As Ukyo stood behind the griddle making a dozen okonomiyaki, she momentarily slowed and gave a little shudder as a tiny part of her mind contemplated that she might be too good at what she did. Dismissing that as crazy, she went back to cooking, an action so familiar to her she could easily spare most of her attention to watch and think about her new waitress.
Nabiki was clearly very inexperienced, but she was smart and observant enough that Konatsu had only had to pull two very minor saves. As Ukyo watched she gathered a collection of plates. Konatsu could have gathered them in a fraction of the time, but the boys at the table didn’t mind waiting since Nabiki was cheerfully flirting with them. Actually she was gathering the plates more slowly than she had before. . . oh she’d noticed Ukyo’s attention and was slowing down so she could emphasize the way collection the plates made her ass wiggle in such an inviting and sexy. . .
Ukyo forced herself to shift her attention from Nabiki, looking a bit too hard at the Okonomiyaki she’d just flipped. Cooked just right of course. Nothing could distract her enough to ever burn an Okonomiyaki.
“Hey UcChan!” Came a painfully familiar voice from the doorway as Ranma and Akane walked into the restaurant.
“Ran-Chan, Akane how are you two doing?” Ukyo declared with a forced smile.
“Doing pretty good, but a nice snack would make it better,” Ranma responded as he walked over to one of the counter’s two remaining seats.
“I would have offered to make something, but I can’t match you with Okonomiyaki,” Akane added as she sat in the final seat next to Ranma.
“Oh, like you could cook. . .” Ranma started to declare with an eye roll before trailing off. “Wait, you actually can cook something other than toxic slop now.”
“My cooking wasn’t that. . .” Akane’s response faded into a slightly sad sigh. “Well whatever was wrong before, just watch me cook from now on!” She proclaimed with a big grin and raised fist.
“Man even when you’re doing girly stuff you’re all tomboy about it,” Ranma joked.
“Who are you calling. . .” Akane responded in a very familiar angry tone. Then a second later the tone softened into a more joking tone as she continued, “Well if you’d rather not sample any Tomboy Cuisine, I’m sure I can find a few other people to cook for,”
“Hey I never said I didn’t want to eat it!” Ranma responded quickly.
Ukyo’s attention quickly shifted from Ranma and Akane to her griddle as her hands blurred to finish the six okonomiyaki and hand them off to Konatsu and Nabiki. ’Damn, those definitely came out darker than ideal.’ she angrily thought to herself. Not burned, but a step too close by Ukyo’s standards.
Ukyo quickly made Ranma and Akane’s Okonomiyaki and looked at the arguing pair as she let it cook. It was a very half hearted argument by their standards. Apparently Akane’s newly unlocked cooking ability gave her a level of confidence that undercut most of the tension that was usually such a major part of their yelling matches.
’Wait why am I being so down, I can just tell Akane to dump Ran-chan anytime,’ A treacherous thought slipped into Ukyo’s mind..
Ukyo considered Akane. Sure doing this felt a lot more sketchy than any of her past schemes to break the two of them up, but after everything the world (And Genma) had put her though didn’t she deserve to get what she wanted? She’d be happy, and no one else would be unhappy. Well probably not for long anyway?
Still she couldn’t just give Akane too blunt and abrupt an order, with everything that kept happening Ranma might actually suspect some sort of mind control was at work. The perfect command would be tricky to come up with, too abrupt and Ranma might either start searching for mind controllers or just run off on a training trip without leaving her a good way to track him, to slow and Ukyo might go crazy from waiting.
The door slid open again with a declaration of “Nihao!”
One of Ukyo’s eyes twitched. Whatever she ordered Akane to do, there was always a chance, slim but too far from none for her tastes that Shampoo might be able to make herself Ranma’s rebound chick before Ukyo could.
“Hello Airen!” Shampoo declared as she quickly walked up to Ranma and Akane. “Shampoo hear Kitchen destroyer suddenly not so bad at cooking,” she explained, looking down over Ranma and Akane’s shoulders.
Ukyo saw Akane’s eye twitch in a very familiar way, then relax into a cute smile before raising a hand, “Well it turns out Ukyo’s a really fantastic teacher. One lesson fixed everything I was doing wrong.”
“Ohh, Spatula Girl fix so much so fast? Shampoo is impressed!” Shampoo declared as she looked Ukyo in the eye.
Ukyo glared back at the Chinese girl, then with a start looked down and flipped her next batch of Okonomiyaki. ’Oh no. . .’ she thought as she considered them. They had just been starting to scorch, not burning, but a step closer that Ukyo had come in years. “Are you planning to order anything?” She asked, allowing herself to sound annoyed instead of inviting as she usually did.
’Damn it, how did she learn about it so quickly?’ Ukyo asked herself as Shampoo made a quick show of puzzling over the menu. Her eyes slid briefly down to the girls very impressive chest. ’Oh right, some of the boys in class make that Ramen Shop a regular shop for some reason. And most of them are the same boys who are constantly keeping tabs on Akane too.’
“Hmm,” Shampoo murmured, then with a shake of her head said, “Shampoo has tried and was not impressed, was just interested in chance to see how Kitchen Destroyer has changed.”
“Oh you want to see how much better Ukyo’s made me? I’ll show you anytime.” Akane responded.
Tue Nov 12 01:20:10 2019