The world was dying. What a late realization.
Back when I’d been traveling alone through it, I’d wanted it to hurry up and die off. And yet now the fact that it would all vanish one day was heart-wrenching and terrifying. Today would never come again, and even the memories of the day would fade away.
The mounds of crystals I’d seen up until now crossed my mind. Those crystals were remnants, the final lingering proof that someone had lived. That would probably be me someday as well. I didn’t know how to get home, so I’d end up as crystals just the same as everyone else in this world.
I pressed my head back against the wall, rubbing my skull into the hard surface. These feelings were the same as before, the same ones I’d had when I’d put that gun to my head. I’d been right to give Nito the bullets.
I looked at the watch on my wrist. I was more than good on time, but sitting around not doing anything was only depressing me more and more. I pushed the button, stopping the countdown, and pulled a frying pan out of my backpack.
Once I’d fished out each piece of broccoli from the pot and transferred them to the pan, the pot went on the floor. I replaced it with the frying pan, settling it right over the weak flame. Then I added a glug of oil and fried the chunks of broccoli, crushing them as I did. They still had resistance to them, but they were much softer and broke easily enough due to the extra water they’d absorbed. I added salt and pepper, took them off the heat, and put the pot back.
I decided that the best use of the stock left over from boiling the broccoli was to heat the pasta in it. Pulling out a can of dried pasta from the case, I put it in the once-more boiling water. The pot wasn’t big enough to cook for all three of us at once, so I would have to do it a single portion at a time. I used the stopwatch again to keep track of the time as I periodically tested the pasta’s hardness. Once it had just a slight bite to it, I moved it to the frying pan. I decided it was fine to add some of the broth in too, which ended up making an amazing soup. After adding fresh pasta into the pot, I stirred the mixture in the frying pan.
“It’s done,” I said as I scooped it out into bowls.
Nito came over first. She looked at the pasta I’d dished up from the frying pan, and then gave me a—frankly—loaded look.
“There’s nothing but green and light yellow here. There’s no color balance.”
“Could you leave your artistic judgment out of the food?” I asked, though honestly, I had to agree that the color maybe wasn’t great.
“It looks very healthy,” Charolles cut in.
“Isn’t that what you say when you’ve got nothing else good to say about it?”
Charolles sat next to Nito and I handed her a bowl of her own.
“Here, boiled mashed broccoli pasta.”
They both thanked me and Charolles picked up her fork. She rolled up a forkful of pasta and brought it to her mouth. Nito watched warily.
“Mm,” Charolles mumbled. She swallowed and then spoke bluntly. “That was a surprise the likes of which I’ve never before experienced.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said honestly; it was a big achievement for me.
Nito’s eyes widened from her vantage at Charolles’s side, and she cautiously took a bite of her own. It was quickly followed by a mumble of surprise from her throat.
“It’s only two colors, but it’s so tasty!”
“I told you, taste isn’t based on color.”
Once I saw the two of them eating wordlessly, I picked up my own fork and twined pasta around it, bringing that and a piece of broccoli to my mouth. There wasn’t enough substance to the broccoli to chew—it just melted in my mouth, letting the soup it had soaked up flow over my tongue.
The flavor was simple and slightly sweet. It wasn’t the saccharine taste of sugar, but the natural sweetness hidden within the broccoli. The salt had drawn out that sweetness, and the strong taste of the pasta went well with it. Boiling them in the same water, and then using that leftover broth as a sauce, had unified all the flavors. The unexpected tingling from the bits of pepper that peeked through from time to time within the light flavors tied it all together. It didn’t have the heavy feeling of a rich and satisfying meal, but the savory tastes blended into something very much more than the sum of their parts. It was the kind of flavor that made you want to go back for seconds and then thirds.
I suppose I must be a pasta genius as well. The recipe is just something I found ages ago on the internet, though. Mwahaha.
“Yup, delicious,” I judged.
When I opened my eyes from my self-satisfied haze, Charolles and Nito had both stopped eating and were waiting politely. A glance at their bowls showed them empty.
“You two sure ate fast.”
“Well, it was delicious!” Nito defended.
“I enjoyed the taste as well.”
There was no misunderstanding the silent urging for seconds behind those words. I checked my stopwatch and saw that it was time for the next batch of pasta to be done, so I scooped it up into the frying pan.