Marui Bunta's Guide to Twenty Foods, PG
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almondinflowerMarui Bunta's Guide to Twenty Foods
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: Marui belongs to Konomi Takeshi. So does anyone else mentioned in this text, except possibly the Spice Girls.
Notes: Took way too much time. Possibly OOC. Sloppy prose alert.
1. Green apple gum: There are fifteen ingredients in Bunta's favourite brand of chewing gum. On a good day, he can remember about seven: sugar, gum base, corn syrup, dextrose, glycerol, citric acid, and phenylalanine.
He knows this because Yanagi Renji reminds him every two days to keep track of his nutrient consumption, and also because he reads the ingredients list on his gum wrappers as a diversion, whenever class tips into Boring Mode.
2. Sugar: He rarely falls asleep in Physics, but once when he did, the teacher made him calculate the tensile strength of fourteen types of gum.
He finished the project in a single afternoon, and when he handed it in the teacher shook her head and asked how old he thought he would be when his teeth rotted away from caries.
Probably die of neurological damage first, he said. Aspartame does wonders for the body.
3. Chocolate: The only regular who gets more Valentine's presents than Bunta does is Yukimura.
Sanada Genichirou gets six boxes, and eats about a tenth of his chocolate, all of it dark. He refuses to give any of the remainder to Bunta, which provokes a great deal of wailing because what a waste, and does Sanada have no appreciation for the finer things in life?
4. Petit Fours: His mother serves them at long elegant dinner parties where nobody chews gum, nobody laughs spontaneously, and she always insists on making him play the cello or the piano or something respectable like that.
It's okay when somebody there actually likes music, but it's usually just a show, boredom added to corporate boredom. Bunta really needs to hurry up and pass Grade 8 exams so that he can quit classical piano.
5. Sake : The only time he ever caught Niou Masaharu off-guard was one morning in music class, when the teacher showed them a ukulele someone had brought in, and Bunta picked up the instrument and started experimenting with the strings: plain chords, jazz chords.
Niou looked at him and said, “Bloody hell, Marui - can you do anything?”
Bunta thought that was a bit rich, coming from Niou; but since then Niou has been dragging him to various clubs – places thick with smoke and jazz and the smell of alcohol, the clash of dissonant harmonies.
That Niou metabolises alcohol faster than Bunta consumes sugar, is not wholly unexpected but extremely unwelcome, particularly at Saturday morning club practice.
6. Instant Ramen: Niou listens to Ravel and Arvo Part. Bunta listens to L'Arc en Ciel and old Spice Girls albums.
This is the way things are, just like how Bunta really can't cook, despite endless wishing that he could.
He has two younger brothers: one in junior high who barely eats enough to survive, and one in elementary school who eats almost as much as he does.
Of the three, Bunta is the only one capable of burning water.
7. Obento: He takes two lunch boxes to school every day: one for lunch, one for snacks in between classes.
On the days his mother makes sushi, he brings three boxes - partly because he loves being able to share things with people; partly to protect his diet from rambunctious too-hungry kouhai with curly hair and surprising powers of persuasion.
8. Octopus balls: He sort of understands what Kirihara Akaya tries to do with Sanada, because once in second-year, all the regulars were at a fair when Bunta realised he was out of money and whined until Yukimura bought him a bag of takoyaki, hot and crisp and fragrant. Octopus hasn't tasted that good since.
Sanada never buys Akaya food, but then Bunta was never Yukimura's reason to keep going.
9. Yakizakana: Fish is a brain food, he tells Yukimura solemnly.
Then I need it, their captain says laughing. Since my grades are behind Renji's and Hiroshi's and even yours.
It's not for lack of brain, Bunta says, and not for the first time he wonders what Yukimura would be like if tennis hadn't eaten up his soul at birth.
10. Yakiniku: Hiroshi articulates the problems with red meat: it will clog your arteries, escalate your blood pressure, increase your risk of cancer, diabetes and death.
Two days before Kantou regionals, Bunta drags Jackal, Niou and Akaya to the newly-opened restaurant two blocks down from school, where they devour grilled beef for ninety-five minutes.
When he goes to sleep that night, Bunta's stomach is satiated; heavy like the wrist weights that leave red marks on his pale skin.
11. Cherries: They are sharing a fruit bowl at Jackal's house when they start to argue about different shades of red. Bunta likes vermillion; Jackal, deep scarlet. Both enjoy the colour of apples in season.
They don't like the red of blood anymore, not since the Kantou semifinals.
12. Pocky: Akutagawa Jirou offered him some last year after the matches with Hyoutei, and Bunta has never forgotten the milk and sugar taste of it.
There are no sweets this time, but it doesn't matter because Bunta could never imagine cheering for a rival school - the fact that that someone else does it for him makes him go warm inside, in a part of his soul that is almost tired of winning.
