Maria-sama ga Miteru Volume 31 Chapter 14
March ∆ (Sat.u.r.day)
Today, I went to a shrine to the G.o.d Inari with my pet.i.t soeur, Touko.
The other day, while I was chatting with her, the conversation turned to New Years shrine visits. When I told her I had visited a local Inari shrine with my brother Yuuki, and had wished for my then-strained relationship with Touko to be reconciled, she insisted that we should visit the shrine to give thanks.
Id heard from my brother that if your wish is granted then youre supposed to take an offering of deep-fried tofu when you give thanks, but since Id also wished for my loved ones to stay healthy all year, I thought it should be okay for me to go towards the end of the year, or maybe even the beginning of next year.
Even though I said the visit would have been in vain if my mother then became sick, we agreed to go on Sat.u.r.day. So after school, on the way home, we headed towards the shrine.
Yuuki drew a map to the shrine for me, so we found our way there quite easily. I wasnt all that familiar with the neighborhood from the New Years shrine visit, so it felt like I was visiting for the first time.
Touko and I stood side-by-side as we visited the shrine, then returned home holding hands.
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After school on Sat.u.r.day, when Touko appeared in front of my cla.s.sroom, she was carrying a box. It was about the size of a residential first-aid kit. But it wasnt made of wood, the casing looked to be nylon or some similar material.
"Whats this?"
I asked, and Touko answered.
"A cooler box. To avoid misfortune, and to keep the smell from escaping."
"Whats inside?"
Then Touko looked at me with a "You still dont know?" look on her face.
"You mentioned an offering of deep-fried tofu, right?"
As Touko spoke, she opened the lid and showed it to me. It did indeed contain deep-fried tofu. There were three or four of the plastic packs that you might buy at a supermarket. Surrounding those were ice packs, to keep it cool.
"&h.e.l.lip; Youre well prepared."
"Well, it saves us time compared to buying it on the way there. And I wasnt really sure if there were any stores near your house, onee-sama."
My, what a capable pet.i.t soeur. - If someone gets a compliment like that, they probably wouldnt take it the wrong way. I wanted to see her giggle and graciously accept, saying "Its all thanks to you," but it didnt look like that was going to happen.
"Hold on a minute."
Leaving her with that, I hurried to the school office on the first floor.
"Umm, onee-sama."
Thanks to my overly thoughtful pet.i.t soeur, my work had unexpectedly increased. I flew to the sole payphone that students were allowed to use and dialed my home phone number.
"Ah, mom? Have you bought the deep-fried tofu?"
Like Touko had said, up until yesterday wed agreed that wed stop at a supermarket on the way there and buy some deep-fried tofu. But then my mother had said that she was going shopping in the afternoon, so I asked her to buy some. That was this morning. Of course, I did it to save time.
"Ahh, I guess so. No, thats not it. Touko brought some. Yeah, yeah. Thanks."
Since mom answered the phone, it meant she was home. Since she was home, then she had obviously finished shopping. And it goes without saying, a wonderful mother like mine wouldnt have forgotten to buy my deep-fried tofu. Thankfully, she said to take Toukos to the shrine and that wed eat ours at home.
When I hung up the phone and turned around, Touko was standing there like a ghost.
"Uwah."
"&h.e.l.lip; You were prepared too, onee-sama."
She almost sounded bitter when she said, "With the tofu." It looks like shed caught on to what had happened.
"Its okay, dont worry about it. My family loves deep-fried tofu."
I hastily sought to smooth things over, but had nothing to follow through with. A family that loves deep-fried tofu, whats up with that? It would have been better to say that we loved it with sushi or curry.
"Anyway, lets go. Otherwise our efforts to save time will have been for nothing."
I cheerfully headed towards the shoe-box area. Touko said, "Mmm," and followed after me, looking morose.
The mix-up with the deep-fried tofu wasnt Toukos mistake, it was because we were both trying too hard to be considerate. We got along too well, could be another way to put it. But, as a generally competent girl, she looked so delicate when she wasnt capable of doing something well. Her depressed look was adorable (and not in a pitiful way).
Touko quickly perked up again. By not fussing over her while she was pouting, she must have thought I was taking her needs into consideration. Courageous (I think that fits).
"Speaking of recipes with deep-fried tofu, its used in inari-zushi, where its wrapped around sushi, right?"
While on the bus, Touko raised this topic of conversation.
"And theres kinchaku - you make a pouch of deep-fried tofu and fill it with things like mochi rice cakes, and have it as part of an oden stew."
As someone who claimed to be from a family that loves deep-fried tofu, it was only right that I should know a lot of dishes that use it.
"And when minced it goes well with miso soup, or a rice dish, and you can make a nice broth out of it."
"Ah, at our house we bake it in the oven until its crispy, then grate it and use it as a condiment."
"A condiment?"
Touko was really getting into this. Which reminded me that when she came to my house, and she ate some of my moms homemade cooking, she was asking questions about the ingredients, how it was prepared, all those sorts of things. Maybe she often cooked at her home.
"Like j.a.panese ginger, or white spring onions, or crumbled nori seaweed. You have it when its piping hot, with soy-sauce or noodle broth or the like."
So I explained it enthusiastically.
"That sounds good."
"My dad really likes it. He says its great as a snack with alcohol."
"My father rarely drinks in the evening. But it sounds like it would go well as a side dish with dinner."
