"So you're a friend of Izumi-san. Welcome, welcome."
Shimamura Hougetsu said with a smile:
"Hello, Yuigahama-san. I'm Shimamura Hougetsu. If you ever feel like eating yakiniku in the future, please come by and support our business."
"Hello, Shimamura-san. I've heard for a while that a yakiniku restaurant opened around here, but this is my first time visiting."
"Really? Then make sure you eat plenty today. I especially recommend our beef, lamb, pork belly, and all kinds of offal. Some people can't really accept offal when they first try it, but once they take that first bite, most of them end up loving how delicious grilled offal is."
"Oh, right. Whenever Kotomi-san comes here, she always likes ordering all kinds of offal."
Shimamura Hougetsu introduced the menu cheerfully.
Compared with the introverted Adachi Sakura, Shimamura Hougetsu spoke in a soft, gentle manner, yet somehow always gave off a more cheerful impression.
"Shimamura-san, can we order the cheese grill right now?" Kotomi Izumi asked.
The so-called cheese grill was an ordinary tabletop grill fitted with a ring of smaller compartments specifically for cheese.
When the meat was nearly cooked, cheese could be placed into those smaller trays to heat, so that once the meat was fully grilled, it could be dipped into the melted cheese before eating.
Those small trays were not only useful for cheese. They could also be used to fry eggs.
The last time Kotomi came here, she had been completely drawn in by the cheese grill. Both cheese and fried eggs happened to be foods she especially loved.
Unfortunately, because installing a cheese grill required specially customized tables, only some of the tables at Anjima Yakiniku had them.
If someone arrived too late, all the seats with cheese grills would already be taken.
The last time Kotomi came, she had failed to get one precisely because there had been no seats left.
"Hehehe, of course you can. If you'd arrived an hour later, you might not have been able to get one. Back when we converted some of the grills into cheese grills, it was purely because Adachi suddenly felt like doing it."
"We never expected them to become so popular afterward. Fortunately, we've temporarily disabled reservations because we've been pretty busy lately. Otherwise, by nighttime, every cheese-grill table for the next day might already be reserved."
"Come on, I'll take you to a quiet table where you can use one."
As Shimamura Hougetsu spoke, she led Kotomi Izumi and Yui Yuigahama to a relatively secluded table farther inside.
"Order whatever you want. We haven't been open for long yet, so we've still got a full selection of meat, seafood, and vegetables."
After saying that, Shimamura Hougetsu placed two menus on the table.
"We can order the regular meat in a little while. As for the offal, please give me the usual: beef heart, abomasum, rumen, kokorec, teppou, honeycomb tripe, mixed beef offal, beef lung, omasum, and beef esophagus."
As Kotomi placed her order, Yui Yuigahama listened in complete confusion. She had never even heard of some of the things Kotomi was naming.
After ordering the offal she liked, Kotomi continued:
"For the staple, please give me a large bowl of white rice."
"Our restaurant recently added a new staple dish: multigrain rice. Want to give it a try? It tastes really good. Whenever I'm dieting, I always cook multigrain rice."
As Shimamura Hougetsu wrote Kotomi's order down on a notepad, she recommended the restaurant's new item.
The yakiniku restaurant had been open for several years now. Shimamura Hougetsu might not have had the talent to run some huge enterprise, nor did she have any desire to become a career woman.
But after gradually getting used to managing a small business like this, she had become quite adept at it.
Kotomi Izumi had always been very interested in food, yet when she heard the words "multigrain rice," she actually shrank back as if she had heard the name of something almost impossible to swallow.
With a rather unpleasant expression, she said:
"No way. Even if you beat me to death, I still wouldn't eat something like multigrain rice! If plain rice alone can make delicious white rice, why insist on adding other things and making the whole pot taste worse?"
The foods Kotomi Izumi hated most were green peppers and multigrain rice.
Or rather, if green peppers were cooked well enough, Kotomi would occasionally eat a few bites.
But multigrain rice was the one thing Kotomi absolutely refused to touch!
If a meal only offered multigrain rice as the staple, Kotomi would rather eat nothing but the side dishes and skip the rice entirely.
Seeing the disgust written all over Kotomi's face, Shimamura Hougetsu could not help laughing.
"Looks like Kotomi-san is just like Adachi. She really hates multigrain rice too."
"Huh? Adachi doesn't like multigrain rice either?"
