Grandmother Left Half the Onsen Inn to the Chef novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Okami's Desk

Genji stepped off the morning bus at nine, and found the whole staff waiting for him in the lobby.

The staff stood in a line along the wall, in aprons and work kimono, with their hands folded.

Sakura sat at the front desk with the blue passbook in front of her.

Yuzu leaned against the pillar beside her, arms crossed, still in her chef's whites.

Genji looked at the book.

He took out his handkerchief and held it in both hands.

"Where did you find it?" he said.

"My grandmother's desk."

"I see."

"The inn has no debt," Sakura said. "It has a hundred and twelve million yen. The bank letter was a lie, and you wrote it."

Nobody in the lobby moved.

Genji bowed, very low, until his forehead nearly touched the desk.

"I did," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I am sixty-one years old." His voice shook. "Because every person standing in this room is over fifty-five, and none of us has another job. Because Haruko-sama died, and the inn went half to you and half to a girl from Kyoto, and I did not think two of you could run it."

Yuzu's eyebrows rose.

"I'm a grill chef."

"I know. I tasted the soup." He wiped his eyes. "I told myself a sale was the safest thing. The hotel group promised to keep the staff and pay everyone a year's wages if we went quietly. So I made a debt. A fake bank letter, on an old form from a closet. I took not one yen from them. I swear it on Haruko-sama."

Sakura looked at the line of faces.

The head maid stared at the floor.

The old head cook was crying openly into his sleeve.

"You sat at my table and ate my soup," Sakura said.

"Yes."

"You let me carry your shame as if it were mine."

"I know."

"I would have given you every yen I had if you had asked."

Genji's shoulders began to shake.

Sakura stood up.

She came around the desk and stopped in front of him.

"You will never lie to me again," she said. "Not about a loan, not about a leak in the roof. If you think I'm wrong, you will tell me to my face."

"Okami-san."

"You will stay as manager. And you will teach us the books, both of us, because we are going to need them."

Genji looked up with his mouth open.

"And you," Yuzu said, "will eat my miso soup every morning and tell me what's wrong with it."

"It has nothing wrong with it."

"Good. Then you'll tell me that."

The old head cook let out a wet laugh.

Then the head maid did, and the whole line of staff began to breathe.

That night Sakura went alone into the suite, and sat down in her grandmother's chair.

It was a good chair, high-backed and hard, and it fitted her.

Yuzu stood in the doorway in a thin white yukata.

"You look like her," she said.

"I look like the okami."

"Yes." Yuzu's eyes were very warm. "That's what I mean."

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