FOUR KILOGRAMS OF RICE: THE REMATCH

written by

DELICIOUSGEARS

"So, uh..." Ryuunosuke began nervously as she looked across the train at Shinobu. "Why are we going this far out towards the city?" Her eyes shifted towards the windows behind Shinobu, showing the wall of the concrete tunnel beyond, the lights whizzing by. "I don't usually travel far out of Tomobiki, and I've never taken the Metro before..."

Shinobu tried her best to give Ryuunosuke a reassuring smile. "To be honest, I'm not really sure. All I know is that it's a Kanazawa Curry place, and Oyuki-san had chosen it for us..." Her smile slipped almost immediately in the face of Ryuunosuke's confused look. "Yeah, I know you're feeling nervous, but it'll be fine. You'll see. And if not, you could just forfeit..."

Ryuunosuke just shook her head. "I don't want to back out now. You should know that." She laughed, despite herself, at the indignant frown that crossed Shinobu's face in response. "I just don't like to give up before I've started, okay? Besides, you'd know that Benten wouldn't back down."

Shinobu's frown faded a little. "There are better things to have honour and dignity about than eating curry. Even if it is Kanazawa curry."

Ryuunosuke tilted her head in confusion. "So, uh… What's Kanazawa curry?"

Shinobu's frown completely faded. "Oh, that's just another kind of curry. It's really thick and really porky. So thick that you spread it over rice and eat it with a fork." She smiled lightly, a faraway look in her eyes. "They say it's cooked with like caramel and pork, so slow and long that the meat and vegetables actually melt into the roux..."

"Sounds pretty heavy to me..." Ryuunosuke said. "And this is what we're gonna be using for our rematch?"

Shinobu just nodded. "You would probably like it better if it wasn't for the whole eating competition thing..."

Said curry shop was a good walk from the station that Ryuunosuke and Shinobu had gotten off at, which meant a good walk in the brisk late winter air. Shinobu had wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck as the two walked out down the road.

They found Benten and Oyuki seated on Benten's red airbike, parked outside a small two-story building. Oyuki noticed the two approaching, and prodded Benten's side gently before standing up.

"It's good to see you two again." Oyuki said simply, as Benten rose from the bike to stand next to her. "I hope that you find that the location for your contest suitable. I've been spending hours negotiating with the managers about this."

Shinobu blinked in confusion. "Negotiating with... Oyuki-san, what did you do?"

Ryuunosuke had already looked over towards the building, noticing a long line of people trailing from the entrance. "Maybe you could've negotiated a spot for us? If not, we're gonna be in for a long wait."

Oyuki just smiled at Ryuunosuke. "Oh those people aren't just there for the food. They're the audience."

Shinobu and Ryuunosuke just stared at Oyuki.

"Audience...?" Shinobu asked in confusion. "Don't tell me that..."

Oyuki's smile didn't leave her face. "I had thought that you two would need a place that would provide a suitable proving ground. So I did my research. And this place was the most accommodating, especially after I suggested the promotional deal and such..." She drew out a small flyer from her kimono and handed it out to Ryuunosuke.

The flyer was designed much like a poster for a wrestling show, or a boxing match, which kind of reminded Ryuunosuke of the strange posters that were posted of her first public face-off with Benten. The two girls faced each other, over a steaming plate of what Ryuunosuke figured was the Kanazawa curry that Shinobu had told her about. The words "Tokyo Beauty Curry-Palooza" were emblazoned between them in giant, shining block letters.

"You can't be serious..." Ryuunosuke murmured as she stared at the flyer. "We're being turned into a public spectacle?"

"Ryuunosuke! Shinobu!"

Heads turned towards Lum, who had glided down from above, to land gracefully on the pavement in front of them. Her outfit was especially striking, a skimpy tiger-striped battle bikini paired with ankle boots and a long cape, her head protected with a horned, tiger-striped helmet.

"It's good to see you guys!" She twirled happily, seemingly floating across the ground. "I'm proud that you're going to be representing the Oni in this epic confrontation! I want you to know that you've got the whole of Oniboshi behind you!" She wrapped Ryuunosuke in a hug, and touched her hands to her head. "Me and Darling will be rooting for you too!" She skipped back from Ryuunosuke, and took off again, her cape fluttering behind her.

"Just what I wanted." Ryuunosuke said slowly. "I'm going to be on the hook for this from an entire alien race..."

Benten just smirked. "Looks like you can't back out now, Ryuunosuke..."

The curry outlet was definitely much more busy than Ryuunosuke or Shinobu had ever expected. While some of the people present ordered something to eat, a lot more of them were there simply to gawk at the spectacle that was being set up. Two of the smaller tables were set up in a large space towards the back of the restaurant, where there was enough space, and draped with colourful tablecloths: one was yellow with the familiar black tiger stripes, while the other was red with ornate golden designs printed on it.

