Chapter 295: I’m Amazing
Kaede stared at the chopsticks held in front of him.
The corner of his mouth twitched as he reluctantly reached for them.
Just before he took them, Mei suddenly rotated her wrist.
Her fingernail lightly and deliberately traced across the back of his hand.
Wasn’t the battlefield in the kitchen already dangerous enough for this woman?
She was actually making little moves like that in front of the other two.
Fortunately, neither of them seemed to notice.
Kaede took the chopsticks and swept his eyes across the three dishes.
Three dishes.
Three directions.
Three pairs of eyes.
His hand hovered without knowing where to go.
No matter which dish he tasted first, it felt wrong.
Pakura sat to the side and understood his predicament perfectly.
Without saying anything, she stood.
The other two women’s gazes immediately followed her.
Pakura walked straight into the kitchen and returned with four white porcelain bowls, arranging them neatly on the table.
She picked up the ladle and filled all four.
One went to Tsunade. One to Mei. One remained in front of herself.
The last was placed carefully beside Kaede’s hand.
"Kaede, drink some soup first. It’ll warm your stomach."
Looking at the steam rising from the bowl, Kaede nearly let out a relieved sigh.
At the critical moment, Pakura was still the kind one.
She had carved a path to survival through a dining table covered in land mines.
Kaede nodded quickly.
He picked up the bowl, blew away the steam, and drank several mouthfuls.
The fragrance of fresh mushrooms blended with soft tofu. The seasoning was exactly right.
After swallowing, Kaede continued holding the bowl while cautiously glancing around the table.
Tsunade raised hers, touched it symbolically to her lips, and set it down again.
Mei didn’t even touch hers.
She rested her cheek on one hand and stared directly at his face.
Pakura was watching too, her eyes carrying a faint anticipation as she waited for his evaluation.
Praise one dish and he’d offend the other two.
Kaede’s brain began operating at maximum capacity.
He set the bowl down and looked toward Pakura.
"The soup was simmered perfectly. All the freshness came out, and a few sips before the meal really open the appetite."
Purely objective comments about the ingredients.
Not one step across the line into favoritism.
The anticipation in Pakura’s eyes settled, and she nodded lightly.
Mei clearly had no intention of letting him escape that easily.
"Since you’ve finished the soup..."
She reached out and nudged the plate of beef and green peppers closer to him.
"Taste the other dishes too."
Kaede could only pick up his chopsticks again.
He first took a piece of beef coated in sauce and placed it in his mouth.
The mild heat of the green pepper balanced the richness of the meat perfectly. The seasoning was genuinely flawless.
After swallowing, he immediately turned toward the steamed sea bream in the center of the table.
His chopsticks reached the firmest part of the fish’s back.
He picked up a tender white piece of meat, touched it to the scallion oil pooled beneath, and ate it.
Then he lowered his chopsticks.
Three completely different gazes converged on his face once more.
Kaede cleared his throat strategically.
"The beef has a rich sauce flavor. It goes perfectly with rice."
He paused for half a second and immediately shifted his attention to the fish.
"And the fish was steamed exactly right. The flesh stayed intact, and all the natural flavor was preserved."
One of Mei’s brows rose.
"That’s not what I asked, Kaede."
She deliberately stretched the words out.
"You’ve tried all three dishes, but you still haven’t said who made the best one."
Kaede’s scalp tightened.
He was just about to throw out some meaningless diplomatic nonsense when Pakura spoke at precisely the right moment.
"Didn’t he already give his evaluation?"
She gave Mei a cool glance.
"If the food gets cold, it won’t taste good. If you’re not hungry, you can watch us eat."
Mei’s smile stiffened for an instant.
What happened to being allies?
Why was this woman stepping on her to score points with Kaede?
Kaede immediately seized the escape route.
"Exactly. Once the food gets cold, the texture changes. Let’s eat first."
At last, the meal entered the stage where everyone actually began eating.
Kaede shoveled rice from his bowl, though the corner of his eye never stopped monitoring the situation across the table.
Tsunade had barely spoken from beginning to end.
He needed to do something to reassure her.
Kaede reached out with his chopsticks and lifted the softest, most tender piece from the fish’s belly.
His eyes went directly to Tsunade across from him.
"It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted fish like this."
Tsunade’s chopsticks froze in midair.
A long time?
Konoha’s market supplied sea bream all year round. If he wanted some, he could buy it whenever he wished.
So he wasn’t talking about the dish in front of them at all.
He was talking about fragments of a life from twenty years ago.
Tsunade’s lips moved, but she said nothing.
Instead, she reached toward the beef Mei had cooked.
She picked up a slice and placed it directly into Kaede’s bowl.
Kaede looked down at the extra piece of beef.
She understood.
He ate the meat with his rice, then reached toward the same plate and placed a piece into Tsunade’s bowl.
"This really does go well with rice. You’ve worked all day. Eat more."
Tsunade looked at him.
She understood that Kaede was worried she might be jealous and was finding roundabout ways to coax her.
She didn’t expose him. She simply lowered her eyes and ate the beef he had placed in her bowl.
Their back-and-forth interaction entered Mei’s eyes in perfect detail.
Her grip on the chopsticks tightened.
There was nothing wrong with Tsunade eating the beef she’d cooked.
But Kaede had actually taken Mei’s own dish and used it to flatter another woman!
What was this supposed to be?
Using the results of Mei’s labor as a prop for their flirting?
Her heart immediately became unbalanced.
A light flashed through her eyes, and the corner of her lips rose again.
Beneath the table, her pale foot stretched halfway across the distance between them.
It pressed against Kaede’s trouser leg and slowly slid upward with astonishing boldness.
Kaede had just placed a mouthful of rice into his mouth when warmth suddenly pressed against his leg.
The restless tip of that foot even circled teasingly just above his knee.
Kaede’s chewing stopped instantly.
He forced himself to swallow the rice, glanced down as though electrocuted, then immediately snapped his gaze back to the tabletop.
Tsunade was holding her bowl and drinking soup. She wasn’t looking this way.
Pakura was dealing with the mushrooms on her plate.
Kaede turned toward Mei diagonally across from him.
The warning was written plainly on his face: Eat properly and stop messing around.
Mei received the warning.
Not only did she show no fear, she instead gave him an innocent, sweet smile.
Under the table, that foot slid another half inch upward along the inside of his thigh.
It brushed directly across a sensitive line of nerves.
Every hair on Kaede’s body nearly stood on end.
He shifted himself and the chair sideways by a noticeable distance.
At last, he escaped the range of that attacking foot.
Seeing him flee in defeat, Mei didn’t continue chasing.
She slowly withdrew her leg and, while Tsunade and Pakura weren’t paying attention, stuck out her tongue at Kaede in a playful grimace.
Only then did Kaede lower his head and focus on the rice in his bowl.
The process had been torturous, but somehow he was still alive.
In his heart, he silently gave himself a thumbs-up.
’I’m amazing.’