AN: Posting early today...so, don't expect an update on Monday. But don't worry, the update will be on schedule on April 8.
See you next update!
4 / Cooking with Number One
Ever since Sakura had started making their meals, the girls had noticed that their friend seemed in happier spirits. Nothing could really beat her happiness when she performed on stage but cooking was a close second.
From what the girls gathered, Sakura had originally started with dessert baking before moving on to saltier and spicier dishes. Sakura's mother had taught her well and the internet had helped her expand her knowledge.
As the days went by and Sakura prepared meal after meal, her friends had come up with a decision. They had decided to help out Sakura in the kitchen. Unfortunately, they did run into the problem on how to help as most of the other girls had little to no experience in the kitchen.
Saki had never bothered to learn. Beyond heating water for packaged ramen, the ex-biker preferred to eat out with her gang, sometimes she'll bring some take-out for her old folks or eat at home when granny was making her favorite, chicken.
Ai and Junko knew how to cook but they had rarely done it back when they were alive; Ai's mom was the official cook of the house, if she had time of course and Junko's parents would do most of the cooking. Once their careers took off, the last thing in their minds had been cooking.
Lily, too, was in the same boat as Ai and Junko. When she was alive, Pappy would do most of the cooking in the house but she would also help as best as she could, passing out ingredients, keeping watch as the food cooked, those sorts of things.
As for Yugiri, she had never been given the opportunity to cook while alive. She did not believe herself skillful enough to provide an adequate meal.
Tae, well, she was legendary but for what, no one knew. Culinary skills might not have been part of her skillset when she was alive (and awake).
Despite this, Sakura was more than willing to teach her friends if they wanted to learn and help was always welcome in the kitchen when cooking meals for friends.
Junko and Ai couldn't help but admire Sakura's skills in the kitchen. It was odd seeing the normally timid and nervous girl look so determined beyond singing and dancing.
Their friend knew exactly what she was doing; her knife work seemed almost perfect to the untrained eye, she knew her measurements by heart, knew different preparation methods and could manage a few shortcuts when preparing meals here and there.
For now, Sakura wanted her friends to start with simple dishes. The pink haired zombie figured her band mates would improve with time, but she'll rather they start small before getting to the more complicated dishes. So, per Lily's (and Saki's) request, the girls were making some ramen.
Sakura was thinking of making some shoyu flavored ramen. The Saga native had already set aside all the things they'll need to prepare it and had even gone out of her way to get premade chicken stock for the soup, mostly to save time as Kotaro would have a fit if he saw her cooking 24/7 and making stock, especially for some delicious tonkotsu ramen, took almost a whole day. With the premade stock already handy, the ramen was easier to complete.
Now, it was just a matter of preparing the toppings for the ramen.
Sakura had assigned Ai and Junko to prepare the noodles, while she cut the ingredients they'll be adding as the toppings, like spring onions and narutomaki. The young woman had decided to let the two former idols cook the other toppings, such as the boiled eggs and some grilled chicken and meat to add to the ramen once it was finished.
Once all the ingredients where cooked and cut, Sakura would make one bowl to show how it was prepared so Ai and Junko could follow her example.
It was simple. Yet it came as a great surprise when things started to catch on fire minutes later.
The girls couldn't quite pinpoint where the fire started but they knew the villain was a towel. A towel that had been a little too close for comfort near the stove.
Ai and Junko had been busy talking by the side of the stove, occasionally glancing once or twice to check on the noodles. The Heisei idol had begun the conversation talking about how to best improve their choreography, as the girls still had some trouble mastering the steps of their dances. Junko had offered her two cents in, wondering perhaps if they could improvise or make new dances for their songs so as to bring something new to the table; Ai had thought about it and nodded her agreement, while Sakura had nodded nearby, the girl a little too busy with separating and cutting up ingredients.
Had anyone being paying attention, they would have noticed the towel lonely by the stove before a slight movement from Sakura moved it a little closer. It then proceeded to catch a few flames and before long, it was already growing before spreading to the still distracted Sakura's navy blue school jacket.
The pink haired zombie had been so distracted, she didn't even react until after someone splashed cold water on her back.
Sakura blinked, confused, before turning towards her friends. Ai held the incriminating water bottle in hand. "...uh...why?"
"You were on fire?"
"...WHAT!? FIRE!?"
On the plus side, Junko had reacted fast enough to stop the fire from spreading. The bad news was that she used the water preparing the noodles to put it out and now they had a big pile of noodles to clean up.
Unfortunately, Kotaro and the others, upon hearing Sakura's panicked scream, had rushed to the kitchen where their manager proceed to yell at them for almost an hour straight after finding out what had happened. Saki had made an honest effort not to laugh at the embarrassed girls while Lily and Yugiri tried to stop Tae from eating the noodles on the floor.
And that was day one.
Well, day one had turned out less than spectacular but at least Sakura had managed to get the ramen done. After a few hours, of course.
Ai and Junko had been banned from kitchen duty, with Kotaro rudely calling them "fire hazards" and "pyromaniac zombies" after the whole mess. And despite Sakura saying it was an accident, Kotaro wouldn't hear of it.
Surprisingly, Junko and Ai took it quite well, except for the whole fire hazard and pyromaniac comments, assuring Sakura that it was fine. They made a mistake, they'll owe up to it and if owing up to it was making sure their friend didn't catch on fire because they were distracted, it was fine.
