Chapter Text
nous allons enfin nous régaler.
“Désolée, je ne suis pas encore confortable parler le français…”
“C'est pas grave; we’ve brought along a Japanese translator.”
“Oh, what a relief. Thank you.”
“Anything for you! Come along and have a seat here—we’ll be live in ten. Are you comfortable, Madame? Tea, water?”
“No thank you. Let’s begin, shall we?”
Bon appétit.
With a twist of the golden band on her finger, the lights flared, coming down in a fluid golden sheet. The famous interviewer on the right was Mallorie Batteux; attractive, stylish, young, and known to all across Northern France. But all eyes were attentively trained on the woman seated to the left. She wasn’t outstandingly beautiful, nor was she eccentric in the slightest, with ordinary Asiatic features and simple clothes. The only thing striking about her was that she was clearly too plain to be a proper Parisian. And yet, silence reigned supreme as people waited for her to speak, past the soft curled smile upon her faintly pink lips.
There was courteous banter to start and scattered laughs popped up from the audience like stray fireworks. Batteux was a master of manipulation: hawk-like in her attention, snake-like in her charm, and thief-like in her ability to coax tasty secrets from her targets’ mouths. She flashed a grin of her own, sculpted to perfection, and yet it looked garish next to the cryptically relaxed one on the interviewee’s.
“Now, I want to ask the question everyone has been dying to know—just how did you meet the enigmatic Kojirou Shinomiya?”
“Him? Well… in a fistfight.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, you stupid girl.”
“You shouldn’t have picked a fight with a guy that weighs fifty more kilos than you do, you ‘stupid boy’.”
Kojirou’s eye twitched with irritation and he had half a mind to drop the stranger on his back; but he didn’t, merely tightening his grip underneath her knees. Her arms bounced around both sides of his neck, like lazy swings in the wind. For someone he had only just met an hour ago, she was getting oddly comfortable with her face nestled in the crook of his neck. The searing hot Kyushu summers didn’t help him cope with the warmth radiating from her, and their bodies clung together, almost in desperation.
“It was your damn fault for jumping in the middle of it,” he snarled, feeling stupid as he trodded along, piggybacking her like a poor man’s donkey. “I was handling it and it was none of your business.”
“I dunno… you were losing pretty badly. It was so sad that I felt like I needed to save you, y’know?”
Again, Kojirou stopped in his tracks, his fingers stiffening under the weight of her body. She leant her face forwards to squint at his, the blood from the scrape on her forehead already dried in the heat. Her hair tickled the side of his cheek, sparking electricity down his spine.
“Aren’t I right, Koji-chan?” she teased when he remained silent.
“Don’t call me by a stupid nickname! Look, I’m only taking you home because you hurt yourself like an idiot, so don’t bother trying to be my friend or anything. I never want to see you again after this.”
“Too late, ‘cos we’re already super close. See? I’m hugging you, Koji-chan.” She squeezed her body tightly to his, and suddenly he was glad that his face was turned away from hers, because the red blotches on his skin could no longer be explained away by heat.
“I’ll drop you into cow shit if you say that one more time!”
“Monsieur Shinomiya really said that to you?”
The shock was uncharacteristic of Batteux, who had previously covered all sorts of scandalous stories without the bat of a mascara laden eyelash. The audience murmured conspiratorially, too, creating a blanket of muted surprise to fall over the stage. After all, the coral-haired man behind SHINO’s had never once broken a composure of cool when interviewed or serving customers. He had always been a figure shrouded in just the right amount of tantalizing secrecy. Hearing of the famous man’s mysterious childhood in Japan—roughened, rural Japan to boot—was the biggest astonishment of their life to many of the sheltered rich peering down from the wings. How could a poor, foreign farm boy like that succeed? And how could a humble, uninteresting woman like that call herself his wife?
The Japanese woman seated on the left merely hummed with an ambiguous smile, giving a slight shrug. The rings on her hand sparkled as she re-settled herself, crossing her legs politely with a hard gleam of mischief in her eyes.
“To be fair, he’s not of a humble temperament. It could have been much worse, knowing Kojirou.”
“Well, what happened after that?”
Madame Shinomiya laughed, almost delightedly, resting her head in her hand as if pitying the interviewer.