There was no mistaking what the colours and the designs on the tablecloths were to represent. Ryuunosuke had been shanghaied into another one of Lum and Benten's now numerous Setsubun brawls. And now they've brought spectators in to the mix as well.

"You know, considering the amount of bystanders gathering here, I thought that Moroboshi would be at the center of all of this," A deep, silky voice said from somewhere behind Ryuunosuke. "I didn't expect to see you instead."

Ryuunosuke turned around to see Sakura seated at a table, legs crossed, Cherry sitting opposite from her. "I thought you weren't the kind of person to just pop-up out of nowhere like that..."

"I didn't just 'pop-up' from nowhere," Sakura replied haughtily, "I was merely here with my Uncle to get something to eat. I wanted to have some curry today, and go to somewhere out of the way, so I just checked on Tabelog and found this place."

"And yet they've still found you," Cherry said, "by accident at the very least." He clasped his hands together. "Such is fate."

Sakura gave her uncle an icy look, before turning to Ryuunosuke. "I heard about the last curry incident you two got into. At least you managed to only ruin some seats. I was imagining far worse happening."

Ryuunosuke just shrugged. "There's probably not gonna be chance of that happening here. Unless Oyuki decides to try one of the extra hot curries again."

Oyuki, standing nearby, just smiled and giggled a little. "I assure you, that won't be happening. If you want to carry me around some more, you need only ask." She smiled even more, more so than usual with her, when Ryuunosuke's face flushed and she turned away.

Benten, however, was standing there, arms crossed, a smile on her face. "So, what do you think? Lum was all for this contest, Oyuki managed to get the time and place. Are you ready to settle this?"

"Bring it." Ryuunosuke replied, eyes flashing. "One kilogram of rice isn't enough to stop me!"

Benten just smirked more. "Oh really? Well, I'm sorry to say that there's going to be a slight difference tonight. She pointed over towards a sign that was posted on the wall. "We're going with the four-kilogram curry!"

Ryuunosuke blinked with shock, as the small restaurant was abuzz with excitement. And then she followed Benten's pointer finger to look at the sign, a small menu with pictures of truly huge mounds of rice, covered in thick curry sauce, a smaller mound of cabbage, and a single tonkatsu cutlet that increasingly was dwarfed with each size of the curry it topped.

Shinobu found her words first, her face flushing with indignation. "You didn't say that when we agreed to this whole thing!" She pointed her finger at Benten. "You're taking this crazy game too far!"

Lum blinked at Shinobu. "But one kilogram isn't as much of a challenge, is it? I think Darling puts away that much rice every single day!"

"Ataru's gluttony has no bearing on this game!" Shinobu said hotly. "You can't just go changing things around without letting us know first!"

"Four kilograms of rice, though..." Sakura said idly, staring at the poster. "I'd sure like to try that." She turned towards Cherry. "How about it, then? We can have two of it!"

Shinobu stared at Sakura, eyes wide. The excitement of the crowd only grew around them at Sakura's proposal.

"So, does that mean you and your uncle will be taking on the four kilogram challenge as well, miss?" The shop manager, a man wearing the shop's distinctive yellow apron, asked. "Along with these two here?"

Sakura just nodded. "Yes, please."

"So what say you?" Benten asked, turning towards Ryuunosuke. "Are you going to back out now, like a coward? Or are you going to really face me?"

Ryuunosuke's only response was to look at Benten with steely eyes. "You're on."

"Alright, ladies, here's the rules." The store manager announced to Ryuunosuke and Benten, as the two girls took their seats. "You both have 30 minutes to finish the curry. Whoever finishes their curry first, or has the most of it eaten when time runs out, is the winner. And either of you can quit at any time and forfeit the game, just get out of your seat. Got it? Good." He quickly disappeared back into the kitchen.

Lum floated over to Ryuunosuke, and took her head gently in her hands. "Good luck! Here's something from me!" She stuck two fake horns on either side of Ryuunosuke's head, much like her own. She smiled at Ryuunosuke, floating back in amongst the crowd surrounding them.

Shinobu came up to Ryuunosuke, and gave her a hug and a gentle kiss on the cheek. "Don't hurt yourself." She squeezed Ryuunosuke's shoulders gently, then stepped back as Benten glared at Ryuunosuke.

"Don't I get a kiss?" Benten asked indignantly, pointing at her cheek.

Ataru all but launched himself at Benten and laid a massive smooch on her lips, before being punched back towards the wall. Ryuunosuke just groaned as Ataru slowly slid off the wall into a smashed heap on the floor.

