Riou heard a knock at the door to his makeshift (but no less secure for it) home. Nobody who didn't know him ever managed to make it this far - his fortifications got them first - so it had to be an acquaintance. He didn't have many of those.
There wasn't pounding on the tin plating by the door and yelling for him to get out there, so it couldn't be Samatoki.
Running through the possibilities in his head (an enemy after his prototype microphone? Unlikely they'd be so kind as to wait for him to answer) and deciding the danger was minimal, he cracked the door. Not too much - he still needed to assess the intruder. Minimal danger didn't mean no danger.
"Hey, Riou-san! Mind if I come in?" Dice's chipper voice rang out.
He nodded and held open the door. "I don't have any meal prepared, currently." Riou didn't have any illusions about Dice's presence here - he knew he just wanted free food. That was fine. Riou was happy to share.
"'S alright. Can I just hang out, though?" he asked, though he was already settling himself down on the mats and tarps that made up the floor.
"That's fine." Riou returned to what he was doing prior to the interruption.
Dice sat in faux-sleep (Riou could tell) for a short while, before giving that up and coming to watch him work.
Riou pulled an empty jar out of the large pot of water boiling over the low stove. He carefully ladled a black-and-white jam into the jar, taking care to remove any trapped air before he wiped the rim and twisted a lid on. He set it aside and moved on to the next.
Dice had come closer, sidling up next to him. "Whatcha doing?"
"Canning," Riou answered succinctly. "Hardy kiwi jam."
"Oh? That's pretty normal."
"With beetle larvae, for protein."
Dice laughed. "That's more like it."
Riou pulled out a spoon and scooped some up. The jam was still warm, but not too hot to eat. "Try some." He held it up to Dice.
Rather than take it from his hand, Dice ate it without hesitation while Riou still held the spoon. He hummed in consideration. "I feel like it needs sugar," he said, licking his lips.
"I've been having difficulty finding something that grows readily here to refine into sugar," Riou explained as he put the spoon with the other dirty utensils to be taken to wash later. "Honey doesn't work in jams." He finished filling all his prepared jars and put them back in the pot to heat-treat.
"There's still some left over," Dice noted.
"Yes. Kannonzaka-kun is coming over." Dice groaned, and Riou ignored it, continuing, "I'm going to teach him my recipe for jam tarts. Though they may seem frivolous, with the proper ingredients they can be as hearty a food as any."
"Why's he here all the time?"
"You're also here all the time."
Dice huffed and went back to lying on the floor, facing the wall.
Riou answered the door almost before Doppo had even knocked. Was he… just waiting there? "H-hello, Busujima-san," he said. Riou guided him into the, well, the shack. He was looking down at the canvas bag in Doppo's hand, and even though he didn't say anything, Doppo felt the need to explain: "it's a, a gift." He held it in front of him with both hands, bowing his head. "Thank you for accommodating me. P-please accept it."
Riou took it, nodding. He opened the bag and inspected its contents. A small steel french press, and a tin of coffee.
"I-I know you don't tend to have coffee, but you can also use it for tea, o-or infusions. I hope that's not too presumptuous of me. If you don't like it, I can-"
Riou interrupted him with a clap on the shoulder. "Thank you. It's a thoughtful gift." Riou briefly smiled, something of a rare occurrence, and took the items behind the curtain that separated the "kitchen" of the small shelter from the rest of it. Before Doppo could follow him, he noticed someone else in the room.
"Hello, shitty salaryman! Please make me something good!" Dice said as soon as Doppo looked at him. He was all smiles despite the insult.
Doppo ignored it and greeted him back. Well, he didn't ignore it. But, you know, he was a salaryman, and he was kind of shitty, probably even moreso from the perspective of someone whose life was much more exciting than his, so, fair cop, maybe. He didn't respond to the insult, in any case. "I hope I can make something that lives up to your expectations."
