Chapter 62: "Spiritual Stew"
Viewpoint: Tohno Akiha
"Welcome home, Akiha-san." Yumizuka-san greets me as I arrive home from my classes. "I hope that your class day went well?"
"…...Yes, it did, although... I am surprised to see you here, Yumizuka-san... but with no sign of Hisui." I look around for her. "Where is she?"
"Laying down, I'm afraid," Yumizuka-san explains with a small frown. "She said she was feeling sick, so I told her I'd take care of things so she could recover." She continues to sweep the floor.
"Ah," I say, understanding. After all, I cannot blame Hisui for that. Even I get sick sometimes, and Hisui is not the type to routinely shun her duties. If she is feeling unwell, then it is certainly genuine. "Very well, then since she is unable to, I shall make dinner for us instead. Yumizuka-san, do you desire anything?"
"I don't want to impose, Akiha-san. Whatever you make will be fine." She smiles slightly as she sweeps up some dust into a dustpan.
It seems this has fallen into routine for her already, as she hardly seems to be straining herself, and she handles the broom naturally. Presumably, she had to do some housework before...
…...Back when she still had a family and the life of a normal girl.
"Alright then," I reply. "I will go inform Hisui first so that she does not have to worry about it. Please continue to perform your duties. Dinner should be ready within an hour or so."
"Of course, Akiha-san. Please, take your time and do what you need to do." Yumizuka-san nods affirmatively in my direction, before she resumes her sweeping. With this, I walk towards Hisui's bedroom door, and knock on it softly.
"...Yes?" She sounds a little hoarse.
"It is me, Hisui. May I come in?" I reply.
"...I don't want you getting sick, Akiha-sama, but I can't stop you..." I hear her say somewhat weakly.
"I will be fine," I say as I open the door. The demon's blood that runs in my veins virtually ensures that me becoming ill is something that almost never happens... and when it does happen, it rarely lasts for more than a day or two, in the case of most infections.
Looking upon the scene inside, I can see that Hisui has herself piled under blankets. Fresh air is flowing in from the window, presumably her attempt to make herself feel better, but as she still seems obviously sick, it is essentially little more than a placebo.
Looking over Hisui, I can see that she is definitely ill... and Hisui is not the type of person who could fake being sick. She shivers, even though she is under several blankets, and her face both is red with fever and yet moist with sweat.
"Mmm... flu?" I ask her.
"I... think so, Akiha-sama..." She replies, a little feebly. I feel her forehead. Quite warm and damp with sweat, and yet she shivers under her blankets. Feeling cold while your body actually burns with fever... a quite unpleasant feeling.
"...It is rare for you to get sick since you usually wash things quite thoroughly." I comment. "Try to think, Hisui. What were the things you did over the last several hours?"
"Well... after you left, I began cleaning. After a few hours, I decided to stop cooking while I ate, and as I ate, I began to prepare for dinner for when you got home. I decided to try cooking up a beef stew. It wasn't too bad, but I don't think it agreed with me..." As if on cue, her stomach growls... well, perhaps growls is the incorrect word. "Gurgles" would be more correct.
...And if she is sick this suddenly and this deeply... then it probably is not flu at all.
"...Either that, or you undercooked the beef stew and got food poisoning," I say with a bit of a sigh. "How long did you cook it?"
"About... 20 minutes at 57 Centigrade..." She answers after a moment of thought.
...I sigh. She brought this upon herself, definitely. She undercooked the beef... by far.
"...Hisui." I cross my arms. "If you are going to cook meat for a stew, it needs to be at least 63, if not 68 Centigrade. You probably did not kill all of the germs inside. It is very likely that you have food poisoning... not the flu."
"…...Oh," she says, mentally kicking herself. She would do it physically as well, I am sure, but she obviously does not have the strength to do so.
"Do not let that discourage you though. Learn from it, instead." I try to encourage her a little, to soften the disappointment at her continued mistakes while cooking. "The first time I made eggs, I overcooked them. They turned into something like rubber, and did not taste much better. I ate them anyway, so that I would remember my lesson to never overcook them again."
Hisui gags slightly as she hears me say I ate them. "...Sorry, Akiha-sama." For what it is worth, I decide to leave out other examples of me overcooking or undercooking food... lest Hisui wind up vomiting all over the place, and leave Yumizuka-san to perform the clean-up of that particularly unenjoyable chore twice within two weeks.
"Do not worry. As I said... just learn from this little mistake. It is always better to overcook meat a little bit than to undercook it." I explain. "Overcooked meat is just a little dry and rubbery. Undercooked meat... well, you are where you are, and feeling how you feel."
"Yes, Akiha-sama." She nods slightly.
