Chocolate de Familia 9
“Well, but, you don’t have to force yourself like that…okay?”
Her mother tries to placate her and persuade her while looking flustered.
“It’s okay to fail. You don’t have to worry so much. It’s fine if you can’t do it.”
But she firmly shakes her head and rejects her mother’s idea.
“I don’t want to remain incapable. I don’t want to be someone who just relies on my parents. If I try my best, I should be able to do many things. I failed this time, and it’s disappointing and frustrating. I’m reflecting on it deeply and regretting the mistake. But more than that, I strongly want to make up for this failure.”
“Chika-chan…”
The mother looks towards her husband and says,
“What should we do?”
“Chika, are you serious? Is this determination not influenced by this man?”
“I haven’t been influenced by Sōma-san. This is truly how I feel,”
Chika firmly responds.
“I see…”
As Chika nods clearly, the father sighs as if giving up something precious.
Then, he gently held the hand of his wife, who was handling the pot.
“Alright. If Chika says so, we won’t interfere.”
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“But, you, if you do that, Chika will…”
“We promised before this child was born that we wouldn’t become parents who interfere with what our daughter wants to do, right?”
“Yes… that’s right.”
Hearing her husband’s words, the mother smiles faintly.
With her husband’s hand, she quietly withdraws her hand from the pot.
“Thank you, Mom, Dad!”
Chika lowers her head happily and begins to explore solutions.
She searches on her smartphone and looks around the kitchen for anything useful.
Her parents, who promised not to intervene, nervously watch her while Sōma casually observes.
Seemingly irritated by Sōma’s attitude, the father glares at him.
“You’re the one encouraging our daughter and yet act so nonchalant? Don’t you think she’ll be hurt even more if she ends up repeating failure after failure?”
Though he says understanding things with his mouth, he is undoubtedly worried deep down.
Sōma shrugs slightly and replies,
“She’ll be fine. She’ll definitely find a way. Besides, even if she fails again and again, it’s okay.”
“What did you say? How can you say it’s okay to keep failing?”
The father’s expression becomes even more serious.
“Let me ask you the opposite. Do you really think she’s such a weak person that she would be broken by something like this? Even though I’ve known her for a short time, I don’t think of her that way at all.”
” …… “
Sōma’s words left the father speechless.
Instead, he just stares at Sōma’s profile. He must have been completely disliked.
Sōma, too scared to look at the father, let out a sigh of disappointment in his heart.
He had hoped to get along with Chika’s parents, and the extent of his disappointment was immense.
He had even indulged in fantasies of being liked and offered an apprenticeship in their friend’s restaurant.
But well, there’s nothing he could do about it. His role is to be on Chika’s side.
If he doesn’t throw her a lifeline now, what’s the point of being the one who watches over her? So, this is the right thing to do.
“——I found it!”
While Sōma was thinking like that, Chika, who was rummaging for something, exclaimed as if she had discovered a treasure.
In her hands held high, was a clutched block of curry roux.
*****
“Sōma-san, Sōma-san, how does the curry taste?”
Thirty minutes later, Sōma was eating the curry rice Chika had made.
“It’s burnt and bitter. Also, the black charred parts mixed in make the appearance and texture unappealing.”
As he honestly gave his impression while moving the spoon, Chika, who had been anxiously watching beside him, drooped sadly.
“Uuu, well, isn’t it unavoidable? This is the best I can do right now.”
Using roux to turn a failed dish into curry is a clever recovery method, but it’s still far from perfect curry rice.
It’s just a level of deception.
“By the way, what were you originally trying to make?”
“Aqua Pazza. It was written on the internet that it looks good and is easy to make.”
“Easy to make…but you failed, huh?”
“Ugh… I thought I could do it.”
Though she says it with a downcast tone, she doesn’t seem as disheartened as her words suggest.
Being able to recover from her failure on her own is probably contributing to her regained confidence.
“Well, there’s always next time. When you make it again, I’ll taste-test it for you.”
“Yes! Please, by all means!”
Chika happily nods and innocently starts eating the curry.
“You two seem to get along really well.”
“….”
Sōma and Chika face Chika’s mother, who is alternately comparing the two of them as if seeing something interesting, and Chika’s father, who glares at him with a grumpy expression.
“We’re good friends. Right, Sōma-san?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
In response to Chika’s question, Sōma can only respond with an ambiguous smile and vague agreement.
‘Why am I eating curry with Chika’s parents? We were supposed to have the meal in Chika’s room, but because of the mess from the cooking failure, we somehow ended up sitting around the dining table with all four of us…’
This should have been the situation Sōma had been looking forward to.
It was the perfect opportunity to ask various questions to these two people who have his dream profession.
But right now, there’s no way he could feel like doing that.
The current standpoint between Sōma and Chika’s parents is not that of a high school student aspiring to be a pastry chef and patissier or patissière, but rather that of a male friend their daughter suddenly invited and doting parents.
Eating together with the parents of a female friend he just met – it’s definitely too high of a hurdle, no matter how you think about it! It’s an incredibly unusual situation.
Maybe the bitterness of the curry is not just because it failed.