"Kannonzaka-kun," Riou called, poking his head back through the curtain. It would've been almost cute if Riou wasn't 6'3" and naturally terrifying.
"Coming, coming. We're making tarts, right?" He spared one last glance back at the smiling, lounging Dice as he went through the curtain. "I hope I'm able to figure them out. It'd be nice to make desserts for Hifumi from time to time…"
The kitchen, though it was called that, didn't really resemble any normal kitchen. A low firepit with a wire grate over it served as the stove. Recycled plastic and metal apparatuses drew water from outside (where? The stream? Rainwater? Doppo hadn't thought to ask) into a basin, basically a sink, and out back through the wall (was it structurally sound to dump wastewater right by one's house? Well, Riou seemed to know what he was doing, it was probably fine).
A metal sheet held up on wooden planks served as the prep surface. Really, it was fine as long as you avoided the sharp corners, and didn't mind squatting. Ingredients were already set out in measured proportions. Riou was so considerate.
"The process is simple. You should be able to apply the steps to making other dishes, too," Riou started. He pulled a mixing bowl out of his chest of supplies and waited for Doppo to get ready.
Once his jacket was off, his sleeves were rolled, and his hands were rinsed, Doppo joined Riou at the low counter.
Riou started right away, going over the ingredients for the pastry dough. Barnyard grass flour, stone-ground salt, acorn oil shortening, water. Not too complicated. The ingredients were very Riou. Doppo would have to make some substitutions if he tried it at home. It was inspiring that Riou managed to make all this himself out here. Who'd've thought you could make a pie out of things found in the woods? Doppo could never be that inventive.
Doppo had some trouble getting the dough to the right consistency. Even with Riou measuring out the other ingredients for him, he couldn't seem to get the amount of water right. First too little, then too much, ruining the batch. Before he could apologize (profusely) for wasting ingredients, Riou brought out more, waving away the mistake.
"Don't worry. Go ahead and try again. This is still usable, just not for tarts." He looked at it for a moment, apparently deep in thought. "Ah. We can have meat rolls for dinner. I trapped some marten and squirrels this morning."
Well, if it was getting used, then maybe it wasn't too horrible a mistake. The next batch, he managed to get right, kneading it to the perfect consistency. While he rolled it out, he noticed Dice watching them through the curtain.
"How long is it going to take? I'm starving," he complained.
Riou, who was carefully brushing oil across thin sheets of the over-watered batch of dough, answered him. "The dough needs to chill, and then the tarts will need to bake. It's going to be at least a few hours until they're ready."
Dice whined. He must've been as bored as he was hungry, because he then came into the kitchen and sat next to the laboring Riou. "Give me something to do," he said.
"Can you skin a squirrel?" Riou asked.
He nearly gagged. "No way in hell am I doing that."
Hadn't he just asked for something to do? Did Dice really have any right to be so picky? Not that Doppo wanted to skin a squirrel, either.
"Then you can ash-treat the butterbur."
"That sounds boring as hell, but it's better than dealing with squirrel guts. Point me to it."
Riou set down the not-quite-phyllo-dough and went to the sink to show Dice how to properly remove the alkaloids from the wide, flat leaves and thin red stems. The young shoots, he explained, could be eaten raw. Where did Riou even learn all this? He was a font of botanical knowledge.
Doppo finished rolling out his dough. Riou took it from him on a wooden slab and stepped outside to place that and his own dough in the, uh, well, it was just a metal box outside, but on cooler days it could serve as a sort of fridge.
Taking a short break, he turned to see how Dice was doing. He was, surprisingly, diligently going about his assigned task, but, hm. "Arisugawa-kun, you've got something, uh," he motioned towards his own mouth, "there."
"Huh?" Dice rubbed at his mouth, confused.
Doppo reached for something reflective enough to let Dice see himself and landed on a clean metal bowl. He held it up for him to examine his reflection.
"What the hell…?" Dice said softly, poking at the black splotches around his mouth.
