Delightful Food & Relationships Begin in ‘What Did You Eat Yesterday?’ Eps 1 & 2

BL Recaps Japan

2023-09-15
10:25

Long-time gay couple Shiro Kakei and Kenji Yabuki tread through life’s ups and downs with the core love for food on ‘What Did You Eat Yesterday?’

SPOILER ALERT! Proceed with caution.

Episode 1

Shiro Kakei is a 45-year-old divorce lawyer at a small company. While talking with a client, his colleagues are discussing their dinner the previous night. When asked about what he ate for dinner, Shiro mentioned a very detailed meal, complete with every side dish and every spice he included in the meal that he ate last night. His colleagues were dumbfounded by his detailed answer, and watched him leave at exactly 6 PM, “with a spring on his step”. The employees gossiped about why Shiro leaves on time, and that they heard rumors about him having a girlfriend waiting for him. One of them even mentioned that Shiro looks like the type of person who buys expensive grocery items…

But in reality, Shiro leaves on time because he wants to get the best bargain at the flash sale happening at the market. He gets his groceries and thinks that he scored a good buy with milk on sale that day, but when he goes to another store to buy something else, he notices that the milk there is being sold at a cheaper price. He complained to the salesperson, but he found out that he overlooked the one-day sale for the same brand of milk. Shiro definitely does not seem like someone who will spend a lot on his grocery shopping.

Shiro rushes home and prepares food. He meticulously plans his meals step by step, very carefully.

Just as setting up the table, his partner, Kenji Yabuki comes home with ice cream that he bought at the convenience store, which gained complaints from the thrifty Shiro. Kenji insisted that he wanted to buy the ice cream, despite the fact that he bought it at full price because Shiro mentioned earlier that he wanted to eat ice cream. Eventually, Shiro gave in and told Kenji to prepare for dinner. While eating, Kenji mentions that Shiro seems to like money because of how thrifty he is, despite being a lawyer. Shiro said that he only wants to save money because he wants to rely on himself when he’s older, which gained a pout from Kenji. Shiro notices this and changes the subject to the food he just cooked.

After dinner, Shiro talked to his mom, who informed him that she met with some people to learn more about the gay community, even asking her son if she had come out to his colleagues at work. Shiro said that there was no need to come out at his workplace, which, unfortunately, Kenji heard.

The next day, Kenji is at work at the hair salon where he is fixing a customer’s hair. The customer wanted to change her hairstyle a lot, but in truth, she only wanted to ask Kenji out on a date. Kenji turned her down and told her that he’s gay and that he actually lives with his boyfriend, who’s a lawyer (he said it so proudly, too! Good for him.)

After work, Kenji runs into Shiro, who is not in a good mood because of an incident at his work. Kenji, however, is in a good mood and tries to cheer Shiro up, but to no avail. As they were walking together, Kenji ran into the same female customer he just had earlier on. The customer pointed at Shiro and asked Kenji if it was the same boyfriend he was talking about earlier. Shiro was horrified and even scolded Kenji when they arrived back home. He yelled at him for outing him to his customer, saying that he’s not even out to his colleagues and that he does not like it that random people would know he was gay. Shiro told Kenji that if he did not understand that, he should leave. Kenji was silent the whole time. He turns his back to him, cries, and says that he only wants to talk to his customers naturally about the person he lives with, the same way his co-workers would talk about their wives and children.

As an apology and to comfort his lover, Shiro announces that he’ll prepare food. Kenji wholeheartedly accepts this apology and they eat dinner together, finishing the day by computing monthly food expenses and eating the ice cream Kenji bought at full price. The true essence of domesticity.

Episode 2

Shiro and Kenji start the day together, with Kenji pointing out that Shiro’s zodiac sign says he will be lucky in love today. Shiro shuts him down, saying he should not look at zodiac signs at his age. Shiro leaves home to go to work, saying goodbye to his lover. However, Kenji notices that Shiro left his phone at the counter. He was about to run out to give it to Shiro, but a text message from someone arrived, saying that they would be waiting for him at their “usual spot” which aroused suspicion from Kenji. Before Kenji could even investigate further, Shiro returned for his phone.

As Shiro reiterates to his boss that he only wants a stable job that makes him clock out at 6 PM, Kenji obsesses over the messages he sees from his boyfriend’s phone. Convincing himself that he would only go to the convenience store, he dressed up in dark clothes, a hat, and sunglasses, he hid behind a post to wait for his boyfriend at the “usual spot” that he saw was mentioned in the text message Shiro received. Kenji’s knees began to wobble when he saw a beautiful woman whom he thought would be approached by Shiro, but he was mistaken. As Shiro was walking in his direction, he noticed Kenji in his conspicuous outfit. He was about to ask what he was doing but Kenji’s knees completely gave out.

Back at home, Shiro explains that Kayoko, the person who texted him, was actually their neighbor. They meet up regularly to buy at their usual market and split costs in some wholesale fruits and other produce. Shiro explains that they met when they both decided to split a huge watermelon that was on sale, which happened around two weeks ago. To split it, Shiro and Kayoko go back to her house. After some misunderstanding where Shiro, in a panic, outs himself as gay, Kayoko calms down, especially with her family who just came back home. The whole family was nice to him, even being sympathetic over him being a minority who probably went through a lot because of who he was. Kayoko prepared noodles for her family and shared them with Shiro, the same one he prepared for his boyfriend, as well.

Kenji said that he couldn’t really blame him if he acted jealously, to which Shiro said that he should have gotten the hint when he saw that the one texting him was a woman. Kenji rebutted that Shiro dated women before, but Shiro shut him down immediately saying that he only dated one woman and that most gay people go through the phase of dating women (before finding out their real sexuality). He reassured his boyfriend that he was not bisexual at all.

You’d think that the conversation would end there but Pandora’s box was opened. Kenji asked why Shiro had to go to his ex-girlfriend’s bakery to buy expensive bread when there was a cheaper one at the market. Shiro explained that the bread was sourced from expensive ingredients, which actually makes it a steal. But Kenji was not having it, explaining that he actually went to see his ex-girlfriend which made him feel insecure. Shiro tried to deviate from the conversation by saying he needed to make strawberry jam, which he did so flawlessly. But unlike his jam-making skills, he could not seem to perfect his relationship with Kenji, who was still sulking while folding clothes.

The next morning, as Shiro was preparing their breakfast, the couple sat down together and he began telling Kenji what really happened when he dated his ex-girlfriend, Hitomi. He said that he only dated her because she looked a bit masculine, which he thought was acceptable enough to date. However, he couldn’t deny that he’s gay so he felt relieved when she broke up with him after a few months of dating. But what scared him more was that if they didn’t break up, he could have pretended he was straight, get married, and have children with her. Shiro said that he knew he didn’t treat her right. Kenji softened when he saw Shiro opening up to him, especially when he realized that he actually told Kayoko that he was gay.

Writer’s thoughts:

What a great slice-of-life story! It’s really refreshing to see a queer series that mentions the words “gay” and “bisexual” and other queer terminologies which a lot of BL series don’t seem to use. Shiro and Kenji are such great but flawed characters, which makes the series all the more realistic and fun to watch. Not to mention, the amazing food! It’s definitely a must-watch.

Watch ‘What Did You Eat Yesterday?’ on GagaOOLala.