Peeking

The dish Caroline was making this time was something I hadn't seen yesterday. She took one of the fruits that Josh had introduced before and cut it into small cubes. She then put the cubes aside and did the same for several other fruits. Placing all the fruit cubes into a bowl, she poured a generous amount of sugar syrup into it. Taking a spoon, she then mixed the fruit cubes and the syrup together.

Finally she gradually added several spoons worth of a type of powder, then plated it and sent it to be steamed.

This plate, when it reached the pool member's hands, received a pink ribbon. The group member then sent it into the pool.

In the pool currently, the most common ribbon colors present were the grays and the blacks. And since black was the last ribbon color, followed by gray, black must be the longest in terms of time.

While observing, I noticed that the working pace was slowing down. There were less and less people present in the cooking area, and some of the group members were even taking the time to chat among themselves.

The group member in charge of the pool I was at approached me. Seeing the list I made on my personal terminal, he chuckled before explaining the timings for each color.

Blue was, as I guessed, 5 minutes, followed by green which was 10 minutes. Orange was 12 minutes, Pink was 15 minutes, Yellow was 20 minutes, Brown was 25 minutes, Red was 30 minutes, Purple was 40 minutes, Grey was 50 minutes and finally Black was 60 minutes.

"Each of these color dyes tend to become paler as they heat up, so darker colors represent more time. There's also this handy chart that allows us to ensure nothing is over-or-under cooked."

Passing me one of the color ribbons, and a color chart the width of the ribbons, he patiently explained while shooting glances at the pool.

The color ribbon was rough, its ends frayed from overuse, and yet it was still in quite a well-kept condition. The dyed colors were easy to notice and there were signs of frayed ends being cut to keep them neat.

Taking my hand, he guided me to grip the metal hook and maneuver it over to the last few remaining plates. Hooking the plates, he then taught me how to bring them safely over to shore without toppling them over.

After guiding me several times, I finally got the hang of it and he just stood by to watch me do his work. He would point to me which plates needed to be brought to shore, while I would use the metal hook to bring them to shore.

Like this, all of the plates were brought out of the pool and handed over to other group members to be transferred to normal plates and served. And once every plate was accounted for, everyone emptied out of the cooking area into the dining area to eat dinner.

Stepping out of the hot confined space to the ... slightly less hot confined space, I joined the cooking group in handing out the plates, before taking one for myself.

Finding Josh and Tim, I sat on their log and we ate while talking. Suddenly, after swallowing his food whole, Josh declared that he had set up a cooking session tomorrow before lunch at the cooking area for me. The one in charge was Caroline.

Nodding in thanks, I glanced down at the lunch I had watched the cooking group prepare. First, was the meat covered in sugar syrup and sprinkled with nuts. Surprisingly, over the course of steaming for this dish, the sugar syrup had slightly hardened to give a hard but brittle coating for the meat. There were about four of these treats stacked atop each other, separated by leaves to ensure they didn't stick to one another.

Using my chopsticks to take a bite, I heard a satisfying crunch before a sweet taste hit my mouth. Then, chasing right after that was the taste of nuts, and then it was ended by the taste of meat. This meat, unlike the ones we ate at lunch, was more dry and had more of a crunch to it. It also broke apart easily in my mouth instead of being chewy.

The second dish was the one that had a pink ribbon. After steaming, the sugar syrup had a different reaction again. This dish's sugar syrup formed a sort of jelly-like consistency that was surprisingly cohesive despite its jiggly nature. Using chopsticks didn't allow you to separate the cubes from each other.

Looking over at Josh and Tim, they both had vastly different ways of eating it. Josh took a more primal approach, where he used his hands to grab the jelly and took big bites out of it. Tim on the other hand was slightly more sophisticated. He used his strength to spear the Jelly through the center and then started nibbling at it from the corners.

They were of no help at all.

Looking at the blob of jelly in my bowl, I cupped the side of my bowl with my hands and brought it up to my face. Then opening my mouth wide I bit at as much of the Jelly as I could. And when I couldn't reach it, I would use my chopsticks to shift it closer to the edge where I could slowly devour it.

[All of you eat like kids! Just use your chopsticks to pick the Jelly up!]

Shouting exasperatedly at the side, Sazzy groaned at our eating methods and put her hands over her eyes.