“Obviously, he cooked for me.”
“It’s disgusting.”
Kojirou grimaced as she spat a mouthful of chunky brown mash back out into her bowl, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. Fragile ego shattered, he snapped his hand forwards to rip the dish away from her and hugged it close to his chest.
“It’s not! You’re just… unrefined!” he snapped defensively.
“It’s gross.” The girl twirled her hair around the handle of the spoon disinterestedly. Her feet swung beneath the wooden table like swings in the wind, her knees freshly bandaged. “Nobody likes bitter foods except for old people.”
Kojirou stood as if propelled by his own emotions, teeth ground together. “The bitterness of the chicken liver accentuates the sweetness of the melon—!”
“It’s. Super. Gross. Sorry Koji-chan, but your fancy foods don’t taste any good. Can’t you just make something tasty, like um…” She tapped her bruised chin with the end of her spoon, looking thoughtful before an idea lit up her face. “Ikinari dango?”
Her naivety deflated him as a pin does a balloon—fast, and pathetically. He sank back into his chair and sighed, running his hands back through his hair with defeated frustration. Ikinari dango was a Kyushu specialty. His mother had prepared it plenty of times because of how easy it was to make. The memories of the childhood treat washed over him slowly, as tides in the sea. After spending so much time researching European cuisine, he’d forgotten entirely about home.
Kojirou stood again with a nonchalant shrug, hoping that the action might hide the sudden grin pulling at the edges of his mouth.
“Fine. But you have to wash all the dishes.”
“What?!” she whined petulantly. “You can’t ask me to taste test your weird food and then make me your slave!”
“Yes I can,” he replied haughtily. “Do you want dessert or not?”
A small pout paired perfectly with the begrudging flush across her cheeks; it was enough for him.
“Well, we have indeed heard that you’re Monsieur Shinomiya’s greatest critic.”
“Has he said that about me? That does sound about right. There’s very few things he can serve me that I’ll actually enjoy.”
“My! So, you’re a professional taster? You must feel lucky to be able to taste his cooking—”
“Hardly. I’m just picky. I think it annoys him plenty.”
A hush of incensed murmurs rose like wave again; a picky eater paired with one of the world’s greatest chefs? How does that work?
She didn’t seem bothered. In fact, she looked to take pride in people’s confused expressions, bouncing her foot absentmindedly like a swing undulates in the wind. It was becoming clearer and clearer why she truly belonged with him, now; they both held something behind their grins, only ever revealing careful tastes of what they might be thinking.
Batteux took control of the situation by laughing nervously, hurriedly moving the conversation along before the audience could continue to whisper under their breaths about it.
“I’m sure you spent a lot of time with him as children, seeing as you were next door neighbours.”
“Oh, yes. We were inseparable in that last year of junior high.”
“Are there any childhood memories that still stay with you?”
“Well, let’s see… I don’t think there was a day that we didn’t fight.”
It was the umpteenth time that she was angry at him; or was he angry at her? It was too difficult to keep track these days. The reason being was also lost, boiled off by hot blood. In the end, it was ridiculous to sit around and be mad for no real reason, and he soon lost the desire to be.
He wandered the roads idly, but it didn’t feel the same without her tagging along behind or by his side. The silence of his own thoughts made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t long before he found himself in front of her door, his feet having carried him here without any real thought. He could have turned and left for home, but instead, he raised his arm and knocked. Once, sharply, before he could regret it.
When she answered she said nothing, merely glowering with an expression that made him wince. He said nothing, either, standing there and wobbling in the wind like a neglected swing.
“Well?” she pressed, seeming to have grown impatient with his awkward silence. He ground his teeth together, unable to meet her eyes in the fear of what he’d see there.
“…let me make something for you,” he mumbled.
“What?”
The request was abrupt, and it surprised him just as much as it did her. His mind wheeled but he kept on the track, unable to back out of it now. As he spoke his hands clenched into determined—or perhaps they were merely panicky—fists.
“Your parents aren’t home yet, right? So let me make dinner. I know you haven’t eaten yet.”
“How would you know if I haven’t eaten?” she retorted, but a guilty flicker of her eye told enough. Her parents were farmhands and both the mother and father worked late into the night. It was an easy deduction for Kojirou and he sneered, relieved that she was at least speaking to him again.
