"Alrighty, let's share some stories 'bout recent failures! C'mon, Saki, got anythin' to tell us?"
"Is that really something you'd do at karaoke?"
"It's because we're here for karaoke that we've gotta have a girls' talk!"
"I'm not seeing how those two things are related, but okay."
"It's fine, it's fine. Look, even Ryo-chin's all ready to share too, right?"
"No, I'm not…" Ryo-chin, aka Ryokou Satou, muttered quietly, but it seemed Maaya didn't hear her.
"C'mon, c'mon, Ryo-chin. Got anything to share?"
"Um... nothing that I can really talk about..."
"Even something small's fine! It's just us three girls here—no boys to hear any of this. The whole point of a girls' talk is to say things you wouldn't in front of guys!"
Don't call yourself a girl like that.
"I mean, if you can't say something in front of boys, then isn't it probably something you can't say in front of girls either?"
Huh, am I wrong?
Why's Satou-san giving me that "Geez, really Saki?" look too?
"Alrighty then, up you go, Ryo-chin!"
"I tried making rolled omelets the other day…" Satou-san, with an incredibly serious expression, deliberately set her mic down before starting her story, "And when I tried to fold it after one side was cooked…"
"Fold? Not roll?"
"Oh, we only have regular round frying pans at home, so I usually flatten them into a circle, fold them in half, then fold them again."
"So you just fold them, huh?"
"Yes. It usually ends up looking like a flattened crepe, so when I make them for bento, I cut squares from the middle and eat the remaining bits right away. Anyway, when I was folding it, y'know, like this…"
She mimicked the motion by tapping the base of her left hand, which was holding an imaginary frying pan, with her right fist. It's a technique you often see on cooking shows. Looking at her hand movements and the way she looked at her imaginary pan, I could visualize her sliding the flattened rolled omelet out of the pan and then flipping it over by twisting her wrist."
"I can't do that, so I usually just use a spatula instead," I commented.
"Oh, maybe your method's easier, Saki-san."
"So what happened, what happened?" Maaya pressed her.
"I couldn't get it right, and when I flicked my wrist too strongly, the rolled omelet—"
"Flew right into your face!"
"No, it wasn't that bad," she said, before sharing the cute story about how the rolled omelet flew up to her thumb, which was holding the pan, and gave her a tiny burn.
"I cooled it off with water right away, so it wasn't a big deal."
"Gotta be more careful, hm?"
"Alright, your turn, Saki!"
"Well, when I was grilling some saury the other day—"
"No cooking stories!"
"Why!?"
"Because you're good at cooking, Saki. It ain't funny when someone who's good at somethin' makes a mistake!"
"Why does it need to be funny!?"
So unfair. Plus, I never ever claimed to be all that good at cooking.
"How 'bout something involving Asamura-kun?"
"Why's his name coming up here?"
"Boyfriend!"
"No, no! That's not what I meant!"
Oops, just poured fuel on the fire. Now even Satou-san's eyes are sparkling with interest.
"C'mon, Saki, give us something juicy!"
What are they even planning to burn with this fuel? Ryo-chin already knows a little about my relationship with Asamura-kun because we shared a room on the school trip.
What do I do? They're really expecting something now…
"A-Asamura-kun…"
Both of them gulped in anticipation. What do I do—nothing's happened recently.
"The other day, when he was making miso soup, he accidentally mixed up the salt and sugar!"
The temperature of Maaya's gaze dropped sharply. She even sighed and told me to stop with the obvious unbelievable lie. Looks like you're really trusted here, Asamura-kun.
Satou-san then tried to smooth the situation over by calming the both of us down.
Hmm… a recent failure story, huh? Did I even have one?
"Let's see, umm. I read a lot of recipes and cookbooks, so I think I know cooking terms fairly well. But somehow, I always often think of 'spatula' as 'frying pan return' by mistake."[1]
""That's Saki for ya!""
Huh!? Even Satou-san agrees with Maaya here!?
[1]: "フライ返し" (pronounced "furaikaeshi") means "spatula," and consists of the words "フライ" (fry) and "返し" (return), literally meaning "fry return."
"フライパン返し" (pronounced "furaipan kaeshi") literally means "frying pan return," and includes an additional "パン" (pan") which isn't needed when referring to a spatula.