NOTE: This basically turned into an alt-POV sequel to chapter 25 of the Penned in Memory collection, if the food here seems at all familiar.

Day 17: "Baked"

Keiko stood with a serving tray clutched to her chest, watching Yusuke as he eyed the plate of golden, oblong rolls sitting before him on a pale blue dish. The rolls emitted ribbons of silver steam that undulated and pulsed when he reached for one, but when Keiko leaned forward eagerly, Yusuke pulled back his hand again, unnerved. Around them the din of Keiko's parents' restaurant hummed, patrons and cooks oblivious to Yusuke as he shot Keiko a look of perhaps unwarranted suspicion.

"These don't have spicy pepper in them, do they?" he asked. "Because if they do…"

Keiko performed the mildest of double takes. "What? No," she said, shaking her head in absent dismissal. "It's not like it's New Year's or something."

Not quite comforted, he reached for a roll again. The bread felt soft under his fingers, top slightly crisp under a layer of crystallized sugar. They were still warm (which explained the steam) and when Yusuke bit into one, he discovered it contained an unexpected filling: something grainy and sweet, perhaps a bit nutty, with a gritty texture that gave the roll a nice bite. He swallowed the mouthful with a grin, holding the half-eaten roll up like he wanted to toast with it.

"When did you start making these again?" he asked. "I thought they looked familiar."

"Got the bug a few days ago," Keiko admitted. She leaned forward again, eager once again. "Well. How's it taste?"

Yusuke (not one to give Keiko what she wanted right away, enjoying seeing her squirm) took another slow bite. She'd made these rolls before—many times, in fact—but she hadn't touched the recipe in perhaps a year or two. Last time she'd baked them was back when a new spice shop opened up a few streets over, as he recalled. She'd studied his reactions to the rolls back then, too, with that same look of intensity on her face… like she was trying really hard to hold in a fart or something, Yusuke thought. He tried not to laugh at his own joke, instead focusing on the flavor of the roll as he chewed. Obviously a yeast dough of some kind, with the sweet sugar on top and that weird filling… he thought he remembered the filling was, like, from a flower or something? Like maybe a seed? But he couldn't remember what it was called.

He could, however, remember how the rolls she used to make had always tasted, and something about these wasn't quite the same.

"Did you add lemon?" he asked after swallowing down a mouthful. The filling contained a bright note he didn't remember tasting in the past. "You didn't have that in the last batch."

Keiko beamed. "I did add lemon," she said, appreciation putting a sparkle in her eye. "You really do have a great palate, Yusuke."

What an embarrassing compliment! Yusuke just grunted and ducked his head, popping the rest of the roll in his mouth. "It's good," he said through the food. "Yeah. It's pretty nice."

"Yeah," said Keiko. "I agree."

But her face didn't quite match her words, at least as far as Yusuke could tell. Something about her seemed… sad, maybe. Like her eyes had gone a little far away, not quite present in the busy restaurant, looking somewhere else instead. Somewhere Yusuke's eyes couldn't quite follow, if he had to get specific—and that was honestly annoying, because when Keiko got that way, she inevitably said something cryptic and stupid that left Yusuke scratching his head for weeks.

Not today, though. He wasn't gonna allow it this time around.

"OK. I know that look," he said, glaring until Keiko finally came back to the present and sheepishly met his eyes. "What's bugging you now, huh?"

A nervous laugh escaped her mouth. "Oh, nothi—" But then she stopped and rubbed her neck, gazing at Yusuke with a look he did not recognize. "Actually… I guess I can tell you the truth now. I promised not to lie, after all." The far-away look returned. To the plate of rolls she muttered, "Those were my grandmother's recipe."

"Your grand—" He stopped. His eyes widened. "Oh."

Keiko's grandmother had died before she was born. If she was talking about something that belonged to her grandmother, then she probably didn't mean any grandmothers from this lifetime. And if that was true, Yusuke got the sense he wasn't talking to Keiko anymore at all. Which meant…

"She made poppy seed rolls all the time," said Keiko—no, said Tex. Her arms wound a little tighter around the serving tray she still, even now, clutched to her chest. "They're her take on a Czech kolache. We ate them every time we visited her. It was my favorite tradition, honestly. I've reconstructed the rolls as best as I can, but… I dunno." A shrug, helpless and small. "It's not the same. No matter what I try, they just taste different from when she made them."

