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Behind every meal is a great recipe.
And from the moment he printed it out, the moment he glanced at the list, Rui knew he was already doomed.
Ginger Fried Pork
Ingredients (For two servings)
200 g fresh pork belly
160 ml dry ginger ale
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp potato starch
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 cabbage leaves
6 cherry tomatoes
….Damn it.
Tip 1: face your biggest fears, even if your life is at stake.
Rui would do anything to make Tsukasa happy.
If that meant touching the vilest objects on Earth he could imagine, then so be it.
So there he was, dumping the shopping bag onto the kitchen counter, staring into the ball of green casually occupying the space inside. It looked like a bomb, ready to ignite and blast his body into shreds at any second.
Well, not really. Bombs don’t look like that. And it wasn’t really that threatening. If anything it looked more like a human brain, except that it was green and tasted rancid, and Rui would very well prefer touching actual brains than a puke-coloured one.
Whatever. Rui was running out of insults to say about a cabbage.
“Well,” Rui said, digging deeper inside the bag and snatching out the packet of pork belly, “let’s move on to the first step, shall we?”
Step 1: Cut the pork belly into easy-to-eat pieces.
Well, that would’ve been a simple step.
If he knew how to use a knife.
It had been well over ten minutes since Rui started to cut the pork, and he hadn’t moved a single inch. He stared dumbly at the cutting board, with the pork on top, grease and blood slowly seeping down from onto the wood. The knife handle was clutched with both hands, as he tried hacking up the meat, hoping it would magically turn into presentable “easy-to-eat” pieces.
When he landed his first strike, a deathly crack from the thin cutting board screamed at him to stop.
So he did.
And now he was wondering how on Earth he was supposed to position his knife on the flesh without breaking the board more.
It shouldn’t be this hard, right? Rui was a mechanic. He should know how to use different tools, right? All he had to do was to treat food like his robots and drones, and he just needed to cut the pork. It was that easy. His mother always cooked for him, so it must be easy, right?
Oh, if only pork was made with metal. If only cooking was just like making robots then this whole ordeal would’ve been over within seconds. Things would’ve been way simpler using a cutting wheel.
Eventually, Rui plopped the knife on the counter and gave up.
Tip 2: When in doubt, ask a friend.
“So you asked me to come here,” Nene said, extremely unimpressed, “to teach you how to hold a knife.”
“Yes, Nene,” Rui scratched his head, looking down a little, “I’ve never actually cooked a bento before, so….”
Nene peeked behind Rui, witnessing the carnage left on the cutting board. She looked back at him again, scanning at his flowery apron that was too short for his tall stature and the bloodied knife gripped tightly in his hand, almost like a serial killer who just finished chopping up some limbs in the kitchen.
Nene sighed.
“First of all, don’t just walk around casually holding a knife. You’d scare people.”
“Oh?” Rui raised a brow, genuinely confused, “But I’m just holding it.”
“Yeah, yeah, just,” Nene walked past Rui and over to the cutting board, grimacing at the mess, “just don’t do it too often. It’s a bad habit.”
She gestured to Rui to come over, and Rui gladly did, handing the blade to Nene. “Here! Please teach me how to hold a knife.”
Nene jumped when Rui pointed the blade straight at her. She looked up to meet Rui’s hopeful smile, nodded, then gently prying his fingers from the knife handle and received it in her hands.
“Jesus christ.” She muttered.
It was two hours later when Rui successfully made a bowl of sliced pork! Hurray!
Step 2: In a bowl, combine the ginger ale and soy sauce. Add the pork and let marinate. Drain off the liquid and reserve. Place the pork in a plastic bag and add the potato starch to coat.
“Now we are left with the marinating,” Rui said, washing the knife carefully under the water. As he put the blade next to the sink, he returned to the slip of paper stuck onto the wall and picked up the bottle of the ginger ale, pouring it into the measuring cup already lying near the stove.
Nene surveyed the kitchen. She then landed her eyes on the slip of paper that was the recipe and started reading it.
“...This is for Tsukasa, right?”
Rui’s hand twitched. The ginger ale split onto the counter.
“H-how did you know?”
