Delinquent Duo Dodge Deluge, Develop Delectable Dishes

Her eyes barely took the time to identify the spoons. Hyousuke’s verbal confirmation of what he was holding had been enough and Sigga quickly swiped at the items.

Her hand came away with the ladle and wooden spoon, knocking at least one of the other utensils the blond was holding to the floor in her rush. By the time she zipped back over to the stove, the fish was able to determine that of the two spoons she had obtained the ladle would better serve in completing her time-sensitive task.

She dropped the wooden spoon, which clattered briefly onto the counter before its momentum sent it careening over the edge and to the floor next to the other spoon. The girl’s amber eyes were entirely focused on the bubbling pot.

The ladle was gingerly but quickly lowered in. The steel scoop dissipated the bubbles on contact. In another moment the first hard-boiled egg was extracted.

Sigga turned over to the island counter, dumping the egg along with some hot water. The egg started slowly rolling in a gentle arc across the counter towards the opposite edge where it would soon find itself with no more granite on which to traverse. The bald teenager took no notice as she was already in the process of returning to the stove in order to fish out the second egg.

Her expression was one of fixation and determination. With the pot no longer boiling over, Sigga took an extra second or two to scoop up the second egg without bringing as much water into the ladle as she had with the first egg.

Having successfully scooped up the calcium carbonate covered oval, she turned towards the counter again. With both eggs retrieved from the pot Sigga no longer had to rush her movements. Despite her full gaze now resting on the second egg she carried, the attentive teen had overlooked the fact that her slower movements allowed for the ladle to build up enough moisture on its underside for a single scalding water drop to break loose from its steel underside. She didn’t even see bead fall and land directly on the exposed part of her foot where the top of her slipper ended.

The youth chirp a sudden expletive. Her attention shot downward and almost as quickly returned to her ladle which she had, in her pain-induced ardor, swung around sending the second still-hot egg spinning onto the island counter like a top.

Hyou forgetting how to articulate his thoughts beyond the single-syllabled statement was probably for the best. With the pot on the stove still cooking away Sigga needed to remain focused on her task and someone making a remark about her eggs in any capacity would have resulted in the fish losing some of her composure and attention to the matter at hand.

Far be it for her to miss an opportunity on wordplay, however. A relieved “-cellent” from the bald cook acted as a strangely stoic rejoinder, extending the young man’s word into a good descriptor of the situation. Things could have ended poorly had he not stepped in to assist with her boiled cackleberries, but the situation had indeed resolved in a manner most eggcellent.

Sigga accepted the offering as she spoke, nearly dropping it again due to it still being quite hot, and deposited the egg into a bowl she retrieved from her box-‘o-goods. The second egg, still cradled between the salt and pepper shakers, was likewise deposited into the bowl. With disaster averted Sigga immediately returned to working on her salad, which was a little behind schedule.

While the fish scuttled about, a voice belonging to neither of the cooking duo interjected with a “Here.” A girl, one of Sigga’s 1-B classmates, having seemed to have silently witnessed the entire affair, casually placed down a sheet of paper on the part of the counter that wasn’t pockmarked with egg water.

“You’re the last one. Don’t forget to turn it in tomorrow before class.” With the message delivered the 1-B student gave Hyousuke a curious glance, before turning on her heel and walking off.

“Oh! Thanks!” the fish called after the girl, now busily washing three stalks of celery in the sink.

She shook the water off the stalks and placed them on a cutting board. Then she grabbed a paring knife and got to work on them, while her eyes scanned the sheet of paper on the counter.

“You finished signing up?” Sigga asked the blond, her eyebrows gesturing to the class signup sheet that had just been delivered.

“Eh-heheh~” Sigga gave off a very guilty sounding laugh as she scraped the chopped celery off the cutting board and into a very large glass bowl she had retrieved from her box. She didn’t immediately add anything after the laugh, leaving a bit of suspenseful silence to hang around them.

She walked over to the sink, bringing with her a can of peas, a can of corn, the standard tool used for opening said cans, and a metal sieve. “I’m, uh... I’m gonna sign up for the cooking class,” the fish finally said, lips pursed in a thin line. “The Basics of Cooking,” she reiterated.

It might have been the least hero-esque class on the list. It was probably even the easiest class. Especially for her. I mean, who ever heard of someone failing cooking? “It, uh, seems like a nice change of pace, ya know? Taking a class where someone eating your homework is a good thing?”

It really did seem somewhat of a cop out, taking The Basics of Cooking while attending UA of all schools. That was where her embarrassment stemmed from. Though it was also a stroke of brilliance all the same. Anyone could have thought of it, sure, but it took some agency to get over one's own pride to sign up. Which… she technically still needed to do. The paper had yet to receive her inked intentions.

