When the rice cooker began to emit a sweet smell, Rika felt a sense of industriousness rising up in her. For the first time in what seemed to her an age she dusted the flat. It was as she was vacuuming that the rice cooker beeped. Lifting the lid, Rika saw the rice glistening beyond the plume of steam. Quite unexpectedly, she found herself

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A sliver of butter perched atop a mound of steaming rice garnished with a single drop of soy sauce was a taste that had quickly become an addiction for Rika. She’d used lashings of the same butter on her morning toast, too, and as a result the hundred grams of Échiré that she’d bought in the Marunouchi store had vanished in just a few days. In the

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