“This is Tsukasa’s favourite food. He just wouldn’t shut up about it.” Nene looked back at Rui, then looked at the extra puddle of ginger ale flowing over the counter and dripping onto the floor. “I bet the whole world knows it by now with how he talked about it.”
“Ah, sorry, I’ve made a mess…” Rui laughed at himself, putting down the bottle, “Would you mind grabbing me some tissues, please?”
Nene didn’t.
She just stood there for around three seconds, staring at Rui’s expression before muttering a tiny “okay” and went off, picking up some tissues from the tissue box on the coffee table behind them.
…Why? Was there something on his face? Perhaps some blood got onto his hair and she was just disgusted.
Or was it because his face was burning up?
Oh, how embarrassing.
Rui turned to Nene, who instead of getting some tissues, just grabbed an entire tissue box and handed it to him.
“I…wanted this to be a surprise.” Rui plucked some tissues out of the box, “Please don’t tell Tsukasa~”
“I won’t,” Nene replied, putting down the box on the counter. She watched as Rui wiped the spilt juice on the table, the tissues getting more transparent with a pale yellow that resembled a sandy mud colour.
“It’s just…I find it weird, I guess.”
Rui screwed the tissues into a ball, the juice still dripped down from the gaps of his fingers, “...How so?”
“Well, for starters,” Nene pointed towards the cabbage rolled out at the corner of the kitchen counter, “you bought vegetables just for him. You promised to never touch vegetables since you were a kid, but you just did. For him.” Nene paused for a second. Her gaze was averted, as she pondered over something. Then, her eyes lit up.
“...Actually, you’ve done a lot of stuff just for him recently, haven’t you? I saw Tsukasa playing with some weird-AI contraption thing yesterday during practice and it definitely looked like something you designed. And then last week you wrote an entire script for him. Was that the thing you were working on during the summer?”
It wasn’t a rhetorical question and Rui was supposed to answer it.
Rui didn’t.
He froze. The cold, moist liquid from the damped tissues was seeping into his hands, and his fingers were getting sticky.
There was a long dreadful moment of silence where neither of them did anything, and Rui didn’t like the implications of it.
“Rui?”
Nene looked at her best friend since six and she looked straight through him.
“...Is there something going on between you two that I don’t know about?”
Step 3: Cut the cabbage leaves into thin strips. Remove the stems from the cherry tomatoes.
This was absolute torture.
“Nene, help!” Rui begged, his hands shaking as he gripped the knife like he was going to shatter it into pieces, eyes darting away from the horror in front of him, “I don’t think I can do this!”
“This is all on you,” Nene had her eyes fixed on the game as her fingers jumped around the buttons on her device, uninterested, “You’re the one who wanted to do this recipe. I taught you how to use the knife. Now it’s your turn.”
“Nene, you don’t understand! This is going to cost my life!”
“Rui, stop being so dramatic. You’re not even eating them.”
Rui let out a resigned sigh. He picked up the courage to face his worst enemy yet again — no —his arch nemesis , lying so nonchalantly on the cutting board, taunting his fear. A surge of disgust rushed through his bloodstream, and every fibre of his body shouted at him to disintegrate that horrid monstrosity. He wanted it to be gone forever, never show up in front of his sight, and never plant an image of him eating that abhorred creation.
With a giant swing, Rui lifted the knife high up in the sky, ready to thrust the blade down onto the vile lifeform created by God.
Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it for Tsukasa. Do it—
“AAHHHHHHHHHHHHH—”
“Rui what the fu—”
The blade plummeted down, and just like that, Kamishiro Rui had fulfilled his ultimate revenge.
Tip 3: Wake up early to prepare the bento.
Technically, Rui had everything planned.
He would wake up at five-thirty in the morning to take the pork and cabbage out of the fridge, drain out the sauce that was marinating the pork and start dumping everything into the pan and frying it.
Except that he didn’t plan his own self-doubt.
“I don’t know, Nene,” Rui whispered over the phone, despite him being the only person in his house, “what if I mess up? What if he doesn’t like it? Would he still like me if I made him sick?”
On the other end was a soft groan and some covers shuffling. “For God’s sake, Rui,” Nene croaked out, her voice completely dead and groggy, “Tsukasa is an idiot. Even if you made the most horrendous dish ever, he would still chuck it in like it’s water and say it tastes good. I bet he’d be willing to get food poisoning just for you.” She then huffed out a laugh, “And even then, I doubt you would make anything worse than Emu.”
