Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter Pr

Prologue

One night, I dreamed for the first time in a while. Even though I was a pretty deep sleeper, I generally forgot everything from my dreams when I woke up. So when I awoke the next morning, I forgot what happened in this one, too.

It was after everything had been settled that I suddenly thought to myself, Oh yeah, I get the feeling it was something like that.

In my dream, I was still a small child, having only just entered elementary school. My old man was drinking beer while cheering on his favorite baseball team on TV, and my mom was standing in the kitchen chopping up onions or something.

Our family ran a popular eatery, so it must have been our day off for the week. Otherwise, the whole family never would have been gathered together for supper like this.

It was the sort of scene you’d expect to see in some soap opera out of the Showa era.

I didn’t have much interest in baseball, so I took the opportunity to talk to my old man during the commercials.

“Hey, why is it that Mom cooks dinner at home when you’re such a good chef, Dad?”

“What’re you, stupid?!” my old man asked, looking clearly flustered as he drew in close. “What are you saying, all of the sudden? What would happen if your mother heard that?”

“That’s why I said it all quietly. So hey, why is it?”

“Now listen here... Do you not like Mom’s cooking, Asuta?”

“No. I love it,” six-year-old me said, shaking his head back and forth. I know I’m talking about myself here, but still, what an adorable kid... “But I love your cooking even more, Dad. Yours is the tastiest.”

I would absolutely never say something like that nowadays. And I suppose I didn’t have anyone to say it to anymore, either...

“Well, yeah, I’m a pro chef, so making tasty food is my job, but...” my old man said, with a troubled, complex expression. He must have been a little over 30 at the time... He probably felt ready to hit me depending on how I had responded, but naturally he never would have struck a six-year-old child. Serves you right, old man! “Anyway, you eat meals I make each and every day, right? Don’t you at least want to have your mom’s cooking once a week?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to eat it. I just thought it was strange is all.”

The game had long since resumed on the TV. However, my old man remained pointed my way, and gave a “Hmm...” with his arms crossed. “Still, I’ve got to say that you’re thinking of it all wrong. It’s your mom’s job to make the cooking at home.”

“Why?”

“Why...? That’s because I’m a chef,” my old man said, looking super serious. “It’s a chef’s job to make food for customers. But it’s a mom’s job to make food for her family at home, not a chef’s.”

“Hmm...?”

There was no way I could have a proper understanding of what those words meant at just six years old. But they must have left a definite impact on me, for them to be coming up in a dream like this.

A year later my mom passed away, and I cried and cried, wishing that I had gotten to eat more of her cooking.