#but it ended up being almost completely unrelated to the prompt which is fine bc i still like it

[lungblossom]

sort of a redraw but not intentionally

[occasionaltouhou]

i’m putting these two together bc they’re both komakasen and also the idea i had kind of ended up being a mix of both...? which of course means it’s almost completely unrelated to both prompts but that’s hardly anything new for me

anyway, here’s komachi making omurice:

Komachi had never seen Kasen look tired, but she looked tired right now.

She’d wandered in the usual way and seen the hermit laying on the roof of her house, gazing up at the sky blankly. She barely turned as the shinigami approached and sat down next to her.

“Kasen, you doing alright?” she asked. Kasen glanced at her with an empty expression, and Komachi frowned. “What’s gotten into you…?”

She murmured under her breath. Komachi leant in closer. “All the animals… are getting sick…”

“All of them?” repeated Komachi. “It’s something that serious?”

Kasen shook her head weakly. “Managed… to get them all healthy… medicine from Eientei… took three days…”

Komachi sighed in relief. “So you’re just worn out, huh? I bet you haven’t even had time to eat during all that time!” When Kasen shook her head, she continued, “I’ll take care of you, then! I’ll make you something delicious to lift your spirits!”

Kasen blinked at her. “You can cook?” she asked.

“I live by myself, of course I can cook!” protested Komachi. “I can cook omurice!”

“Omurice…?”

“Just omurice, yeah.”

Suddenly, Kasen had a foreboding vision of impending disaster.

---

Kasen managed to pull herself downstairs a while later to find Komachi digging through her cupboards.

“I’d been half-hoping that you would go and get your own food.”

“I did!” replied Komachi, and gestured to a pile on the counter. “But I need cutlery.”

Kasen’s eyes were drawn to the counter. There was a pack of eggs, a huge pile of rice, roughly thirty vegetables, and five different kinds of meat. She glanced back at Komachi. “…How much are you going to make?”

“I usually make about a week’s worth at a time,” remarked Komachi, emerged from Kasen’s cupboards with a collection of knives and spoons, “so I figured I’d do the same here!”

“Is that so…” Kasen glanced at all the food. “Would you like any help preparing it?”

“I’ve got this, don’t worry~!” said Komachi cheerfully. “You just relax! I’ll bring you something nice to drink in a bit, too~”

Kasen went into her living room and sat down, listening to the sounds of Komachi chopping the vegetables and meat, and later the sound of the sizzling rice. She idly wondered to herself why it was such a surprise that Komachi could cook -- even if the extent of that cooking was omurice -- and then came to the realisation that it was because she hadn’t realised Komachi needed to eat.

As a hermit, of course, Kasen only needed to eat reasonably intermittently; but that was unfortunately balanced out by her nature as an Oni, which meant that when she did eat, it tended to be in substantial portions. But Komachi was a shinigami, so it seemed strange to her that Komachi did actually need to eat.

She considered the ingredients that Komachi had gathered. A lot of different vegetables, but only one of each of the larger ones. Various different kinds of meat.

If Komachi didn’t need to eat, then maybe she was just doing this for her? She’d seen her buy food before, but only in a social setting; she seemed to eat more out of enjoyment than necessity. Which meant…

The sizzling changed to a much louder hissing sound, and Komachi began yelling. Kasen rushed in to see the shinigami using her abilities to split fire from the stove, and was in the process of dousing it when Kasen entered. She glanced back sheepishly.

“I messed up a little bit, but it’s fine now,” she said. She released her ability, and the pans -- multiple pans of rice -- collapsed back onto the stove, scattering semi-burned rice and vegetables as they did.

The kitchen was a mess; her stove was on fire; and Komachi seemed to have dumped every single ingredient that she’d gathered together with no care for the order. Indeed, she was now upending sauces into each pan without any consideration, switching bottles when she ran out without checking if it was the same sauce or not.

“You have made this before, right?”

“Once or twice, yeah!”

Ah.

“And you’re certain you don’t want my help?”

“I’m just getting started on the omelettes now, so I’m fine~” The shinigami grinned again. Her grin had always fascinated Kasen; it was a mix of foolishness and confidence. The grin of someone who enjoyed life, even if her job was technically to end it.

Maybe that’s why she was always slacking off.

Instead, Kasen looked around. “In that case, I’ll get the drinks ready.”

“No, I’m--”

“I insist. You’ve got your hands full as it is.”

The two of them began to move around each other. Kasen watched for a moment in fascination as Komachi used her ability on each egg, removing the shell and then leaving it completely intact as its contents dropped into one of the bowls below. Then, she moved around again, gradually pouring the rice out of the four pans into one huge bowl and then dropping the eggs straight into the pans.

As Kasen began to argue again, Komachi insisted, “It’s nice, it adds some crunch to the omelette.”

So Kasen left her to it. She poured from a large bottle of sake into her Ibaraki Box, and then poured some out into a cup, and took both out into the living room. Then, she drank what was in the Box in a single go.

She was refilling the Box for the third time when Komachi walked in with two substantial omurices on Kasen’s nicest plates. She stared at them in bemusement.

Komachi placed them down, said “Itakadakimasu~” and then immediately dug into hers. After a moment, Kasen cut off the end of her own with her fork. What appeared to be barbeque sauce oozed out, and she noticed she’d cut a piece of fish in half. Her eyes gazed at the piece at the end of her fork, and then back to Komachi, who was watching her expectantly.

Kasen steeled herself, and bit down.

Against all expectations, it was incredible. The overwhelming array of tastes and textures one would expect to conflict instead contrasted, giving each bite its own distinctive, yet delicious, flavour; all held together by the slightly crunchy egg, which had its own flavouring to hold the meal together. The shinigami grinned at her, so Kasen realised she must have shown her reaction on her face.

She swallowed. “It’s… nice…” she said quietly.

“I told you I could cook!” said Komachi proudly.

Kasen continued to steadily eat what she had, occasionally taking a sip from the Ibaraki Box. Against all odds, the shinigami had put together an actual meal.

“It’s actually really delicious,” continued Kasen. “How come this is all you can make, though?”

“It’s the only thing I’ve tried,” replied Komachi. “I don’t really eat, so I only try when there’s people around, and uh… no-one ever really visits…” She went quiet for a moment. “But I thought I’d try cooking once, and this seemed easy, so I gave it a shot, and it went great!”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t use a recipe?”

Komachi was silent for a moment. “I probably could have done that, huh…” she mused.

Kasen smiled at her. “You’re hopeless,” she said. “But I’m glad. I don’t think I’d like the food as much if you weren’t.”

“Just the food?”

Komachi was grinning back at her, and Kasen laughed, and took another sip from the Ibaraki Box.

“Well,” she admitted, “maybe not just the food…”