587Foreword: Hello. This chapter was made possible by Daylight Savings Time, giving me that extra bit of oomph and time needed to bang it out before I had to go to sleep.
Timestamp: This one happens about 1 month after the last chapter, or 3 months after the end of V1C10.5.
Chapter 2
As he's caught up in the moment, Hikigaya Hachiman reminisces.
"GYAHHHHHH?!" I looked up from the book I was reading as a deafening screech erupted from the other room. Maybe it was more accurate to call it a yowl, since I recognized Rollo's voice. "This… how can this be?! You're… you're cheating, nya!"
"This is…" It wasn't often that Lyon was surprised, but this time I could audibly hear the shock in her voice.
There was an even quieter voice that sounded like the person was mumbling facedown into the table. Anya. "She's always been like this, nya… once she learned how to play, it was already over for us, nya…"
It was another day at the Hostess, and so the girls were playing poker out in the tavern's dining area again before the dinner shift started. This time, it wasn't just May and Anya who were playing with Flova; Rollo and Lyon had been dragged into the game as well.
"I… I refuse to accept this!" The desperation in Rollo's voice was even more apparent than when she had first been conscripted into the Hostess by Mia. "You can't keep getting away with this, nya… ! I'll find out just how you're cheating and expose you, nya!"
"My, my, Chloe-san. With that kind of talk, it just makes you seem like nothing but a sore loser." Even though it wasn't directed at me, Flova's voice was saccharine enough to make me shudder, because I could hear the thinly-veiled poison in her words.
There was a thud as someone (presumably Anya or Rollo) fell to the floor. "Is there anything we can do against her, nya… ?" Yeah, that was Rollo mumbling into the tavern's floorboards.
"Not really, nya. Syr's just like a witch, nya. She hasn't lost a poker game since–" Anya cut herself off, and there were the sounds of a chair scraping back and rapid footsteps before the door to the kitchen slammed open and the brown-haired catgirl burst in. "Hikinya!"
I kept my eyes focused on the book, idly flipping to the next page as if I hadn't heard her. Unfortunately, ignoring Anya was like ignoring my problems: just because I did so didn't make them actually go away.
"Hikinya! We call upon you to avenge us, nya!" In the end, I was forced to acknowledge her presence and look at her.
Behind Anya, I could see Rollo, prone on the floor with 5 cards clutched in her hands as she gave a vacant look in my general direction. Above Rollo was Lyon, who was sitting at the table and blankly staring at the mountain of chips Flova was sitting behind. "What're you calling him in for, Anya? Does he even play poker, nya…?"
"Oh, right! You don't know this, but he beat Syr in a poker game the first time they played, nya!"
" "He did?!" " Both Rollo and Lyon's voices echoed out in unison, and I watched as the elf snapped her attention to me and Rollo's gaze sharpened. Was it really all that surprising?
Around them, Anya and the other various staff members began chiming in.
"He absolutely crushed her, nya!" That was true.
"Yep, Hikigaya beat her in that poker game." Very accurate.
"His dead eyes of fish vanquished the evil witch!" Hey, that one's just rude.
"Ugh…" Flova's smile faltered, transforming into a sulk. "You didn't have to embarrass me like that, Anya-san!"
"Mya-ha-ha, serves you right, nya! That's what a witch like you deserves, nya!" As she laughed, I watched as Anya turned to me. "Avenge your great senpai, Hikinya!"
"Please!" All of a sudden, there was a green blur before Rollo was standing right next to Anya, holding onto my hands with a frenzied look in her eyes. "If you beat Syr, I'll do anything you want, nya! You're an adventurer, right? You like poison? I can give you some poisons that'll really be of use to you, nya!" Just what was this catgirl saying… ?
"Not interested." I ignored their pleas as I stepped back and made to shut the door, but a hand reached out and stopped it from closing.
"What's this? Are you scared, Hikigaya-san?" Flova had recovered from her earlier humiliation and was now sporting a coy smile on her face as she stood in front of the two catgirls, facing me directly. "Not confident that you might be able to win this time?"
In response, I simply stared at her. "Cheap provocations like that won't work on me, Flova." After all, try as she might pretend, she wasn't the one negotiating from a position of strength. And the reason for thatwas because between the two of us, only one person actually wanted to play against me. And it wasn't me.
We held our staring contest for a few more seconds before Flova caved. "Argh! Fine, you're right! Please, Hikigaya-san! I'm begging you, just let me play one more game against you! I swear I'll win this time!"
