DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dr. Stone! :)
To my awesome reviewers (04/01/20): Hello and hola, Lu-chan 16Love, Evelyn (9001668), The Green Seer, Yandrik, chaomi, and Kirana Retsu! ^_^ Thank you so much and muchas gracias for reviewing the thirteenth chapter of No Stone Unturned! Trying to melt iron sand requires a lot of energy! :P Nice to meet you, Evelyn! :D Yup! In the anime, we saw Suika collapse in the daytime, but at night, the smoke was thick enough that Ginro could see it, so I figured Senku lasted longer than Suika did :D Senku completely ignored the VERY SIGNIFICANT thing Kohaku said to him, and my guess is because he was thinking about science. Oh, Senku... XD Thank you; I'll keep trying my best! Thanks for all the scientific information! :D I think that while Sapphire certainly knows everybody in the village, there may be ways to point out "new" hotties to her, like if Senku invents scissors and opens a makeover salon XD Imagine Magma after an exfoliating facial and with a short, movie star-like haircut XD You're very welcome; I hope you enjoy reading my fanfic! :D Tal vez Senku no puede dar las chicas los novios, pero el puede dar las chicas el ramen delicioso por comer! I hope all you enjoy this new chapter, and thank you again! ^_^
Chapter Fifteen: (S01 E08j) Foxtail Ramen
The delicious aroma of the warm ramen wafted in the air, making everybody's mouths water.
Last night, after seeing Suika use a foxtail stalk to play with her dog, Senku had the idea to make ramen out of foxtail millet.
With Kohaku's slashing prowess, getting enough foxtail grass the next day has been no problem at all. The beating of the stalks to extract the grains had taken far longer. Seeing them hitting the foxtail grass had horrified Chalk, who made things difficult for Senku because of it, at least at first… but that was another story.
Next came the process of removing the little bits of inedible fluff that remained in the grains. Senku found out that despite his and Chrome's relatively close battle power rankings – or at least, Kohaku's estimates – Chrome had an easier time carrying a large pot of water than Senku.
As the man had apparently spent his entire childhood carrying rocks, while Senku had spent his carrying books, Chrome's greater stamina – although he was tired after setting down the pot of water – wasn't too much of a surprise.
"Now that we have these grains," Senku said, holding up a handful of the green foxtail millet, "all we need to do is turn them into flour, and we'll be able to make the noodles!"
Chrome, Kohaku, and Suika looked at him in confusion.
"What's flour?"
"What are noodles?"
"And how do we make flour into noodles?"
It turned out that after they acquired the millet, they needed to set aside time to create proper tools to turn it into flour, which involved shaping a few large flat stones close to each other and likewise making small flat stones with which to grind the foxtail millet to get flour.
And later, after they acquired flour and noodles and eventually made ramen – hence the mouthwatering aroma – Chrome volunteered to eat the mysterious new food, which wasn't a surprise, as he had been eating all sorts of roots and leaves and plants for years to look for something that could cure Ruri.
"IT'S SOOOOO GOOOOOD!"
Considering how delicious ramen was, Senku understood Chrome's enthusiastic reaction to his very first time trying it. What he didn't understand was how he could almost see yellow light shooting out of Chrome's eyes, as if his feelings for the bowl of noodles couldn't be contained and had to manifest themselves as laser beams.
He blinked.
I must just be imagining things.
After Chrome's unmistakable recommendation, Kohaku and Suika tried their ramen as well – Kohaku, who was more cautious, tried a single noodle at first.
If the foxtail millet of the stone age ended up being poisonous for some reason, it would probably be useful to have one person less affected by it than the rest…
"I can't believe that food like this actually exists in this world!"
…although from the way she tore into her ramen after that, it probably wouldn't be Kohaku.
Meanwhile, Suika had no problem with slurping up several noodles at once… and when she discovered the chewy texture of the noodles for herself, she seemed to keep on slurping without stopping. Ramen was very different from sunflower seeds, but it looked like both had met her approval.
Senku, satisfied by their extremely positive reactions, tasted his own ramen. Unfortunately, the food they had worked hard to make together did not meet his expectations.
As he chewed, he struggled to keep his mouth closed to prevent himself from spitting out the crumbly, disgusting ramen.
Why is this so bitter?! It tastes like medicine!
Minutes later, while Senku still hadn't finished his single bowl, the others made quick work of theirs. Chrome, who had started first, also finished first, and got himself a second serving almost immediately.
After being helped by Kohaku refill her bowl, Suika took a noodle and attempted to feed Chalk, who approved of the gesture. The small dog gobbled up the short noodle in record time before silently pleading with the watermelon girl for another. Suika, of course, obliged.
Kohaku served herself some more ramen as well before sitting next to Senku, who was watching in amusement as Chrome seemed to attempt to finish his second bowl even more quickly than his first.
"You're not eating, Senku?"
Senku looked down at his own bowl, which, aside from the few horrible mouthfuls he managed earlier, was mostly untouched.
If he had been served such awful ramen in the modern era, he would have refused to eat another bite… but the memories of near-starvation during his six months of solitude, before he revived Taiju, were at the back of Senku's mind, and he couldn't justify throwing away food for any reason.
Peering into his bowl, he frowned critically.
This is nothing like the ramen Byakuya and I used to eat, he thought to himself, but it'll do.
"Byakuya?" asked Kohaku curiously.
Oh, I said that out loud?
"Who's Byakuya? Is he a…" she paused, then pronounced the unfamiliar word carefully, "…a scientist, like you?"
A pause.
In his mind's eye, Senku saw water, as well as something that he had created in the past to help his father: the swimming electrodes that helped Byakuya pass his astronaut exam and go to outer space.
I'll follow that old man. I just need more time.
"No," he said simply as he dipped his makeshift chopsticks into the most awful – yet ironically, also the most delicious – ramen on the face of the stone world. "I'm a scientist, like him."
As he ate, Senku felt the weight of his ramen bowl.
It was heavy.
(End of Chapter Fifteen.) (04/01/20.)
I. My personal comments: Happy Senku's birthday, fellow Dr. Stone fans! ^_^ Senku doesn't think about Byakuya in an overly sappy way, because that's not his style XD But just like how Byakuya thinks about him, he also thinks about Byakuya :'(
II. A tiny request: Thank you for reading my fanfic! :D If you've read this far, I hope you'll consider taking an extra minute to leave a review for Chapter Fifteen ("Foxtail Ramen")? I would love to hear your thoughts, especially the parts or specific lines that you liked or disliked in this chapter! :D Also, all kinds of constructive criticism are very welcome! See you next chapter! (By the way, I'm "fireflyhwufanficwrit" on Reddit and "firefly-hwufanficwriterrrrr" on Tumblr :D)