I was riding in Hime’s car for the first time in a while.
It still felt unreal that out of all our members, the one who looked the youngest—Hime—was actually the oldest, and the only one with a driver’s license. What a joke.
I wanted to get mine too, but at our school, getting a license before graduation was against the rules. (Though a bunch of students had secretly gotten theirs anyway.)
At elite schools like the ones Milk and Ayame went to, it went without saying.
Apparently Hime had been driving more in her free time lately, and the ride definitely felt smoother than before.
「This roadside station is pretty spacious.」
「Yeah, the weather’s great too—perfect Lake Biwa weather.」
Milk said it like someone talking about a perfect beach day.
Come to think of it, I’d heard people from Shiga Prefecture sometimes called Lake Biwa “the sea”.
So I guess it wasn’t wrong to describe it like that.
Normally, this is where Hime would snap that we weren’t here to play. But today was Friday afternoon.
We’d explained the situation and got permission to skip the rest of the school day.
Minister Uematsu even pulled strings so it wouldn’t count against our attendance.
We weren’t planning to dive into the dungeon until tomorrow morning, so right now we were completely off duty.
You could even call this a mini vacation.
「They’ve got a Sculpture Plaza too. Looks like there are a bunch of statues.」
Milk said while looking at photos.
She looked about ready to drag us there, but—
「Let’s hit the restaurant first, or it’ll close.」
It was already 4:30 PM.
I’d suggested we eat dinner at the hotel, but since we’d probably be dining there tomorrow night anyway, we decided to eat at the roadside station today.
The restaurant seemed geared toward lunch, and it was pretty empty inside.
We all gathered around the food sample display to check the menu.
Oh, they had an Omi beef set meal.
There were a bunch of options, but no Biwako Blue Curry, unfortunately.
Still, this was Shiga Prefecture—Omi beef made perfect sense.
As I scanned the other items—wait, what’s this? “Baumkuchen Pork”?
What the heck is that, a pork made of cake?
Baumkuchen Pork? No really, what is that?
It’s one of those phrases that just makes you want to say it out loud—
「Baumkuchen pork.」
It wasn’t me.
That whisper came from Hime.
「Hime?」
「N-No! I just… these kinds of things catch your attention, you know?」
Not that I was blaming her or anything.
There was nothing to be embarrassed about. She just wasn’t expecting to be overheard.
We all went to buy our meal tickets.
「I think I’ll go with the fried shrimp set.」
「I’ll have the rainbow trout rice bowl.」
「I’ll take the Omi beef bento.」
「Then I’ll go with the Baumkuchen pork bento.」
I said it as I bought the ticket.
Hime gave me an embarrassed glare, but I didn’t choose it just to tease her.
These weird specialty meats just make you want to try them, right?
When I looked it up later, it turned out Baumkuchen pork was from pigs raised on feed mixed with actual Baumkuchen cake.
Apparently it even won the top prize at a national branded pork tasting contest.
Ayame’s rainbow trout rice bowl was a set meal served in a lacquered box, topped generously with sashimi-style rainbow trout and salmon roe.
Milk’s fried shrimp came with two massive prawns, heads still on—those looked delicious too.
Then, the meals for Hime and me arrived.
It was ginger pork.
Yeah… it did taste kind of sweet.
Guess that’s what you’d expect from a pig raised on Baumkuchen.
Before I knew it, I was down to my last three slices.
「Hey, Hime, give me a slice of your Omi beef. I’ll trade you one of these Baumkuchen pork slices you were so curious about.」
「I was not curious about it. But fine, I’ll accept the trade.」
「Taira, wanna trade one slice of pork for this half-eaten fried shrimp?」
「Don’t give me something you’ve already bitten into! And I don’t have many left—」
Before I could stop her, Milk plopped the shrimp she’d already taken a bite of on top of my rice, and swiped a piece of pork in return.
That left me with just one slice—when I noticed Ayame looking my way.
「Ayame, mind sharing a little of that trout? I’ll trade you my last piece of pork.」
「Gladly!」
We traded, and I ended up with not just two slices of trout, but a bit of salmon roe too.
Nice.
The trout was light and subtle, but had a natural sweetness to it—delicious.
I didn’t get to eat much of the pork in the end, but I ended up sampling a bunch of different things, so I was actually pretty satisfied.
And just then—
「O-hohohohoho! Long time no see, everyone!」
That high-pitched laugh—been a while since I heard it in person.
It was Oshino Hi, Hime’s elder half-sister.
「Hi, what are you doing here?」
「Oh, I just happened to pass by and saw you all, so I thought I’d say hello.」
「If you’re not going to eat with us, then hurry up and go back to the hotel. This is a restaurant, you know?」
「O-Of course I’m eating! Someone bring me a menu!」
「Menus are over there. You order by buying a meal ticket.」
「A… ticket? You have to buy a ticket to eat food?」
No way.
She didn’t know how the meal ticket system worked?
Now that’s a true sheltered ojousama.
Hime was surprisingly adaptable to this kind of thing, but her elder sister clearly wasn’t.
I guess that’s the difference between them.
「It’s more efficient this way.」
「I see. So by reducing labor costs, order errors, and checkout mistakes, and improving hygiene by limiting cash handling, they’re able to keep prices low. No wonder a meal set with beef that should normally cost tens of thousands of yen is available at such a price.」
Uh… I actually thought the price was a bit high, to be honest.
「Well then—」
Just as Hi-san stepped toward the ticket machine—
「Sorry, customer-san. We’ve already passed the last order time.」
One of the restaurant ladies spoke up.
Oh, she was right. We were five minutes past the last order.
「Eh…?」
Hi froze in place, looking like she was about to cry.
…Wait, what did she even come here for?
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