Miho looked a bit stunned, and Yuichi asked, “What, you don’t like butaman?”

“No, I do,” Miho replied.

Yuichi took the bag from her and opened it on his lap. For a second he seemed to be looking around for small plates to use, though it was highly unlikely a tiny room in a massage parlor would have any.

As soon as he ripped open the plastic bag the hot, meaty, yeasty odor filled the windowless room. Through the thin walls they heard a man’s vulgar laugh.

After this he came back three days in a row.

According to the manager, when Miho was off duty Yuichi didn’t choose another girl, but instead walked away, shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Miho had no idea what it was about her that kept Yuichi returning. The first time she’d just done the usual things to him and hadn’t made him particularly satisfied. But then two days later, here he was back again, looking totally unconcerned, with a bag of hot butaman as a present.

In the cramped room the two of them ate the butaman. Their conversation never went anywhere. To Miho’s questions, Yuichi gave only short, evasive answers, and never asked her anything himself.

“Are you on your way home from work?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Your job’s nearby?”

“We work in all kinds of places. Construction sites.”

Before he came to see her Yuichi always stopped home and took a bath first.

“We have a shower, so you should just come straight here from work.”

Yuichi didn’t reply.

That day, after they’d finished the butaman, Miho took him to the shower. He wasn’t as hesitant as before, though he still turned away when she tried to touch his soapy penis.

Yuichi invariably chose the most popular forty-minutes-for-¥5,800 menu. Subtracting the time they were in the shower, that left them a scant thirty minutes alone, but that was usually more than enough for the client to get what he came for.

Whenever there was any time left over, most clients, greedy to get their money’s worth, wanted to do it a second time. But Yuichi came soon after they took a shower, and when she tried to touch him afterward, he rebuffed her. He was content for them to just rest their heads on their arms and gaze up at the ceiling.

He was an easy client. The more he visited her, the more relaxed she became with him, even nodding off occasionally as she lay there staring at the ceiling. And before long, Yuichi began to open up more about himself.

The next time he brought her cakes. He always brought something to eat and they would share the food in the cramped little room. She grew more used to him, and rather than insist on a shower, she started making cold tea or coffee for him at the start of each session.

It was probably the fifth, or maybe the sixth, time he paid her a visit that he brought a homemade box lunch for them. It was the afternoon of a holiday.

Ah, so he’s brought something again, she thought, taking the paper bag from him, but when she opened it she found a two-tier lunch box with a picture of Snoopy on it.

“A box lunch?” Miho couldn’t keep from asking in surprise, and Yuichi shyly lifted the lid.

The top tier contained fried omelets, sausages, chicken nuggets, and potato salad. The layer below was packed with rice, and different colored furikake flakes, each carefully separated from the other.

As she took the lunch box from him, for an instant the idea flashed before her that Yuichi had a girlfriend, that this girlfriend had made him the lunch but he was giving it to her. But when she asked, “Why did you bring me this?” Yuichi, shyly looking down, muttered, “I’m afraid it might not be so good…”

“You mean you made it?” Miho couldn’t help asking in surprise as Yuichi pulled apart a pair of disposable chopsticks and passed them over.

“The chicken nuggets are leftover ones my grandmother made last night…”

Miho looked at Yuichi, astonished. Yuichi sat there, like a child awaiting the results of a test, waiting for Miho to taste it.

Miho had already heard that he lived with his grandparents. She never wanted to know about her clients’ background, so she hadn’t asked any more.

“No kidding? You really made this yourself?”

Miho picked up a piece of the fluffy omelets with her chopsticks. They tasted slightly sweet.

“I like omelets with a bit of sugar in them,” Yuichi explained, and Miho replied, “I like sweet omelets, too.”

“The potato salad’s really good.”

It wasn’t as if they were on some spring picnic in a park. They were in a tiny, windowless room in a massage parlor, a stack of tissue boxes to one side.

After this day Yuichi always brought homemade box lunches with him when he came to see her.

When he asked her about her shift, she’d tell him her schedule, and say things like “I’m usually hungriest around nine.” Before she knew it she was looking forward to his box lunches.

“Nobody really taught me how to cook, but I picked it up. I kind of like to watch my grandma prepare fish, though I hate all the cleaning up afterward…”

Yuichi said all this as he watched Miho, in her gaudy negligee, eating the box lunch.

His lunches really were tasty, and Miho started to put in requests. “Can you include the hikiji like last time?” she’d ask.

After they finished eating Yuichi liked to lie beside her, hands behind his head.

As she reviewed the lunch they’d just eaten, Miho would play with his penis. She was paid for her services, of course, but she also felt she needed to thank him for the tasty food.

“You never ask to see me outside of here, do you?” she asked once, just after the alarm went off signaling that they had five minutes left. Miho’s hand was inside his underpants, and Yuichi was busily kneading her breasts.

“Most regular customers always invite us out. It’s like, Hey, let’s go on a date next time.”

Yuichi didn’t reply, so Miho asked him again. At that instant, Yuichi’s fingers suddenly stopped moving over her breasts.

“What do you mean, invite you? You mean like we meet outside of here!?”

Yuichi was seething. To Miho it felt as though his fingers were speaking, for they squeezed her breasts hard, not so hard they hurt, but hard enough.

She twisted away. “I’m not going to date you. No way,” she announced, and got out of bed. Yuichi roughly grabbed her arm.

“Just seeing you here is enough for me,” Yuichi said. “We can be by ourselves here. Just the two of us, with nobody bothering us.”

“Well, for forty minutes, at least,” Miho said, laughing.

“Then next time I’ll do the hour menu,” Yuichi said, looking serious.

At first she thought he was joking, but he didn’t smile.

It was time for lights out on the ward, and the nurse came by to switch off the overhead light. Miho lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Yuichi, but as soon as the lights were off, she slipped out of bed.

In the bed nearest the entrance there was still a small light on; it seemed as if that was the only place where time still flowed. Through the curtain she could see the shadow of somebody reading. Behind the curtain was a girl attending a local junior college, who’d had liver problems since she was young. She had darkish skin but a cute face. It was clear she’d been raised in a loving family.

Miho went out of the ward, trying not to make a sound in her slippers, and headed toward the bank of elevators. In the hallway was a line of orange vinyl tape indicating the toilets and bathroom.

She got into one of the oversize elevators, big enough to accommodate gurneys. As she descended she was hit by the sensation that the whole building was ascending and she alone was standing still.

On the first floor the old lady was still soothing the little boy, but the place was otherwise quiet, the only sound the hum of the vending machine.