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It never really bothered Screwllum that he didn’t have a mouth. He didn’t need to eat, nor breathe, nor move vocal cords to speak, so a mouth would have proven useless to him. Yes, people often gave him an odd look when they realized he was mouthless, but he hardly cared about what strangers thought about him.
There have been only two times Screwllum wished he had a mouth, albeit briefly. The initial instance was when Veritas had first kissed him. The feeling of soft lifts pressed gently against his face, calloused hands cupping his cheeks, and body heat warming up temperate metal all combined to make a moment so perfect that Screwllum would lie awake at night thinking about it for the next week. The kiss was perfect, Veritas was perfect, and during those blissful, wonderful, perfect 6.53 seconds, Screwllum wanted nothing more than to be able to kiss Veritas back.
When the two broke apart, Veritas’s hot breath fogging up the front of Screwllum’s face plate, Screwllum briefly considered updating his model to have a mouth. But that thought was swiftly pushed out of his processors as Veritas’s smile distracted him. The wish of having a mouth didn’t appear again in a single line of code.
Well, until now, at least. Now is the second instance of Screwllum wishing he had a mouth.
The aristocrat looked at the mess he made of the kitchen. Flour, dried pieces of dough, and egg yolk were plastered against the white granite countertop, a countertop that was covered in faint knife marks that definitely weren’t there this morning. A couple of stray noodles and the shavings of vegetables were strewn across the stove, mingling with the remnants of seasonings that had been knocked over at one point. Broth was slowly dripping down one of the lower cabinets and creating a tiny puddle on the floor. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink high above where the faucet sat.
And Screwllum knew that this mess would have been worth it, if it wasn’t for the failed dish that sat front and center on the kitchen counter.
It was trial and error making the ramen dish. The noodles themselves weren’t too difficult. After Screwllum learned how to correctly use the fancy noddle cutter that Veritas had, and once he had mastered the right force to use when breaking an egg and the right speed to set a mixer to when one of the ingredients being combined was flour, the actual making of the noodles wasn’t too difficult. In only a matter of hours, the noodles were prepped and ready to be used in a meal. The actual making of the dish, however, was where disaster struck.
It certainly didn’t seem that way at first. Sure, the pot had boiled over once and some ingredients had been spilled in Screwllum’s attempt to fix said boiling pot, but the rest of the recipe was just adding in the right amount of ingredients and letting them cook. It should have been easy. Screwllum thought it was easy.
But when Screwllum took a sample over to the neighbor to try (he wanted the first dish he made for Veritas to be perfect, so a taste-tester had been necessary), Screwllum could tell by the look on her face that something about the dish was wrong.
“Oh, this tastes wonderful dear,” the neighbor (an old lady who Veritas had lived next to for about five years now) said with a smile that was obviously forced.
“Thank you for trying to spare my feelings, but I would much rather have an honest opinion than a polite one. Observation: When you took the first bite, you frowned. And when you swallowed, you tried to stop yourself from coughing. Conclusion: Something is wrong with the dish.”
The woman’s eyes softened into a look Screwllum recognized as pity. “Oh, dear, the dish doesn’t taste bad, but…well, I wouldn’t say it’s not good, just that it doesn’t taste exactly right.”
Screwllum tilted his head. “Could you do me a favor and clarify what you mean? I would like to know where I went wrong so that I can fix my mistakes.”
After taking another bite of the ramen, the old lady thought about it for a moment. “The first thing I noticed was that the noodles aren’t cooked all the way through. Parts of the noodle are still hard. The seasoning is also a bit strong, and it overpowers all the other flavors in the dish.”
“I see. Could it be possible that the recipe I used is wrong then? I checked the comments people had left on the recipe before choosing the one I did, and they were all positive. But I followed all the steps correctly and still ended up with this.”
The woman hummed. “If you’re sure that you followed the recipe exactly, it may be your equipment that is the problem. Or the ingredients.”
“The equipment I used was all functioning perfectly, and the ingredients were all fresh. I made sure of this myself.”
