Make it Margherita

We slept through the morning.

By the time I opened my eyes, the golden light filtered sideways through the paper screens of the tatami room. The air smelled of old wood and sun-warmed straw. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was.

Then I heard it—Ryoji breathing quietly nearby, steady and unbothered, like he’d not been in a fight last night and didn’t drive through the mountains just to get us here.

I sat up slowly, bones heavy, futon creasing beneath me. My body felt… strange. Not sore, not fully rested. Just caught between exhaustion and safety, unsure what to do with the stillness.

The clothes from the temple were waiting. Simple, loose-fitting yukata with a cloth sash. Mine smelled like cedar and rice paper. I tied it without thinking too hard and stepped outside.

The village had already woken.

If it could be called that.

Weathered wood and tiled roofs leaned into the slope, houses close together like neighbors whispering. Narrow stone paths wound between them, moss in the cracks. A couple of old men tended chores; a woman shuffled by with a basket of greens. It wasn’t bustling. It breathed.

I followed Ryoji, our borrowed sandals clicking softly on stone past a bamboo fence and an open-air shrine where incense curled in the breeze. He walked slightly ahead, hands folded in his sleeves, silent as ever. Not cold—calm. Solid.

I watched his shoulders, his steps.

And something twisted a little inside me.

I’d been so caught up in everything—my fever, the adrenaline, the sheer absurdity of what had happened—that I hadn’t seen him. Not really.

He’d taken care of me.

I was half out of my mind in that school, and he’d been the one watching over me. Taking them down. Driving us through mountains all night just to get me here, to this quiet temple in the clouds, so I could finally sleep.

And I hadn’t even thanked him.

My mouth opened, apology on the edge of forming—

But he stopped.

Just ahead, nestled in a clearing near the edge of the path, was a low stone oven. Cracked, mossy, but unmistakable in shape. A cooking pit from another age. An old iron peel leaned against its side, and faint heat still clung to the stones as if someone had already stoked it earlier.

Ryoji turned, eyes narrowed slightly—not in suspicion, just in thought.

Then he looked at me.

“Time to make good on that pizza I promised,” he said.

I blinked.

“What?”

Ryoji looked at it. Then at me.

“Time to make good on that pizza I promised,” he said.

I stared at him. Then at the oven. Then back at him.

”…What?”

The scent hit first.

Warm, rich, yeasty—it curled in the air like a promise. I followed it like a cartoon character in a trance, barefoot on worn stones, until I saw it: a squat stone oven, puffing faint trails of smoke into the morning air.

A bald monk was hunched over a broad table beside it, kneading dough like it had personally offended him. Loaves of white bread lined the bench in tidy rows, their golden tops gleaming in the sun.

He looked up as we approached. And then—pause.

Okay, what?

The man was definitely not Japanese.

And it was definitely not the first time we’d seen him.

It was the monk.

The monk.

The southern Italian one.

The one loading fifty-kilo sacks of flour into the freight bay of the Yamada Tower like it was a pizzeria supply run and not a secret corporate fortress.

And suddenly, it clicked.

That’s where the flour ended up.

Right here. At this mountain temple.

Of course it did.

Because of course the flour-slinging monk with the tan and the oversized grin wasn’t just some passing eccentric. He lived here. At Ryoji’s hidden Zen ops base. Probably blessed the pizza dough himself.

He grinned wide when he saw us, eyes lighting up like a street vendor seeing familiar tourists.

“Oi! Ryoji!” he called cheerfully, in heavily-accented Japanese. “You made it!”

Ryoji just gave him a long, expressionless look.

“Lorenzo,” he said flatly.

I blinked.

Lorenzo. Of course his name was Lorenzo. Because this entire spiritual refuge apparently ran on incense, mystery… and southern Italian energy.

I didn’t know whether to bow or ask for a slice.

The monk—baker—Neapolitan side character from a cooking show—wiped his hands on a towel and grinned wider. His accent was thick, musical, southern Italian. I caught maybe… sixty percent? Which was a record for me.

