Apple Pie
by K.Stonham
released 26th February, 2005
Hisoka and Watari stared at the experiment, eyes widening in identical horror.
"Okay," Watari said, adjusting his glasses. "We did something wrong again."
Hisoka set the glass tray down on the counter and took a step back, absently peeling off oven mitts. "But what?" he questioned. "We had the temperature right. We baked it for the right amount of time...."
There was absolutely no reason he could think of that the apple pie should be the charred inedible disaster it was.
Nor could he understand how the previous five baking attempts had ended up equally inedible.
"I think," Watari said, adjusting his glasses again, "that it's time we called in an expert."
Sumeragi Subaru did not completely understand what he was doing in Meifu. He had never been to the land of the dead before and had frankly not expected to enter it prior to his own death. When Watari Yutaka had appeared quite literally out of the blue sky and urgently requested his aid, however, he hadn't been willing to refuse the shinigami.
"You see the problem," the golden-haired scientist said with a gesture.
"Not quite," Subaru admitted, looking confusedly at the six blackened somethings lining a kitchen counter. He looked up at Watari and at Kurosaki, whose residence this house apparently was.
"They're pies," Kurosaki muttered, glancing away.
"No they're not," Subaru stated.
"Well, they're supposed to be."
"That's the problem," Watari agreed, nodding enthusiastically. "Bon and I can't seem to figure out what we're doing wrong."
"Why can't you just buy a pie at a market?"
Kurosaki muttered something Subaru didn't quite catch. He cocked an expectant eyebrow at the eternal teenager, who reddened. "I wanted to bake a pie for Tsuzuki," Kurosaki repeated lowly, then glared at Subaru as if daring him to comment.
Subaru wouldn't dare, but he did hide his smile behind a hand as he contemplated the not-pies again. "So why do you need my help for this?" he asked. "I'm no better of a cook."
"Ah!" Watari smiled brightly at him. "But you do know the reputed best chef in Japan!"
Subaru blinked.
"Ijyuin Akira," Kurosaki prompted, hands in his pockets and looking at Subaru neutrally. "We were hoping--I was hoping--that you could ask him for a favor."
Twenty Mensou perched atop a building opposite the Clamp Campus Museum, surveying the scene below him. Policemen scurried about like ants, watchful for his move. Well, it was only fair that there were so many, he supposed... any less and they wouldn't have a sporting chance of stopping him. Kobayashi, of course, was directing the attempt. Twenty Mensou smiled a small smile. He would so hate to deprive his neighbor of his life's work.
Twenty Mensou checked his grappling gun one last time and knelt, left eye squeezing shut as he took aim....
A trilling going up a musical scale broke the quiet.
Twenty Mensou ducked back behind the roof's air conditioning unit, hands scrabbling for the cellular phone that was playing (at Nokoru's insistence) "Peony Pink." Finally finding it, he pulled his mask off as he pressed the "talk" button.
"Ijyuin Akira," he said softly into the mouthpiece.
"Ijyuin-san," an equally soft voice replied, "I'm sorry to disturb you."
"Sumeragi-san?" Akira asked, surprised. He could hear, faintly, the sounds of yells from the street below. He hoped the call hadn't given him away, but he so rarely got calls this late in the evening that he had forgotten to turn it off tonight.... "How can I help you?"
The Sumeragi sighed softly. "I need to ask for a favor...."
Akira excused himself from the office just before two in the afternoon. Nokoru waved at him as he left, Suoh gave a calm nod. He usually didn't teach on Tuesdays, but today he'd made an exception.
Both of his students were waiting for him in the classroom when he arrived. "Hello!" he said immediately, trying to put them at ease. "I'm Ijyuin Akira. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Watari Yutaka!" the taller, older one said. He spoke with an odd Osaka accent, but seemed very friendly. In fact, he reminded Akira just a bit of Nokoru. "Thank you for agreeing to teach us, Ijyuin-sensei." The small fluffy owl perched on the shoulder of his labcoat hooted and flapped her wings. "Oh, and this is 003!"
"It's nice to meet you, Watari-san, 003-san," Akira replied, smiling. "It's nothing, really. It's a pleasure to be able to help friends of Sumeragi-san."
The younger man, almost just a boy, really, was staring at Akira with wide green eyes. "You really mean that, don't you?" he asked incredulously.
