That Wasn't the Only Problem

Fuwaka enjoyed her morning better than normal as she sat back during their break time. Now that Youta had shown her the light on spending time with her teammates, she found a new way to entertain herself during their swim practices. Also he no longer needed to be around her anymore, at least not in an official capacity.

Her illusion would be shattered when the sound of a stack of papers landed onto her desk.

"Huh?" She shook up as the girl look in dismay over how much school work had been plopped onto her table. Standing in front of her was Youta who had a serious look on his face. "What's this?"

"I probably should've mentioned back then that getting you to talk to your teammates and making some friends wasn't the only issue." He answered. "Your grades are terrible." As a part of his job, though one could question the privacy violations, Youta was made aware of her current scores when it came to their tests. To call them bad would be the nice way to put it.

"You know, I've never really viewed myself as a troubled person." She replied. Fuwaka never caused anyone so she assumed none of the teachers had issues with her. As it turned out, they did take contention on her spacing out during class and her poor results in both homework and testing.

"It can be hard to have self-awareness sometimes." He spoke sarcastically, being aware there was only one thing on her mind and it had nothing to do with school or even other people. Youta was also aware of the challenge this would present him. It was one thing to encourage her to seek the interests of others, but how could he get her to be interested enough to apply herself in academics? And this would be assuming that was her problem and not from a lack of intellectual fortitude.

Fuwaka didn't say anything as she took a closer look at all the papers he had dropped in front of her. There were multiple subjects covering weeks worth of concepts and lectures. A sign on just how far behind she had fallen behind compared to her peers.

"You want me to do all this?" She asked with a nervous look on her face. "Kind of a big ask, don't you think?"

"Not by yourself." He replied. "I'll help you through it since I'm sure you'll need help understanding. Just take it as my way of paying you back for teaching me how to swim." Not that he needed that as a reason to tutor her. After all, this was one of his missions as sports manager. Even if Youta didn't want to, there was no choice but to help. "Hope you're not busy this weekend because now you got plans on spending a day in my room."

"I normally just swim around when school's off." She responded, but took note of his final statement. "Why are we going to your place?"

"You'll be too comfortable in your own room." He answered. Youta also wanted to keep the advantage on his side, so putting her in an uncomfortable spot would lend him that edge. "So, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."

Which was exactly what he ensured would occur the next day. After trading contact and addresses, Youta made sure to arrive to her own house early on in the morning. Before most reasonable people would've had their breakfast to make sure she was awake and ready to bring along the work to his house.

"If you were going to show up, then it'd been easier to stay at my place." She complained as the girl sleepily followed him on the path back to his home. "You really don't like doing things the easy way, do you?"

"I don't see anything wrong with an early start and some walking to get the blood flowing." While he was no runner, bits of Mitora did rub off on him over the years. "Besides, it'll be a long day so we'll have to do it as soon as we can if we want to finish in time." Youta was able to manage a bit of a skim on the contents of her homework. While it was child's play for someone such as himself, he knew she'd need much more time in comparison.

"A long day, huh?" Her stomach growled loudly as she clutched it in disappointment. "Couldn't you have waited until after breakfast first?"

"It's not like we're going to the middle of nowhere." He said as they walked up the steps to his front door. "We can do some studying in the kitchen then. I'll cook you up some breakfast."

"You will?" Her face perked up as they entered his house. "I'm so hungry I could eat anything, so it's cool if you're a bad cook."

"First off, I'm not a bad cook." He motioned her to set her things onto the kitchen island so she could begin reading. "I'll have you know my mom's gone a lot on the weekends, so I've needed to take care of myself a lot." After he had gotten to high school, his mom picked up a part-time job on the weekends now that she didn't need to take care of him as intently. This meant a lot of time home alone which was mainly wasted on watching OurTube videos after he had finished his homework.

However this wasn't time he spent doing absolutely nothing where he gained no valuable skills. "Actually, I've watched a ton of online videos of cool recipes. I think there's one in mind now that your here." She didn't have any high expectations from his bragging.

However as she sat down and read through some of the pages. Fuwaka's eyes couldn't help but look up when she noticed him pulling out numerous ingredients as he rinsed out some rice to be steam. It seemed he prepared to have a hefty breakfast for her in order for them to get through the day.

After the boy got the rice in the rice cooker, he would begin boiling water on the stove in a teapot. As things got moving, the ingredients he had set aside saw themselves getting into the stand mixer, properly grouping the dry and wet ingredients. "I probably should let this rest, but didn't think to have it prepared ahead of time." While she was impressed by his work, even Youta couldn't help but criticize himself when realizing his mistakes.

The batter would find itself poured a special pan where it would mold his delicacy into the shape of fish. As it quickly fried itself into a more solid shape. He expertly multi tasked this along with the boiling water, where the boy seeps in some tea leaves for a light flavor.

There were no mistakes when it came to missing out on the balance or burning anything as the boy also tossed some fish from the fridge onto the still hot stove with a new pan. The sounds of sizzling meat combined with the scent of all the ongoing cooking to give Fuwaka the feeling she was in a fancy restaurant, not just some random kitchen. She likened the mood to when she laid back onto the surface of water. A subtle, relaxing feeling that made her feel at a home.

Youta finalized everything as the boy took all the cooked parts and set them neatly on plates or in bowls in the case of the steamed rice. He set the tayaki neatly stacked along each other as if they were fallen domino pieces. The grilled fish found itself way on top of the bowls of steam rice he put in front of hers and his spots on the kitchen island.

Finally, he took the teapot and graciously poured out a couple of cups as if he were working as a butler. "Ta-da!" Once he was finished, he presented his fine work to her.

"Ooh." Her eyes lit up in seeing the meal he prepared for them. Fuwaka's mouth watered from the sight of such delicious food before her. "Grilled fish is my favorite, how did you know that?"

"I didn't." When it came to the grilled fish, he only chose it due to it being easily available. "But what do you think of the tayaki? I made it because I figured you'd like the design."

"They look so beautiful." She couldn't find a single flaw in his tayaki, filled inside with homemade azuki bean paste. "It's so sweet of you. I've never had anyone make something just because of what I like."

"I'm not surprised." She didn't have any friends when he first met her. So it wasn't not a difficult assumption to think that no one had done much for her at all. "Anyway, I also made some simple green tea. The caffeine will help us stay energized. So make sure you drink that all up."

"I'll make sure to eat everything." She pushed aside her homework in favor of some chopsticks, clasped her hands together to express her gratitude, and began to dig in.

"Heh." He couldn't help but grin while watching her wolf down breakfast. "At least someone appreciates my cooking."