The Witch Next Door: Chapter VI
Author’s Note: Well, FictionPress is still glitching at the moment, so I’m presenting the latest chapter here — again — on Medium. In case you’re reading this for the first time, drop me a line and I’ll send you PDFs of the previous chapters. Also, check out my official Facebook page to see how I envision the characters for this story.
VI. Words Over Breakfast
When Toshi finally hauled himself out of bed later that morning, he found his nephews playing with the gaming system in the living room and his niece curled up on one end of the sofa with a book, a box of mendiants, and the cats purring happily beside her. None of the grown-ups were in sight.
“Where is everyone?” Toshi asked as he made himself a cup of coffee.
“Downstairs, Tito Ninong,” Kensuke replied, feverishly punching buttons on his controller to fend off his younger brother’s attack.
“Tita Mayu said to tell you to eat breakfast,” Akira chimed in.
Toshi nodded at this and found a covered bowl on the kitchen island. Upon uncovering it, he smiled: Mayu did save him quite a bit of tocino — and an egg, as well as what appeared to be around a cup and half of garlic fried rice.
“Tita Ninang threatened to hang me up by the ears if I polished off the tocino,” Kensuke remarked plaintively from his perch.
“Did she give you a second egg?” Toshi asked as he sat down and put a spoon into his bowl.
“She did — and she warmed up the chicken livers left over from your dinner last night.”
“You were right, Tito!” Akira declared brightly. “They are good!”
Toshi grinned. “Told you,” he said between bites.
Yumiko closed her book and trotted up to him. He helped her onto one of the tall stools. Squish, who had followed her, scampered up the one beside Toshi and meowed expectantly at him. He grinned and fed her a bite of the sweet cured pork.
“D’you feel better now?” Yumiko asked him.
“Sort of,” Toshi replied soberly.
“Daddy said you had to quit your job,” Yumiko said, eyes wide with concern. “Can you take care of yourself?”
“Tita Mayu’s been taking good care of me, I assure you.” Quietly, he added, “Though, really: I ought to be the one taking care of her.”
“Why’s that, Tito?”
“Your dad takes care of your mom, right? Grampaw takes care of your Grammy. It’s how things are.”
“Yes, but Mommy takes care of Daddy when he’s sick,” Yumiko piped up.
“Well, I am sick right now, cupcake.” Fondly, Toshi planted a kiss on the top of her head. “So I guess it’s fair.”
Presently, the doorbell rang and Kensuke moseyed up to answer it. Kimiko entered and gave the boy a hug.
“Dang it, Kenny!” she exclaimed. “You’re taller than me now!”
“Can’t help it, ma’am,” Kensuke replied cheekily, taking the big white bakery boxes from his aunt. “My dad’s five-foot-eleven and my mom’s five-foot-eight.”
“Hey, Kimmy,” Toshi greeted her.
“Hi, nii.” She happily took the spoonful of food he offered. “Damn, but Mayu-nee makes better tocino than even the best stuff in Manila.”
“What do you expect from a girl whose dad grew up in Pampanga?” Toshi chuckled. “It’s meat processing city over there.”
“Yeah, but she hand-smokes this!” Kimiko took another spoonful. “Needs vinegar, though.”
Toshi made a face. “Eurgh, no; not my thing,” he said. He eyed the boxes that Kensuke placed on the main dining table. “You off the hook early?”
“I’m always off the hook whenever Mama and Papa fly in from somewhere,” Kimiko reminded him, giving Yumiko a tight squeeze that made the little girl giggle, then poured herself some coffee from the sideboard. “Chiyoko and Viv made a few treats for the family, by the way.” She walked over to the table and opened one of the boxes, handing a huge chocolate cupcake topped with a swirl of white chocolate frosting to Yumiko. “Auntie Chiyo sends her compliments and says you, little cupcake, ought to visit her before you go home.”
Toshi grinned as their niece’s eyes widened at the sight of the treat. “Auntie Chiyo’s cupcakes are good,” he said, polishing off his breakfast. “Almost as good as Tita Mayu’s — but not quite.”