Riou reentered at that moment, and the other two looked at him. When he saw, Dice, he smiled and- was that a laugh? No, no, it must've been Doppo's imagination, because Riou still sounded as stern as ever. "You can eat the shoots raw, but they stain your mouth black."
Dice flushed. "No way…" He got over any embarrassment quickly, though. "Guess I can't hide how hungry I am, hah!" He returned to the washing, though now he wasn't even bothering to hide the fact that he was eating what he was supposed to be working on.
Riou pulled out a variety of other mountain vegetables, and they all worked together at preparing them while they waited for the dough to chill. Once it had, they finished the tarts, spooning helpings of Riou's hardy kiwi jam into pockets of pastry.
"That one looks full. I want that one when they're done," Dice said, pointing to a pastry on the end that probably shouldn't have gotten as much jam as it did.
Once they were all put together, Doppo realized something. "Busujima-san… How are we going to bake these?"
Riou was- what was he doing? Soaking some sort of carved wooden plate in water in the sink. He turned the spigot off and tapped it free of droplets. "Follow me," he said. "Bring the tarts." He left the building. Doppo and Dice followed.
Around the back, there was a structure that must've been new. It was a little different, but the shape of the clay, the flames inside, it was easy to tell what it was. "You built an oven?"
"You said you wanted to learn to make pastries," he said, like that explained or necessitated the amount of effort required to build an entire oven by hand.
"You made this just to teach me to make tarts? That's not- I don't- I'm really not worth that level of effort. You didn't have to do this. They- they probably won't even be very good, I'm really not that good at cooking, what if you never use it again? Then you'll have gone to all this work for nothing and I'll have just been such a burden on you, it won't-"
Riou cut him off with a clap on his back. "I'm also going to make hardtack," he said, looking into his eyes as if he'd just said something profound and moving.
Doppo didn't know how to respond, so he just shut up. Riou turned around and went back inside.
Dice silently handed Doppo a stalk of butterbur before he followed suit.
It took him a minute of processing until he rushed back in after them.
The three of them worked together to put together the rest of the ingredients for dinner, though the final preparations (as well as all of the… skinning) were left to Riou. The tarts came successfully out of the oven with only a twinge of char, and were placed out of the way to cool down to eat for dessert (much to Dice's chagrin). Eventually, only finishing touches were left to do, so Doppo and Dice were ejected from the kitchen to reassemble the table in the main room. Somehow, they managed to work together on it even without Riou in the room to mediate.
So now they all sat together, eating rolls stuffed with ground squirrel and marten with a side of stir-fried mountain vegetables.
"It's a simple game! I can't believe you've never played before," Dice said, his mouth full.
"In the Navy, we preferred card games to dice."
Somehow, they'd gotten to talking about Chou-Han, a dice game, as they finished up the meal. It was out of Doppo's wheelhouse, but firmly within Dice's.
Dice was already pulling out his, uh, dice. "Let's play now. We can bet on, um, oh! We can bet with the tarts. We'll split 'em evenly to start."
"Okay," Riou ceded. "How does it go?"
"It's real easy! The dealer just shakes the dice in the cup, and we call whether the sum is even or odd." He got up to retrieve a proper cup, and the tray of a dozen tarts. "Doppo, you deal."
Doppo had seen it played in movies, so he more or less understood what he had to do. Like Dice had said, it was a simple game. He still wasn't really sure, though. Could he really do it right? What if he made some stupid blunder that just made Dice hate him more? Was he-
"If you're worried about not getting any tarts, don't be. The house gets a cut of each bet, yeah? And I won't even make you take off your shirt."
He gave him a baffled look.
Dice just laughed. "That's how they do it yakuza-style. Stops the dealer from cheating, you know, with loaded dice up his sleeves or anything. I really don't want to see your scrawny ass shirtless, though, so let's not do that." Even though Doppo hadn't agreed, Dice was already splitting up the tarts between himself and Riou.
