Author's Note:
I seem to keep saying this with every new chapter, but this is the longest one yet.
With the atmosphere of the transition from summer to autumn in mind, this chapter is a little more subdued than the previous ones.
Which doesn't mean it is uneventful.
The opening scene of the fifth chapter in the sequel to TRTCT has been taking some time, but that is also because I spend a lot of time expanding on what happens in the future after Chibi-Usa's birth.
The recipe is not mine, obviously. But I felt it wouldn't serve any real purpose to link to the webpage since I am already trespassing on authorial rights by writing this fanfic.
I am probably wrong about that.
If you feel like trying it out, please enjoy both the results of your labor and that of the recipe's creator after enjoying the fruits of my labor.
Contrast
The weather being unusually cold for the time of year that Saturday, Makoto decided to pull a thin gray sweater over her head before leaving her apartment.
Her long powerful legs were clad in a pair of red trousers and a couple of sturdy leather boots.
Having started from home and continued her journey at a brisk pace, it didn't take the brunette long to reach her destination.
After finishing the morning's chores within the timeframe she had set for herself she was still full of vigor and entered the long two-story building where she would meet her friend intending to spend the rest of the morning watching other people work.
Upon turning into the bright white corridor in the right wing of the community center, Makoto - upon realizing there were no windows to look into the classrooms - began reading the signs on the doors she passed by.
She quickly found the sign she was looking for.
Tsukamoto Aya
Intermediate Level Painting
Makoto carefully opened the door, apprehensive of disturbing the class.
She entered a spacious classroom with high windows starting about a meter from floor level to the ceiling.
To the right was a teacher's desk and a blackboard with a few dozen desks pushed up against that side of the room.
Near the window, a small table was the focus of attention around which six people were gathered.
At the far left a slender woman of about forty was standing behind a young woman in her early thirties who was seated behind an easel.
The older woman's brown hair was tied in a bun that left a few strands dangling down a long light-green dress dotted with red roses.
The stout woman behind the easel had short wavy dark-green hair.
She wore an orange cardigan over her blue shirt and green trousers.
To the right of the pair, a tall bespectacled man in his late forties with graying dark-blue hair was working behind his easel.
Seeming gentle and wearing a slight absentminded smile he was dressed in a checkered white, beige, and orange shirt and blue jeans.
With his back to Makoto sat a short stout man with neat black hair.
It was difficult to guess his age, but the young man in the blue sweater and dark-gray trousers was in his early thirties while at times looking younger and older.
In between this man and a bespectacled chubby woman with two short blonde pigtails who wore a pink shawl around her neck and a white shirt with a red skirt sat Chibi-Usa.
Upon being noticed by the woman in the rosebush dress, Makoto bowed and opened her mouth to talk.
"You must be Kino-san?" The woman softly spoke with a bright smile.
This prompted Chibi-Usa to turn her eyes on her friend.
Makoto nodded, smiling back at the woman with the slightly wrinkled forehead and the cute crow's feet around her eyes.
"Tsukino-san told me you were interested in observing," Chibi-Usa's teacher smiled. "That's quite alright. Please, take a chair and seat yourself beside your friend.
You can talk in whispers. Welcome to my class. I am Tsukamoto Aya-sensei."
"Sorry for intruding, everyone. I am Kino Makoto-san."
"Morito Urara-san. Welcome to class, Kino-san," The woman with the dark-green short cut said upon turning toward the bowing brunette.
"Osada Yasuo. Enjoy your stay," The tall bespectacled man greeted.
"Ebihara Hifumi. Welcome."
"Kadonishi Shaiwase. Welcome."
Makoto bowed to the short man and the blonde woman before walking over to Chibi-Usa.
She noticed now that everyone was wearing slightly stained white aprons.
Some part of her felt like she was forgetting something as she came to a standstill behind her friend.
"Good morning, Mako-chan," The twelve-year-old whispered with a pleased smile as her older friend stood by her and leaned on the backrest of her chair.
"Nice to see you here."
