Please, for everyone's sake, don't try so hard next time...
My dear Kiana-nee!!
That was what Miko truly, desperately wanted to say out loud in response to Kiana's comment.
Because the moment Kiana actually tried, Miko was inevitably going to end up as the taste tester — and that was practically a death sentence.
Most people cooked to fill their stomachs. Kiana cooked to claim lives.
...Fine.
Just hold it in!
After a moment's deliberation, Miko swallowed it all back down. She'd managed to hold her tongue this far — there was no point throwing it all away now.
And more importantly: the next time Kiana decided to unleash her disaster cooking on the world, Kaito should be back by then. She could just send him in as the sacrificial taster.
Of course, aside from Kaito, there was also Wendy — that little brat. Those two ought to be more than capable of handling whatever culinary catastrophe Kiana produced.
"Cooking isn't something you improve at overnight, so take it nice and slow, Kiana-nee."
After thinking it over, Miko settled on that as her parting shot — hoping it would delay Kiana's next cooking attempt for as long as possible.
No matter what, she had to hold out until Kaito got back.
The moment he returned, she was going to march straight up to him and tell him everything about Kiana's cooking. Mei and Kiana might mention it too — but Miko felt she had to say it herself. That was the only way she could be absolutely certain he'd know.
This sort of thing was far too important to leave to someone else.
"Mm, I know." Kiana gave a small nod at Miko's words.
Good...
Since you know...
I'm getting out of here...
With that thought in mind, Miko continued aloud: "Then I'll go check on Ei and the others — you two eat at your own pace."
As she spoke, she rose to her feet and started toward the door, looking very much like she couldn't spare a single extra second.
"Okay." Just as Miko reached the doorway, Kiana called after her with a simple reply — and it nearly gave Miko a heart attack.
She couldn't help it. She'd genuinely been afraid Kiana would demand she keep eating — or worse, finish off — whatever those things were that could no longer be called food.
One bite had nearly done her in. Finishing the whole plate? That was simply not happening.
Fortunately, Miko made it out of the kitchen alive. Kiana had not, in the end, demanded she continue eating.
Phew...
To think that I, Miko, would one day be scared half to death like this...
Once she was out of the kitchen, Miko glanced back at it and couldn't help thinking exactly that. When Kiana had suddenly called out to her just as she'd reached the door, her heart had lurched violently in her chest.
Oh, right.
Come to think of it — I haven't seen that little brat Wendy at all today...
I really need to get her to say something about Kiana's cooking again, like she did before...
As she made her way toward the room where Ei and Makoto had been, Miko found herself missing Wendy quite a lot.
She did feel a little guilty about having Wendy be the one to tell Kiana her cooking was terrible — it seemed a bit mean to Kiana. But there was simply no other option. Kiana's cooking was genuinely that bad. It had long since ceased to qualify as food.
Never mind serving it to people — she had a feeling even animals wouldn't be able to get it down.
And the awful taste wasn't even the most alarming part. She was fairly certain it could pose an actual threat to one's life.
So whether for her own sake, or for Kaito and the others', she absolutely had to find a way to get Kiana to stop this cooking business — immediately.
Or, alternatively, she could approach it from a different angle: help Kiana learn what real cooking actually looked like, rather than whatever dark alchemy she was currently practicing.
But who should teach her?
Herself?
But what if, during the lessons, Kiana kept making her taste everything along the way?
That sounded fatal, honestly.
No matter how she turned it over in her head, Miko couldn't come up with a particularly good solution.
If she were being honest, she preferred the idea of Kiana actually learning to cook properly — rather than simply having Wendy tell her the food tasted terrible again, which was a little too cruel.
She could tell that Kiana genuinely seemed to enjoy cooking. The technique was just... spectacularly, catastrophically bad.
But the question of how to help Kiana improve — and who to send her to for lessons — was something Miko still hadn't worked out.
She herself did know how to cook, but she was worried that the process would inevitably involve being forced to sample Kiana's disasters, and that was something she wasn't sure she could survive.
Haah...
Oh, Kiana-nee...
What on earth am I going to do with you?
Musing helplessly, Miko let out a long, weary sigh in her heart.
And as she mused, she realized she'd already arrived at the door to the room where Ei and Makoto had been.
Oh well.
I'll just wait until that guy Kaito gets back and figure it out with him properly...
For now — let's go see what Ei and Makoto are up to.
With that thought, she stepped inside.
---
Liyue.
Once I'm back...
What are we going to do about the Kiana situation?
Just keep letting her turn out disaster cooking, then have Wendy say something and call it done?
Standing in the middle of the courtyard, listening to the sounds of Lumine working in the kitchen, Kaito found his thoughts drifting to Kiana's side of things.
He'd helped Lumine with some prep work a little while ago; now she was in the middle of cooking, which gave him a convenient stretch of time to step out and think through how to continue Kiana's "disaster chef" persona once he returned.
He had to admit — Kiana's character was accumulating quite a few traits lately.
First there was the one about loving to be called "big sis." Then came the newly established disaster chef.
Lumine, of course, didn't know any of this yet.
Originally, the plan Kaito had in mind was for Kiana's cooking to be average — nothing special, nothing terrible. But he'd had no real experience to draw from in that area, so he'd ended up pivoting: Kiana would become a full-fledged disaster chef instead.
As for himself — naturally, he'd play the role of the long-suffering party who had no choice but to choke down Kiana's creations.
And then there was Acheron. Since she genuinely couldn't taste any difference, it didn't matter to her one way or another.
That left Wendy — who, after reaching her absolute limit, had flat-out declared that Kiana's cooking was terrible, which had at least brought Kiana's culinary career to a temporary halt.
Hmm...
For now, I'll put off thinking about what role Mobius plays in all this.
Since Mobius's position in the story still hadn't been properly established, Kaito set aside the question of what she thought about Kiana's disaster cooking for the time being.
But those were just the past reactions — from a version of events that had already played out. What reactions he'd need to set up once he was back in Inazuma was something he'd have to think through carefully.
Acheron can stay the same as before...
She can't taste the difference anyway...
Same goes for me, really...
After all — it was food his girlfriend had made for him. The least he could do was accept it.
____
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