaki first thing tomorrow and find a replacement.’

‘You really think Chef’s gone for good?’ asked Aya, sprinkling some diced ginger into the pot.

‘He better be,’ replied Himiko, her back already turned as she headed into the dining area.

Miho walked after her a few steps, his brain telling him to ask what the breakfast menu was, but then stopped and reassessed, deciding that it would probably be safer to ask Aya instead.

‘Nothing complex,’ she told him, stirring the soup in the pot. ‘Mostly because we don’t have many ingredients.’

‘I can use the leftover vegetables from yesterday to make a soup.’

‘To go with this?’ She gestured at the pot, shaking her head. ‘Focus on the pan. There’s salmon in the ice outside.’

‘Okay, I can do something with that later. But first I’ll have to deal with the soup. No offence.’

‘You know how to season it?’

‘In the same style as Chef? No. But I can try my way. Might not be perfect, but I’m fairly certain it won’t poison the guest.’

‘I’ll do the rice then,’ Aya said, giving up on the pot and bending down to the giant rice jar under the chopping bench. ‘Take a bit of the pressure off.’

Miho clasped his hands together and scanned the kitchen, taking slow, subtly disguised deep breaths. Then grabbed some fuki and asparagus from the basket and placed them down on the chopping board.

‘You really know what you’re doing?’ Aya asked, watching him pick up the knife.

He responded by cutting the whole clump of asparagus into thirds, then chopping them so fast that the knife itself was a blur.

‘I’ll do the rice then,’ said Aya, stopping just short of a whistling sound.

~~~

To say that Chef was missed was an overstatement.

Not only did the sole remaining guest in the ryokan not get poisoned by Miho’s breakfast menu, but he enjoyed it so much that he wandered into the kitchen three times to ask for more of the zesty forest soup thing.

‘It’s a special recipe,’ said Miho afterwards, a towel wrapped around his forehead like a headscarf, half of it drenched in sweat [which he claimed was just the steam from pan-frying the salmon].

‘Not the regular miso then,’ replied Himiko, picking up another piece of salmon from her own plate and shoving it in her mouth.

‘My mother taught me. And then made me cook it every morning. Said it was payback for all the cooking I wouldn’t have to do when I got married.’

‘Smart woman,’ said Himiko, still chewing.

‘Actually, it’s more like practice. Yuki doesn’t know how to cook, and she never showed much interest in learning so…I suppose it’ll all be on me at some point.’

‘Yuki is your girlfriend?’

‘Wandering girlfriend,’ muttered Aya, washing the dishes of the guest.

‘Yes. I’m looking for her now. Or I was looking for her.’

‘Don’t pull that sad fox face, young man,’ said Himiko, hitting him with her chopsticks…then frowning and washing them in Aya’s cup of water. ‘Fifty-eight more days and you can go and find this great beauty. Then persuade her to come back here so I can hire you as our new chef.’

‘Seriously?’ asked Aya, almost dropping the dish.

‘Why not? Chef’s food never had any guests coming into the kitchen for more helpings. Miho’s a definite upgrade. A lucky accident.’

‘Forty-eight more days,’ Miho said, his voice a little low.

‘What’s that?’

‘I have forty-eight more days left to work here.’

‘Ah, what did I say?’

‘Fifty-eight.’

‘Sorry, slip of the tongue.’ Himiko smiled unconvincingly and picked up the final piece of salmon, holding it up high so she could see the char lines underneath.

‘He’s going to be cooking for the next forty-eight days?’ asked Aya, squeezing the dish cloth tight in her hands.

‘Well it’s not going to be me or you.’ Himiko laughed, accidentally dropping the salmon onto the floor, then kicking it under the chopping station table.

As her laughter died out, the necklace started to glow a faint green. She turned to the dining area hatch, stabbing her chopsticks into a chunk of salmon when she saw the man in the green yukata watching her, his expression as impassive as a shark.

‘I need to talk to you.’

Himiko nodded, saying good job again to her two wonder staff, then left the impaled salmon and walked with slight hesitation out into the dining area.

Turning back to the washing station, Aya resumed her duties, muttering something that Miho couldn’t quite catch. Curious, he moved beside her and asked what exactly that guy’s role was at the ryokan.

‘Don’t ask, don’t wonder,’ she replied, sharply.

‘He just seems to wander around aimlessly. Is he Himiko’s husband?’

‘Miho…’

‘Sorry, I’m just used to knowing what’s going on. Village habit, I guess.’

‘Just focus on your work.’

Miho nodded, watching Aya scrub a tough bit of rice off the edge of a bowl. ‘Do you need a hand?’

‘I’m almost done.’

‘Did you like my breakfast?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really? Which part was the best?’

Aya finished the bowl and let out a dramatic breath. ‘I was being polite. To be honest, it was pretty bland. Food where I come from is…different.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Kyushu.’

‘Ah, the south…’

‘Don’t ask which town, you won’t know it.’

‘Kumamoto?’

‘No.’

She washed another bowl quickly then threw the cloth down and headed to the door.

‘You don’t have blue chicken by any chance?’ asked Miho, getting a pitying shake of the head in return.