"Not good enough." I refused her offer instantly, because that was always how casinos and gacha games got you. They lured you in with the promises of 'just one more, it's just one more, what harm could one more be?' before sucking you into the daily grind with, no chances to escape.
At this point, Flova literally had her hands clapped together in prayer and was bent over in a perfect 90-degree bow at the waist towards me. "Please! Just one game! I'll do anything! I'll buy you something nice at the market next time! I'll cook up something delicious for you! I'll literally pay you, so please, just play one game with me!"
Around me, the other staff members began to murmur as they watched Flova plead with me.
"Wow, he's actually making her beg… I never thought that this would happen..." One of the staff members hummed in appreciation.
"This is beautiful. I'm engraving this moment into my memory forever, nya…" Rollo was fake-wiping a tear away from her eye.
"That's him! He's a demon, our Hikinya!" Why are you puffing out your chest and saying that with a prideful voice, Anya? You realize that's not a compliment, right?
As Flova made increasingly more and more desperate demands, something caught my attention. "Wait. Did you just say that you'd take my shift of the dishwashing duties for a week?"
Flova froze. Then, she nodded. "Would you play a game with me if you did that?"
I didn't even hesitate. "Yes." To work was to lose, after all. And even if Flova won, that still meant I wouldn't be doing dishwashing duties, which meant that in turn, I had won. All I had to do was throw the game once the deal was settled–
"Oh, but! But!" Flova held up a hand. "You have to actually try to win, okay, Hikigaya-san? You're not allowed to throw the game just to get out of dishwashing duties!"
"... I definitely wasn't going to do that." I responded while keeping my face as blank as possible. Damn, I can't believe she saw through me like that.
We shook on it, and I sat down at the table with everyone else, picking up the cards that Rollo dealt out to me. Two 9s, a Jack, a 7, and a 5. As I traded in the 7 and 5, I quickly glanced at what everyone else was doing.
Flova had a smile on her face, eyes shimmering silver in the light as she fanned her cards in front of her and stared right back. Anya was staring at her cards with intense concentration, and I could hear her tail swishing back and forth on the chair. Rollo… to say that she had a bad poker face was an understatement. She looked as if she had just been forced to swallow a cabbage whole as she held her cards in front of her. Lyon, meanwhile, was the complete opposite; using her kuudere abilities to the fullest, she had the blankest expression out of anyone at the table.
In exchange for my original cards, Rollo passed back another Jack and a 3.
"Raise 50, nya!" Anya was the first to proclaim, and the rest of us followed in unison. When it went to Flova, however, she smiled and shoved in half of her chips.
"Raise 500." At her proclamation, the entire table went silent. Flova smiled apologetically. "It does seem quite a bit targeted, but… Hikigaya-san, are you gonna call? I might have a 2-pair, you know…"
I stared at her. This could've be a bluff, but it felt too obvious for that. I myself had a two-pair, Jacks over 9s, which would require either Queens, Kings, or Aces to beat; statistically, it was a fairly good hand, all things considered. "Sure. Call." I pushed in half of my chips as well.
"Tch… you're all just messing with me, aren't nya?! Fine! If you wanna bluff, I can do it too, nya!" Rollo pushed in her chips as well. Everyone else folded, and I was left to stare down Flova as Rollo threw her cards down, revealing a pair of 5s.
"It… it wasn't a bluff, nya?!" The catgirl was aghast as I flipped my hand over to reveal my 2-pair.
"Geh… I overestimated my hand…!" Flova tsk'd as she flipped her hand over to reveal a 2-pair of her own, 10s and 7s, leaving me to scoop up 1000 additional chips and add it to my pile.
The next round started, and to my surprise, Flova pushed half of her own chips into the ring again. "Raise 250." Either she was very confident, or she had gotten even luckier than before. I looked at my own hand–nothing good–and promptly folded.
"F-Fold, nya…" Rollo shook her head as she despondently tossed her cards towards the center of the table.
"I'll take you up on that, nya!" Anya, on the other hand, was full of confidence. Her confidence was immediately crushed into smithereens, however, when she, Flova, and Lyon faced off against Flova's 3-of-a-kind.
Several more rounds passed like this, until it was just Flova, Lyon, and me remaining at the table. Rollo had been the first to get eliminated; for someone who was a master assassin, she wasn't very good at hiding her emotions. Or maybe it was a sign of how much she had relaxed now, in comparison to a few months ago.
Anya, May, and the other staff members had done their best to hang on, but had ended up falling for some of Flova's traps, confidently betting their hands and raising to pressure Flova before she turned the tables by revealing her much higher hands, eliminating them one by one.
