From last time…
But Sakaki-coach, who didn't stop watching Ryoma from the beginning, wasn't smiling.
'You did well Echizen, but…'
The next day. Even if the coaches weren't there, Tezuka didn't allow anyone to slack off. After all, Sakaki-coach was counting on Yukimura, Atobe and him while he was absent. Thus, the regulars still had their very early morning jogging. It was chance that Enzou and May had prepared for them their breakfast and a picnic basket for lunch the day before. That way, they could continue their training without having to interrupt it to prepare themselves something to eat. But Enzou and May didn't prepare the dinner…
Ryoma finished her bath. She felt good and refreshed after getting rid of sweat and dirt from her body. As she carried her bathing stuff in her room, her stomach growled.
'It's about supper time,' she realized. She headed to the dining room.
However, there was no one in the dining room. Instead, she heard noises coming from the kitchen. Curious, she went to the kitchen. All the boys were there. And the kitchen was…
Ryoma's eyes blanked and she froze at the door of the kitchen.
The kitchen was a disaster.
A disaster.
A D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!!!!
There was no other way to describe it. It looked like a tornado had passed by. A weird smell was in the air and there was even a black cloud floating under the ceiling.
On the table in the middle of the kitchen, Kirihara was chopping vegetables. There were huge, big, tiny, very small, short, too short, long, too long, thick, very thick, thin and very thin slices of carrot, cucumber, eggplant, daikon (1) and tomato. There were also broken stones from the marble cutting board mixed with vegetable. While Kirihara chopped, Gakuto put everything in a big bowl and placed them on the table.
CRACK!
Kirihara just destroyed the marble cutting board. It split into two pieces.
Ffffft! Ffffffffft! BAM! BAM!
Kirihara threw the two broken pieces in the trash mountain, where Ryoma was sure it was the emplacement of the garbage bin. Kirihara took out the wood cutting board from the kitchen counter and continued his massive destruction of the vegetable. This time, it was little pieces of wood which were added to the chopped vegetable. Gakuto continued his filling task and there were already five big bowls filled with the vegetable - and also with wood and stones from the chopping boards.
Marui was making bread. He poured out a whole bag of flour right on the surface of the table. He even threw in a whole bar of butter and a dozen eggs - with the egg shells. He also added a whole bag of sugar. Even if one likes sweet bread, no one would actually put that much sugar in. However, the amount Marui put in was just abnormally big. But it was also true that he was a sugar freak… On the floor, where Marui stood, there was a… an ocean(!), a dry ocean of flour, egg, butter and sugar. Momoshiro was crouched in front of the oven, checking the baking process of something inside. Ryoma saw a huge and black… something (she couldn't give it a name, she couldn't identify it) carbonizing inside the oven. Could it be the (supposed) 'bread'? And it seemed that the black cloud under the ceiling came from the oven. Was their nose blocked or sick? Couldn't they smell the weird (burning) smell from the oven?
Next to Momoshiro, standing in front of the stove, was Kikumaru, a frying pan in his hand. Kikumaru skillfully flipped the pan over his head. A black and round thing with some white spots flew out from the pan and landed skillfully in the plate placed behind him on the table. As expected from Seiyou acrobatic player! But that round thing was still black. What was it? And what were the white spots? Ryoma saw Kikumaru took his ladle, spooned a yellow liquid from a bowl and poured it in his pan. So the black thing was egg. Apparently, he was making egg omelets. So Ryoma supposed that the white spots were the egg shell.
Niou stood in front of a big stock pot. It was filled to its maximum. Ryoma saw a big octopus tentacle hanging out from the side of the stock pot. It wasn't even cut in little pieces to make the cooking easier. How did he think he could cook something so big? Niou took a vegetable bowl from where Gakuto put them and poured the content in the stock pot. Then, he threw the bowl in the sink, where there was already a mountain of dirty plates piled up inside. Niou took another vegetable bowl and did the same thing to the previous bowl. And he did so to all the other bowls. The content in the stock pot piled up until it reached the ceiling, piercing through the black cloud.
On the floor, there on the left side of the stove, there was a broken plate. Next to it was a broken cup. Three steps to the right, three other smashed plates. A soup bowl cracked into three unequal pieces laid next to the foot of the table. A mass of broken ceramic dishes was added to the trash mountain, where the garbage bin was supposed to exist, making the trash mountain looked more… colorful, more… vivid, and more… lively?