“I don’t mean it like that, dear.” She chuckled. “I mean that cooking equipment doesn’t always cook the exact same way. For example, one stove’s medium heat could be another stove’s high. Ingredients are similar, in a way. One company’s sauce may have more salt than a competitor’s sauce. They are both still sauce, but they are made differently.”
Screwllum nodded. “I think I understand. So, if I want to make this meal taste good, I have to know exactly how my equipment works compared to the original cook’s equipment, and I need to know all the components that went into the ingredients I am using. I was not aware that chefs had to do so much research.”
Veritas’s neighbor was full-on laughing now. “No, no, dear, nothing that intense! If chefs had to do that much work, they wouldn’t have any time to make the food!”
Screwllum joined in with her laughter. “That makes sense. I suppose my idea was a little foolish.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault. I’m guessing you’ve never had to cook before?”
“That is correct.”
“Then don’t be too hard on yourself. Everyone has to start somewhere.”
“I will keep that in mind. Question: If one does not need to learn the exact way their equipment works in comparison to the original cook, and if they don’t need to know the exact components of their ingredients, then how do chefs adjust their cooking method in order to make their food taste good?”
“It’s quite simple actually. Most chefs-” The lady cut herself off suddenly and her smile faltered.
“…Madam? Are you alright?”
The old woman started playing with the ring on her finger. “Forgive me, but I do not wish to offend you.”
“I highly doubt that anything you were planning to say would offend me, so please do not hesitate to speak your mind.”
She swallowed. “What chefs do in order to make sure the meal is right is…well, they usually have to taste the food. If something is off or isn’t cooked right, they can tell immediately just by tasting it.”
Screwllum blinked. “Ah.”
“I apologize. I truly don’t mean any offense.”
“No offense taken. It is a fact that chefs use taste to better determine the quality of their food, and all you did was relay that fact to me.”
“I…suppose.”
Screwllum put a hand to his chest and gave a slight bow. “I am truly grateful for this information, as I am sure I would have spent many hours failing to fix the problem otherwise.”
The woman’s frown slowly but surely turned back into a soft smile. “Well, if that’s how you choose to view it, then I’ll do the same. I am happy to help.”
Screwllum thanked the woman again and headed back to Veritas’s home. When greeted with a messy kitchen, all Screwllum could do was sigh and place the pot back on the granite counter. He took a step back to observe the room around him, the old woman’s words repeating over and over again in his processors.
Screwllum previously only needed one finger to count the number of times he had wished to have a mouth. Now he needed two.
He spent the next half hour trying to find a way to reliably solve this problem. He considered asking someone else for help, but quickly got rid of that idea. Screwllum was willing to have someone else taste the final product to help him determine whether it was edible or not, but he wanted every step of the cooking process to be done by himself.
The only other option he had was to make the meal over and over again until he could logically determine the right amount of time and ingredients needed. He was sure he could figure it out eventually. It was only a question of if he could work out the correct solution before Veritas came home-
“If I have to deal with one more of the IPC’s stupid requests, I swear that I am going to- Screwllum, what are you doing in here? And what happened to my kitchen?!”
Of course.
Screwllum sighed, not daring to turn around. “I was making you dinner.”
“Since when do you know how to cook?”
“Answer: I don’t. That is why it is such a mess in here.”
Screwllum heard Veritas walk up beside him, and the aristocrat decided to risk a glance over at his fiancée. Veritas was looking at the mess and, thankfully, he didn’t look angry, or worse, disappointed. He just seemed annoyed, and Screwllum also thought he could detect a bit of confusion in his eyes.
“If you wanted to learn how to cook so badly, you could have waited until I had gotten back home. I will admit that I have never taught someone how to cook before, but I am an adaptable teacher. It would have been my absolute pleasure to teach something to a member of the Genius Society.”
“While I appreciate the offer, I’m afraid that I would rather abstain from asking for your assistance if at all possible.”
That caused Veritas to frown. “May I ask why?”
“It is my understanding that couples will make meals for their significant other. They may do this for many reasons: to help their partner relax after a long day, to make their partner smile, or simply to show that they love their partner. I wanted to make you a meal in an attempt to accomplish all three of those goals. But, as you can see, things did not turn out like I had planned.”