Out of the 3 of us, Lyon had the smallest pile, Flova the largest, and me in-between. I had managed to win a few of the smaller pots with better hands, while Lyon's pile had been gradually shaved down as she had been forced to fold or had lost bets to either me or Flova. She won every so often as well, like me, but from what I could tell, she raised or folded purely based on her own hand and the chances that someone could beat that.
Flova, on the other hand, did what she normally did and pushed both me and Lyon into a corner using psychological warfare. Somehow, she was playing even better than the last time I had seen her. Every time I raised with a strong hand, she would back down, while every time I bluffed, she would respond. Not even Hachiman 108: False Communication was working on her. It was as if she had suddenly acquired a complete and absolute immunity to it.
But that didn't let her achieve a decisive win, either. Her luck wasn't nearly good enough for that, and so we traded chips back and forth for several more rounds, neither of us able to gain an advantage over the other as Lyon won a few rounds as well.
It was looking more and more like a 3-way tie, but before I could say anything, we were interrupted by the sound of footsteps before Mia appeared in the doorway.
"M-Mama, nya?!" Anya stiffened like she had just gotten shot while Rollo, May, and the other staff that were still watching snapped to attention as Mia's figure cast a long shadow in the doorway.
"It wasn't us, nya!" The sheen of sweat on Rollo's face were visible as she put her hands up in supplication. "It was totally Syr, Ryuu, and Hikigaya's idea to play poker, nya!" Selling us out like that? Not very nice of you, Rollo. At least have the decency to exclude the victim from the situation. And by 'victim', of course, I mean me. Come on, I'm totally getting framed here.
"Hmph." In response to Rollo's blatant lie, the dwarf only snorted imperiously and crossed her arms. Thankfully, she didn't make any motions to crack her knuckles or crack heads with said knuckles. "Listen up, y'all." Oh, this was actually an announcement. "I'll be on a business trip for the next coupla' days. Tavern'll be closed during that time, so consider it some impromptu days off."
" " " "D-days off, nya?!" " " " Every catgirl in the Hostess's staff looked like they had each just inhaled an entire bag of catnip.
"But." Mia held up a finger. "But." The simple repetition of that word was enough to make everyone freeze before their excitement could leak through. "If I come back to find anything, and I mean anything broken… y'all best be prepared to handle the consequences." The threatening tone in her voice was enough to make Lyon shudder, Anya wince, and Rollo let out a tiny mewl in fear. Clearly, the incident from a few months ago hadn't been forgotten.
"Aside from that, if any y'all are interested in putting those days off to good use, here's somethin' for ya to chew on." Mia's hands uncrossed and she pointed at the menu that hung behind the bar. "See that empty spot on there at the bottom?" At our collective nod, she continued. "Holiday season'll be here soon. It'd be good if we could get something new and interesting to premiere at that time to draw in more customers."
Oh, so it was a cooking competition.
"Now, I know some of y'all in here probably don't know how ta cook. That's fine. But if you manage to come up with something anyways and you need it might work, talk to me and I'll do what I can." Then the dwarf grinned. It was not a happy smile, but rather a vicious one. "And if yer curious about incentive… how does having the rest of the week off sound?"
At that, everyone in the tavern straightened. I understood them completely. To work was to lose, after all. And to have work off, during the holiday season? That would have to be one of the biggest wins I'd ever had a chance of getting after coming to this world.
Mia sure knew how to get people motivated.
~~This is a Line Break~~
In hindsight, maybe Mia was too good at motivating people. After all, that competition was probably the reason why, walking into the Hostess after coming back from the Dungeon today, I found a disaster that would've driven her into a rage, ending with everyone in the staff dead, me included.
"..." I narrowed my eyes at the form prone by the kitchen's door, which was emitting a suspicious amount of black smoke, and revised my initial assessment. Forget Mia, there was already someone dead by the door.
Rollo was laying complete facedown in a sprawl across the kitchen's doorway, one arm outstretched and pointing towards the door. There was a message in red, clearly written by Rollo as it trailed off and ended near her finger. Not blood; the consistency and color weren't quite right. Ketchup.
"The witch did it, nya…" was what the message said. The written "nya" felt gratuitous, but at least now I knew who was in the kitchen, and who I could blame for this mess if Mia found out.
At least Rollo would (probably?) be spared from Mia's wrath, since she was clearly a victim of circumstance, whatever those circumstances were. Carefully stepping around the catgirl's body, I took a deep breath, opened the door to the kitchen, and stepped in.
