Raido was attentive as ever and once his teacher ushered him over to his table, the boy nearly hopped out of his chair and soon followed after. He might’ve looked funny in an apron with all those scars and his old-style school uniform, but he put it on like it wasn’t a problem at all. He was ready for this moment, he was pumped, he could feel it. Katsuya gathered what appeared to be various vegetables: carrots, broccoli and water chestnuts. From the looks of it, it seemed like class was going to start out making stir fry. When the older man asked for the younger’s name, Raido had to break his focus for a second.
“Uh… Raido Kuzunoha,” he answered, “…The other one.” He assumed the teacher already knew of the twins. Or at least the other one. Such odd rumors managed to circulate through schools fast.
He was quick to dive into slicing the vegetables once his hands were washed. Perhaps he was a bit too quick and a bit too ambitious, because halfway through slicing a carrot he knicked one of his fingers.
“Shit!” he hissed as he held his cut to his mouth. Luckily it wasn’t bad. It took him a moment, however, before he realized he cursed in front of his teacher and he hung his head.
“…I’m sorry. It just came out.”
Katsuya turns away for a second and the next thing he hears is the sound of the knife dropping and the young Kuzunoha swearing.
He runs for the first aid kit nearby and grabs Raido’s hand, noticing him wince at the touch. The kid probably wasn’t accustomed to receiving that kind of attention. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Let me take care of that so it doesn’t get infected.”
“See? Now we can continue. It’s like they say: ‘You’re not a real chef until you have your hands covered in band-aids’, right? I was going to use this recipe as a way to measure the class’ skills but it was clear just now that your mistake was out of impatience rather than inexperience. Are you used to cooking already?”
You could say Raido was used to getting physically injured, he even got a weird kick out of it half the time, but it was the embarrassment of the moment that got to him most. He didn’t want to look like some klutz in front of his teacher on the first day. When the other rushed over to him with a first aid kit, Raido looked a bit like a kicked puppy, ashamed of himself. He wasn’t used to being handled the way he was… often he wound up bandaging his own wounds, so he felt a little awkward when bandages were applied by a different set of hands. Once it was done with Raido pulled his hand away with a quiet “Thanks.”
He was impressed with Katsuya’s wisdom and nodded, trying to pull himself out of an embarrassed state. “Yeah, I try to cook whenever I can. I know I’m not the best though, not yet at least.” A small smirk reached his lips and he grabbed the knife again, this time attempting a more steady and focused pace in slicing that damn carrot.
“That’s the spirit, I know you’ll get better in no time!”
Katsuya observes Raido attentively as he continues. He really wasn’t bad at that. “You can even give a certain size consistency to your cuts already. Just… Try to make them a little bit smaller. Make sure that all the ingredients are bite-sized.”
But maybe that wasn’t a good choice of words so he quickly rectifies that.
“I mean- I know everyday cooking doesn’t require that much precision but paying attention to the little details became a habit of mine since I specialize in a field that gives much importance to that. In fact, getting away from said field a little and learning different things in order to teach here was actually a pretty interesting experience.”
He then shakes his head and gets his attention back to separating the ingredients into cooking time. “Ah, but that probably isn’t very interesting to hear, so nevermind it.”
