Holmes of Kyoto: Volume 18 (eBook)

Mai Mochizuki (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
250 Seiten
J-Novel Heart (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7684-7 (ISBN)

Infos

After the New Year, Yilin Jing comes to the Komatsu Detective Agency with a request. She wants to hire the trio as guides and bodyguards for the daughter of a Hong Kong tycoon who is visiting Kyoto in secret. Kiyotaka is forced to accept the request against his will, but luckily, Aoi comes to save the tour from becoming a total disaster. Everything seems to be going well at first, but before long, they find themselves caught up in an extraordinary incident!

Textauszug

Prologue

It was the start of a new year.

I—Aoi Mashiro—was visiting Kitano Tenmangu Shrine with my friend, Kaori Miyashita. I wished I could say we were there for the first shrine visit of the year, but we weren’t. It was already January 5th, and we had already done our first visits separately. So today was a more casual New Year’s visit.

“It’s so crowded since everyone’s still on winter break,” I remarked, craning my neck to look around while we lined up to pray.

“Uh-huh,” said Kaori. “It’s mostly middle schoolers. They’ve got entrance exams coming up, after all.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I bet they’re taking this prayer really seriously.”

Tenmangu shrines were dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the god of learning, and this was their head shrine in Japan. It was known for providing academic blessings.

As I looked at the students, I thought back to my own university entrance exams. At the time, I’d been desperate—maybe not desperate to get in, but desperate for an escape. I’d buried my head in my books in order to shake off the heartache of Holmes breaking up with me. If it wasn’t for that temporary breakup, I might not have gotten into my current school... Thinking that way made me feel conflicted. And now, time had flown by.

“We’re going to be third-years this spring, huh?” I murmured.

“Yeah.” Kaori nodded, then laughed, her bobbed hair shaking slightly. “You’re still a Tokyoite, eh?”

“Huh? Where did that come from?”

“We say ‘third-rounders’ here.”

I giggled. “Yeah, I guess that’s what people in Kyoto—or, well, all of Kansai—say.”

“I always thought it was a nationwide thing.”

“It does feel more general than a local dialect.”

As we chatted, we reached the shrine building. We bowed once and clapped twice, keeping our hands together as we closed our eyes and prayed. I asked for an educational and productive year, then gave one last bow. After finishing our prayers, we quietly left the line.

“All right, shall we go?” asked Kaori. “I can’t wait to try that castella.”

“Yeah.”

Kaori and I had two reasons for choosing Kitano Tenmangu for our New Year’s shrine visit. One was that we wanted academic blessings, but we also wanted to check out a Portuguese sweets shop that was right next to the torii gate. Their specialty was castellas, but not the kind we knew and loved. Portugal didn’t actually have a dessert called “castella”—this shop served what was said to be the castella’s predecessor, “pão de ló.” There wasn’t much to the recipe: whisk eggs and sugar together, add flour, and bake. However, people said the simple flavor was very delicious.

“I’m glad they take reservations,” I said.

“Totally. At this time of year, it’s impossible to get into places without them.”

We left the shrine grounds and looked towards the shop. It had a sake brewery-esque exterior, with a Portuguese flag and exotic curtain on display. Despite the cultural mismatch, the design worked well.

As Kaori had predicted, there was quite a long line outside. But from the look of it, most of the people were there for takeout, not to dine in the café. We hurried past the line and entered the store. The lovely, chic interior made us gasp with delight.

The staff guided us to our table, and we looked at the menu. In addition to the pão de ló, they also had the castella we were familiar with. One of the recommended sets included both, so you could compare them. It said it went well with port wine, which struck me as quite a Portuguese choice. In Japan, castellas typically would’ve been paired with coffee or tea.

Since we were there for the experience, we each ordered the comparison set and a glass of port wine. Large plates were brought to our table, adorned with castellas and three types of pão de ló. We raised our wine glasses and took a bite of the pão de ló.

“It’s delicious,” I said. “You can really taste the eggs.”

“It has a gentle sweetness.”

For some reason, even though it was my first time eating it, the flavor felt nostalgic. We took a sip of the port wine and closed our eyes in bliss.

“I wasn’t sure about having wine with castellas, but they do go well together,” I said.

“Yeah. Drinking in the middle of the day feels immoral, huh?”

