Good morning everyone! Before I recount what happened and is happening with Keiji—and a lot happened, sorry for being inactive—let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I know how to cook for two. I know how to cook for many, actually- it’s what comes with owning a restaurant.

I know how to cook for family. I know my father’s and brother’s and mother’s favorite dishes, and the three sets of “thank you”s I get each family dinner we get together fills my heart up the same as eatin’ good grub fills up a stomach. When my hands slip, and I make too much, my

next-door neighbors love me for it.

But, somehow, there might just be something special in knowing how to cook for two. From their favorite dish, to how they like their eggs in the morning, there comes with it a certain intimacy. Maybe I’m lookin’ too far into it, but...

Food is life-giving, after all. The happiness that stems from cooking and being gifted another’s cooking is only natural. It’s like an exchange of what we need and are and value most as human beings, I guess. Here, have some life./Thank you for giving me this little bit of life.

You could say that food is my love language, even. I value cooking that much. Emotion is the secret ingredient in whatever I make. I don’t think I meant to at first, but when Tsumu complained the day after our fight that the onigiri I made for him tasted angry—please don’t ask, I

don’t know either— I realized I just did it automatically, and at that point it was too late to stop. So no matter what, all onigiri at Onigiri Miya is made with love. All my chefs—partners in onigiri, I call em—look at me like I’m two barrels short of a winery, but they

understand me somehow. It’s clear in the taste tests that we do during the hiring process.

So, imagine my surprise when I find that Akaashi’s cooking tastes like love, too.