“D’you suppose Tita would bake a whole cake for myself for my birthday?” Yumiko asked hopefully between big licks of frosting. “Daddy says she bakes one for you because you always bug her for weeks.”
Toshi glared at his sister who snickered evilly at this. “I think she would,” he told Yumiko. “I daresay you ought to ask her when she comes up.”
“Yeah, but Tito Ninong will probably vacuum up any scraps and leftover frosting,” Kensuke chuckled as he joined them, plucking a cupcake out of the box. He only laughed harder when his uncle threw him a withering glance.
“Come on, Tito; admit it,” Akira teased as he joined them. “That’s why Tita’s kitchen is so clean after she bakes a cake. You seem to know when she needs you for clean-up.”
“I don’t mind,” Yumiko assured him after a big bite of cake. But she narrowed her eyes at her uncle. “So long as you don’t get a slice; you already ate your share!”
Everyone laughed at this, but Toshi looked at them all sourly over the tops of his glasses. He said nothing; instead, he went and washed up his breakfast dishes. When he finished, the boys had gone back to their game and Yumiko to her reading. Squish was now snoozing in her lap; Squash, just awakened from a nap, padded over and was curled up beside the little girl. Only Kimiko, currently warming her hands around her cup of coffee, remained.
“Know where Koji is right now?” he asked her.
“Not a blip just yet,” she replied after a sip of coffee. “His last call was around half an hour ago.”
Toshi checked the time on the kitchen iPad. “Just a quarter to ten,” he said. “They probably landed around fifteen minutes ago.”
“You look pretty relaxed for a man whose mother might strangle him soon as she sees him,” Kimiko teased him.
“We’ve talked,” he said calmly. He thought about pouring himself a second cup of coffee, but remembered Mayu’s admonition to steer clear of caffeine for a while. Instead, he opened the refrigerator and poured some chocolate milk into his coffee mug. He took a sip, then, “Mayu said I can move in indefinitely and not worry about a thing.” He threw his sister a lopsided smile. “I don’t think it’s fair, so I’m going to pay her bills on the sly.”
“It’s not like you can’t afford it,” Kimiko sniffed. “But what are you going to do now?”
“Short of praying for a miracle?” Toshi regarded her seriously. “I was thinking of going back to writing. Mayu told me last night that they’re putting the Scrumptious HQ here in Tokyo; Nell’s asked her to finally accept the position of editor in chief.”
Kimiko stared at him. “Seriously?” she exclaimed, eyes wide in shock. “Please tell me she said yes!”
Toshi nodded. “She did,” he replied. “Reluctantly, but she did.” He took another sip of chocolate milk. “She asked if I wanted to come along as a contributor and, for the time being, her editorial assistant.”
Kimiko raised an eyebrow at this. “Toshi, if you turned her down…” she began.
He grinned at her. “Who told you I did?” he asked. He rejoined her at the kitchen island. “It’s food writing — you know I love doing that.”
“Which is why you tag along whenever she needs to review restaurants!” Kimiko laughed. She regarded him fondly. “It’ll do you good, I think.”
“I hope so,” Toshi agreed.
He noted that Kimiko had an odd, studying look on her face. “Is there something on your mind?” he asked her quietly. “Whatever it is, I assure you: I won’t get mad if you go ahead and say it.”
Kimiko’s eyes widened in surprise at this, and she stared at him in silence for a moment. Then, “I think you like Mayu-nee more than either a friend or a big sister.”
Toshi narrowed his eyes at her, causing her to gulp and back away a little. But he sighed plaintively and sat down.
“So you’ve figured it out,” he said.
“I’ve had a feeling about it for a long time,” Kimiko said, gently patting his arm. “And, from what O-niisan and Theda-nee have told me over the years — about the time before Koji and I were born — I take it you’ve been trotting after her since the day you met.”