"But I am not here to continually point out your mistakes. You know what you did wrong, so it is pointless to keep telling you exactly what it was that you did. For now, you could probably use some water and some rest. I will be cooking if you wish to eat, although I doubt it..."
She quickly shakes her head. "Just... water... please, Akiha-sama." She looks slightly embarrassed that she is asking me for such a thing. After all... she is the maid and I am the mistress. I am not supposed to be serving her, and if Otou-sama were here he'd probably have her get her own water.
But Tohno Akiha... does not think in that way. No. This is simply a case of human compassion, and while Otou-sama may have been comfortable as a demon in a human skin, Tohno Akiha is more of a human with savage tendencies. Hisui may have gotten ill because of an oversight on her part, but that does not mean that I should just tell her to suffer because of it.
I walk towards the kitchen, as I think over why Hisui would try something that is perhaps a bit out of her reach at this point. Her cooking has certainly gotten better over the last year, yes... though I do not know why she would really entrust herself to something quite of this level yet. Stew is not horribly complex... but at the same time, one has to make it carefully. It cannot just be thrown together sloppily, by any stretch of the imagination.
Hisui did not intend to make herself sick... indeed, if she was cooking stew, she was probably hoping to surprise me with it when I came home. A good attempt overall, but unfortunately, one she lacked the experience to successfully do. A simple taste-test, then, is what she had for lunch... but it was enough to throw her stomach into revolution, both literally and figuratively.
...I cannot help but smile slightly at the fact that she would attempt to surprise me like that.
Humans, after all, are not perfect, and if we were perfect, as one famous scientist has said, we would not exist. Part of being human is accepting these flaws.
But part of being human is also helping those who cannot help themselves. A proper person, after all, will chip in for those whom they value. A friend, a family, even an acquaintance. Humans put a remarkable strength on the relationships they have with their fellow humans, compared to most species, whom tend to compete with one another for resources, land, and the rights to mate with members of the pack.
Humans, fortunately, are not so shortsighted.
That is why Yumizuka-san has taken over Hisui's chores. Even though she is no longer human, she still thinks like one, acts like one, and – at least, I think – believes she still is one, in many ways. It takes time to wear the humanity out of a Dead Apostle... and as Yumizuka-san has only been one for a year or so, that is simply not enough time to have driven it out of her yet.
...That is why I am more than happy to get Hisui a simple glass of water. Because it is a very simple request... and because it would be quite hypocritical of me to go ahead and cook for myself and Yumizuka-san, without getting Hisui a simple glass of water... something that scarcely takes any effort, nor any more preparation than simply time itself.
One should not put pride, nor "proper" thinking, before the simple human needs. Maid and servant or not, Hisui is still a human. She has her own thoughts, wishes, desires, hopes, dreams... it is wrong to simply demand she shut them down, especially when she did so herself for so long. I have worked hard, along with Kohaku to an extent, to bring that side of her back out, and slowly but surely it is manifesting.
That is why Hisui was cooking. She was hoping to impress me and earn my praise. It would have pleased her greatly, then, if it had worked out, and I came home, she surprised me with her cooking, and I told her I enjoyed her stew.
…...Unfortunately, due to a mistake in the preparation, she was not able to do that.
She probably figures it is better that she got sick for this, as opposed to myself, but I would have preferred she did not get sick either, of course. I would have been more than surprised just for her to tell me that she wished to cook dinner for both of us, and would have even helped her.
I turn the water off, and walk back to Hisui's bed with the glass. I carefully hand it to her as she sits up and takes several swallows of the water before carefully laying it on a small endtable and laying back down.
"By the way, Hisui..."
"...?" She turns to me. "Yes, Akiha-sama?"
"I will look forward to enjoying your stew the next time you prepare it," I say with a smile.
Her jade eyes blink as I quietly close her door on my way out.
"So that's what all that sneakyness was about, huh..." Yumizuka-san furrows her brow slightly. "I didn't think that Hisui-san would be that type of person."
"I have to admit, I admire the fact she worked up the courage to do it," I reply after I swallow my mouthful of food. "I only wish it had turned out better for her."
"Well, practice makes perfect. Nobody can cook something perfectly on the first try, right?" Yumizuka-san smiles slightly, and she swallows a mouthful of broth carefully.
Yumizuka-san and myself are having a simple dinner of butajiru* together. It is the least I can do for her, considering she is shortened on sleep due to Hisui's illness and she was forced to take on their usual split workload. A vampire may not tire easily, if ever, but that does not mean it is not frustrating for Yumizuka-san to have to handle that burden, even if she took upon it completely willingly.