Today, it was Saki's turn in the kitchen.
Instead of ramen, Sakura had opted to make some grilled salmon with a side of rice and miso soup. For dessert, the pink haired zombie had bought some green tea ice cream that had been on sale.
Grilling the fish should have been easy but…
Sakura couldn't help but stare at the coal-like thing before her, frowning slightly. Next to her, Saki grumbled.
While Sakura was busy preparing the rice, she had left Saki in charge of grilling the salmon but the moment the pink haired zombie turned her back, she could already smell the smoke. And now, the two zombies were staring at what used to be a salmon fillet.
"Saki...you did put it on medium heat like I told you, right?"
"...uh, sure."
"Uh-huh."
"Hey, at least I didn't burn the damn house down!"
"But you did burn the fish."
"Argh!"
That was day two.
A new day saw Sakura, Saki, Lily and Tae in the kitchen.
Today was Tae's turn to help out. Everyone had been a little wary at first, of course. Tae wasn't the most avid listener but if she could copy dance moves they figured she could get cooking down...somehow. At least, they thought it would be easier to play it safe and have Tae just pass the ingredients to Sakura so she could prepare them.
Saki and Lily had decided to tag along, to provide support should a kitchen nightmare occur. Ai and Junko were still considered fire hazards, so they wouldn't be helping Sakura in the immediate future so it was up to Lily to make sure nothing would burn on her watch.
"Heh...are you still on with that, Shrimpy?"
"It's Lily!" Lily pouted. "And yeah! You burned fish! Who has ever heard of someone burning fish!?"
"Hey! I was just a little impatient, okay!? At least I didn't burn the freakin' place down like those two lovebirds!"
"At least they can say it was an accident…" the younger girl muttered to the side with a roll of her eyes.
"You wanna die?"
Sakura let out a nervous chuckle while next to her, Tae groaned hungrily, eyeing the food set up nearby.
"I really wouldn't worry about anything burning today," Sakura said. "I prepared the rice about an hour ago, anyway. Sushi's rather simple to make, after all." The pink haired zombie turned towards her unawakened friend, smiling before clapping her hands together. "Okay, Tae! Are you ready for...EH!?"
While the other zombies had been busy talking, Tae had already gulped down most of the prepared vegetables and raw fish and was already grabbing fistfuls of rice. Sakura, Lily and Saki just stared at her as she continued eating the rice, nobody making a move to stop her.
"Huh."
/…..
The three remaining members of Franchouchou were surprised to see Sakura and the others return from the kitchen ten minutes later.
Sakura had moved straight towards the bookshelf nearby, browsing a few books while Saki leaned against it. Tae tilted her head to the side and walked over to Sakura, groaning. Behind her, Lily skipped towards the bookshelf to help Sakura look for the right book.
Ai, Junko and Yugiri blinked at their friends and their odd behavior.
"Did something happen?" Ai asked after a while.
"We're ordering pizza tonight," Saki explained gesturing with her head at Sakura. "Egghead's trying to see if Shades has a directory around to get the number."
Junko and Ai exchanged looks while the courtesan looked mildly confused at the mention of pizza.
"Umm...why are we ordering pizza?" the Showa idol inquired. Lily turned towards the former idols nearby and pointed a Tae.
"Tae ate all the food!"
"...huh."
Tae let out another groan as Sakura finally found the directory and began looking for pizza places.
An hour later, the girls were enjoying a freshly baked pizza, with Yugiri commenting it looked vaguely like mojiyaki but with a different taste. Sakura was kind enough to explain what pizza actually was as they ate.
Day three over.
A day later, Sakura had decided to give sushi another try. It was Yugiri's turn today and Sakura figured this simple dish would be a good way to get the courtesan started.
"See? After adding the sheet of seaweed you can start placing the ingredients...like so...then, you just roll it..." The courtesan nodded, watching as Sakura calmly began rolling the sushi into form before grabbing a knife and cutting the roll into even pieces. "Here!" The pink haired zombie move to grab a pair of chopsticks, and with them in hand, picked up a piece of sushi and offered it to Yugiri. The older woman merely blinked at the gesture before biting into the food offered.
"My," Yugiri said after finishing the piece of sushi. "It is quite appetizing." Sakura grinned putting the chopsticks aside.
"Isn't it? You can fill sushi with just about anything, too! Uh...well, almost anything." The zombie gestured with her head at the rice, meat and vegetables nearby. Just like yesterday, Sakura had prepared the rice a few hours earlier to save time. Yugiri just had to help her band mate with cutting and cooking the ingredients necessary for the meal. "Okay! Your turn, Yugiri. You can add whatever you want to your roll, but don't add too much! You won't be able to roll it properly if you do."
The courtesan offered Sakura a smile and went to work.
By the end, between the two of them, they had made at least twelve rolls, each filled with different meats and vegetables. Sakura had even gotten creative and made one with fruit inside, giving Yugiri a taste to get her verdict on the rather odd combination. Yugiri had found it a little too sweet, but she did say that Lily might enjoy the taste.
"Well, if she doesn't, there's always Tae! Or me, considering," Sakura said, laughing while the courtesan chuckled.
Day four had been quite the success.
At least the girls finally figured who gave Sakura the least amount of trouble in the kitchen.