"Hello, Chibi-Usa. Nice group you have here. Your teacher seems like a jovial lady."
"Tsukamoto sensei is a great teacher and she is great at making everyone feel at ease," The pinkette confirmed while looking up.
"I told you I was a little nervous about joining this course because I knew everyone would be so much older than me."
"I remember. You didn't feel the club at school was challenging enough for you."
"Yes. I'm so happy Rei-chan, Usagi, and Mamoru-kun convinced me to come here. Tsukamoto-sensei was very kind and everyone was very helpful.
But grab a chair, Mako-chan. I'm getting a sore neck talking to you like this."
Makoto walked over to the rows of desks at the far right of the room and took a beige wooden chair from the ones that were upturned on top of the desks.
Carrying the chair over to her friend with one hand, her eyes wandered over the desk by the side of Chibi-Usa's easel.
Covered in newspapers the desk had a wooden box on it the size of a record player.
Inside the box, about five tubes of paint and a few boxes lay by the side of a varnished wooden palette that contained a growing number of oil paint mixtures wherein Chibi-Usa dexterously dipped the pencil she was using.
Makoto sat down next to the twelve-year-old artist and watched how the pinkette with the cute pigtails that reached down to her shoulders applied the pencil to the canvas she was working on.
Against a brown backdrop and in the middle of a white square, a dark-green and a yellowish-green blob were gradually acquiring more shape as Chibi-Usa applied her brush to the pallet and then to the canvas again.
"How long have you been working on this?" Makoto asked in a whisper.
Her companion paused her brush and leaned to the left to observe the artichoke and the lemon that adorned the white cloth draped over a few blackboard wipers on the table near the window.
Then she started to focus the application of her brush on the left side of the green blob on her canvas.
"We started drawing four weeks ago and started painting last Saturday.
Tsukamoto-sensei chose Still Life Of Artichoke And Lemon by Grigor Chiltian to teach us about the application of light and shade on oil canvas.
We spend some time studying and discussing the painting and then she brought an artichoke and a lemon and tried to reproduce the setting."
"The artichoke looks quite good. Part of me wants to roast it and serve it with some udon noodles."
"They're wax reproductions obviously. Mako-chan…" Chibi-Usa grinned while glancing at her friend.
A restrained giggle from Shaiwase Kadonishi made Makoto look at the blonde woman with the two pigtails.
"Of course," The brunette laughed while rubbing the back of her neck. "I was only joking. You wouldn't use fresh vegetables for a still life if you're working on it for multiple months."
"Did you have to search long to find us?" Chibi-Usa asked while starting to ad slight strokes of dark-green paint to the side of her artichoke.
"It was easy enough to get here. After an early breakfast, I got the week's cleaning done and went grocery shopping. Then I sat down with a cup of tea to relax and got on my way with the plan you drew in hand."
"Wow! You're so industrious, Mako-chan," Makoto's pink-haired friend gushed while bringing a brush with black paint to the side of the artichoke on her canvas.
Aya Tsukamoto stealthily approached her student while staring at her work.
"Not at all," Makoto smiled not without some pride for the compliment. "Getting all the work done early I can afford to watch you at my leisure.
Do you get visitors often? Has Usagi-chan come to see your work?"
"Are you kidding me?" Chibi-Usa growled with a roll of her eyes. "You think Usagi gets out of bed this early? My lazy mother only ever gets up before ten when she's sleeping over at Mamoru…"
"Now now, Tsukino-san," Aya Tsukamoto tutted behind the pinkette. "Don't take the easy way out. You know better than that. Are the shadows behind the artichoke really black? Please blend your paint to achieve the appropriate colors."
"Héhé. Yes, Sensei," An embarrassed Chibi-Usa grinned sheepishly at the gentle scolding.
"Haha," Makoto chuckled. "Tsukamoto-sensei can be strict too, I see."
"Phuh. Usagi is still lazy for sleeping in. All I did was try to lay a black foundation instead of starting with a dark-green paint mixture for my shadows."
Makoto watched how her younger friend mixed a few colors on her palette to form a new very dark green.
