Work Text:
Today was the day. Today, Chiyo would declare victory over her long time nemesis, the soba eating challenge at Ikuman.
Each previous attempt, Chiyo would admit defeat. The dish served for the challenge was a mountain of soba noodles. It was delicious for sure, but the price if you didn’t complete it wasn’t exactly cheap.
But Chiyo vowed that she would complete it today. After all, today was her birthday and when her friends asked her what she wanted, she declared that she desired to complete the challenge.
They did look at her oddly when she declared that. And because a lot of her friends did not want to see her stuff her face with an unhealthy amount of soba, they had a party earlier in the evening where they celebrated her birthday first. Then those daring souls that wouldn’t feel nauseated went with her to see her victory.
Honestly, Ryo was the best hype man.
With no one else daring to watch the challenge, Ryo was forced to play the role of commentator and update the group chat with Chiyo’s status. Even if they had weak stomachs, no one could deny the curiosity of knowing if Chiyo finally did it. Though her grandfather, once knowing what she had planned for dinner, tagged along as he enjoys the food at the restaurant.
“One order of our house soba challenge! You have thirty minutes to finish it starting now!” said the waitress.
Chiyo grabbed her chopsticks and began digging in as the entire store turned to watch her.
Strangers looked on in worry or disgust as a teen girl attempting the challenge. There were also the regulars that knew she had attempted the challenge many times since July and shook their heads, knowing she would likely leave the restaurant once more in defeat and with a lighter wallet.
Chiyo however knew this time would be different. She had a good feeling about this. She knew she could take it on and win this time. She had the Intelligence to know her limits. She was Daring enough to challenge the impossible. She had the Perseverance to complete this challenge. She had done all the prepwork. She was ready.
“Oh man, my stomach is not prepared for this,” Ryo said as she turned on her phone’s camera and began to record. Their friends considered themselves lucky that they were not forced to watch their leader gorge herself on soba. Though a few of them still tuned into the video call that Chiyo felt come through on her phone, though thankfully Ryo had put headphones in to not disturb others in the restaurant. Though this was a mission between her noodles and herself.
Chiyo meanwhile tuned it out. She had a soba mountain to get through.
The soba in all honesty was mostly just noodles and dipping sauce. There were some green onions as well, but the challenge was to eat a literal mountain of soba, it was mostly the noodles.
From past experience, Chiyo knew she had no time to waste and disregarded the dipping sauce and started eating the noodles. They were fantastic, but as she was on a timer, she had no time to savor the flavor.
The waitress came back shortly after Chiyo had begun to shove noodles into her mouth in earnest. She figured it was probably the food the other two ordered, but she didn’t have time to concentrate on anything but noodles.
“Dear god what is up with that bowl? You’ve eaten a ton but you haven’t even made a dent in it? What is this some sort of eternal noodle dish?” Ryo asked.
Ah yes, the eternal noodles. Chiyo noticed that the first time she was here. She devoured as much as she could and didn’t make a dent at all. Though to be fair her intelligence was rather low at the time, she was basically a halfwit and was extremely hesitant when she saw how much food there was.
She refocused the bowl in the center of her attention after eating and not thinking about it for a while. The soba looked significantly smaller, still overflowing, but closer to just filling the bowl than making it spill out.
Chiyo’s phone was buzzing from its spot in her pocket.
“Yeah, yeah, same here. I think I may be losing my appetite too. That’s more than a human should be able to consume. And I know us four have seen Chiyo eat enough for three fully grown men at several of our get-togethers. Like where does she put it? She’s tiny!”
It took everything in Chiyo to not start laughing, but her soba was more important in all honesty. It was true though, Chiyo could eat ridiculous amounts of food. She doesn’t remember eating this much in the past, so at first she thought it might just be a persona thing. It makes sense, they are in combat situations often and they are fighting with the representation of their souls, so if they needed more calories to sustain that it’d make sense. But none of her friends were this affected by it. Maybe it was just a Wildcard thing. Though she wasn’t sure if this could be called a perk or not when she ate triple what she used to eat.
“Oh my god, I can see the sides of the bowl guys! It’s been like ten minutes and we can see the inside of the bowl! Maybe Chiyo can pull this off!”
