thebastion | [OPEN!]

Entry tags:

[OPEN!]

Who: Rin + open mingling
Open: Open
When: Day 81, late evening after Bon and Rin get back with Tris and Briar
Where: The Bastion, near the Distillery
What: After returning with two new arrivals, Rin decides to break out some food and a table to mingle around so people can get to know each other. Meanwhile she's acting a little... spacier than usual.
Format: action
Warnings: None

[With two more new arrivals to the Bastion, Rin has gone to the trouble of setting up a small table just outside the Distillery kitchen, covered with a cloth and laid out with several different kinds of food.

There's not a lot of variety, since they're still running on finite resources, but there's enough there for everyone to have a good amount of food, especially since their two new survivors are probably hungry.

There's some grilled fish, steamed rice, corn and a few other vegetables and fruits, as well as some various drinks (no Spirits, though) take from the distillery itself.

Hopefully this will prompt a few people to mingle about and get to know their new neighbors.]

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Good! [please don't crush him. He still has bruises from last time ._.]

Are you busy? Need help? I can't cook, but I can chop!

[The pains of befriending demons, man.]

Uhm. If you wanna...

[Admittedly one of the reasons she had been in the kitchen so much today was because she wanted to get away from everyone (read: not everyone just Bon) and try to think, but... that wasn't going so great either so.]

I could use some help with the vegetables.

[he will be the most enthusiastic and distracting kitchen helper ever] What have we got and how shall I cut it?

[awesome]

Uhm. I need... carrots, onions and celery. I'm gonna work on potatoes. That okay?

[carrots, onions, celery. Carrots, onions, celery. He knows what those look like! That will be easy!]

[...why is there dirt on the carrots? Should he wash these? He should probably wash these, right?]

Oh yeah, please wash 'em. They came out of the garden so they're probably pretty dirty.

[Reading your miiind-- okay not really]

[he nods and works on getting all the dirt off everything. Not going to lie, he's always had his food prepared for him so he's probably never washed a veggie in his life. So he holds them up for Rin's inspection with a hopeful face.]

Pass? How big should I slice them? Is there a knife?

[At least he's... trying... ? It never really occurred to her that he might not have a clue about what he's doing because... well. He offered. And for some reason she's not connecting the "he's a rich kid" to "normally doesn't lift a finger".

She glances over her shoulder, nodding.]

Yup. Looks good. And there's knives over here in a block. It's best to use a chef's knife. Try to get them cubed up small.

[he grabs a knife - wow, that's a long knife - from the block and sets down a carrot to attack. Holds the knife over it... rethinks. Draws back. Turns the carrot. Raises the knife again... come on, Kaoru, it's not a dissection. Perhaps he should have started with something easier...]

[turns a little sheepishly toward Rin] ...should I cut it in half first?

... that's... usually best, yes. It's kinda big.

[he does. And now what? Now he has one half with a stalky-end, and one half with a rooty-end. They seem very suspicious. He should just cut those off and he does - far too much, but at least he somehow he manages it without sending them flying across the kitchen.

The adventure in chopping continues for a good few more minutes, as he has to stop and figure out what to do at each stage. And this is just for one carrot.

...don't mind the shape. They're a bit wibbly-wobbly but at least they're even-sized squares. He'll just... stick to celery for the time being. It's fine in half-moons, right?]

[Through all that, Rin has managed to skillfully peel a good collection of potatoes and already gotten them chopped up in to small cubes to toss in a large pot of water.

She pokes her head over Kaoru's shoulder after, watching him quietly.]

[It was just the carrot that was hard, and he is ignoring that he has more of them to cut. Celery is easy! He actually feels a little thrill of accomplishment that he managed to complete chopping it at a reasonable speed. Now he's staring down the onion.]

...these are the ones that make you cry, aren't they?

[She is giving him points for trying, even if he's finding it difficult.]

It does, but there's a trick!

[She picks up a sauce pot, handing it to Kaoru.]

Get some cold water.

[He does, filling the pot to the brim before thinking better of it and tipping a little out and returning it to Rin like a good assistant]

Done!