Anxieties absolutely not assuaged but with no apparent way to get out of it, Doppo took the dice and put them in the cup, shaking them before slapping the cup down on the table, dice hidden underneath.
"You can call first, Riou-san," Dice said.
"Okay. I bet two tarts on even."
"Then I'm odd! Show us the dice, dealer!"
He removed the cup. A two and a four.
"Damn!" He handed one tart to Riou, and then one to Doppo.
Doppo dealt again. Dice called odd again, betting three tarts, and lost again. And then again. And was then out of tarts to bet.
"No waaay…" Dice complained.
Riou collected their dishes and took them away.
"You can have this one, Arisugawa-kun," Doppo said, handing him the overstuffed pastry that he'd pointed out when they were making them.
Dice grumbled, but thanked him.
Riou came back and sat down in front of his collection of far too many tarts. "Let's play one more round. You can bet something other than tarts."
"Yes! Thanks!" Dice clasped his hands together. "Let's see, um, if you win, I'll do one thing you say. Anything!"
Riou nodded, and Doppo dealt one more time.
"Six tarts on odd," Riou called.
A pair of threes.
Dice pumped his fist in the air. "Woo!"
Now the tarts were spread much more evenly between them, and they felt ready for dessert.
"Ah," Riou suddenly announced. "One moment." Going to the kitchen one last time, he came back with three cups in one hand and the new French press in the other, trail of steam wafting out of it. He poured them each a cup. It didn't quite smell like coffee.
Doppo took a sip. "It tastes like… the pastry?" He guessed.
"Yes. Roasted barnyard grass seeds can be used just like coffee, but without caffeine," Riou explained.
"I see! That's good to know."
Dice was ignoring the drink for the moment to focus on the overfilled tart. He took one bite, and the jam spurted out around it, black goo dripping down from his face onto his white shirt with an extremely unpleasant sound. "Shit."
Doppo rushed in to get a damp cloth to help him clean. "Sorry, sorry! I shouldn't have overfilled the pastry, I'm sorry."
"Why the hell are you apologizing for me spilling beetle jam all over myself? Stop doting. I'm not your damn kid." He pushed him away, taking the cloth. Oh, that's right, Dice hated when he apologized so much. Doppo just couldn't break the habit. "Ugh, this is my only shirt right now. Gonna have to go to Gentaro's to wash it properly…" he grumbled to himself. "Eh. This is good enough for now."
"You only have one shirt…?" Doppo asked, saying it as much to himself as to anyone else.
"Why would I need more?"
Doppo hesitated. Why would - was he really asking that? "Well, when it gets dirty…"
"I wash it, duh. I'm not that gross."
"What do you wear when you're washing your clothes, though?" Doppo asked. Maybe Dice had, like, pajamas, somewhere?
"Nothing?" Dice answered, looking at him as if it were extraordinarily obvious and he was the stupidest person in the world. Maybe he was.
"Well, that's a solution," Doppo admitted.
"Yeah, it is!"
Doppo couldn't tell if Dice knew how ridiculous he was being. Maybe it was some long joke at his expense. Dice was just seeing how far he could go before Doppo finally admitted that it was too unbelievable for a person to think like that. But what if Dice was just like that? Then Doppo was just being horrendously rude to his lifestyle, even if it was an absurd one. Either way meant his reactions to the other would be wrong, and Dice would have every reason to hate him more.
His spiraling thoughts were interrupted by Riou talking to Dice. "Arisugawa-kun, if you're interested in making your own clothes, I can teach you."
Dice waved a flippant hand in the air. "Eh, I got Ramuda to help on that front. Thanks, though." He finally got back to his pastries.
They finished their dessert talking about nothing of any particular importance, Dice occasionally taking jabs at Doppo, and Doppo brushing them off. And even though they'd started dessert with an almost even number of tarts, they all ended up giving most of their share to Dice in the end.
Riou sent them each home with a jar of jam.