“Hmm...”
Two onions rolled across a white plastic chopping board. Pamil picked them up with her pale fingers. The blonde beauty’s gaze as she glared at the onions was like a martial artist’s entering the ring. Suddenly, she tossed them into the air, as if she were juggling them.
Then...
“Hah!”
...she split the air.
Pamil let out a breath like a true master of iai, her hands vanishing, moving so fast they didn’t even leave an afterimage.
Kyouhei heard the air split... As he watched in bafflement, the onions dropped onto the board, now missing their skin.
And a couple of seconds later...
“Geh,” Kyouhei groaned.
Suddenly, the onions lost their shape and fell apart, covering the board in small dice.
“...Done!” Pamil proclaimed with a bright smile and a nod.
Without a moment’s delay...
“Don’t you ‘done’ me!” Kyouhei yelled, chopping the back of her head as he pointed at the knife next to the board.
“I told you to use the knife! Why did you just use your hand?!” he demanded.
“I didn’t just use my hand,” she explained, “I used the vacuum caused by moving my hand at high speed, splitting the air, like the kamaitachi. It wouldn’t cut things like metal, but something like an onion is easy. And because it destroys the cell membranes almost instantaneously, it keeps the release of diallyl sulfide to a minimum, so you won’t cry! I shall call my new technique Royal Cutter and—”
“What assassin skills are you inheriting?!” Kyouhei yelled over her proud explanation, having had enough. “We’re cooking! Leave the royalty stuff! Why are you so...”
Kyouhei trailed off, slumping.
“Kyouhei,” Pamil encouraged him, “I don’t know exactly what happened, but when people give up, that’s when they lose.”
“...I wouldn’t mind hearing that from someone else, but not from you!”
“Hmm?”
“...Just forget it,” he decided. “Now, take a shot at those onions!”
“Hmm, I’ll definitely take a shot,” she said. “Hmph!”
Without hesitation, Pamil had brought down her fist onto the chopping board. The mound of onion dice, or at least a portion of them, squished under her hand, and the rest went flying everywhere.
“Umm... What exactly were you attempting on this occasion?” he murmured, shocked at the tide of onion that had come his way.
“I took a shot at them, as you can see,” Pamil answered easily.
Kyouhei had contained the energy of his anger, but with this new development, that he’d hesitate to call a clichéd misunderstanding, he felt his blood boil.
“Not take a literal shot; a shot at cooking them! An attempt! I didn’t mean ‘break chops,’ or ‘knock out,’ or ‘knock up,’ or even ‘rough up’; just fry them!”
“I can make them fly?”
“Don’t! I don’t mean ‘fly’ either! Heat them up and mix them around in the frying pan!” Kyouhei felt his breath grow short as he raved. “...Honestly...”
They could collect the dice that had flown away, but over half of it was unrecoverable; it had been squashed and was semi-liquid now, like it’d been through a blender.
“Why... Why can’t you do such a simple thing...? Are you doing it on purpose?!” he demanded.
“Doing what?” she asked innocently, not an ounce of mischief in her eyes.
Well, this certainly did make the next day’s cooking lesson seem hopeless.
Kyouhei staggered with vertigo...
Then, he looked at the frying pan and felt his expression twitch.
Let us first explain something: A frying pan is a type of pan used in a kitchen, primarily for frying and grilling. Compared to other types of pan, it is shallow with a large diameter. As the pan is not particularly deep, it has a commensurately low capacity. These pans are usually used for shallow-frying and similar techniques, but it is of course possible to deep-fry using one. Depending on the accessories, it is also possible to steam things with it, but in the majority of cases, it is used without a lid. (Wikipedia, 2007).
In other words, you couldn’t call a frying pan something you could use to simmer.
And yet...
Kyouhei let out a strangled noise. The pan was filled with a bubbling liquid on the highest heat.
Kyouhei, of course, had no recollection of filling the pan with liquid, which meant...
“...Pamil,” he said, foreboding running down his spine.
“What, Kyouhei?”
“Why... did you put water in the pan? I don’t remember telling you to boil any water.”
“Hm? I didn’t.”
“But look in the pan.”
“I only used what you told me to. This is all I’ve put in,” she said, lifting something.
The object in her hand was a half-empty plastic bottle. The label on it said “rapeseed oil.”
Which meant... it was oil over high heat, so at any moment...
“Pamil, get down!” Kyouhei yelled, grabbing her arm and pushing her to the floor, covering her with his body.