Then Chibi-Usa stood up to take a good look at the artichoke on the table by the window.
Leaving his easel, Yasuo Osada slowly came over to take a look at his young friend's work. The thin and tall man with the round glasses quietly stood with his hands on his back regarding what Chibi-Usa was doing.
"Hmm… That should do it, I think," The pinkette estimated before sitting down again.
With careful strokes, she created and expanded a dark fleck on her canvas.
The fleck slowly spread out like an actual shadow would into a multi-shaded round shape.
Makoto understood what the girl's teacher had wanted her to achieve.
The shadow underneath the artichoke looked more natural than had Chibi-Usa just used black paint and added green over that color.
"Hotaru-chan regularly comes to check up on my progress," Her twelve-year-old friend said while she worked. "She brought a friend from school once too.
Rei-chan came by a few times. Haruka-kun and Michiru-chan joined Hotaru-chan that one time. Mamoru-kun promised he'd drag Usagi here next Saturday."
"That's right," Yasuo Osada chuckled. " We've had lots of visitors since Tsukino-san joined our little group. Isn't that right, Ebihara-san?"
"Tsukino-san is very popular," The short and slightly portly man with the neat black hair smiled curtly.
"Aw… Please, you're embarrassing me!" The pinkette in question loudly protested with a jittery laugh while Makoto and the two men sweatdropped at her reaction.
While Shaiwase Kadonishi and Yasuo Osada joined in with Chibi-Usa's merriment, a man and woman opened the door from the hallway and entered the classroom.
Beckoning Aya Tsukamoto toward them by their appearance and wearing rather glum expressions, the forty-somethings immediately began an apologetic narrative.
"Our apologies for intruding on your class, Tsukamoto-sensei," The confident-looking stoutly built man with the apron over his grey shirt and blue jeans trousers said.
"This is about the custard purin we said we'd make for all the students this morning on the occasion of Ikeda-sensei's birthday…"
"You see," the woman with the orange bob next to him smiled sadly. "I'm afraid we burnt the custard."
"There are bits of burn floating up in the custard," The man said. "It's a mess."
"So we're going to have to visit the supermarket nearby and just buy our purin," The woman in the white dress with a print of pink and red butterflies smiled apologetically.
"Oh," Their colleague in the rosebush dress reacted. "But you might not have to take such steps. Let me just…"
Makoto, having overheard the explanation left her seat and walked over to the trio.
"Excuse me," The brunette bowed to the visitors. "Would you object to me trying to salvage the custard purin?"
"I don't see how you can salvage that mess," The man chuckled. "Like I said: It's got bits floating in it."
"I'm confident I can not only save your custard purin," Makoto smiled. "But I will make it a success."
Aya Tsukamoto looked from one to the other of her fellow teachers with an amused smile.
"I suppose if you want to try…" The orange-haired woman in the butterfly dress shrugged and looked at her companion. "There's no harm in letting her try."
Hifumi Ebihara - who like everyone in the room overheard the conversation - regarded the door when Makoto and the two teachers left for the community center's kitchen.
"Don't worry, Ebihara-san," Chibi-Usa smiled at him. "Mako-chan is a very accomplished hobby cook."
"Yes," The portly thirty-something nodded. "We're here to relax and learn to paint. No distractions."
His pink-haired companion watched the man with the neat black hairdo sit still for a moment with his brush pointing towards the still life on the table before he applied it to his canvas again.
Then she got to work herself.
Laying the finishing touches on the shadow of her artichoke, Chibi-Usa returned to the satisfying feeling of building up the image before her.
Peacefully mixing the dark-green paint mixture on her palette into a variety of lighter shades, the young teen applied gentle licks of oil paint to the canvas with her brush.
The students in the classroom fell into a comfortable rhythm again while Aya Tsukamoto leisurely wandered from one to the other to praise or advice.
With the lulling silence reigning supreme, before she knew it, Chibi-Usa started to softly hum a soothing melody while applying the thick paint with every stroke of her brush.
