OOM: Cooking at the Four Seasons

[cook_the_rude]

 The restaurant is locked down, but a little foray into a side alley and three minutes with a set of lockpicks get Hannibal and Noriko into the kitchen of the closed restaurant.

When he turns on the lights rows of gleaming professional cook stations made of stainless steel shimmer in the flickering neon. Hannibal opens the walk-in fridge, and takes a few minutes to view it all.

"Even the mushrooms are still good," he says. "What would you like to eat?"

Comments

[electro_kinetic]

At first it takes her several minutes to just think, which is proving harder than it should have been; she flickers the lights until she evens out, taking a deep breath and letting the fluorescent glow steady itself. Noriko lifts her chin at his question, and looks around at the kitchen, steadfastly not looking at Hannibal himself.

"I'll eat whatever you cook for me," she begins, "As long as that man you killed is not part of it. I won't eat people."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal takes off his jacket and tie, rolls up his sleeves over sinuous forearms, and finds an apron, which he puts on.

"Of course," he says mildly.

[electro_kinetic]

"Do you want me to do anything?" she asks, having stripped off her tights and standing beside him. She's not anywhere near as good as Hannibal is int he kitchen, but she's better than mot of the nineteen-year-olds she knows.

[cook_the_rude]

"Would you like to slice some vegetables?" Hannibal asks, starting to pick them from the fridge.

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah," she says, nodding. "I can do that." She picks up a knife, beginning to relax as she adjusts her grip on it while he's picking things out for her to slice. Her shoulders begin to drop as Nori tries to calm herself down: this is just Hannibal. He's not a danger to her, she's dealt with him a million times.

"How thin do you want them?"

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal looks at the lotus root in his hand. "How thin can you slice them?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Pretty thin," she says slowly, "Assuming you don't want them done super fast." She can slice thin and she can slice fast, but not both.

"What are we making?" Nori asks.

[cook_the_rude]

"Zucchini foam soup with champagne," Hannibal says, "then fillet mignon on a bed of lightly grilled vegetables -- this goes in it, and finally rhubarb sorbet with a drizzle of chocolate chili sauce."

[electro_kinetic]

"You came up with all that quick," she says dubiously, turning towards him. "Foam soup?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Yes," Hannibal says. "Very delicate."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko just blinks.

"Okay then."

She already knows she won't be eating enough of it to get tipsy on the champagne, she's pretty aware of that. "Isn't rhubarb supposed to be poisonous?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Only if prepared wrong, and eaten in huge quantities," Hannibal says. "Whatever gave you the idea?"

[electro_kinetic]

"I don't know, I've never had it, and it's something all the American kid say. Only the ones from the northeast really eat it." She shrugs.

[cook_the_rude]

"Well, then you are in for a treat," Hannibal says, starting a cooker and putting on a saucepan.

[electro_kinetic]

"It sounds more like I'm in for something the consistency of melted ice cream," Noriko says dubiously, pausing slicing before she looks back.

[cook_the_rude]

"If it goes well," Hannibal says, "it should be more like the consistency of soft snow."

[electro_kinetic]

"I miss soft snow. Everything crystallizes in New York, turns to ice or sleet. Or just muck."

[cook_the_rude]

"I'll try to make our dessert as soft as possible," Hannibal promises.

[electro_kinetic]

"And everything else you're going to cook?" she asks. "What about that?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Will have the consistency and texture that fits it best," Hannibal promises her.

[electro_kinetic]

"I don't know how to feel about this," Noriko says after a long, silent pause as she slices wafer-thin rounds of lotus root. "About helping you cook like this."

It's exciting, it's daring, she likes that aspect and she has no problem with breaking and entering, but...that muscle he's about to eat didn't come from a cow or a pig or anything else she's used to or has heard of eating, realistically. The fact that she isn't running away from it scares her.

[cook_the_rude]

"You are worried about what this will make you become?" Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

"Yes," she says. "I don't want to become something I can't control. Or let you push me into becoming, either way."

[cook_the_rude]

"By watching me cook?"

[electro_kinetic]

"By helping you cook," she corrects. "And eating with you." She's tempted to throw away the damning evidence of dead human muscle.

[cook_the_rude]

"Here you are, faced with the stark reality of who and what I am," Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin, letting out a breath slow and even. "In a nutshell."

Noriko isn't sure how she feels about being faced with that, but if there's one thing she's learned it's that when she only has one forward and one backward path, choose the forward one. "I don't know whether or not you'll be as amenable to the stark reality of who I am, should you have to see it."

[cook_the_rude]

"I am."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko lifts her chin, and walks closer to him, knife in hand and becoming a more comfortable weight as she uses it. "Show me how to do this," she says boldly.

Boldly, but in her voice there's a tiny tremor.

[cook_the_rude]

"You know how to chop an onion without your eyes watering?" Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

"They don't usually bother me. But I'd assume close your eyes," she says. "I understand why they make people's eyes water, though."

[cook_the_rude]

"You have to be fast, so the fumes don't manage to creep up," Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

"Speed I can manage," she says. "You've never seen me run at my top speed, have you? Teach me how to do this."

[cook_the_rude]

He shows her, careful at first, then speeding up.

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko takes a moment to adjust to speeding up, but as she goes she gets fast enough that the knifeblade is only a silvery blur in her hands, eyes never leaving the cutting board. Her slices are thin, and while not exactly uniform, the differences are only in milimeters.

Very quietly she speaks up, not lifting her head. "What does it taste like?" she asks.

[cook_the_rude]

"Human flesh?" Hannibal asks.

[electro_kinetic]

"Yes," she says, finally looking up but not at him. "What does it taste like? Why do you eat it?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Because I can," Hannibal says. "And it tastes like meat -- very good meat. Somewhere between veal and horse."

[electro_kinetic]

"What would you do if you couldn't?" she asks.

[cook_the_rude]

"Nothing. As I do in Milliways," Hannibal says. "It's a luxury that I can easily do without."

[electro_kinetic]

"And if I asked you to do without it tonight?" she asks.