“I-I’m all better now, so I’ll be on my way!” Zenitsu yelped. “Thank you so much!”
He and Tanjiro hurriedly thanked Ms. Tamayo and left the nurse’s room like it was on fire.
That had to have been Yushiro, “master of the nurse’s room.” Having spent overwhelmingly more hours in the nurse’s room than in the classroom, this student wouldn’t allow anyone else to get near the place, even if they were seriously ill. No one at Kimetsu Academy knew what grade he was in, what class, or even how old he was.
When they reached the library, the teacher in question was just coming out.
“Mr. Rengok—” Zenitsu started.
“Oh ho! What’s wrong? You need me, boys?” the history teacher replied, with a charming and cheerful smile.
In his arms, he held books with titles that seemed like stand-alone jokes: Go For It! Bento Man!, 365 Days of Super Tasty Bento, Bento to Make Kids Rejoice.
“You ask him!”
“But this is your thing, Zenitsu!”
Zenitsu and Tanjiro silently pushed each other to be the one to speak.
Rengoku didn’t notice the strange expressions on their faces. It wasn’t so much that he was insensitive, he was just more of a big-picture kind of person and not the type to pick up on subtle cues.
Left with no choice, Tanjiro said, “Um. I thought you lived at home, Mr. Rengoku? Er. Are you actually married?”
“No! I live with my mother, father, and little brother! I’m not married! What of it, young Kamado?”
“Do you make your own bento lunches?” Tanjiro asked.
“Oh, these?” Rengoku finally guessed what Tanjiro was getting at and flashed his snowy-white teeth at them. “My mother has been busy with work lately. I thought I would make my little brother’s lunches for her. I know I can’t make anything as good as she makes, but I wanted to at least cook something that would make Senjuro happy.”
When they pulled back the curtain, the truth turned out to be nothing of consequence. In fact, this answer only made Rengoku even more likable. This was a departure from Tomioka, whose likability slipped downward every time anyone spoke to him.
“How about it?” the history teacher asked. “Are you boys interested in trying to make bento too? If you want, you can come to my house right now!”
“N-no. We just wanted to talk to you.” Tanjiro was flustered at this casual invitation from their teacher. “Right, Zenitsu?”
“Y-yeah. That’s right. The truth is, it’s about Mr. Tomioka,” Zenitsu started.
“Tomioka? You mean my colleague Giyu Tomioka?”
“Yes. I actually want to quit the disciplinary committee, but Mr. Tomioka won’t listen to a word I say.” Zenitsu told him about the incident in the cafeteria.
“Hmm.” Rengoku listened with an unusually serious look on his face.
“Salmon stewed with daikon would be good too!” he opined cheerfully. “The combination of fish and vegetables is a healthy one, and not only that, daikon is in season. Seasonal food is healthy food! High nutritional value!”
“Huh?”
“Uh … um.”
“Boys, we’ll stop by the supermarket and then head to my house. Wait. Better to get daikon at the greengrocer. Salmon at the fishmonger!”
“But that’s not what we—”
“I’ll lend you both aprons. Don’t worry about that!”
“No!” Zenitsu cried.
“Mr. Rengoku, salmon stewed with daikon isn’t really that great for bento, though,” Tanjiro noted. “If you don’t make sure it’s walled off in its own section, the rice’ll end up all soggy.”
“Wait. Not you too!” Zenitsu yelped, betrayal on his face.
“I see.” Rengoku nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll have to make rice too! Main dishes alone are unbalanced!”
“What about cooking the rice with some vegetables?” Tanjiro suggested.
“Great idea!” the history teacher cried. “Okay! We’ll stop by the rice shop!”
“No, but that’s not—” Zenitsu protested.
“Don’t be shy! Establishing lines of communication with students is an important part of a teacher’s job!”
“But I just want to quit the disciplinary committee!” Zenitsu wailed.
A history teacher—who ignored what other people were saying even more than a certain other teacher—had toyed with him. A friend had been surprisingly idiotic. Zenitsu’s evening wore on.
“I … I thought Mr. Rengoku would at least listen to me.”
At the restaurant Aoi, not too far from Kimetsu Academy, Zenitsu asked for an iced coffee and a dessert to cleanse his palate. He slumped over to rest his head on the table.
Mr. Rengoku seemed like the type of person who could master anything, but it turned out that he was a horrible cook. Not only that, but because he’d produced failure after failure with such innocence and good cheer, Zenitsu hadn’t been able to get angry at him. But he had been angry, and his taste buds had gotten all twisted up from too much taste testing. Each attempt at salmon stewed with daikon tasted so foul that Zenitsu was certain every bite would be his last. He had no interest in crossing paths with daikon or salmon for a while.
“Plus, just when I thought we were finally free, we get wrung out in Mr. Rengoku’s dad’s kendo class,” he moaned.
“Come on, now. Mr. Rengoku’s dad and Senjuro were really happy to have us join in, so it all worked out, right?” Tanjiro, the perfect honors student, replied.
Zenitsu glared at Tanjiro bitterly. “What about my problem?! I’m still stuck on the disciplinary committee!”
“Oh, that. Right.” Tanjiro smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Of course he forgot.
“It’s hell for me again tomorrow morning. Aah, I wish I could just run away. I want to go to a world that doesn’t have Tomi—that man in it.”
Zenitsu kept grumbling and whining even after his order came. As Tanjiro tried in vain to console him, the restaurant’s star attraction, Aoi Kanzaki, returned with another academy student, Shinobu Kocho, in tow.