My Household`s Liliana-san Volume 2 Chapter 9 Part 1
Chapter 9: Hanetsuki, As Well As Mine and Mine Alone Liliana-san
Tatsuya was currently being lost in his thoughts, staring at the plate that was right in front of him.
「I wonder if I should go with soy sauce and oil, or should I go with yellow flour and sugar soy sauce?」
With the passage of time, the number of options would only keep on increasing, which only caused the man to sink deeper and deeper into the sea of his own thoughts.
「Fufufu, even if you don’t think about it that seriously, Tatsuya-san, there are still plenty of rice cakes left, so why not eat all the soy sauce and yellow flour first? Even if you do not eat them all at once, we will still have plenty of leftovers that could wait for us to eat them until tomorrow.」
With a wry smile on her face, Liliana easily offered a solution to Tatsuya’s current dilemma, who was unable to find an answer no matter how long and hard he was pondering that matter.
「Hmm, I see, that is certainly one way in which we can approach that problem, for sure. As expected of Liliana-san: you are always capable of finding a solution that eludes me!」
「But speaking of which, there are also other possible solutions. Would you like to hear some of them?」
「W-Wait, there’s more!? And here I thought that the current choices were already plenty and hard enough as they were!」
Just when Tatsuya was about to let out a sigh of relief upon finding a solution to his problem, he widened his eyes when he realized that the entire matter was even more complicated than he would have initially thought it to be.」
「W-Well, for the time being, isn’t it enough to use some basic soy sauce or yellow flour? Why over complicate the matter when it can be easily solved this way? Or even some red bean paste or soup could work wonders.」
「Liliana-san, I know that we are looking for new ideas here, but there are some combinations of food products that should never be mentioned like that. It’s not even about their price or taste, but some things should never go hand in hand. That’s just the way it is.」
「I-Is that so? But if we tried to eat them separately, Tatsuya-san would become confused as to which one to eat first, so if I choose to use the same rice cake with red bean soup and some other ingredients, that should prove to be the solution that we are looking for. At least, I thought it was supposed to be a good idea.」
「And now you try to come up with even more options, Liliana-san!? Are you trying to fry my brain on purpose!?」
Tatsuya clapped his hands in sheer admiration, before he eventually realized what that would entail. But still, to some extent, he felt as though some particularly nasty scales had been removed from his eyes.
As for Liliana, she thought that even for Tatsuya, right about now he was even more lost in his own little world than he usually would, but she then managed to convince herself that it was only a symptom of Tatsuya actually overthinking this whole mochi problem. After all, it was the kind of food that they would not usually eat on a regular basis, so it was kind of important to actually know how to approach that matter.
And since it was also Liliana’s first time preparing a New Years’ dish like that for her beloved Tatsuya, she was naturally curious how it would turn out and if Tatsuya would actually like it.
「For the time being, if we don’t start trying the different toppings in order, the mochi might start to get cold and lose some of its size and luster as a result. At least, that’s what I heard would happen if you leave it be for a while, right?」
「Yes, that’s right. It looks delicious just by looking at it as it is, but it would be a complete and utter waste if we allowed it to shrivel up like that just because I can’t make a decision.」
「Yes, so with that being said, here is some sweet soy sauce and sweet soy flour.」
「Thank you very much…… Yeah, that’s the stuff. The natural saltiness of the soy sauce is being neutralized by the texture of the mochi and it becomes just the right balance of sweetness and saltiness. But the greatest problem here is that you can’t eat too much of those before you become full and cannot eat anymore.」
「I mean, there is no need to rush with eating the mochi, Tatsuya-san. We still have more than enough for at least several days, so please calm down and enjoy them at your own leisure.」
Liliana scolded Tatsuya in a playful voice, the two of them looking more like a mother and son duo rather than lovers.
「Yes, I know that, but the thing is…… we only get to eat mochi around New Years’, so when I started to think about all those different toppings that I would have to choose from, all of a sudden it made this whole thing much more complicated than it needed to be.」
「Ufufu, that’s actually the part of you that I find to be really cute, Tatsuya-san. But anyways, for the time being, please enjoy the soy sauce and sweet soy flour that are in front of you.」
After Liliana limited his choices to those two, Tatsuya obediently bit into the mochi that were waiting on top of the plate right in front of him. It was not that he could not know where Liliana was coming from, but once again, being told that he was cute rather than manly was really embarrassing for him.
「Munch, munch…… Yeah, that’s the stuff! It’s freshly baked, of course the mochi is going to be a little bit stretchy like that.」
Despite the heat of the mochi, Tatsuya pulled on it slightly to see it starting to stretch from his mouth.
The sight of the mochi dough slowly thinning and eventually breaking and hanging down from his mouth was only complementing the already pleasing taste of it, and the visuals like that made the experience pretty much complete.
「Tatsuya-san! Please make sure that you chew your food well before you get to swallow it! You might not know that, but overseas mochi is being called a silent killer, and I think that it is for an entirely good reason!」
Well, that’s only a given for the people who were not really accustomed to eating mochi to perceive it that way. However, as someone for whom it was pretty much a habit of eating them every single year around the New Years’ Tatsuya thought nothing of his eating manners and that someone might find them odd. He then reminded himself to be more careful about that from now on.
However, even though Liliana must have understood that, as well as the fact that the mochi itself was a really delicious treat, she could not help it but to worry about Tatsuya should he actually choke on the stretchy dough.
Even Tatsuya did not mean to make her worry like that, so he tried to make extra sure that he would chew his mochi well before swallowing it from now on.
「By the way, freshly made mochi are way softer than usual and tend to go down your throat really smoothly.」
「Is that so? Now I definitely want to taste it as well.」
Ever since Liliana happened to see the mochi being prepared on the TV, her eyes were all shiny with expectations when she was trying her hand at making one, but in the end it was rather difficult to prepare them in the same neat and shining way as was displayed on TV.
Even if you have the right tools for the hobby, you can’t expect that your finished product is going to turn out perfect. Especially if it is your very first time making it.
Then, Tatsuya took out his smartphone from his pocket while holding the mochi in one hand. He knew that it was not the best display of table manners from him, but it was something that he absolutely had to do here.
「Ah, yeah, just what I thought. It looks like the local shrine is going to have a mochi-making display, as they do every year.」
「Does that mean that you can try your hand at making the mochi and then eat what you made yourself?」
「Yeah, it seems like it. Would you like to go there and give it a try, Liliana-san?」
「Yes, let’s do just that. I’m actually looking forward to it now, I won’t lie.」
Tatsuya’s face softened as Liliana answered to his proposition with a nod of her head and a bright smile on her lips.」
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