Jeweled Fruits and Refreshing Soup

Jumping up from the chair, I made an obvious run to the machine.

"The jeweled fruit mixture is ready! So I just add the fruits into it?"

Grabbing the bowl of fruits from nearby, I looked at Joyce for confirmation.

"Yep! Personally, I would prefer to evenly distribute the fruit. However, it's up to you how you would like to put them!"

Deciding not to pursue why I ran away from our conversation, Joyce had pulled up her personal terminal to look over her notes once more.

And Sazzy, as usual with her perfect timing, decided to appear in Joyce's living room at this time.

[I'm back! Did I make it in time for the food!]

Looking around frantically, Sazzy spotted the fruit bowl in my hands.

"I'm just adding the fruits into the jeweled jelly. We haven't finished any of the dishes yet so you're actually quite early."

Taking a handful of fruits, I tried my best to evenly spread the fruits across the whole bowl. Then, I closed the door and looked at the buttons.

How do I operate this machine?

Noticing my hesitation, Joyce's voice came from behind me.

"There's a button there which has a blue symbol on it. That's the cool button. Right under that, there are several arrows that can help control the temperature and timing. Right next to the time symbol, press those arrows and set the time for half an hour. By that time, both our dishes should be done!"

Following Joyce's instructions, I pressed the buttons and then pressed the green 'ok' button near the bottom left.

"Now we just wait!"

Hearing the beep from the 'ok' button, Joyce said absentmindedly as she continued typing away at her personal terminal.

[What is the other dish?]

Sazzy hopped around in excitement and whipped her head around to spot the other dish. Then, seeing the pot on the stove, she skipped over to peer inside.

"The other dish is a refreshing soup. The wait is around a little more than half an hour from now, so both dishes should be done at around the same time."

Replying to Sazzy via my personal terminal, I walked over and sat back right beside Joyce.

"By the way, are you done with your personal business?"

Sazzy sat beside us on an empty chair.

[Yep! A friend from another department wanted some help with things. And once I was done with that, I also went to check up on the police arrest progress. It seems almost done, so a few more days and we should be able to head back to our house.]

Swinging her legs back and forth, Sazzy seemed incredibly happy as she answered my curious questions.

"Speaking of which, Ava has been gone for quite some time already? Do you know when she will be back?"

Checking the time as I conversed with Sazzy, I started to count down the time until our food was ready.

[Ava has business in another world that has a slower time then this one, so even though quite a while has passed for us, for her, it would have probably been a couple minutes. So the time she will return will probably vary quite a lot.]

When I heard her answer, I felt slightly conflicted. Ava and I weren't really on good terms with each other, although I wouldn't say we were on bad terms either. But since she and Oliver were going to be quite close to each other, I at least wanted to try to patch things up a little.

"Are you texting your friend?"

In the middle of my thinking, I heard Joyce ask me.

Turning my head, I saw her looking away, trying her best not to let her curious eyes wander and look at the messages on my personal terminal. Although the slight twitching of her eyes to my screen betrayed her.

"Yes. I'm busy texting Sazzy right now. Since she said that she was done with her personal business."

Minimizing the chat window, Joyce stopped averting her gaze and turned her set of pleading eyes at me.

"If it's not too much, could I ask you to give me her contacts? I want to hear more personal experiences on how Jolt operates, and since you said that your friend is mostly in charge, it would be a real help if I could ask her some questions! Only if the both of you don't mind though!"

Seeing her sincerity, I told her that I would ask Sazzy.

"So you heard her? Do you want to give her your contacts?"

Beside us, Sazzy stared at Joyce while folding her arms.

[I mean, I'm not opposed to it. And having more ethnic groups streaming will increase the general knowledge about the different foods and cultures each ethnic group has. Alright! You can give her my contact! And if she knows others who want to stream, she can send my contacts to them as well!]

Listening to Sazzy as she spoke, I copied Sazzy's ID number and sent it to Joyce via our personal terminals.

"She said ok! My friend actually wants to increase the variety of streamers. You can say it's a personal mission of hers to want to spread the culture and food of various ethnic groups. So she says that if you know anyone else that wants to stream, you can give them her contacts as well."

Joyce nodded her head as she received the number.

"Your friend sure is quite big hearted! If that's the case, I'll discuss with several bloggers who used to want to stream. If they still want to, I'll send them her ID!"

Settling all this, I saw Sazzy give a very proud look from the corner of my eye.

