Who: Katou and Anna of Arendelle When: After this conversation Where: Anna’s house What: Cooking dinner! Rating/Warnings: TBD Status: Complete when posted
It had been a long time since Katou’d met Anna, and sometime between him saving her from vampires and them switching bodies, he’d discovered he actually liked the girl. Mostly, in the sense that she was a lot of fun to tease mercilessly. He’d have even considered her a friend, especially after she’d stopped him from being cut into by dragon men.
And yet, he was pretty sure this was the first time they’d actually hung out that didn’t involve some Orange County event bringing them together. With the ingredients that Anna had here, Katou’d decided to make a vegetable stew.
“Alright, you can peel and cube the potatoes,” Katou said, sliding a paring knife across the counter toward Anna. He, for his part, would get chopping the other vegetables. He placed a zucchini on the chopping board, and, extending his claws, began to quickly and skillfully slice it.
Peeling and cubing potatoes was something that Anna could actually do. She’d learned as much from the classes she’d taken with Minato, from practice and experience. Hopefully she wouldn’t cut off a finger or something.
“Okay!” She bounced over to the counter and pulled a knife and a vegetable peeler from the drawer. “It’s weird to have you here.” She admitted, then blushed as she realized that might sound rude. “I mean, because… my life isn’t in danger or anything.”
“It’s weird to be here without wearing a pair of tits,” Katou said, grinning wolfishly at her. “Anyway, you sure you wouldn’t starve to death if it weren’t for me, Ms. Raw Potatoes?”
“Noooo,” Anna said, stretching out the word into more of a meowl. “I can buy food if I’m hungry. And I can eat raw food, too.” She stuck out her tongue at him, then finished peeling the potatoes. “How big should the cubes be?”
“Alright, fine, maybe I should change that to ask if you’re sure you won’t get no food poisoning.” He was teasing, mostly. He couldn’t imagine how it was possible to give yourself food poisoning with raw vegetables, but he supposed anything was possible. “Maybe about this big?” Katou said, making a circle with his thumb and his index finger as he finished slicing the zucchinis with his claws. He grabbed a few tomatoes to work on them next.
“You want me to show you how to make this by the way? Stew’s pretty easy. ‘Specially when you don’t gotta worry about adding meat to it.”
So, the tomatoes and zucchinis were straight out of Anna’s garden. She was so proud that she grew them herself, she’d probably mentioned it like, four times. And the potatoes, too--though she wasn’t as proud of those. They weren’t as big as store bought ones. It would be easy to cut them down, all she had to do was quarter them. Or half the smaller ones.
“Got it.” She said, and took a little knife to get to work. “...I mean, yeah. Isn’t that the point of this little exercise?”
“Is it? News to me,” Katou said, a look of genuine surprise on his face. He had thought he was just coming over to cook some food for Anna. In retrospect, it probably made sense if he walked her through what he was doing. But Katou’d never been a very good teacher. For one, he was a Slacker Extraordinaire. For another, he didn’t really have enough patience to teach a duck how to swim, let alone anything else. But, well, he’d offered. Even if he was beginning to suspect that he would’ve taught her whether he’d wanted to or not.
“Just… say what you’re doing as you do it, and I’ll catch on,” Anna suggested. She put the cut potatoes into a bowl and set it aside. “Give me my next order. Wait,” she added quickly, “let me guess. Get you a beer? Because I could totally go for a Zima right now.”
Katou snorted, amused that she actually had Zima just sitting around. “You know, just take ‘Beer me’ as one of them orders that’s just always out there.”
As Anna went to get the drinks, Katou finished chopping up the rest of the vegetables. Having five knives attached to your fingers, even if they weren’t the greatest for cutting vegetables, made the whole cooking a whole lot quicker.
Anna came back over with a bottle, already opened. She set it on the counter in front of him. “Some of those chops aren’t very even.” She said, teasing. It was kinda cool to be like, Wolverine and cut shit with the swords from his body. She was impressed.
“Cry me a river,” Katou snorted. He nodded toward the saucepan he’d already been heating up. “Alright, just throw the potatoes in there.” Hey, if he was teaching Anna how to cook, that meant he didn’t have to worry about doing any of the actual work himself. He finished chopping the rest of the vegetables, washed his hands, and found a clean spot on the counter where he could see the stove, and took a seat, beer already too his lips.
