20 Years After

Twenty years had already passed since the day my friend… since the day Taisho disappeared.

Those twenty years had felt far longer than the four hundred years I had lived before them….

Even now, Ouri and I still stood in that alley every night, waiting for Taisho.

Throughout the castle town of Fahrenheit, restaurants serving “Ramen” could now be found everywhere.

When Taisho vanished and people could no longer eat his ramen, the gourmets practically went mad. Desperate to reproduce that flavor somehow, they described what they remembered to chefs and had them attempt to recreate ramen again and again.

In the fields around Fahrenheit, the “garnish” that Taisho had given us twenty years ago had been cultivated until it grew lush and green, while shops along the market streets now sold “naruto,” made by grinding white fish and steaming it, as well as “menma,” bamboo shoots simmered in sweet-and-savory seasoning and transported all the way from the eastern lands.

Every one of them had been made in imitation of his ramen. They were copies, perhaps, but by now every ingredient needed for ramen could be obtained within this town.

And yet Taisho himself was gone…. Taisho, the man who made that delicious “Ramen,” had never returned…. The ramen served in this town resembled Taisho’s, but something about it was different.

Something was different. Something was missing….

And so, I could never feel satisfied.

I looked around the dark alley where only Ouri and I remained, then murmured quietly.

“At last, it seems we’re the only ones left waiting for Taisho in this alley….”

Ouri snorted.

“Heh! Twenty years is way too long for the humans living in this town!… That’s enough time for a baby to grow up, become an adult, and start a family of their own, you know?”

“Even so, I’ll keep waiting. If it means seeing Taisho again, I’ll wait a hundred years, two hundred years, however long it takes.”

“Humans don’t live that long. Eighty years is about the best they can hope for.”

Even as we traded lighthearted remarks, we could feel our hearts growing colder and colder.

Ahh, tonight really was freezing…. Fog had rolled in as well. My feet felt so cold they might freeze solid.

If only we had Taisho’s piping-hot ramen on a night like this….

I wanted to sit at that yatai counter again.

I wanted to accept that reassuringly heavy bowl, snap apart my disposable chopsticks amid the rising steam, gather up the noodles and bring them to my mouth, bite through fatty chashu, savor sweet-and-savory crunchy menma, take a bite of boiled egg, drink a mouthful of hot broth, rest my palate with a springy slice of naruto, breathe out a cloud of white steam, and then return once again to the noodles…. Ahh, every time I came to this alley, my chest tightened painfully with longing for those memories.

I wanted that ramen so badly I could hardly stand it!

I wanted to feel Taisho’s kindness again—the kindness of a man who could never ignore a hungry child!

I wanted to see that friendly smile of his, all white teeth and warmth!

In that cold, dark alley that seemed ready to freeze us through, his stall alone had always been warm!

…After a while, I gave a self-mocking laugh.

“Heh… another wasted night.”

“Neither you nor me ever learns, huh…?”

Just as Ouri said that—

Cha-ra-riii~ cha-ra♪ cha-ra-ri cha-ra-ra~♪

We looked at each other.

After a moment, Ouri spoke.

“Hey. You… heard that too, right?”

“Yeah, I heard it… O-Oh! Could this be an illusion woven by a Displacer Beast, or perhaps a curse cast by the eye of a Beholder!? (An elven expression meaning, ‘This is hard to believe.’)”

From within the fog came a familiar rattling sound.

Then a shadow slowly drew closer.

What emerged was a wooden cart—a yatai.

That strange white light without even a trace of mana.

The bright red paper lantern hanging from the rear.

Ahh, at last it had come!

My dear friend, whom I had longed for even in my dreams… that enchanting ramen… had finally returned!

With enormous smiles on our faces and tears welling in our eyes, we ran toward it, shouting.

“Welcome back, Taisho!”

The man pulling the yatai spotted us and called back.

“Hey, welcome! Welcome to Ramen Taiyo!”

The man had a thick white cloth wrapped around his head.

Taisho had worn his cloth twisted, but this man had wrapped his flat instead. It came down almost to his eyebrows, making me wonder whether he could even see properly….

Unlike Taisho, who had dressed entirely in white, this man wore a thin black short-sleeved shirt, indigo trousers, and a long white apron. His arms, exposed by the short sleeves, were powerfully built and deeply tanned, bulging with muscle like those of a warrior.

And for some reason, he stood with his arms crossed…. His chin was tilted upward in a challenging manner, his expression somehow smug and faintly cocky—the complete opposite of Taisho’s ever-friendly demeanor.

Ouri and I stopped dead in shock, stared at him with our mouths hanging open, then shouted at the exact same time.

“…Who the heck are you!?”