Gradually Chibi-Usa became aware of the melody she was humming and recognized it as one of the songs Shingo played when he, she, and Hotaru got together in Shiba Park on Friday evening while enjoying the last of the long days of the year.
Hotaru had donated her coat to her friend when Chibi-Usa began to feel chill and took advantage of the situation to pester her boyfriend with quick hugs and kisses while he was trying to play his instrument.
The pinkette chuckled while remembering.
Once he finished the song, Shingo turned on Hotaru in mock anger and started tickling her down onto the green grass with the blackette laughing in delight until the pair ended up sharing another quick hug.
The intention of the three of them regularly appearing in public together was to get their friends accustomed to the idea of the three-way friendship so that it wouldn't feel so suspicious if Shingo visited Hotaru in the Outer's apartment or if she visited the Tsukino residence when Chibi-Usa wasn't home.
The downside was that Shingo and Hotaru couldn't engage in too much physical intimacy.
But that ended up becoming an upside, as Chibi-Usa, Hotaru, and Shingo started to get to know each other in new ways and were able to broaden their understanding of each other.
Aya Tsukamoto looked up in the direction of the door when Makoto about half an hour after having left it entered the room with a wooden plate in her hands on top of which rested seven dishes.
"Excuse me for disturbing your class once more, Tsukamoto-sensei," The brunette said with a bow of her head. "For the occasion of Ikeda-sensei's birthday, his colleagues, Yamada-sensei and Nakashima-sensei wanted to treat him, his other colleagues, and their students to a custard purin today. Would this be a good time for your students to take a break and enjoy the desserts?"
The woman who had her dark-brown hair tied up in a bun with a few loose strands smiled sagely and looked around at her students.
"I think you have come at just the right time for a short break, Kino-san. I seemed to notice some of my students losing their focus. Thanks to you, Yamada-sensei, and Nakashima-sensei for your hard work and for sharing the fruits of your labor with us. Please feel free to hand out the plates of custard purin."
One by one, Makoto served each of Aya's students, from Urara Morito and Yasuo Osada to Hifumi Ebihara and Shaiwase Kadonishi, serving Aya herself before taking her seat again next to Chibi-Usa with their own portions.
"Thank you for the food," Everyone said before taking their spoons to the caramel-covered cylinder-shaped flans.
Urara Morito and Aya Tsukamoto visibly enjoyed the dessert, audibly attesting to the fact.
Shaiwase Kadonishi was eagerly scooping up the flan, while Yaduo Osada savored the sweet treat, taking care to pair a bit of caramel to every scoop of custard.
"Kino-san?" Hifumi Ebihara spoke up while thoughtfully tasting the flan. "In what state was the custard when you found it?"
Makoto took the spoonful of custard purin she was currently tasting out of her mouth with a blank expression. Chibi-Usa also stared at the man.
"Well… It was as they told me: The custard had been made in an aluminum pot on a far too high level of heat which left the bottom burned.
They seemed not to have noticed in time and stirred some of the burned cornstarch up into the unspoiled custard.
I wondered at their story, assuming they taught cooking at this school but I found that Yamada-sensei teaches English and Nakashima-sensei is a biology teacher."
"But you found enough ingredients to cook a new custard?"
"No. I saved it," Makoto simply revealed.
The short portly man with the neat black hairdo carefully scrutinized her face.
"You saved the custard?" He almost stammered. "But why is there no bitterness?"
"For starters, the custard was still warm. So I found a sieve and pushed the mixture through two times.
Then I kept the custard on low heat au bain marie while I cooked up some vanilla honey with ingredients I found in the kitchen.
After letting both mixtures cool down I slowly spooned the honey through the custard until evenly mixed. Then I prepared the…"
"But burned custard always leaves a hint of bitterness…" Hifumi Ebihara protested. "Even if most people don't perceive it. This… this level of…"
Makoto started to become nervous as the man tasted the custard purin once more.
Again, she had the feeling she had overlooked something since entering the classroom, and getting interrogated like this brought the feeling to the fore again.
