2513/Help in the Kitchen

Help in the Kitchen
Date of Scene:	06 May 2025
Location:	Crystal Tokyo
Synopsis:	Masato searches out Makoto in the one place he's certain to find her, even a thousand years into the future: the kitchen. A helping hand is given, some mutual support is found, and absolutely no thumbs end up in the soup.
Cast of Characters:	Makoto Kino, Nephrite
Tinyplot:	BMC: Dimension Future

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Makoto Kino has posed:
In the end, amid all the other questions and exchanges of information that occurred upon their arrival at the Crystal Palace, Sailor Jupiter had only had one thing to ask of King Endymion and his tiny feline helper:

"Could I use the kitchen?"

She disappeared after that. For anyone who might be of a mind to go looking for her, it's a pretty sure bet where she'll be.

The palace kitchen is as spacious and well-equipped as anyone could wish out of the kitchen of a futuristic fairytale utopia. At the moment, though, it's also a battleground of its own. A stockpot steams on a glossy range. A generous armload of chrysanthemums has been piled next to the wide sink. More ingredients and utensils have been lined up across the countertops like a regiment awaiting orders. A tangy, gingery aroma with an undertone of something like lemon fills the air.

And Makoto, out of henshin again, stands over a board in the middle of all of this, working at a lump of dough like it's done something to offend her.

Nephrite has posed:
Masato loves the taste and scent of citrus, the note of it in gingery tones warming. Comforting for reasons he cannot quite remember, and welcome change to the sterile smell of disinfectant in the infirmary. He knew that she would be here, he'd even said as much to the others-- fully intent on presenting himself to check in on her.

When he walks in, he too is in his casual attire again, if a silk shirt and neat trousers can be called that, sleeves rolled up past elbows and a watch on his right hand. He's remerkably put together, at least physically, in the wake of all this. He stands out amongst it, as if defying the timestream he is in with every fibre of his being. But there's a tiny smudging of red at the side of his cheek, as if he has missed a spot while cleaning his face.

Slowly, he approaches her, hands pocketed and watching her kneed. "If that dough had any information to give up, you'd have gotten it by now."

It's probably a poor joke, but he says it anyway.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto's head jolts upward, her hands momentarily stilling. The hitch passes just as quickly, but the taut set of her mouth relaxes a little into something more lopsided as she picks back up the rhythm. "It's too bad the Black Moon Clan isn't confiding any of their secrets into the palaca pantry," she answers. "Though if they were, I guess we'd be having worse problems."

She stops, rocks back a little to regard her work. Then she lifts an arm to scrub the back of her wrist across her cheek and sighs. "This is all that I can do right now. At least until the enemy shows up again, or we figure out how to take the fight to them. It's not a lot, but people still have to eat."

And mahoujin can, on average, eat quite a lot.

Nephrite has posed:
"True. There's more people filing in now. Jadeite's with a group of survivors out there that should be arriving soon... the Infirmary's already packed."

Sapphire eyes scan the many tasks she's working on simultaineously, before they fall to her hands again. He still sees the smouldering glove in his mind's eye, but banishes that for now, lifting his gaze to her features.

"Is there anything I can do?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
At the moment, Mako's hands are coated in oil and sticky little bits of pale dough and smears of flour. If there's a red patch across the knuckles of one hand, it doesn't seem to be bothering her. She pushes at the dough-lump a bit, stretching and shaping it.

"You should tie your hair back if you're going to help out," she says, glancing almost absently around her for what needs to be done next. "Please. The daikon over there," a tip of her head, "needs to be peeled and sliced, if you think you can do it without cutting yourself. Thumb-length sticks, about this thick would be good." She measures maybe a quarter-inch in the air between thumb and forefinger, before picking up a bottle nearby to drizzle the dough she's working on with more oil. "Otherwise..."

She trails off for a space there, distracted. The dough is covered with a cloth and left to do whatever it's meant to. "Everything in here is exactly where I look for it. It's honestly kind of weird."

Nephrite has posed:
His brows rose-- tie his hair back? Well, yes, perhaps that made sense, but...

She didn't hesitate to give him his orders. Wholly focused.

"Right. Like my kitchen, then?" Masato mused, moving to find the roll of twine in the drew he would have expected it to be, and stealing a small length of it to tie his hair back. A low tail, fixed by a simple knot. "I'm sure I can manage a few radishes. It's not as if I haven't cut myself polishing a sword a hundred times... you get used to it. A little blood for extra flavour."

