CH 65

And… twenty minutes later…

“Done! What do you think?”

“It’s ordinary Kaarage.”

“Yeah, it’s fried properly.”

“I-It’s really done..”

It turned out to be just some ordinary fried chicken.

I was called in to test the dish for poison, so of course I ate it first.

“…..Yeah, It’s good.”

“YOSHAAAA!”

This time, it wasn’t misshapen or burnt or like the hamburg steak, and it was just a simple delicious piece of fried chicken.

Eh? Really?

Fujise, who was only able to make dark matter in the manga, actually is able to cook by herself now?

“It didn’t make any sense that she could even make dark matter in the first place, so this is normal.”

“Yes it is. Rather, It’s a mystery as to why it even turns out so bad.”

“I-It really is done. ”

Tojoin-san and Rinke were also surprised to see that it tasted like normal.

But Sei-chan was acting a little strange.

“What kind of nonsense have I been going through then…?”

Sei-chan muttered in a small voice.

It was a murmur that wasn’t intended for anyone else to hear, but I heard it since I was right next to her.

Sei-chan, who had been doing her best to teach Fujise, felt that all her effort was all for nothing and became depressed. 

From Sei-chan’s point of view, she, who had helped Fujise cook several times, didn’t know that all she had to do was a very simple method of making her look at the recipe and follow it step by step.

The fact that she didn’t realize she could have used this method must have been a shock to her health.

“How was it Sei-chan?”

“A-Ahh, Yeah. It was delicious, Shiho.”

Sei-chan said with a smile on her face, but looked a bit forced if I’m honest.

“I could only do it all thanks to you Sei-chan! It was because Sei-chan taught me that I could finally do it.”

“No, no, it’s all because Shiho worked so hard, I hardly did anything at all.”

“Sei-chan, what’s wrong?”

“Hmm? What?”

“No, I mean, you looked kinda depressed.”

Even if Sei-chan tried to hide from us, Fujise would still notice.

“I’m not depressed at all. Shiho. It’s good, now you can make lunch for Shigemoto with no problems.”

“E-Eh, yeah thanks.”

Fujise seems to have noticed as well, and is worried about Sei-chan too.

“Why don’t you make some egg rolls next time? They’re often included as a side dish in lunch boxes, and I think they’d be really good.”

“Y-Yeah, I guess so. It’s really delicious.”

“Why don’t you try egg rolled soup too? It might be a little difficult though.”

I’m not sure if Rinke is aware of her mood though since she hasn’t involved herself much with Sei-chan yet.

They’ve only met a couple of times and that’s when we went to school together.

“I wish I had a special frying pan for frying eggs, but I wonder if Fujise-san has this pan at home.”

“Ah, I think I saw it before…”

“It’s a little easier to make with this. Let’s practice for now. I’ll have to look up the recipe first.”

Then, they started to cook again.

Sei-chan also tried to watch over her again from nearby, but Tojoin-san spoke as if she had an idea.

“Shimada-san, there’s probably a bento box in the next room, can you get it for me real quick? I’m making lunch today, so it would be easier to have it in a lunch box.”

“Yeah, sure. It’s the room next to here, right?”

“Yes, it’s the preparation room that stores all the utensils inside. It’s in a high place, so you might need someone’s help.”

I was about to ask why don’t I just go myself?

But the idea was withdrawn after seeing Tojoin-san’s face.

Tojoin-san seemed to glance at me with eyes that seem to be telling me something.

Apparently she noticed that something was wrong with Sei-chan too.

So I guess she wants me to have a talk with Sei-chan alone.

Surprisingly, Tojoin-san is pretty perceptive of people.

No, maybe it’s because it’s Sei-chan, the person she lost to for the first time in her life. That’s why she could immediately tell that something was wrong.

“Got it, let’s go Sei-chan.”

Riding on Tojoin-san’s kindness, I left the Kitchen with Sei-chan.

[ED: Cheerful Transition line here!]

I left the kitchen and went to the room next to it.

Like the kitchen, it was a very large room. But it didn’t feel as spacious due to all the stuff placed here.

As it was a preparation room, there was a variety of cooking utensils and large equipment placed in here.

It was probably something that belonged to the kitchen but was moved here because of today.

There’s a bento box somewhere in here. Or so I was told, where is it?

I feel like it’s impossible to find it in this large room.

“Do I have to look for the bento box in here? Tojoin could have at least told me where it was.”

“Yeah, It’s going to be tough looking for it here.”

Maybe Tojoin-san doesn’t want us to find it after all.

Well, that’s not what we really came here for anyways.

“Well, if we can’t find it after a short while, we can go and ask Tojoin-san about it.”

“Sei-chan.”

“Hmm? What’s up?”

“You seem depressed… Are you okay?”

“…!”

I really wanted to word that sentence better, but I didn’t know how to. So I just asked her straight.

Man, if I was the handsome main protagonist of a manga… Actually, It’s impossible for Yuuichi to do something like this.

“Haah, Shiho noticed, but I guess Hisam-Tsukasa also noticed, huh.”

Sei-chan said as if she gave up and let out a smile.

I mean, now that we’re alone, she suddenly called me Tsukasa, which makes me very nervous, so please stop.

“I heard you mutter to yourself  ‘So it was all pointless’. ”

“Uuu, so you heard me? That’s embarrassing.”

“I don’t think it was pointless, Fujise was very happy about it.”

“Ah, yeah.”

She doesn’t seem to be convinced with that.

