The anpan baker

Every morning two smells argue over our street: fresh bread from Ume-san's bakery, and fresh matcha from Mutjo's café. The neighbourhood has learned to walk down the middle and breathe deeply.

Ume-san — quick, floury, generous, competitive — starts it. A tray of her anpan appears on the café counter, “for professional review”. The Matji review it professionally. The tray does not survive.

The counter-move is inevitable: a flask of matcha to the bakery, then a suspicious week of closed doors and experimental smells. The Matji run reconnaissance between the two shops, dusted alternately with flour and green.

The result appears on both counters the same morning: matcha anpan — her bread, his tea, a joint operation with two signatures on the little card. The queue forms in the middle of the street, where the smells used to argue. It is very long. Nobody minds. I have stood in it myself, twice, purely for the company.