Chapter 63: Cooking Training Begins
Alas, we finally arrived at the kitchen.
The kitchen was so clean and large that I thought it was the kitchen of a high-end restaurant instead.
âAll the cooking utensils are of the latest kind and are very good. But we also have some utensils from Fujiseâs house too, so we should probably use those first.â
âYe-Yeah, thanks.â
âIâll give it my all, even though itâs my punishment game.â
Tojoin-san seems to be gung-ho about teaching her to cook despite it being her own punishment.
Sheâs a rival love interest of Shihoâs but sheâs still very disciplined and kind.
âAs expected, Tojoin-san is as nice as Papa-san.â
âShimada-san, can we please stop this?â
I guess Sei-chan was surprisingly rooted about what happened in the limousine, so she kept saying that again and again.
Tojoin-san seems to be calming down a little now. Her cheeks werenât turning red as she got used to being told that by now, but you could still notice her ears were a little red.
âEhh, I havenât said it enough though⦠but I understand that youâre going to help Shiho cook. You better devote all your concentration towards her. The worst that could happen is just you dying.â
âIs it s-something dangerous?â
Rinke, who had no idea about Fujiseâs cooking skills whatsoever, asked about it with a pale face.
âMou! Sei-chan. Donât scare Rinke-chan like that. Itâs okay, Rinke-chan. Iâm not that dangerous.â
âGo-Got it. Please take care of me today.â
âThank you, please take care of me today too.â
Rinke had also come to help Fujise cook today.
Iâm sure Rinke, who cooks everyday, would be able to help her out in this situation.
Rinke proceeded to borrow an apron and tried to put it on.
âRinke-san, you donât have to wear that.â
âEh?â
Tojoin-san said as she put on her own apron.
âI can improve Fujise-sanâs cooking by myself in just a matter of minutes. I donât think anyone else can do that though.â
Tojoin-san said as she glanced back at Sei-chan.
It was probably to get back at Sei-chan for all that constant teasing she had done earlier.
âAhh, yeah. Do your best.â
âMmmâ¦â
But Sei-chan didnât get provoked by that at all, and instead just smiled in return.
Tojoin-san pouted, probably because she didnât get the result she wanted.
âAnyway, Rinke-san. Please watch me first. Iâm glad youâre here to help, but Iâm afraid I might end up finishing this without your help.â
âI guess thatâs fine thenâ¦â
Rinke placed her apron back onto the table and walked over to me and Sei-chan.
For now, the three of us will watch Tojoin-san teach Fujise how to cook.
Sei-chan earlier had a very mature expression and concentrated smile, but I guess it wasnât as it seemed.
If you looked closely, her eyes were looking far ahead and seemed very unfocused, it was as if she had already given up on her success.
Is Fujiseâs cooking so dreadful that she can give such a smile even while provoked directly?
âNow, Fujise-san. Iâm going to teach you thoroughly. I donât know how it went wrong with Shimada-san, but Iâm not that naive when it comes to teaching.â
âY-Yes please, so where should I start?â
Fujise wore an apron and clenched both of her fists in the air to show her motivation.
âFirst of all, your apron is worn the wrong way.â
âEh? Ahâ¦â
Yeah, well, no matter how you look at it, you can see that itâs inverted.
How does one go wrong with the front and back of an apron�
The back is just made out of string, so why would you even want it in the front�
âA-Ahh, haha, sorry. I do this every time.â
âI-Is that so?â
As expected, Tojoin-san did not realize that Fujise was that bad, so she could not hide her uneasy expression.
Iâm really worried about the future at this rate.
[ED: Epic Cool Transition Line Here]
Itâs been thirty minutes since Tojoin-san started teaching Fujise how to cook. And the result isâ¦
âIâm sorry, I just canât do this.â
It seems Tojoin-san raised the white flag first.
âWhatâs wrong Tojoin-san?â
Fujise said as she placed her darkened dish on top of a plate.
Scaryâ¦
Eh? W-What happened? Is that a miracle?
I did see that Tojoin-san was teaching Fujise with all her heart on how to cook properly.
First, she wore an apron the wrong way, second, she was holding the knife in the wrong way.
Iâve never seen anyone ever hold a knife backhandedly, it was kinda amazing seeing that live.
But little by little, Tojoin-san fixed those issues and continued to teach her patiently.
Fujise made mistakes that were beyond normal for an average person, but she still somehow makes them little by little.
And in the end, what we got as a result, was a black smoking dark matter of a dish.
This is the world of manga, but I never thought I would actually see dark matter form in front of my eyes.