Veritas was quiet for a moment. “You did this for me?” he eventually asked.
Screwllum nodded. “Affirmative. I was trying to make a ramen dish, one similar to the type you make yourself.”
Eyes going sharp, Veritas scanned the kitchen counter. “It looks like you have all the ingredients,” he muttered. “And I doubt you would mismeasure or mistime something. So, what went wrong?”
“I went to your neighbor to ask for her opinion on the dish. The noodles weren’t cooked all the way through, and the seasoning was too strong.”
Veritas walked up to the pot of ramen still on the counter. It had long since cooled by now, but Screwllum’s fiancée still took out a pair of chopsticks to have a bite of the dish. “She wasn’t wrong,” Veritas said a moment later.
“I didn’t think she was. She also told me that the reason why the ramen tastes this way is that I didn’t adjust the cooking time or seasonings in accordance with the equipment and ingredients I was using.”
Veritas turned around and nodded. “That makes sense. My stove tends to take longer to change temperatures, and I usually buy ingredients that already have some seasoning on them.”
“I see. I will try my best to account for that in the future.”
Veritas tilted his head. “I’m surprised I didn’t arrive to see you already trying again. The ramen’s cold, so it must have been left to sit for a while, and yet I don’t see any evidence of you making another cooking attempt. You never give up so easily, so what’s different this time?”
“Answer: I was told that the best way to fix these types of cooking issues is to taste the food that you are making. However, that is impossible for me to do. I will need to try cooking a recipe like this over and over again before I can successfully make it. I was looking over my data to see if I had somehow stored away any information that would give me a simpler solution to this problem when you came in.”
“I can think of a few complicated ways to solve your conundrum, but a simple solution? I regret to inform you that taste is the best way to tell how well a dish is turning out.”
Screwllum sighed. “Yes. That is the same conclusion I arrived to.”
The two lapsed into silence. Veritas had a hand on his chin, thinking, and Screwllum watched his fiancée, ready for whatever he was about to say next.
Veritas clapped his hands together. “Well then, it looks like I do get to be your teacher after all. I take all my lessons very seriously, so I expect to see your absolute best effort, Mr. Screwllum.”
Screwllum made his eyes flicker. “Confusion: What are you teaching me?”
“How to cook, obviously. Stay with the conversation, Mr. Screwllum. We were just talking about cooking, so I’m clearly not talking about suddenly teaching you astrology.”
“My apologies, Veritas, but if you teach me how to cook, it defeats the whole purpose of me making a meal so that you can relax.”
Veritas’s eyes softened and he approached Screwllum. He cupped one of Screwllum’s cheeks and Screwllum happily leaned into his touch. “I appreciate the sentiment, truly. But being able to teach you something would mean more to me than any meal would.”
Screwllum chuckled. “I should have known you’d think that way.”
“The love of knowledge is something that both you and I share, is it not?”
Screwllum lifted his own (slightly floured) hand to cover Veritas’s own. “Indeed, it is. But Veritas, it is not necessarily the cooking I am having trouble with, although I will admit that I am nowhere near close to mastering the art. The trouble I am having is not being able to taste the food to know when I need to make an adjustment to the recipe.”
“Then I will be your taste tester for tonight. You make the ramen, and I’ll taste it for you so make sure that you’re on track. Then tomorrow evening, I’ll show you how I usually go about making all my favorite foods. Once you know how to work with my kitchen equipment and ingredients, I expect you’ll have no trouble with cooking.”
“You are being exceptionally kind today.”
Veritas laughed. “You have given me the gift of teaching you. I am feeling rather nice right now. But don’t expect me to be this kind during our lessons.”
Screwllum entered the code for mirth into his processors. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good. Now then,” Veritas stepped back from Screwllum to survey the kitchen, and Screwllum already missed his warmth. “The first step will be to clean up the kitchen. The best learning environment is a clean one.”
“I didn’t know you were one for lying, Mr. Ratio. Your office during a research project hardly reflects your last statement.”
“Shut up, Screwllum!”
The kitchen filled with the sound of Screwllum’s laughter, and in that moment, Screwllum knew that there was nowhere else that he would rather be.