…
Hina's office occupied the entire upper floor's eastern wing, a deliberate choice, Murakami recalled, made when they were redesigning the interior layout two years ago.
Eastern facing meant morning light without afternoon glare, a window view of the store's main floor below, and enough distance from the staircase that foot traffic noise became background rather than interruption.
It was practical and he'd approved it without comment.
He slid the door open and stepped into the office, his presence thinned to nothing, footsteps adjusted out of habit, and stopped at her desk.
She was bent over a spread of ledgers, brush moving in the quick, economical strokes. A half-empty cup of tea sat forgotten at her elbow, long past warm.
He tapped the desk once.
Hina's head snapped up. The brush stopped mid-stroke.
"Mu-Murakami?" Her eyes moved to the door, then back to him, then to the door again with the particular expression of someone trying to reconstruct a sequence of events that didn't add up. "When did you get here?"
"Just now."
"I didn't hear you come in."
"I know."
She stared at him for a moment longer, then set her brush down with a resigned composure of someone who had long since accepted that certain things about him were simply not going to be explained to her satisfaction.
"You're back early. How was the mission?"
"Completed."
"Anyone hurt?"
"Hideki. He's fine." He paused. "It's good to see you, Hina."
Something in her expression softened briefly before reassembling itself into its usual composed efficiency. "You too."
She reached for her tea, remembered it was cold, and set it back down. "Now. You didn't come here at this hour to tell me the mission went well."
Her eyes settled on him with the particular patience of someone who had known him long enough to skip several steps. "What do you need?"
Murakami opened his mouth.
"And before you ask—" her gaze sharpened slightly, "—business is not a topic we are discussing right now."
He closed his mouth.
The look she gave him suggested that particular question had been anticipated and pre-emptively ruled out of bounds.
He gave a small smile.
Business was clearly either going exceptionally well or presenting complications she wasn't ready to brief him on.
He moved on without pushing. "I need groceries delivered to the house. Marginally larger quantities than the usual order."
"And I need to know where I can source high quality meat. The kind that comes from strong wild beasts rather than livestock."
Hina looked at him.
It was the specific kind of look she reserved for requests that sat just left of normal, not the alarmed or dismissive look, just simply waiting for the part that made it make sense.
"Training," Murakami acknowledged the look and said lightly. "I've started a new method that places higher demands on the body's nutritional intake. The quality of what I eat directly affects how well the method works."
She held the look a moment longer, then nodded once, accepting the explanation for what it was, a partial and deliberate summary of the full picture.
Knowing Murakami, that was as much as she was going to get. "Wild beast meat."
"Specifically from stronger specimens. The higher the quality of the beast, the better."
Hina went quiet for a moment, tapping one finger against the desk. "You have two options. You could purchase from traders who already deal in hunted stock, it's available and immediate, and the quality is consistent enough for most purposes." She paused. "Or you could hire a hunter directly."
"Difference?"
"Traders buy from multiple hunters across different hunts. By the time the meat reaches you, you have no way of knowing the beast's actual condition, age, or what it was killed with. The quality varies more than the price suggests." She folded her hands. "A dedicated hunter gives you a direct line. You specify what you want, he hunts to that specification, and you get exactly what you paid for. The supply is less immediate and dependent on hunt cycles and availability, but the consistency is considerably higher." She made a brief pause. "It's also more expensive. And it requires finding someone actually capable of hunting at the level you're describing."
Murakami considered both for a moment.
A trader offered convenience but no control over quality. A hunter offered that control but required establishing a relationship and waiting on his schedule.
"The hunter," he said.
Hina nodded as though she'd expected that answer. "Direct supply line."
"And I'd know exactly what I'm getting."
"I'll make contact." She reached for a fresh sheet and made a note without being asked. "Hunter tiers vary, there's a loose classification system based on the grade of beast they're capable of taking down consistently. I'll have information on both hunter tiers and beast grades compiled by this evening." She looked up. "Come back then."
"I will." He straightened. "The grocery order—"
"I'll have it arranged before midday." She picked her brush back up, the motion signaling the administrative portion of the conversation had concluded. "Is there anything else?"
Murakami glanced once at the scrolls spread across her desk and made a quiet, private note that Hina needed either an assistant or a shorter working day, and that raising either point right now would not be well received.
"No," he said. "That's everything."
"Then let me get back to work." She was already writing. "And Murakami—"
He paused at the edge of the desk.
"Eat something before you go." She didn't look up. "You look like you didn't have breakfast."
He had, in fact, not had breakfast.
He said nothing and left.
…
A food stall sat two streets from the Lotus Store, close enough that he'd stumbled across it during the store's early days.
The waiter recognized him before he'd fully cleared the entrance.
"Murakami-san." A young man, perhaps sixteen, with the particular ease of someone who'd worked long enough to read a customer's order from their posture alone. "The usual?"
"Morning set," Murakami confirmed, settling into the corner seat he preferred, back to the wall, clear sightline to the entrance.
"Right away."
The food arrived quickly. Grilled fish, rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, a soft egg. A complete, well-portioned morning set by any reasonable standard.
He finished it in four minutes.
He sat with the empty dishes for a moment as a realization dawned on him.
He was still hungry.
Not the polite, easily-ignored kind of hungry. The same fundamental, insistent pull from the night before, quieter now but unmistakably present.
The body's reconstruction process was probably still running its quiet accounting beneath the surface.
The waiter appeared to clear the dishes. Murakami looked up at him. "Another set."
A brief pause. "...The same set?"
"Yes."
Soon a second serving arrived and he finished it just as quickly.
He was still hungry.
The third came and went with the waiter's expression cycling carefully through surprise and into something that had decided professionalism was the safer response than curiosity.
By the fourth, a second waiter had found a reason to drift within viewing distance of the corner table. By the sixth, nobody in the kitchen was pretending not to be counting.
Murakami paid none of it any attention and kept eating.
Seventh. Eighth.
Halfway through the ninth set, he finally felt something, the insistence in his stomach finally receded leaving him feeling slightly full.
He finished the last of the rice, set his chopsticks down, and sat back.
Full.
He considered that for a moment.
Nine servings. For a single morning, after a single session on a single thread.
He was going to need to significantly restructure his food budget.
The waiter approached with the check, his expression admirably neutral for someone who had just watched a twelve year old work through nine consecutive breakfast sets without pause.
"Will that be everything, Murakami-san?"
"Yes." Murakami said and settled the bill without comment, stood, and added a tip larger than usual.
The least he could do.
…
By the time Murakami returned home, he had already made peace with the fact that he was going to potentially be seen as a glutton going forward.
If his quality of food didn't improve, he would have to make do with quantity instead.
If he was short on funds, quantity would have been the only consideration. But he wasn't short on funds, and quality food was the more efficient path.
Better nutritional density per serving meant fewer servings needed, which meant less time spent eating and more time spent doing everything else.
In theory.
The nine breakfast sets suggested theory and practice were currently some distance apart.
Unfortunately, a clearer picture would have to wait until evening when Hina had compiled the hunter and beast tier information he'd asked for.
Until then, there wasn't much to do but wait.
He returned to his house, changed out of the grey haori, and settled onto the balcony.
The village moved at its usual morning pace, unhurried, unaware and entirely indifferent to the arithmetic of cultivation costs being quietly worked out on a residential balcony somewhere in its midst.
Murakami watched it for a while.
Then he closed his eyes and went back to work.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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