I Drink Every Night With a Lookalike of a Popular Idol on the Riverbank
On a night when the cold had started to set in, the biting night wind mercilessly stole away our body heat. Nanase and I were sitting on the riverbank as usual, dressed a little more warmly than usual.
The lemon was 7% cold, almost unpleasantly so, and when I swallowed it, my body shivered.
“Nanase, don’t you ever suddenly feel like eating instant noodles?”
My sudden remark broke the silence. Nanase looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Well, yeah. It would taste good here…”
“It’s just… on a cold night, I suddenly feel like eating it. Even though I know it’s bad for my health, there’s something irresistible about it.”
“Haha… Is instant noodles a masculine noun?”
“I’m not some pervert who sees cup noodles as female, you know!”
“Well, you just get cravings for them regularly, right? They make you feel restless, right?”
“We’re talking about cup noodles, right!?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Nanase smiled slyly. I nervously took a sip of my canned chu-hi to cover up my embarrassment and tried to steer the conversation back on track.
“By the way, Nanase, what do you think is the strongest cup noodle?”
When I asked her seriously, Nanase muttered, “The strongest… hmm,” with an amused expression.
“What about you, Yosuke?”
“I still think the classic seafood flavor is the best. You know, that unique white soup and the small amount of squid and crab sticks. It’s something I’ve been eating since I was a child, and it gives me a sense of comfort like being at home.”
When I said that, Nanase nodded, but she looked like she wasn’t totally convinced.
“Whether the classic flavor is seafood or not, and regardless of personal taste preferences… I think this: the essence of instant noodles isn’t the noodles themselves. It’s those three minutes you wait after pouring hot water.”
“Three minutes?”
“Exactly. That time is like a ‘guaranteed, imminent future happiness.’ Watching the liquid soup warm up under the lid, counting down the last minute, the last 30 seconds. That anticipation-filled time is the main course. The moment you actually start eating is like checking the answer, and the taste is inevitably a little less than expected.”
“I see… It’s like packing your bags the day before a trip.”
“Yeah. Exactly. It’s foreplay, foreplay.”
“Are you feeling a bit off today!?”
“No, it’s business as usual. And there’s that sense of guilt that comes with perfect junk food. All the power of science is poured into that one thing: ‘taste.’”
Nanase is talking passionately, but I still don’t know what her favorite flavor is.
“Well… so, what’s your favorite flavor, Nanase-san?”
Nanase-san laughed and said, “You’re rushing to the conclusion.”
“I think it’s soy sauce flavor.”
“Soy sauce? That’s a classic choice, on par with seafood.”
“No, but the reason for my choice is different. I think soy sauce flavor is the best not because of its performance, but because of its role.”
“Role?”
She continued, looking slightly amused.
“Soy sauce flavors usually have red packaging, right?”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Red is always the color of the protagonist. Idols, superhero teams… Even crayons have red in the middle of the set. So soy sauce is the protagonist.”
“Crayons depend on the manufacturer… At least ours were on the edges…”
“Oh, that was Yousuke’s main job.”
I was distracted by the crayon topic and couldn’t understand what she was saying after that.
“…Huh? Wait a minute. Soy sauce is… the protagonist?”
“That’s right. Think about it. Miso flavor often comes in orange or brown packaging. This is the kind, strong friend who supports the protagonist. Salt and seafood flavors come in blue or white. They’re cool and sometimes act as the protagonist’s solitary rival. In reader polls, they can even be more popular than the protagonist. I won’t deny that. And… pork bone flavor is black or gold. They’re the final boss character who appears toward the end of the story with overwhelming strength. Soy sauce is in every brand and is red. It’s the protagonist without a doubt.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her elaborate “cup noodle character theory.”
“Haha! Then what about curry flavor?”
“Curry is the one that occasionally appears and takes all the delicious parts.”
“That makes sense…”
After laughing for a while, my stomach growled pitifully. All this talk about ramen had made my mouth crave it.
“…No good. I’m craving ramen now.”
“Me too.”
“Not the kind from a restaurant, but the cheap fried noodles you can buy at a convenience store.”
“Yeah, me too.”
We looked at each other and stood up at the same time. We started walking toward the nearest convenience store.
When Nanase sped up, I followed suit, and soon we were both jogging toward the store.
“Yousuke, don’t run.”
“Nanase-san, you’re the one running.”
“No, I’m just walking fast.”
“We’re acting like elementary school kids…”
We continued our stubborn competition as we headed to the convenience store.
In front of the shelves lined with cup noodles, I picked up the seafood flavor, and Nanase-san, as she had declared, picked up the red-packaged soy sauce flavor.
We poured hot water from the kettle. The rising steam outlined a white circle in the cold store. We put the lids on and placed chopsticks on top.
The eat-in corner was still empty, but looking at the posted hours, it seemed it would close in a few minutes.
We exchanged glances and said, “Let’s go back to where we were earlier,” at the same time.
“Nanase, don’t spill it while running.”
“You too, Yosuke.”
We carefully held the hot cup noodles in both hands and slowly made our way back along the path we had come. We didn’t want to spill it or let it get cold.
We couldn’t just slurp it up on the side of the road. Our sacred place was that riverside.
Beyond the steam, Nanase seemed to smile slightly. I probably had the same expression on my face.
The assured happiness of the near future. Holding that warm, modest sense of anticipation in both hands, we slowly made our way along the dark night road.
Maiasa