She’d get to that in a moment though. First she needed to finish prepping the start of her salad before the potatoes and carrots were done cooking on the stove. Sigga grabbed the can opener and quickly decapitated the two cans with it. Then she deposited the contents of both into the sieve and gave it a good shaking over the sink.

Her teaching the class? Now wouldn’t that be something? Sigga couldn’t help but grin at the remark, picturing herself at the head of the class carefully instructing her peers while wearing a set of large, pointy spectacles. Why spectacles? Because teacher-Sigga wore spectacles. It was simply a fact.

She’d get fat though. It went without saying that a cooking class taught by her would involve tasting every single student’s dish. Each class throughout the day would naturally be instructed to learn a different kind of meal. First period would learn how to do a spinach and egg scramble on freshly baked German rye with a side of raspberries. Second period would be taught how to make a Krakow-style cheesecake with candied orange peels like her mother used to make. The class would also be instructed on how to make the cheese for the cake from scratch as well. That went without saying. Third period would probably be taught how to make that awesome hunter’s stew she had cooked alongside Suzuki-san during their initial encounter. And fourth period would involve some more baking. Maybe some coconut brownies or crepes. That was it. If she were to teach more than four classes a day she’d explode.

The fish seemed to have frozen in place while the fantasy played out in her mind. Her one hand still rigidly held the sieve, the pea and corn juices have already finished straining. After a few more moments of eyes glazed over and a thin trickle of saliva beginning to run from the corner of her mouth, Sigga came back to life.

Her amber peepers blinked a few times and she gave the sieve one final shake while her other hand wiped away the renegade drool.

She dumped the sieve’s contents into the large glass bowl, on top of the chopped celery, and discarded the strainer into the sink.

“I mean, I’m mostly self-taught so I’m sure there are some fundamentals that I don’t know I don’t know.” she replied to the blond with the oddly structured sentence.

That was mostly just an excuse though. Well, entirely an excuse, rather. She just wanted an easy class with a free meal.

As she brought the leek to the cutting board her eyes widened at Hyousuke hovering over his stew. “Do it!” she practically yelled at his suggestion. It would be a relief to have a partner in crime in the culinary class. ”Doitdoitdoitdoitdoit~” Sigga continued, dropping her leak and pulling a pen out of the kitchen's miscellaneous drawer.

She slid the signup sheet and pen toward the student. While her hands went back to the leek and paring knife, she didn’t start chopping it just yet. Her eyes were fixated on the blond with marked expectation, supervising until the pressure of her gaze had him commit to his own suggestion.

Her peepers carefully traced the pen’s movement. It was a habit brought on by her subconscious at this point, where whenever Sigga watched someone sign their name she could not help but evaluate the difficulty of duplicating said signature. She’d note how the pen was held, where the pressure was applied more heavily, that sort of thing. Most of her attempts of yesteryear to replicate another person’s John Hancock had been innocuous enough. Others… not so much. One would hope it went without saying that she had no intent in forging Hyousuke’s penned intention however. It was simply a part of her past.

Suddenly the target of the bald cook’s calculating gaze had stopped mid-signature. The pen, it’s duties and fate-orchestrated denouement left incomplete, sat motionless in Suzuki-san’s assertive grip.

Sigga’s eyes, suddenly wide with concern, darted upward to the blond’s face in search of some reassurance; some buoyant accounting to ease her apprehension. Her amber spheres observed a slight smile and a twitch in his lips hinting at some yet unknown scheme. That… did not bode well.

She blinked, and he spoke.

A conditional bid was it?

“Deal!” the fish chortled, immediately after breathing a sigh of relief at the terms presented to her. She dropped her paring knife on the cutting board and snapped up Suzuki-san’s pen before he could take back the offer. Having now signed up for the HC: Quirk Mastery class, she handed the pan back to her peer.

This had worked out splendidly! She had been meaning to sign up for another class anyway, but had been indecisive in her selection. The blond’s offer had basically saved her the trouble from going through the mental effort of making the choice herself. And as an added bonus she’d have a friend to keep her company in both classes.

It had worked out flawlessly. Now she was signed up for The Basics of Cooking and… Oh, no… Oh, nononono...

The affable expression she wore as her oversized hand extended the pen back to Suzuki-san betrayed no hint that Sigga’s soul had just left it’s fleshy meatbag behind. What. Had. She. Done?!

Sigga had been so delighted at having someone she actually spent time socializing with, sign up for the same classes as her that she completely overlooked a major complication. Oh, no, the skeletal husk that was once a UA student thought to itself again.

