Okonomiyaki
You would have loved it today. Your okonomiyaki would have had meat on it of course, you being you - and I could hear your teasing in my ears because I had the vegetarian option. You would have asked our chef questions about the ingredients, the cooking, watching intently to perhaps learn something new. When the chef leaves, you'd confidently declare that you can replicate this, that we can make it together one day. I laugh because that will never happen, but it's a nice dream to carry.
You would have made light fun of my total inability to handle chopsticks, taking my hands in yours to show me how. Once you get to your okonomiyaki, you would have closed your eyes for a second in wonder as that first bite hits your tongue, savouring each ingredient as only your palate would. You would continue to eat in silence, expertly cutting yours on the hotplate whilst I am trying to elegantly hack away at mine. Again, we laugh - I was not born to do this. When you laugh, you don't close your eyes. Instead, you look fiercely into mine. I look away, because your intensity scares me.
You finish your meal before mine, and I feel pressured as now I have an extra pair of eyes watching me struggle with a simple pancake of cabbage and potatoes. But they're your eyes. So I calm down and finish my okonomiyaki in peace.