"Thanks!" Benten called out towards Ataru's crumpled form, giving him a bright smile.

A single hand rose up from the heap of injury and pain and gave Benten a thumbs up, before Lum grabbed him and dragged him away from the tables.

At that moment, a loud commotion arose from the crowd as four men came around from behind the counter, lugging between them two absolutely massive stainless steel dishes, piled high with rice and smothered with thick, dark brown curry. Each of them were topped with two tonkatsu pork cutlets, sliced and covered with sauce, and a pile of shredded cabbage.

The crowd was all in a frenzy, screaming in rapture at the massive mounds of curry rice. Several people collapsed into a dead faint at the sight of the food, some foaming at the mouth. As the dishes landed in front of Ryuunosuke and Benten, they both made heavy metallic clangs on the formica tabletop.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" The store manager called out with a crazed gleam in his eye. "Dinner is served!"

Ryuunosuke and Benten stared at the massive dishes of food that have been served in front of them. The memory of the curry with one kilogram of rice from way back then was quickly eroded in the sight of the daunting mass of curry and rice and cabbage and pork that now sat before them.

"So, uh..." Ryuunosuke murmured nervously. "Did you have any idea of how much four kilograms of rice actually is? Like, as a measure of weight and size?" She could feel the blood draining from her face as she stared down at her curry. Despite the savoury, porky aroma wafting towards her nose, she couldn't help but feel a deep sense of foreboding and fear.

"Not really..." Benten said nervously, her hands clenching at the tablecloth. "I just let Oyuki handle that kind of thing. I didn't think that she would go with something like this. Maybe she got the weights all wrong? I know I have trouble with all the different weight measurements and stuff..."

The four men returned with two more dishes, again piled high with curry, rice, cabbage and tonkatsu. This time, they lugged them over towards the table where Sakura and Cherry sat, some ways across from Ryuunosuke and Benten's tables. Sakura and Cherry just nodded and gave their thanks to the servers, before taking various condiments to prepare their dishes.

"Just so you know," Benten said, "I'm not backing out now. I'm going to see this thing out, one way or another."

Ryuunosuke just sighed as two servers placed a single stainless steel fork, wrapped in a napkin, on each table. "If you're not backing out, then I'm sure as hell not backing out. Let's just get this thing over with."

The store manager took out a handkerchief, and raised it high in the air. After a moment, he shouted out, "Allez cuisine!" and let the handkerchief drop to the floor.

Ryuunosuke and Benten both grabbed their forks, and dug into the steaming mass of curry and rice, shovelling it into their mouths. The audience exploded into deafening noise as the two girls dug into their curries, loud enough to rattle the stainless steel dishes and cutlery, and shake the framed posters on the wall.

There was barely any thought between the two girls about the savoury taste or the light sweetness and perfect softness of the rice, or the thick feel of the curry as they quickly chewed, swallowed, and dug their forks in for another bite. They knew that a pause for even a second, even to enjoy the taste of the food, would be giving up valuable ground to their opponent.

Ryuunosuke spread the pile of shredded cabbage over the curry, so she could scoop up heaping spoonfuls of cabbage, tonkatsu and curry rice together at once. Benten just ate slices of tonkatsu in between spoonfuls of curry rice and cabbage. Ryuunosuke only paused to take the occasional sip of water along with her bites of curry, while Benten used her left hand to spread fukujinzuke and mayonnaise over her curry as she ate with her right.

After about ten minutes of eating, the pace started to slow down, with barely less than half of their respective curries eaten. Ryuunosuke's was mostly a mess of rice, curry sauce and cabbage mixed together, while Benten's was still neatly arranged as it was. But there was still so much to go, and the two were starting to feel the strain keeping it all in.

Shinobu crumpled a flyer in her hand as she noticed the pace slowing down, bit by bit. She couldn't shake the notion that both of them were very close to reaching their limit. It was hard to see behind the tables and the plates still covered in food, but she could imagine that both of them were starting to feel like they were going to burst. She felt a fear that some of that curry was going to end up coming out again, all over the table and the floor.

And then a loud cry came from somebody, and her head turned to see a guy in the audience pointing over to a table beyond the two competitors. Shinobu didn't need to turn her head to know what he might've seen, because she knew that Sakura was sitting around the area where he was pointing.

She looked, anyway.

Sakura was just polishing off her massive plate of curry rice, the silver dish practically gleaming, all but scraped clean of food. But then Shinobu noticed that the dish opposite her was also empty, but Cherry was nowhere to be found. She looked at Sakura again.

"Um, Sakura-sensei?" Shinobu asked nervously. "Where's Cherry?"

