ONE KILOGRAM OF RICE

written by

DELICIOUSGEARS

Ryuunosuke stared at the menu in front of her. "How the hell can you have five levels of mild curry? Doesn't that just make it redundant?"

"I don't really know," Shinobu said, peering over the top of her own menu. "I never tried it myself. Maybe it's like cream stew?"

Benten simply snorted from next to Shinobu. "You girlies can go order the girly stuff. I've already got what I want in mind."

Ryuunosuke scowled. "But I was gonna order the…"

"It's alright, Ryuunosuke." Oyuki said from beside Ryuunosuke, moving quickly to defuse her anger. "Girls don't have to order the mild curry. Otherwise Benten wouldn't be allowed here in the first place."

"Oh." Ryuunosuke blinked for a moment as realisation set in. "I was gonna have the pork cutlet and cheese. Probably with the five hundred grams of rice."

"Bet you can't eat twice that amount of rice." Benten said. "You look like a strong girl. I bet you could handle it."

"What, and you can't?" asked Ryuunosuke, the scowl returning to her face.

Shinobu groaned. "Ryuunosuke, if you want to try and eat one kilogram of rice you're going to have to help pay for it…"

Benten cut in. "Hey, if she eats the whole thing before I can finish mine, I'll pay for it myself!"

"You're on!" Ryuunosuke said.

The server approached the table hesitantly, noticing the the stare-down between Benten and Ryuunosuke."Um… So what'll you be having?"

"Pork cutlet with cheese curry." Ryuunosuke said. "One kilogram of rice."

"Vegetable curry." Benten said. "Spice level 10."

Shinobu squeaked. "Level 10? Don't you have to have eaten a level 5 curry before you can do that?"

"I'll have what she's having." Oyuki said, motioning towards Benten.

Shinobu stared at Oyuki. "You too?!"

A look of worry crossed over the server's face, as if she could feel bad portents on the horizon. "Um… One pork cutlet curry, with cheese, one kilogram rice… Two vegetable curries, spice level 10…" She turned to Shinobu. "And you?"

Shinobu looked nervously between Ryuunosuke and Benten glaring at each other. "Um… Just a thin-sliced pork curry with a soft boiled egg. A normal one, please." She looked between Oyuki and Benten. "And some iced milk for all of us."

The server nodded, pasting on a smile. "Thank you. Enjoy your meal. Don't worry about trying to finish it!" She turned around and walked towards the kitchen as quickly as she could without garnering too much attention.

Shinobu glared at Benten as the server retreated from their table. "Don't bother trying to say anything about me wimping out. Dinnertime isn't some kind of sporting event for me."

Benten just leaned back in her seat, a smirk on her face. "If you're not trying to push yourself every moment you can, then life isn't worth living. That's the way of the Gods of Luck gang!"

Shinobu just sighed and looked over at Ryuunosuke. "You should just ignore her when she gets like that. It wouldn't damage your pride to walk away from silly challenges like that all the time."

"Well, what do you expect from Benten?" Oyuki said. "Her culture places a heavy basis on sport and competition. They do play basket games with the Oni every year, you know."

Ryuunosuke blinked. "Really? The basket game? Do they hold bread eating races too?"

Benten scowled at Ryuunosuke. "Stow it!"

When the server came back, she brought another with her. As they neared, the four were able to see why: while the first server carried a tray with Benten, Shinobu and Oyuki's dishes on it, the second lagged behind lugging Ryuunosuke's plate in his latex-gloved hands.

Ryuunosuke stared as the large plate was carefully placed before her. A mountain of fluffy white rice stood tall on one side of the place, pork cutlet placed awkwardly against it, surrounded by a veritable ocean of pork curry, ribbons of melted cheese visible inside. In terms of size, Ryuunosuke's curry dwarfed the other three.

Despite the size, Ryuunosuke could feel that Benten and Oyuki's curries were the real threat. There was a stinging heat that brought tears to her eyes, even from about a foot away. Silently she tried to ignore the disturbing power emanating from those curries, and picked up the fukujinzuke to spread over her curry.

Shinobu looked between Ryuunosuke's massive plate, and the two super spicy plates for Benten and Oyuki. "Sometimes I don't get you guys." She took the fukujinzuke from Ryuunosuke, spreading it over her own curry.

Ryuunosuke shrugged, pouring special sauce over her pork cutlet, where it seeped into the curry. "What's there to understand? We ain't complicated people. Guess that's the problem…"

Shinobu giggles. "Are you saying you're just dumb?"

Ryuunosuke said nothing, digging her spoon into the curry, strings of cheese trailing. The curry was daunting, but not impossible; the curry was nice and spicy, but the rice was the challenge.

Benten dug into her curry, barely flinching from the heat. Her face started to flush as she continued to eat the curry, but she didn't even slow down. Even Oyuki barely seemed affected, the flush growing on her face the only sign of discomfort.

Ryuunosuke watched Benten for a moment, surprised at her lack of care about the sheer amount of heat that she was shovelling into her mouth. The sight spurred Ryuunosuke on: if something like that barely phased Benten, then she would've been able to handle a mound of rice.

