Reverse Tarot - futaba-sakura

The Phantom group chat pings!

9:40 PM

On our way back.

9:40 PM

Would you mind calling Doctor Takemi?

she'll want to know why...

Well

9:41 PM

His arm is broken. . .

oh.

9:42 PM

we should probably talk about that.

Yes. . .

9:44 PM

For now, though, we're on our way back.

we'll be waiting for you. try not to jostle his arm.

Right.

9:45 PM

Be there soon.

Futaba gets a ping from her 1v1 chat with Haru!

6:05 PM

He's fine. He has food and Ryuuji is taking care of him at the moment.

6:06 PM

He hasn't said anything but he seems to have come to his senses. (edited)

how bad is the rest of him?

Well, other than the arm and a few scrapes he seems fine.

6:08 PM

Doctor Takemi says he'll make a full recovery in a month or so.

that's soooo long!

6:08 PM

is the break that bad?

It's fast for normal people.

that didn't answer my question.

It's. . .a clean break. So he'll heal just fine, but. . .

6:09 PM

His ulna is essentially snapped in half.

oh... gross.

Yes, well. There's not much to do other than wait at this point. . .

6:10 PM

How are you feeling?

6:11 PM

Were you able to get any sleep?

hmmm. next question!

Yes?

6:12 PM

Ah, no.

6:12 PM

That won't do. . .

let's just eat, already!

Only if you help.

i'm comiinnnggggg.

Wonderful!

6:17 PM

It's not hard finding Haru, the house isn't exactly huge and she hadn't moved from her spot in the kitchen. In fact the sparse countertops were now covered in a plethora of meat and vegetables with some huge pot slapped on the stove as the CEO riffled through the seasonings hidden away in the quiet kitchen. She wondered if it would be rude to bring her own or if, next time, she could show Boss a thing or two she could handle in the kitchen.

It's not hard finding Haru, or the kitchen. The house isn't exactly huge, and Futaba's frequent trips to the fridge basically had the kitchen set as an auto-loop path destination, anyway. When the petite woman appeared, the overlarge hoodie she was wearing over her incredibly baggy pajama pants only served to make her look smaller. Wearing Akira's clothes always did that, but she didn't care too much. Mobility was for athletes, anyway. "I told you you were making a mess." Futaba's words drifted toward Haru before her body did, nose scrunched beneath the bridge of her glasses as she stood closer to a counter to lift and examine a vegetable. Gross... dirt. "This doesn't look like curry ingredients."

The ghost like appearance of the younger woman was nothing new, especially draped in clothes 3 times too big for her. It didn't even make Haru startle when her voice floated up from the doorway with no preamble. "Well, two hands make less mess." It takes her a moment to look up from some small labeled canister but when she does it takes her longer than normal to give her new company a tired smile. "It isn't curry. I don't plan to try and compete with Boss on that front. Besides, your system will need some help since you didn't sleep much last night." Not that any of them seemed to.

"Four hands," came the mumbled correction. Placing the vegetable back down on its particular pile, she moved to obtain (duh nuh nuh nuhhhh...) a hand towel to wipe the dirt off of her fingers. Of course Haru wouldn't go out of her way to make curry... but damn if Futaba couldn't dream. If Haru was going to stand around reading containers, what did she need help for? A question for another time, perhaps. The hand towel was set on an open space on the counter, dangling off the side so that the hacker had a clean place to rest her hip without getting any vegetable dirt on Akira's sweater. Who knew the next time she'd be able to get her hands on one? She sure didn't. "... so. Soup, I guess? That's not very energizing."

"Four hands." Comes the bemused reply. Futaba places the vegetable down, a surprisingly large eggplant, and once she finished cleaning her hand, Haru takes a moment to hand her a scrubber and that same eggplant. Looks like it's wash the veggies time. "That's part of it, yes. I'm not so cruel as to force you to only eat vegetable soup. I know you'd never survive like that." A gentle jab at Futaba's atrocious diet when she's left in charge of it, accompanied by a kiss to her forehead, careful hand smoothing the blunt bangs from the smaller woman's face for easier access. The kiss lasts maybe 3 seconds before Haru reaches for one of the knives, taking some sort of mystery meat slab and starting to dice it up on the nearby cutting board. "Any other guesses?" Fortunately the rice cooker is going so it did look like it was going to be a full spread.

The combination of put out and disgusted that Futaba's features morphed into at the mere notion of holding and washing a vegetable would have killed a lesser man, but she took to the silent command once she had sufficiently rolled her sleeves up. At least she got a kiss out of this deal, not a half bad reward for surfacing. Moving to the sink, she fiddled around with the water while she thought hard on Haru's question, preferring that over the yawning abyss of... basically everything else. Things had been so normal, and completely fine, and now... this. It was a very good thing that Futaba was fantastic at math. Cooking math, however. Vegetables, meat, a pot... if not soup, then... "Ah-hah! I've got it." She spun around triumphantly, barely-washed eggplant in her hand as she brandished it in Haru's general direction. "Stew!"

At least the face she makes gets a genuine giggle out of Haru. Futaba could make as many faces as she wanted but it would likely never be enough to actually, genuinely, scare Haru off. Not looking like a Net Gremlin emerging from their Manga Cafe Cocoon. "You've gotten better at this!" Not that she was ever bad at it but. . . Having to keep her from guessing Curry every time in Hope's of getting More Curry was a hard habit to break. At least if they talked about food they could pretend things were normal for a bit instead of. . .seriously off the rails. Another giggle as the eggplant is pointed at her like the heroes sword to vanquish the demon lord. How cute. "I hope you'll like it. It's nothing like Boss'curry, but it lasts a while! And good for spreading out over several meals!" Which was honestly kind of the same thing but Haru was too tired to try and find the perfect words for this moment.

Regardless of how many times Haru cooked something that wasn't curry, it was always going to be Futaba's first guess, and everyone was just going to have to deal with that. Not that it was going to be an easy habit for anyone to break, given the frequency with which Akira prepared the dish (both on and off request). Haru's explanation was met with skepticism from Futaba as she lowered her ~~sword~~ partially washed eggplant. She'd heard tales of this 'stew' before... what it was capable of... and she was ~~very~~ a little excited to try it. How eggplant came into the recipe, she had no idea - she'd maxed cooking on every game she'd ever played, and Futaba had never used eggplant as an ingredient. Maybe... this was a trap to make it healthy. Maybe she could leave the eggplant in the sink and let Haru forget it. In fact, she did set the eggplant back into the sink... but this was done so under the pretense of retrieving more vegetables to be washed - better to do a bunch at once then waste her time walking back and forth. "Do you think it's going to be that bad?" Her tone was tentative when she spoke up again, the frown playing at her lips invisible to Haru while her back was to the current chef. "We'll still eat other things, right?"