"Under the table," Sakura answered casually. "He kind of passed out after eating half of his, so I was finishing his plate for him. After I finished mine, of course."

A terrible silence descended on the restaurant, as every eye turned towards Sakura's svelte form. Some of the audience were more shocked than others, which Shinobu probably figured was because they noticed her digging into her own four kilogram curry.

"That did taste pretty good, though..." Sakura said idly, before turning towards the manager. "Could I have another one of those, please?"

At Sakura's words, several people in the audience either dead fainted, or just toppled over to the floor. The rest of the audience broke out into another uproar, screaming in shock, arguing about what they just seen, some even coming to blows.

Even Ryuunosuke was staring at Sakura in shock, her fork hanging limply from her hand. A heap of curry that was scooped up slid off to land back on her dish.

As for Benten, she had fallen right out of her chair in shock, her bloated belly now visible to all.

Oyuki was quickly to Benten's side. "Are you alright? You're not going to be sick, are you?"

The store manager, in the midst of the uproar, patted Ryuunosuke's shoulder gently. "I think this means you won, kid!" He took the large pile of curry from the table. "I could box the rest of this for you, if you want."

Ryuunosuke made a noise like a deflated balloon, and turned away from the manager.

The store manager nodded. "Fair enough." He turned towards the kitchen. "Hey, could you bring out another four kilo curry for the lady here?!"

Shinobu pulled Ryuunosuke to her feet carefully, letting the taller girl hold on to her for support. "You did good, Ryuunosuke-kun." She said softly. "Just please, don't do anything like this ever again."

Ryuunosuke wrapped her arm around Shinobu's shoulders. "Already way ahead of you on that one, Shinobu." She pressed her lips quietly to Shinobu's forehead, letting the shorter girl lead her out of the restaurant, unnoticed by the audience now crowding around Sakura.

Benten laid heavily against Oyuki, her head resting against the yuki-onna's shoulder. She groaned a little as she watched Shinobu and Ryuunosuke walk out through the door into the cold winter air.

"I thought I was gonna win for sure..." Benten said. "If it wasn't for that human black hole over there just murking the both of us..." She glared over at Sakura, who was blissfully eating her second and a half four-kilo curry, with a small crowd watching her in slightly horrified awe.

Oyuki just patted Benten's side gently. "I think your aim just exceeded your grasp, that's all." She smiled a little bit. "Maybe you should probably refrain from the eating contests if you can't compete with the locals."

Benten just sighed, pressing her head against Oyuki's shoulder gently. "I don't want to back down, alright? How was I supposed to know that the competition here was stronger than I thought?"

Outside, Lum floated after Ryuunosuke and Shinobu, her cape fluttering behind her. "Ryuunosuke! Shinobu!" She landed lightly in front of them. "I'm so proud of you! You made me and my family and the Oni proud!"

Ryuunosuke just groaned, her head reaching up to poke at the fake horns stuck to her head. "Don't remind me of all that. I don't know how I'm going to go home with these damn things on my head..."

Lum just giggled. "Just tell your father that you are an honorary Oni, of course. And if he objects, I'll turn him around for sure!" She then blinked a little, realisation hitting her. "Oh, I forgot to tell you!" She pulled an golden envelope from her bikini bottoms. "The manager wanted to give you this. It's supposed to be for people who win the bigger challenges, but they thought they would give this to the winner."

Ryuunosuke opened the flap of the envelope, and peered inside. Her eyes quickly widened to the size of saucers. "This can't be... This is a lot..."

Shinobu smiled at Ryuunosuke. "I think you earned it." She took the envelope from Ryuunosuke. "Let me take care of it for you. I can only imagine how your father might act if he sees this..."

Ryuunosuke nodded. "Yeah, you'd better."

Quietly, the three made their way back to the train station and back to Tomobiki. Something that could have been thought of as a triumphant homecoming, though at least two of them didn't really feel like it. Especially Ryuunosuke.

the end

NOTES: This came about solely because I just felt like writing a sequel to One Kilogram Of Rice.

Once again, the curry joint that is featured in this story is supposed to be based on an actual place in the Nakano district of Tokyo. Problem is, when I checked Google Maps and Tabelog while drafting this, I discovered that the place had apparently closed down, and I was pretty sad for a while. If extenuating circumstances hadn't stepped in last August, I would have been eating there, too. So I guess this is kind of a personal eulogy for a place I never managed to visit but always wanted to? Funny how that is.

And yeah, I really loved Kanazawa-style curry, ever since I had it at Go Go Curry in Akihabara in the Summer of 2009. It's difficult to not keep thinking about that stuff, especially years after the last time I had one.