Lion !!MyZwtjMQtj 2010/06/03 (Thu) 06:04 No. 28045 “…Alright, I’ll help out,” I say somewhat hesitantly, though I try to puff out my chest in an attempt to appear eager to help.
With Elly and Kurumi hastily declining to take part in this, I have to go ahead and assert myself. That way, I can make sure that I don’t get seen as nothing more than just a carpet to walk over. Still, it’s a bit hard to keep my voice from shaking. First of all, I really don’t want to be responsible for whatever happens to those guys if the potion turns out wrong. Second, the last time Ellen tried to make one of her potions, things went pretty awry, and I don’t really want a repeat performance of that.
But hell, sometimes a man just gotta swallow his doubts and put his everything into what he’s gotta do, or so a man making a big, cheesy speech about masculinity might say. Besides, you can’t blame me for being interested in something like a magic potion. Who knows? It might be a fun and enjoyable activity! Well, not that I’ve much hope of that…
“Ah, don’t worry. It’s not that complicated at all,” Ellen says with a bright and cheery nod. “With two people working on it, it’ll be a snap to make. Really!”
“Right,” I nod.
“Now, the ingredients for a ‘potion that makes hair grow on the bottom of your feet’ are…”
“Wait, what?”
“Fueh?” Ellen blinks, tilting her head to the side in puzzlement. “Is something wrong?”
“Er, we’re not making that potion,” I say. In the first place, who in the world would want a potion like that? “Ellen, we’re making a potion that induces amnesia, remember?”
“Fuwah!” she jumps back, covering her mouth with her hands. “That’s right! Um, I’m sorry about that. Anyway, the ingredients for a forgetfulness potion are the petals from a myosotis—”
“Myowhat?” Elly abruptly cuts in, blurting out a sentiment that I share with her.
“Forget-me-nots,” Yuuka answers immediately, and then raises her hand to give the girl a light smack on the forehead as she reprimands her, “Don’t interrupt her again.”
“Ow, sorry~!”
“…orange peels, the whites of two eggs, two teaspoons of salt, a pinch of pepper, some garlic powder, and for the water it should be made from melting the snow from the top of Mt. Everest by leaving it in room temperature for sixteen hours.”
“How are we supposed to get that last part!?” I say, completely overwhelmed.
“It can be regular water, but it won’t taste as good,” Ellen says with a completely serious look on her face.
“Who cares how it tastes if it works just fine? Just do it with regular water.”
“Fueeeeh, but are you sure? But it tastes really awful!”
“Um, but how does anyone know how it tastes if they just forget about it afterward?” Kurumi says, raising a finger.
…You know, she’s got a good point there.
“Anyway, I already have all the ingredients but the myosotis flowers, so if you could get me some of those, then I can start right away,” Ellen says, carrying on and completely ignoring what the vampire had to say, leaving her somewhat disappointed and confused at the lack of a response.
Well, if it’s a flower, then…
“Will these do?” Yuuka says as she lifts her hand up.
With a brilliant flash of light, numerous azure-colored flowers appear on the hand she presents to the girl in the same way she conjured up that rose just the other night. Upon looking at the flowers, Ellen snatches them up at once with a wide smile on her face.
“Yes, these will do just great!” she says enthusiastically, turning to me. “There’s a bit of preparation required before we get to the brewing, so please wait until then. When I need your help, I’ll call for you.”
Humming happily with those flowers held tightly in her hands, she skips off in the direction of the kitchen. At the same time she happily enters it, Kotohime emerges from within, carrying a tray in her arms. On the tray are two bowls of rice as well as two spoons. A very humble meal, with no side dishes or anything like that.
“Ah, hello!” she says as she passes by me, trying to give me a bow while still holding the tray.
“Whoa, hey, careful with that.”
…Come to think of it, is she the one who made that? Does she even know how to use a rice cooker?
Nodding, she walks past me, toward the guys still tied up by the sofa. Crouching down in front of them, she lowers the tray to the floor, receiving the befuddled gazes of the poor, unfortunate saps we’re holding prisoner for the time being. Ah, that’s right. I’ve got a few things to ask of them first, before we go about wiping their memories. With that in mind, I walk on over to them.
“Good evening,” Kotohime says to them with a smile, lifting one of the bowls of rice in one hand and holding a spoon in the other. “You two must be hungry, so I thought you might like to eat a little something.”
The two policemen have stunned looks on their faces. They exchange looks with one another, their mouths gaping open, before turning their gazes back on the nutty princess in front of them, staring in disbelief. Well, I don’t blame them. It must be weird to be treated like that by one of their captors.
“Ah, but since your arms are all tied up, I’ll have to feed you,” Kotohime notes, scooping up a spoonful of rice.
…Wait.
I feel a muscle in my face give a twitch.
“Say ‘Aaaa’~”
Somehow, this pisses me off.
She gently drives the spoon to the older of the two officers, who looks at her a bit hesitantly. He looks on over to us, and when we say nothing, he slowly turns back to the spoon in front of him, nervously opening his mouth. He closes his mouth around the spoon, taking the rice into his mouth. Slowly, he chews, chews, chews, and swallows while his partner looks on with a look of dread.
.
“Kkkhhhhh—!” he grunts, his chin lowered. “T-this flavor… This soggy and overcooked yet strangely nostalgic flavor!”
