For a traditional food lover like myself, you can’t get better than white rice. If I can at least have rice and miso soup, you won’t hear me complaining.
However, this meal set place……
……has a getup that requires a good deal of courage for a lone girl to enter.
Kei: Uuu! But the rice…… nice hot rice with, like, soy sauce sprinkled on the top, just how I like it……
…………
……Exactly what am I doing on this busy street? This heat must have gone to my head or something.
Convenience store clerk: Welcome—!
In the end, after a good deal of compromise, I decided to settle for convenience store onigiri (TN: rice balls), instead.
The door I left open at the mansion (not that I forgot, I just couldn’t shut Tsudzura-chan out) worries me, anyway, so I should head back quickly.
Of course, I’ve brought all the important things like my wallet and such, and all that’s left is my suitcase, so you could say there’s nothing there to steal, but…
Ah, but if Tsudzura-chan went looking for me, that could be a problem too, couldn’t it?
So for now, the two of us, and one fox. Anticipating our portions for lunch, I decide to buy food for the high end projection.
Come to think of it, did Tsudzura-chan have any likes or dislikes?
For the time being, if I control the onigiri goods, I control the world!—— so, in the air-conditioned store interior, I begin my search.
Umeboshi (TN: pickled plums), konbu (TN: kelp), okaka (TN: slices of dried bonito), salmon—— here, I’m forced to give up. Any more would be difficult to carry. (TN: An onigiri is not necessarily rice alone. Oftentimes an item from the above list is stuck on the back as an extra.)
Taking a shopping box aside the entrance in hand, I return to the onigiri counter. Cod roe, salmon roe, mayonnaise—— wait a sec, if Obana-chan is an Oinari-san, will he be able to eat this? (TN: Inari – Japanese diety said to keep albino foxes as servants.)
Aside from food, also drinks and disposable chopsticks, paper cups and plates… after lobbing in all the amenities like wet tissues, the box pulls hard to the ground.
Kei: Uuu… this is pretty heavy……
If you ask me, you lose when you have to buy your essentials in a convenience store, but since I’m on away, I won’t mind it.
The tea and water PET bottles would probably be cheaper if I looked in a supermarket or pharmacy, but I’m not fond of the idea of holding my empty stomach while I explore a strange land.
……I’m saving quite a bit just by not staying at an inn, anyway, so let’s just look at it in a positive light.
Clerk: Thank you very much—!
They say Kyoto is hot in summer, but even in a high latitude place like this, it’s hot, seeing as it’s walled by mountains on all sides. It’s plainly hotter now than when I entered the store.
……Honestly, it’s Heaven and Hell at the same time.
It makes me resentful when I think of a/c cold enough to make me shiver. People should hold energy more dearly than that.
Kei: It’s hot…… this is heavy…… I’m hungry……
On the way to the bus stop, I’m already about to keel over.
Kei: Uuu! Maybe I should call a taxi……
As I whine over my troubles, I lift my face to——
…a sky so hatefully blue, the dazzling sun shining there, and the incessant cries of cicadas.
In the end, partly because no taxis passed on my walk to the stop, I managed not to waste money. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.