Oh my God. Is this an UPDATE??? From KURUK?

Whoa, hell must have frozen over, huh?

XD Well, here's an update for this fic. Unfortunately though, you are only getting three vignettes today, as last time I messed up and gave you five. :3 My bad. However, one of them's longer than usual, so that should make up for it.

Enjoy. :)

Failure

Gourmets all had one deep, dark secret...

One that they had to guard with everything they had...

Pierre had thought his secret safe... until, well, Lanna had been a nosy diva and asked. "You know, Pierre," she had said in a sing-song voice, "If you know so much about food, why don't you cook something amazing for me?"

The little Gourmet had ceased in his examination of the latest catch Denny had brought him, breaking into a sweat. "W-well..."

"Ooh!" Popuri had exclaimed, "Yes! I'm so hungry!"

The girls had giggled and agreed and proceeded to badger Pierre about it until the Gourmet had snapped at them about 'being too busy to indulge their childish whims' and, as if to prove it, he stormed off in a totally random direction...

Which of course had to lead him crashing right into the savage...

Literally... again.

As always, Pierre was knocked onto the floor while Shea looked down at him, head cocked to the side in curiosity. "Hello, little boy," Shea greeted, a grin on his face, "You look sad. What wrong?"

Pierre shot up, without dusting himself off or anything. Shea's head only lolled a little more in his confusion. "N-nothing!" Pierre snapped, walking away.

As always, jungle boy followed him.

"Wada always say that you share when you feel bad so you feel better soon," Shea advised him as he trailed Pierre.

"No!" Pierre growled.

"You should," Shea called back.

"No!" Pierre screamed, and proceeded to run in another totally random direction...

Only to trip over a rock and fall...

Of course. The Goddess just loved him, didn't she?

Blinking rapidly, Pierre made out the tanned form of Shea blocking the sun out, casting a shadow on the small Gourmet. "You fine?" jungle boy asked, head still cocked to the side in that infuriatingly annoying way of his.

"No," Pierre tried to growl, though it really came out as more of a whimper.

To be honest, Pierre had expected the taller boy to act like a total savage again and do something, well... wild. Something like sling him over his shoulder and run him to Wada (because Shea always maintained that Wada's remedies were 'more better' than the doctor's...) to get his scrape treated... Or maybe he expected him to do some kind of... ritualistic dance that was supposed to heal those scrapes right up... or something.

Instead, Shea surprised him soundly by sitting down beside him.

"Wada also say that being quiet also help," Shea explained.

Pierre, after getting over the shock of finding out that Shea could actually be considerate, had hesitantly nodded. The pair lapsed into silence... one of those nice silences in which you could cool down and think about things.

After a few minutes (it could've been hours, really), Pierre found himself spilling out the secret that all Gourmets were supposed to keep. By the time he noticed how traitorous his tongue had become, however, it was too late...

"I can't cook," he blurted, then quickly covered his mouth and looked away in shame.

He could feel Shea's hateful glare on him! It was burning into him, accusing him of being a fraud, a liar, a disgrace-,

"That what bother you?" the other boy asked instead.

The Gourmet forced himself to meet the hunter's eyes. "What do you mean is that what bother me!?" he screamed, arms flailing about wildly, "The nerve! This is my deepest, darkest secret! Of course that's what's bothering me!"

Shea nodded all through Pierre's tirade, and when the smaller boy calmed down, huffing, trying to catch his breath, Pierre found that Shea had put a tanned hand on his shoulder.

"That no problem!" Shea exclaimed, beaming, "I help you learn!"

Pierre blinked a few times... then began to laugh, maniacally, really.

Really, he may be a savage, but sometimes, Shea was funnier than anyone Pierre had ever met.

--

Gastronomic (Experiment)

Really, Shea didn't get why the little boy was so upset about something so... small.

Cooking was easy, and Shea should know! Ever since he was little Wada had taught him how to cook all kinds of things-- fish, and... well, fish, mostly... but Shea was sure that he could teach the smaller boy to cook, and even though Pierre had laughed very, very loudly at the suggestion, the hunter had kept insisting until Pierre had caved with a shriek of "Fine, teach me!"

And so it had been that Shea had happily made his way to Pierre's house to try a dish the petite chef had said had been in his family for generations. Shea didn't mind, though-- as long as it was food, well, the hunter was fine with it.

The Gourmet's house was... clean, Shea noted when Pierre opened the door. The blond looked quite nervous, though Shea couldn't quite figure out why, it was just food...

Pierre led Shea to the table and brought him a plate with something... black on it. As Shea sniffed at it cautiously, Pierre began to ramble. "This dish has been in my family for generations. It's called 'Gourmet Surprise'," Shea began to poke at the... thing with his fork, "It's made of a variety of ingredients... fried on high for..." Pierre paused when Shea pushed the plate away, "I-is.. there something wrong...?"

Shea crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. "Black thing... can't eat..."

The little Gourmet looked horrified at first, then looked like he was about to cry, and then he began to shriek. "You inconsiderate wild man! Don't you know that it's only polite to at least pretend to like the food!?"

As Pierre hurled insult after insult at him, Shea stayed silent.

Somewhere between first meeting Pierre and now, Shea had learned that the Gourmet only screamed like that when he was trying to cover up something else... in this case, sadness.

The food may have been disgusting and burnt, Shea thought, but at least he had begun to understand Pierre a little better...

--

Hands

Shea was absolutely fascinated with Pierre's hands.

They were small, pale little things-- the fingers pudgy with baby fat, yet swift... Honestly, they were almost like a child's hands, like how Shea's own hands looked in the memories of the hazy time he couldn't remember before Wada, and the jungle...

But the thing Shea liked the most about them that they were so soft.

Shea had never felt hands that soft before... let alone soft hands at all.

Wada's hands, like his own, were calloused from years of hunting. Chelsea's were worn and almost like sandpaper... Denny's were chafed from the handling of fishing rods, as were Lanna's. Sabrina's were stained with ink, and Gannon's felt like pure rock...

The day he had first felt them, he had walked in on Pierre attempting to cook something. The Gourmet's hands had been fumbling with the knife, and Shea, who was well accustomed to handling knives, put his own hands over Pierre's and guided it.

The Gourmet had fussed about how the hunter was doing it wrong, but Shea wasn't listening. He was much too busy taking in the feel of those baby soft hands.

Eventually, Pierre lost patience (as he always did, Shea noted) and shooed the hunter away...

But still, as he lay on his mat late that night, he could still feel the pure softness against his own palms-- a faded memory, an enriching sensation-- a promise of something Shea couldn't quite put his finger on.

A/N: There you guys go. I hope you guys enjoyed it.

Thanks to all of my reviewers for last chapter! I really appreciate and look forward to them!

Next time you will (hopefully) get the regular four... :)

See you! Review?