It was rather funny only hearing one side of the conversation Ryo was having.
“Huh, guess ya may be able to do it, huh?” came the voice of Shoji from her right.
Naturally Chiyo could hear the murmurs of the rest of the customers as she reached an obvious milestone, but she couldn’t stop now.
Chiyo continued on. She honestly wasn’t even paying attention to the flavors anymore, all she noticed was the texture of the noodles as she chewed.
“Well then, Uyeda-san, how long do you think it’ll take Chiyo to finish it? I’m thinking maybe ten more minutes,” said Ryo.
“Nah, she should be slowin’ down pretty soon. It’ll be close to the time limit that she’ll finish if she makes it.”
Ryo took a survey of what her friends in the groupchat thought. Though it did take a lot of prying to get the answers at their newest member while everyone else was prepared to bet on Chiyo’s stomach. If she wasn’t too busy eating, she would probably protest over them placing bets on how long it would take her to eat the soba.
“Alright Chiyo, myself and two others think you’ll finish in time. Hikaru thinks if you finish it’ll be extremely tight but you may miss it by a few seconds. Everyone else doesn’t think you’ll finish the bowl.”
Well, considering Chiyo only had a fourth of the bowl left, she figured those people that figured she couldn’t finish were cursing their bet now. Chiyo could feel it in her bones, this would be the time she finished. She knew it. Yes, she was beginning to feel full, but she just had to eat fast enough to where her stomach wouldn’t realize just how much she’s eaten until she eats it all.
“Oh my god, you’re really going to finish that. I can’t believe it. It’s literally four times the size of my bowl of udon! And this place has larger servings,” Ryo continued to commentate.
Chiyo’s chopsticks had begun to scrap bottom as she continued to shove the last bit of noodles into her mouth. Honestly she was getting really tired of chewing at this rate. She also had noticed she had started to slow down her pace since the soba was beginning to feel like cement in her stomach.
Ryo laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, I have to say I agree. This literally is the picture of gluttony, Chiyo testing the limits of how much soba a person can eat. There’s only five minutes left though. She still has all that broth plus a few more noodles.”
Chiyo’s chopsticks grabbed the last noodles that remained and she put them in her mouth, willing herself to chew them as fast as possible. The hardest part was done. Now she just had to get the broth down.
The bowl was in her hands and as soon as she swallowed, she began to drink the broth. Honestly, after all those noodles, the broth tasted fantastic as it wasn't more noodles.
Chiyo noticed the waitress return in the corner of her eyes. Her time was coming to an end a lot faster than she would have liked.
Thankfully, the amount of broth wasn’t as overwhelming as the soba noodles had been. As shortly after she slammed down her bowl as she swallowed the last of the broth.
“And that’s time! Congratulations, you completed the challenge in 28 minutes and 30 seconds!” said their waitress.
Whispers erupted around the restaurant. Newcomers were surprised that a girl as small as Chiyo was somehow able to eat all of that soba in under thirty minutes. The four regulars stood up and clapped for her.
“Congrats, girly. Maybe now we can come here without getting worried that you're going to eat yourself to an early grave by attempting the challenge again,” said the man from the bar that sat closest to Chiyo.
Chiyo smiled as she reached for a napkin to wipe off the bit of broth she had gotten on her face while eating at inhuman speeds.
“I mean, I can’t say I won’t do it again to try and get a better time. But I definitely won’t be doing it as often as I was,” she said.
“Well, as tradition, let’s get a photo of you to put up on our victor wall,” said the waitress.
Chiyo nodded and held up the empty bowl towards the woman’s camera that was pointed in her direction.
“Wait! Wait, Chiyo, I got something for you,” said Ryo.
Chiyo frowned, but paused as Ryo started digging in her bag for something.
“Can’t forget this!” she said as she pulled out a birthday hat and put it on Chiyo’s head.
The camera flashed before Chiyo was ready.
“Oh, I like this one,” said the waitress.
And the next day, there was a new photo up on the victor wall. In it sat Chiyo, holding her empty bowl up to the camera. She was caught midlaugh with a birthday hat askew on her head and Ryo grinning at her as she moved back out of the way. Shoji was even caught looking fondly on the two girl’s antics. It definitely had character, character that all the photos on the wall lacked up until that point.