That was…probably true. One time after rehearsal ended, Emu gave some tiny chocolate muffins she had baked to the entire troupe as a gift, and it was very nice of her to do so. The problem was that she proudly said that she made it all by herself, without any recipes or instructions or help from her family, calling them “PEW PEW FWSHA FWSHA EXTRA WONDERHOY MUFFINS” as she added her own spin on them. Her muffins looked…questionable, to say the least.
Tsukasa was unfortunate enough to be the one first tasting it. He got food poisoning for three days.
“Well, I certainly hope not,” Rui said, sinking deeper into his pillow, smiling. “Thank you, Nene.”
“No problem. Don’t call me at 4 am ever again.”
Step 4: Oil and heat a frying pan. Add the pork and cook until fragrant, then add the reserved liquid and cook down to a sauce to coat.
Aside from the burning headache he got from overthinking the previous night, not many problems happened during his cooking.
If anything, cooking the actual meal was more manageable than preparing it. All Rui had to do was turn on the stove, dump oil in the pan and stir all the pork alongside the sauce. He felt like he was a child again, mixing all kinds of paint, glitter and clay in the same bucket, except that this time it was actual human sustenance.
The smell of ginger and cooked pork wafted in the kitchen as sunlight started to pour into the living room. It didn’t smell…bad; it was definitely edible, and the pork looked golden and juicy with the sauce bubbling around it. Rui smiled, admiring his almost finished work. For his entire life, Rui had done things that required skills a normal high-schooler wouldn’t have —inventing robots and AI systems, making street performance shows and all that, and finally he had achieved one skill that was actually useful in surviving adulthood.
At least he didn’t have to rely on late night take-outs and left over food for dinner anymore.
A beeping from the rice cooker announced the rice was done. Rui quickly turned off the stove and opened the rice cooker, and a gust of hot steam flowed out of the cooker, revealing the fluffy white rice inside.
Everything was coming together.
“Alright!” Rui exclaimed, “Time for the decorating!”
Step 5: Serve the pork in a dish along with the cabbage and cherry tomatoes.
Rui was an inventor, not an artist. He could draw blueprints, yes, but not designs. Not the good ones, at least. All the costumes and drones he owned were all partially designed by someone else.
So now he had to figure out how on Earth he was supposed to layer his bento.
At first, he was going to do it traditionally, with the rice occupying one side of the box while the pork, cabbage and cherry tomatoes were on the other. But this was Tsukasa’s bento. It had to be at least somewhat interesting, right?
Besides, the bentos he brought always had some kind of decoration, like star-shaped carrots or a happy face made with ketchup on top of his rice. It wouldn’t be fair if Rui made a bento dedicated to him and did not include some form of decoration like that.
So the next logical option for Rui was to make something star-shaped in his lunchbox.
Rui had been trying to mould the rice into a star for thirty minutes now, and it still wasn’t sturdy enough.
“I should’ve bought a star moulding cup….” Rui muttered, scratching his head. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall.
7:00 am. Not a good sign.
Screw it. Change of plans. Rui’s going to make the cabbage star-shaped instead.
Grabbing a random pair of chopsticks from his drawer, Rui carefully picked up some cabbage slices inside the bento and slowly puzzled them together, forming a star on the already barely star-shaped rice.
Now he just needed some confirmation.
Tip 4: Have someone inspect and affirm your work before sending out the finished product.
“How does this look, Mizuki?”
Rui hovered his phone over the bento, ensuring the camera caught the entirety of the lunchbox.
Mizuki went silent for a few seconds, observing the product. “Dude, that looks good.” They finally said, “I mean, the cabbage looks a bit…out of place, but it was okay, I guess. I’d eat it.”
“I thought so too….” Rui said, sighing, “I wanted to make it look star-shaped, but I didn’t know how….”
“Wait, so that’s what that was?!” Mizuki exclaimed before chuckling wildly, “Dang Rui. I mean, you tried. Decorations don’t matter much anyway; it’s just a bento. If you want, I can come to school and help you with it.”
“No…no, I appreciate it, but I want to do it myself. I just want to hear what you think.”
