Shiro goes home to his parents and he is faced with the reality of tolerance, instead of acceptance. Find out how he deals with it (and if he will share his worries with Kenji) in season 1, episodes 3 & 4 of ‘What Did You Eat Yesterday?’.
Episode 3
Shiro pays his parents a visit at their home, where he brings desserts. But his thoughtfulness led his mother to make a backhanded comment about how thoughtfulness is a feminine feature, which made Shiro feel bad. As they were eating, his mom mentioned again that she was willing to accept Shiro even if he was gay. And after dinner, his dad (despite knowing he’s gay) asked what type of woman would be perfect for him, which only made him smile awkwardly.
Shiro goes back home to Kenji. He asks how his parents are, and Shiro only says they are fine and is about to talk more, but stops midway. Kenji looks at him worriedly. The next day, Kenji talks to his friend, Kayoko, about what happened at his parents’ house. As they were preparing coleslaw, Kenji mentioned that he wished his parents treated him the way Kayoko’s family treated him – like a normal human being. But Kayoko said that he shouldn’t put her on a pedestal because she thinks she treats him the way she does because he is not related to him. She thinks that she may behave differently if her daughter comes out to her as a lesbian.
Kayoko’s husband came home and brought his colleagues with him. Kayoko’s husband especially brought one of his colleagues, Kohinata, because he’s gay and he wanted to introduce him to Shiro. Kayoko’s husband made a comment about how they probably know each other… because they’re gay (that’s not how it works…). Shiro joins the group for a meal, despite Kohinata’s weird looks. Kohinata sits next to Shiro and talks about problems he had with his boyfriend, whom he said looks like “Gilbert”. After talking about his problems, he asked for Shiro’s number so they could have dinner sometime.
Shiro goes home after that awkward meal and prepares a simple dinner of chicken stew for himself and his boyfriend (it’s not really simple, but if Shiro said so…). Kenji comes home from work and the two eat dinner together. Shiro mentions that he will take Ms. Imado, his client, to an amusement park next time to help her see her son, and Kenji says that he feels reassured that he’s taking a woman out since he is not attracted to women at all. Kenji feels a bit guilty because he was just asked by Kohinata out to dinner next time. But before he could even process it, Shiro gets a phone call that his father was hospitalized and that it was found that he has cancer. Kenji asks if he can do anything, but Shiro says there’s really nothing they can do and that they should just continue eating. Kenji still looks on, worried.
The next day, Shiro prepares bento to take to the amusement park, but he is still worried about his father. He packs a bento for Kenji, too, and he leaves for the amusement park. He and Ms. Imado met up and they saw her child from afar, as agreed upon. Ms. Imado was devastated when she couldn’t go near him, so Shiro tried to cheer her up by sharing his bento with her. It slightly made her feel better but she still ended up bawling after seeing her child with his step-mother.
At the beauty salon, Kenji takes out the bento Shiro prepared for him, and his boss says he’s jealous of their relationship. Kenji asks if his boss and his wife talk about important things, to which his boss says, of course, because they are family. This made Kenji feel more worried, especially because Shiro did not open up to him despite the problem he was faced with.
Shiro may have thought the same thing, as well, when he was parting ways with Ms. Imado who thanked him for listening to her because no one would. She said that it was enough that there was at least one person who would listen to her, which made Shiro think about how Kenji looked worried for him.
Once he got home, he nonchalantly asked Kenji if he was faced with a bad situation concerning his father, and if he would listen to his worries. Kenji, surprised, held his tears and yelled “Of course!”