[She said I was big-hearted! Joyce is such a good person!]

I tried my best not to react to her. After all, to Joyce, there was only me and her in the kitchen right now.

Sitting around talking for a while, we suddenly heard the thumps of several feet coming close to the kitchen. Then, the two children appeared in the doorway with hands covered in paint.

"Mom! We're done!"

Lily shouted as loud as she possibly could while heading to the sink.

"That's fast! The food hasn't even been completed yet!"

Lily smiled at Joyce's words and angled her chin slightly upwards.

"That's because we are really good at painting! With Oliver's help, we managed to paint everything really quickly. We even added some extra details!"

Explaining what the two of them did, they washed the paint from their hands before sticking to our sides.

While Lily was exclaiming to Joyce, Oliver grabbed my hand with his wet ones and buried his face into my side.

"Did you have fun?"

Moving one hand to comb through his hair, I felt him nod and hum.

"That's good."

Together, the four of us sat around the table and talked in detail about what handicrafts Lily and Oliver painted while we were cooking.

Then, when the noise for the food being done sounded, I stood up to plate it while the others sat down and listened to Lily.

The first to be done was the jeweled fruit. The jelly mixture had formed nicely over the fruits, making a whole block of jelly that resembled jewels being locked behind display cases.

Cutting the block into smaller pieces for the children to eat, I plated them and brought them to the table.

Immediately after that, I checked on the refreshing soup. In the beginning, the soup was a sort of clear yellow color. Now, it was obviously filled with more things and its color had turned a rich orange color.

Taking several bowls and scooping the soup into them, I then took the bowls over to the kitchen table.

When I arrived, I saw Lily taking a bite of the jeweled fruit and closing her eyes in bliss.

"As expected of mom's food! It's delicious!"

Looking over to Oliver, he was doing the exact same thing.

"If you think that was delicious, you should try today's soup."

Turning around at just the right time, Joyce saw me carrying the soup over and reached out a hand to help.

I sat down at my seat and passed one of the bowls to Oliver.

"This soup is not only delicious but nutritious for you. You better drink it all up!"

Joyce 'warned' as she took the initiative to taste the soup.

Copying her, I took a large sip. The soup did not only appear rich, it tasted rich. There were so many different flavors that I found it hard to focus on one. However, all these flavors added to each other instead of fighting with each other, creating an unbelievably complicated harmony in my mouth.

"It's tasty, right?"

I heard Joyce say to Lily. And looking at Oliver from the corner of my eye, I saw he too was enjoying the drink. But no matter how delicious the soup was, Oliver still reached out his hand for the jeweled fruit.

Seeing his love for it, the jeweled fruit was most probably really sweet. After all, Oliver was a major sweet tooth.

Stretching my hand out, I took one block of the jeweled fruit and took a bite from it. And sure enough, as I suspected, it was incredibly sweet.

It tasted like concentrated fruit juice. Very concentrated fruit juice. As if someone extracted all the sweetness in fruits into a jelly. The fruits in the jelly added occasional variation in the texture and taste that helped enhance the entire dish.

Finishing up the two dishes in record speed, Joyce and I washed up while the children went upstairs to bring their handicrafts down.

"For the next couple of days, if you don't mind, could you come over and spend the day with us? We have quite a lot of handicrafts to finish, and I hate to admit it, but I'm color blind so it's a little difficult for me to help Lily in decorating."

I thought back to the smile I saw on Oliver's face, and agreed. It's not like we had anything else to do.

"Thank you! The day when the cars are ready for us to head to the AT center is approaching quite fast so we need to hurry up. I would also recommend that you come along with us if you think that the police investigation is going to wrap up soon. The road to the AT center from here is a little tricky to be traveling via auto pilot. Otherwise, the next time you can leave should be in a week's time."

[If that's the case, we should probably travel with them. The police arrest should finish in less than a week. Worst case, we can travel to a neighboring planet and stay. I think Ken and Candice wouldn't mind us popping in for a couple days. Not that I think the police arrests will take that long.]

Hearing Sazzy's reasoning, I nodded my head and agreed to follow Joyce and Lily to the AT center.

"That's great! The leaving date should be in around 4 days. I'll text you the time and meeting place later. I can also remind you the day before since we will be hanging out together!"

Making a rough plan for the next three days, we put back all the pots just in time for the children to come down with all the trinkets.

Looking at all the designs, we praised them and kept them safely in a bag. Joyce then took out several more raw materials to make more handicrafts.