“Well, the presentation doesn’t look horrendous, so yeah, it’s cool!” Mizuki concluded, “You did great.”
“Thank you, Mizuki. I’m glad it turned out well.” Rui glanced over at the clock, “I hope I’m not interrupting your sleep for this.”
“Oh, no worries! I’m going to school anyway.” Mizuki said, and even with their camera off, Rui could tell they were smiling. “Besides, anything for Tsukasa-senpai, right? I’m definitely not going to miss out on you guys having a little date.”
“Yes, yes,” Rui replied, covering the bento shut with the box lid and was about to put the bento in his school bag.
Then what Mizuki just said hit him like a truck.
“Wait,” He paused, “how did you know—”
“I’ll see you later in school then! Bye~”
Mizuki hung up.
Both of them knew.
Or at least…somewhat knew.
Rui should’ve just done everything by himself. This whole thing was supposed to be a secret, anyways. A secret project for Tsukasa that only he would know once it was revealed to him.
And now his friends knew.
“...Is there something going on between you two that I don’t know about?”
Oh God.
Rui should’ve expected this. He should’ve expected this exact question, expected that he could never really hide anything from anyone, especially not to his old friend. They have been best friends for more than ten years; how would she not know? This was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. Hiding wouldn’t do people anything good. Tsukasa taught him that. But she wasn’t supposed to know yet. He wasn’t ready, and he doubted he’d ever be.
“I… don’t know what you are talking about, Nene.”
“You know what I just said. You guys have been pretty close lately.” Nene pointed out, dismissing his inner turmoil, “And now you’re, like, cooking for him. I’m honestly surprised you would even want to do all this hassle for him.”
Oh no, Nene’s definitely onto him. She figured out this whole plan of making a bento for Tsukasa, and now she’s going to piece everything together, and she’s going to know.
She’s going to know they’re together.
How did she even guess it? Were they that obvious?
“It’s just—” Rui started, choosing his words carefully, clinging onto the string of hope that Nene was still none the wiser, “—I wanted to thank him, Nene. For everything. And…ah, I don’t know. I want to make him happy, I guess.”
Nene looked at him, and Rui knew he should feel somewhat anxious now that she was slowly uncovering everything he had hidden for the past two months, but…there wasn’t any suspicion nor judgement in her eyes. It was just…simple acknowledgement.
Then, she giggled.
“That’s very…nice of you.”
Rui blinked.
“...Why did you laugh?”
“God, you’re—ugh, forget about it.” Nene turned away waving her hand, and she was clearly grinning despite her attempts to cover it, “I don’t know. I guess you two were just so similar. That’s all.”
…What did she mean by that?
I guess you two were just so similar.
Did that mean she knew? Or was she thinking about something else? And how did Mizuki know? Wait…did they actually know or were they just joking? They used to do that all the time even back in middle school. So did they know? But then Mizuki knew about the whole secret bento plan, but that’s probably because —
“OH, RUI!”
Rui paused his own thoughts. He was now standing at the doorstep of the school rooftop, holding a box, and a smiling Tsukasa was sitting near the metal fence, waiting for him.
Being stunning as usual.
“Hello, Tsukasa…”
Rui walked towards Tsukasa and slumped beside him as Tsukasa began unwrapping the napkin covering his bento box. There was little wind on the rooftop today, and the sky cleared out, showing its pale blue tablecloth wrapped around the globe.
They sat silently for a moment as Rui absorbed the afternoon sunlight and listened to the cars below pass by.
“So, Tsukasa, my—”
“Hey, Rui, wanna—”
Rui cut himself off, and Tsukasa did the same. They both stared at each other.
Did they say something at the same time?
Rui looked at Tsukasa’s confused face. He chuckled.
“Fufu, that was weird, wasn’t it?” He said, watching as Tsukasa’s cheeks slowly turned red, “Do you want to say something first?”
“W-well,” Tsukasa stuttered, “I mean, you can go first! I don’t mind!”
Rui breathed. After all of this effort Rui had put into it, it boiled down to this moment. He just needed to follow the usual script. It should be the easiest step. Rui was an actor, after all.
…Okay. Here goes nothing.
“So…” Rui started, dragging his sentence, “My mother was cooking my lunch, and she forced me to have vegetables today…and I was wondering, do you want to switch bentos with me again?”
