On the day of the Teine Shrine Fireworks Display.

Natsume Naoki got up early. Because her mother had been a shrine maiden, the whole family had to eat glutinous rice cake together in the morning on the day of the sacrifice.

In the countryside of Hokkaido, most houses are made of wood. People dig a half-meter-square bonfire in the middle of the house, hang an iron hook from the beam, and hang pots and pans on it for cooking.

Glutinous rice cake may be a unique custom around Teineyama, but Natsume Naoki has never seen it anywhere else, not in Otaru City, nor in Hakodate.

Even so, the way of eating is still different in each village. In some places, the glutinous rice cakes are roasted on the bonfire in the house. Natsume Naoki remembers that this was the case when he went to his grandparents' house when he was a child.

And Natsume Reiko didn't seem to like this. She had always put the glutinous rice cakes into the porridge and cooked it... Since she was now a housewife, Natsume Yusei had to change her habit of baking glutinous rice cakes.

A family of three sat around the dinner table. Natsume Yusheng looked at the glutinous rice porridge that was brought to the table, still looking a little sad.

"Husband, give you a spoon." Natsume Reiko took three spoons and handed one to Natsume Yusheng and one to Natsume Naoki: "Son, it's yours."

"What would you like to eat with pickles? There are pickled cucumbers and some white radish in the refrigerator." She asked again.

Natsume Yusei and his son looked at each other and shook their heads slightly: "Bring me some daikon."

"me too!"

After so many years of reincarnation, Natsume Naoki seems to be the only one who is still used to eating the daikon and miso soup for breakfast.

While his wife ran to the kitchen to get pickles again, Natsume Yusheng looked sad: "I have been with your mother for so many years, and I really can't get used to this glutinous rice porridge."

"Why do you have to eat glutinous rice cake?" Natsume Naoki actually doesn't like to drink porridge. When he lived alone in Tokyo, he actually preferred to eat hot dry noodles.

But the strange thing is that I don’t know how to cook, so how did I make the hot dry noodles in the past?

Maybe it’s the instant noodles in convenience stores, after all, there are quite a variety of instant noodles nowadays.

Natsume Yusheng sighed and said: "Your grandfather worked so hard to make glutinous rice cakes. He even pulled me over to help yesterday. My tired shoulders were sore and I couldn't sleep well all day... I haven't made glutinous rice cakes in several years."

Natsume Naoki looked at the bowls of glutinous rice porridge for each person on the coffee table, thinking that it was only for today, so he could just endure it and it would be over.

"Eh? Husband, did you make this bowl of noodles heated in the microwave?"

Natsume Reiko's doubts came from the kitchen.

Natsume Yusheng took a sip of glutinous rice porridge, frowned and raised his voice: "What kind of noodles? I never entered the kitchen this morning!"

After a while, Natsume Reiko came out with a bowl of hot dry noodles.

"Didn't you do it?" She turned to Natsume Naoki and asked: "Son, did you do it?"

"I don't know how to cook." Natsume Naoki shook his head, but his eyes still lit up: "Hot dry noodles? Mom, I want to eat this bowl of noodles."

When Natsume Yusei saw this, he also understood that his son's taste was no different than his own, and he was not interested in the glutinous rice porridge on the table, so he spoke to help: "Maybe you made it and then forgot about it, but since you have made it, it will be a waste if you don't eat it.

, let your son eat it... He was in a bad mood a few days ago, but he is rarely in such a good mood today."

Natsume Naoki took the bowl of hot dry noodles and pushed his glutinous rice porridge in front of his mother: "Mom, it's hard for you to cook a meal and eat more. You work hard for this family every day and it is so clean inside and outside.

, it’s too hard!”

"You have a glib tongue, just like your father." Natsume Reiko sighed.

Although I felt happy when my son praised me, I was still murmuring in my heart.

Have you worked so hard?

Looking around, the windows in the home are indeed bright and clean, and it is spotless inside and out.

But it seems like I haven’t done much cleaning either.

I don’t usually feel tired cleaning the house, as if someone is helping me clean.

"Let's eat quickly." Putting these thoughts behind, Natsume Reiko handed the white radish between the two men: "After eating, I asked your father to take me to the shrine first. After all, I used to work there.

Okay, let's go and help with the sacrifice today. Also, if there is a fireworks display, many people in the village will also go there, and the rest of them will probably wait until dusk, so you can join us then."

Natsume Naoki took a handful of hot dry noodles and nodded: "I know, I will probably go with Uncle Murata and his family, or maybe he will go with Nanami's school doctor next door."

"Ms. Nanami." Natsume Yusei sighed with emotion: "When I was a child, the family next door used to visit us often. At that time, our two families would go to the sacrificial ceremony together. I would send your mother to the shrine first, and we would help. At dusk

, Mr. and Mrs. Asai will bring their little girl with you..."

"Stop saying that." Natsume Reiko quickly interrupted her husband's memories and frowned.

Natsume Yusei was stunned for a moment, and then he realized that he had said the wrong thing.

"I'm sorry, I'm just feeling sorry for Miss Nanami's return to her hometown for a temporary stay, so that we can participate in sacrifices together again... I'm sorry, son, let's eat." He gave his son a piece of white radish with chopsticks, and said slightly apologetically: "Obviously you were the one who was there back then.

It’s hard to get out of the shadows.”

Natsume Naoki paused and shook his head slightly: "It's okay, Dad, it's been ten years."

It's time for him to get over the death of that little girl named Asai Mao ten years ago.

After that, he took a bite of the noodles, and the atmosphere at the dinner table became tense for a moment.

——

After dinner, my parents went out to help at the shrine.

He went to Teine Shrine not long ago with his senior sister. There were not too many people. If he wanted to hold a ceremony and fireworks display that people from all over the country came to attend, and there was no one else to help, he would just go to the shrine maidens.

I'm afraid it will be difficult to talk to the priest.

Natsume Naoki looked at the time. It was still very early in the morning, so he decided to go to the bedroom to study for a while. After lunch, he would visit the village and go to the shrine with his peers in the same village.

After entering the bedroom, he was stunned. The quilt was folded squarely, but he didn't remember that he had folded the quilt when he got up and went downstairs.

Anyway, when he lived alone, he never had the habit of folding quilts. He just laid the quilt flat on the bed, so he wouldn't fold the quilt into tofu blocks after getting up like the boarding school required.

But what happened to the tofu cubes on my bed now?

"Mom, did she come in while I was using the toilet?"

When I walked to the window and opened the curtains, I could see the yard of the Asai family next door through the foggy white atmosphere outside.

"I guess the school doctor is still sleeping now." He said to himself: "The school doctor seems to have the habit of staying up late."

Staying up late has almost become the fourth major addiction in modern society. Even though they know that staying up late is extremely harmful to the body, the stinking young people of today still stay up late while reading about the "Dangers and Prevention of Staying Up Late".

In the past, people who couldn't control their weight couldn't control their lives, but now it's about to be replaced by staying up late.

"Did it snow again last night?" Natsume Naoki opened the window a crack, feeling the cold wind blowing into the room, and the hot breath he exhaled began to turn white: "But why do I always feel that I have lost something?

Woolen cloth?"

"Something has disappeared from my life." He whispered, "It's like Hokkaido losing its snow."
Chapter completed!