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Arinas absolutely loved cooking, and figuring out flavors. The stronger taste something had the happier the hybrid was, considering his litch blood made it extremely hard for him to taste things. However his family all seemed to like his cooking and his friends told him it was tasty. So it was quite understandable that when they did cooking classes in Life Skills he was extremely happy. He was happier when it was baking since Arinas did have a sweet tooth but he’d take any form of cooking.

Standing back from his station he took a deep breath and absent mindedly used the back of his hand to wipe his forehead. He wasn’t quite sure why he looked across the classroom at his fellow students, but he did. So when he landed on… Kindle? Yeah he was pretty sure that was how they had introduced themselves at the start of the term, he didn’t know quite what to do. They seemed to be struggling with the assignment and they looked rather sad.

Indecision warred with in him. He always thought cooking should be somewhat fun, and his helpful nature wanted him to go over to help, but what if they were sad for another reason. What if they would take offense if Arinas walked over to help? He knew some people had pride issues. He chewed on one of his nails and looked down at his finished assignment. However what if they really wanted help and no one was willing to help them and Kindle never realized that cooking could be fun and you didn’t always get it right. There was a snap as he accidentally chewed a bit too hard and his nail cracked. Whoops.

Well Araceae always said that as long as you didn’t ask the answer would always be no. So if they did say No well then he had already started out with a No and he would feel better for at least trying to help. If the problem was even the cooking, but they were looking at the kind of sad looking dish so the dish had to be at least some of the problem right? … and he was rambling. With another deep breath he walked over his hands behind his back.

“I don’t really mean anything by this but you looked kind of sad, and well I like cooking so. Oh I’m rambling out loud now. I just wanted to know if you wanted any help.” Arinas asked as he got over to Kindle’s table. Oh that was a disaster.

Arinas barely hid the wince when he noticed he had started her. Still the damage was already done and it would be senseless to let uneasy drive him away… not when he could definitely help.

When she started talking Arinas patiently waited for her to get through what she wanted to say making an effort not too look down at the nachos. First rule was don’t stare at your classmates attempts when they were struggling.
“It’s no problem really, like I mentioned I really like cooking so I… well that is to say I’m really not busy” Arinas admitted sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. “So I would love… no I would be very much glad to help”

“I’m Arinas, by the way” he commented, he knew that not everyone was good with names or remembered them from introductions and he wasn’t really one to stand out so his name didn’t get called too often.

“It’s nice to meet you Kindle” Arinas replied making sure to keep up his manners. He gave a reassuring smile, taking her hand firmly and shaking it twice before letting go. He had a feeling she was way more shy and insecure than he was, but that was okay. Everyone was allowed to have their own way of going through life. He looked down at the nachos and nibbled on his bottom lip.

Ah they looked soggy, which inevitably would happen with the type of cheese they were using. Hmmm maybe he could mix up the ingredients a little bit. He didn't want to get too creative because hopefully Kindle had less damaged taste buds then he had and he wanted to keep it relatively simple so that she could make them later if she so wanted to.

“So starting us off, the teacher never really said what type of nachos she wanted us to make so we definitely aren’t going to use that type of chip. It has a tendency to get soggy, which you don’t want. Ah looks like there’s a bag over there with a thicker chip. When making nachos always remembered that thicker chips are better. “ He started going over to the table next to them and grabbing various ingredients. “Next is what ingredients do you want to go on the nachos?”

Arinas had noticed the actions his handshake had caused. Maybe she had a thing about touching? Shy and touching he could remember that. He wanted everyone to have a fun time cooking, to experience what he felt. Sure sometimes dishes didn’t always come out but if the company was good and he had fun he didn’t really mind.

He paused in getting the meet. Somehow he had a feeling that Kindle was very new to cooking.

“Well you can you different types of meet like beef and when you’ve made nachos enough times you can branch out to chicken or pork or bacon if meat is your thing. You can also add chili, Salsa, or guacamole, you can even add refined or pinto or other types of beans. It all just depends on what you like?"

Arinas almost hadn’t heard Kindle, but luckily that wasn’t the case and he moved his hand away from picking up the meat. It had been a while since he had made anything vegetarian but he didn’t want Kindle to feel like not liking meat was something wrong. “That’s perfectly fine. It’s why I asked. We don’t want to make a dish you wouldn’t want to eat. Feel absolutely free to grab whatever you think you would like on the nachos, but ah if you just want what we already have that's absolutely fine too.”

He did however pick up another kind of cheese and some of the guacamole. Maybe he could add in tomatoes too but he didn’t want too many liquidy wet elements or they would end up with soggy nachos again.

Arinas was glad that she was picking out the ingredients. He had felt bad just going around and picking things up and this way he knew it would be things she liked instead of him just guessing and going with what you normally put on nachos. He did pick up a container of Guacamole but that would be added last so it wasn’t as important to grab. Seeing as she had used her pan for the previous nachos Arinas grabbed another pan from the station they were raiding ingredients from.

When she thanked him Arinas smiled.

“It was really no inconvenience. Thank you for allowing me to help.” He replied politely, he was glad that her melancholy at the nacho dish seemed to be slightly gone. He looked up at the clock to see how much time they had to work with and then pulled out a chip breaking it in half to check the thickness and then picked up the cheese and a grater.

“So while you can use pre shredded cheese it’s always good to get a block of cheddar or a good melty cheese like Monterey Jack” Arinas started going into the pros and cons of using different cheese and why pre shredded cheese was such a problem, while absent mindedly starting to shred the block of cheddar. Since he had to use cheese in a lot of his dishes he had chosen to shred the cheese since he could pop it out pretty easily and quickly. “While I’m shredding the cheese, can you cover the pan with a layer of aluminum foil and then put a layer of chips on top of that?”

“You know one of the best things I can tell you about cooking is that it’s not about how it looks, or sometimes even how it tastes. It’s about the feelings you put into your cooking, and importantly it’s about trying your best and having fun. So it doesn’t matter if you mess up occasionally. Even the best chiefs mess up. However I guess it isn’t the best time for a philosophy lesson…” Arinas replied, getting a bit quiet at the very end. He just... well she just looked so nervous preparing the pan and it was really hard to fight his need to help people.

“Okay so another important thing for avoiding soggy nachos, is don’t put your more liquidy items on. You want to start with things that cook or melt. So when you get it ready for the oven you put the beans and cheese on first and wait until they come out to put your unions, tomatoes and guacamole on them” Arinas added and proceeded to guide Kindle through layering a good chunk of beans and cheese onto of the chips. There that looked like it should be ready for the oven.

“Now we put it in the oven and let everything warm up and let the melty stuff melt” Arinas stated although he wished he could have phrased it a bit more eloquently then melty stuff. Still it got the point across. He looked up at the clock. The class was almost over but they should have enough time… barely. Still the Professor just wanted them to attempt to make nachos. Kindle already had one attempt done. This was just helping someone learn how to cook.

“You normally want to leave the nachos in the oven for about 5 to ten minutes. You want the cheese all nice and gooey so you have to watch your oven. Each one is different. If you have a new oven I’d start checking at about 5 minutes. The ovens at the school normally take seven minutes, and it’s good to always set a timer just in case.” Arinas explained after some time had taken place. Sure enough the timer he had set up went off and he pulled them out since the over mitts where on his side.

“Now we take it out of the oven like so and add the other ingredients. We want to be sparse with the guacamole and if you use Sour Cream. Big dollaps tend to make your chips soggier faster so you want to leave those to the side and the person eating them can add them to their hearts content.”