The first thing that hit me was the acrid, bitter smell of something that had clearly been burned to a black crisp. It reminded me of the bodies that were sometimes recovered from the Dungeon from parties that had been wiped out by Infant Dragons or Hell Hounds on the Middle Floors.
The next thing… well, I didn't know what to expect, but it sure wasn't the sight of Flova, panickedly fiddling with the stove where on top, there was a pan of something smoking ominously–probably where the smoke was coming from. Behind her was Lyon, who was holding a wide variety of ingredients in her hands with her characteristically blank expression.
I tried my best to suppress a cough, but it burst out of me anyways as I crossed the room, reaching up to open the kitchen's windows. How hadn't they thought of that?
"Hikigaya-san?!" Flova shot up from where she was bent over with an expression of surprise. Unfortunately for her, the moment of distraction was fatal; the pan on top of the stove burst into flames. "Agh?! It's on–Ryuu, the extinguisher!"
There was a blur as Lyon vanished, the ingredients that were previously in her hands wobbling as they were left on the counter before she rematerialized with a fire extinguisher in her hands, pointing the hose at Flova before triggering the release.
Foam sprayed outwards, engulfing not only the pan, but Flova and the stove as well.
"Only for a moment, Ryuu! Only hold it for AGHMMmmmfff…" Flova's cry of protest was drowned out as she was literally smothered by a wave of white foam, which hissed as it put out the flames.
It took a moment for Lyon to towel off Flova, mumbling that she always took things too far as she did so before the elf got to work wiping off the stove as well. The pan was tossed into the sink as something to deal with later.
"Haha… sorry you had to see that, Hikigaya-san…" Flova scratched her head sheepishly as she gave an awkward laugh and looked off to the side, embarrassment coloring her face.
I wasn't an idiot, of course. I knew exactly what was going on. Flova was obviously trying to make something that would get her into Mia's books and let her have the rest of the week. The only problem was that she was failing miserably.
With a start, I realized that there was something else smoking ominously inside of the kitchen. It seemed that Flova hadn't only been using the stove. "Flova, the oven."
"Ah! The pie!" With a startle, Flova jolted into action, frantically looking around the haphazard kitchen area for oven mitts before Lyon cut to the chase by opening the oven, snatching the tray out and placing it on the counter barehanded. "Th-thanks, Ryuu."
"Don't worry about it," the elf stated. "It was nothing." From the looks of it, it really wasn't anything. Her hands weren't even slightly burned. That was a Level 4 for you.
"Well, the pie's done!" Flova smiled and clapped her hands together. It didn't look half-bad; it was slightly blackened at the edges, but if you cut those out it really didn't look like anything had gone wrong.
Then Flova cut it open, and I was forced to reevaluate my opinion. I wasn't sure what kind of pie it was supposed to be, but I knew one thing for sure: this was definitely not a pie anyone would've wanted to eat.
"Do you two want to help me give it a taste-test?" Flova looked at us. "Give it a bite, let me know what you think?"
"I'll pass," I said at the same time as Lyon responded with "Alright." I watched as the elf took a bite of the slice Flova cut out and immediately died inside. I watched as she listlessly chewed once, twice, and then swallowed. As she did so, her blank expression deadened into a soulless stare; I could tell the difference, and in this case, Lyon was deader than dead.
"So? What do you think?" Flova was looking at Lyon with hopeful eyes, but I knew where this was going.
"Syr. Please never cook again." At that, a sudden wave of deja vu rose up inside of me. For a brief moment, I was reminded of cookies that were more charcoal than cookie.
This really was Yuigahama in the Kitchen, Part 2.
"That's so mean, Ryuu!" Flova wailed. "Why would you be so cruel to me?! What if I had some sort of hidden talent that was buried forever because of this?!" She turned to me hopefully, but all I could do was stare back. I don't know what you were expecting, Flova, but if Lyon wasn't helping you, I don't know why you think I would.
But since she had turned to me, I decided to land the finishing blow. With a gently patronizing shake of the head, I gave her the type of smile I usually reserved for Zaimokuza and his manuscripts. "Sometimes, Flova, it's better to keep your hidden talents hidden."
"Ghrk!" Flova recoiled from that verbal blow, backing up several steps. Critical Hit! It's super effective!
The only upside to this was that Flova didn't have the same problem Yuigahama did. However, that was the main crux of the problem: she didn't have the same problem Yuigahama did. This wasn't a case of changing perspective and appealing to emotions. Flova wasn't a high-school girl in love making food for her crush to reciprocate her advances. What she wanted was 3 days of break, and for that to happen her food needed to pass an objective threshold of judgement–at least, as objective as Mia could be. Which was 'pretty objective', considering that she was the primary cook in the kitchen and had created every single item on the menu from scratch.
