6 Cooking Challenge

"Sorry about the whole 'almost getting you killed by firing squad' thing," was about the most tact thing my Cro-Magnon brain could think to say in response.

"Wait! Are you only asking Izukun about his identity because you plan on suing him? Even though he only acted in self defense and assisted me, a pro hero in training, in stopping the robbers? Do you hate Izukun?" Well, at least Nejire was back to being her usual self.

"What? No! I would be remiss to repay his kindness with hatred of any sort. This… Izukun… I would like to thank and repay him in any way possible," Yaoyorozu said.

"Well, if there are no hard feelings… Then repay me in the future after we both get into U.A," I said.

"How did… Why do you presume I will be attending U.A?"

"I'm a psychic," I said, feeling the troll in me rise to the occasion.

"Really?" Yaoyorozu didn't seem very impressed as she snorted and said, "If that's the case, you'll have no problems divining the nature of my Quirk, yes?"

Without missing a beat, I smirked rather arrogantly and said, "You… can create things, right?"

Nejire started to laugh at what should have been a random guess considering I'd clearly acted like I'd never seen this girl throughout the whole robber fiasco. But when Yaoyorozu froze up and pointed at me accusingly, Nejire joined her in becoming fearful of my awesome foreknowledge.

"You can create any nonliving thing, so long as you know it's chemical makeup and have the lipids to expend in the process of Creation!" I doubled down on my pretend mindreading, if only because the reactions of sharing information I shouldn't know elicited such hilarious reactions.

"How did you know that?!"

"Was he actually right?!"

"I counted with my fingers," I decided on taking a move out of Li Qiye's playbook to get out of these situations going forward.

"Anyways," I redirected our conversation, "I get the feeling we'll be seeing each other a lot soon. So, if you really want to repay me or whatever, just watch my back when we go out on the field and I'll watch yours."

Was there an innuendo there? There were probably at least two in retrospect, but that didn't stop my intentions from being any less pure. Honest.

...

"You know… despite being psychic and claiming we would be seeing each other a lot in the future, I expect seeing you so soon," I said to Yaoyorozu after finding her at my local bookstore.

"I must also call into question the probability of such a coincidence, Midoriya."

"Oi, was that a roundabout way of accusing me of being a stalker?!"

"Perhaps… To elaborate, I can't imagine a reason for why you would be in the cooking section of the library."

"You can't imagine a guy with a cooking hobby?" I raised an eyebrow at her. "Then again, I also expected someone like you to stick to the chemistry and science sections."

"Well… you're not wrong. I merely came here to pick up a book on tea ceremonies. I'm not particularly fond of traditional cooking or baking."

"Makes sense," I said, nodding my head sagely. "A rich girl like you wouldn't have to cook a day in your life. Moreover, it would be rather 'prim and proper' of you to be well versed in arts like tea ceremonies."

"Hey! I can cook just fine," she snorted.

"I'd bet you an ounce of your favorite tea, that you've never so much as touched a wooden stirring spoon in your life. No! I'd bet you've never so much as used a rice cooker!"

The look of pure embarrassment on her face all but confirmed my claims twice over, but she still had the gall to say, "So what?! Cooking is very much an application of simple chemistry. You just have to take the right ingredients and treat them to synthesize full meals."

"Yeah? You think it's so simple, huh?"

"It is too, so simple!" Yaoyorozu puffed and fumed in a more cutesy and less hostile manner than she had any right to be doing.

"Why don't we test your mettle with a little challenge then?"

"What challenge?" A bit of the bite in her tone died as she took on an unsure expression.

"The day is still young, so why don't we have a little cooking competition? You pick any dish of your choice and if you can match my one attempt at making it in three hours, I'll lose and give you your ounce of tea."

"And if I lose," she swallowed apprehensively.

"I get to bask in the glory of being right," I said while pointing at her and looking so far down on her that I was actually looking up at the ceiling.

Needless to say, with her pride as a girl being challenged, she accepted and then did something I didn't expect; she invited me over to her house.

Er… Mansion.

She invited me over to the three story tall, several tens of thousands of square meters in area large mansion to host a cooking competition.

"Momo, dear..." A tall man with a grave look on his face glared at me as he asked Momo, "who is this boy that you've brought over to our home."

"This," she gestured at me, rather oblivious to the atmosphere around us, "is Izuku Midoriya. The very same boy that protected and healed me after the teahouse incident last month."

As Momo's presumed father softened the menacing glare he had been directing at me, Momo added, "Today, however, he will shortly be taking the identity of our challenge's loser."

"Those are big words coming from someone who hasn't tried my cooking," I couldn't help but comment.

"Do you dare claim you can cook better than my house chefs?" Momo snorted.

"Uh, no. But, you do realize that picking a recipe that's appropriate for their level will be next to impossible for you to even try recreating, right?"

"Hmph!" Was her only response as she dragged me further into the house and over to the kitchen.

"Sebastian," Momo called and not ten seconds later, a tall man with short black hair appeared in a chef's attire. "Recommend for us a trial dish we can compete in cooking."

"Young miss wants to try her hand at cooking?" After seeing Momo nod, Sebastian said, "Then might I suggest you start with something simple, like… a burger meal?"