“Immoral?” I laughed. “Well, I know what you mean. It seems too extravagant for us, so it feels like a guilty pleasure.”

“Exactly. But it’s still New Year’s, so it’s fine.”

“Yeah.” We laughed together.

“How did you spend the holidays, Aoi?”

“Well...” I looked up at the ceiling and swallowed the piece of castella in my mouth before continuing. “I spent New Year’s Eve at the Yagashira residence.”

“With Holmes’s family?”

“Yeah. Ueda, Yoshie, and Rikyu were there too, and Akihito joined us later on.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was really fun. We played cards and board games while drinking wine. Holmes will do anything to win, so Akihito got mad at him.”

“I can imagine,” Kaori said with a laugh.

The festive mood had soared when the New Year’s bell rang. Deciding to do the first shrine visit of the year together, Holmes, Akihito, Rikyu, and I had left the house to go to Yasaka Shrine.

“It must’ve been super crowded,” said Kaori.

“It was.” I slumped my shoulders. There were so many people. I didn’t think we’d ever make it to the shrine building. “So we gave up on getting to the altar and prayed from a distance, facing it.”

“Wise decision. Gods should be able to hear your prayers even if you aren’t right in front of them.”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “We did get to do the okera mairi afterwards, though.”

“Okera mairi” was a Yasaka Shrine tradition where visitors lit a good fortune rope at the bonfire and rotated the tip as they went home so that the flame wouldn’t go out. The flame was then transferred to a candle in a household shrine or used to boil New Year’s soup as a prayer for good health. Holmes had suggested brewing coffee with it, so we had gone with him to the apartment in Yasaka where he and the manager lived.

“That sounds so nice,” Kaori said. “I bet the coffee was great.”

“It was.” I nodded. The coffee Holmes brewed that night had seemed especially delicious.

“So what happened next?”

“Since we were still up, we decided to watch the first sunrise too. So we stayed up chatting and managed to catch it, but everyone was sleepy and shaky on their feet by then.”

“Well, of course you’d be. Did you fall asleep right after?”

“Yeah. I borrowed a bed, but everyone else slept on the living room sofas and rug.”

“That’s...an incredible image,” Kaori said, crossing her arms.

“It really is.” I laughed. “In the afternoon, Holmes sent me home.” He’d wished my family a happy new year, presenting a box of sweets that he’d prepared at some point. “And he ended up having dinner with us.”

“Ooh. What was that like?”

“My mom, grandma, and brother seemed really excited, but my dad looked conflicted.”

“That’s just how dads are. Mine always has mixed feelings when he sees how spindly my sister’s fiancé is.”

“Oh, Yoneyama?”

Yoneyama was a former counterfeiter who had turned over a new leaf and was now a brilliant painter. Thinking of former counterfeiters made Ensho come to mind, but Yoneyama was completely different from him. He was delicate and had a fluffy vibe like dandelion fuzz.

“Does he visit your place often?” I asked.

“He’s actually moved in with us.”

“I had no idea.” I placed my hand over my mouth, surprised. “They’re already living together?”

“Well, he did it to learn about kimono fabrics. His room is separate from my sister’s.”

“Is he preparing to inherit the family business?”

Kaori hummed and furrowed her brow before shaking her head. “Not exactly. My parents recognize his talent and want him to continue painting. But they also think it’d be nice if he could help out with the store a bit on the side.”

“So he won’t have to stop painting, then. That’s good.” As a fan of Yoneyama’s paintings, I was happy.

“He painted a scroll to hang up at the entrance of the store, and it was so well received that some of our customers asked him to paint for them too.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“My sister’s also gotten in gear. She thinks she should be the one in charge of the store while Yoneyama supports her. I guess when two passive people get together, one of them has to take the lead,” Kaori murmured to herself.

“That’s good for her.”

Kaori shrugged. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but they’ll manage. I’m sure they’ll be planning the wedding soon enough.”

“Ooh.” I smiled. “Did Yoneyama join your family’s New Year’s Eve get-together, then?”

“Yep.” She nodded. “But it’s not like my...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.5.2024
• Reihe/Serie: Holmes of Kyoto
• Übersetzer: Minna Lin
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Cozy Mystery • Drama • female protagonist • History • Japan • Light Novel • Slice of Life
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7684-7 / 1718376847
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7684-7 / 9781718376847