Shindou Hikaru Intro (OTA)

[lets_go_five]

 Open/locked?: Open
Who: Hikaru and anybody who wants to put up with him
What: Arrival (Auradon)
Warnings: Uh, nothing I can think of offhand, but I'll edit this if I need to?

Hikaru woke up in the snow.

Which was the first red flag, really. It wasn't like it didn't snow in Tokyo, it did, but usually not enough to do anything useful with. So this was... weird.

There were also a lot of meticulously trimmed hedges and things, which wasn't really a thing in Tokyo either. The middle of the city wasn't exactly the greenest of places, not like this, unless you were in a park or playground, but this didn't look like anyplace he'd ever seen. Red flag number two.

Three, and probably the most obvious, was the giant building in front of him. Was that a castle? Like, knights and dragons and stuff kind of castle? He'd only ever seen something like that in fairy tale stories (and Tokyo Disney, once when he was little), and even then, he hadn't seen a lot of it. Royal buildings in Japan were of a much different style, after all.

And four, was the fact that he was absolutely positive he'd been inside last he knew. He'd probably fallen asleep going over a game- it wouldn't be the first time.

Hikaru pinched himself in the arm as hard as he could. This had to be a dream. Never mind that he was freezing cold, it still had to be some figment of his imagination.

"Ouch!" he cried out at the sharp pain on his arm, and then looked back up. Nope, weird castle was still there.

"What the atari-" he murmured, then blinked. That wasn't what he'd said. "Joseki. Gote. Hane." No, no, and no. What was happening? How was he being censored in real time? And Go terms?

There was no way this was real. It couldn't possibly, this was all too weird, even for Hikaru, who had literally been haunted by a Go obsessed ghost. He had to be dreaming still, somehow. Or he'd hit his head on the goban when he crashed and now he was hallucinating? That was a sobering thought. Still, hallucination or not, he was getting cold just sitting here in the snow.

Time to figure out how to get warm, somehow, probably inside. He got up, dusted himself off- oh hey, he had his backpack, weird but cool, he wasn't going to complain- and started moving toward the castle. Maybe by the time he got there, he'd be awake and he wouldn't even have to worry about it.

Comments

[queen_butterfly]

Ogata she very definitely was not, thankfully. She continued to walk with him, guiding them back down the path from whence she'd come, the snow-pillar things on one side of them, the path clear underfoot. Clear for the moment, at least... it was winter yet; they were sure to get more snow.

But his query... she had to smile. "Ramen? ...I don't think I've heard of it yet, but I'd like to. What might it be?"

Honestly, she was very much hoping that he'd be able to describe it well enough that there wouldn't need to be much trial and error on her end. If she could add another dish to her menus...! She was already looking forward to it; no one lately had been that interested in experimenting with her, trying out new ideas. Sure, there were other more pressing matters, but surely someone would have had a request by now....?

[lets_go_five]

That was most definitely a good thing- Hikaru definitely did NOT need two Ogatas around, that was for sure.

Hikaru's mouth dropped open. "You don't know ramen?!" he asked, shocked. He'd thought everybody did- even foreigners knew about ramen, even if it was just the instant stuff! "You know. Skinny noodles in a soup broth. There's lots of different kinds and you can kinda do what you want, but there's usually meat and veggies and hard boiled egg on top."

He definitely wouldn't mind helping her with any trial and error, though. Food was food. And even subpar ramen would still be at least decent, right? That being said, he had no concept of what actually went into making ramen, or that the broth itself was very much a labor of love. He was certainly no chef.

"What about sushi?" Oh man, he was in trouble if there weren't any familiar foods. Hikaru suddenly very much wanted to wake up from this dream.

[queen_butterfly]

Honestly, even one Ogata was probably more than was necessary.

"I haven't heard of that yet either... but there are a great many things I'm still learning about, even where I'm from. I was absent from everything for a good while, you see... but finding out about new things is rather fun, isn't it? Chocolate, popcorn, pineapple, peanut butter, tea, strawberries, plomeek.... Oh! I even invented a few!"

