32 Inferiority (1/2)

After Ensen and Julia's talk, they both felt their relationship had taken the initial steps in healing.

With the heavy topic out of the way, Ada felt the uncomfortable vibe slowly fading away and began to talk happily with both of them.

While she focused more on Ensen because she didn't see him often anymore, she made sure to involve her mother into the conversation.

After a few more minutes of talking Ensen had finished his food.

The food was surprisingly good, especially considering he expected a quality way lower from his sister's cooking based on his prior experience.

Dying to know how she had improved her cooking skill, Ensen stared at his sister with shining eyes and asked.

”Dinner is delicious. I'm wondering how you became such a good cook.” Ensen said, trying to hide his intent, feeling competitive towards his sister. He swore in his heart that someday he would beat her in a cooking competition.

”Oh I just cooked a lot more often after James and I got married, so I guess it got better from that,” Julia said, not paying much attention to his answer.

With the light in Ensen's eyes fading, he muttered to himself ”So I need to get married to get better at cooking?”

Ada turned her head towards the barely audible Ensen speaking something.

”What was that Ensen?” She said curiously, intent on hearing what he had said.

”Oh don't worry about it, nothing important,” Ensen said as he wore an awkward face. His plan had backfired severely. After all, he wasn't even close to getting married. Plus even if he could get married right now, he wouldn't have time to cook in the first place since he would still be too busy with managing the Academy.

'Looks like I'll need to find another way.' Ensen thought to himself in disappointment.

Turning his attention elsewhere to save himself from embarrassment, he decided to grab some more potatoes as he waited for the others to finish their meal.

After everybody had finished their meals, they decided to move over to the living room to continue their conversation.

Sitting on the couch, Ensen asked Julia ”So what do you do for work now?”

”Oh, I write for a local newspaper, nothing impressive. I do have a food review blog which is kind of popular, so I get a little money from that too. It's mainly my husband James who earns most of the money.” Julia said bluntly. Unknown to her, however, once Ensen had heard she was an amateur food reviewer his eye began to subtly twitch in inferiority.

'That's it, I will beat her in cooking if it's the last thing I do!' Ensen proclaimed to himself in his mind. While he wasn't too bothered about other people being better skilled in cooking, he was always very competitive when it came to his sister.

After a little more talking, Ensen glanced at his phone and noticed that it was nearly 8 pm. Thinking it was about time he should leave, he slowly stood up.

Looking towards Julia, he slowly said ”It's getting a little late, I should probably get home now.”

Although Julia still wanted him to stay, she felt more comfortable knowing the fact they were going to be keeping in touch from now on.

Getting up from the armchair, Julia followed Ensen as he walked towards the front door.

”Wait for just a second please,” Julia said before turning around and walking towards the dining room. A minute or so later she had returned with a container full of some of the leftovers from tonight's dinner.

”We can't eat it all by ourselves anyways.” She said with a gentle smile, pushing it into Ensen's hands as if forcing him to accept it.

Not planning on resisting, either way, Ensen grabbed the container and held it with one hand.

After a long hug from Julia, Ensen waved goodbye to Ada as he left the house and walked back to his car.