Living Room Love Song
茶の間のラブソング
Cha no ma no rabusongu

While waiting for her husband to return from work so they can celebrate their anniversary a middle-aged woman passes away from eating a durian fruit with alcohol. At the funeral Mr. Tadakoro thinks about how he had begun to take his wife for granted recently, and now that she is gone, he begins to realize how much he loved her. Even though he loves her, he is surprised that he has not cried at her death.

Ten months go by, and Mr. Tadakoro seems to be slowly recovering from his wife's death. He has begun to take a special notice of Hitomi Momoi, a young girl working in his office. One night after returning home from work he is surprised to find the television on. Mr. Tadakoro is even more shocked to see the ghost of his wife sitting in his living room. His wife pesters him and proves to be even more trouble when he realizes he is the only one that can see her. Eventually he begins to see more and more of young Ms. Momoi as she comes by to cook for him. He finds that he has developed a crush on her, made none the easier by the ghost of his wife who has started spreading rumors about Momoi and his "relationship".

Mr. Tadakoro tries everything to get rid of the pestering spirit of his dead wife, but she refuses to leave. One night while he is lying awake sick in bed and thinking of Momoi he sees her standing outside in the rain. He heads out to comfort her and then sees her boyfriend. He watches as they reconcile and leave together, and Mr. Tadakoro returns home dejectedly. The ghost feels sorry for her husband and tells him to look in a drawer in the living room and then vanishes for a final time. In the drawer he finds a letter his wife had written him on their anniversary and he is finally able to cry over his lost spouse.

Chapter Details

	Published In: Big Comic Original 1996 Vol 2.20 The Executive's Dog
	Publication Date: February 5, 1996
	Pages: 4 (full color) 4 (red tint) 24 (black and white)
	Anime Adaptation: Episode 9: Living Room Lovesong
Notes: Kacho (課長) is a manager at a company, above staff and team leaders, but below general managers and vice presidents, a kacho is truly middle management. Durian is known as the "King of Fruit" and many differing opinions have been stated about the dangers of consuming it with alcohol. From Mashable.com, "A team of researchers from Japan's University of Tsukuba discovered that the King of Fruits has Diethyl Disulfide. It's a sulfur compound that makes it difficult for metabolism to happen. So when you pair it with alcohol, the beverage you ingest would not be broken down properly and this allows the acetaldehyde, a type of acetic acid, to travel in your blood stream. In short: You would have the worst hangover ever if you pair durian with alcohol. It doesn't end there though. Turns out, consuming the fruit and beverage can turn the ethanol in your beer dangerously toxic when it is processed by your liver. Your liver produces two types of enzymes: The good one, Aldehyde Dehydrogenase, turns the bad one, Alcohol Dehydrogenase, into fatty acids and carbon dioxide. Because the durian has sulfur capable of halting or slowing down metabolism, the good enzyme gets kicked out to allow the bad one to run rampage." When Hitomi gives Kacho the wallet he has a fantasy sequence that is based on Disney's Aladdin.