It was a good thing that the other regulars had the decency to stand aside and only watch. Ryoma didn't dare trying to imagine how the kitchen would look like if all of them also helped (cough cough) cooking the supper. She couldn't picture what it would look like. It was beyond her imagination. But then again, she also didn't want to see what it would look like.
'Disaster. DISASTER. A disaster! There is no other word to describe this,' Ryoma thought again.
Sakaki-coach wasn't worried about the regulars. With Yukimura and Tezuka to take his place, he could be in peace. However, Sakaki-coach forgot about something… The regular boys, born with a silver spoon in their mouth from the first day they came into the world, didn't know how to cook.
"WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?!?" Ryoma burst from the door frame of the kitchen.
Everybody turned their head to see their female regular in shock.
"Oh! Echizen!" Niou greeted her as he plopped a basket of whole potatoes in the stock pot. The (supposedly) soup overflew out of the stock pot. "Yikes!" Niou jumped away from pot, avoiding to be splashed by the boiling water. The mountain of vegetable in the stock pot trembled, threatening to crash at any moment. Ryoma was surprised that it hadn't fallen yet. It was a miracle that it was still standing up.
"What happened here?" Ryoma asked again.
"Enzou-san and May-san didn't prepare the supper for us before leaving, so there is no one here to cook our meals," Yagyuu explained.
"But none of us know how to cook. Only Inui has some "cooking" experiences, so we let him take charge of everything," Oshitari said, sighing.
"And Kirihara, Marui, Niou, Gakuto, Momoshiro and Kikumaru volunteered to help," Yuuta added.
"I also wanted to help, but there isn't anything I can do," Ootori said.
Previously, Ootori offered to boil water for the tea. However, he took a frying pan to do it. The water burned. BURNED! And there was also a big hole in the middle of the frying pan. Ryoma had to admit. These boys were genius in the kitchen. They succeed to do what nobody could do before them, not even the first worldwide cook-chef. Burning water, also burning a high-class five-star quality frying pan until it had a hole in the middle and causing an absolute disaster in the kitchen.
". . ." Ryoma couldn't say anything. She couldn't think of anything to say. She snapped.
Pop! GRAB!
Flop! Flop! Flop! Flop! Flop!
Ryoma grabbed the bunch of kitchen-disaster-creators by the neck of their shirt and threw them out. She also sent the remaining regulars out. Then, she stood in the middle of the door frame of the kitchen, blocking the way.
"YOU don't cross this door until I say you can!" she shouted. "Otherwise…" With her hands, she gestured slicing her throat.
Shlick!
The guys gulped, covering their throat with their hands, protecting it. Ryoma grabbed a rolling pin on the table and handed it to Kabaji.
"Kabaji, if one of them dares to step inside but one centimeter without my permission, you kill it!" Ryoma ordered.
"Usu!"
They boys turned blue. In other words, if they wanted to keep their head on their shoulders, they better obeyed to her words.
That night, they were saved from food poisoning, thanks to Ryoma. Sure, her cooking wasn't as good as their personal cook-chefs or as her mother, but it was certainly waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the one-hour-live cooks. Her cooking wasn't bad. It tasted good. Of course, the boys still couldn't count on her artistic senses for the presentation, but the first criterion in this situation was the edibility of the food. Inui's more-than-one-hour-live cooking experiences (from the moment he became a tennis player) couldn't even win against Ryoma with the edibility criteria. And so, to be sure that they would still be alive until the coaches' return, Ryoma was in charge of their meals, which many were relieved of that decision. Only Inui was a little bit disappointed. A very good opportunity to have the regulars testing his new creations just slipped away from his hands. The boys offered to help, Ryoma refused (because she feared to meet with another ocean size garbage dump in the kitchen). However, she accepted Kawamura's, Shishido's, Kaido's and Kabaji's offer. Kawamura knew good recipes, Shishido and Kaido were helpful without causing mess and Kabaji was her kitchen door guard.
Alas for Ryoma, her problems didn't stop there…
(1) daikon : a big white radish, very popular in Japanese cooking.