Efforts didn't matter here. Only results. And Flova's results weren't even close to good enough.
There was a bam as the door to the Hostess opened and footsteps trundled in, along with the sound of uniquely off-key humming that could've only been Anya. "What's this, nya? 'The… witch… did… it… nya…'? Ack, what is this horrible smell, nya?!"
The 3 of us turned to watch as the kitchen door opened and Anya stepped in, only to actually yowl and recoil backwards with a hiss before putting a hand to her nose. "What is that, nya?!" Her eyes rapidly flicked through the room, from me, to Lyon, to Flova, before resettling back on me. "Hikinya, what did you do?!"
"Oi. Why did you default to me? What makes you think that I did this?" I pointed at Flova. "This was all her." Next to me, Lyon nodded.
"It was, nya?" At our collective nods, a wide smile crept up over Anya's face. "Really now, nya?" She looked like the cat that had just eaten the canary. "So there are some things that even Syr can't do properly, huh, nya? Ha! Serves you right, nya!"
"Mouuu…" Flova pouted. There was even some cheek-puffing included. "I'll show you! I'll prove that I can cook to all of you!"
"Please don't." I deadpanned. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Lyon inclined her head in the tiniest of nods. See, look, even Lyon agreed with me.
"It's not like you have a right to talk, Hikigaya!" Flova jabbed a finger at me. Huh, she actually removed the -san for once. "You can't cook either!"
"Actually, I can." Just because you can't doesn't mean you should lump the rest of us in with you, Flova.
" "YOU CAN?!" " Flova and Anya's shared response had me raising my eyebrows.
"That's just rude. My level of cooking is college-class, you know?" Of course, when I said 'college-class' I meant that I could cook about as much as the average college student–which is to say, knowing how to heat up water for cup ramen and some basic dishes that were cheap and nutritious. Outside of that, I also knew how to make a mean curry, too.
Having parents who were never at home paid off sometimes, I guess. Of course, I could never stack up to Komachi when it came to cooking; there was a reason she always filled in for a larger portion of the cooking than I did.
Komachi. The thought made me still.
Komachi, waiting for an older brother that would never return home. Komachi, cooking for herself and only herself, now. It had almost been a year since I had woken up in Orario. She would've turned 15 by now, wouldn't she?
I wasn't sure what kind of expression I was making, but the room was silent for a few moments. No one said anything, not until Anya suddenly shoved her way to the front, a cocky smile plastered on her face.
"Well, I won't lose to you, Hikinya! You might think you have an advantage with your skills, but your great senpai will show you just how lacking you are in comparison to me, nya!" This catgirl… she was better at reading the room than the klutz she always seemed to be, or that I gave credit for.
"If you say so, Anya." The words came out reflexively, and I let them as I regained a semblance of composure. "I've got some business at the Guild, so I'll see you all in a bit." Before anyone could say anything aside from a "Goodbye" from Anya and a "See you later" from Flova, I had already ducked back out the door from the kitchen.
I blew out a long breath as I left the Hostess and began walking down the street, letting my feet take me wherever.
I didn't actually have any business at the Guild, of course. That had been a flimsy excuse, and the fact that everyone in the kitchen had let it remain as such was something I would probably appreciate later. I couldn't find it in myself to care right now, though.
My head felt all jumbled. I hadn't expected to be reminded of not only Sobu, but home, and in such unexpected ways as well. There wasn't anything I could do about it. You could only do your best to stop thinking about it before you inevitably began to do so, before you invariably slipped into a familiar pattern of thought that would lead you back to where you came from. It would pass, of course; it always did.
But even so, at that moment, I would've done anything but be reminded of how far away I was from home.
Letting both my thoughts and my feet wander, I eventually found myself amidst one of Orario's many markets. Stalls lined the streets, selling vegetables, rice, bread, fruits, and all sorts of other foods.
Walking through the markets and slowly looking over the products each stall was selling, I let out a quiet sigh as I forced myself to focus. There wasn't much I could do about that feeling of melancholy right now. So it was probably better to focus and prioritize something else–in this case, that 'something else' being what I would do for Mia's unofficial competition.
Curry wasn't going to work. Despite my skills with it, that required curry blocks, which didn't exist in this world. I didn't know how to make the roux, and I definitely didn't have time to find how to do so in 3 days.
