voidtreckerexpress | One Foot in front of the Other Foot [ota with closed prompts]

Entry tags:

One Foot in front of the Other Foot [ota with closed prompts]

Who: Taiki. There is an open prompt and then closed prompts for Inigo, Gyousou and Tidus.
Where: Kitchens, Library, Cinema
When: Horseshoe days 2-5
What: Taiki tries out some recipes from his vegan cookbook. Taiki and Inigo make food to cheer Tidus up, Taiki and Gyousou have a talk in the library and Taiki finally succeeds in tracking down Tidus.
Warnings: Taiki and Tidus' thread will have themes of disappearing/dying- purposefully to try and solve things- with mention of a past suicide attempt. I will add more things as they come up.

Day Two: The Kitchen [OTA]

Tidus' suggestion of a cookbook had come at a good time because as the month changed they once again had meat as one of the main ingredients. It was a little better this time, the meat was processed, already cooked and so entering the kitchen and store room was not an exercise in steeling himself against the smell of blood and raw meat.

He has his new book, Vegan: The Cookbook and has found a recipe for pizza. Considering pizza is one of the recipe's on the ICP this month he is confident that he should find the things to make it.

He moves carefully around the kitchen, gathering ingredients. Soon he has everything but cheese, the book simply says to use vegan cheese, which is not something they have.

He flicks through the book, looking to see if there are any suggestions for alternatives. He has found himself a corner to prepare food in but still feels like he is in the way, mumbling a 'sorry' to anyone who comes near. He hadn't meant for this to take that long...

Day Three: The Kitchen [For Inigo]

Permeating the whole of the last few days has been the lack of Tidus. Taiki has been worried about him, more than worried, ever since Roland told him what had happened on the platform. But despite many attempts he hadn't been able to find him. He wasn't answering his door, Taiki hadn't ran into him in any of his usual places.

He had kept trying, though he feared annoying his friend, the line between being worried and just irritating him so much that he wouldn't want to ever talk to him again was very thin, and Taiki didn't want to cross it.

But he was worried... And he knew Inigo was too, he had seen him around, seen him near Tidus' cabin. He knew he was just as worried, with Yuna leaving... So soon after whatever Tidus had seen on the mountain... It was too much.

He finds Inigo quickly, he's trying not to think about how easy that is to do, and holds out the two books in his hands. One is his cookbook and one is a book on bread making. "I told him I would cook him a meal... Maybe it will chear him up. Do you want to help?"

He doesn't think he needs to clarify who.

Day Four: The Library [For Gyousou]

The situation with Tidus was not the only thing Taiki was worried about. The flashes of the ouki from Inigo, that was worrying too. He knows it has something to do with what happened on the mountain. Something now linked his king and Inigo.

Just as he was certain that these flashes of confusion, of anxiety weren't completely his feelings alone. He was used to feeling overwhelmed and anxious, but this is more so.

Both things put together meant that at times like right now he did not want to stray from Lord Gyousou's side. So here he was, Gyousou was resting on a beanbag reading a history book called Book Not Found Taiki approached silently and sat on the floor next to him, not quite leaning on him but sitting close, his own book Summoning Magic on his knees.

Day Five: Cinema [For Tidus]

He still hadn't seen Tidus, not at all and he was more than worried. But if the other man didn't want to be found, if he was avoiding him and Inigo... then should they leave it? Was it better to allow him his space or make sure he knew they were here for him.

He didn't know but for the last couple of days he had just tried Tidus' room a couple of times. So it was a surprise, when he entered the cinema. He glanced instinctively at the screen, it showed some children clambering through a cave, holding torches as they explored. His eyes went back to where he was walking, scanning the seats and there...

There in the corner, his purple hood was pulled up but Taiki still recognises him.

"Tidus?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Of course it matters," Lea said. "You shouldn't have to eat stuff that might make you sick, or even stuff you don't like if there're other things available." Seriously, why did Taiki keep apologizing for everything? It seemed like his self esteem was almost as bad as Xion's, which was saying something.

"For now though, let's just get that pizza finished and in the oven, and I can get started on showing you what we need for the soup. Though with the pizza, hmm..." He considered a moment, looking at the mostly assembled pie. "Cheese usually helps hold the toppings all together, so without it, maybe it would work better as a calzone? That is, a thing where the dough is folded over and the edges sealed to make big sort of pocket and the toppings become filling instead."

He just looked at him sadly and bowed his head. It felt... wrong. As if he was being far too much trouble and he didn't want to really unpick why. It doesn't matter anymore. But Tidus had encouraged him to get the book and Lea was being supportive as well.

He's not heard of a calzone before but Lea's instructions are not difficult to follow. Carefully he began lifting half of the pizza to fold it over and trap the vegetables inside.

"How should I seal it?"

Lea managed not to sigh, instead just smiling slightly and briefly resting a hand on Taiki's shoulder before turning back to the food. "You can either use your fingers to pinch it together or use a fork," he said. "I think they also make special rollers that can be just run quickly around the edge, but I don't think we have one of those here. Too much of a specialized thing."

He tilts his head and smiles slightly before nodding and pinching the sides closed carefully. "I wouldn't think so, but I think this is working. Like so?"

He moved his fingers so Lea could see his work.

