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miniatureteaset · 28 days ago

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Can I Help With Dinner?

Kalim Al-Asim, Yuu

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“You’re making dinner tonight, right Yuu?”

“Yup. You making a request?”

“Oh, I just wanted to ask if I could help? I wanna try cooking!” He smiles brightly as he asks, but there’s something behind his eyes that almost seems like he’s scared to ask. Like he’s already preparing for a rejection. It’s there, but if you weren’t observant, you’d definitely miss it.

“Sure. I was planning on making chicken alfredo if you wanna help.”

“Oh! I’ve never had that before! Hahaha!” Somehow, his face lights up even more than usual, if that’s even possible for him.

He excitedly takes my wrist and pulls me towards the kitchen, evidently very ready to start. “Let’s go! What do we need to do?”

“Geez, Kalim, slow down,” I chuckle, happy to see he was so excited to help cook. “We’ve still got a little time until we have to start. Why don’t we just hang out in the kitchen for a little bit?”

“Oh. That sounds fun! Do you wanna talk about stuff?”

“Sounds good.” I can’t help but give a fond smile at his excitement as we enter the kitchen. “So, anything in particular you wanna talk about?”

“Hmmm…” He stops by one of the counters, leaning against it with his hands on the edge and his fingers drumming against the cabinet doors. “Oh! I wanted to ask you! Do you like cooking? Do you cook often? What about back in your world?”

“Woah, woah, that’s a lot of questions!” I give a chuckle, holding my hands up. “I do like cooking, I’d say I cook a fairly average amount, and back in my world… Well, things were different back then. What about you? I know Jamil cooks for you a lot, but do you ever make your own food?”

He tilts his head slightly as he thinks back. “Not really, no. Jamil and the chefs back home have always cooked my meals. I’ve never really gotten the chance to! Hahah!”

…Never gotten the chance to?

“Well, what we’re making tonight isn’t that difficult. I’ll show you what to do.”

“Thanks! I bet you’re a great teacher, Yuu!”

“I’ll certainly try to be,” I laugh in response. “Just know, I’m no trained chef or anything.”

“That’s okay! The dinners that you make are always amazing, so I’m not worried.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you like my cooking,” I reply with a smile.

Maybe I should check that we have everything we need…

“Hey! We should get some music going!” Kalim pulls out his phone and starts tapping away as I open the fridge and cabinets to search for ingredients.

A fun, upbeat song starts playing from his phone, and he starts dancing and singing along.

I, on the other hand, opt for simply standing off to the side and watching. Though it only seems to last for a few moments before Kalim takes my hand and pulls me towards a more open area of the kitchen, telling me to ‘dance with him’ with a bright smile I can’t seem to refuse.

I start off with something fairly low-key, just a little bit of movement here and there as I follow along with his moves. Observing him.

Ever since the events of winter break, I had found myself wanting to learn more about Kalim and Jamil. Right now is a prime opportunity to learn about the former.

It was obvious that their dynamic wasn’t what either of them thought it was, or wanted it to be. Jamil wanted freedom. To him, their relationship was that of a boss and his employee. Kalim wanted friendship. To him, Jamil was someone who’d been with him for his entire life, and someone who would be there for him for the rest of his life as well.

I knew a bit about them as a pair, but I didn’t know much about him as an individual.

Ever since the start of our training camp with Vil, I’d gotten to know him a bit more. He’s relentlessly optimistic, always wanting to see the best in everyone and everything. He loves parties, and he loves seeing others happy.

But just like pretty much everyone else in this school, he has his fair share of darkness. Of trauma.

It’s reasonable when you find out that he’s been poisoned, when you realize that every time he and Jamil check for danger that it’s for good reason. When you realize there’s a reason he’s incredibly talented at identifying poisons.

Every time I learn about him, I find myself more and more curious.

How could I not be? Everyone I’ve met here is just so…interesting.

At some point, it gets close to the time where dinner had to start. I let Kalim know that we’d be starting soon, and I start heading over to the sink.

“Alright, wash your hands before we start. Food safety.”

“Ok!” He runs up to the sink, that same eternal smile on his face. I can’t help but ask myself how he does it. How does he stay so positive all the time about everything? Despite everything?

“Alright, what’s next?”

“Let’s start getting all of our stuff set out. First off, let’s start with the chicken.”

He rolls up his sleeves, and with a fist pump to get prepared, he replies, “Right!”

“Alright, start by laying them all out like this so we can start seasoning.”

Soon enough, everything is laid out and dinner prep has officially begun. I show him how to season the chicken, and he follows along carefully. Well, as carefully as he can. Unsurprisingly, he gets distracted a few times, but it’s obvious he’s trying.

