What are the motifs in Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto?

Friendship is a recurring idea. The issue at the center of this story, from the beginning to the end, is whether Mikage and Yuichi will become lovers, or if the special bond between them is limited to friendship. This question is raised in the story's first real scene, with Yuichi arriving at Mikage's doorstep and asking her to come and live in his home. In the absence of any preexisting friendship between them, she is confused as to the source of the bond she feels for him. "I saw a straight road leading from me to him," she says of their first encounter. "He seemed to glow with white light. That was the effect he had on me."