"Well, I woke up to go to the bathroom and when I found her in the kitchen, I asked what was up, and she shooed me away. I figured it was a surprise for one of us... too bad it didn't work out for her."
"Part of learning how to cook is learning from your mistakes. Nobody is born a perfect cook. The first time I attempted to scramble eggs it was more like disgusting rubber. I learned from my mistake by eating them. I have yet to improperly cook eggs since." I calmly lift out a piece of pork with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth.
"Wow... you're pretty brave then, Akiha-san. I would've never been able to do that... I probably would have just given up cooking." She laughs slightly.
...A strange thought strikes me, though, from this conversation. Even though it is... well, impolite to discuss such things, morbid curiosity strikes.
…...And I suppose as long as high amounts of detail are not gone into, that it will be a big deal.
"…...The bathroom, Yumizuka-san?" I ask.
"Eh? Uh, yeah. The bathroom." She nods.
"...I did not know a vampire still needed to make use of such a place," I say with some surprise.
Yumizuka-san blushes slightly. "Well, to be honest... I didn't know either," she replies. "I think it may have something to do with the fact that since I've come here, I've begun to eat regular food again, maybe... I don't know. It didn't happen until I ate 'normal' food again, I know that... while it was just blood, none of that stuff worked down there, really..."
"...This is interesting... although, I will admit, it is at a bad time to be discussing such things..." I murmur. "I mean... it is not like I ask the other vampires I know if they still do those things... or in the case of one of them, if she ever has had a need to do that at all."
"You know other vampires, Akiha-san?" Yumizuka-san seems surprised. Or, perhaps, she is just wishing to move the topic away from such indiscreet matters... or perhaps simply away from her genitalia.
Either way, it works, I suppose.
"Yes. Two others. One of them, you know – Sion Eltnam Atlasia."
"Oh, Sion!" Yumizuka-san's face brightens up almost immediately. "Yes, it's been awhile since I've seen her! How is she doing?"
"She is doing fine," I tell her. "She is still actively searching for a cure for her vampirism. In a way, actually, she is working with our more... how do I put this...? Our more medically adept family branches, the one involved in things such as genetic engineering. By using samples of her genes before her change, and comparing them to samples after, they can see what has mutated, and work on things that will either reverse those mutations, or else deactivate them."
"...And when that happens? Then what?" She blinks.
"Well... presumably, we use it to reverse her vampirism," I tell her. "If it works for her, maybe we can see if it works for you. If it works for you... then maybe we can use it to reverse our own inversion curse."
"...What about the other vampire?"
"Arcueid-san? She was born one, so I doubt it could ever work on her. Besides, she does not need blood... it is all in her head, in a way," I explain. "At the same time, Arcueid-san is a class above and beyond. I do not think myself or you would last very long against her... so it is much better to be on her good side than not."
"...I see," Yumizuka-san sadly says, clearly fearing the power of Arcueid-san, and carefully lifting the bowl to her lips once more.
She rightly should... for as vampires are compared to a normal man, Arcueid-san is to a vampire – simply above and beyond, effectively unable to be harmed. For while man will always seek to be the strongest, they are never destined to be, and even those who achieve some means of otherworldly strength, whether through arcane rituals, deals with otherworldly powers, or just plain being cursed... all come to regret it, for they learn that even in these elevated tiers of power, there are still predators whom can make them their prey, and they must avoid.
I try to change the subject off of this discouraging topic. "...How about you, Yumizuka-san? Did you cook?"
"Hm?" She lowers the bowl slightly from her lips and swallows. "Oh, yeah. I cooked fairly often with mom. I'm pretty decent at it... well, I was, before I was bitten." She rubs her neck slightly on the left-hand side. The wounds have healed, but she will probably always remember the site of injury. "I'm probably a bit out of practice, now."
"You should join Hisui and myself on Sundays, then. Kohaku is working hard to get all of us to improve our cooking. You would probably remember it in no time flat." I smile, and drink some of the broth of my soup from the bowl.
"Probably," Yumizuka-san says with a smile. "It's strange. I remember after the stuff that happened a few years ago, I'd always think of Tohno-kun when I was cooking. I wanted to make a meal so good that he'd fall in love with me," she says with a laugh.
...Well, it is no grand secret that the heart of a man can certainly be won through his stomach. It is also no real surprise that Yumizuka-san, at the age of 13 or 14, would have had that sort of naïve, yet pure and honest thought.
"Really? And what would that meal have been?" Yumizuka-san never fails to pique my interest whenever the talk turns to Nii-san.
"I never worked out the main course, but I figured the dessert would be plum pudding," she says with a shrug. "Tohno-kun always seemed to be kind of like a plum to me... not something hugely popular, but quite good, and far from unenjoyable."
