If It's Going on the Thumbnail Anyway

If it was going on the thumbnail anyway, it might as well be one that looked the part.

There is something about the handmade that plucks at the heartstrings. The common assumption of the world is that a person's care and sincerity have gone into anything made by hand.

Evidence? Obviously.

Exhibit one: in anime, when a heroine wants to convey her heart to the protagonist on Valentine's Day, she goes out of her way to make handmade chocolate. Exhibit two: when a heroine confesses, she specifically calls the protagonist out with a handwritten letter. Gifted homemade cookies from home-ec class, a scarf ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knitted by hand and presented as a Christmas present in the dead of winter — every last one of them propped the argument up.

Seen from that angle, it was only natural that maids and the service of drawing ketchup pictures on omurice had become bound together. Ketchup art was a method of laying a handmade premium over an ordinary omurice, and a splendid way of making a maid's service feel steeped in devotion and sincerity.

Maid cafés only, of course.

But the pairing of maid and omurice refused to stay inside real maid cafés; it found its way into anime as well. By now, among otaku, it was fair to call maid and omurice an ironclad combo.

And having become the Eternal Seventeen-Year-Old Perfect Maid, could I really just let a combo that sacred slide on by?

...Honestly, I hesitated. A lot.

Back when I was mulling over a cooking stream, the concept I rejected without a second thought was the maid café. And now I was making omurice and even drawing ketchup pictures on it? With my own hands, I was resurrecting a maid-café plan I had personally put to death.

But the me of then and the me of now were not the same person.

Measured in time, the gap was barely two months. In those two months, an absurd number of things had happened. I had taken a genius singer-songwriter as my teacher and become the savior of a world. I had fought a savage battle with a dragon and seized the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seat of world champion. And that was hardly all — there had been so much else that getting through it without growing would have been impossible.

Grown far past the person I had been two months earlier, I at last succeeded in choosing differently than I had back then.

And once I saw the prize money, I thought, yeah — good thing I went through with it.

...I had seriously been considering just using frozen fried rice.

Past me, who had bitten down and prepped every single ingredient because otherwise the cooking stream would be over too fast — you did so well!

There was a question that anyone who watched Märchen had probably turned over at least once.

Was Märchen actually good at cooking — or bad at it?

The only times she had ever looked even vaguely competent in a kitchen on stream were boiling ramen, or manufacturing a Mint-Choco Tarantula Tempura Powerade Rice Bowl. That was the entire résumé. She had never once displayed any proper skill, so almost none of the viewers could settle on a real answer to the question.

Most of them, however, assumed Märchen couldn't cook. It fit the image she had built, and more than once they had watched her knock back breakfast as misutgaru — a quick drink of roasted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mixed-grain powder. In real life, even when she managed a halfway decent spread, Märchen was the sort of person whose entire method was borrowing the might of frozen food and meal kits, because anything else was too much trouble. That Märchen and cooking were not on close terms was a plain, undeniable fact.

But there were two things the viewers had overlooked, or never known at all.

"Exactly three spoonfuls of cooking oil..."

The first was that Märchen was a recipe absolutist — even when she boiled ramen, she measured the water with a cup and ran a stopwatch besides.

"When you cook, you start on low heat. No exceptions!"

The second was that she believed a dish begun on low heat simply could not be ruined. A low-heat absolutist. Mercifully, she was not a low-heat fanatic who carried low heat all the way into soups.

At any rate, those two traits stacked, and the result was—

Fortunately, the reality in which the omurice failed in spectacular misery did not arrive.

"...It's kind of middling."

Of course, no one could have called it dazzlingly well made, either. The egg — the highlight of an omurice, the very thing that carries its looks — had not come out pretty. Even at one's most generous, it was a stretch to claim this was the omurice of a lovely girl bearing the title of Eternal Seventeen-Year-Old Perfect Maid.

"Figures. I really shouldn't have tried that whirlwind business or whatever."

As if displeased with her own handiwork, Märchen prodded the omurice with her chopsticks. Gently, of course, so she wouldn't punch a hole through it. But what was she supposed to do? It was already finished.

"I'll draw the ketchup picture now."

So saying, Märchen brought the ketchup from the refrigerator. The bottle in her hand, however, was not the ordinary kind you see in any store. Narrow and sharp at the tip, it was a drizzle bottle, made for toppings. For the sake of ketchup art, the Eternal Seventeen-Year-Old Perfect Maid Märmärchen had gone so far as to prepare specialist equipment she might never have cause to use again — gear whose destiny was a single outing.

And if you stacked practice in advance on top of a pure gear advantage? Then deftly drawing a heart across the omurice, and writing Please love me lots from here on out! in the empty stretch of the plate, was hardly a difficult feat.

"The make-it-delicious spell... Shall I go with the timeless classic, or the up-and-coming powerhouse?"

Personally, Märchen couldn't shake the sense that the up-and-comer was a little much, and it didn't even contain moe moe, the very heart of a make-it-delicious spell. She wanted to lean classic. But...

The viewers, it seemed, were not interested in a taste of way back when.

"...Then I'll keep the spirit of taking the old and making it new, and only change it a little so it fits the moment."

Märchen closed her eyes.

And the instant she opened them———

The original line was thirty-seven characters long. Märchen's arrangement was forty-nine. Something beyond imagination had been born.

And the one who had created that something beyond imagination...

"All right — the make-it-delicious spell has been recited! Which means it's time for a meal with the cutest maid in the world!"

She delivered it with a perfectly straight face, walked to the refrigerator, and flung the freezer door open. Then she pulled something out from inside.

"Ah. This one's for me to eat."

Answering the viewers' confusion at once, Märchen put the frozen omurice in the microwave and ran it for the time printed on the package.

"This? I made this for my Masters, so I can hardly eat it right now. Masters — do you eat the food at an ancestral rite the moment it's set out? You eat after the ancestors have had their meal and the ceremony is finished, right? You can think of it as roughly that."

"...And if it's going on the thumbnail anyway, it might as well be one that looks the part, right?"

The instant Märchen let that glimpse of pitch-black honesty slip, the microwave sent up the signal that it had fulfilled its appointed duty.

Impeccable timing.

"Oh, it's done!"

And Märchen did not miss it. She cut herself off, stood, took out the omurice still cradling its warmth, and carefully transferred it onto a plate.

"Store-bought really does win on looks alone."

She wasn't wrong. Sleek and glossy, tracing one fluent curve, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was the very image of an omurice you might see in an anime.

"Then on my omurice, with the ketchup, I'll..."

As she spoke, Märchen swept something across the thumbnail omurice in ketchup as well.

The chat detonated.