"Where did you learn to cook?" Hifumi asked the brunette.
"I… I had an aunt who always got me to cook all kinds of dishes with her whenever I stayed over when I was young.
As I grew up I became interested in learning the technical side of cooking and I started to research recipes and try them out."
"Will you cook something for me?" Hifumi inquired while squinting one eye at the sixteen-year-old.
"I don't…" Makoto stammered in turn while holding her hands up in a defensive gesture.
"Tsukamoto-sensei? Would it be alright if we make use of the kitchen?" Hifumi asked Aya. "I will reimburse the school for the produce we use of course."
"Oh! You are more than welcome, Ebihara-san," The tall slender woman said. "But you are here to unwind, remember?"
"This is much more important than that," Hifumi huffed while he left his seat.
Makoto slightly recoiled as he extended an arm towards her and showed her a pleading look.
"Will you please share an hour of your time with me, Kino-san?"
"Go on, Mako-chan!" Chibi-Usa excitedly sang. "Show Ebihara-san what you can do!"
"Is… Is this a marriage interview?" Her overwhelmed friend quietly mumbled while staring at Hifumi's outstretched hand.
Standing in the middle of a kitchen lined with aluminum cupboards and a large stove against the wall behind her and three halve-meter-long windows in the wall to her left, Makoto watched Hifumi Ebihara rummage through the pantries and then through the shelves of the large double-door refrigerator along the wall in front of her.
"He's hardly my type," The tall muscular brunette pondered out loud. "But he might have a lot going for him even if he's lacking in the looks department."
"Why do you assume someone wants to marry you when he asks you to cook for him?" A sweat-dropping Chibi-Usa asked her friend in a concerned tone of voice.
"There!" The man in question exclaimed while energetically placing another bunch of ingredients onto the large aluminum table in front of the two girls. "That should be enough."
Makoto curiously regarded the man on the other side of the table before letting her eyes wander over the produce he had gathered.
There was butter, oil, sugar, salt, ground pepper, sesame seeds, sweet soy sauce, vinegar, a pack of six eggs, garlic cloves, mustard greens, a couple of lemons, a yuzu orange and two mikan oranges, four tomatoes, the bottom end of a daikon radish, a few bottles of wine, some small glass containers filled with spices, a bunch of green onions, a few sweet onions, a bottle of cooking sake, baking flower, a few chicken drumsticks, a side of ham, other cuts of meat, a few filleted fishes, a bunch of leeks, mais, lettuce, cabbage…
"You see I'm not leaving you with a limited palette," Hifumi told Makoto with a stern expression.
"With the wide array of produce available to you on this table, I want you to cook me a satisfying lunch.
Don't try anything too fancy, but show me the best you can do."
"That sounds like something of a challenge," The brunette smirked. "And I'm always up to a challenge."
Hifumi tilted his head. Then he grinned.
"Good," He chuckled quietly. "I was hoping you'd say that."
Chibi-Usa watched how her friend pulled her gray sweater over her head and with a smart swooshing gesture… neatly folded it up on a chair.
Makoto grabbed an apron from a closet near the door and tied it around her waist.
"Do you have a time limit for me?" The smartly dressed young teen grinned at the short portly man before her.
"If you can get the meal ready before I really start getting hungry that's good enough for me," Hifumi stated with a suave shrug.
"Alright then. Let's go!"
"Do your best, Mako-chan!" Chib-Usa exclaimed to fire her friend up.
Makoto grabbed a glass bowl from one of the cupboards and poured a tablespoon and a half of Shaoxing wine, a tablespoon of water, and one teaspoon of sesame oil into it, whisking three teaspoons of cornflour, one and a half teaspoon of salt flakes, and three fourth of a teaspoon caster sugar into the bowl.
Chibi-Usa saw her friend take two skinless and pin-boned Murray cod fillets from a package on the table and place them on a cutting board where she cut them about one centimeter thick with a razor-sharp knife.
The brunette slid the fillet pieces into the marinade she made earlier and placed the bowl into the refrigerator.
