Why Does It Always Have to Be the Neighbor?

During the walk, Hortensja slowly tried to discern the topic of the Christmas. She asked Hikaru to tell her about what it was like in Japan, and with each new piece of information, her pupils dilated more and more. The biggest mystery to her was the phenomenon of chicken, where for her, it was unthinkable to have meat on the Christmas Eve table. Only then did she realize that this meal was not practiced here. And the holidays are more romantic than family - focused time, but as she had already sensed, her tradition would be difficult to enforce. However, she was glad that it meant time she could spend with Hikaru without the stress of meeting his family, although he had already hinted that he would like to take her to his hometown for the New Year.

The Japanese noticed a slight fear on the girl's face when he brought up the subject. Of course, she smiled later and said that she would be happy to meet his family. However, he decided to quickly change the subject and ask Hortensja what Christmas was like for her. The girl's eyes and face immediately lit up with a strange light that didn't fade as she talked about her home and the tradition, she had brought with her. Hikaru didn't catch all the details, and the girl kept jumping from local things, which he noticed she was incredibly proud of, to more national things. She gesticulated a lot and kept showing him photos on her phone when she couldn't convey her knowledge clearly enough.

Matsuo's father breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the couple entering the restaurant. He was afraid when Hortensja didn't come in for a few days and suspected that his son had something to do with it, but of course he couldn't get anything out of him. In addition, the young couple looked even more in love than before, for which he couldn't be more grateful to fate. Besides, he had a feeling that they were a well-matched couple, and he only wished that his son would meet someone with similar happiness. He knew that old age and death accompanying it were inevitable, so he didn't want Matsuo to be alone when it finally caught up with him. It wasn't even about helping in the restaurant. Here he had no doubt that his son would manage on his own and hire the right people to help, but about a companion for life. He sighed quietly and went to greet the girl he had already missed.

Although Hortensja missed her boyfriend after their first weekend together, when he went to work, she knew that this was her chance to find a present. She noticed on Sunday evening that Hikaru was turning up the collar of his jacket. It worried her even more when she heard that he kept forgetting to buy a scarf and that he had left his previous one on the train the other day. It was the end of the cold days, so he didn't bother to get it back. And while shopping, instead of a scarf, she found a crochet hook and yarn and decided to make one herself. She had never been good at handicrafts, but she had a lot of time, and her mother and aunt were good at crafting while talking and watching a TV show or series. She only regretted that she couldn't ask either of them for help.

She had been working on this secret project a few days already when the doorbell rang. Hikaru hadn't mentioned that anyone might show up, so she hesitantly opened the door. A man rushed in and sat down as if at home, spreading some drawings on the table, and only after a while he did notice the shocked Hortensja, who was trying to secretly grab her phone. 

 “You're not Hikaru,” he muttered, looking at her carefully. “Anyway, it doesn't matter.” And he went back to what he was doing.

The girl watched the unexpected guest while waiting for her boyfriend to answer the phone. He might have been about the same age as Hikaru, but she couldn't say for sure, because most of his face was covered by his long bangs. She wondered how he could work like that, especially on drawings. The man completely ignored her presence, and Hortensja didn't know what to do with him. He didn't look like a thief or any other kind of villain, so she counted on Hikaru to help her, and when he picked up, she briefly explained the situation to him.

“Don't worry,” the Japanese man sighed. “It's my neighbor Tadao, he's a mangaka, and he doesn't handle pressure well. Sometimes, when he's on deadline and nothing's going well, he comes to me to work somewhere else. Usually, a change of environment helps him. Put up with it for a while and don't offer anything to drink or eat, because he's overly sensitive about getting his drawings dirty.”

“Fine,” Hortensja replied in shock, having listened to the advice about the mysterious figure sitting a few meters away.

However, the girl's curiosity got the better of her, and she sat down next to Tadao, so as not to disturb him and to move away if he felt uncomfortable. She couldn't say she understood exactly what was happening on the individual panels, because some pages were sketches; a few others looked as if he had already gone through another stage of the process. The artist sometimes got nervous about his hair and pushed it away from his face with an angry movement. Hortensja brought him the claw clip and put it under his arm, pretending that she didn't know how it ended up on the table when he found it. The stress that accompanied him was almost tangible. The girl sincerely wanted to help him, but she had no idea how.

After a while, she wanted to draw herself, so she found some paper and a pencil and started drawing simple sketches. She knew that her never-honed skills were rusty, and her right hand sometimes reminded her with pain of the accident and the hardships put into rehabilitation. She focused on her paper, filling it almost completely when it was brutally torn from under her pencil. Hortensja looked indignantly at the only person who could be guilty of this. Tadao watched her work for a moment, then searched the table until he placed a few sheets of paper in front of her.

“Same,” he said, pointing to a few empty panels. Tadao expected Hortensja to help him with the time-consuming, but for him important at times background. “Since you're already here, help me.”

A few hours later, tiredness and hunger caught up with them both. They worked almost in silence, but that suited them. They only exchanged a few comments in the meantime. Tadao suddenly started gathering all the materials, as if he decided that at that very moment he would need another change of scenery, when Hortensja started preparing the meal. In the morning, she had already prepared cabbage rolls, which had to be a moment of cooking in tomato sauce. The neighbor looked into the pot suspiciously but found the smell inviting enough to take advantage of the strange girl's offer and eat this strange dish. Hikaru managed to get back from work before the food landed on the plate. He kissed Hortensja as a greeting. And during the meal, he tried to understand what had happened to make him sit at the same table with his neighbor for the first time.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Tadao asked, pointing to the Pole.

“If she wasn't, what would she be doing in my apartment?” Hikaru replied, a bit jealous, because he sensed that some kind of understanding had formed between the two of them.

“I know. She helped me, and I like her. I'll come more often,” the artist stated and smiled at the girl, and she responded in the same way.

Hikaru looked reproachfully at his girlfriend, who patted his knee reassuringly.

“Misiek, don't tell me you're jealous,” she laughed and calmly continued to eat one of her favorite dishes. “It tastes almost like home.” She said it happily and proud of her cooking, not paying attention to the consternation she caused by using her own language.