notyourutopian | IC Contact: Recollé

Good enough for me.

[Yukiko starts ladling out soup. And honestly for the most part it's fine. It's soup, and it may be a little spicier than she intended, but the dumplings? The dumplings are going to be pretty bad whenever Eleanor finds one. They're cooked through just a little too much, so the wrapping falls apart and the stuff inside is kind of gritty. Like it had become a general repository for all the spice in the soup, but the heat was cancelled out by the rest of it. It's gonna be pretty bad, basically, except the soup itself]

Here we go. Dinner. Let me know how that new recipe worked out.

Thank you.

[She took the bowl, holding it in both hands as she turned back to look at the tv again.]

It's actually rather weird to hear this without my sister singing along.

[She blew on the soup a few times to cool it off, then took a spoonful of the broth itself to try first. So far it was tasty...]

Is it?

[Yukiko will spare her the singing too. She's not much of one.

Settling into her seat, she takes a slow bite of soup too, encouraged by the broth.]

Julie Andrews really is a wonderful performer.

Yeah, really. I wonder why they don't really make movie musicals anymore.

[After she said this, she scooped up a bigger spoonful of soup with a dumpling in it, not really paying attention, and took a big bite and...]

[Hrm...]

[Chew chew chew.]

[...hrm...]

[Probably not making the best face right now.]

[Chew chew chew...]

[Yukiko's doing the same thing, taking a little bite out of one of the dumplings. And she immediately makes a disgusted face.

The texture. The taste. It's...]

Gods, what the heck.

[Even she can admit that she screwed this one up. Totally blame the recipe.]

...the dumplings.

[Spitting it out, she inspects the half that wasn't all chewed up...]

...look like the bottom of a river delta.

[Eleanor had been trying to figure out how to swallow the awful dumpling when Yukiko spit hers out, and she made a sound that might've been 'oh thank god' muttered around the terrible food before she spit hers out too.]

Uch...

[She scraped at her tongue with her teeth a couple times before actually trying for words.]

That was...something, Yukiko. [She finally said.] Not your best results, I think.

[Yukiko shudders.

Stares at her soup.

Gets up.

Walks over to the sink.

And dumps the soup down the disposal.]

I'm sorry. We'll...just order out tonight.

[Something comes over her then. Her knees start to wobble, and she can barely take the soup pot in hand without dropping it. It teeters, falls into the sink with a clatter, and she hits the disposal...using the noise to drown out an uncomfortable half-wheeze half-sob as the last hour goes down the drain. Quite literally.]

It's alright, we all have off days. You've seen me fail to boil water so...

[Yukiko's garbage disposal trick might've worked if Eleanor hadn't turned to follow her into the kitchen and get rid of her own terrible soup in time to see Yukiko crying over the sink. Well shit.]

Hey.

[She immediately set her own bowl down on the counter and closed the distance between them, putting an arm around her shoulders.]

Yukiko...it's alright.

[She wasn't exactly sure what to say though, other than the half-hug. Reassurances weren't really her best subject.]

[Yukiko slumps down over the counter, shaking slightly as the water rinses away her mistake. The smell is...pretty bad too...but she just stands there, taking it in like a punishment for her failure.]

No...it's not.

[She sniffles and flicks off the disposal, wiping away stinging tears with the back of her hand.]

...I just remembered more about the other me. She nearly killed Yosuke and one of the twins with her cooking. They...called it Mystery Food X.

[A sudden flash of anger comes over her, like a child throwing a little tantrum, and she gestures at the pot.]

That's just the start. I managed to screw up an egg yesterday. I thought it was a fluke, but now I'm not sure.

[Mystery Food X. Well that was certainly...a thing.]

Okay, here, come on. Come over here.

[She was not going to let Yukiko crouch over the terrible smelling soup as it washed away that was way too close to some kind of dramatic movie moment. That and she could smell it from where she was standing too and wanted to stop. So she tried to gently pull Yukiko from the sink at least and towards the middle of their little kitchen.]

[She moved to half-face her then, keeping a hand on her shoulder.]

Yukiko, you followed a bad recipe and made a bad egg.

[Eleanor was trying to use logic which...probably wouldn't help but it was kind of her fallback.]

You're not going to suddenly start poisoning everyone, okay? Your one of the best cooks I know, that doesn't just...evaporate because you remember someone else was bad at cooking.

[Still very upset, shaking a little, Yukiko allows herself to be led away from the awful, awful stew. It's really strange how she failed to notice that when she was cooking, but...here it is.]

...I haven't messed up an egg since I was seven.

[Sullenly, she looks back at the sink, swallowing hard, her throat tight and her eyes burning.]

...and what if it's like Anya? She lost the ability to speak English overnight, and now all she really speaks is Russian and very broken Japanese. It's not out of the question.

[Should she just give up on cooking? Probably. At least, that's her logic.]

[Eleanor had thought of that too, but she had hoped Yukiko wouldn't remember. Well damn.]

It's not. You're not Anya. You aren't going to magically forget how to cook.

[Still leading her further from the smell, out into the living room.]

Besides, the soup was actually pretty tasty, right? It was just the...other bits...that weren't. And you said that was a new recipe right?

The dumplings were awful...

[She admits that much. But it's hard to screw up broth with vegetables...]

The ones in the pot definitely broke apart and ruined the soup...

Yes, but that's still the dumpling's fault...

[Oh this was not going how she wanted at all.]

Come on, sit down.

[She ushered Yukiko to the couch, sinking down onto it next to her.]</small How about this? If it turns out you've somehow completely forgotten how to cook...and I don't believe that at all, but...if you have. We'll learn it together? I mean, you know me, I can't cook much of anything. But we could...I don't know...take a class or something.

...I...really don't want to relearn how to cook.

[She really doesn't. But damn that may be the only choice.]

This sucks. But yeah, you're right I guess.

[She makes another swipe at her eyes with the back of her hand, washing away more tears.]

...and now I'm just hungry.

Well you aren't going to have to, so don't worry about it.

[Eleanor could be optimistic, it seemed. As long as it involved people that weren't her. Oops?]

Well, at least that's one problem I can fix. [She grinned, giving Yukiko's shoulder another squeeze before she stood up and headed over to where she'd put her purse down to fish out her phone.]

Pizza work?

Pizza's fine.

[It's definitely going to be a thing they get more often. Not that it's a bad thing. Just...yeah...]

[And ring ring, pizza is ordered, and then Eleanor is dropping back onto the couch next to Yukiko.]

There. Dinner is saved. Kind of.

[She was aiming for somewhere between reassuring and silly.]

IC Contact: Recollé

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