“Well, yeah,” Toshi agreed ruefully. “I was besotted from the get-go — only, because I was so much younger, I figured I didn’t have a chance.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know,” Toshi admitted. “I honestly don’t know.”
Kimiko opened her mouth to say something, but the doorbell rang and they heard an all-too-familiar voice saying, “Terasawa-san, there was no need for you to schlep those things up! The boys could have done that for you!”
“Oh, dear God!” Toshi exclaimed, quickly getting up and running to the door.
++++++
“Koji, but it’s so good to see you!”
Megumi Shinsetsu ebulliently hugged her youngest child just as he was about to take some of their luggage off the trolley.
“Hey, Mama,” Koji replied, hugging her back.
Reluctantly, Megumi let him go, but she held him at arms’ length and studied him critically. Finally, she smiled.
“At least I know Chiyoko is taking very good care of you,” she declared with an air of satisfaction. She thoroughly approved of her youngest son’s girlfriend. To Koji’s chagrin and her husband’s amusement, Megumi squeezed the boy’s cheeks hard.
“Ma!” Koji yelped in protest.
“Filling out well, isn’t he?” Kenichi chuckled as he helped the boy load the suitcases into the back of the SUV. “Not a scarecrow anymore, thank goodness!”
“Can’t help it, Pops,” Koji replied, rubbing his aching cheeks. “Woman’s a dab hand in the kitchen and she brings home any leftovers from the cafe — not that there are lots, of course. Trade’s been busy.”
“That’s good,” Megumi remarked approvingly as Kenichi opened the backseat door for her.
“How was the trip?” Koji called in as he closed the back and trotted over to the driver’s seat.
“It was fine,” Kenichi replied. “Your grandma’s reluctant about flying here for the Holidays, though.”
Koji frowned at this and Megumi could not blame him. The kids did worry about Kenichi’s now 92-year-old mother who opted to live alone in New York.
“Did you finally get her to agree to live with you?” he asked as he started the car.
“It took your father a long time,” Megumi chimed in. “But, yes: she’s coming home just after Christmas.”
“What, Granny doesn’t want to spend Christmas with us?” Koji exclaimed.
“Nope,” Kenichi replied as he fastened his seatbelt. “Mom wants to spend one last Christmas in the Big Apple. Seeing how she was born and raised there, I can’t blame her.”
“You grew up there, too, Pop,” Koji reminded him.
“Well, yes,” Kenichi agreed. “But I never felt that it was a home I could really go back to after your Granddaddy died.” He smiled and placed his hand over Megumi’s. “I guess you could say I found my home when I met your Ma.”
Megumi fondly kissed his cheek, then sat back and fastened her own seatbelt. “I remember meeting you only too well,” she laughed merrily. It always pleased her that they were never a typical Japanese couple, let alone a typical Japanese family: they always treated each other with fondness, even in public. “Carmela Ohara — Mayu-chan’s mother — used to roll her eyes at your father and say, ‘Bloody hell, Shinsetsu: ask her out already!’ He was such a slow-coach when we were courting.”
Koji grinned as he navigated their way out of the parking lot. “I guess now we know where Toshi got that bit of his personality,” he said.
Megumi looked at him seriously. “How is your brother?” she demanded. “He looked exhausted when we spoke to him the other day!”
“Haven’t seen him today, Ma,” Koji replied. “But when I asked to borrow his car yesterday, he looked fine. Mayu-nee isn’t letting him do more than the dishes or make his bed in the morning. If she catches him doing anything more, she chases him back to bed.”
“Maybe she ought to keep him company so he stays there,” Kenichi suggested with a perfectly straight face.
Megumi laughed at this, then laughed harder when she saw the startled look on Koji’s face. “It’s about bloody time!” she exclaimed. “Did Papa and I ever tell you about the day they met? It was his second birthday and we just moved to Manila. He was grumpy, hungry, and certainly cranky when we arrived at our house. Mayu and Louis were watching us move in from the gate, then they heard Shunichi speak in Japanese, and they both exclaimed about it in surprise.”
