Side: Amahashi Kakeru

That Friday, I took a string of slow local trains, the kind that stop at every station, back to my hometown. I'd skipped school today for the forty-ninth-day memorial service.¹

The first train of the morning was still empty, only a scattering of commuters and students aboard.

Riding this train reminded me of Grandma. Whenever we went into the town where I live now, this was the train we'd take.

Unlike the trains in the city, it wasn't fast. As I swayed along to its unhurried rhythm, for a second it felt like Grandma was sitting right beside me.

I wondered why. Ever since I'd come back here, I'd been thinking about Grandma more and more.

"Wow. So those are rice paddies?"

"They're huge. Which just means there are that many people, I'd think."

What pulled me back to reality was Sanctina and Pricia, chatting as they watched the rural scenery roll past the window.

In the end, I'd brought them along. Pricia and the others had camped out plenty back in the other world, so they weren't picky about where they slept, and Noctia didn't seem to mind that sort of thing much either.

Over there, traveling had never been something you got to enjoy. Leave a town and you risked being attacked by monsters, and we'd always had to stay braced for a demon-race raid.

I'd figured that was just what travel meant to them, but they seemed to be enjoying this trip surprisingly normally.

"A train that runs along rails. I wonder if it developed from the mine carts," Noctia said.

Yeah, Noctia was thoroughly fascinated by the train itself.

Filia was the same as ever, but she looked like she was enjoying the changing scenery a little. Elves lived in the forest. There was a fair amount of nature in the view, so I hoped Filia was getting at least a bit of enjoyment out of it.

When we reached the station where we'd transfer, we got off. It was right around the start of the commuting rush, and the station was crowded.

"Let's get some breakfast. I'll take you somewhere fun."

We'd left early, so we hadn't eaten yet. I'd come on an empty stomach on purpose, planning to stop at the stand-up soba shop in this station.²

When we stepped into the stand-up soba shop, packed with company workers on their way to the office, Pricia and the others were taken aback at the chairless interior.

"What do you recommend?" Noctia asked.

"The tempura soba, I'd say."

The shop smelled wonderfully of soba broth—so nostalgic. This was another place Grandpa and Grandma and I used to stop at when we took the train into town.

In the end, everyone decided to order the tempura soba. We bought meal tickets and handed them to the staff, and before long the soba came out. They were startled by how fast it was, too.

"Here, give it a try."

The rising steam, the slightly dark-colored broth, and the crisply fried kakiage tempura on top whetted the appetite.³

I showed them how to sprinkle on shichimi if they liked, gave my own a light dusting, and dipped the tempura into the broth to let it soak.⁴

When I grabbed the soba with my chopsticks, my empty stomach made my mouth water. I blew on it to cool it down a little—and then slurped it up in one go.

"This is rather good, isn't it," Pricia said, eating her soba elegantly beside me.

"This tempura is nice. The broth soaks into it and makes it delicious," said Filia.

It seemed to suit Filia's palate too, which was a relief. Sanctina and Noctia were eating away happily as well.

What a nostalgic taste. Really.

Even after Grandma went into the hospital, I'd eat here on my way to visit her. Though back then, eating alone, I never had it in me to actually savor it.

A short meal, just a few minutes. But somehow it left me satisfied. I told the staff thanks for the meal, and we left the shop and headed for the platform to catch the next train.

This train was fairly crowded. Not as bad as the rush-hour crush downtown, but still.

I grabbed a hand strap and let myself sway with the train. Out in the countryside, once you got away from the towns, foreigners became a rare sight. Enough that the commuters and students kept sneaking glances at Pricia and the others.

Still, at least the fact that they stood out meant they weren't likely to run into any gropers.

The car gradually emptied out, and the station we got off at was an unstaffed one—no ticket gates, not even a ticket machine.

In the morning, plenty of people boarded the trains, but hardly anyone got off. That kind of middle-of-nowhere. Even so, coming home for the first time in three years stirred up something in me, if only a little.

The station building, which used to be staffed, still had the same posters that had hung there since I was a kid, faded now. Posters of famous spots like Tokyo and Kyoto.

It had all felt like a distant world to me. Even Tokyo. This place, where Grandpa and Grandma were, had been my whole world.

"Kakeru, you're looking well."

Outside the station, a single minivan was waiting. It was my uncle.

"I'm home."

"Hey, welcome back. So these are the homestay folks?"

When Grandma started spending more time in the hospital, the ones who looked after me weren't my parents—it was my uncle and aunt. Even after she passed, they helped all the way through the move.

"I'm Pricia. It's a pleasure to meet you."

As they introduced themselves one by one, starting with Pricia, my uncle got a little bashful. Young foreign women were a rarity out here, after all.

"Well, let's save the talking for once we're there. Come on, hop in, hop in."

I couldn't help laughing at the way my uncle climbed into the car as if to hide his embarrassment, and we all got in.

Once we left the unstaffed station behind, it was nothing but houses and fields—pure countryside. The scenery, and the sound coming from the car radio, were both nostalgic.

"Still, to think Grandma got everything ready to welcome homestay guests. That was just like her."

When we stopped at a light, my uncle—glancing at Pricia and the others in the rearview mirror—said something I wasn't expecting.

"You think?"

"Your grandpa and grandma, the both of them, they loved foreign countries—went traveling abroad from when they were young. Your dad's thing for foreign countries, that's straight from them."

Come to think of it, I had often heard Grandpa and Grandma talk about traveling overseas when they were young. They were travel lovers, so it had never struck me as odd.

It was a strange feeling, sensing a connection between that and Pricia and the others.

"Grandma worried about you right up to the end. Said she only wanted three more years. That she wanted to live that long."

Grandma…

"And she was always so strong, your grandma. She gripped my hand with those thin, frail hands and begged me, crying. 'Take care of him.' You were always so attached to your grandpa and grandma, after all."

The closer we got to the house, the more the nostalgia and the memories of Grandma welled up.

As if to fill in those three-odd years I'd spent in the other world.

It was to come home to this place that I had lived obediently as a Hero in the other world.

Maybe, if I worked hard enough as a Hero, a god would bring Grandma back to life. Thinking impossible thoughts like that the whole time.