It was more of a fish-in-headlights moment than a train of runaway thoughts for Sigga. She had been so careful since enrolling at UA. Whenever the topic of her Quirk came up Sigga had made sure to draw attention to the piscine side of it, keeping the psychic elements secret or downplaying their potency. She knew it would only be a matter of time until someone she knew would find out about them, she just hadn’t expected to be the one to flub the long-running streak of secrecy. Not that she flubbed it just yet.

But UGH!

A momentary lapse in judgement and she might very well have set in motion events that would undo weeks of caution. And to be fair, she didn’t actually know what her new friend’s reaction would be to discovering her ability to read thoughts.

Back in America, nearly everyone’s attitude had been wholly negative upon learning of her Quirk, with the only exception being that of her siblings’. Foster-siblings’, if you wanted to be technical. She loved them to death. Not that they were on speaking terms at this juncture. Through no fault of her own, mind you.

Suzuki-san’s concerned voice alerted the teenager that her de facto poker face had long since expired.

“Uh, I’m, uh… I’m fine,” the fish said, briefly biting her lip as she brought back the facade.

Sigga turned to the cutting board once again, appearing as if returning back to her normal self. “Just, uh, low blood sugar,” she reassured her concerned peer with the straight-faced lie.

How was she to get out of this one? Telling him that she had changed her mind about signing up for the Quirk class would be suspicious whether she did so now or later. Though maybe… maybe everything would work out fine? Just this once in her life?

The leek on the cutting board, having bore witness to Sigga’s peculiarities, was now in the process of being summarily executed. In an attempt to distract herself by dialing up her cooking competence up to eleven, the young woman’s oversized hands worked quickly with the bladed instrument. In moments the knife left the vegetable in a thousand pieces, all of which were now being deposited on top of the previously diced celery in the large glass bowl.

With nearly the entirety of her attention back on completing her meal she returned to the stove. The simmering pot of carrots and potatoes was taken off the element which was deactivated in a single simultaneous and swift action. “What do you think the cooking class will cover?” Sigga chirped. The verbal distraction was meant more for herself than the blond.

Had she gone and read the blond’s thoughts, Sigga would have learned that he was far more astute and empathic than he ever let on. Maybe even more so than he realized himself. She certainly would have deflected any further probing on her sudden loss of composure had the subject been pushed. Though, as per usual, the fish felt certain of her capabilities in masking the unease in her thoughts.

With the tactical shift in subject now in the air, the young chef hovered back over to the pot she had left cooling on the stove. The potatoes and carrots within were still scalding hot. Though it wasn’t quite time to peel them yet, giving the tubers and taproots a quick shower in the sink would hasten things.

Sigga left the pot, sans lid, sitting under the faucet. As cool liquid poured over the vegetables, she returned to the island counter.

“Soups, huh?” The change in subject as well as Hyou’s reply performed amicably in distracting Sigga from her previous anxiety-inducing musings. She’d have to come up with a solution for that after she’d gone back to her dorm room. For now her mind reviewed the reply at hand. “I hadn’t considered that. Soups...” she repeated. Strange, as it was a perfectly reasonable topic the cooking class could end up covering. Maybe it was the fact that the dorm’s microwave always smelled like instant noodles that the idea of any sort of liquid meal being a subject worthy of professional instruction hadn’t come to mind. Not that soups weren’t worthy or anything. In fact, the suggestion provoked another thought.

“Oooh. That’s what I’ll make for next week.” The subject had shifted momentarily from cooking class to next week’s dinner. “Some pickle soup.” Her previously demonstrated interest in pickling homegrown cucumbers should hardly leave much surprise in the fish’s proclamation. “You ever had any? So good on a cold day. Especially after having eaten something sweet.” -such as an entire box of cookies, which she may or may not have previously polished off in a single sitting.

By this point, the next step in her salad-making process was in full effect. Sigga had withdrawn some crispy apples from the box-o’-things, rinsed them off, and began peeling them with her paring knife. One of her oversized hands slowly rotated the fruit, as the other carved away an ever-elongating, spiraling, strip of phenolic compost. Or rather, what most people would have discarded as food waste. Apparently the fish wasn’t one to conform to normal social standards when it came to activities done in a kitchen.

Half-way through the peeling process on the first apple, Sigga snapped up the end of the lengthy peel and unceremoniously slipped it between her lips, thereby completing a rather visually compelling display. As her hands returned to peeling the fruit, her mouth slowly drew in the spiralling apple skin upward like some sort of bewitched conveyer belt. Once the first apple was peeled, the process repeated with the second.

“You’re probably right.” the girl quipped in reply in between peels. Her tone lacked its usual humility, the reason for which was quickly explained. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone scoring poorly in home-ec before.”