He was already taking to the task, taking up a knife and one of the daikon near the cutting board. A little slowly, but thankfully without any great risk to his thumbs, he started to peel.

"You've been in here a long while."

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Please don't bleed on the radish." It's a very mild reproach, so understated it's almost humorous. "That extra flavor won't go with the broth at all."

It's definitely a far cry from how flustered she's been around him at other times, like back at the cat cafe. Here and now, it seems, Makoto is in her element.

Or maybe just extremely focused. She stops at the range to stir whatever's in the stockpot; as she heads from there to the sink, her brows lift, and she looks over at Masato with vague surprise. "Have I? I guess so..." She frowns a little in thought while she washes her hands. "Prep work and stuff takes a while. Did anybody find out anything important after I left?"

Nephrite has posed:
Whether she intends to or not, he smirks to himself at the gentle dissuading. He enjoys the ease with which she simply brushes by it, as if she has begun to recognise that Masato is simply a slightly naughty man, and not to pay it too much mind.

Perhaps that's just the extent of her awareness in a kitchen, that she has become a tiny goddess and he is simply within her domain. Being a benign nuisance, or welcome distraction, but not enough that she falters from her work. Even time doesn't dare disturb her, and yet, here he is.

"We reviewed quite a bit about the public records, about what happened... when contact was lost with a ship of dissidents that ultimately ended up on the planet Nemesis. As far as I'm concerned, it sounds as if the evil bastard banished there decided to start a cult." He clicked his tongue with some distaste, and admitted more quietly, "It's... very familiar. There were people on board that very much resemble Kunzite, so that didn't help matters with Zoisite's head."

Stips of daikon skin came away evenly, collecting upon cutting board. "And I met somebody down in the infirmary that, if it isn't Zoisite's reborn future-counterpart, I'll eat my belt."

Makoto Kino has posed:
The running water shuts off again; Makoto pats her hands dry on a convenient dishtowel. "An evil cult from another planet... Sounds like a Tuesday." She pulls an aggrieved face as she says it. Without any hint of a pause to change gears, she starts in on the pile of chrysanthemums. Leaves are stripped from the stems in brisk, efficient movements, like she's done this kind of thing so much she doesn't have to think about it at all.

It leaves her free to shoot a brow-lifted look his way, surprise and interest. "Here in the Palace? Does the King already know?" She chews on her lower lip for a moment. "Do you think... that probably means all four of you have been reborn here, doesn't it? The other yous."

Nephrite has posed:
A small shake of his head to answer that, sapphires flashed her way, before he verbalises it. "The King has no idea. He told us our stones had been silent for almost eight hundred years."

He started on the next radish now, almost contemplative. "Isamu Hanakawa... that was his name. He didn't recognise us at all. Mamoru said as much, when he met the man he thinks might be my counterpart, as well. Like I thought, they have no idea who they are, or any access to our power."

His brows furrowed. "They're lucky to be alive. But it also leaves open the possibility that... if the people we saw in the photograph's were related to Kunzite in anyway, he could've been a child that ended up on Nemesis to who knows what end. Jadeite's unaccounted for as well."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto falls quiet for a short while, digesting all of this while her hands stay busy. Rip-rip-rip-rip, dismantling the chrysanthemums into piles of leaves, stems, and decapitated flower heads.

"So there's no way to know for sure," she says at last, "until one of them turns up. At least with the way into the Palace open and survivors heading here, it's that much more likely that they might come here."

She doesn't particularly want to think about the other possibility he's brought up - that Kunzite might have ended up on Nemesis, among the enemy. But she can't discount it, either.

"That can't be easy on Izou-kun," she says, a little more quietly. "Or on Mamoru-san."

Nephrite has posed:
"No," Masato acknowledges, softer and with a gravity and worry to the few words, "It isn't."

For a a few more moment, he pulls the strips off the radishes, until they're ready to cut. Just as instructed, he begins, taking care to get the measurements she askes for.

"None of this is easy on any of us." He concedes, chopping carefully. "What about you? There's another you somewhere in this palace, too, giving everything she has to keep it safe. Do you think you'll talk to her?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
She hesitates over her answer, looking down at her hands without really seeing what they're doing. "I don't know," Makoto admits reluctantly. "It's hard to even imagine. What do I say to another me?"