Finally we reached the last dish, which was probably the dish that was tagged either black or gray. This dish was in the form of soup. The soup had all its ingredients sieved out, and was left as a nutritious brown soup. Smelling it, a fragrant smell of seaweed entered my nose.

Taking a small sip, I could feel the hot soup travel down my throat to rest comfortably in my stomach. The soup tasted salty, and not at all sweet. Which was a perfect way to wash away the sweetness from the two dishes before. Then after the initial wave of salt came a sort of herb-like taste that resembled mint.

Gulping the soup down in a couple minutes, I wiped away the residue on my lips and placed the bowl down in satisfaction. The three of us then returned the bowls back to the cooking group.

Once dinner was done, everyone started to pack up and get ready to call it a night. The cooking group had passed the dishes to what I assumed was the dishwashing group before they went back to the cooking area to most likely clean up.

Saying goodbye to both Josh and Tim, we went back to our respective houses.

Once back in the house, Sazzy jumped onto the bed as I re-examined the mixtures I had played around with earlier in the day. They were all odorless, thankfully, so they didn't cause any trouble. However, I reminded myself, future experiments probably had to be done in the cooking area. For safety.

Putting the jars aside, I cleared the table before lying down on the bed. Tomorrow was filled to the brim with ingredient gathering as well as cooking sessions.

Lying comfortably, I was preparing to go to sleep when I heard a giggle from Sazzy. Looking up at her, I could see her hold her hands to her mouth in a failed attempt to keep quiet.

Moving to peek over her shoulder, I saw that she was in a livestream of someone in a wolf costume. Only their hands were not covered. And in their hands was a piece of wood and a carving knife.

The livestream had few people, around 60, but was quite peaceful. Most of the audience were commenting about the carving that the streamer was currently doing.

Looking at the background of the room, it bore a striking resemblance to the one I was in right now.

...

Pulling up my personal terminal, I searched up Josh's Jolt name, Lupus. Amongst all the preparation to come here, I had forgotten that Josh was also a streamer. Entering into his stream, I enlarged it in order to actually see what he was carving. But at this point of time I couldn't make it out at all.

He also had many wooden carvings in the background. There was a very pretty tree with highly detailed leaves, which were swaying in the wind. There was also a creature resembling a wolf but with slight horns, standing proud on a rock, its chest out. Beside the wolf was a Morris, elegantly skipping.

Drawing my attention back to the person in the stream was a sigh that I had heard many times today. Josh was pulling up his personal terminal on his stream. And beside his stream view, his comment section was boiling with the word 'Chef!', and his viewers were increasing by leaps and bounds.

Ah.

Then came a message from Josh.

"You sure have a lot of energy despite being out all day."

Seeing the sarcastic message, I looked up to see the face of the person typing this to catch his mischievous smile.

[I'm sure that he's more comfortable in his own house, but he probably shouldn't so openly show his emotions.]

Taking this chance to let out her grievance towards Josh, I answered him.

"I was just scrolling through Jolt. Who knew I would happen across your stream?"

Watching the chat speed up as more people entered the stream, the two of us conversed while Josh took a small break.

"You have very good carving skills. Did you also carve that tree behind you?"

The moment I mentioned that tree, Josh smiled as he turned his head to look at it. His eyes resembled a pair of glittering stones as he glanced at the carving's direction. He was obviously proud of it, but that carving seemed to hold a deeper meaning than just pride to him. It was like he was viewing something beyond the carving. Something more precious.

"Yes I carved it. It's still one of my best pieces up to this day."

Saying that with a sort of breathless voice, Josh then turned back to the camera. A smile seemed to hang on his lips, and he was obviously in a very good mood.

"Since you have such a good eye, I don't mind carving something for you. Free-of-charge."

Obviously, after being complimented for having such 'a good eye', there was only one carving I had to choose.

"If that's the case, maybe the tree you were looking at just now. Just a small carving would do, if not I don't think I can bring it back to Mors."

I joked as I looked at the tree carving that was half the size of a person.

Looking at my answer, I saw Josh's eyes flicker quickly to the side of the screen before he replied.

"Ok."

With that, the two of us stopped talking and Josh went back to carving. We both ignored the chat.

Eventually, the chat slowed down and the only ones left were those that had become entranced by the sound of Josh's knife on wood. He had put down the carving he was originally doing, and instead took a slight larger wood block. Probably to carve my tree.

Closing my eyes, I let the rhythmic sound of metal slicing wood turn into a lullaby and pull me into a dreamless sleep.