Hifumi frowned as he saw Makoto taking another look at the ingredients on the table.
The tall muscular young woman took a saucepan from one of the cupboards and poured a liter of chicken stock from a brick package into the pan, adding two tablespoons of the Shaoxing wine, one tablespoon of white vinegar, and two teaspoons of caster sugar with a tablespoon of salt.
"You're going to make a dish with marinated fish and chicken stock?" Chibi-Usa frowned as she watched how her friend brought the mixture to a simmer on the gas stove.
"Or is this the basis for a soup?"
"It's a secret," Makoto winked at her.
Turning the heat down to keep the stock warm over the fire, she took ten cloves of garlic and chopped them coarsely together with forty grams of sliced ginger.
She opened a can with two-hundred grams of pickled mustard greens, rinsed them out, and chopped them up on a separate cutting board.
Then she cut a hundred grams of pickled green chilies into one-centimeter size pieces and slid them into a glass bowl.
Hifumi watched the brunette take a large wok from one of the cupboards and coat it with sixty milliliters of vegetable oil over medium heat.
"Interesting," He remarked. "I'm eating a spicy meal."
Makoto stir-fried the garlic cloves and ginger for just under two minutes until the garlic turned light-golden.
She added the mustard greens and the chilies and stir-fried them for about five minutes until they were dry and wilted.
"Can you handle the spice, Ebihara-san?" Chibi-Usa asked with a cheeky grin.
Hifumi saw how Makoto added the chicken broth from the saucepan into the wok and brought it to a simmer.
"I think I'll have to," He smiled. "I would have liked my custard purin after the main course if I knew what your friend would come up with.
But I like what I'm seeing. Kino-san seems to be able to handle herself in a kitchen when faced with a sudden commission."
The man in the blue sweater and the dark-gray trousers observed how Makoto alternately added small doses of lemon juice and salt to the broth.
The brunette tasted with a small spoon after each addition.
At last, she seemed satisfied with the flavor.
Chibi-Usa's friend took a skimmer to fish the vegetables out of the broth and place them into a serving dish before bringing the broth to a boil over medium-high heat.
As the broth started to boil, Makoto walked over to the refrigerator and brought out the marinade.
She introduced the Murray cod fillets into the wok and gently separated the fillets in the broth.
Letting the broth simmer for a short while after having added the fish, the brunette then took the wok from the fire and transferred the content to the serving dish with the vegetables.
"I hope you can take it, Ebihara-san?" Makoto asked without looking at the man. "Because I'm not done with the spices yet."
Hifumi saw her chop up some spring onion and pour it over the center of the soup with a sprinkling of coriander.
"I am expected to be able to take any kind of food," He smiled. "Although, I am far more expected to be good at accounting and organization these days.
But then, you don't get to where I am without being tolerably well-versed in both fields"
Makoto cut two-hundred grams of dried small red chilies into one-centimeter pieces while frowning at the words she just heard.
The brunette poured a hundred milliliters of vegetable oil into a new saucepan with one tablespoon of mustard oil and heated them over high heat, waiting about two minutes for the mixture to start smoking.
Next, she added the chilies and added two tablespoons of Sichuan peppercorns, which she stirred quickly for a few seconds to infuse into the oil.
"Why is that?" Makoto asked as she took the mustard-chili oil from the fire.
"Why?" Hifumi laughed. "I don't think I would have been able to get the loan to start Haru No Ike if the banks didn't think I would be able to handle the responsibility."
"Whaaaat?!"
With shocking alacrity, Hifumi Ebihara grabbed the saucepan Makoto had been carrying toward the serving dish by the handle before it fell.
The brunette leaned back against the large aluminum table behind her while clutching her chest.
"Ebihara Hifumi-san! The prodigious owner of Haru No Ike! The owner of one of Tokyo's trendiest restaurants is in my home! Ebihara Hifumi-san is in my home!"
"This is serious," Hifimu said while pouring the mustard-chili oil over two tablespoons of garlic cloves Maktoto finely chopped earlier. "She's having domiciliary delusions."
