Disclaimer: Detective Conan is not mine. This fanfic is a translation.
Enjoy Reading!
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1:40 PM.
It's well past lunchtime, yet neither of the two in the car had eaten.
Especially Ritsu. He'd been running around nonstop since morning, not even managing breakfast, and now he was completely starving. To make matters worse, he'd somehow ended up replacing Vodka as the driver.
Kawasaki City, Asao Ward, 5-chome, 15-ban. Looking at the fairly ordinary mid-rise apartment building in front of them, the living conditions seemed decent, at least from the outside, it looked more upscale than Vodka's small apartment.
On the way back, they had also stopped by a supermarket to buy ingredients. Carrying bags upon bags upstairs, they opened the door to find the apartment fairly well-equipped. Basic furniture was all there, so there was no need to visit a home goods store.
Stuffing everything they bought into the fridge, Ritsu sat on the couch sipping Calpis, glancing at Akai, currently holding a canned coffee and asked, "Do you have any specialty dishes?"
Akai paused slightly as he pulled the tab open. After blinking twice, he said slowly, "Macallan… I think you might have a misunderstanding about me."
And it was indeed a big misunderstanding.
A 27-year-old international student returning from the U.S. At that age, surely he'd know how to cook, right? Just like a certain Vodka, who was quite skilled in the kitchen. Ritsu had subconsciously assumed Akai would be good at cooking too.
"So you can't cook?"
"You can?"
"…"
The atmosphere froze instantly. Thinking about the fridge now stuffed to the brim with ingredients, why had they bought so much at the supermarket? Clearly, both had assumed the other could cook.
Awkward, painfully awkward. Starving as he was, Ritsu suddenly found himself missing Hiro and his cooking.
"How about we give it a try?" Akai suggested.
"…Alright." Ritsu replied, still clinging to some hope in his culinary skills.
So the two took off their coats, rolled up their sleeves, and, after digging out aprons, ended up with both heads crammed in front of the fridge, studying the ingredients inside.
They recognized all the ingredients but for some reason, they just couldn't decide what to make.
Ritsu glanced at Akai and asked, "Any dish you like?"
"I'm not picky. I'll eat anything."
"Then wait a second."
He skillfully opened Yahoo, his long fingers rapidly tapping the screen as he typed in his question.
#What are some simple Japanese home-cooked dishes?#
The answer is omurice. It looked simple enough, and they had all the ingredients in the fridge. Decision made.
"How about omurice? It seems pretty easy, and it's filling."
"Works for me."
They pulled a tablet out of the suitcase and propped it beside the microwave in the kitchen. On the screen was a recipe, not just any omurice, but a more advanced version with a runny egg.
Fully aware of his own cooking limitations, Akai volunteered to be the assistant chef, cutting ingredients was something he could at least handle.
Meanwhile, Ritsu, still holding onto illusions about his cooking ability, confidently read the recipe and gave instructions.
"300 grams of chicken thigh, 6 eggs, 1 onion, 4 bowls of rice… hmm, I'll just heat up some packaged rice in the microwave."
Microwavable rice really was a blessing for kitchen novices. Thinking one portion wouldn't be enough, Ritsu heated up six packs in one go. Once that was done, all that remained was to wait for Akai to prep the ingredients.
Akai finished cutting the chicken and other ingredients. Only the onion remained. After a brief hesitation, he went for it and within a few cuts, his eyes began to sting, tears uncontrollably streaming down.
Seeing this, Ritsu turned away and stifled a laugh. Who would've thought this guy could make such a face? Pretty amusing.
"Ahem, everything's cut."
"OK, leave the rest to me."
Following the recipe, Ritsu poured an appropriate amount of salad oil into a frying pan and heated it over medium heat. He clumsily but earnestly stir-fried the unevenly chopped onions, then added the diced chicken after about 30 seconds, continuing to cook… until it was "just done."
"Just done? What kind of technical term was that? Hey, Moroboshi, do you know what 'just done' means?"
"Literally? Probably means cooked through."
"Oh, got it."
Though he was hopeless in the kitchen, Akai had at least watched others cook before. Watching Macallan's awkward movements, he frowned, feeling this meal might not end well or worse, might cause problems if eaten.
Ritsu continued following the recipe like a male wizard brewing poison. After adding a generous amount of ketchup and rice, the contents of the pan visibly thickened into something… strange.
Perhaps the onion pieces were cut too large, some were already browned, others still hard chunks. Combined with the overly sticky rice and thick ketchup, the sight was… something. Akai didn't even want to look. The bright red, sticky mass resembled children's playdough.
Looking at the finished product plated out, no, calling it "fried rice" would be inaccurate; "sticky rice" was more appropriate, Akai couldn't help but marvel. Who knew plain rice could be transformed to mimic the texture of glutinous rice? Truly impressive… in a way.
"Why don't we just fry eggs? Skip the complicated part."
"Huh? I think I can recreate what's in the recipe. Don't worry."
Where exactly did that confidence come from?
Akai was full of question marks. Did he really think that fried rice turned out well?
Ritsu, however, was quite pleased. After all, he had previously destroyed the kitchen twice. Once turning white rice porridge into black sludge, and another time triggering the smoke alarm while grilling meat. Compared to those disasters, this looked edible, colorful, and not burnt black. So naturally, he felt his cooking had improved significantly.
Cracking all the eggs into a bowl, he added a bit of milk and pepper, then mixed them evenly.
He placed a chunk of butter into the pan, waited for it to melt, then poured in the egg mixture, shaking the pan while stirring with chopsticks.
Akai felt that if you ignored the contents of the pan and only looked at Ritsu's calm, composed face, you might mistake him for a master chef. But one glance at the pan, with eggs breaking apart and yellow liquid sloshing out...
…Yeah. Better prepare to eat convenience store bento.
"Why does it look kind of weird?"
Akai couldn't help but cover his face. 'You're only noticing now?'
At this point, he really wanted a cigarette to calm down.
Looking at the "runny omelet rice" that had fully turned into scrambled eggs, Ritsu looked at him in confusion. "Can it still be saved?"
"No. Absolutely not."
After spending an entire hour in the kitchen, the two ultimately ended up squatting in a convenience store, eating discounted leftover bento boxes.
On his very first day officially joining the organization, Shuichi Akai found himself missing the meals at the FBI.