"That's right. Last time, I tried cooking multigrain rice for several days. She was fine with it at first, but after two days, Adachi started throwing a little tantrum at me just like she used to in high school~"
"She even said that if I made multigrain rice again, she'd go on a hunger strike! Haha, adorable, right? She's been out of high school for years now, but sometimes her personality is still exactly like that of a high school girl."
"There's nothing I can do about it. Since she doesn't like multigrain rice, I just don't make it very often anymore. Or when I do, I cook another pot of white rice too. I eat the multigrain rice, and she eats the white rice."
The moment she started talking about her own little Adachi puppy, even Shimamura Hougetsu's tone became gentler.
"Haha, I understand, I understand. In my opinion, multigrain rice really is kind of hard to swallow. I know it's healthy, but I just don't like eating it."
Kotomi nodded, fully understanding why Adachi Sakura had thrown a tantrum after being fed multigrain rice for several days in a row.
Yui Yuigahama, who was looking through the menu, did not say anything, but she had already firmly memorized the fact that Kotomi disliked multigrain rice.
Whenever there was a chance to learn what Kotomi liked or hated, Yui Yuigahama always engraved it firmly in her heart.
After they finished ordering, Shimamura Hougetsu collected the menus and headed back to the kitchen to slice the meat.
Before leaving, she did not forget to say:
"I'll head to the kitchen and get your meat first. Oh, right, if you want anything to drink, just grab it yourselves from the refrigerator. I know Kotomi-san likes Pepsi, so when I placed an order a few days ago, I specifically ordered an extra case."
"Thank you! I was just wondering whether I should drink Mirinda or Pepsi today. But after hearing you say that, I've made up my mind. Pepsi it is!"
Kotomi said this with a smile, standing up at the same time to go get drinks from the refrigerator.
She then asked Yui Yuigahama:
"Yui, want to come get drinks with me?"
"Mm!" Yui Yuigahama nodded and obediently followed beside Kotomi.
Kotomi Izumi took a bottle of Pepsi from the refrigerator, while Yui Yuigahama picked out a bottle of lemon-flavored soda.
After getting their drinks and returning to their seats, Yui Yuigahama curiously asked Kotomi:
"Kotomi, what was that kokorec you ordered earlier? Is it a CD? And what about honeycomb tripe? What's that supposed to be? Are we eating bees?"
After hearing Yui Yuigahama's questions, Kotomi could not hold back her laughter and explained:
"Pfft—not at all, not at all. Those are all names for different parts of a cow. I really like eating meat, and I like offal too. Come to think of it, I think I've loved eating animal organs ever since I was little."
"Huh? Cow organs have such interesting names?"
This was the first time Yui Yuigahama had ever heard names like these.
"The human body has plenty of interesting names too. For example, the 'funny bone' refers to the medial epicondyle of the humerus, the little bony protrusion on the inner side of your elbow."
Kotomi explained.
As the two chatted, Shimamura Hougetsu had already placed two plates of lamb, one plate of pork belly, and one plate of beef omasum on the table.
Compared with other restaurants, the biggest advantage of yakiniku and hot pot restaurants was how quickly the food could be served.
After all, the meat and vegetables only needed to be arranged on plates and brought directly to the table. There was no need to spend time cooking them in the kitchen.
The only time the kitchen really needed to cook anything was when customers ordered staples such as egg fried rice, yakisoba, rice balls, dry-fried beef chow fun, or stir-fried instant noodles.
"As for the cheese, do you want me to add it now or later? Personally, I'd recommend waiting until the meat is almost done before adding it."
"Under that kind of heat, even cheese that just came out of the refrigerator will start melting very quickly."
Shimamura Hougetsu asked.
"Then let's add it later."
"Okay. I've already lit the grill for you. You two enjoy the yakiniku first. I'll head back to the kitchen and keep working."
"Shimamura, want to sit down and eat with us?"
Kotomi asked half-jokingly. She knew Shimamura Hougetsu would refuse, not out of politeness, but because as the proprietress of a yakiniku restaurant, she smelled grilled meat almost every single day.
Yakiniku certainly smelled delicious, but if someone smelled it from morning to night every day, they would inevitably grow tired of it.
Over time, the craving for grilled meat would naturally fade.
It was just like employees at hamburger restaurants. After working there for a while, most of them ended up not liking hamburgers all that much anymore.
After all, they smelled hamburgers all day long, and when closing time approached, any leftover snacks and burgers could simply be taken home.
At first, that might seem like a wonderful benefit, since they could always eat free burgers and snacks.
But after enough time passed, they would discover that hamburgers and snacks no longer stirred the slightest excitement in them.