Hayashi was a no-go, too, for reasons aside from the first. Most notably, Mia already had a beef stew on the menu that was pretty much the same thing, and when I said 'pretty much' that meant I couldn't taste the difference between what she had made and what I remembered hayashi tasting like. It was one of those perks of being in an isekai setting, where Western foods and customs were literally reflavored to meet Japanese culinary sensibilities–at least, that was my guess as to why Mia's beef stew so strongly resembled hayashi, despite Western beef stew probably tasting entirely different from it.
The point was that both of those options were out. I wouldn't be able to make either of them, and any other ideas I had were too complicated for me to figure out.
I passed by a butcher's stall, where several choice cuts of meat were hanging, and paused.
–No. There was still one idea that could work.
~~This is a Line Break~~
2 days later, I was inside of the kitchen. Anya and the others were in the building's dining area, having already drunken and partied themselves into a stupor, so it was just me inside of the kitchen.
The first thing to do was to make sure I had all of the necessary ingredients, and I laid them out on the counter one by one. There was the cut of pork I had bought from the butcher's stall at the market, potatoes, onions, carrots, soy sauce, sake, sugar, mirin, and dashi.
For the mirin, I had resorted to asking the owner of the ramen stall Hackard had found where to buy it, and then at the Japanese foodstuffs stall, I had ended up shelling out a fair amount of money for a standard dashi recipe, as well as the prerequisite ingredients needed and made it yesterday. The entire process had taken me the better part of yesterday, but it had ended up being worth it, because now I had all the supplies I needed.
Outside of curry and hayashi, I wasn't good at making many other things. Fortunately, nikujaga was something I knew very well. It was even a winter dish, made to warm you up during the long snowy evenings.
I wouldn't be following the recipe to the letter, of course; it wasn't like I had perfectly memorized all of the measurements and amounts needed for the recipe. But I had been working in Mia's kitchen, which had developed my skills in cooking in a way that the old me couldn't have imagined. So instead of relying on a recipe, I would rely on the skills and experiences I had developed in Mia's kitchen and combine that with what I remembered to create this.
With that, I got to work.
Placing a pan on the stove, I heated it up, adding some oil before leaving the pan on the stove and returning my attention to the meat. It would take a while for it to heat up, and I knew that in that period of time I could definitely prep the meat and the other ingredients.
First things first was the meat. It didn't take long before I had finished slicing the entire chunk of pork into thin strips; barely 30 seconds had passed, and I hadn't even been concentrating all that hard, either.
It shouldn't have been shocking, but somehow I still found myself pleasantly surprised by just how useful the Falna was; simply by enhancing my physical abilities, I wasn't just better at fighting, but a wide variety of other activities as well. It compensated for my (relative) lack of skill by simply making me outright better than those people physically.
After the meat, I took the time to wash both the knife and my hands in the sink–Mia had drilled kitchen safety into me on my first day as an actual kitchen assistant–before moving onto the potatoes and dicing them into roughly-even blocks. The carrots quickly followed, and I turned before I started on the onions to hold my hand above the pan and check whether it was hot enough yet.
It seemed hot enough, so I threw in the slices of meat alongside two spoonfuls of sugar before stirring it around to mix things up evenly and letting it sit as I returned to the onions, turning back every so often to poke at it and make sure that the meat wasn't getting burned–I was not about to make the same mistakes Flova had.
Once the onions were finished, I returned my attention to the meat, which was slowly browning as it sizzled in the pan. I chased it around the pan with my spatula for a few more seconds until it looked edible enough–that is to say, where it looked like that one British chef wouldn't suddenly burst into the room and start screaming at me–before adding in the vegetables and letting it sit for awhile as I went to put the dashi on another part of the stove and heat it up. It wasn't long before the pot of soup was boiling at an almost merry pace.
Once the meat and vegetables were finished cooking, I emptied everything into the dashi pot, adding in variously guesstimated amounts of mirin, soy sauce, and sake before thoroughly mixing everything up, turning the heat to a low simmer, and covering the pot with a lid.
Now, the only thing left to do was wait.
Leaning back against the rest bench, I busied myself with reading one of the many books I had borrowed from the Guild about the Dungeon. About 20 minutes in, however, there was a creak as the door to the kitchen opened, and I looked up from my book to see Lyon standing there.
"Yo." In response, the elf nodded in greeting, before her eyes scanned the room and rested on the pot that was sitting on the stove. She was carrying a stack of dirty plates in her hands, which she promptly placed in the sink.
"So this is your attempt at Mia's competition." Lyon put a hand to her chin, as if looking for the words to say. "Well, it seems more respectable than Syr's, at any rate." Comparing my skills to Flova's? That was just insulting, Lyon.
