The River. Part One. Chapter Three

After that week in the latrines, something shifted. Not immediately, not overtly — the way the light changes before dawn, when the darkness still seems absolute, but is no longer quite so dense.

Daisuke was the first to cross the invisible boundary. After classes, when the others were heading home or staying for extra drills, he approached Ichiro.

“Want to come over? My father is making unagi today. Real eel, over coals.”

Ichiro wanted to refuse. The habit of solitude was stronger than curiosity. But the smell of the eel Daisuke spoke of suddenly seemed more real to him than anything surrounding him at school — more real than the portraits of the Emperor, more real than the bamboo canes, more real than the memorized words about duty.

“Alright,” he said.

The Yoshikawa home was located in an old district where the streets were narrow as crevices, and the air smelled of smoke, soy sauce, and something elusively domestic. Above the entrance hung a faded noren with the character for “taste,” written as if the calligrapher had danced rather than written. His house smelled different from Ichiro’s. It smelled not of discipline and wood polish, but of the warmth of a hearth, the spicy aroma of dashi broth, ginger, and sweet soy sauce. The Yoshikawa family were hereditary cooks, and their home was a temple of food, not a temple of war.

Inside, it was cramped and hot. The kitchen took up half the first floor, and Daisuke’s father — a short man with hands covered in tiny burn scars — was working his magic over the coals with the intense focus of a surgeon.

“This is my friend, Ichiro,” Daisuke said.

His father nodded without looking up from the coals.

“A friend is good,” he said. “My grandfather used to say: ‘A good friend is like a good knife. Hard to find, but serves you for a lifetime.’”

From behind a screen peeked a girl of about seven — slender, with huge eyes brimming with curiosity.

“This is Yuki,” Daisuke sighed. “My little sister. Yuki, don’t bother us.”

But she had already run up to Ichiro, holding a battered doll in a faded kimono.

“Do you want to play?” she asked. “This is Princess Kaguya. She lives on the Moon, but sometimes she comes down to Earth.”

“Yuki!” Daisuke tried to pull her away. “We’re not little kids. Go play by yourself.”

“But it’s boring alone,” she pouted. “And a princess needs a prince. Or at least a samurai.”

Ichiro looked at her and felt a strange warmth in his chest. When was the last time someone had offered him to just play? Without conditions, without hidden motives, without a test of endurance?

“Another time,” he said softly. “I promise.”

Yuki beamed as though he had gifted her an entire kingdom.

Over dinner, Daisuke’s father spoke of the subtleties of preparing rice — how important the water temperature was, how one must sense the exact moment to lift the lid. His hands moved to illustrate his tale, and in those movements lay the same precision found in the strokes of a master calligrapher.

“Food is not merely fuel,” he said. “It is a language. A way of saying ‘I care for you’ without words.”

Ichiro ate slowly, trying to memorize every flavor. At home, bland rice and his father’s silence awaited him. Here, every bite was saturated with warmth, care, and life.

“Ichiro wants to serve in the army,” Daisuke suddenly said. “Just as his father dreams.”

Father Yoshikawa nodded, but a shadow flickered in his eyes.

“Service is an honor,” he said cautiously. “But remember, boy: a sword cuts both ways.”

After dinner, they sat on the veranda. Yuki nestled between them, clutching her doll to her chest. The first stars were kindling in the sky.

“You know,” Daisuke said, “I’m thinking of joining the army, too.”

Ichiro looked at him in surprise.

“You? But you…”

“Can’t fight?” Daisuke chuckled. “I’ll learn. Not all soldiers have to be heroes. Someone has to cook the rice. Someone has to… just be there.”

“Why would you want that?”

Daisuke fell silent, looking at the stars.

“My grandfather was in the army. Not an officer — a simple cook. But he said that feeding a hungry soldier is also service. Maybe I won’t be able to hold a sword. But I’ll be able to hold a ladle. I will feed the soldiers so they have the strength to protect our country. To protect Yuki.”

Yuki, meanwhile, had already fallen asleep, leaning against Ichiro’s shoulder. Her breathing was light, like the breath of a baby bird.

“She likes you,” Daisuke said quietly. “She doesn’t usually approach strangers.”

Ichiro carefully tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. In that gesture lay a tenderness he thought he had lost forever.

As he was leaving, Daisuke’s father pressed a wrapped bundle into his hands.

“These are onigiri for tomorrow,” he said. “With umeboshi inside. The sourness helps you wake up.”

On the way home, Ichiro thought about the strangeness of the evening. About how easy it had been to just be a boy, and not a future soldier. About the little girl with the doll who saw in him not a weapon, but a potential playmate. About a friend who wanted to serve not out of a thirst for glory, but out of a desire to care.

At home, his father was already asleep. His mother sat by the window, darning his school uniform. She looked up, a mute question in her eyes.

“I was at a friend’s,” Ichiro said.

She nodded and returned to her sewing. But the corners of her lips twitched slightly — the ghost of a smile she had almost forgotten.

That night, Ichiro slept peacefully. He dreamed not of swords or marches, but of the smell of coals, the taste of umeboshi, and a small hand trustingly placed in his palm. The hand of a girl who resembled a small, curious sparrow.

They did not know then — neither he nor Daisuke — that in a few years they would find themselves on the same ship, sailing west. In the same platoon, in an alien, frozen land, where their only food would be cold rice balls, and their only beauty — the gleam of a bayonet in the moonlight. They did not know that the friendship born in a school latrine would pass through fire and blood, through the mud of trenches and the bitter cold of foreign soil.

At the time, they did not yet know that war is not a game, and that spring can end at any moment.

Chapter Four →
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← A Road of a Thousand Years