When Tex did not continue, Yusuke eyed the plate of steaming rolls, watching the steam rise from their golden tops in reflective silence. All the times she'd made the rolls when they were younger, she'd watched him eat with eagle eyes, pawning off batch after batch of those nutty, sweet poppy seed pastries with an excuse about wanting to use him as a taste-tester. He hadn't realized what the rolls meant to her at the time. He just thought she had been experimenting.

That wasn't the case, it turns out.

Tex—she'd been trying to get a taste of home. Or at least that's how it seemed to Yusuke. And if that were true, the whole damn situation kind of sucked ass, now didn't it?

"Well, maybe they taste even better than your grandma's," he said, grabbing another roll and taking a huge bite. Spraying soft crumbs with every word, he told her, "They're delicious, I'm serious! Can't imagine she made 'em any better."

A smile flickered across her mouth. "You're sweet," she said, "but you're wrong. Hers were always magic."

He took another bite, even bigger this time. "So're these!" he said, cheeks puffing like a hamster's. "They're great!"

"Yeah, but… they're not hers." Her smile looked as helpless as Yusuke felt. "They're not the tradition, y'know?"

Yusuke's first instinct was to call Keiko (Tex, whoever she was) a dumbass and to get over it, but her dad walked by and stopped at the edge of their table, scoping out the plate of poppy seed rolls with a hungry grin. Juggling the produce crate in his arms to his hip, he grabbed a roll and took a big bite, chewing and swallowing with obvious relish.

"You add lemon this time?" he asked.

"Yeah, actually," said Keiko, all smiles now that her dad had arrived. "You both have good palates. Not to mention memories."

Her dad laughed. "Well, I dunno about that, but I certainly like 'em!" he said before shoving the rest of the roll into his mouth. Nodding at the plate, he said, "Make these again, huh? Bet we could even sell 'em to customers, too."

Keiko tittered. "Kind of weird to pair these with ramen, don't ya think?"

"We'll call it a novelty, say we learned it from a foreigner and you can't get it anywhere else." Hefting his produce crate, her dad walked off while calling over his shoulder, "Keep up the good work, kid!"

"Thanks, Dad," Keiko said, watching her father vanish into the kitchen—but while she'd smiled at his compliments, that far-away look had returned, turning the color of her eyes a shade or two darker with emotions Yusuke couldn't quite put his finger on. But while Yusuke wasn't exactly the best at expressing himself, something about Keiko's expression made him feel compelled to try.

"Hey, Keiko?" he said as he reached for another roll.

She didn't look at him, still staring off after her father, and merely hummed, fingers tracing the edge of her serving tray.

Yusuke swallowed. "If you can't hack your grandma's old recipe, can't we make a new tradition?"

Keiko didn't react for a second—but then her head swiveled, turning toward him as her eyes snapped back to the present. "I guess," she said, another nervous chuckle slipping free. "It's just hard to let go, y'know?"

Yusuke didn't know. He didn't say that, though. He just crammed another sweet poppy seed roll into his mouth, waiting for Keiko to look at him before he shoved a few more into his pockets. That made her laugh, and when he swaggered out the door that day, he thought he'd done a good job of…

Well. Of whatever it was he'd done.

He wasn't sure about that, just as he wasn't sure what it meant to leave an old life behind the way that Keiko had—but he resolved that while he couldn't give Tex her old life back, he could still make this new one just as good. And if that meant eating himself sick on poppy seed rolls, so be it.

I've written about these rolls before, I swear, but I think this was the first time Yusuke could learn the truth behind them and some of the other weird foods Keiko makes.

I have no fucking clue what to do with some of the next few prompts (which are stuff like "I am cold," "dead and dying," and "BODY BUTTER?"), SO MORE SUGGESTIONS ABOUT CHARACTERS AND SHIT ARE WELCOME LMFAO. Body butter… whyyy…

Thanks for the comments, my lovely friends: C S Stars, tammywammy9, cestlavie, xenocanaan, Kaiya Azure, cezarina, ladyofchaos, LadyEllesmere and guests!