Kamijou parted ways with Misaka Mikoto.
This was simply because he was hungry, he wanted to change out of his sweaty school uniform, and he had a massive amount of extra soumen he needed to use up back at his dorm.
Kamijou had no idea when dried soumen went bad, but he had a feeling it would be best not to keep this year's soumen around into the next year.
Mikoto had yelled "What!? It's just soumen!", but Kamijou had gotten her to let him go by forcefully yelling back "Then do you want to be stuck eating soumen for three meals a day and having to spend all day coming up with new ways to use it for salad, pasta, udon, and anything else you can come up with!? If so, I can send you a giant cardboard box full of soumen!!"
Since he did not have much time until they had agreed to meet back up, Kamijou ran at a reckless speed back to his dorm.
"Dammit. If only I had sensed the trap back when this soumen was so cheap at that supermarket sale. This must be why no one was touching it despite the excellent price."
And in a case of horrible timing, right after he had bought all that soumen, his parents who lived outside of Academy City had sent him a massive amount of dried noodles with a note saying "We won this in a lottery. Touma, you like soumen, right?" When things like that happened every day, it could only be described as misfortune.
When he arrived at the dorm building, Tsuchimikado Maika happened to be heading out. It was a boy's dorm, but the public morals had been in great disarray lately with that maid apprentice girl coming to clean her stepbrother's room like a girlfriend and a starving girl lazing around in Kamijou's room.
The girl named Maika usually sat seiza-style on top of an autonomous drum-shaped cleaning robot, but she was walking normally today.
Her bangs were pushed up by the frilly headband characteristic of maids, so her forehead was completely visible. She wore a dark bluish long-sleeved maid uniform, but it was apparently actually the designated (winter) uniform for her school.
She attended a maid school.
When Kamijou saw Maika walking along with short strides, he asked, "Oh? What happened to your usual cleaning robot?"
"Heh heh. I'm in too good a mood to stick with that thing's slow speed."
This girl's expressions were usually as hard to read as Himegami Aisa's, but today her face was plainly beaming with joy. Kamijou looked puzzled as he tried to figure out what could have caused that, and Maika placed the back of her right hand on her left cheek and let out a domineering laugh that did not suit a maid.
"Oh ho ho! It's these. These cuffs turned out perfectly."
"Cuffs?"
"The end of the sleeves here," said Maika while grinning. "A maid is supposed to be inconspicuous, so we cannot use too flashy of accessories for our hair or wherever. That is why we show our individuality in small places like our cuffs and collars."
"Oh, I see," said Kamijou as he looked more closely around Maika's hands.
The cloth of the sleeves was folded back at the wrist. Kamijou was unsure what about it was different from normal, but he guessed this was similar to a girl's joy after shortening the length of the skirt to her first uniform.
With an entranced look, Maika rubbed her sleeve against her own soft-looking cheek.
"Ahh… This term's Gauntlets were a tremendous success. I'm in suuuuuch a good mood, I'm willing to listen to any troubles you might be having."
"Really? Then do you know how to use up a bunch of extra soumen?"
"If you cook the soumen, chop it into small pieces, and mix it into the contents of a spring roll, it doesn't change the flavor much at all. It's a light way to increase their volume."
After answering, Maika trotted off somewhere. Rays of joy could be seen coming from even her retreating back.
Kamijou looked off in that direction for a bit.
"…I guess that's just throwing it in with something with a strong flavor to hide its own flavor."
With that casually muttered comment on Maika's answer, he headed into the student dorm since he had no reason to stay outside.
After riding the worn-out elevator up the 7th floor, he just had to head straight down the row of doors to reach his own room.
When he unlocked the door and entered, he found the starving girl called Index collapsed face up in the middle of the floor. He guessed she was hungry as always.
Kamijou tossed his thin bag on the floor and said, "It's soumen again today."
"No!!" The silver-haired girl in the pure white nun's habit forcefully sat up with dissatisfaction filling her sparkling green eyes. "Touma, why have you been making nothing but Japanese noodles lately!? What kind of ritual is this!? Is it some kind of bodily regulation magic using culinary culture!?"
Index was complaining now, but it was no big deal since she would happily eat the soumen once it was laid out on the table. She was simply getting tired of soumen. And you could only get tired of a food that you fundamentally liked since you tended not to eat something you did not like enough to get tired of it.
Kamijou nodded and said, "Romance is tough."
"Touma?"
Index looked at him like he was some suspicious person, but Kamijou did not care.
Incidentally, the room had another freeloader besides the girl. The calico cat was bathing in the sun on the balcony. Not long before, it had usually chosen to curl up in an area it could feel a breeze in, but it must have been changing its habits as the season changed. The cat did not have to deal with the soumen, so it managed to remain completely carefree. It had recently started growing its winter coat, so there was cat fur everywhere. And Kamijou had a feeling the cat was growing larger bit by bit.