“That got our attention,” Kenichi chuckled. “So we went over to introduce ourselves and your Tita Mela came out to invite us to tea. We weren’t planning to, seeing how your Ma and I needed to oversee the moving crew, but she suggested we leave the boys with ’em for a bit; keep them out from underfoot, see? And Toshi — all sulky and ready to whine or bite someone, you know how your brother is — wriggles out of your Ma’s arms, toddles over to the new neighbours, looks up at the pretty girl who’s studying him like he was a new creature she’d just seen, trots up, and hugs her legs!”
Koji burst into delighted laughter at this. “Oh my God!” he declared. “He was smitten!”
“Understatement,” Megumi said wryly. “Back in Singapore, Toshi didn’t care much for any of Shun’s girl classmates. For some reason, though, he took an immediate shine to Mayu — probably because he felt that she would not tolerate any nonsense. Even at around nine, she already exuded that kind of aura.”
“And she wasn’t even the cuddly sort,” Kenichi added. “At that age, Mayu — or Marie-Eunice as people called her then, no nicknames for her! — was slender like a willow branch; all elbows and knees, as your Granny said when she first met her some time later.”
Koji narrowed his eyes at them speculatively. “So, Mayu-nee got her nickname from Toshi?” he asked.
Megumi nodded. “When she introduced herself, she gave her name as ‘Marie-Eunice’ or just Eunice,” she explained. “She tried to teach Toshi how to say it, but he was only two — and his grasp of any language wasn’t really that strong yet, though he did babble incessantly. When he tried to say her name, he could only remember the first syllables — Ma-Yu — and it stuck.” She smiled. “Besides, ‘Mayu Imatani’ sounds better than ‘Marie-Eunice Imatani.’”
“Sounds more Japanese,” Koji agreed.
“Well, after that, Toshi pretty much stuck to her like a limpet,” Megumi said, smiling at the memory of the serious-faced little girl and the equally grim-faced toddler. “He used to cry whenever she brought him home — Mela would ‘borrow’ him whenever I was busy and we didn’t have any help yet — and it was pitiful to see him toddling after her when she turned to go.”
“What’d she do?” Koji asked curiously; this all happened before he was born, after all.
“Oh, she would crouch down, give him a hug, then carry him back inside,” Kenichi recalled. “When he began to fuss, she would crouch down again, look him in the eye, and tell him she’d see him the next day. It was enough to calm him down.” He turned to his wife with a twinkle in his eye. “I wonder how we would have managed in those first few months without her.”
Megumi shrugged. “What was even more interesting was that Mayu didn’t like other children,” she said. “At that age, Mayu kept to herself; she was more mature than most kids her age: more given to books, writing, and — at the time — learning about her Japanese heritage on both sides.” She looked out the window, not quite seeing the traffic or the city around them. “When she was around sixteen, she confided in me that she never felt like she belonged in Manila or that she felt welcome among other Filipino children — or people, for that matter.”
“Later on, she got the opportunity to attend Sophia University here in Tokyo for a semester as part of a Comparative Culture exchange programme,” Kenichi added. “I think she was around eighteen or nineteen at the time. She was very reluctant to come home, especially after one of the Anthropology professors showed her where the Imatanis and the Oharas came from, how and why her maternal ancestors and her paternal great-granddad migrated to the Philippines, and that she still had kinfolk over in Hokkaido and Kyoto.”
“She keeps in touch,” Megumi recalled. “Her distant cousins there adore her and they were among the first to welcome her when she moved here over a decade ago. They were disappointed that she wasn’t moving to either of their provinces, but they figured that she needed to be in Tokyo; her work is here, after all.”
“For all that Mayu’s a natural redhead thanks to her Spanish grandma, she’s more Japanese than any of us, come to think of it,” Kenichi chuckled.
“Well, someone once described her at a manga convention as ‘an anime heroine come to life,’” Koji said, smiling hugely. “Toshi was there to wish us good luck — and he glared at the fanboy who said that.”