13. Fried Shrimp Hamburger: Is the favourite food of that sneaky Seigaku player, the one who actually manages to make Jackal break a sweat, who slices through Bunta's strategy and makes him think for a moment that Seigaku might be different from the rest.
14. Gatorade: It's one of the few drinks that he hates, but he takes a sip as he takes his seat in the stands, cradling the wrist weights wearily in one hand.
Seigaku's Momoshiro is good, but Bunta has been called genius for as long as he can remember, and he'll fight to retain that title.
15. Namekono miso: Sanada has never slapped Bunta. This is because Bunta has never given him a reason to do so – but also, there used to be a time when Sanada never slapped people.
Bunta has never known a Sanada that was not tall and dark and invincible. Today's Sanada is still all of these things, but the note of tension as he says, “I'll going to call Yukimura,” the sideways tilt of his baseball cap as he disappears into the daylight – these are things that make Bunta think the world is fast going askew.
16. Tokoroten: He didn't expect Hiroshi to lose, of course; but then he didn't expect it of Renji either.
17. Wasabi sushi: The concept is an insult to food, he decides, and resents Seigaku's thin too-pretty Singles 2 player, the one who possibly has more right to be called 'genius' than Bunta does.
Then Akaya loses again, and his mind has no room left for resentment.
18. Ponta: Surprisingly, it's Sanada who recovers first; rallies the group with a command so sharp Bunta responds without thinking.
Sanada is still strong, and if he is then Yukimura must be as well, and even if the world has changed, perhaps Rikkai is not very different from what it used to be.
19. Strawberry shortcake: He waits in the hospital and thinks that to Renji and Sanada and Akaya, Yukimura is like blue fire, the flash of lightning on steel. To Niou and Hiroshi, he is the sharpness of a blade, quick and cruel to the core.
He isn't sure what Jackal thinks.
To Bunta, Yukimura has always been laughter and liquid honey and a touch of insanity, and while he thinks Yukimura's priorities are extremely skewed he wants their captain to come back as much as anyone else in this room does.
20. Tempura: A celebration, he thinks as the nurses wheel Yukimura out and along the bright white corridor - but they'd better not call it that, otherwise Sanada won't come. Akaya's mum will host if they ask nicely.
Bunta would like one night to forget about tennis and tournaments; forget about promises and reputations and teenage-male competitive streaks, and just live for once.
Then they will go back to Nationals, and Bunta will win and win and win.
He refuses to let his team down.
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: Marui belongs to Konomi Takeshi. So does anyone else mentioned in this text, except possibly the Spice Girls.
Notes: Took way too much time. Possibly OOC. Sloppy prose alert.
1. Green apple gum: There are fifteen ingredients in Bunta's favourite brand of chewing gum. On a good day, he can remember about seven: sugar, gum base, corn syrup, dextrose, glycerol, citric acid, and phenylalanine.
He knows this because Yanagi Renji reminds him every two days to keep track of his nutrient consumption, and also because he reads the ingredients list on his gum wrappers as a diversion, whenever class tips into Boring Mode.
2. Sugar: He rarely falls asleep in Physics, but once when he did, the teacher made him calculate the tensile strength of fourteen types of gum.
He finished the project in a single afternoon, and when he handed it in the teacher shook her head and asked how old he thought he would be when his teeth rotted away from caries.
Probably die of neurological damage first, he said. Aspartame does wonders for the body.
3. Chocolate: The only regular who gets more Valentine's presents than Bunta does is Yukimura.
Sanada Genichirou gets six boxes, and eats about a tenth of his chocolate, all of it dark. He refuses to give any of the remainder to Bunta, which provokes a great deal of wailing because what a waste, and does Sanada have no appreciation for the finer things in life?
4. Petit Fours: His mother serves them at long elegant dinner parties where nobody chews gum, nobody laughs spontaneously, and she always insists on making him play the cello or the piano or something respectable like that.
It's okay when somebody there actually likes music, but it's usually just a show, boredom added to corporate boredom. Bunta really needs to hurry up and pass Grade 8 exams so that he can quit classical piano.
5. Sake : The only time he ever caught Niou Masaharu off-guard was one morning in music class, when the teacher showed them a ukulele someone had brought in, and Bunta picked up the instrument and started experimenting with the strings: plain chords, jazz chords.
Niou looked at him and said, “Bloody hell, Marui - can you do anything?”
Bunta thought that was a bit rich, coming from Niou; but since then Niou has been dragging him to various clubs – places thick with smoke and jazz and the smell of alcohol, the clash of dissonant harmonies.
That Niou metabolises alcohol faster than Bunta consumes sugar, is not wholly unexpected but extremely unwelcome, particularly at Saturday morning club practice.