Lea looked at Taiki's work and nodded. "Looks good," he said. "Now, just finish the rest of it like that and then it can go in the oven. It might need to bake a little longer, since it's thicker now, but I'd still probably check on it after the original cooking time the recipe recommends, just to be sure. You want the stuff in the middle to be cooked, but you obviously don't want the crust burnt."

He nods at the instructions and continues sealing the calzone. He looked back into the book to check the cooking time, so that he wouldn't burn it.

"Thank you Lea, it's a good idea."

He moved the tray carefully to the ovens.

Lea smiled. "That's about the extent of the baking advice I have, but it is pretty good, yeah," he said. He opened up the oven so that Taiki could put the calzone in, then waited while he set the timer.

That done, they had a bit of time to themselves. "Alright. Let's check and see what we have in the way of vegetables to work with to make the soup. It's better with fresh herbs too, but I know we don't have any of those, so we'll have to see what dried ones there are in the spice cabinet."

He smiled in thanks as Lea opened the oven and then nodded at the suggestion.

"Okay." He began moving towards the store carriage. "What vegetables do we need, or is it a case of any that we can find will work?"

"Most anything that we can find, honestly," Lea said. "This recipe is pretty forgiving. Though there are a few that I'll be looking out for specifically that are more important than others, like carrots, onions, and garlic. We want things that'll give it plenty of flavor; a lot of people think vegetarian food means boring or bland food, but this shouldn't be."

"I don't find it boring."

He smiled reassuringly at him. "I will go and see what I can find in the stores."

Carrots, onion, garlic and any other vegetables there might be. He's used some for his pizza so he knows where to find them at least.

Lea grinned. "Well that just goes to show you're smarter than most people in that respect," he said. "Definitely smarter than me as a kid. Part of the reason my mom started making this soup was as a way to get me to eat my vegetables when at the time one of my life goals was to find a way to live solely on ice cream."

"Anyway, that sounds like a plan. I'll see what we've got in the way of spices and frozen veggies. Fresh is better, obviously, but gotta work with what we've got."

Taiki smiled at that, imagining a young Lea with a desire for ice cream.

"Okay. I can come with you to help... If you want..."

He figures they will need more than one pair of hands.

Lea shook his head. "Thanks," he said, "but this'll actually go faster if we split up. You get the fresh veggies, and I'll take care of the frozen stuff and dry ingredients. Meet to back by the door to the kitchens in say, five or ten minutes?"

"Okay." He nodded and turned to do that way, to go and find the fresh vegetables, as many as he could. He tried not to worry too much, if he brought any that didn't work they could just not use them. So he would just bring what he could find.

When Lea met back up with Taiki a few minutes later, he had several bags of frozen veggies a bout a half dozen bottles of dried herbs and spices, and a bag full of dry noodles. Notably the noodles were the long, thin type generally used for ramen, rather than egg noodles.

"Looks like you got a pretty good haul there," he said. "This should work nicely. Let's take it back over to the counter then get a soup pot so we can get started."

Taiki nodded with a small smile, "It looks like you have too..."

He followed him back to the kitchen, "A soup pot, something large?"

He can find a large saucepan. He put the ingredients down on the side to go and do just that.

Lea nodded as they headed back into the kitchen proper. "It's really hard to make just one or two servings of soup from scratch, so the last time I made some I made a whole pot," he said, setting his own ingredients down on he counter. "Then what I didn't use right away, I put in containers in the fridge and freezer for people to heat up later if they wanted. The pot I used should still be around somewhere, assuming someone hadn't appropriated it for something."

He followed after Taiki, hoping to locate it among the various pots and pans in the kitchen.

"That's a good idea, soup is easy to make in large quantities." He knows that much at least.

He is quiet as he begins searching for the pot, it doesn't take him too long before he is back with three different large pots, Lea knows what he is doing do he will know which one is best for soup making.

"Ah, nice, you found it," Lea said, taking one of the pots that Taiki had located. "And a couple others too. Thanks."

He took the pot to the sink nearest to the stove and filled it about 2/3 full of water. "You can use a broth to make this soup too, if you want," he said as he transferred the pot to the stove burner. "But personally I like it best when you start with just water. Brings out the spices more, I think."

Taiki nodded, listening as Lea explained. He's not sure how you would make broth without making soup actually, so it's probably a good job it can be made with just water.

"I see." He looks around, "What do you need first?"

On the train that was likely true, but Lea had tried it with ready made broth before, and found that it wasn't quite as good.

He turned on the stove burner, setting it to heat the water while they prepared the rest of the ingredients. "The frozen veggies are already chopped up, so all we really need to do there is thaw them out," he said. "We can just use the microwave for that to save time. While the water is heating though, we can chop up most of the rest of the veggies. So knives and cutting boards. The work should go faster with two people doing it."

Taiki nodded and went to find those very things, chopping boards and knives, and brought them over to the counter.

"How do you want them chopped?" Simply probably, if they were to go in soup.

Lea nodded his thanks to Taiki as he took one of the knives and cutting boards. "Nothing too fancy," he said. "But given that we're using frozen veggies that are chopped up fairly small, we don't want ours to be in huge chunks. We want don't want some of them overcooked and some of them under."

"Yes." He nodded, agreeing as he began to chop the vegetables. He tried to match the rough size of the frozen ones, to get them close as possible so that they all cooked at the same.

Once he had cut a couple he showed them to Lea, to check he was doing it as he wanted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One Foot in front of the Other Foot [ota with closed prompts]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject