Grandmother Left Half the Onsen Inn to the Chef novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Prep Table

Yuzu takes over breakfast and Sakura could strangle her, until after closing, when Yuzu lifts her onto the steel prep table. In the morning Genji arrives with a bank letter: thirty-eight million yen due in February.

At five in the morning Sakura found Yuzu in the inn's kitchen.

Yuzu wore a white jacket and was tying a black headband around her honey-brown hair.

The old head cook stood against the wall with his arms folded, looking relieved.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked.

"Breakfast."

"The menu is set. It has been the same menu for forty years."

"I know. I tasted it at dinner." Yuzu pulled a river trout out of the cooler and weighed it in her palm.

"The fish is fine. The miso soup tastes like hot water that remembers soybeans."

The head cook coughed.

"It's my grandmother's recipe," Sakura said.

"Then she had a bad day."

"Get out of my kitchen."

"It's half mine." Yuzu didn't look up. "Look it up. Page two of the will."

Sakura's hands closed into fists inside her sleeves.

She wanted to shout, and she had never shouted in the inn in her life.

So she said, in her most polite voice, "Please excuse me. I have fourteen rooms to wake."

She walked out with her back straight as a post.

Behind her, the knife started to move on the board, fast and clean.

At seven, the guests ate.

At seven twenty, the first dining room tray came back with the soup bowl scraped clean.

By eight, every bowl had come back clean, and a woman from Osaka had asked the maid who the new cook was.

Sakura stood in the corridor and watched the trays go by, and hated that it was good.

She hated even more that she knew who was behind the swinging door.

She knew what Yuzu's hands had done to her at one in the morning.

The whole day went like that.

Yuzu ran the stove.

Sakura ran the floor.

They passed each other in the narrow service hall a dozen times.

Every time, Yuzu said, "Okami-san," in a voice that made Sakura's neck burn.

At ten forty that night, the last tray went out.

The guests were bathed and fed and asleep, and Sakura stood at the end of the service hall with her feet aching.

A folded note lay on the shelf.

It said in neat block letters, Kitchen. Don't change.

She stood there a long moment.

Then she went.

The kitchen was dark except for the lamp over the big steel prep table.

The table stood in the middle of the room, gleaming and bare, with a stool pulled up beside it.

Yuzu leaned against the far counter with her jacket unbuttoned over a black camisole.

Her arms were crossed.

"You came," she said.

"You said not to change."

"I did." Yuzu pushed off the counter. "Come here."

Sakura crossed the tile in her tabi socks, in her plain navy work kimono, with her hair pinned in its low bun.

Yuzu looked at her from head to foot.

"I've wanted to see you in this since dinner," she said. "Up on the table."

"The table," Sakura repeated.

"Up. Sit on the edge."

Sakura's face burned.

"The staff clean in here at five."

"Then we'll clean it." Yuzu took her by the waist, firmly. "Up."

She lifted.

Yuzu was small, but her arms were strong from years of hauling pots.

She set Sakura on the edge of the steel.

The metal was cold even through the cloth.

Sakura gasped.

Yuzu stepped between her knees, took her face in both hands, and kissed her slow and deep.

Sakura's hands went to Yuzu's shoulders.

"No," Yuzu said against her mouth. "Hold the edge of the table. Both hands."

Sakura gripped the steel behind her hips.

"Good."

Yuzu's hands went to the front of the kimono.

She didn't undo the sash.

She opened the wrap of the skirt instead.

She pushed the navy cloth apart one side at a time and folded the hem back over Sakura's hips.

The white under-robe beneath it came open too.

Sakura's bare thighs were pale in the lamplight, and the cold steel pressed against the back of them.

She had not worn underwear since the bath.

She had not thought about it, and now her cheeks were on fire.

Yuzu had noticed.

"Oh," she said, softly. "Okami-san. You walked around the whole inn like that."

"I forgot."

"Liar." Yuzu was smiling. "You wanted to be bare for me."