“Was Mayu cosplaying? Kenichi asked curiously.
Koji shook his head. “That’s the fun part,” he chortled. “She was just in one of her usual outfits — the black turtleneck top over a full batik skirt and boots. Toshi felt compelled to stand very close to her to fend off any otaku or neck-beard who thought about getting touchy-feely with her.”
“I sincerely hope your brother didn’t hit anyone!” Megumi exclaimed in horror.
“He didn’t, Ma,” Koji assured her. “When someone did get fresh with Mayu, she sucker-punched the bastard herself!”
Both Megumi and Kenichi laughed at this. “I suppose your brother was put out because he couldn’t play knight in shining armour?” Megumi asked.
“Understatement, Ma: he actually said, ‘Damn it, woman — don’t do all the work yourself!’” He grinned. “She did let him apply first-aid to her fist afterwards, though.”
Presently, they arrived in Asakusa and Koji drove the SUV into the parking garage at Mayu’s building. Good old Tochiro Terasawa, once Kenichi’s right-hand man back in Manila, scurried out to greet them.
“Sir!” he barked in greeting, bowing deeply as Kenichi stepped out of the car. He opened the backseat to help Megumi out. “And Madame!”
“Hello, old friend,” Megumi greeted him warmly. “How are Lily and the kids?”
“Lil’s fine, Madame,” he replied, grinning that his wife had been remembered. “And the kids are makin’ themselves useful to young Mister Shun. He and Miz Theda told me my Arisa an’ her team made it to the top spot for shojo manga this week.”
“Arisa’s always been a gifted artist,” Megumi declared. “Good on her!”
“Ah, but you’re too kind to say it, Madame!” He eyed the luggage in the back critically. “Don’t suppose we need to unload everything here?”
“No, just four of the suitcases, bud,” Kenichi replied, trotting over to the back where Koji was looking over all the luggage.
Tochiro gravely turned to Megumi. “I suppose you know what’s happened to Mister Toshi?” he asked quietly.
Megumi sighed and nodded. “He looked so drawn when we spoke a couple of days ago,” she sighed. “Kojiro said Mayu isn’t letting him do too much — is that true?”
Tochiro nodded with a smile. “The Miss actually shouts at the boy when she catches him outta bed, Madame,” he chuckled. “Was actually askin’ me the other day if I could get restraints or somethin’ along those lines.”
Megumi and Kenichi laughed at this pronouncement. “He’s bound to wriggle out one way or another,” Kenichi said wryly. “Should lead her a merry chase or two.”
“Maybe if she opts to work where he is, he’d stay put,” Koji suggested with a mischievous grin.
“There’s an idea!” Megumi exclaimed as her husband held the lift open for them.
“Mayu-nee might not be happy about it, though, Ma,” Koji cautioned her as he hauled the luggage into the lift. “It could cut into her productivity; nii can be needy sometimes.”
“Your brother could probably haul a sleeping bag down to her office,” Kenichi suggested with a grin.
“Yeah, sir, but that’s a long way from the kitchen,” Tochiro guffawed as he pressed the button for the third floor. “Though Miss does have a pantry on second — but she only stocks snacks and coffee down there. Mister Toshi’ll need to haul his backside up if he wants anything more substantial.”
After a short while, there was a loud ding that announced that they had arrived on the third floor. Kenichi held the door open and motioned for Megumi and the others to go ahead. Koji rang the bell.
Megumi regarded Tochiro critically. “Terasawa-san,” she said sternly, “there was no need for you to schlep those things up! The boys could have done that for you!”
Before the caretaker could say anything, the door opened. Toshi stood there, looking somewhat sheepish, a faint blush staining his pale cheeks. Before Megumi could say anything, he took the suitcases Tochiro had carried up.
Megumi could feel his tension as he bowed respectfully to her and Kenichi. “Mayu’s downstairs with niisan and Theda,” he explained, holding the front door open with his foot. “Hope you had a nice flight; come on in. Would you like some coffee?”