Sei-chan has a strong sense of responsibility so she must have been giving it her all to teach Fujise properly.

So she must have gotten depressed because she thought what she did was pointless.

“But don’t you think Fujise wouldn’t be able to do it even if she followed the recipe normally?”

“Yeah, I guess. I think when I first started teaching Shiho, I was looking at the recipe as I went along. Maybe even then, I was verbally explaining things a bit too fast.”

Sei-chan had tried using a recipe with Fujise before, but she didn’t seem to pay much attention to it back then. 

“In the beginning, she was holding the knife as if she wanted to stab someone, I had to try my best to fix that quirk of hers.”

“Y-Yeah.”

What kind of way was she even holding the knife if it looked like she wanted to stab someone…?

She was holding the knife backhandedly today, was there any way it was even worse than that?

Did she hold two in her hand and one in her mouth?

That would be a completely different manga in that case. [ED: Possibly a one piece reference? Refers to the character Zoro who fights like that if that’s the case.]

“Because of that, I didn’t think she would be able to do it with just a recipe. Haah, what I did was really…”

Ah, Sei-chan self-destructed again.

When we were with everyone she tried to hide her depressive state, but now that it’s just the two of us, she isn’t hiding her depressive and gloomy mode anymore.

In the manga, there would probably be a “doyon” sound effect on top of Sei-chan’s head.

It was a rare sight to see Sei-chan so depressed.

If your lovely girlfriend is depressed, it’s natural to cheer her up.

“What you did wasn’t meaningless, I think Fujise is grateful for that too.”

“She might thank me because she is kind, but I didn’t teach her anything. I couldn’t have even told her to just look at a recipe like Tsukasa said.”

“No, no. I didn’t do anything noteworthy.”

“Well, I guess that means I was no more useful than that not-so-important thing.”

Un, being depressed is surprisingly annoying!

She said that in a sarcastic tone, which is also a rare sight to see.

I haven’t seen this in the original manga.

I guess it’s a weakness that I’m in love with her, but I find that part of hers cute too.

“Ah… sorry, I said something sarcastic. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”

She seems to realise her words contained some thorns in it so she looked down and apologised.

As for me, I don’t mind at all. Rather. I’m happy to see Sei-chan act like that in front of me.

The air was heavier than ever.

It was really rare for Sei-chan to be so depressed.

Even in the original story, It was hard to see her so depressed at all.

If you do see it though… It was heavily related to Fujise’s cooking. Fujise’s cooking skill never improved no matter how much she tried to do so.

Even then, it was the “I’m helpless” kind of depression. 

Perhaps Sei-chan wanted to be useful to her best friend Fujise,

However, she was depressed because she wasn’t that useful in the original story. But now she’s more depressed over the fact that she made her do something useless all this while.

Right next to me. Sei-chan looked depressed at my earlier comment.

I’m getting a little nervous trying to cheer up Sei-chan like this.

I put my right hand, which was trembling gently on Sei-chan’s head.

“…!”

“I don’t care about what happened earlier. I think you really did your best Sei-chan.”

Sei-chan looked up at me with surprise.

I stroked Sei-chan’s hair gently to hide my embarrassment as I continued.

“If you hadn’t taught Fujise the basics of cooking, today’s dish would have been even more difficult to prepare, and I think that would have been a bigger problem than just following the recipe.”

“N-No, that…”

“Fujise could only cook now because Sei-chan taught her the basics.”

I continued to pat her, telling her what I thought in the process.

I’ve only done this to Rinke but I think she would be happy with this too.

With my limited amount of experience, this was the only act of comfort I could think of.

But even now, I’m still insanely nervous about actually doing it.

I mean, Sei-chan’s hair is so soft and silky, it’s just amazing. I don’t have enough vocabulary to describe how good it is.

Although I pat Rinke roughly sometimes, there was no way I could do that right now.

Sei-chan looked at me with a surprised look on her face. Then quickly looked back down again.

Only the side of her face and ears were visible, but I could clearly see that her entire face was completely red.

Wait… Could it be that Sei-chan doesn’t like being stroked on the head? [TLN: You idiot.] [ED: Amazing.]

Not all girls like being stroked on the head after all.

Besides, I heard that a girl’s hair is like another strand of life to them, and I’m sure she values her hair much more than me.

I TOUCHED HER HAIR WITHOUT HER PERMISSION!!

“Ah, Uh, I’m sorry Sei-chan.”

“Eh? Ah..?”

I pulled my hand away from Sei-chan as the blood rushed to my face.

“I’m sorry for touching you out of the blue, But I really meant what I said earlier.”

“Ehh..? W-Well, I’m sorry. I was a little surprised and didn’t hear what you said back then.”

“Ah, I’m saying that it was not a waste of time, because I think the success of this project was due to the fact that Sei-chan taught Fujise the basics of cooking.”

“O-Oh, Thank you.”

“Y-You’re welcome.”

Oh no, the air got awkward now.

I made the mistake of patting her after all.

And Sei-chan was so surprised by it that she didn’t seem to hear a word I said at all.

But Sei-chan’s mood is getting better and better. Wait, it’s getting better?

W-Well, she’s no longer depressed, so I guess it’s all good.

If I didn’t truly think about what I said, I don’t think I would have been able to pull it off.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to look for that bento box now.”

“Y-Yeah, I guess so.”

Sei-chan and I then began to search for our lunch boxes, although the atmosphere was a bit awkward in the process.