...I cannot help but laugh upon hearing that, as rude as such an action is.
"...What? What's so funny about that, Akiha-san?" Yumizuka-san frowns slightly. "It's the truth, you know!"
I calm myself as quickly as possible. "...Forgive me, Yumizuka-san... it is not a fault of your own. It is just that, generally speaking, Nii-san does not like plums very much."
"...Oh," she says, looking saddened.
"But he does like their aroma, however," I continue. "So while it would be a good idea to give him something plum-scented, it is generally best if you avoid giving him something plum-flavored."
"...I see. Thank you for letting me know that, Akiha-san." She looks back up and smiles slightly.
"Yes... Nii-san's tastes are fairly simple. Probably more in line with what you would like, since he was raised in a similar background to yours," I remind her. "He does not go for food such as what I usually have."
"Says the Ojou-sama who is eating butajiru," Yumizuka-san notes with a slight smirk.
"...It is easier to cook butajiru than most things. Expediency sometimes overrules quality. That said, I think it is a fine bowl of butajiru."
Of course... I am perhaps biased.
"It is good, Akiha-sama. I haven't had butajiru too often though. I didn't even really remember what it tasted like until I had some just now. From what you've served, though, it's pretty good... it definitely holds its own." She smiles, and fishes out a small piece of pork with her chopsticks.
"Well... his palate has rubbed off on me, so to speak. Indeed, some of the 'simpler' foods are surprisingly good," I mention. "And Kohaku likes to do western-style dishes now and again, which are a totally different experience themselves. It is good to have such a varied palate, for by the time you come back to a favorite food, you are not sick of eating it by then."
"Mhm," Yumizuka-san notes with a nod. "Last Sunday she did... French Toast, I think she called it?" Her eyes roll up and to the left slightly as she thinks. "That was interesting..."
"Ah, yes, it was. It is impressive that one can gain a rather tasty breakfast simply by dipping bread into egg, and frying up the mixture. The syrup is a bit too sweet for me, though, so I tend to only use a little. If it is too sweet, then it becomes entirely inedible to me."
"It was still something pretty interesting to try," Yumizuka-san says with a laugh. "Trying new stuff isn't too bad sometimes... though I generally only wanted to eat the stuff I liked. Was a fussy little girl growing up..."
"But that changed?" I begin to finish drinking the broth.
"Yeah. Mom found ways to get me to try new stuff before long," she says with a hint of a wistful smile. "Rewards for trying out new things were small, but important... before long, when I grew up more they waned off, but by then she'd done what she felt she needed. By then the idea of trying something new was the reward itself." Her smile widens.
"I see. I never had that growing up. Oka-sama died not long after I was born. All I really have of hers are some keepsakes, some things she gave me, a few pictures..."
…...And my name.
Oka-sama named me. She had planned to do a lot with me, from what I read in her journals. I had found those, not long after I had found Otou-sama's, with what was divulged in Otou-sama's journals making me far more scrutinizing in not only searching for such a thing, but also in making sure that I read what was inside.
Perhaps it was nosy of me to do so, but... after reading what was in his, and knowing what he did with Kohaku... I wanted to make sure that at least one of my parents was what I would consider a sane, human being.
Fortunately... that was the case. Oka-sama's handwriting, despite having not been raised in a family such as ours but rather a common one, was quite crisp and sharp, as were, from what I have been able to read in her own words, her manner and her thoughts. It seemed like she truly loved Otou-sama, and he truly loved her. They lived a happy life as a couple for some years, and then they had "him."
Not long after "he" was born, I would be. But... having so much demonic blood mix with pure human blood...
…...It is what set up the disaster that was to come.
Without giving Oka-sama time to recover from having her first child, she was pregnant with me. The strain of having to feed blood far more potent and powerful than your own not once, but twice, in two years...
…...In the end, this was what killed Oka-sama. Her body could not take the strain. But even then... she died happy. I know this.
"...Akiha-san? Are you okay?" Yumizuka-san's voice calls out, noticing that I trailed off in speech.
"...Yes, I am fine, Yumizuka-san. Sorry if my little mental digression distressed you." I stand up and get out of my chair, pushing it into the table. "Please put the bowls in the sink; do not worry about washing them for now. I will get around to it in a little while."
I excuse myself from the table. Whether Yumizuka-san agrees to leave the dishes or not, is honestly of little concern to me right now.
* Butajiru - Literally "Pork/Pig Soup." Also called Tonjiru in Eastern Japan.
...There is so little that I ultimately know about Oka-sama.
A person who was instrumental in giving me life...
…And yet was only there for the thinnest slice thereof.
Next Week (8/17/11) – Chapter 63: "Yellowed Pages"