He gets time to cook as he's woken up after his parents left, which today was earlier than most days, as every Tuesday is when they receive fresh produce. Every day, they receive fresh food, actually. Though it's mostly meat and vegetables. However, today is when they receive the bulk of it, to prepare for the weekend.

So when they left, at 5.30 am, he got up from bed and started cooking. He has about two hours as school doesn't start until 8 am, which means has to be quick.

He hopes nothing explodes.

.

.

Nothing explodes, luckily enough. Though he's quick to find out that cooking with reishi is a great way to improve his control over it, as he needs to fine tune it in order not to make the food expire or mature, which he always has a 50/50 chance of going either way.

Still, when he's almost done with it and tastes some of the already done food (like rice), it's simply divine.

He spends an entire minute just savoring it with a silly smile, distracted. Which obviously, going by the laws of Murphy, is when someone sneaks up behind him. The chuckle he hears is a clear giveaway.

Shit.

He slowly turns around to find his mother behind him, a smirk gracing her lips.

"With that smile on your face, one could easily assume you're thinking of your crush," she says, before her gaze goes to the curry, slowly simmering on the oven. "And going on by the food you're making, it looks like you are preparing a bento to gift a lucky person. Do I need to prepare to give the shovel to talk to someone, son?"

"No, no. You're wrong, I just wanted to eat... a lot?" he stumbles over his words, lightly flustered.

She snorts. "Sure you do, kid. This is clearly for one teenager to feed and not, uh, for three adults or something? Huh. Did you get too excited with the food or do I need to research for books on how to deal with your teenage son's harem?"

"What?! Mom, no! I don't have a harem! Are you reading more of those ecchi light novels?"

"Hey, I already said I was curious about the stuff you read. It's not my fault it was really well written. Good tastes, by the way."

He groans as he covers his face with mortification. It really wasn't him who was using his computer to read ecchi, it was P-Rick. He downloaded him in there to prepare for the shinigami that would use his actual body. And P-Rick used his computer to read. Luckily, he didn't watch porn on the computer, proclaiming that his body-phone was better and quicker for the high definition videos.

Not that he was going to say that to his mother, of course.

"Mom, please. We promised to never bring that topic out again, didn't we?"

She looks around mockingly. "I don't see anyone else here to judge, or do you?"

He groans louder. "Just. Stop, please. And stop reading ecchi."

He hopes it's just ecchi and that he hasn't opened the gates for a new world to his mom. He just doesn't want to know if she's read the more R rated works out there.

"Anyway, going back to what I was saying at first, why so much food, son?" she says, walking near and taking the spoon from his hands to taste the curry. It's a so familiar gesture he doesn't stop her until he remembers the taste of the food. However, by the time he realizes his error and goes to take the spoon away, he sees her already tasting.

And yep, just as he spected. Her eyes shine and her smile grows bigger. She looks up at him with an energetic and honest grin, the one always appears when she tastes something superb.

"Son, have you been holding out on me? This is good! Who's the lucky girl? Or boy, I don't judge." She looks at the amount of food for a moment before giving him a sly glance. "Though better be careful. If it's not the harem option, don't get too over excited and cook this much unless you want to make them pass out in a food coma."

He sighs. "I don't have a crush."

"Hah! You have said nothing about the harem, though!"

"Mom, I said it already: stop reading ecchi! It's not workable at all. Harems don't work if one loves—"

"Booooooring."

A groan. "Whatever. I don't have one I'm interested in. Though, I admit I've made a couple of new friends. It's them who I wanted to share food with."

"New friends? When are you going to invite them home?" she says with a cheerful disposition, but he can easily see the relief that flashes in her eyes. After all, ever since he came to New York with his mother, he hasn't mentioned friends at all.

A thing he thinks is understandable as he has many things on his plate, but without sharing his problems with his parents, from an outside point of view, he must look like an antisocial kid who has problems with making friends.

It doesn't help that every time he has had to do team groups for some homework or another; he does it in the school library, not allowing them to visit his house.

Why he does that and doesn't invite anyone home? Well, mostly because his maternal grandmother had a rule for her children in which, unless they were sure it was going to be a permanent or long-lasting friendship/relationship, they couldn't invite anyone home.

His grandma was a pretty chill for a Japanese as she didn't care if you had lots of friends or girlfriends/boyfriends. She wasn't a prude and said everything as it was. However, she was a too sociable and loveable person. She usually got too attached too quickly and because of that, she didn't want to meet her children's friends as she knew she would be tired of loving them as their own and then having to ignore them when they eventually fought with her temperamental kids. All her children were too stubborn, so they have ended many friendships because of that.

That means the friendships Souma's mother and her siblings invited home were made in the late stage of their lives and they were really close ones. And the significant other they presented grandma was the one they were serious about, mostly just to announce their wedding.

His mother wasn't like that. She always wanted to meet his friends. However, ever since he heard the stories of his grandmother and saw how close his mother was with her friends in Japan, even with the long distance going on, he wanted to follow his grandmother's rules. His mother tried to convince him otherwise, but he was as stubborn as she was, so that, on top of the bullying he received, made him careful when choosing who to interact with.

The previous Souma was of the attitude of putting more effort into making friends when he's older. He thought his classmates, and even himself, would be more mature about life by then. For him, friendship with high schoolers would not be long lasting with how fickle they were. Though he was always polite and helpful to everyone. He was an honest, cheerful person. It's just that the bullying tempered that somewhat.

Now that he occupied the body of Souma, some things passed over, combined with Mashiro's and Pride's template. It made him change slightly. He was more confident and cheerful, but he still attained old Souma's approach to friendship and relationships.

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Thank you for your support! And if you want to give even more support and read some chapters ahead, then go to my pa_treon/JorieDS

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