Anna gulped from the bottle she was carrying, then set it aside on the counter. There was an actual grin on her face now. Sometimes Katou was just a jerk. And sometimes he was a pretty cool guy. Now was one of the good times. She grabbed the bowl of potatoes and dumped them into the water. “Like this?”
“Yeah, just like that,” Katou nodded. He’d brought some vegetable soup stock as well that was still in his bag, but that could wait until later. Until now, he just gave her other directions, like stirring and when to add the other vegetables. “So how’d you make it this far without learning howta cook?” he asked.
“I was really sick a lot when I was a kid,” Anna spoke as though she was listing facts. She wasn’t trying to get any pity or attention out of it. Maybe he knew as much already, and she was just reviewing the information to make her case. Her eyes stayed on the vegetables as she stirred slowly. “So I didn’t learn the way some kids do under mom’s skirt in the kitchen, or whatever. And my parents were super protective of me after that, so… we just bought food. Or they made food. And then I moved out and either bought stuff that was easy to make, or bought ready-made food all the time. Now my roommate cooks a lot. Stefan. Funny because he doesn’t eat much of what he cooks, but he’s really good at it.”
“Well, that sucks,” Katou said. “Not much foresight on the part of your parents though, eh?” Of course, parents seemed to be very good at that whole ‘not thinking of the future happiness of their offspring’ thing. “What’s gonna happen when you don’t got no one around to cook for you?”
Anna ignored the comment about her parents. It was still a fairly sore subject, especially in the summertime. It felt raw. Her face fell just a little, but she chose not to comment on it.
“I’ll just have to have roommates who cook for the rest of my life.” Anna said, shrugging her shoulders. No big thang. She liked people, so she didn’t mind. She could clean, and others could cook. That was fair, right?
Katou too chose not to comment on it, though he did notice her face falling. It wasn’t any of his business either way. He and Anna weren’t good enough friends to start prying into the nitty grittys of life.
“You really oughtta learn to do shit on your own, girlie,” he said. “Give that a stir. You ain’t always gonna have people around to do everything for you, you know.”
Anna shrugged. “I’m trying.” She said. It was the only thing she could say in her defense. “Why’d you think I invited you over, anyway?” Turning it into a joke seemed to be a good way to take off the pressure. She turned to stick her tongue out at him.
“To trick me into giving you cooking lessons?” Katou said, raising an eyebrow. Then he grinned. “How devious. I like it.” He didn’t mean to be hard on her, but seeing people who had everything handed to them in life pissed him off. At least she was trying though. “Alright, put a lid on it and take a break.”
Anna put the lid on the pot, then set the spoon aside. She turned her attention back to Katou for a moment, considering. “You can teach me to make other things, you know. I’m not only interested in vegetables. I like chicken and hamburgers and pasta…” She broke into a grin.
Katou scowled and rubbed the side of his head. “Seriously?” he asked. Well, it was bold, he had to give her that much. “What’s in it for me?”
“Well, it’s food? And good company?” Anna said. Though, was it really good company? Was he having a good time like she was? ...Actually, she was a little surprised at how much she was enjoying herself.
“And free food, too.”
“Nope,” Katou said, swinging his legs onto the counter from where they were dangling, and leaning up against the wall. He exaggeratedly swirled his beer in the bottle, and then took a long gulp from from it. “‘Fraid food and company just ain’t gonna cut it.”
“Oh?” Anna asked, raising an eyebrow. She gulped from her bottle of Zima, then set it back down again. “What do you want, then?”
Katou sighed. “Booze, girlie. You gotta supply the booze.” He frowned. “And a bottle of that Zima shit per lesson.” He’d never actually tried it, but he liked pineapples and shit.
Anna actually laughed. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it hadn’t really been that. She nodded a couple of times, then lifted her bottle to clink against his. “Ask and you shall receive.” Funny how alcohol was so easy for Anna to get, considering she couldn’t legally purchase it herself. Not until November.
With his fake ID, it had always been easy to buy booze, but now with his shapeshifting ability it was pitifully easy these days to pick up even if he didn’t have ID on him. Of course, it was a whole lot freer to get other people to buy his alcohol for him.
“We gots us a deal then, girlie,” Katou said, clinking his bottle against Anna’s and then emptying it down his throat.
Living with a couple of vampires who thought of Anna as an adorable, little sister that they wanted to protect had its perks. They kept the place stocked, so Anna was never without booze when she wanted some.
She gulped again from her own bottle, really enjoying the new arrangement she’d made with Katou. Okay, so he was turning into a pretty awesome friend.