She gestured, turning her other hand over and bringing it up into his view, now holding a tray that she couldn't possibly have been carrying with her. It must have been conjured, just like the warm cloak she'd settled around him; it was laden with bowls of fresh fruits of all sorts, some more familiar than others... small slices of cheese, different kinds of bread... and a bowl of steaming soup of some sort sitting invitingly, front and center. A clear brown broth, chunks of what had to be vegetables of some sort floating in it, amid a mess of thin noodles... it didn't look exactly right, but she'd managed a halved boiled egg on top and everything, a spoon and fork tucked under the bowl, just waiting for him to pick what he wanted to use, because it wasn't as if she knew for certain.

"We should probably wait until we're inside, but... does it look right, at least?"

It at least didn't smell too terribly far off. Nothing about it said meat was obviously involved in any capacity, however.

[lets_go_five]

Hikaru gaped at her. Obviously he already knew she was magic, but she literally just pulled food out of thin air! Food he'd just now described to her.

"Holy..." he trailed off, distracted by her words and looking at everything. The noodles were definitely wrong, but 'thin noodle' hadn't been terribly descriptive, to be fair. Though he felt a little bit bad about telling her after she'd been so nice.

Then again, she'd asked.

"The noodles are wrong. They're more crinkly? I don't know how to explain it, they're specifically used for ramen," he said, an apologetic note to his voice. "It doesn't look bad! I'd have to try it to see, but-"

He looked closer at the tray.

"No chopsticks?" he asked. It wasn't a criticism, he just hadn't thought to mention it. "My fault, I guess. The fork's fine, I'm just used to chopsticks."

If Hikaru really stopped to think about it for a minute, he might've realized that some of this was very odd for a dream- it was his brain, after all. His brain should've been able to have this person conjure ramen no problem, and should have provided chopsticks without him having to point it out. The fact that Mallia seemed to operate within her own set of rules and not Hikaru's should've been a warning.

Unfortunately, Hikaru had never been especially observant outside of Go and his rival, Touya Akira. It would probably occur to him much later, but not right then.

[queen_butterfly]

After his comment about the noodles, while he was looking over the tray, the noodles shifted, scrunched themselves up... it was still a bit off, but it was closer, at least?

"And... what are chopsticks?"

The broth was heavy with sweet onion and mushrooms, a bit of garlic and salt, and a few other things... it was a very tasty savory vegetable broth, at any rate, and it smelled good... but it was different from what he might be used to. Vegetarian ramen, if with an egg, get?

[lets_go_five]

"Chopsticks! You know, long sticks you use to eat food with," Hikaru said, indicating with his hands about how long they were. "They get skinnier as they go down so you can grab stuff with them." He mimicked the grabbing motion with his hand.

He did take the fork, though, and tried the noodles, since it seemed like she wanted him to. "It's different, but it's good," he said as he chewed on noodle. Well, no one had ever said he was the most polite kid, that was for sure. He had a tendency to continue talking when he was eating. He definitely didn't mind this.

Still, he kind of wished he knew how to cook so he could explain it to her properly. He definitely didn't have the knowledge base to do that in a meaningful way, not without a lot of trial and error, and even then.

"Thanks!"

[queen_butterfly]

She watched as he gestured; it was easy enough to keep walking as they went, especially with the path so freshly cleared. But the chopsticks... they weren't quite like having sharpened a stick to roast something over a fire with, but more like large fork tines, she gathered. And plural, well, probably also not connected like fork tines were... and one could absolutely make "sticks" out of metal, but wood was ready-made, wasn't it?

She nodded a little as he tried it and commented, her bit of a smile only growing; there was no reason to be offended by a child's enthusiasm and obvious enjoyment of a thing while they expressed as much. Good manners varied so wildly by time and the people in question; who cared, really, so long as offense wasn't intentional?

"You're very welcome. And the sticks you want... would these be close?"

She held up her other hand... about as long as he'd indicated, and stiff wood, dry instead of green, polished to soft, even slickness, thin and plain. It didn't seem as though someone would want to eat with soft young switches somehow, and she couldn't picture how offhand, so this at least made sense enough as a starting point, especially given that he was using a fork as an alternative.