"Mako-chan?" Chibi-Usa said while gently tapping the older girl's cheek with her hand. "It's alright. I think Ebihara-san is very satisfied with you."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Makoto whined while regaining her grip on the situation.
"I thought you knew," Chibi-Usa shrugged. "I heard you talking about Haru No Ike with such praise that time we dined out for Rei-chan's birthday. I thought you'd recognize Ebihara-san's name."
"Ugh…" Makoto sighed. "I suppose I was a little too relaxed this morning."
"Haha. I won't hold it against you, Kino-san," Hifumi chuckled while he poured and stirred the mixture of mustard-chili oil and garlic cloves into the soup. "Why don't you sit with me and taste your creation."
Placing the serving dish with the soup near the corner of the table and bringing two chairs to the position, The short man with the neat black hairdo sat to the left of the bowl.
Makoto got them a spoon each and sat to the right of the man.
Sitting on a chair she grabbed earlier at the left corner from Hifumi, Chibi-Usa watched the two culinary geniuses bring the first spoonfuls of soup and fish to their lips.
Makoto smiled in relief and satisfaction as her tastebuds were layered in the aromas she had been able to stir up.
Hifumi likewise appeared content with what he was about to digest.
The man took another spoonful of the spicy soup and licked his lips.
"I'd say you adequately succeeded in your aim," The man in the blue sweater and dark-gray trousers smiled.
"Yes," Makoto smiled back at him. "I'm quite pleased with myself."
Hifumi closed his eyes and grinned.
"You do realize why I asked you to participate in this challenge?"
Makoto turned serious and bowed her head.
"While I was cooking I thought about this very seriously, Ebihara-san. While I would be honored to become your wife…"
"It's not a marriage interview!" Hifumi sweatdropped before heaving a sigh. "I am offering you an apprenticeship at Haru No Ike.
How old are you?"
"I… A… I'm sixteen years old."
"She'll turn seventeen in December," Chibi-Usa smiled. "And she's still attending high-school."
"In that case, I'll only get you on the weekends," Hifimu pondered. "How much of your free time are you ready to commit?"
"Hang on! I haven't agreed to anything yet. I'll work from ten on Saturday morning to as late as you want me on Sunday!"
"Haha. Have you eaten at Haru No Ike?" Hifumi chuckled.
"I've been twice so far," Makoto said with dreamy eyes. "The oyster mushroom I had last time was so soft and creamy. I can still taste it. The interior is so beautiful and the food is just perfect"
"I'm glad to see you are a fan. One warning: I do not tolerate trash in my kitchen. No spitting, no boorish behavior, no tough-talking.
You shower before you start your shift and you wash your hands after every single toilet visit.
If you have a problem you come to my office and we talk it over. I am very understanding but very strict.
Do we have an agreement?" The brunette's first employer asked.
"We do," Makoto said while eagerly shaking Hifumi's hand. "Thank you for this amazing opportunity, Ebihara-san. I will do as I'm told and learn anything that is taught me."
Hifumi smiled and left his seat.
"Good. You seem to have quite the potential in you, Kino-san.
Please come by the restaurant tomorrow between 14:00 and 16:00. We'll discuss your contract and other things at that time."
"Wow, Mako-chan! Well done! This is amazing!" Chibi-Usa sang.
"The two of you can have the rest of the soup. I apologize for appearing disrespectful to your cooking, Kino-san. But it's past twelve now and I have to get back to the restaurant."
Watching Hifumi Ebihara leave the kitchen, Chibi-Usa and Makoto high-fived each other.
"He seems really nice, doesn't he?" The latter remarked.
"Yes," Chibi-Usa nodded. "Ordinarily, you'd expect someone working in the culinary industry to be cold or boorish or eccentric. But Ebihara-san is just a really nice if slightly reserved person."
"Yes! I finally found someone for the kitchen who can reach the top shelves!" The two teens heard the man they were talking about shout in the hallway.
"I think we can deduce he falls in the third category then," The sweat-dropping pair concluded.