The elf didn't say anything else, but there were the faintest traces of a smile on her face as she looked at something behind me, and I followed her line of sight to the kitchen's open doorway.
Looking through, I could see the other members of the staff huddled together, clearly asleep in a large pile. Anya was cuddled up in a ball, her tail entwined around Rollo's while her arms were wrapped around Flova's midsection. For her part, Flova was laying in an undignified sprawl on the floor, drool forming a puddle on the side of her face. All of them were covered with blankets, evidently Lyon's handiwork from how she was the only one still awake.
"They all fell asleep, just like that. Even Chloe and Syr, despite how they normally are." The elf shook her head, almost in disbelief even as that smile danced at the edge of her lips. In response, I shrugged; there wasn't much to say about that.
Time passed in companionable silence as I read from my book and Lyon bustled around the tavern, washing the dirty dishes that Anya and the others had used and rearranging the displaced furniture of the tavern. Slowly but surely, the smell of nikujaga wafting from the pot grew stronger and stronger, the scent of the soy sauce, onions, and dashi mixing in harmoniously with the scent of the meat.
I looked away from my book every so often to poke at the potatoes, but they hadn't softened yet, and I would inevitably be forced to put the lid back on and wait. But finally, after about 10 more minutes of waiting, I found myself greeted by the sight of a potato chunk that easily accepted the fork that pierced through it.
My nikujaga was finished. The only thing left to do was to give it a try.
I scooped up enough for a bowl before giving it a try. The meat, onions, potatoes, and other vegetables had been stir-fried to near-perfection. I had seemingly gone slightly overboard with the sugar–it was definitely sweeter than what I was used to–but the sweetness didn't overpower the umami of the meat or the taste of the onions, so I could overlook that. It was good. It wasn't great, but that was fine.
Of course, my own perspective wasn't enough. Thankfully, I had someone else next to me. "Lyon." From the work bench we had been sharing, the elf looked up. "Do you mind giving this a try?" She walked over, easily accepting the bowl I offered to her before taking a few bites of the pork, the potatoes, and the various other vegetables and nodding.
"It's good." Her straightforward response was expected, even if the praise wasn't, and I gestured at her to elaborate. "It's filling and flavorful, but it's not so strong so as to leave a bad taste in your mouth when you're done. I think the sweetness of the dish serves as a good contrast to other items on the menu, meaning that it can stand out from what Mama Mia has created, while still being similar enough in principle to most of the other hot dishes on our menu to be accepted. You did a good job with this, Hikigaya."
"Thanks." Lyon's bluntness meant that while she sometimes came off as awkward or even standoffish, she really did give her honest opinions when asked. A compliment was a compliment–nothing more and nothing less.
"Wow, that smells really good~~" There was a yawn and the sound of footsteps, and we turned to watch Flova walk through the door, stretching with hands thrust to either side. However, her expression transformed into one of surprise as she took in the scene, letting out a squawk. "Wait, Ryuu, you can cook?! You've been holding out on me this entire time?!" And what am I, Flova? Chopped liver?
"Hikigaya made this. I was simply giving him my honest opinion after taste-testing it." Lyon's answer only succeeded in making Flova turn towards me with an accusing gaze, which was completely unwarranted.
"So you really weren't lying?!"
"..." I had nothing to say. "Why would I lie about something like this?"
"Erm… ehehe…" Flova scratched her head for a few seconds with an awkward laugh, before ultimately ignoring the question and surging forward. "Well, now I have to taste it and see just how good you are myself!" Grabbing the bowl from Lyon's hands, she took a bite of it, eyes widening in surprise. "Wait… this is good? This is unexpectedly, actually, reallygood?!"
She took another bite, and then another, and before I could really process it, Flova had finished off the entire bowl of nikujaga. "Wow. That was… wow." The amazement in her voice sounded gratuitous, but there wasn't any reason for her to fake it. "I apologize, Hikigaya-san. I was mistaken." Wait, what?
It was with a start that I realized that Flova was looking at me head-on. There wasn't even a trace of humor in her eyes. "I can taste the care and time you've put into this. It tastes like something from someone's home." Her eyes looked at, and then through me, almost as if she was reading me the way a god could read me. "This means a lot to you, doesn't it?"
The honesty of her words caught me off-guard. Flova was usually whimsical, playful, and devious when she wanted to be, but rarely was she actually honest. In the face of her earnestness, I found myself at a loss for words. The only thing I could do was nod.