“S-senpai?” his partner says, bewildered.
He lifts his face, showing that tears are freely falling from his eyes. His nose dripping with snot, he lets out a howl.
“This… this tastes like my old mother’s rice…! This old fashioned style of cooked rice… from before the invention of rice cookers… I can’t believe I’m experiencing it again! Oh, mother, please forgive your son for not visiting your grave more often…!”
“Yes, yes,” Kotohime says soothingly, patting the crying officer on the head. “You should always make an effort to pay respect to your parents.”
She sets that bowl and spoon back down on the tray as the senior officer continues to blubber on about his mother’s home cooking, turning her attention to the other, younger officer as she lifts the second bowl and spoon. Once again, she scoops up a spoonful of rice, presenting it toward the officer.
“Here, have a taste.”
“No!” he says immediately, turning his head away. “I won’t take anything from you bastards! Even if I were starving to death, I won’t eat that!”
“That’s not good at all!” Kotohime says chidingly, lowering the spoon. “As a law enforcement officer, your first duty may be to the people, but how can you say that you can serve them public’s needs if you refuse to even take care of yourself? Eat up, and have the energy it takes to be a true policeman!”
“…Actually, my father was also a policeman,” he answers in a dark tone. Soon, however, his eyes water up and his voice becomes pained, “But he always put his work ahead of himself, and worked himself to death! Damn it, I can’t let my mother lose me in the same way…! Please, give me a bite!”
Kotohime nods, and raises the spoon to the officer’s mouth again. Tearfully, he accepts it, chewing the rice and swallowing it. And now, just like the other guy, he’s completely broken down, wailing on and on about his dad.
The mood has suddenly gotten very weird in here.
“What a scary girl…” Elly says, looking slightly blue in the face at the scene before her. “Did she put something in that?”
“No, no, no. It’s because of her weirdness field,” I say, frowning. “Anything within a one-meter range of her becomes as strange as she is. At least, that’s my theory, anyway.”
“If I ever get affected by it, I want you to kill me,” she says, completely serious.
Like I could.
…Well, let’s leave them alone for a bit. I can ask them what I want once the potion’s ready but before they drink it.
---
When I hear Ellen calling for me, I go on ahead to the kitchen. Immediately as my foot takes a step into the kitchen, my nose is overcome by an insanely strong scent. It’s not exactly horrible, but it’s also not what I’d consider to be a sweet aroma. It’s just… weird. That’s all I can say about it. It’s weird.
“Everything’s been set up,” Ellen says happily, dashing about the small kitchen, checking on various pots already on the stove.
You know, it’s pretty strange to be mixing up a potion in a kitchen like this, using pots and saucepans. Usually when you think of magic potions you think of ugly, warty green-skinned witches cackling while they stir disgusting liquid ooze in their large cauldron, set over an open fire. Well, you have to stick with what you have, I guess.
“Okay, so what do I have to do?” I ask, looking about. I guess she’s already put in all the ingredients in their respective places, because I don’t see them lying about.
“Just do what I tell you,” she says, pouring over that small book in her hand. “Um… first of all, let the mixture of the petals and the orange peels simmer on low heat for about a minute.”
“Uh huh. That would be this one, right?” I say, peering into a pot.
I can see the orange peels floating on top of the azure-colored water. At around the forty-second mark, I turn my head to Ellen. “What do I do once it’s been a minute?”
“Remove the orange peels. You can throw them away, we won’t need them anymore. Oh, and then set the flame to high.”
“Right,” I say, grabbing a chopstick from a drawer.
Counting down the last twenty seconds, I hurriedly remove all the peels from the boiling blue water. Turning back to the stove, I turn the knob, setting the flame temperature to high. The surface of the mixture is beginning to bubble now. While I’m working on this pot, Ellen’s right next to me, doing her own thing with a second saucepan, completely concentrated on the work in front of her. Whoa, sparks are coming out from hers! And she’s constantly adding and removing things from it. I guess she’s just giving me the simple parts of the job.
“Okay, next, we just have to mix them together,” she says with a smile, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.
“I’ll get it,” I say, taking her saucepan.
Cautiously, I pour the strange colored liquid inside it into the pot containing the azure-colored liquid. Immediately as the two liquids mix, black smoke begins emanating out from the surface of the mixture, causing me to take a step back so I don’t end up breathing in the smoke by accident. It’d be terrible if I were to somehow get afflicted with amnesia from doing just that, so I’m just being on extra guard here.
“And then we add the spices! This is the last step, after this we just let it simmer for an hour!” she says.
Good.
“First, a pinch of pepper…”
I pinch a bit of pepper between my fingers and add it to the mix…
“A pinch of garlic powder.”
…and garlic powder.
“…and two teaspoons of sugar.”
…Wait, that doesn’t seem right.
“Wasn’t it salt?” I ask, looking at her.
“Eh? No, it’s sugar,” she says.
“No, I heard you say salt before.”
“Um, but I’m sure it’s sugar…” she says, though now she doesn’t look all that sure at all.
Damn it, her memory is completely unreliable. Well, now what? Do I add salt or sugar? I’m not all that sure about magic, but it’s probably volatile as all hell, so not getting the right ingredient might change the nature of the potion completely, or so my experiences with fiction lead me to believe.
[ ] Salt.
[ ] Sugar.
[ ] Both.
