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Yi Sang stood, suddenly, hands tight and slightly shaking. Don Quixote made a slight noise of interest. “My good friends, Don Quixote and Sinclair,” he said, voice calm, “I have decided… we will make… a gift.”
“A gift,” Sinclair muttered, smiling faintly. “Whatever could you mean?”
“A gift! For. Ishmael.” The aforementioned Ishmael was not currently on the bus. The hours of official business were over – no Mirror Dungeons were to be conquered – nothing was there for the sinners to do, which made most of them migrate to the Corridor. Don Quixote designed to spend her time with her good fellows Sinclair and Yi Sang, who both decided that the confines of their E.G.O. were not preferred as their boredom-killers. And forsooth, it is for good reason! For this is much, much more interesting than playing with fixer dolls!
Although fixer dolls are very, very fun.
Save for the three of them, two others – Gregor and Heathcliff – were also still sitting in the front, although those two couldn't pay less attention if they tried, for they were too occupied with a game of multicolored cards between themselves. Heathcliff in particular had a lot of these cards, and his brow twitched as sweat dripped down his back. Gregor, who held only two, looked especially smug. But this is neither here nor there, and Don Quixote's attention was soon brought to her intelligent friend once again!
“A gift!” Don Quixote said, with fervor. “Yes, indeed, my good fellow Yi Sang! A gift is just what she needs in such troubling times! We have just barreled through the fathoms of her ego, watched her friends turn into harpoons in front of our very eyes! We must prepare something for her!”
“I share the sentiments you do, my friend,” Yi Sang said, still standing, eyes closed serenely. “I think… now, of all times, Ishmael's mind should be soothed by the notion that around her, she has friends who support her without question, who would hold the planks of the docks she stands on, and who've missed her in her absence, and by absence, of course I mean that terrible period where Ishmael was painted over by her obsession…”
“I get it,” Sinclair said, cutting Yi Sang off. “But, er, where would we find a gift? We're in the middle of the ocean…”
“I propose,” Don Quixote said, with great confidence, “that we make a dish.”
Yi Sang and Sinclair peered at her with slight interest. She continued: “A dish, my good fellows, contains all the sentiments in the world, as long as such a meal is bathed in the love you feel whilst you prepare it! Hark! She will have no choice but to truly grasp in the depths of emotion we feel towards our good friend and her return when we have devised a meal so crafty it is irresistible!”
“Hm,” Sinclair said. “It… could work.”
Yi Sang looked a bit squeamish. “The problem,” he said, “is that one is not… the best… at creating such mortal delights…”
“No excuses, my good sir,” Don Quixote replied easily. “As long as our intent shines through, any meal we create will be delicious!”
“No, wait,” Sinclair interjected, in the way he does when Don Quixote's ideas are so especially brilliant that he gets a certain hesitant look in his eye: “No, that's bad advice. Yi Sang, don't listen to her. We should just – ask someone else to do it. Or help us, I mean. As long as someone tells us what to do, we can help and, er, pour our love into the dish, or whatever you had said…”
“Indeed,” Yi Sang said, and finally deigned it alright to sit back down between Don Quixote and Sinclair, head awkwardly leaning against the window. He brought a hand to his chin, contemplative: “but who would rise to such an occasion?”
Don Quixote took it upon herself to list the good options. “Meursault, of course,” she said, as she had grown quite fond of such a steed. Sinclair shook his head, always ready to argue; “no way would he agree! He'd only consider it if it were Dante who became depressed. And – there'd be no love in it!”
Don Quixote turned her head down. “Hmph,” she said. “You make many assumptions.”
“Am I wrong?” He stuttered, before continuing: “Outis is a no-go, either. She wouldn't budge unless we managed to stick Dante in there. Plus, Ryoshu and Gregor are terrible in the kitchen…”
“So… whom does that leave?”
Yi Sang, Don Quixote, and Sinclair thought about this with their heads all tilted slightly in the same direction, making hmmming noises collectively, at the same time, like a hive mind. Apparently, this was enough to cause a distraction, as by the time she snapped out of her humming trance, Heathcliff stood over the three of them, looming maliciously, bat slung over his shoulder as if to make to hit them! Don Quixote reached for her lance instinctively – Heathcliff was one of her good fellows, of course, but he was also as sinful as a sinner could be, and so his intentions were almost always violent in nature!
“Calm down, mate!” Heathcliff sighed, looking exasperated and regretful already. Don Quixote did as she's asked, and looked over to her comrades, who had similarly gripped their weapons. “I'm not picking a fight. I just, er… heard your problem over there.”
A quick glance to Over There confirmed that the card game had been discarded, with Gregor boasting a confident smile on his face and rubbing his upper lip, a clear indicator of whom had won the card game. Don Quixote snuck a teasing glance at Heathcliff, who gripped his bat at her with danger. She took the advice and said nothing. Yi Sang, who was smarter and more attention driven than her, said, “Oh! My good fr – er. Hm. Heathcliff… does one mind if I am to call you a friend, or even an acquaintance?”
Heathcliff said, “you think we're friends, mate,” with an unbelieving snort. Don Quixote tilted her head.
“Of course we are friends, my good fellow, Sir Heathcliff!” she shouted, a smile on her face. Yi Sang, who also smiled – albeit softer, but Yi Sang was a person who could be described as soft in many aspects – “You may be a violent one, but it is no matter! Anyone who hast walked on this bus is a friend of Don Quixote, the great knight-fixer!”
“Well, er, what Don Quixote said, but more elegantly,” Yi Sang mumbled, and seemed to become pink with shame. “I do think of you as… well, a friend…”
Sinclair, who looked a bit green, said, “what they said,” and nothing else.
Heathcliff also looked pink from embarrassment. It was more of a dark pink, actually. No, he seemed to just turn darker in general at the tips of his ears. He turned his head, huffed once, and said, “whatever. Don't expect me to say the same corny shite.”
Don Quixote whooped.
Yi Sang, smiling wider, got back to the subject. How reliable he always was in this matter – getting back to the subject! Well, this was actually a bit untrue – in this particular matter he seemed hurried to stick to the subject, but Don Quixote suspected that if it were not so urgent to him, he would have forgotten what he said already, for Yi Sang's memory is actually not all that great. The good fellow Sinclair, who was passively listening to the conversation while slowly growing more green, was usually the one getting the three of them back on the subject, really. But, back on the subject –
“Then, my friend Heathcliff,” Yi Sang said gently, and Heathcliff snorted once more, “you can cook?”
“Well, I can't make a damn five star course,” he mumbled, snorting again, to which Don Quixote began to compare his likeness to a slightly agitated cow, “but I can whip up a good bit of scran. Nothin’ too fancy, but it ain't sound like you all are aimin’ for fancy anywho.”
“Like what?” Sinclair said, suspicious already of Cow Heathcliff. “And, you want to help us make a gift for Ishmael? I thought you hated –”
“I ain't hate her!” Heathcliff shouted, gripping his bat again. Don Quixote could see his arm visibly shake, as if he were containing his violent urge to smack Sinclair's face into a bloody pulp. Whilst Don Quixote could appreciate a good holding yourself back, she did begin to compare Heathcliff to a bull, not a cow. “I just – we have a fight every now and again, but I ain't hate her, mate, she's just… just made me angry, alright? And, uh… said some mean shite to her that… I, uh… feel bad about, okay?! Do you want my help or not?!”
“Ah,” Yi Sang said. “You want to… apologize?”
“Don't put it that way!” Heathcliff practically shrieked, face a tad darker and eyes shaking with both rage and shame. Don Quixote almost suppressed a laugh. Heathcliff looked two seconds from turning away.
“Then this would be perfect, would it not?” Yi Sang said, with hope brimming in his voice. This seemed to calm Heathcliff down. “If you also have something you'd like to say to her in this meal… then, by our combined emotions pouring into the pot, it will be something special for her to behold…”
“It's as perfect as you say, dear Yi Sang!” Don Quixote said, clapping and ribbing him in his side. He said oof each time in the same tone. “My good fellow Heathcliff, you have become like the angel who appears in the party's most desperate moments, to aid them in their present suffering! For that, I thank you dearly! Let us convene in the Corridor – there we shall create a wonderful dish befitting of a beautiful woman!”
“Okay, okay! You don't have to shout!”
“Yes… let us do so…”
Then, a mumbled, “I want to go home…”
So the party hopped from their seats, made a final goodbye to the only bus-goer left, Gregor, who waved at them smugly, and especially grinned at Heathcliff, who then had to be held back by the weak and feeble Yi Sang, who did a horrible job but somehow managed to keep the team on track. They did as Don Quixote said, and convened at the door to the kitchen. “Hold on,” Don Quixote said. “Are we positive that the good Ishmael might not open this here door whilst we are preparing her gift?!”
“The intention was never a complete surprise,” Yi Sang argued. “What shall we make, Heathcliff, my good friend? The three of us, we are not well versed in the kitchen, and my friend Don Quixote has a talent for burning much that she touches –” “Hey!” “Whilst I have been told I am too lenient on what foods should go into a recipe and what shouldn't.”
“What about you, then, eh? What makes you bad?” Heathcliff grunted, wrapping an apron around his waist while staring at Sinclair. Sinclair, stuttering, looked to the floor and said, “I break under pressure…” and Heathcliff shrugged in defeat.
“So none of you blokes can cook for shite… I can work with it. Can you cut, at least?”
“Oh! I can,” Yi Sang said, eyes shimmering at the desire to do anything. Don Quixote rocked back on her heels. “I can, as well!” she shouted, in case Heathcliff decided to ignore her.
Sinclair did not answer for a moment, and then said, “S-Sure…”
Heathcliff, however, seemed to not be listening to any of them. “Hm… well, I've heard all of my recipes suck ass… so I guess I'll make something I learned recently. Okay… well… hm. I actually learned this from Rodion, who wanted me to make it for Ryoshu, who ended up slicing the plate in half and calling it untrue art, the ungrateful bastard. It was some good goddamn curry!”
“Oh… curry?” Sinclair said, looking less green.
“Curry,” Heathcliff said. Then he growled, making a fist – "got a problem with that, rich boy?”
“N-No,” Sinclair shiftly said. “I just really like curry, that's it!”
“Oh.”
So they got to work.
Heathcliff, in the kitchen, was actually fairly straightforward. He told the three of them what to do, and they did it with only slight mishaps, including –
Don Quixote, the good knight-fixer, stared at the onion she was ordered to cut. Sinclair, next to her, grated the skin off of an apple, and Yi Sang, next to him, carefully sliced a carrot. “My good fellows,” she said lowly, as to not alarm Heathcliff: “do you suppose if I were to mash this onion with that hammer looking device…”
Heathcliff shoved a knife in her hands. “Cut it,” he ordered, “like a normal human being, mate.”
Sadly, she did, and thought about how this was not that exciting nor valiant at all. The kitchen did smell very good after a while, while Heathcliff sautéed the vegetables in a pan and added a few other seasonings that Don Quixote did not recognize. He mumbled the names of some – Garam Masala, he said, sprinkling in some brown stuff whilst the three of them slightly crowded behind him, staring into the pot – bouillon cubes, he muttered, breaking up tannish cubes in his hands.
“Woooooah,” Don Quixote said, pushing Heathcliff to get a better look. She was promptly striked for this.
Heathcliff ordered Yi Sang and Sinclair to make a chicken breast while the curry was simmering – because of Yi Sang's dangerous habit of eating rotten foods on accident, he brought out every ingredient and seasoning they would need, and told them sternly to be very heavy handed with everything except salt. Then he turned to Don Quixote.
“Don Quixote,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Do you know. How to use. A rice cooker.”
“By the good God in Heaven, sir Heathcliff, I swear to you that I am proficient in how to use a rice cooker, especially in this kitchen!” Don Quixote would not lie about this, and so she told the truth – a rice cooker was very simple and incredibly hard to mess up! You simply measured the rice, cleaned the rice, added water, and let it boil!
“Okay,” he said. “Make rice.”
“Yes, sir!” Don Quixote saluted. She snuck a glance at Yi Sang and Sinclair, who were beating the chicken with the hammer she wanted to use earlier for that onion. Just smashing that poor breast into oblivion. She turned around and began the rice process, and Heathcliff deemed her safe for now as she measured out rice, then washed the rice thoroughly, then spilled all of the rice in the sink, then…
Ah. Whoops! Start again.
She got it right eventually. It hadn't even taken that long before the rice was on cook mode, red light flashing. She decided her role was done and skipped over to Yi Sang and Sinclair, who were studiously staring at the now flat chicken breast. “My good fellows, what is the problem?”
“Well,” Sinclair said, “we're not sure how heavy handed we're supposed to be.”
“We don't want it to be too much…” Yi Sang added, “but, Heathcliff made it very clear that we cannot have it be too little…”
“Easy!” Don Quixote took a bottle of garlic powder. She flipped the cap open to reveal the shaker side. “Just watch your good friend for reference."
She shook a large amount of garlic powder. Sinclair looked green once more. Even Yi Sang looked a bit uncomfortable. “You both know not how to season!” She said, pouring more garlic powder on and then capping the lid. She took the bottle of onion powder next. “You must be very, very heavy handed! Lest the flavors not come through!”
Heathcliff, who had made to approach them, sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I… hate to agree with ‘er,” he started, which made her grin with delight and made him wither in lost pride, “but she's right. Don Quixote… good…” he coughed. “good job.”
“Why thank you, sir Heathcliff!” Don Quixote said, giving a generous dusting of something else she had picked up. “I make no mistakes!”
Heathcliff had then walked over to the rice cooker. “And you made the rice correctly… I honestly expected you to fuck it up…”
“Haha!” she laughed brilliantly, lightly sprinkling salt on the chicken. Sinclair and Yi Sang watched her not with apprehension, now, but with reverence, having been given praise by their head chef. “I know, I know – I am truly great!”
“Could it be… that Don Quixote is secretly an amazing chef…?” Yi Sang sounded fascinated. Heathcliff looked pained.
“No, no, she just knows how to season chicken and make rice in a rice cooker. This is basic stuff. She's on a basic level. You two should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Sinclair bowed his head. Yi Sang did not. “Hm,” he said, curiously. “Okay,” he smiled. “Don Quixote…"
“I know what thou art about to say, Yi Sang,” Don Quixote said, “and the truth is that I, the good knight-fixer Don Quixote, hath been practicing my skills with the good and chivalrous Meursault!”
“Huh. That makes sense…” Heathcliff said. Then, he doubled back – “With Meursault?!”
“Hark!”
“You talk to that guy?”
“Hail!”
After such conversations, the curry was ready. Heathcliff plated the largest portion for Ishmael, complete with a garnishing of green onions. Then, extra portions were set aside for the rest of them, to be eaten after the meal was delivered to the good lady Ishmael. “Hold the plate. Your hand isn't as shaky as rich boy there,” Heathcliff said, pointing to Sinclair, whose hands were trembling like he had gone right mad. “And I don't trust Don Quixote.”
“Hey!”
“Alright,” Yi Sang said gravely, with the sense of an important task being put on him. With that, the party adventured outwards, with Yi Sang in the front and Heathcliff in the absolute back. Don Quixote glanced at Heathcliff's face – the closer they approached Ishmael's room, the more nervous he got, with his ears turning dark and his hand twitching anxiously. Don Quixote was the one to knock on the door.
“ISHMAEL!” Don Quixote cried. The knock was more of a bang, really. “Ishmael! The good lady Ishmael! Oh, won't you come outside?! Your friends have –”
The door swung open. Don Quixote, who had been leaning against it, almost fell, but caught herself and stood back at her original position, behind Yi Sang and beside Sinclair. Heathcliff looked as if he wanted to disappear or perhaps die on the spot. Ishmael looked very upset at having been disturbed, but then glanced at the plate in Yi Sang's hand and looked up at the four of them – especially Heathcliff, who suddenly reminded Don Quixote of a skittish rabbit.
“What's this all about,” she sighed, expecting tomfoolery or pranks or shenanigans.
“We, hm,” Yi Sang started. “After the… experience you had,” he said, and Ishmael wilted a little bit in shame, “me and my good friends… well, we converged on the same wavelength, our minds aligned by the same current ideal…”
“Okay…?”
“And we wanted to create a gift for you, but materials to make something elaborate and good are sparse in our current situation, which is floating in the Great Lake,” he continued.
“...Okay…”
“So we have created a dish!” he said, with sudden courage, closing his eyes and pushing the plate towards her. “A dish! For my good friend Ishmael – and with it, I send my deepest condolences, and my admiration for your bravery… and, to say that I so dearly missed the Ishmael who questioned everything, and became exhausted at our behavior, instead of the accursed Ishmael who sought to destroy herself whilst destroying someone else!”
Ishmael took the plate with shaky hands. Don Quixote, with sparkling eyes, said, “I, too, feel these emotions, good lady Ishmael! Presently I am glad that you have returned from your voyage to come with us, and I am so dearly happy that you hath not resigned from your position as you threatened – once thou had said such cruel things, I felt a pang in my heart, as I would miss you so dearly!”
Sinclair scratched his cheek, face red. “Um. What t-they said,” he mumbled. “I missed you too, Ishmael… it wasn't good seeing you all worked up like that. I… couldn't imagine how I must've looked, so… I understood it, somewhat, but… it didn't feel good, so…”
Heathcliff, moved by everyone's words, went to say something. He opened his mouth, tried to say something meaningful and poignant, probably, but then wilted. “Er,” he muttered. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Good to, uh, have you back.”
“Guys…” Ishmael said, smiling sorrowfully. “I'm… sorry that I…”
“None of that, good lady!” Don Quixote said. “Enjoy your curry! The truth is, we only said about a fourth of the work – the good sir Heathcliff did the most! He must really care about you!”
Heathcliff stared at Don Quixote like he wanted to strangle her. Ishmael quirked an eyebrow, and then laughed gently, and picked up her spoon. She scooped a bit of rice and chicken and ladled a bit of curry on her portion, and lifted it to her mouth. The four of them leaned in. Don Quixote's eyes in particular were expectant.
She gasped. “Wait… it's actually good?”
Don Quixote and Yi Sang hollered in success.