𝙄𝙉𝙁𝙄𝙉𝙄𝙏𝙔 (𝙏𝙤𝙟𝙞 𝙁𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙜𝙪𝙧𝙤 𝙭 𝙊𝘾)

°●•◇•●° Chapter 23: Sticky Ginger Soy Glazed Chicken for Dinner °●•◇•●°

An entire year passed, since the incident with the massacre of the entire Gojo Clan, except for the grandson of the Head.
The news travelled fast across the sorcerers and they heard that the sole heir, finally joined the Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School. Many thought that he was the one to do that, since the boy didn't rat his aunt out.
That completely shocked the woman, but she didn't pay much of an attention to it. Many sorcerers, who tried to get closer to the woman offered their condolences. She didn't pay any mind to it as well.
"How can she be so cruel. She didn't even shed a single tear. Her entire clan died, but she doesn't care."
"I mean... she was exiled anyway... no wonder such cruel person was exiled. They kept babbling behind her back.
She took another mission, that was in Nagoya. There was apparently a curse that has been terrorising the neighborhood for weeks. Many people died there, as many civilians as did sorcerers.
Lately she was out of home for months, before coming back. She usually stayed in the headquarters, taking a small nap and going back to work. However, her salary was good. She was steadily almost finished paying off the debt. She and Toji were almost done with it. They needed only 3 million left. Currently, the woman was in Nagoya, collecting her payment from the person that requested for her directly.
She didn't get any calls or signs that he is alive from Toji, but that was a common occurrence nowadays. Yukiko was fully confident in Toji's abilities.
"Fushiguro-san, there is another mission for you." The voice of the secretary was heard from te other side of the line.
"How much?" She simply asked as usual.
"100k..." She heard an answer she liked. (~$760)
She instantly accepted and asked for the further information.

Another curse easily exorcised. Her skills were unmatched. She was the highest ranked special rank in terms of skills, only second to Satoru, in terms of pure power.
Yukiko called the headquarters back as soon as she finished her mission and bought tickets back home.
Upon her arrival, she decided to pick up groceries and make something for dinner tonight.
When already stepped in the house, Toji was there, sitting in the kitchen. Both of the kids were still at school most likely.
"Hey, darling." She said and kissed him. He muttered a quick 'hey', before turning his attention back onto the piece of paper.
"Is this your new mission?" She asked absentmindedly, washing the rice and putting it in the rice cooker. It was her birthday present from Toji, since she started cooking way more than him for the past year and a half.
"I crave something with ginger." He said and started writing his plan down on a piece of paper.
"Okay, I'll make your favourite sticky ginger soy glazed chicken." She said and got the chicken out of the freezer.
"Let me ask you a question. What if you know that the person is powerful and their defense of as strong as yours, how should I go about defeating him?" He looked at his plan, written down neatly.
"Is it a sorcerer?" She asked. For some reason, in order to pay off the debt, Toji started taking on sorcerer assassinations, accidentally earning himself the nickname "Sorcerer Killer".
"Yes."
"Then I would probably do what you did to me years ago, when you defeated me... it woukd be a good strategy to make that sorcerer loose as much cursed energy as possible, then, when they have their guard lowered, attack. Then the fight would be pretty easy." She said as she took out the half frozen chicken and made holes in it with the help of a fork.
Then she quickly prepared the marinade and threw the chicken legs and wings, thighs and breats in it. Then she pit that in the microwave yet again to fully unfreeze it.
She coated and rubbed the marinade in the skin and left it to the side.
"Does that mean that your target is stronger than you?" She was a bit intrigued.
"No, darling." He said calmly and she sensed him saying the truth.
"Just be careful, darling." She sweetly said and continued making side dishes for dinner.
After two more hours, the food was ready and the kids entered the house together.
"It smells good, I wonder what Okaa-san made!" Tsumiki quickly left her shoes in the entrance and ran to the kitchen.
"Good evening, Okaa-san! Did you make something today? What did you prepare?" She got a whiff of ginger. Her little brother's favorite food was anything with ginger, so he would be happy today, she thought.
"Okaa-san! You are back!" Megumi shouted and ran to the kitchen. The kids were met by both of their parents quietly drinking tea beside each other.
"Oto-san! Okaa-san!" Megumi and Tsumiki shouted and ran to hug them.
"You've grown a lot, Megumi." Toji said and messed with his hair.
"Tsumiki, you've grown just as much!" Yukiko hugged them back.
"Gumi, I am sure you will grow pretty tall, after all Oto-san and Okaa-san are tall too. You're bound to be as well. We've been learning about genotypes in biology." Tsumiki said and went to change before eating dinner.
That reminded Yukiko and Toji once again, that they weren't her real parents. She might have been missing her mother in secret. After the kids washed up and changed, they sat at the low table, with steaming hot food prepared already.
"I smell ginger! Food with ginger is always good!" Megumi waited for Toji to start eating. It was the basic etiquette that Yukiko drilled into her kids.
"Let me get it for you, darling." She said and took her chopsticks to put some food into his plate, not forgetting to add the side dishes he liked. She was generous with the amount.
"Eat up." She smiled warmly at him and he mirrored her expression.
"Oto-san and Okaa-san are flirting." Megumi stated with an identical straight face as Toji, making Tsumiki burst in laughter.
Yukiko just blushed and offered to put the food in their plate as well, before eating it herself.
"Okaa-san, I am learning the alphabet at school right now, but I already know how to read pretty much. About the book... why did you give me such a weird fairy tale book to read?" He asked the woman.
"Learn it by heart, every detail of it, then give it to me. I will burn it." She said starting to get serious.
"But why though?" He continued to pry into the matter out of curiosity.
"What did you learn at school today, Miki?" She completely ignored Gumi's question, as if not say 'Don't are further questions.'
"We learned the parabolic equations and a little bit of physics behind it in maths. And during chemistry, our teacher did an experiment and we had to write a report on it!" She instantly felt the heavy atmosphere and answered the question with enthusiasm, which quickly diminished the negativity. "Shiotaka-sensei also praised me for my project on the reduction of wildlife in the city. Did you know that the tree bark in the national is practically all eaten by the deers? I gave some solutions like holding hunting competition of some sort to help and he said that this can become a great government program to reduce the harmful wildlife. He proposed me to present my project at the 'Ideas for Action' Youth competition this year. He was going to give me a recommendation." She explained happily.
"And you, Gumi?" Yukiko asked, putting more chicken on his plate, as he almost finished his portion.
"Hizashi-sensei is nice to me. He praised me for already knowing how to read. He also said that he will contact you to potentially transfer me to two grades higher. So, basically, he wants me to skip some grades." He put the juicy chicken in his mouth. "Did you change the recipe, Okaa-san?" The boy asked.
"Yeah, I tried adding a little more ginger, less garlic and soy sauce to make it more flavourful." She pinched his nose, because he was so adorable.
The evening went as smooth as it always did afterwards.

A/N: Leave votes and comments ples♡