"Stop being childish, Kafka. There's no way you can eat all this food by yourself." Camila chided me in a rather solemn manner while handing me the cutlery and filling my glass full, which made it seem like she was treating me like her beloved son, whom she spoiled at the moment, rather than her partner.
"Even the professional eaters I saw on TV would struggle to finish off half of the feast I made today, so there's no way you can finish all this in one go without rupturing your stomach."
"Not to mention how fat most of those trained professionals are while you're skinny as a stick and look like you would get full after eating a slice of bread." Camila made fun of me in an amused manner while poking my body to see if there was any fat or muscle there, and she was surprised when she felt that I felt rather sturdy and hard all over, which she didn't expect since I looked quite skinny because of my pale skin, which made my muscles less defined.
"That's simply because those guys are eating the average and basic food made in restaurants." I said as my eyes roamed around the rather large plate, searching for what my first dish of the morning was going to be.
"If they got to taste the delicacies you make, then I'm sure that they'd be setting up new records by indulging in your absolutely delicious dishes, which would cause lines to form if they were sold."
"You and your sweet mouth, that just can't stop saying nice things about me and whatever I do!~" Camila said in embarrassment as she slapped my shoulder in a fluster, elated that she had found someone who praised her for even the smallest achievements she made and made her feel so special inside. "You haven't even tasted the dishes on the table yet, and you're already making comments about it~"
"First have a bite yourself, and then tell me if you really think that it's as good as you imagined..." She nudged me forward to have a bite, excited that she was going to watch me eat the food she was so proud of for the first time and also a bit nervous that I might not like it.
"The aroma itself is enough to tell me how good it's going to be..." I said as I brought a spoonful of creamy risotto near my nose to take a whiff of its rich flavour.
"Bon appetite~" I said as I took my first bite while Camila anxiously looked at me, chewing and tasting her food with an anxious look on her face, awaiting my response.
"Bad?...Yes, it's very bad...Very bad for me and my livelihood as a whole, almost as if you're trying to sabotage my life..." I said as I scooped up another spoon and stared at it like it was poison, while Camila was shocked at my statement and looked like she was going to cry because of how horribly I was rating her food.
"I mean, you're basically trying to kill me as a person who enjoys eating delicacies to the extent that it's one of the reasons I choose to live every day by giving me food so atrociously good that I won't be able to eat anything else from now on without thinking that it's quite bland compared to what you make."
"I'm really sorry, Kafka...I-I don't know what I did for you to hate it that much, but I promise you when I say that I usually don't cook like this and am usually proud of the dishes I make...I don't know what happened today, and I must have added too much of something or-..." Camila was about to go on a rant, saying that she normally makes really good food and was even about to go and make another rissoto to prove herself and her skills, but stopped when she realised what I had just said.
She then looked at me with a perturbed expression on her face and asked with a hopeful look in her eyes,
"Wait...Does that mean you actually like my dish?...You like it so much that you're blaming me for ruining your future experiences with food?"
"What else, Camila?!~" I asked with a tragic look on my face, like I had committed a deep sin that was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. "When you make a dish so good that a single bite of it makes me feel like I've accomplished everything in life and that there's nothing left to do, I really don't know if I should thank you for giving me that experience or blame you for it."
"I mean, I feel like crying knowing that I won't ever be able to eat anything that's better than the single bite of risotto I had today, and I feel like I have skipped the joys of the journey ahead and gone straight to the final destination, which was Nirvana..." I said while contemplating my life's decisions and whether or not I should've eaten that forbidden fruit, as I wasn't even exaggerating right now when I said that it was the best plate of food I've ever had in my entire life.
And all it took was a single bite for me to feel all these emotions, so you could only imagine how I was going to feel after tasting everything else.
I even started to suspect if she was given an ability by the Gods to infuse her food with such rich flavour and turn such a simple dish into a heavenly delicacy, since she was a candidate in this trial...