With a shake of her head, she gathers the pile of chrysanthemum leaves into a colander that stands waiting in the sink. "There's a garden inside the palace," she says, an abrupt swerve of topic. "I wish I could've seen it before all this happened, but it's still incredible. If you'd asked me back in Tokyo to dream up my perfect garden, I wouldn't have come up with anything as good."

Makoto stills, still looking down into the sink and the colander. "I'm scared to find out that after a thousand years, I'm still stuck where I am now, without accomplishing anything I wanted to. But I'm also scared to find out if I did." She looks askance toward him, ducking her head a little. "Is that weird?"

Nephrite has posed:
He doesn't have her focus for cooking. When she starts to confide this in him, Masato's cutting slows to a small pause as his attention is pulled away from the task.

He hasn't seen the garden, himself, but that hardly matters when he can remember the beauty Hawkmoth brought forth from her dreams-- half as much as anything the future's garden probably holds, by her reckoning. He can't even picture such a thing. He doesn't even want to, he realises immediately after. He's much more interested in whatever garden the Makoto before him would build, now.

The rest, he understands.

"No," he shakes his head minutely, "It's hard not to compare or worry about our own potential, and whether we're living up to it. If there's a better version of us somewhere who gets it all right... or a worse one, who shows us how badly things can go, in some cases."

His mouth ticks, but he watches her still. "But... those are your dreams. You're not going to be that woman or have her life, even if she did do some of the things she wanted to do. Or none of them."

After a moment he added, "I want to believe that you'll be happy."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto winces very slightly as she realizes how, unintentionally, she probably hit a little bit too close to home just now. Still, the smile she offers him across the kitchen is warm and inexpressibly grateful.

"That... really means a lot," she says.

Leaving the greens and the stems and the flowers in their heaps, their ultimate fates to be determined, she steps back from the sink and starts across the spacious kitchen. Headed towards the range again, to all appearances... but as her path takes her behind Masato, stationed at the cutting board, she pauses. Very carefully - mindful of the knife in his hand, mindful of the smudges on her apron and his nice expensive clothes - Makoto takes a moment to just. Lean on him a little.

"Thank you," she says.

Nephrite has posed:
They must've looked terrifically opposed, in the states of them. Silk dress shirt and italian leather versus the wonderful mess of her cookery. He drives fast cars, and wears fashionable brands, and has always ordered his food from restaurants, and played tennis on hard fields of green. His eyes look to the stars instead of the roots, and people see his good looks first-- and sometimes, only-- and assume he's a very shallow man. On the surface, they couldn't be more different. Underneath that, however... there is much that he thinks is the same.

But that's not the sole reason that his smile forms. The gentle weight of her steadies him, too. He would have held her, given half the chance, regardless of his expensive clothing.

"You're welcome, Mako-chan." He says it softly, turning his head to glimpse her from the corner of his eye. "And you know... I wouldn't mind hearing about them." All those things she wants to do.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Sometime," says Makoto, with a little laugh that sounds more like a promise. "For right now, I'll be happy with getting everybody through this whole mess in one piece, and leaving this place on the road to getting back how it's supposed to be. Once we pull that off--" and it's not 'if,' it's once we do it "--that'll be a good time to think about the things I want in our own future."

She is fully hiding behind Masato so that he can't see the way she's blushing. Funny, how much steadier she feels all of a sudden.

Still careful of his knife-wielding hand, she gives him a companionable little nudge. "And you still have half a daikon to cut," she points out, gently teasing. "This soup isn't going to make itself, you know?"

Nephrite has posed:
"Yes, yes... I'm getting through it," His chopping, slow and steady though it is, makes it incredibly obvious that he doesn't do this often. "This is about the best I can do if you want no thumbs, and only radish."

A smirk stays. "But perhaps that might change, if I get enough practice at cooking with you."

Makoto Kino has posed:
That's a genuine laugh from Makoto, before she moves away to go check on the stockpot. "Absolutely no thumbs, yes please. I wouldn't want to have to explain to Mamoru-san why he's having to reattach them for you. Speed is something you'll just have to develop over time."

She grins at him as she stirs, looking quite pleased. If she's still pink-cheeked, she can blame it on the steam coming up from the broth, right?

Yeah, probably not.