Okay, watch this!

[Rin peels the outer layer, then carefully sets the onion in the water.

She lets it sit in there for about a minute before removing it. Taking the knife, she cuts in to it, and amazingly the normally potent and acidic scent seems to be much less so.]

Cold makes all that stuff that makes you cry less annoyin'!

[claps his hands in appreciation. Such wondrous tricks these commoners come up with!] Amazing, amazing! It`s just like magic!!!

And then I just cut it, right?

Not really magic, just basic kitchen tricks!

[smiling, she nods, watching him to make sure he'll be alright]

[sets one of the onion halves down on the board, then turns it over - cut side down would probably make things easier. He cuts a very thin slice and - Riiiiin!]

Is this thick enough? Am I supposed to take the root part off?

Oh, yeah. Take the root off. And that's fine for the cut.

Ahh... lemmie show you somethin' though, just for safety's sake?

[she takes the knife from him carefully, moving a bit of the onion over.]

You were doin' okay with the cuts, but somethin' that helps with speed and not cuttin' your fingers to hell is how you hold things.

[She puts her hand on the onion, but not handling it with her palm fully. Instead she curls her fingers in, pressing her first row of knuckles against the vegetable.]

This keeps the tips of your fingers outta the way, and makes it faster to move back as you cut. Like so.

[She demonstrates, cutting through the onion rapidly.]

Of course you don't gotta go that fast, but it still helps.

[he watches her carefully, mimicking the technique and nodding his head] Got it, got it. Nobody wants to it chopped off-fingers.

[setting to it, albeit at a slower speed] How'd you learn all this, anyway? Or is it that regular people can all cook like professional chefs?

Huh?

[The question makes her blink slowly, before bursting in to laughter]

No! Of course not! Are you kiddin' me? I know people who can barely cook ramen without makin' the water burn!

I learned 'cause I lived in a boy's home. Dad's only good dish was curry, and the rest of the priests there didn't really have any clue how to cook well. Yuki was busy with school all the time and I wanted to be good at somethin' so I started teachin' myself when I was seven.

Y-you can burn water? [he's pretty sure that's not right. But Rin's the culinary queen here - does she know something that he doesn't?]

...so you were the main cook in the house. It was the same with my friend Haruhi - it was just her and Ranka-papa, so she learned, too. [a wistful sigh. Gosh, he misses Haruhi's home cooking...]

Didn't you go to school?

You can!

[Actually it's just evaporating it until the pot itself burns but details...]

Uhm. Not... after middle school-- w-well not that's not entirely--...

[wow this is actually complicated to explain]

See... I dropped out. 'cause I wasn't any good at it. I was failin' anyway, I wasn't gonna get in to a good high school and forget bein' anywhere close to where Yuki was. I got in trouble. A lot.

[making a face, she turns and starts putting things in the pot, trying to hide her expression as much as possible. It still hurt to talk about her sister, and even remembering her home life still held a certain level of pain she didn't fully know how to deal with.]

If you knew me back then, you probably wouldn't like me much. I was a real bitch. I pretty much hated everyone and that was ok cause they hated me too. Or were afraid of me. One'a the two.

So... I just left one day. I walked away while everyone was preparin' for a festival and I never came back, even though my sister and my dad both tried to get me to.

I started lookin' for work, but I couldn't keep a job either! I would... break things on accident, a lot, or get in to arguments... one time I decked a customer because he was bein' a dick and called me 'tiny tits'. He deserved it! But... it didn't make it ok, y'know?

And then... Dad died. And Yuki and me, we were still minors. We had no where else to go 'cause the priests couldn't take care of us. Turned out though, he had a plan for that. The head master of the really super elite academy that Yuki got a scholarship to was also a friend of Dad's, and she was our guardian, should anythin' happen to him.

But that meant I had to re-enroll in school. In an academy no less! It was crazy! I didn't wanna, but--

[but it was the only way she could become an exorcist, under the very noses of the people who wanted her dead...]

W-well. I didn't have much choice!

[nervously, she let out a laugh, shaking her head.]

I still suck at school...

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