“I got a lot of the tricks to things, though. I think that I’ll be fine—”
“Pamil, why?” Kyouhei started.
“What?” she asked.
“Why are you so fixated on the Hamburg steak...?”
“Ah, well... it’s special,” she answered.
“Why?”
“Because eating Hamburg steak cheers you right up!” she explained completely seriously.
She wasn’t an elementary schooler, though, so she probably knew that the meal itself wouldn’t change someone’s mood like that.
She must have seen the doubt on his face, because she continued: “It made me much happier, didn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“That’s what you made me when we first met, isn’t it?” she asked.
He certainly had cooked that on that day. He’d just chosen it because it would be more familiar to her, seeing as she looked like a foreigner.
However...
“So I wanted to learn how to make it at some point, because you helped me so much.”
She wanted to repay him for cheering her up by making the same meal for him. That was why she’d chosen that meal. It was also why, rather than complaining about the practice, she’d thrown herself into it.
“...So that’s what it was,” he sighed.
At that point, Shuuhei returned, carrying some kind of bottle.
“Oh, you’re back, Kyouhei.”
“Y-Yeah, what’s that?”
“Huh, well, Pamil cooked her first meal,” he said, showing the bottle, which was labeled “100% grape juice from concentrate.” “I wanted to open up a bottle of wine or champagne, but you probably wouldn’t drink it,” he griped.
“Obviously, I’m a minor,” he said, smiling reluctantly.
This kind of meal wasn’t bad once in a while.
“Go get changed and wash your face,” Kyouhei said to Pamil, resting a hand on her blonde hair. “Then we’ll have dinner—a specially-made Hamburg steak.”
“...Right!” she exclaimed, her face covered in soot, but with an irrepressible grin as well.
...Incidentally, next was the actual practical. The next day, though, Kyouhei and Shuuhei were both struck by diarrhea and couldn’t leave the house. Pamil took the day off to nurse them, so she ended up missing the lesson in question.
The reason was fairly obvious.
Nevertheless, Kyouhei looked oddly happy, which drew a curious look from Pamil.