My Childhood Friend And Seasoning

According to my childhood friend:

“They say cooking is love, right? That doesn’t only mean pouring moe-moe-kyun-type feelings into it — it also means seasoning the food and planning the menu with the other person in mind.”

…Or so it goes.

Yeah, well. Being told that doesn’t make me hate cherry tomatoes any less… but I don’t have much of a choice, so ever since she said it, I’ve basically been eating the ones that end up in my lunchbox.

◆◆◆

“There are things you only notice once you’ve lost them, aren’t there…”
“Ayuri-san’s suddenly started spouting lines you’d hear in an anime…”
“How very ennui~”
“It’s nothing important, just leave her be.”
“Gin-chan’s cold as the temperature outside again today, I tell ya.”

Lunch break. The hour the four of us always gather to eat… or it should be, except Ayu alone has set her lunchbox down and won’t open it. She clearly has something she’s dying to tell us, and the very fact that she’s saving it for a moment like this guarantees there’s no way it’s anything serious.

“What’s the matter~?”
“So lately, you know how they sell those tools for cooking things in the microwave?”
“This already has the feel of a pointless story right from the opening.”
“Now, now…”

…Fine. For Sumire-san’s sake, I’ll sit and listen quietly. But I’ll say it as many times as it takes: this is absolutely not going to be a big deal.

“There are all sorts, aren’t there~ Steamers, the kind that grills fish. We don’t have any at home since you can’t make much at once, though~”
“Then there’s the ones for packet ramen, or pasta.”
“What I’m talking about today is a tool more in Sumire-chan’s territory, I guess. The other day my mom bought one of those gadgets that lets you make a fried egg in the microwave.”
“A fried egg.”

Next to the examples Hina and Sumire-san brought up, that’s awfully specific. And isn’t that mainly the sort of thing people living alone use to save time?

“Honestly, it only does one at a time, and if you’re eating in the morning it’s faster to just fry as many as you need in a pan. It’s more like Yuuma-ku— …like my little brother uses it when he wants a little something extra.”
“Huh.”
“So then? I mean, I don’t normally find myself wanting a little something extra, so I hadn’t been using it… but I was curious, y’see, and yesterday I used it for dinner for the very first time.”
“A fried egg for dinner.”
“That is unusual…”

For a small eater like Ayu, that might be about the only opening she’d ever get to use it. She isn’t the type to eat a late-night snack, either.

“So I ate it, and… somehow it felt lacking compared to the ones I usually eat.”
“Maybe it didn’t come out cooked the way you like…?”
“How well it’s cooked changes with my mom’s mood anyway, so I’m used to it not turning out how I hoped.”
“You’re used to it…”
“So what was it, then?”

When is this story going to reach a conclusion? Ayu won’t open her lunchbox, so everyone else is holding back and not eating either, which leaves me the only one shoveling food down like I can’t read the room.

“So I said in front of my family, ‘something’s missing.’ And then my mom goes, ‘Did you put the salt and pepper in?’ — at our house, we season the fried eggs with salt and pepper before we cook them.”
“That’s what they call home cooking~”
“…Wait, that opening line of yours was about that?”
“Yep. In a way, it’s a heartwarming story about family.”

Put like that, it gets rather hard to keep calling it a nothing story, a pointless story. This is what people mean by the taste of your mother’s cooking, and it’s a notion that has surely taken root in plenty of hearts.

…Hold on. For this girl, who claims to be a reincarnator, what exactly is the taste of her mother’s cooking…? Well, I suppose that just means she has two kinds of it. Probably.

“So? What was the point of this story in the end?”
“I’d never really given it much thought before… but seasoning at the prep stage is actually pretty interesting. …And so—…”
“What is it, what is it~?”

Ayu’s lunchbox is finally opened. After all that mysterious buildup, every pair of eyes, mine included, is fixed on it.

“Ta-daa.”
“What is this.”
“It’s packed full of tamagoyaki~”

What came into view was paved wall to wall with tamagoyaki in faintly different shades, one solid field of yellow. Ayu’s lunchbox has two tiers, but the other one is basically rice balls, which means this yellow expanse is the entirety of her side dishes today.

“I got up a little early and gave it a try!”
“Oooh~! You made these yourself, Ayu-chan?”
“Of coooourse!”
“…It’s yellow.”

People like to poke fun at boys’ lunchboxes for being all brown. Girls’ lunchboxes, by contrast, are supposedly colorful, since girls care about presentation and a nice spread of color. By that measure, what on earth is a solid field of yellow? Then again, a lunchbox nobody could sort into a boy’s or a girl’s from the outside might be very much like this girl.