Thats great. Touko had been able to receive something useful to her.
Now, while all this was going on, the bus arrived at M station and we transferred buses, got off at my stop and headed towards the f.u.kuzawa residence. At first wed been planning to go straight to the shrine, but then we decided to stop in at home and drop off our school bags, since my house is closer to the bus stop than the shrine.
"Im back."
Instead of my mom, it was my younger brother Yuuki who came out to greet us in the entrance.
"Welcome back. Oh, Touko-chan, please come inside."
Although, strictly speaking, it wasnt that he came out to greet us, but that hed just arrived home himself.
He must have caught the bus before ours, which wed just missed.
"Gokigenyou. Pardon my intrusion."
My real-life younger brother and my school-life younger sister exchanged greetings. It was a somewhat strange feeling.
"Yumi, here."
Yuuki waved a piece of paper torn out of a notebook. When I looked at it up close, I saw that it was the map showing the roads to take to the Inari shrine that hed drawn.
"I go to all the effort of drawing it for you, and you forget to get it from the entrance."
He said, self importantly.
"No way, I left it there because I know how to get to the shrine."
That was a lie. Id inadvertently forgotten to pick it up on the way out. And I hadnt even realized that Id forgotten until just now.
"Then Ill look after this piece of paper. Onee-sama, please guide us to the shrine using just your memory."
As she spoke, Touko took the paper from Yuuki. Oooh, that girl is so cheeky. So itd be a complete loss of face for me as an onee-sama if I didnt valiantly struggle forward alone.
"Something smells good."
Just as Yuukis nose was twitching, mom appeared in the entry.
"Welcome home. I was just making lunch, sorry for keeping you waiting."
Thats my mom for you. Shed obviously been wondering what to use the deep-fried tofu for, and the first thing that must have popped into her head was inari-zushi.
Honestly, I was really hungry, but it would have been inexcusable for us to eat deep-fried tofu before we made an offering of it at the Inari shrine, so we decided to go there first. When we informed mom of this, she wrapped up six pieces of sushi for us to take along.
Jumping forward to the ending, I wasnt able to guide Touko to the Inari shrine. Annoyingly, I had to let the map wielding Touko lead me there. There are a lot of narrow alleys in that neighborhood, and if youre off by one street then you end up in a completely different area. As though youve been tricked by a fox. Because its in such a hard-to-find spot, Id only recently become aware of its existence, even though its in my neighborhood.
"Oh -, here, here."
I remembered the red torii archway, standing alone in the middle of a residential area. Along with its accompanying trees, it felt a little out of place. The impression I got was different to my previous visit here - probably because back then the red torii and the trees blended into the background more because of the darkness.
"Come on, Touko."
I took hold of Toukos arm, as though finding this place had all been my own achievement, and we walked through the torii.
"What should we do with this?"
Touko asked, indicating the plastic wrapping around the deep-fried tofu that she took out of her cooler box.
"The plastic, ah, good question."
Should we take it out of the plastic wrapping, or was it fine the way it was? I was completely clueless about the proper etiquette.
"I guess foxes could tear the wrapping."
"Our neighbors dog can tear candy wrapping open. So can crows."
"Alley cats can get into plastic bags too, thats why you have to cover the garbage bags with netting on bin day."
"Speaking of garbage, this neighborhood is strict on separating out the trash, isnt it?"
"I suppose. Although from a different point-of-view, its like putting food sc.r.a.ps in a plastic bag."
"How about we leave it on top of a tissue. Since paper comes from trees originally."
"But arent they tough to decompose, which is why you cant flush them down the toilet?"
"&h.e.l.lip; I guess so."
We then spent another five minutes humming and hawing over what we should do. The plan we eventually decided on was to use a fallen leaf as a plate. There were a number of pretty leaves of the right size scattered around the shrine, so we took one of them, unwrapped the deep-fried tofu and placed it as an offering. Yep, that somehow seemed right. Much better than the plastic wrapping with "Deep-fried Tofu" written on it in large letters.
After wiping our hands clean on a handkerchief, we clapped and prayed at the shrine.
Thanks to you, I was able to reconcile with Touko, I earnestly reported.
After that, we ate the inari-zushi under the shade of the trees. Touko praised moms cooking, saying it was very good. Best of all, it suited her tastes.
"I wonder what we should do about the deep-fried tofu. If we leave it as is, itll go bad."
I vocalized the thought Id just had.
"If we leave it like that, itll be gone soon."
Touko said.
"Why?"
"Because the G.o.ds familiars will eat it."
"Huh?"
"Its like when you scatter beans for the setsubun festival, theyre gone before you know it, right? That kind of thing."
I see, perhaps thats how it is. Just as I was about to agree with her, Touko smiled.
"On the way here, we pa.s.sed a number of cats, right? And theres crows about too."
And sparrows, and ants, they were all familiars.
At any rate, I thought Id come back in a weeks time and check on the deep-fried tofu. If it was still there, then Id take it home and put it with the other household sc.r.a.ps to be thrown out on garbage day. Despite Toukos a.s.sertion that it definitely wouldnt be around.
As we were walking back to my house, Touko said:
"I heard this from a cla.s.smate, but from time to time they have racc.o.o.ns around here."
"Huh? A racc.o.o.n might eat the foxs favorite food!?"
Because they were sticky from the inari-zushi juices, we walked home without holding hands.