Rui had done this before, too many times to count. Tsukasa had eaten Rui’s numerous bentos before, all because they had vegetables in them. Tsukasa should have been irritated when Rui mentioned his mother cooking from the start.
…but he didn’t.
“....oh.” Tsukasa said, with the most nonchalant reaction to this request ever, “....sure.”
Oh no.
What was that supposed to mean?
Rui had no idea what to make of Tsukasa's reaction, but nonetheless, he gave Tsukasa the bento, and Tsukasa exchanged it with his. He put Rui’s bento in his lap, and Rui did the same.
For the next second, he waited, watching Tsukasa’s expression closely as he opened the bento.
Any moment now.
Ten seconds had passed, and Tsukasa wasn’t moving an inch.
Tsukasa wasn’t even looking at his lunchbox.
He was looking right at Rui.
“Uh…..”
…Oh. Rui got it now.
Tsukasa was waiting for the same thing from Rui.
He was doing the exact same thing Rui did.
That was why Nene laughed. That was why Mizuki knew. That was why Nene said they were so similar, because they were, and everything was so evident to them because Tsukasa wanted to do the same thing Rui did, yet neither knew. Until now.
And it was in that split second all the tension bubbling inside Rui’s body was drained away like a deflating balloon, flying and twirling into the air like some excited bird, and what was left in him was his own sense of stupidity.
“Oh,” He said, helplessly laughing, “We were really clueless, weren’t we?”
Tsukasa furrowed his brow. “Huh?”
Rui looked at Tsukasa, smiling, “Why don’t we open the bentos together?”
Rui winked at him. It took a second for Tsukasa to get it. He shot his eyes wide open.
“OHHHH! OH……okay.”
They both opened their lunches on a count of three.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Is that—”
“Oh my…”
The first thing he saw when he opened the box was a cute little duck-like face moulded with rice, two tiny pieces of seaweed forming the eyes and a yellow beak made with cheese. There was some fried pork placed above the rice, and on the right was a section containing a flower formed with slices of apples and a red strawberry in the centre. Below the flower was another section filled entirely with soda candy.
A perfect lunch.
“OHH! IT’S GINGER FRIED PORK!!” Tsukasa screamed next to him, holding the box in his hand and inspecting it closely, “THAT’S AMAZING, RUI!”
Pressing his hands together with a loud “itadakimasu!” Tsukasa picked up his chopsticks and immediately chucked half of the pork into his mouth. “MMM THIS IS SO GOOD!!”
“Is it?”
“YEAH!” Tsukasa swallowed with a huge gulp before shoving some more rice inside his mouth.
“Thanks, Tsukasa.” Rui smiled, looking back at his lunchbox, “This was my first time doing this sort of thing, so I’m not sure if I did well.”
“Well, you did amazing on your first try!” Tsukasa praised. He then pointed at the bento he gave Rui, “I prepared this alongside Saki. She helped with the fruit part! The rest of it was all done by me.”
“...Did you ask Nene and Mizuki for advice too?”
“WHAT?!” Tsukasa screamed, almost dropping his chopsticks, “I mean, yeah I did!! I also asked Toya to —wait, how did you—”
“Because I did.”
“...Oh.”
He looked down at the half-eaten bento and then at his created product on Rui’s lap.
“We're not that good at hiding, are we?”
“Yeah,” Rui sighed, “and I’m not surprised if they know about us at this point.”
A slight wind swept over the rooftop, and Rui stayed silent. He waited for the wind to embrace him with the cold, to just carry him somewhere beyond the city he was in.
There was a hand on his shoulder.
“Rui?”
“Yes?”
“It’s going to be okay,” Tsukasa reassured, and no matter how many times he had said it, it would never be enough, but it wasn’t tiring to hear, either. “Now, please,” He gestured to the bento box, “let me know what you think.”
Rui looked back at lunch in front of him, and with every bit of the meal, he could picture Tsukasa prepping the ingredients and cooking with precision, adjusting and shaping the decorations to make the food look just right, and he did all of that for him.
Rui smiled.
Whatever Rui did would never surpass Tsukasa. And that’s okay.
Perhaps everything…would be okay after all.
Tip 5: Just let yourself enjoy your boyfriend’s lunch.