âWhy⦠how is this even happeningâ¦?â
âEh? What?â
Fujise didnât seem to understand why Tojoin-san was so depressed, or even tired.
âI thought we were making a normal hamburger steak so I placed a lid over it to keep it safe. So, why would dark matter appear even after we open it up? Itâs too much, even for someone like me.â
We used two separate pans, one for Tojoin-san and another one for Fujise, but when we opened up the lids, somehow both the sides had become dark matter.
Itâs already in the realm of magic and illusions.
But in reality, itâs not an illusion at all, and it doesnât even contain any tricks.
How could someone create dark matter when they were just making a normal hamburger steak�
âShimada-san⦠Rinke-san⦠Can you help me out here?â
Tojoin-san retracted her previous statement and asked for help from the both of them.
Well, that was unavoidable. There are some things that are impossible, even for someone like Tojoin-san.
Knowing this, Sei-chan just gave an enlightened smile in return.
âI have no idea how to help you, even if you ask me for help.â
Then Rinke replied as she wore an apron.
âMe too. I think that Shiho shouldnât be cooking any further than this.â
âEhhhh? This is bad? I thought I did pretty well thoughâ¦â
Fujise held the dark matter in her hands and sighed sadly.
No-no, I think itâs a pretty serious issue to look at that and think you did pretty well.
âCan I have a taste for myself?â
âDonât, or youâll die.â
Tojoin-san answered immediately with a straight face.
Yeah, I wouldnât want to eat that either.
I mean, I donât even know how Fujise can even think about eating it after taking a look at it.
âBut itâs such a waste otherwise⦠Hisamura-kun, want a taste?â
âHaha, I might eat it if I ever feel hopeless about the world and wanna die.â
Though as long as Iâm dating Sei-chan, I donât think that day will ever come.
Fujise thrusted the plate of dark matter at me. Iâm curious as to why there was no smell despite the black smoke rising around the room faintly.
The fact that it was odorless scares me tremendously.
âFirst of all, does anyone know why this dish failed this time around?â
âShe made a lot of mistakes, but I donât think she made enough mistakes to somehow make something this bad.â
âRinke-chan, was it that bad?â
âIâve never seen anything like it in my entire life.â
âEh? Is that a compliment?â
âIT WASNâT A COMPLIMENT AT ALL!â
How could you think that was a compliment?!
âMaybe it was the little mistakes that led to that⦠stuff being created.â
âI donât think it would be that bad even with those little mistakes, thereâs nothing you can improve on after that. Letâs start over.â
âUn, Iâll do my best.â
Fujise clenched her fist in the air again, fully motivated to do it properly this time.
âFirst, cut the onions and⦠Wait, why are you holding the knife with your other hand again?!â
âAh, I did it again.â
âIs that soâ¦â
At last, Tojoin-san also gave an enlightened smile just like Sei-chan did earlier.
Rinke is about to enter the ring too. I wonder if sheâd make a smile like that too.
I should give some insight into fixing this mess.
âDo you have a minute? Why donât you write down the steps of the dish you were about to cook on a piece of paper? You can also write down Fujiseâs mistakes and how to correct them on another piece of paper.â
âI thought I didnât need to write it down because I had the cooking instructions memorized in my head, but itâs definitely better to write it down in a way that Fujise-san can see it clearly.â
âYeah, itâd be nice to be able to see what you need to do without asking you for help.â
âCome to think of it, even when it was me who was taught to cook, it was just me trying to verbally understand the procedure, Iâd say itâd be better this way instead.â
âNice one, Onii-chan.â
âThatâs good to know.â
I was working part time in a cafe in my previous life, so I learnt how to cook briefly.
Of course, I wasnât able to cook it like Fujise, no I wasnât at Fujiseâs level of mass-destruction, but I still did fail once in a while.
So, from my experience, itâs quite nice to have a piece of paper with proper instructions and steps written on it.
Itâs a little difficult when itâs said verbally because you have to understand the entire thing all at once, but if you have a paper with the procedure, you can see where you went wrong in understanding it.
Tojoin-san, for the time being, wrote down all the steps on how to make a hamburger steak on a piece of paper.
âThatâs about it. Okay, letâs do this again. I wonât let you make any mistakes this time around.â
âP-PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME!â
âLetâs do our best, Rinke.â
âYes, Sei-san.â
And now, with the strongest lineup of chefs in the likes of Sei-chan, Rinke, and Tojoin-san, they began to work on improving Fujiseâs cooking together.
You look so cute in an apron, Sei-chanâ¦â¦
[ED: Other Epic Closing Line Here]
AN: Please wait a while longer, Fufufu.