Then his eyes landed on me.

“Ah, ma è la stessa ragazza dell’altro giorno?”

Ryoji didn’t miss a beat.

He switched back to Japanese, voice flat as ever. “Client.”

The monk blinked. Then matched the switch.

“Ohh, I see, I see! Lorenzo. Nice to meet you.” He gave a polite little bow, his palms still a bit dusty with flour.

I bowed back automatically, blinking at the surrealism of it all.

In my head:

Okay. So. He’s an Italian. Monk. Baker. Named Lorenzo. Who lives in a Japanese mountain temple and makes pizza. Of course he does. Of course, Ryoji knows him. Why wouldn’t he?

Ryoji let out a slow breath, just enough to betray something was shifting beneath the surface.

“I need to ask a big favor out of you, Lorenzo.”

The monk looked up from his dough, hands still dusted in white. “Anything for you, my dear friend.”

“I need a pizza.”

Lorenzo blinked.

Ryoji held his gaze. “Now. Two of them.”

There was a pause.

A beat.

Then—

“Now? Adesso? At—NOON?!”

Lorenzo flailed, stepping back like he’d just been accused of heresy in front of the Vatican.

I stared at the two of them, feeling like I’d just stumbled into a sacred, forbidden rite.

Was this… a pizza duel?

Ryoji, unmoved. “Yes. Two.”

Lorenzo stared. Deep. Like he was searching Ryoji’s soul for some sign of humanity.

“You ask this,” he said solemnly, “knowing full well… it is not dinner time.”

“It’s urgent.”

“You don’t just ask for a pizza before sunset, Ryoji.” His voice trembled. “It’s not a favor. It’s a violation.”

Okay, what?

I knew pizza etiquette in Italy was serious—people judged you for asking for cappuccino after breakfast—but this was next-level. This was sacred ground.

The silence hung. Heavy.

Then Ryoji added, calmly but firmly:

“I’ll have to fight her. Today.”

Lorenzo stopped breathing.

I blinked. Fight who?!

“What?” I asked, stepping forward, the confusion finally boiling over.

He didn’t answer.

The two men just stared at each other—still, silent, like something ancient had passed between them.

Then Ryoji said it. Almost like he owed it to the silence.

“She trained. It’ll be a tough match.”

Lorenzo recoiled as if struck by invisible thunder.

“Ahhhhhh!”

His hands lifted dramatically, flour poofing off his palms like theatrical smoke.

It wasn’t just a sigh.

It was an aria.

An anguished, operatic cry from the depth of his soul. Fellini himself would’ve paused to watch it unfold.

He staggered backward half a step.

I was frozen.

Like, wait. Trained? Match?

What were they even talking about?

Lorenzo gripped the edge of the stone oven like it was the only thing keeping him grounded in this spiritual emergency. He stared at the dough. Then at Ryoji. Then at the sky.

And finally declared, with full Catholic melodrama:

“Madonna mia… va bene. For Rika, I will do it. But this… this is on your soul, Ryoji.”

Ryoji nodded solemnly, as if accepting some sacred burden from a silent council.

“And on one condition,” Lorenzo added, pointing an accusing finger toward him, then toward the heavens again.

“You don’t mention this to anyone, and most of all, you’ll win, will you?”

Ryoji had already taken a dough ball and placed it gently onto the table like it was an offering.

“Of course,” he said.

And then the—baker monk—set to work in silence.

And I? I just stood there.

Watching the most absurd, beautiful, completely incomprehensible pact of flour, honor, and unspoken violence take shape in front of me.

Lorenzo slapped the flour down like it had personally offended him. Then, eyes still burdened with cosmic dread, he asked:

“So… how do you want it?”

Still kneading, still grim, like a man preparing dough for his own funeral.

Ryoji didn’t flinch. “Margherita.”

Then he looked at me.

My brain short-circuited. I’d been prepping for a choice. A real one. You know—like eggs, sausage, maybe even pineapple if I wanted to get kicked out of Italy forever.