"Of course," Akira replied. "Sumeragi-san is a great person and I'm honored that he thought I could help you."
The teenager shook his head slowly, as if dazed, then introduced himself. "I'm Kurosaki Hisoka. Thank you very much for teaching us." He kept his hands in his pockets, Akira noticed, not offering to shake hands, unlike the ebullient Watari.
"So," Akira said, sitting down on a stool, facing his students, "what kind of apple pie do you want to learn to make?"
"Kind...?" Kurosaki asked.
Akira nodded. "Sweet, savory...?" he questioned.
Watari looked at Kurosaki. "What do you think, Bon?"
"Sweet, I think...." Kurosaki looked back up at Akira. "But not too sweet!"
"Just sweet enough that it's perfect ala mode?" Akira guessed.
Kurosaki nodded.
"Well, then, let's get started!" Akira beamed.
Within half an hour Hisoka knew more than he had ever thought possible on the subject of apple varieties and how they baked up. He had also learned to soak peeled apples in apple juice to prevent browning, to cut the cored halves into uniform slices to ensure even cooking, and that cooking wasn't rocket science (because, Akira had explained cheerfully of himself, he could only be good at one and it wasn't rockets).
Akira was slowly giving Hisoka a sugar headache. The man was like cotton candy, like Tsuzuki at his cheerful worst. It was disorienting and made it a bit hard to follow the thread of his lecture, though Watari nodded and hmmed and asked questions every now and again, the scientist's hands deft as he rolled out pie crust on a marble surface (to keep the butter chilled and make for a lighter crust. It also helped prevent crust burn, Akira explained). Hisoka's own fingers felt clumsy as he did the same.
"Ah, you're pushing down into the dough, Kurosaki-san," Akira said gently. "You don't want to do that. You just want to stretch it out horizontally. May I?" He reached over and his hands settled on top of Hisoka's, guiding.
I wonder if he's okay he's pale and a background questions of who are they and why does Sumeragi-san owe them a favor and why spend it on this and flashes through his mind of a beautiful young woman wearing a wedding ring and two older ladies, identical twins, standing behind her and a handsome, stoic, blue-haired man and a golden-haired man who could be an angel save for the mischief in his eyes and the realization that the candy fluff was only the outermost layer of Ijyuin's mind because everything beneath that surface was razor-sharp analysis and years of study and a glimpse of a white mask and tuxedo--
Hisoka jerked away, biting his lip against a cry.
Ijyuin's eyes were wide and startled at first, then narrowed as Watari stepped towards Hisoka with a questioned "Bon?"
The razor-sharp mind must have spun to its conclusion quickly because Ijyuin merely smiled disarmingly and apologized, saying he didn't realize Hisoka had a problem with being touched.
A psychic, Akira thought wonderingly. Well, that certainly (probably) helped explain something of how the duo knew Sumeragi-san. They must have met in the course of his work.
He wondered, as he got out the pie plates, where Kurosaki went to school. Or was he perhaps privately educated? Watari was certainly bright enough to be a teacher. Could the two of them be lured to the Campus? Nokoru would like it and there were enough unique individuals at the school that Kurosaki would no longer be alone in being different.
He taught by example, almost by rote at this point in his life, folding the crust over the rolling pin and then draping it into the pie plate, smoothing it down with his fingers. Watari almost spilled the filling of his pie all over the counter in his enthusiasm while Kurosaki worked quietly, methodically. Akira didn't try to touch the young man again, but set about guiding as best he could, tempering Watari's vibrancy and gently encouraging Kurosaki when he hesitated. Akira turned the oven on and while it was preheating, showed them how to weave strips and make a lattice top to the pie. He instructed the pair on how to trim the edges of the crusts and fold them under. He demonstrated by example how to crimp the edges by hand and have them turn out nicely. Then the pies were on the top rack of oven and there was nothing to do but wait.
Hisoka could feel the thoughts in Ijyuin's mind, falling over one another in bright, shining order. He couldn't read them, not without touching the man again, but knew instinctively that some of them were about him. People were always wondering about him.
"Was it only apple pie you wanted to know about, Kurosaki-san?" Ijyuin questioned.
"I guess not," Hisoka said slowly, considering. "He likes anything sweet. My partner," he explained.