“Because you suck and you never do unless somebody tells you to. Move aside, I’m going to cook.”
It was the closest he could get to an I’m sorry, let me make it up to you right now. She sucked her teeth but eventually stepped aside, allowing him indoors. There was a silent understanding in between them, like the wordless love stars give each other across the sky. It was enough.
“Th-that’s incredibly sweet of him, right? To cook for you when your parents weren’t home.”
“He has an atrocious personality, but he’s kind. He’s always been.”
As a hunter pounces on its prey, Mallorie Batteux lunged forwards in her seat with glimmering blue eyes. Her subject merely blinked back, listening politely as Batteux hurriedly rattled off her next question in a single breath.
“Did you know how things would end up with him in your childhood?”
It was an obvious lead-in, and Batteux might have been able to execute it better if she wasn’t so thrown off by the wife’s scalding descriptions of her own husband. Mademoiselle Mallorie Batteux had expected a cutesy story to cinch her career in celebrity journalism. Having been the first to finally score an interview with the elusive wife of the famed Japanese Pluspol holder, she had expected nothing short of enchanting adoration and shy Eastern charm. But the way the Madame was bashing the Monsieur left and right was not helping her story tell itself the way Batteux wanted to. Becoming easily flustered was not a trait of good journalists, but the limpness of Batteux’s drooping curls was sign enough.
Being close to Kojirou Shinomiya required a certain level of empathy in order to truly understand him. He was often backwards with his words and even worse off with his emotions. The only time he was ever straight forwards with something was when it involved cooking; so, one had to get good at reading between the lines.
The Madame noticed Batteux’s fretfulness and felt a bit sorry for her, watching her nervously fiddling with the stylish hem of her chiffon skirt. She just couldn’t help it—she always had too much fun teasing her husband, both in private and in public. It was much more fun to reveal his nature to the strangers that exalted him; but she figured that she could at least throw Batteux a bone. It was live television, after all, and she hoped to prevent the journalist from breaking down in front of the nation.
“As much as I’d like to say no…”
“Hey, Koji-chan.”
“Shut up, I’m busy.”
He was scribbling frantically in his notebook, hunched over in the shade of the horse-chestnut tree. The garden work had been forgotten entirely by him and purposely neglected by her. Rooted weeds greedily drank in the rich summer sun, painting vivid green splotches against the elephant skin of dry soil. He continued to write, most likely engrossed in the latest notes about a recipe, and she continued to swing lazily in the wind.
“Did you know there’s this famous cooking school in Tokyo?” she continued, ignoring his clear plea for silence. Her hands splayed across the rope of the swing, fingers joining the entwined fibres. She leant back to stare up at the clouds in the sky, watching them drift along slowly. “It’s supposed to be really hard to get into.”
“Of course I know about Toutsuki,” he snapped, sparing her the time to roll his eyes. “Who do you think I am?”
“Well, you should go.”
Finally, he titled his head up to her, taken aback by the ease in which she suggested it. She put her feet down in the sand, scraping to a stop with a small, vaguely sad smile on her round face.
“You’re a real good cook, Koji-chan. You want to go to France and stuff too, right? So you should go to that fancy school and make a name for yourself. Kyushu’s too small, and you deserve to be with all those rich guys that are on TV.”
“…I can’t.” He bit his bottom lip sharply, looking away to pretend that he hadn’t already thought about it. “It’s way too expensive. Besides, I’d have to leave Mom here by herself, and…” He trailed off, but it was clear what—or whom—the silent subject was.
“It’s not like you help around the house anyways,” she complained, but her tone held a gentle undertone. “All you do is cook or study and hole yourself up. Kojirou—you’ve got to go.”
She swung—back, away—forwards, closer. He got up and stopped her there while her head was down, his firm grip barely tilting her backwards with the force of gravity when he pulled her towards him. His amber eyes gleamed like honey on a lonely winter night, and his face was full of heart-melting sincerity.
“Are you sure?” he asked slowly.
Her smile wavered, back and forth, but then it softened—genuine.
“Yeah, guess so.”
When he let go, she swung away, but she leapt off towards him.
“I always knew that I would love him.”