Sakura closed her eyes.

It was true, and she hated that it was true.

"Look at me," Yuzu said.

Sakura opened her eyes.

Yuzu pulled the stool over and sat down on it, so her face was level with Sakura's open thighs.

"Spread wider."

Sakura spread wider.

"Put your heels on the edge."

She put her heels on the edge of the table.

Sakura was wide open now, in the light, with her kimono bunched at her waist.

Her wet pussy was bare to the room.

Yuzu looked.

"God, you're pretty here," she said.

"Yuzu."

"Pink. Swollen." Yuzu ran one finger lightly along the fold of her thigh. "And already wet. I haven't touched you."

"Please."

"You're learning." Yuzu's grin flashed. "Keep your hands on the table. If you let go, I stop."

She leaned in and licked a long slow stripe from Sakura's entrance up to her clit.

Sakura's whole body jerked.

The steel rang under her fists.

"Quiet," Yuzu murmured, and put her mouth over her.

She had a hot, flat, clever tongue.

She worked the little bud in steady circles, then flicked it.

Then she took it between her lips and sucked until Sakura's heels slipped on the steel.

Nobody had ever done this to Sakura.

Her ex had tried once, in the dark, and stopped halfway.

She had thought it was something that happened in films.

It was nothing like a film.

It was wet and loud and it went on and on.

Yuzu pushed a finger inside her and curled it.

Sakura's head fell back and her mouth fell open on a long shaking moan.

"Shh!" Yuzu pulled off, grinning, with her chin shining. "Someone will hear."

"Nobody's here."

"The night watchman walks the halls at eleven."

"He's deaf in one ear."

"Then you can make a little noise." Yuzu dove back in.

Sakura let herself.

She let out every sound she'd swallowed for two years, low and ragged, into the echoing kitchen.

Yuzu added a second finger and sucked harder, and her free hand pushed Sakura's thigh open wider.

"You taste so good," she said against her skin. "God, I could do this all night."

The pressure built.

It started deep in Sakura's belly, a hot twisting knot, and her grip on the table went white at the knuckles.

"I'm going to," she gasped. "I'm going to."

"Then do it."

"Can I?"

Yuzu looked up at her, over the curve of her stomach, with her mouth wet.

"Look at that," she said, softly. "Asking permission. Yes, you can. Good girl. Come on my mouth."

Sakura came.

It hit her so hard her thighs clamped around Yuzu's head, and a high raw cry tore out of her.

Yuzu held on and did not let up, licking her through every wave, until Sakura sagged forward over her.

Then Sakura did a thing she'd never done.

She let go of the table and put both hands into Yuzu's hair.

She held on, and shook, and cried out Yuzu's name three times.

Yuzu didn't stop her.

When she was finally still, Yuzu rose and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

She climbed up onto the table between Sakura's knees and kissed her, and Sakura tasted herself on that mouth.

"You let go," Yuzu said, smiling.

"I'm sorry."

"I said I'd stop. I didn't." She kissed her again, lazily. "Next time I'll tie them."

Sakura's whole body clenched at that.

Yuzu felt it, and laughed softly.

She tucked Sakura's hair back into its pin with careful fingers.

"Why do you work so hard?" she asked.

"Because the inn needs me."

"Not that. Why do you never ask for anything?"

Sakura leaned her forehead against Yuzu's shoulder.

"Because if I'm useful," she said, very low, "nobody leaves."

Yuzu said nothing.

Her arms tightened around her, and she held on.

They cleaned the table together, laughing, at midnight.

At six the next morning, while the stove warmed, the manager came into the kitchen.

Genji Ishikawa had a folded letter in his hand.

His face was grey.

"Okami-san," he said to Sakura. "Hayashi-san. A letter from the bank. You had better read it standing up."

Sakura took the paper.

It said Hoshinoyu owed the bank thirty-eight million yen.

The whole sum was due on the last day of February.

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