6. Instant Ramen: Niou listens to Ravel and Arvo Part. Bunta listens to L'Arc en Ciel and old Spice Girls albums.
This is the way things are, just like how Bunta really can't cook, despite endless wishing that he could.
He has two younger brothers: one in junior high who barely eats enough to survive, and one in elementary school who eats almost as much as he does.
Of the three, Bunta is the only one capable of burning water.
7. Obento: He takes two lunch boxes to school every day: one for lunch, one for snacks in between classes.
On the days his mother makes sushi, he brings three boxes - partly because he loves being able to share things with people; partly to protect his diet from rambunctious too-hungry kouhai with curly hair and surprising powers of persuasion.
8. Octopus balls: He sort of understands what Kirihara Akaya tries to do with Sanada, because once in second-year, all the regulars were at a fair when Bunta realised he was out of money and whined until Yukimura bought him a bag of takoyaki, hot and crisp and fragrant. Octopus hasn't tasted that good since.
Sanada never buys Akaya food, but then Bunta was never Yukimura's reason to keep going.
9. Yakizakana: Fish is a brain food, he tells Yukimura solemnly.
Then I need it, their captain says laughing. Since my grades are behind Renji's and Hiroshi's and even yours.
It's not for lack of brain, Bunta says, and not for the first time he wonders what Yukimura would be like if tennis hadn't eaten up his soul at birth.
10. Yakiniku: Hiroshi articulates the problems with red meat: it will clog your arteries, escalate your blood pressure, increase your risk of cancer, diabetes and death.
Two days before Kantou regionals, Bunta drags Jackal, Niou and Akaya to the newly-opened restaurant two blocks down from school, where they devour grilled beef for ninety-five minutes.
When he goes to sleep that night, Bunta's stomach is satiated; heavy like the wrist weights that leave red marks on his pale skin.
11. Cherries: They are sharing a fruit bowl at Jackal's house when they start to argue about different shades of red. Bunta likes vermillion; Jackal, deep scarlet. Both enjoy the colour of apples in season.
They don't like the red of blood anymore, not since the Kantou semifinals.
12. Pocky: Akutagawa Jirou offered him some last year after the matches with Hyoutei, and Bunta has never forgotten the milk and sugar taste of it.
There are no sweets this time, but it doesn't matter because Bunta could never imagine cheering for a rival school - the fact that that someone else does it for him makes him go warm inside, in a part of his soul that is almost tired of winning.
13. Fried Shrimp Hamburger: Is the favourite food of that sneaky Seigaku player, the one who actually manages to make Jackal break a sweat, who slices through Bunta's strategy and makes him think for a moment that Seigaku might be different from the rest.
14. Gatorade: It's one of the few drinks that he hates, but he takes a sip as he takes his seat in the stands, cradling the wrist weights wearily in one hand.
Seigaku's Momoshiro is good, but Bunta has been called genius for as long as he can remember, and he'll fight to retain that title.
15. Namekono miso: Sanada has never slapped Bunta. This is because Bunta has never given him a reason to do so – but also, there used to be a time when Sanada never slapped people.
Bunta has never known a Sanada that was not tall and dark and invincible. Today's Sanada is still all of these things, but the note of tension as he says, “I'll going to call Yukimura,” the sideways tilt of his baseball cap as he disappears into the daylight – these are things that make Bunta think the world is fast going askew.
16. Tokoroten: He didn't expect Hiroshi to lose, of course; but then he didn't expect it of Renji either.
17. Wasabi sushi: The concept is an insult to food, he decides, and resents Seigaku's thin too-pretty Singles 2 player, the one who possibly has more right to be called 'genius' than Bunta does.
Then Akaya loses again, and his mind has no room left for resentment.
18. Ponta: Surprisingly, it's Sanada who recovers first; rallies the group with a command so sharp Bunta responds without thinking.
Sanada is still strong, and if he is then Yukimura must be as well, and even if the world has changed, perhaps Rikkai is not very different from what it used to be.
19. Strawberry shortcake: He waits in the hospital and thinks that to Renji and Sanada and Akaya, Yukimura is like blue fire, the flash of lightning on steel. To Niou and Hiroshi, he is the sharpness of a blade, quick and cruel to the core.
He isn't sure what Jackal thinks.
To Bunta, Yukimura has always been laughter and liquid honey and a touch of insanity, and while he thinks Yukimura's priorities are extremely skewed he wants their captain to come back as much as anyone else in this room does.
20. Tempura: A celebration, he thinks as the nurses wheel Yukimura out and along the bright white corridor - but they'd better not call it that, otherwise Sanada won't come. Akaya's mum will host if they ask nicely.
Bunta would like one night to forget about tennis and tournaments; forget about promises and reputations and teenage-male competitive streaks, and just live for once.
Then they will go back to Nationals, and Bunta will win and win and win.
He refuses to let his team down.