At the same time...
The oil in the pan went up in flames with a roar. The pillar of flame billowed into the air, lighting the area in scarlet. The oil didn’t explode, but the heat scorched across Kyouhei’s back.
“Ack.”
“Whoa?!” even Shuuhei, who had been cackling until that point, cried out in surprise.
“Water—Wait, not water!” he said reflexively before remonstrating himself.
Normally, people would indeed use water to put out fires, but it was counterproductive for oil fires. If you put water on an oil fire, it would spray burning oil everywhere and make things even worse.
And so...
It’d be really bad for us!
The warehouse was filled with Shuuhei’s goods, and many of them had blatant hazard symbols, or warnings against ignition sources printed on them. In other words, there were many flammable items around, and probably a fair amount of gunpowder and ammunition. If they caught fire, then the whole district would be at risk, not just the warehouse.
“Hmm?” Pamil blinked, not getting what had happened as she laid underneath Kyouhei.
“So you prefer sweater aprons to naked aprons,” Shuuhei noted. “Right, I’ll remember your depravities.”
“Don’t you dare!” Kyouhei yelled, looking around. “Fire extinguisher! Where’s the fire extinguisher?!”
Eventually, a fire extinguisher caught Kyouhei’s roving gaze. He hurriedly ran over to the wall it was fixed to, took it, and hefted it under his arm. Then, he ran back to the kitchen. He ripped the pin out, pointed the hose at the fire, and pulled the lever. Even a firefighter would have been impressed at his technique.
However, the torrent of white powder... did not issue forth.
Kyouhei stared in shock at the unresponsive extinguisher. “W-Why isn’t it working?!”
“Man, that’s a surprise,” said Shuuhei, unconcerned despite the circumstances. “I mean, you only get about one in a thousand faulty ones—wouldn’t have expected ours to be one.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it!” he yelled, grabbing Shuuhei by the chest and shaking him.
Shuuhei, of all people, should have known the kinds of things that he’d filled the warehouse with.
In a panic, Kyouhei looked around, his eyes falling on his phone atop the table. Should he call the fire brigade? If he did that, though, the illegal goods filling the warehouse would be discovered. Shuuhei would be arrested, that much was a given, but seeing as Kyouhei had remained silent, he would be taken in as an accomplice. Plus, who knew when the things would catch fire and detonate.
What do I do?!
“Panic not, my son,” Shuuhei spoke calmly. He was being solemn, and his face seemed completely trustworthy. “If you panic, you can solve nothing. First... yes, take a slurp of mayonnaise and calm yourself!”
“You calm down first!” Kyouhei yelled, batting the mayonnaise tube away.
But then...
“Wha...”
As Shuuhei let out a dull noise, the container flew through the air. It drew an elegant parabola as it plonked itself right into the burning pan. As it landed inside with a dull thud, the flames billowed again, but only for a moment. Quickly, the billowing flames vanished... and were replaced by black smoke issuing from the pan, the stench of something burning, and the thick scent of mayonnaise.
Kyouhei stared wordlessly at the pan.
Eventually, he remembered a saying: “Use mayonnaise on oil fires.”
To put it simply, the fire had melted the tube, and then the protein of the mayonnaise had heated up and formed a film, starving the flames of oxygen.
“Whoa... Mayonnaise is wonderful!” Shuuhei yelled, clenching a fist. “Behold! The wishes of the country’s mayo-lovers calmed the fire!”
“It’s just a chemical reaction!” Kyouhei shouted back, knocking Shuuhei out before putting a lid on the pan to make sure it didn’t catch fire again.
● ● ●
In the end, Kyouhei decided the kitchen wasn’t salvageable without a lot of time spent cleaning, so he headed out to buy three lunches.
He sighed, going through the usual security procedures and stepping inside. Then, the sight before him made him forget to call out that he’d gotten home.
“Oh, Kyouhei, welcome back,” said, as you might expect, a sooty-faced Pamil.
She was still wearing the apron, and her pale limbs were blackened by soot. Her hair was plastered to her forehead by sweat.
She’d... probably been cleaning.
Apparently, she and Shuuhei had been cleaning while he was out. Even with the two of them, it would have been tough to get it all done in half an hour.
And...
“...You...”
There was something on the table.
“Indeed. I decided to try one more time, but it didn’t go too well,” she said with a reluctant smile.
Next to her, on the table, was a plate with—admittedly a burnt and inedible example of—a Hamburg steak and a sunny-side-up egg.