godbent | 48th: The Officiousness of Haruhi Suzumiya

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48th: The Officiousness of Haruhi Suzumiya

[Action ]

[ Kyon went home. Kyon went home and the world didn't even notice. Which in some ways is not surprising - he went home just as they were going to Malnosso World. Oh sure the Brigade in Luceti probably noticed as the (increasingly infrequent or at least shorter due to the small size) meetings had him absent where he never really was before but for the most part? Who cared?

Well, Haruhi did.

And because of Haruhi caring around that, she threw herself hard into studying again. In Malnosso World she could work on making progress with her Extended Brigade but in the first week back she signed up for all sorts of missions to not get accepted to any. And so... she studied. Magic, technology, history, cryptoids, anything she could do apart from people because she didn't want to deal with people. Which is why apart from jogging in the morning, going to the Brigade HQ for meetings, and going home at night (maybe a snack between) much of Haruhi's time was in the library and she looks increasingly frumpy. As in she hasn't slept great and her hair has been better. You can encounter her doing this, or you might encounter her practicing some sigils, or meditating for spirits as the weeks drag on... but eventually:]

[ Voice ]

A lot of people have shown themselves to be sort of stupid here before now, but does anyone have some interesting facts or stories to tell me? I want to know more about whatever you want to tell me about. And if you don't, someone come to the HQ and help me test out some things. I've been working on some spells or ways to work with the Filial Spirits. So come on, Luceti.

[ She may or may not be a little distant sounding, but she is interested ]

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Uh, pretty well. [ To boast or not to boast... boast, a little ] I've got pretty good intuition about these things.

Oh? Tell me about some of them!

[ Whoa she did not see that coming but-! ]

Well, okay! Well like obviously a really basic one is that parmesan or pineapple can both add a lot to a pretty wide variety of things. Or cornmeal, but that's usually only with baking.

[ But no she feels awkward saying it here in a tea shop ]

[She nods thoughtfully at that.] Sheena tends to use pineapple a lot in her dishes. [In fact, when the curry arrives, Haruhi will notice that it also has pineapple in it.] It doesn't quite turn out the same when I try it...

You have trouble working with pineapple?

Well - a bit. [Like the time she once tried to boil them to see if that would make the insides juicier... or chopping it up but leaving the core in, and other little mishaps that were luckily far and in between given how rarely she used that fruit.] I have a feeling I'm still slicing them incorrectly. [But she's never asked for help because... that's embarrassing. Even admitting as such is, and she tries to shrug it off.] I mean, I know there's some trick to it.

Oh, that's possible. After all, I guess it would be tricky if you didn't know anything about it. [ She could explain it but it's really much better to just... show her. Which she decides she'll do sometime in the future and will take a long sip from her tea, shrugging a little ]

I see. What else do you usually try?

Substituting oils. Olive, Sesame, Peanut, Vegetable... really, the sort you're using can drastically change the taste in subtle ways ]

Oils... hm. I haven't used much of them in cooking before, but that's a fascinating suggestion.

Admittedly, I guess that's more with frying than anything. But a lot of Japanese food ends up with some frying.

I do some frying, I just never considered the oil itself as being a game changer...

Oh, of course it is! If it's something like tempura then the batter's super important too, but if you're just frying up some vegetables or meat, then the oil's going to change how it fries and how it tastes after in subtle ways which really can change everything!

Really? That sounds incredible! I should take more note of the selections they have available...

Or we can make dinner together sometime. Really, it's much easier to talk about with the stuff in front of you, if you ask me.

Really? That... would be nice. I used to have lessons with Sanji, but he's been gone for a while now. If you could walk me through a few new techniques sometime, I'd appreciate it.

-Sure! I can do that much. Not as well as he could, probably... but how hard could it be.

[ Not that she's really taught cooking before. She just self taught herself when she was young, did it a lot more in Luceti on top of that, and made a small hobby out of being eccentric with it ]

Fantastic! [Surely, it made that impatient man learn patience just because he was with a beautiful woman-] I'm looking forward to that, then. [A wave from someone at the counter catches her attention.] - Hm? Oh, look. Here's our meal now.

Oh, I can smell the pineapple. [ To go back to that point. But wow, it's nice to see Raine excitable like this. It's like a different - more casual - side. Which she did know excited (both from the phantom world memories and just somewhere in the older days) but still. It's nice to have someone who she can be friendly with, as she decides is what's going on here ]

Whether it's her own twist or a secret Mizuho recipe, she won't say either way. But yes, eat up. [Since a major point of them coming out here was to make sure she had at least one good meal in her.

Maybe she'd have to drag her out more often. Hmm.]

Pineapple in curry isn't unheard of, anyway. [ But let's see here if it's good, moment of truth! ... it isn't bad, that's nice. Actually, it smells nice, and the taste works too ]

In your culture, or in your world in general? It's not exactly common where we're from.

World in general. I don't actually know who started the trend now I think of it.

To be fair, your world seems to be a lot larger, anyway, so it makes sense that there's a lot of available variety.

Yeah, that is a vibe I've gotten. Earth seems to be bigger than most other planets represented here. Yours too?

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