“S-Sebas-san...” I reflexively muttered the name of one of the butlers who worked in Renge’s house. The only person who could possibly bring the situation under control was the one who’d been hired specifically to work under Renge: Sebas-san, aka Sebastian. I grabbed the phone that was installed in the living room and hit the speed dial. My call was answered after a single ring. “Hello?! Is this Sebas-san?!”
“Kou-kun,” a woman’s voice replied after a pause. Her actual name was Seba Sumiko. Renge had taken to calling her “Sebas” in spite of the fact that she was a woman, though, and the name sorta stuck. She was one of the very few people who could smoothly cope with Renge’s unreasonable demands and was just an incredibly capable woman all around. In spite of that, she replied with a somber, dreary tone that suggested she’d given up on just about everything. “Happy birthday...”
“Huh? Ah, err, thanks.”
“I would have preferred to offer my congratulations in person, but the young mistress insisted that the two of you would spend the day alone together and wouldn’t permit it.”
“D-Did she...? But, umm, you should know that things are looking really, really bad over here right now...”
“Yes... I’m well aware. Painfully aware. I’ve partaken of her cooking before.” Somehow, I was getting an incredibly clear image of Sebas-san gazing out into the distance, glassy-eyed and defeated.
“I think she said something about her food making people ‘howl with joy’...?”
“Yes... We howled; that’s certainly true. Though I would characterize them as more akin to agonized death-wails, frankly.”
“...”
“As such, I must admit that I was relieved to learn that she chose you as her only target this time around. You have my sincerest apologies, but I absolutely refuse to go anywhere near that house today.”
“W-Wait! If she’s done this to people before, then surely somebody could’ve stopped her by now?! Couldn’t you have told her that if she never gets better at cooking, she should just stop trying...?”
“Kou-kun,” Sebas-san began, sounding incredibly calm and gentle, “this is just how it has to be with cheftastrophes.”
“Chef...tastrophes...?”
“Individuals who are catastrophically bad at cooking... Or, rather, individuals who are prodigiously talented at cooking meals that could only be described as catastrophic. Those people are known as cheftastrophes. In a cheftastrophe’s hands, the most highly prized and officially certified A-5 wagyu steak on the market could be transformed into literal garbage that is so offensive in appearance and odor, not even flies would touch it—and they’d need nothing more than a stovetop and their own innate ‘talent’ to do so.”
“‘L-Literal garbage’...?”
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that their talent for cataclysm is a fundamental aspect of their very being, and the young mistress’s skill in the kitchen is very much of that nature. She fulfills all of the conditions required to qualify for the title.”
“Is there anything I can do to stop her?”
“There is not,” she declared bluntly and definitively. In other words, I was stuck. There was no way out. “If I may be so audacious as to offer a word of advice, I’d urge you to hold strong, and endure as well as you can.”
The true weight of her father’s “best of luck” was finally starting to bear down on me. From the sound of things, he and Sebas-san had both fallen victim to Renge’s cooking in the past.
“One last thing,” she added. “You must compliment her without reservation. Whatever she makes, be absolutely sure to tell her it was delicious.”
I paused, thoroughly confused. “Huh?”
“I cannot overstate how vitally important this is. Praise her. Tell her it was good. Do you understand?”
“Wait, what? Sebas-san, I’m not sure I—”
“Kou?” Renge called out from behind me. “It’s ready!”
“It would seem we’re out of time. I wish you the best of luck, Kou-kun.” She hung up, leaving me with the same words Gouki-san had.
“Kou? Were you on the phone?” Suddenly, the foreboding sense of doom I’d been feeling made total sense. The most dangerous enemies are the ones you think are your friends—especially when they themselves are unaware of how much of a threat to you they really are. Renge’s proud, confident smile drove that truth into my mind with uncomfortable clarity. “It’s time to eat! I made plenty, so feel free to ask for seconds!”
“G-Great...”
The table looked like a particularly creative impressionist artist’s paint palette. It was packed end-to-end with vividly colored dishes of all shapes and sizes. I gulped reflexively as she led me by the hand towards it. The whole table had an incredibly intimidating aura that only grew in intensity as I approached it. Even the steam that wafted up from her cooking looked colorful, which definitely wasn’t a good sign.
“Kou?”
“Wh-What...?”
“Happy birthday. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you were born and that you’re here with me today.” Her words were warm and genuine, in theory. In practice, I could only hear them as a pronouncement of my death sentence.
What followed serves as conclusive proof of my own lack of willpower. I can only remember up to the point where she said, “Okay, eat up!” and I picked up my spoon. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the couch, watching TV while Renge leaned up against me. We’d sat down to eat at midday, but somehow, the sky outside was already tinged with the red glow of sunset.
“It’s already evening, isn’t it...?” Renge muttered to herself. I didn’t think she’d realized that I was awake. “I’m so sorry about today, Kou.”
“Huh?” She apologized? Why? I couldn’t remember anything that had happened between our meal and that moment, so I was left at a loss.
“You didn’t like my cooking, right? I was really happy that you ate it all anyway, but I could tell...” She continued her monologue with incredible timing, and suddenly, I was wide awake. I ate that stuff? All of it?! And apparently I let the fact that I thought it was nasty slip during my unconscious feeding frenzy too! “I’m not giving up here, though, I swear! My mother always told me that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! I’ll cook for you every day until I figure out what sort of food you like, I promise!”
Her courageous proclamation made my blood run cold. I finally understood Sebas-san’s advice, but it was too late. I’d already provoked Renge’s stubborn streak.
From then on, Renge forced me to eat a wide variety of foods that she personally prepared every single day. Like, literally, every single day. At first I’d consistently pass out, but as I grew used to her cooking, I gradually developed the ability to remain conscious, which was hellish in its own right. In fact, I speculated that if they served food in Hell, it would probably be just about as pungent and noxious as the crap she produced.
I was powerless against her cooking and had no choice but to give in. In other words, I was forced to follow Sebas-san’s advice and lie to her. I said it was good. Her cooking binge had been motivated entirely by her competitive nature, so she stopped force-feeding me the moment I gave in. Of course, the pain I felt in the pit of my stomach whenever she proudly bragged about how I “love her cooking” and how she’d “save it for special occasions” so I “won’t get bored of it” was intense, to say the least.
It wasn’t a guilty sort of stomach pain, to be clear. I didn’t feel the slightest shred of guilt about lying to her—I was the victim, no question about it. I wasn’t alone in that opinion either. I knew for a fact that any of the other victims of her cooking would back me up. No, there was just one clear source of my discomfort: the fear that I’d once again end up the guinea pig for her demonic test kitchen. That fear was enough to keep a strained, artificial smile permanently plastered across my face.