"Please bring us two copies of the recipe," and as Sebastian left, she turned to me and added, "and I'll set up a timer with my phone."

After Sebastian returned with the copies of the recipe, Momo and I agreed to start. So, over the next twenty minutes I was hopping around the kitchen doing everything from the preparation to the actual cooking involved in the recipe at the same time. I didn't even need to boost my speed or strength with Synergist buffs to wow Momo and apparently impress Sebastian as well as Momo's parents that had gathered around to watch.

Twenty minutes flat was all it took for me to make four "burger meals," which consisted of a single half pound hamburger, topped with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and cheese, with half a pound of french fries on the side.

Frankly, it would have been impossible for me to achieve this if not for the restaurant quality kitchen in the Yaoyorozu estate, but I wasn't complaining; moreover, it wasn't like Momo had to do the same. She only had to match my worst burger and with three hours, she could potentially have dozens of attempts.

"It pains me to admit that this is actually really good."

"Sebastian, why don't you cook these casual dishes more often?"

"Perhaps the nutrient distribution is a bit rough, seeing as you didn't use a scale to weight everything out, but the flavor is more than acceptable."

"..." Judging by her silence, Momo was starting to feel like she wasn't up for the challenge.

"Hmph! So what? I have three whole hours to work with to beat you," Alas ego is the downfall of man; and, well, girl in this case.

"Well, start the timer and get to cooking whenever you want," I taunted her.

"Hmph!" She was so easy to annoy if you found the right buttons to press.

What followed was… well, to call it a disaster would be like saying that All Might was merely strong; it was a massive understatement.

Less than a minute into the timer starting, I could tell Momo was going to cut herself by the way she picked up a chef's knife. She didn't even last through slicing up a single tomato before I saw her wince and suck in air through her teeth.

"Medic, Cure," I casted on her. Then again, after she cut herself trying to cut up an onion. And again, when she tried to make matchstick fries out of a potato…

"Ok, stop the timer," I said as I made my way over to her side and seized her knife with my left hand and her right hand with my own.

"This is how you hold a chef's knife, see?" I moved her hand up the knife's hand and made her grip close to the edge of the knife with her thumb and index finger.

For whatever reason she was really quiet and tense, but I couldn't be bothered about invading her personal space when she kept cutting herself.

"Now when you're going to cut a vegetable," I used my now free left hand to pick up a potato and gently grabbed it with the endpoints of my fingers pointing down and towards me at an acute angle, "first, you hold whatever it is you're going to cut and you make a cut for stability."

I waited for a second, but with her refusing to move, I said, "Come on, I know it's embarrassing to take pointers for your opponent during a match, but I'd rather do this than see you continue to fumble."

That seemed to wake her up as she lightly kicked my shin and distracted me long enough to snatch the potato out of my hand. At least she was now holding it with tact and made the cut I wanted.

"Ok, not just keep cutting with your fingers like that and so long as whatever your cutting is resting on a flat side, you shouldn't ever cut yourself going forward."

With that out of the way, I moved myself from behind her and headed back to my seat. On the short walk back, I was met with a range of responses from Sebastian and Mr. and Mrs. Yaoyorozu.

Sebastian was giving me two thumbs up and nodding, presumably in approval of my impromptu cooking lesson.

Mr. Yaoyorozu was glaring at me with a sullen, almost constipated look, like he was having a brutal internal battle with himself.

And Mrs. Yaoyorozu was flashing a manic grin along with an "Ok" hand sign.

'They're not at all being subtle with their feelings,' I thought as I subconsciously showed a sheepish grin.

I returned to my seat for all of two minutes before I returned to give Momo another lesson on the importance of thickness consistency.

"No, no, no. You have to cut those over again. Why? Because thicker cut fries will obviously take longer to cook than thinly cut fries! And yeah that applies to the onions, assuming you want to caramelize them. Even if you didn't want to follow the recipe, it's common practice to keep the size of things uniform unless you're using high level techniques to manipulate texture."

Nearly half an hour would go by before she even got to try cooking the hamburger meat. But even then, I had to intervene again.

"Did you seriously just try to cook that without seasoning it first!"

"Momo… the principle of thickness consistency applies to meat as well."

"Maybe you should try using a thermometer. I think the internal temperature of a medium rare burger is around 62 degrees Celsius. I got away without one from experience."

Then, after another half an hour we finally got to frying the fries. Of course, by the time Momo had that down, the burger patties had long since grown cold and she hadn't even gotten started on toasting the hamburger buns.

Soon, the three hours would go by and Momo would only be able to make a single complete "burger meal."

"Cooking's not so easy now, is it?" I wasn't above feeling schadenfreude, especially when she so ignorantly challenged me to a cook off.

Momo shot me a hurt and defeated look that made me reconsider laughing at her misfortune.

"Hey, cheer up," I said, while giving her an encouraging pat on the back. "Look how far you come in just three hours. You went from not even knowing how to properly cut vegetables to making something that's honestly palatable."

Granted, it was actually harder to mess up with regards to taste when we had access to ingredients as high in quality as those in her kitchen. But, the point still stood.

"Who knows," I said, finally getting her to look at me without negativity in her expression, "maybe in a couple weeks, and if you ask your house chef to teach you, you might even be a better cook than me."