On the burger shop's weekly Crazy Thursday, the employees were always the least crazy people there.
Sure enough, when faced with Kotomi's invitation, Shimamura Hougetsu declined apologetically:
"If it's sitting down and chatting with Kotomi-san, I'd be more than happy to. But if it's sitting down and eating yakiniku together... Ah, I remember that before opening this restaurant, I used to love yakiniku."
"Every time I went to a yakiniku restaurant, I'd order a bowl of ramen along with the meat and put the grilled meat on top of the ramen before eating it. That's actually why ramen appears under the staple-food section of the menu I designed."
"At first, I thought that once Adachi and I opened our own yakiniku restaurant, we'd be able to eat as much grilled meat as we wanted whenever we liked."
"But after we really opened the place, I gradually realized that my love for yakiniku was diminishing little by little. These days, I feel like I could go an entire year without eating yakiniku and be perfectly fine."
After saying that, Shimamura Hougetsu smiled with a trace of emotion.
"I suppose that's what happens when you finally obtain something. Your obsession with it gradually weakens, and your interest in it decreases along with it," Kotomi summarized.
Shimamura Hougetsu thought about it and realized the statement actually made quite a lot of sense.
She chuckled softly and said:
"That really does seem to be the case. Kotomi-san, your mind is quite lively. Is that the lively thinking of a high school student? I'm jealous... Sometimes I kind of want to go back to my own high school days too."
At this point, Shimamura Hougetsu abruptly ended her reminiscing and instead smiled as she said:
"Still, somehow that thing you just said sounds exactly like something a little playgirl would say."
"Don't doubt yourself. That is absolutely your imagination. I, Kotomi Izumi, despise playgirls more than anything in this entire world!" Kotomi declared one word at a time with utmost seriousness.
She made it sound completely convincing.
And yet someone actually believed her.
For example, Yui Yuigahama, who was standing right there, believed Kotomi's words without the slightest suspicion.
After hearing Kotomi say that, Yui immediately felt much more reassured, and the corners of her lips unconsciously curved into a relaxed smile.
"Then it seems Kotomi-san is a good girl who's devoted and serious when it comes to relationships~" Shimamura Hougetsu said cheerfully.
"Of course." After saying that, Kotomi even gave a smug little snort.
...
After they finished eating, Kotomi Izumi went to the counter to pay, with Yui Yuigahama following beside her.
By the time Kotomi Izumi and Yui Yuigahama finished their meal, the number of customers in the yakiniku restaurant was only just beginning to increase.
It had finally reached the usual mealtime.
After Shimamura Hougetsu finished calculating everything on a calculator, she said to Kotomi:
"Your total is 19,652 yen. Thank you for your patronage."
The price was not so high because Anjima Yakiniku was expensive. It was because Kotomi Izumi had ordered... an absurd amount of meat.
More importantly, every single portion had been the extra-large size!
Fortunately, Kotomi and Yui were sitting at a large table. If they had been at a small one, there would not even have been enough room to hold all the meat Kotomi ordered.
And it was not just the meat. She had ordered a lot of rice too.
In the kitchen, Kotomi Izumi had practically single-handedly finished off an entire rice cooker's worth of rice!
The 19,652-yen total was after Shimamura Hougetsu had already applied a twenty-percent discount.
Even though she was gradually getting used to Kotomi's appetite, every time Kotomi finished eating and came to the counter to pay, Shimamura Hougetsu was still deeply shocked by how much money a single meal cost her.
Shimamura Hougetsu would not dare claim she knew Kotomi Izumi especially well, but there was one thing she could say with absolute certainty: Kotomi Izumi's parents had to be rich!
After all, with an appetite like Kotomi's, a family without some money really could not afford to raise her...
While paying, Kotomi Izumi noticed that Shimamura Hougetsu had not included the drinks, so she reminded her:
"Shimamura, you forgot to charge for Yui's drink and mine. How much were those two bottles?"
In response to Kotomi's reminder, Shimamura Hougetsu smiled and shook her head.
"Oh, those two drinks are on the house for you and Yuigahama-san. Kotomi-san, you come here so often and give us so much business, so just consider them a small token of thanks."
"Hahaha, in that case, it'd be rude of me to refuse. Thank you."
Kotomi Izumi nodded and did not reject Shimamura Hougetsu's kindness.
When someone offered kindness that was not too excessive, it was best to accept it openly and graciously.
That was one of the little lessons Kotomi Izumi had learned about dealing with people.
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