When Ryuunosuke was halfway finished with her curry, she was definitely feeling stuffed. She knew she wasn't hurting, but the amount of rice and curry she had in her was considerable. Almost all but a couple of strips of pork cutlet remained, still covered in sauce. It was getting to her, especially with the heat and the humidity from Benten and Oyuki's dishes surrounding the table…

...wait.

Humidity?

It was then that Ryuunosuke realised that the seat of her pants were feeling somewhat wet…

Ryuunosuke looked upwards. Shinobu had noticed, staring at Oyuki with her spoon half-hanging out of her mouth. Benten hadn't, too busy focusing on finishing her plate, her face a shade of bright red that wouldn't be out of place on a crayon.

Ryuunosuke looked over towards Oyuki, and quailed. The ice princess seemed to have lost little of her outward composure, blissfully eating her curry. But her face was as flushed as Benten's, and her face looked so wet that Ryuunosuke thought she looked like she was under a shower and hadn't dried off.

But it wasn't just her face. Her hair had had lost its crystalline quality, now simply a shade of dark blue, and was clinging wetly to her face. Was this what Oyuki's hair looked like naturally, before her ice powers froze it over?

Topping it all off was the slowly rising steam that seemed to spill from her, like a hot spring in the winter, which didn't help with the whole humidity thing.

Oyuki paused in the middle of eating to look curiously at Ryuunosuke, and then over at Shinobu. After a moment, she looked down at herself. Then she looked up again, and her face became even redder.

"Oh dear. I'm so sorry…" She said, a hint of remorse. "I think this curry might be hotter than I thought."

Benten paused, a little bit of curry still on her plate. "What's going on?" She looked up at the steaming Oyuki. "Oyuki, are you melting again?!"

Shinobu blinked. "Melting? Like a snowman?"

Oyuki blushed and hid her face behind her sleeve. "And I thought I could handle it… I didn't think it would be that spicy…"

Ryuunosuke stared at Oyuki in mute horror. "The highest spice level in this restaurant, and you don't think it's too spicy?"

Oyuki looked up at Ryuunosuke guilty. "I've tried Lum's cooking, Ryuunosuke-san. Trust me, I've had worse than this." She looked down at the growing puddle on water on the seat. "I must have soaked your pants thoroughly, too. I'm so sorry."

"W-what do you mean by that?" Ryuunosuke's face started to go flame red as well.

"Spicy foods can interfere with my cold powers." Oyuki explained. "If I eat too much, I can't make ice or snow, only steam and water. I can't keep my hair in place any more, either." She looked down, and Ryuunosuke followed her gaze to see pale bare feet poking out from under her kimono. "And my underwear and boots must've completely melted by now..."

"You mean…" Shinobu asked. "You make that swimsuit thing you wear under your kimono out of ice?"

Ryuunosuke just groaned. "And this water puddle I'm sitting on right now… Is what's left of it?"

Oyuki nodded, a pensive finger to her lips. "We're going to have to dry off after we're done here, I suppose."

Shinobu pushed a glass of milk to Oyuki. "This'll help you. I heard that milk can kill the burn and cool your tongue…"

After Benten paid the bill and helped mop up all the water, the four quickly made their way outside. Ryuunosuke winced as the cold night air hit her face as soon as she opened the door. She looked over at Oyuki, cold and barefoot, but still poker faced.

"You gonna be alright there, Oyuki?" She asked.

Oyuki looked at Ryuunosuke for a moment. "I suppose I could use some help. This pavement doesn't feel good to walk on without shoes."

Ryuunosuke moved up to Oyuki, turned her back towards her, and kneeled down. "Get on my back. I'll carry you."

Benten snorted. "Seriously? You're too chivalrous for your own good, Ryuu…" She trailed off as Oyuki stepped forward, placing her hand on Ryuunosuke's shoulders.

"It would be foolish not to accept, would it?" Oyuki asked, before turning to Ryuunosuke. "Quickly, now. I don't want to catch a cold tonight."

Silently, Ryuunosuke lifted Oyuki onto her back, and carried her down the road, Benten and Shinobu following along.

As they walked along, Shinobu turned to Benten. "Thanks for paying for us tonight. I'm sure Ryuunosuke appreciates it too, even if neither of you won that silly wager."

Benten just sighed. "Yeah. I'll make sure I'll get her next time, though..."

the end

NOTES: No, I'm pretty sure it's not established in canon if this can happen to Oyuki. I just thought it'd be funny.

Yes, the restaurant is based on an actual chain of restaurants in Japan. I'll leave it to whoever reads this to find out which one, but I can say that pretty much all the stuff ordered here is theoretically possible there.

The basket filling game mentioned is Tamaire, a game played on sports festivals in Japanese schools. Basically, two teams of students have to fill their baskets with balls, and the one filled with the most balls wins. In Urusei Yatsura, the Oni and the Gods of Luck Gang are shown playing a variant of this game, with balls that can explode.