~~~

Outside the ryokan, under a much greyer sky than the day before, Himiko sat down on the wooden box stamped with HAPPY CHICKEN GRAIN and stared at the ground.

‘It is unavoidable,’ said the man in the green yukata, standing in an oddly upright posture that made him look like an action figure who’d been placed there by a child god.

‘Are you certain?’

‘There will be visitors and I need to be at full strength.’

Himiko glanced over at the front entrance to the ryokan and then up at the rooms above. The sole guest had gone out for a hike, and the ashigaru would be zonked out from the medicine, so it was safe enough. Still, she didn’t like what she was hearing.

‘I can give you the ashigaru, that’s already been set up…but the others.’

‘It is not for discussion.’

Himiko clenched her fist, looking up with the same ferocity she used to have in her younger days…then wiping it completely as she looked into the eyes of a sociopath.

Her sociopath.

‘The boy is a good worker, and an excellent chef. It’s a waste to get rid of him. How about the ashigaru and the guest? Or I can go out this afternoon, pick up a stranger in Nirasaki…’

‘I require the ashigaru, the boy and the guest. The girl will be placed on standby, in case my strength is insufficient.’

‘Aya? But she’s-…’

‘Follow what I say. No counter-points.’

Himiko looked down at the ground again, turning the necklace round in her fingers. A stream of ants marched over and around the man’s feet, without any kind of fear. Without any kind of awe. Then kept going, aiming roughly for the slope next to the end cabin.

‘I won’t give you Aya,’ she said, finally, gripping the necklace tight.

The man in the green yukata didn’t respond for almost a minute. Didn’t make any breathing sounds. Didn’t move his hands or adjust his standing position.

The wind was the only active force, and it was cold, forcing her to tighten the jacket around her shoulders.

‘If you do not do this, I will perish,’ the man said, his voice without feeling.

Himiko turned the grip on the necklace into a massage, trying to remember all the annoying things Aya had done, all the clumsy accidents.

‘The ryokan…we won’t have any staff left,’ she mumbled, eyes on the faraway ants.

‘We will re-hire. Or move location.’

‘It’s that serious?’

The man in the green yukata bent down and took Himiko’s hand, making no attempt to separate it from the necklace.

‘Atashhka are notorious for their pettiness,’ he said, using his other hand to stroke the side of her hair. ‘And this one seemed especially petty. She could end both of us.’

Himiko closed her eyes, blacking out the ryokan and the courtyard and the ants which were out of sight anyway.

‘I will bring them to you tonight.’

‘And the spare on standby…’

‘Yes.’

‘Good girl,’ he replied, taking his hands away and walking off without another word, light flakes of snow starting to fall on the courtyard around him.