For a while, we work in relative silence as I show him how to season the chicken and music plays softly in the background. For a while, I feel pretty confident in letting him do his own thing as I begin on the noodles.

“Oh. Hahah! I think I put a little too much on there.”

Welp, I thought that a little too soon.

I look over, and the entire thing of salt has been dumped on one of the chicken breasts.

I give a blink, and then another.

If it was anyone I had expected to be knowledgeable in this, I would probably be mad.

But…it’s Kalim.

I can’t help but laugh. A genuine one that would almost be confused with one of Kalim’s if the voice wasn’t different.

“That’s fine. Let’s just brush as much of it off as we can.”

As I help him fix the chicken breast, I can’t help but realize I hadn’t genuinely laughed like that in…quite a while. Maybe this was a welcome reprieve from everything going on between overblots and being trapped away from my world.

“Don’t worry, cooking is pretty forgiving. Most of the time you can fix things pretty easily. Besides, we can just make this one yours and load it with spices and stuff. Vil doesn’t have to know,” I finish with another laugh and a wink, which Kalim gives his signature laugh to.

Once the chicken is fixed and properly seasoned, I return to the noodles to finish the first part of those before moving on to the next step.

I show him our next step in dinner, and it goes surprisingly smoothly. Kalim is actually cooking.

I can’t help but smile fondly from beside him as he does his part to make dinner. He’s a bit clumsy with it, dropping the chicken back into the pan while trying to flip it a few times, but overall…

I have to say, I’m proud of him.

“Kalim? What are you doing in the kitchen with Yuu?”

I turn around to find a shocked Jamil in the entryway to the kitchen staring at Kalim.

“Oh, I’m helping Yuu make dinner! They’re a really good teacher!”

Kalim barely gets the words out before Jamil starts his war path towards him, clearly aiming to remove him from the kitchen.

Of course, I won’t be having it. I open a drawer, taking a random utensil out, which happens to be a wooden spoon…

And I smack Jamil on the forehead with it.

The two boys look on with looks of surprise, Jamil having his mixed with a bit of pain.

“Kalim is helping me.”

Jamil’s expression changes from surprise to a determined irritation. “Kalim can’t cook. I’ll help you instead. Kalim can–”

“Kalim is doing just fine.” I match his expression, making sure he knows I’m not budging on this. “Kalim will be helping me with dinner tonight. You can relax for tonight, Jamil.”

Jamil’s expression wars with itself as he looks between me and Kalim, clearly debating whether he wants to fight me on this or not.

“...Like I said, Kalim can’t cook. He’s hardly reliable in the kitchen.” Though the words seem to fight me, the tone moreso says ‘Are you sure you want him to help you?’

Of course, I’m certain. “I’m teaching him, and he’s doing very well.” I narrow my eyes at Jamil ever so slightly, almost in a sort of challenge. “Besides…the only reason he’s ‘unreliable’ is because no one ever lets him learn things. He’s so reliant on everyone around him because no one ever lets him do things for himself. Everyone else does everything for him. He needs opportunities to do things himself.” My expression softens just as subtly as before as I finish with, “And you know…if Kalim learns how to do things on his own, it’ll be less work for you. You’ll have less to worry about if you can be confident that Kalim can do things on his own.

“Go sit down and study or something. We’ve got this; you can relax. If you’re worried about it, I’ll make sure nothing happens.”

Jamil seems to return to that war of ‘fight me or not’, but seems to decide against it.

He leaves the kitchen, though I’m pretty sure I can still hear him in the next room. Well, I guess I can’t expect him to kill his habits so easily. Well, if it makes him feel better.

After a little over half an hour, dinner is ready. I call everyone for dinner, making sure portions are to Vil’s standards. After all, I wouldn’t want Vil to say anything about it after Kalim and I had worked so hard on it.

“Hey, Kalim. Do we wanna tell everyone you helped with dinner right away or do we wanna make it a surprise?” I ask him as everyone starts making their way down the stairs.

“Ooh! I think making it a surprise would be fun!”

I give an almost sinister laugh in response, completely agreeing with his reasoning.

Once everyone is gathered in the dining room, I observe everyone to decide when the best time to reveal the surprise is.

Of course, Kalim is practically bouncing in his seat waiting, Jamil is picking at it as if he’s scared to try it, and Rook has a certain smirk like he knows something’s going on. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised by any of it.

Welp, might as well.

“So, is everything okay?”

A few sounds of affirmation from a few of them, and a begrudging one from Jamil.

I can’t help but smile as I’m interrupted by a very excited Kalim.

“I helped with dinner! We did a really good job on it, didn’t we? Haha!”

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