"Ah." Ijyuin rummaged under one of the counters for a moment, then offered a hard-bound book to Hisoka, who took it curiously. "Perhaps you may wish to take this, then. I wrote it a few years ago. It's not very good, but maybe it'll be helpful."
Hisoka paged curiously through the book, Watari peering over his shoulder. It turned out to be entirely about desserts. Judging from the glossy color pictures, Hisoka thought that Tsuzuki would go into raptures over any of the selections. The instructions were clear, with hints and variations laid out simply. The back of the book contained an index and a help section, complete with definitions, recommendations, and troubleshooting suggestions. Hisoka recognized immediately several of the mistakes he and Watari had made.
"If any part of it is confusing, let me know, and I'll see if I can't explain it better," Ijyuin said cheerfully. "I also teach a cooking class here at the Campus if you'd like to enroll."
Watari's eyes met Hisoka's briefly. Aside from working associations, shinigami were not allowed to have contacts in the world of the living. "I'm afraid that's not possible," Watari said. "We'd get in trouble for more than just today's lesson."
Akira considered what facts he knew. An psychic and his friend; a mysterious partner with a sweet tooth; trouble for enrolling.
He was, he realized, dealing with people who didn't exist. With something secret.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked seriously. "Rijichou is from the Imonoyama family. He could protect you, if that's what you need."
Their eyes were wide and astonished and he quickly realized that his assumption of the type of trouble was wrong. The two of them were not involved in anything like yakuza or the Triads or even a government organization. Or, if they were, it was not a coerced association. And there was nothing to them to indicate the certain level of darkness that tainted the unlawful. No--they were innocent.
"We're not in trouble," Watari said softly. "We just work for an organization with certain rules, that's all."
Kurosaki laid one hand on Watari's and seemed to hold a quick, silent conference with him. Akira could catch its nuances through body language, a slight shift of a shoulder or the raise of an eyebrow, but unfortunately did not know its actual material.
"Ijyuin-san," Kurosaki said as he removed his hand, "as you may have guessed, our work has to do with the supernatural. We--I--do appreciate the offer, and if things were otherwise, I think we'd both like to spend some time at your campus. It has a very good reputation; our bureau has never needed to investigate a case here. Unfortunately, though, it's just not possible for us. But thank you very much for the offer."
"Ne, Bon," Watari said as the two of them walked away from the building, still-hot pies carried carefully in boxes thoughtfully provided by Ijyuin, "would you really want to? If you were still alive, I mean?"
"Go to school here?" Hisoka thought about it for a minute. "Probably."
Watari hummed for a minute. "We could talk with Konoe-kachou," he offered. "A way could probably be found."
"And who would do my homework while Tsuzuki and I were off chasing some psychopath or demon?" Hisoka countered.
Watari brightened. "I could--"
"No!" Hisoka cut off sharply, immediately imagining the disasters inherent in that offer. "It wouldn't mean anything unless I did it myself," he muttered, saving himself. "And I just don't have the time to go to school. I'm a shinigami, and I'm happier now than I ever was while alive."
"I know," Watari said, not ungently. Then, "Shall we go home, Bon?"
Hisoka nodded, and simultaneously they transferred out of the living world and back to Meifu.
Akira's eyes widened as he watched out the window and saw his two students vanish from the middle of the path.
Friends of Sumeragi indeed.
He finished cleaning the classroom, then picked up his own pie and headed back to the office, part of his thoughts already on what kind of tea would best complement the pie.
"Ah, Akira," Suoh said as Akira stepped back in. "How did the lesson go?"
"Very well," Akira replied. "Give me just a minute and I'll have tea ready to go with the pie."
The Rijichou's chair, in front of the giant picture window, slowly turned around. Blue eyes were distant as Nokoru ran through something Akira couldn't touch. "The Campus is uncompromised," he said softly, his eyes coming back. He smiled. "Akira, why didn't you tell me you were going to be teaching shinigami?"
Author's Notes: Like the rest of the Tales From A Ramen Stall universe, this story has been sitting on my hard drive for a while, incomplete. But finally it's finished, and hopefully worth the wait. As to Nokoru's endlines, well, there are two interpretations--one is N-chan's favored "Nokoru is psychically linked Guardian of the Campus" theory, and the other is Jeanne's favored "Campus security system pages Nokoru with things like "Shinigami have entered the Campus" messages" theory. And on consideration, I don't know which one is correct
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