"I see." Flova nodded. "Well… I guess I have to admit defeat this time! I don't think there's anything I have that could possibly beat that!" Despite her words, she had a wide smile on her face. "But don't worry… next time, things won't go so well for you! So you better watch out, Hikigaya-san!"
This time, I found it easier to swallow the lump that was forming in my throat. "Whatever you say, Flova." At my words, she only smiled before turning and walking away towards the kitchen's door.
"Well, in that case… I'm going to wake Anya and Chloe and everyone else up and see if we can keep going. Mama's not coming back until tomorrow morning, after all. Would be a shame to leave all that free time unspent, right?" Clapping her hands together, Flova's smile now had a slightly mischievous glint to it as she turned around, Lyon trailing behind her. "Coming, Hikigaya-san?"
"No." I didn't even bother contemplating it. I wasn't interested.
In response, Flova shrugged. "Next time, then!"
"... maybe." I knew that this kind of response only left me open to her asking again next time. It was nothing but an indulgence of her whims. I knew that her words hadn't been completely sincere, because while she had said it, she hadn't been really expecting anything to come of it.
But that was the exact reason why I couldn't bring myself to outright reject it. It was the exact kind of thing that could only be saved as a pleasant and enjoyable idea for sometime later down the line, because if I had rejected her invitation outright, I probably would've ended up thinking that it might not've been such a bad idea after all. Only by keeping it at an arm's length could I continue to avoid it and simultaneously not regret giving up on it.
It was a clumsy, contradictory, and confusing way of approaching things, but it was one of the only ways I could deal with them as I was now.
After Flova and Lyon left, I fixed myself a full bowl of nikujaga. That was dinner dealt with. The rest of it went into the refrigerator, and after cleaning up, all that was left was to walk back to my room in the other building and go to sleep.
I stepped outside of the kitchen into the courtyard, and found myself greeted by a layer of powdered white that had gently settled onto the ground. Snowflakes gently fell from the sky, landing on the ground, and the surrounding lights from the window and the street bathed the courtyard in a gentle glow.
Winter had finally come to Orario. It was the first snow I had seen since coming to this world, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.
I wondered how many more I would see before I finally returned home.
Afterword: And that's Chapter 2, folks!
Everytime I write Hikigaya and Syr squaring off in a match of poker, I think back to JoJo. If it doesn't make sense how Hikigaya managed to win against Syr the first time (that is to say, in V1C4.5), that's because Syr was relying purely on her instincts and experiences as a person, and wasn't using her abilities at the time. But this time, as Hikigaya intuits, Syr is playing perfectly to the point where it's quite sus, precisely because (though he obviously doesn't know it) she's cheating.
I unfortunately never got to put this into the chapter, and I don't think I'll ever get the chance to because Hikigaya doesn't have that kind of skill, but I really wanted to replicate the moment where Terrence D'Arby, also a reader of souls, knows Jotaro is cheating but is unable to figure out why.
In my case, it would've probably been something more like Hikigaya slipping himself some good cards every so often, and kind of just forcing Syr into a corner. She probably knows he's cheating from reading his emotions, but she wouldn't be able to prove anything because she doesn't have the ability or vision to see Hikigaya's subtle movements. In the end, the farce would've been exposed by someone with superior physical abilities–ie Chloe or Ryuu.
But I couldn't find a way to justify Hikigaya caring enough about cards to resort to cheating or even why he would have that level of skill in the first place. So it ended up on the cutting room floor, unfortunately.
Outside of that poker game, I really wanted to just poke around at Hikigaya's relationship with the Hostess's staff. I haven't had the chance to demonstrate them interacting as much in canon from Volume 2 onwards, so now's my time to fill in on these relationships!
I think having Hikigaya slide into his role kind of as the straight man to each Hostess staff member's wackiness, especially Anya and Syr's, makes for great comedy. And of course I bust out laughing when I pictured Ryuu blandly hosing Syr down with a fire extinguisher.
What's even (kind of?) better is that it's not only easy for me to do as an author, it also feels easy for Hikigaya as a character to do so. There isn't the existing prejudice against him or social awkwardness, and furthermore, since he's already post-Volume 9, it's easier for him to connect with other people than before, even if it's more superficial (or what he considers more superficial) than his relationship with the Service Club, because he spends so much time around the Hostess staff and his adventuring party.
This was a lot more complicated of a chapter than I thought, but I felt like it was necessary. It's nostalgic and sad and also heartwarming; at least, that's how I felt when I was writing it. I hope you felt that way too. I hope you enjoyed it!
See you next week!
Sincerely,
Oreo the Cookie