Sensei had always held an eraser in his hand when writing on the blackboard. I wondered who this old man was who shared the same taste as me, and an image of him standing at a teacher’s podium floated through my mind. On the counter in front of him, there was a bottle of sake, a plate with a strip of dried whale meat and a bowl that had a bit of mozuku seaweed left in it. His white hair was carefully smoothed back, and he was wearing a starched white shirt with a gray vest. ‘Is that right?’ I answered vaguely, still looking at him. ‘I’ve spotted you here sometimes,’ Sensei said. I thought to myself, Why do I know his face. When I glanced over, I saw he was staring right back at me. Taking my seat at the counter, I ordered, ‘Tuna with fermented soybeans, fried lotus root and salted shallots’ while the old man next to me requested, ‘Salted shallots, lotus root fries and tuna with fermented soybeans’ almost simultaneously. That night, he was sitting at the counter, his back so straight it was almost concave. Several years ago, we sat beside each other at a crowded bar near the train station, and after that, our paths would cross every now and then. Since graduation, I hadn’t seen him for quite a while. He wasn’t my homeroom teacher, and Japanese class didn’t interest me much, so I didn’t really remember him. He was my Japanese teacher in high school. His full name was Mr Harutsuna Matsumoto, but I called him ‘Sensei’.
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