It took only the third bowl of noodles swathed in miso broth for Kensuke to finally notice her, the daughter of the restaurant owner and cook. She waits on the customers, taking their orders and screams them to her father, on the other side of the counter in the steamy confines of the kitchen. Kensuke tries to eye her pouty lips and ample breasts and thighs whenever he thinks she is not looking. The voice of a chirping hatchling with a figure of a puffed-up sparrow sighed Kensuke. How adorable.

When Kensuke came back the fourth week for his forth bowl, he almost choked up his order from seeing how close she was to him, the way her long hair flowed over her shoulders as she bent over to put the glass of water in front of him. Underneath the smell of grease from the fried dumplings, he detects a wisp of lilac.

Week after week, Kensuke preens himself just outside the restaurant, rubbing his hair between his index finger and his thumb and puffing it up like the young guys he often sees hanging outside the game centers. A deep breath and then he is in, back to the familiar wooden tables and the counter running along one wall facing the kitchen. The humid air always smells of green onions and garlic. The third seat from the left is his and always suspiciously empty. It is her doing of course, leading customers away from the seat for that cool youngish-looking man with the nice hair who always comes in on Tuesdays, ordering the same bowl of miso noodles, and slurping it down so fast the last strand of noodle slaps against his upper lip so loud that even father would be able to hear from the kitchen. A young man who knows the art of eating noodles and appreciating the masterful cook who prepared it, papa would think. Finally a man, in these degenerate times, good enough to marry my daughter. On his sixteenth bowl on the sixteenth week, he noticed an extra slice of pork at the bottom, twice as thick as the regular slices but as tender and juicy. It was a sign from father of course, hidden messages in the form of sliced meat from the kitchen to the man he would call son someday. A portentous sign for a generous dowry no doubt. Was that a blush he saw from her as he paid the bill that day?

He knows a park nearby, mostly covered with sand but surrounded by cherry trees. In one corner there's a weather-beaten bench, its colour long ago washed away from the sun and rain. There she could see the sunset, framed by two office buildings on either side in the background and two overhanging branches that complement the glass and steel. The view is perfect, the harmony between man and nature, making way for its magnificent creator as it descends into the Earth.

Kensuke has many nights thinking of asking her to sit next to him in that park, just the two of them, away from the humid air of the restaurant and the unrelenting demands of the customers and her father. But in the mornings, after many sleepless nights, he presses his pillow over his face and screams into it, knowing he could never go beyond the bounds of the steady relationship they have now as waiter and customer. He still feels titillated from the experience every week. The regularity, the habit like an old couple who knows each other so well, the silence reveals their intimacy.

It's Tuesday again and after she takes his order, she pauses and looks down at him, scrunched-up eyes that seem to be asking, have we met before? Then the flurry of questions pours out of her lips, asking for his name, his age, his job, his favorite music, where he hangs out, and why he always stares at her but never tries to make conversation. Kensuke freezes, eyes down looking at the bowl of steaming noodles, looking for the answers among the chopped-up green onions, the broth with its film of oil on top, the sliced pork slightly submerged. But the answers she's waiting for are not there. After a moment of awkward silence, he tells her how delicious the noodles are here, picks up the spoon and starts sipping the broth; the anniversary broth from the anniversary bowl, his fiftieth-second bowl. She ambles over to the table with the half-eaten bowls and begins clearing up.  

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Originally from Canada, Hauquan has been living in Japan now for the last ten years. He teaches in the day and writes at night with no great consequence.
E-mail: hauquan_c at yahoo dot com
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