ShuSumi Shorts Chapter 1: Day 1 - Cooking, a persona series fanfic

ShuSumi Shorts 1: Cooking

AN: This story takes place during the events of Persona 5 Royal, and does not contain any notable spoilers for that game.

Despite having been formally acquainted with Kasumi Yoshizawa only about a month ago, Ren Amamiya felt a firm relationship budding with his gymnast kouhai. Recently they had gotten together in their school's cafeteria, where she shared with him a bento-box lunch she had made herself. Unfortunately, confusion over the level and degree of seasoning she had used rendered the taste not to their expectations, but he was willing to give her a second chance. To that end, he shared with her a basic curry recipe he had learned from his caretaker at the cafe he lived above.

The recipe seemed simple enough for Kasumi. Its ingredients included pork, onions, flour, butter, and curry powder, all of which she knew she had at her home. And so, one day after returning home from gymnastics practice, she told her parents about her cooking plans, politely turning down their offer to help. Everything started out well enough, but when she began to prepare the curry sauce, she made an unfortunate discovery.

She was out of curry powder!

After a brief moment of panic, her instincts kicked in, and she picked out whatever she felt would make up for the absences in her pantry. When the sauce looked to be too thin, she poured in some extra flour. To make up for the flavor of the missing curry powder, she reached over to the nearby spice rack and sprinkled in the contents of random bottles, unaware of what the spices were or how much of them she needed, if at all. When she started to worry that her concoction was growing too spicy, she added all manner of other elements in an attempt to sweeten the taste: chocolate, coffee, yogurt… anything she could think of, she added. Finally, afraid that she had lost track of time, she hurriedly switched off the stove, slopped its contents into a bowl, and covered it to keep overnight.

The next morning, Kasumi texted Ren to get together for lunch once more, to which he promptly agreed. They met together in the cafeteria and she handed her the bowl of curry, but what happened next nobody could have prepared for. As soon as he peeled off the cover, the pungent smells that had fermented over the past night poured out to meet his nostrils. The curry had dyed itself into a chaotic medley of colors not found in nature. If it were shown on television, it would have to be censored. Despite recoiling from the shocking smell, Ren made his best effort not to offend his guest, bravely digging up a spoonful of the stuff and eating it. As soon as the lump passed his taste buds, he shot upright in his seat, only to lose balance and consciousness alike, and fall down to the side.

Kasumi, Morgana, and quite a few onlookers stared with mouths agape at what happened to Ren. His redhead friend, aghast with fear, knelt down to pick him up. "Senpai! Oh my gosh, are you alright?" she pleaded.

To her relief, Ren's eyes rolled down from the back of his head, and he regained his senses. "What… was… that?" he asked slowly.

"I've heard rumors of something like this," Morgana whispered quietly. "A dish so foul, it can be used as a deadly weapon. They call it 'Mystery Food X'."

Luckily, Kasumi did not yet have the cognitive ability to hear the cat's meowings as human speech, and thus could not take his dramatic hyperbolic description seriously. Instead she simply apologized, with tears beginning to well in her eyes, "I messed up my cooking again, didn't I… I'm so sorry, Senpai!"

"Ugh," groaned Ren, "that was… How do I put it?" His brain still needed a few seconds to restore itself, and so gave one descriptor at a time. "Gritty, yet slimy… Those tastes and textures should not be possible together. I should be impressed that you were able to foul that up so badly!"

As relieved as Kasumi was that he appeared to feel better, she sighed despondently. "First my gymnastics performance, now this… I guess I'm a failure at everything I do."

But Ren shook his head. "Kasumi-chan… You don't have to beat yourself up over this. I don't know what happened on your end to create that… thing, but you just need more practice. If you'd like to come over to the cafe I'm staying at, I could teach you in person."

Kasumi gasped, blushing like a fresh batch of non-bungled curry sauce. "A d-d-date?"

"I mean, my caretaker will be there too," he nervously backtracked. "I'll have to talk it over with him, but it shouldn't be too much trouble."

The red glow slowly faded from Kasumi's face, gradually replaced by a weak smile. She nodded, looking forward to the chance to finally doing something worth being proud of.

The theme for day 1 of ShuSumi Week was Cooking / Fashion / Hobbies. Considering that I'm currently playing Persona 4 and recently experienced the "Mystery Food X" scene, that's where I got my inspiration from. Like I said above, I've decided to keep this series spoiler-free, but if you do know the necessary twists from Royal, let's just say you'll have a deeper take on what I meant when I said "her instincts kicked in" during the cooking!

For more information, please visit the event's Twitter page, ShuSumiWeek.