“Let’s see… from the left: the sweet one, the dashi-rolled one, and the usual one.”
“What is the usual seasoning at your house again, Ayuri-san…”
“Mentsuyu.”
“Isn’t the sweet one a little burnt?”
“The sweet ones are hard, okay! And besides, I don’t even like the sweet ones that much!”
“Huh…”

Let’s give one of the sweet ones a try, then. Hmm… well, it’s normal. Not that it tastes bad, but there’s nothing in it worth any particular praise… yeah. Normal.

“It’s normal.”
“She just went ahead and ate one before I’d even said anything, this girl. And of all the things she could say, she says ‘normal’?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s fine, but…”
“I think just being able to make a sweet tamagoyaki that comes out normal, as a beginner, is impressive~ Could I have one too… the usual one, maybe~?”
“Go ahead, go ahead! …See, Gin-chan? A normal person says something first, like that.”
“Shut it. If it were anyone but you, I’d ask like a normal person.”
“Ehh…”
“Thanks for the food~… Mm. It’s different from the one at my house, but I really do love the tamagoyaki at your place, Ayu-chan~”
“You say the loveliest things. Are you an angel?”

Right, let me have one of these as well… mm-hm. I’d say it’s fine. The flavor comes out a bit weaker than the ones Ayu’s mom usually makes, but it’s a passing grade, I suppose.

“Well, isn’t it fine?”
“There she goes eating without asking again, this girl.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s fine, though.”
“Then I’ll… go with the flow and take the dashi-rolled one.”
“Go ahead, go ahead! That one I’m proud of!”
“Ohh…? Why’s that?”
“I used Kayanoya for the dashi.”
“The serious stuff has suddenly made an appearance.”

They do say that people who never cook get needlessly elaborate the moment they try their hand at it, splashing out on fine ingredients like a dad who cooks once in a blue moon.

“You only cook once in a while, and they still let you use that? Amazing.”
“It’s one I bought as a souvenir, so… no, all right, even I was thinking ‘a regular bottle of dashi would have been fine…’ to myself the whole time I was simmering the stock.”
“That’s what you get for doing something you’re not used to…”
“…Mm. I don’t really understand it, but… I think it’s good?”
“Yesss!”
“You’re pleased about a ‘don’t really understand it’?”
“For a beginner, it’s well done, isn’t it!”

The shape hasn’t collapsed all that badly, at least, so for someone unaccustomed to it, maybe it is well done.

“To begin with, even I don’t really understand the appeal of a dashi-rolled omelette without grated daikon and soy sauce.”
“You used Kayanoya, and that’s what you have to say for it?”
“That’s just how it is. …Here. You’re going to eat this one too anyway, aren’t you, Gin-chan?”
“You know me well.”

Mm-hm… well, now that she mentions it, it is tasty. Tasty enough, certainly… but I’m at a loss for a comment. It’s not as though I’m a TV personality who has to deliver some strange little food review.

“…Well, isn’t it fine?”
“You said the exact same thing as before… and yet somehow it comes across like you just marked it up a few points.”

◆◆◆

“Today’s thermos is dashi broth~”
“You’ve got leftovers, just as I figured.”
“Including that part, I honestly regret not just going with a regular bottle of dashi.”

Ayu tipped her insulated thermos over the cups and poured out what must have been the leftovers of the stock she’d simmered that morning. It’s a bit… well, how to put it. With rice balls, tamagoyaki and dashi broth on the menu, the whole thing feels like a meal out of old Japan. Though I have no idea whether dashi broth is actually something you’re supposed to drink as it is.

“Ayu-chan, Ayu-chan. I’ll give you something in return for the tamagoyaki~”
“Ah, then something from me as well… here.”
“Hmph.”
“Ooh! Are you sure?”

Warm food, nice. I want some too. While I sat there watching and thinking that, Hina and Sumire-san each held out their lunchboxes. Hmm. Next to a solid field of yellow, of course they look colorful. Charming, even.

“Then… can I take this soft-boiled egg from you, Hina-chan?”
“Sure~”
“And from Sumire-san… could I have the ham and cucumber?”
“Go ahead, go ahead.”

A cheerful little exchange of side dishes, carried out right in front of me. This is… this is definitely shaping up so that I, who’ve eaten the most of anyone, have to hand something over too. Do I have anything…? Yeah. There’s only one thing for it.

“Fine, I’ll give you something as well.”
“Huh?! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a thing from you, Gin-chan!”
“The hell’d you say?”
“Kidding, kidding.”

Ayu laughed and said she was joking. But I won’t forgive it. That just now wounded me deeply, and so…

“Here. Cherry tomato.”
“That’s the one you’re always foisting on me!”

Since it couldn’t be helped, I gave her the karaage I’d meant to give her in the first place, too. I’d like her to be grateful for my great and generous heart.