But as soon as I opened my mouth, Ryoji’s hand shot out—calm, swift, and perfectly timed—stopping me mid-syllable, like he was saving me from falling off a spiritual cliff.

“Only Margherita,” he said. “Or Marinara.”

I blinked.

That was it? No toppings? No creativity? No fun?

”…I don’t really feel like fish,” I muttered, retreating to what felt like the safest out.

But the word fish hit Lorenzo like a sniper round.

He froze. Literally froze—rolling pin in mid-air, pupils dilated, lips parted in disbelief. Then, slowly, like he was about to deliver a curse in Latin, he looked up at the sky and groaned:

“Non c’è pesce nella Marinara… solo pomodoro, aglio, origano e olio!”

He said it like it was the Gospel of Saint Naples.

Tomato. Garlic. Oregano. Oil.

Ryoji closed his eyes for a moment, like the cultural insult had physically pained him too.

“So,” he asked gently, turning back to me. “Which one?”

”…Oookay. I’ll try the Marinara then,” I said sheepishly. “No fish, of course. Ahahahah…”

Lorenzo let out a wheeze like his spirit was deflating through his nose.

Then, silently, like a man burying a secret, he picked up the dough, placed it on the peel, and began shaping destiny.

They sat on a worn wooden bench beside the stone oven, tucked into what could only be described as the emptiest street in all of Edo-era cosplay Japan. The sun filtered through crooked eaves and rustling bamboo. The scent of firewood, scorched flour, and basil drifted in the morning air. A breeze moved through the village like it had an old soul.

Lorenzo, completely transformed now into his pizza-warrior monk persona, rolled the pizzas inside the oven with the kind of solemnity most people reserve for funeral rites or marriage proposals.

I glanced at Ryoji.

Nothing. Arms crossed. Eyes sharp, but weirdly calm. Like this was normal.

My brain needed something—anything—to anchor me.

“I had a friend in Italy called Renzo,” I blurted out. “Lo-Renzo, Renzo. Get it?”

It was… not my finest material.

Lorenzo glanced over his shoulder, completely deadpan. Then, in full Neapolitan opera tone:

“Ma che simpatica questa ragazza…”

I didn’t understand every word, but I felt the sarcasm in my soul.

“She’s funnier with food in her system,” Ryoji offered.

“Isn’t everyone?” I shot back.

The monk didn’t reply. Just pulled out the pizzas with a wooden peel like they were holy scrolls, folded each one twice—like a street slice from Naples—wrapped them in big waxy paper, and handed them over like relics.

I looked down at mine.

It felt… wrong. Sacred, even.

“You just—eat it?” I asked.

Ryoji already had his in hand. He nodded, completely serious. “Eat.”

So I did. Took a bite before I even realized how hot it was—burned the roof of my mouth slightly, not enough to cry over, just enough to remember I was alive.

And then the flavor hit me.

My whole brain tilted.

It was—divine. The crust was chewy but light, the tomatoes so sweet and bright it felt like someone had poured sunlight into the sauce.

The garlic? A symphony. The oil? Liquid gold. Oregano? Kiss of the gods.

I blinked. Looked up at Lorenzo.

”…It’s incredible.”

He didn’t say anything. But his chest puffed ever so slightly. His brows lifted in modest approval. And, finally, he smiled—a real one. Warm. Human. Less worried.

Ryoji had the ghost of a smile too. Just barely there.

I took another bite, my hands still wrapped in paper, feeling like I was in some dream logic scenario written by a food-obsessed playwright.

An Edo village.

A pizza.

A shaved monk named Lorenzo from southern Italy who apparently could out-bake Naples itself.

I was wearing a borrowed yukata.

I was still technically on the run from a Soviet assassin team.

And yet—there I was.

Sitting on a bench, chewing the best bite of my life, while steam curled into the mountain air and the temple bell rang faintly in the distance.

”…This is getting weird,” I muttered with a full mouth.