Kamijou reached for some clothes to change into using the dorm's bathroom and said, "Maika passed on a secret technique to me, so how about we try it out? It's time for some soumen spring rolls!"
"Then can't we just have normal spring rolls!?"
Just as Index let out that cry, the intercom suddenly rang.
"Who could that be?"
Kamijou opened the door and found Tsuchimikado Motoharu standing there.
"Oh, you're here, you're here, nyah. Kami-yan, could you help me out a bit, nyah?"
Those words made Kamijou wary.
"H-help with what? Don't tell me you want me to go sink another international magic fleet."
"Kami-yan, you can already say that kind of thing with a straight face? …Maybe I should feel a bit sorry for you." Tsuchimikado gave Kamijou a sympathetic look. "It isn't that. Maika made too much food, nyah. She just left an entire pot full of stew that had been cooking for 10 hours, and there's no way I can eat it all. But it would be a waste to throw it out, so if you like you can-…"
"…I'll eat it!!"
It was Index that shouted out, not Kamijou. She also shot out from behind the boy who actually owned the room and quickly approached Tsuchimikado. Tsuchimikado also must have smelled like the food in question because the calico cat stopped lazing around and trotted over towards him.
Kamijou wanted to make a complaint, but he decided to hold his tongue when he saw how unusually excited Index was. The words "wise decision" floated up in the back of his mind.
And so the group headed next door to Tsuchimikado's room.
Naturally, the overall layout was exactly the same as Kamijou's room. However, the kind of training equipment you would see in a gym was lying about, so it gave quite a different impression. One wall had two bookshelves on it with one of the two transformed into a collector's field by being filled with manga and the like that featured maids, but Kamijou decided it was the duty of a friend to let that go without comment.
"Here it is," said Tsuchimikado as he pointed at the table.
Maika must have only just brought it because the kind of silver stock pot used by cooks was sitting on the table. Naturally, a normal dorm did not have a trivet that could fit such a giant pot, so old newspaper had been laid out on the table.
Tsuchimikado approached the pot and opened the lid. An orange stew could be seen within.
"She said the base of the stew is carrots, but they've been cooked so much they completely fell apart, nyah. She then threw in other vegetables and stuff, so it's quite a stew."
"Aren't carrots actually pretty sweet?"
From what Kamijou could smell, that seemed to be the case. It may have been a method of letting the natural flavors of the vegetables sweeten it without using much, if any, sugar.
They scooped the stew onto large shallow plates with a ladle. The potatoes and pork had been cut up into large pieces. It had quite a number of different vegetables in it, so it seemed like it would be as nutritious as a health drink. Incidentally, it had onions in it, so they could not give any to the cat. Kamijou could not look the small animal in the eye as it rolled around and as if to say "Oh, c'mon! I want some too! I want some too! I want some too!!"
And so they began to eat.
It was an unexpectedly wonderful meal, but Kamijou was still worried about what he would do with all that soumen.
"Time to eat," Kamijou said with spoon in hand before looking over at Tsuchimikado. "You sure are generous. Maika may say she's an apprentice, but her cooking is on par with your average restaurant, don't you think?"
"Nyah. That's the whole reason I did this. I didn't want to waste something so valuable just because I couldn't eat it all myself. And I definitely can't eat this much on my own, nyah."
"I guess. But couldn't you save it for later?"
Tsuchimikado froze in place.
He usually ate out or had his younger stepsister cook for him, so he did not do much cooking for someone living on his own. That must have been why the possibility never occurred to him.
Kamijou Touma, the home cooking boy, clarified further.
"Also, if Maika made this much for you, doesn't that mean she probably isn't coming to your room for a while? She probably made something this nutritious you could reheat as needed so you wouldn't starve."
The cat began swatting something like a box with its front paws.
They looked down and saw a sealed container for leftover food. It was very, very large.
"…"
"…"
"…"
Kamijou Touma, Index, and Tsuchimikado Motoharu all exchanged glances.
Given Tsuchimikado Maika's great kindness and Tsuchimikado Motoharu's hopelessness, they could all guess just how much danger loomed in that sunglasses boy's future if that stew was taken from him.
The silence continued for a few seconds.
The cat let out a meow.
Using that as their sign, Kamijou and Index almost simultaneously began vigorously devouring their stew.
Tsuchimikado's face had gone completely pale.
"Wait! Kami-yan, stop, stop!! I was mistaken! I can't give you any of that! Listen to me! My stepsister's cooking is mine and mine alone!!"
"Hah hah! Sorry, but I'm not about to wait!! And you should probably be more concerned about stopping Index!! She's about to go back for seconds!!"
"Nyahh!?" shouted Tsuchimikado, but Index could not be stopped. Her spoon moved so fast it looked like she was going to devour the entire contents of the pot.
In its own way, this was another peaceful day.