/sus/ - Camels' Eyes

from /sus/ Thread #957: Say Hey Kid Edition
h ttps://desuarchive.org/trash/thread/58867085/#58870906
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Camels' Eyes

By Green Swordsman
__________

There was something about hearing a knock at the door that brought a smile to the boy’s face. Something about knowing that whoever was behind that door, there would be a smile of their own. Before the past year he hadn’t had that in a while. Now, he never took it for granted, and whatever else he was doing could easily wait. Running up to the door, he pocketed his phone, closing a screen full of texts between himself and the person who he expected at the door.

What Kris didn’t expect, however, was for that person to look so nervous. When he opened the door, he saw Veth standing there with bowed legs and bashful eyes, wearing her backpack with one strap slung over her shoulder as her eyes darted between it and her friend.

“Hey Krith…” Veth was nearly whispering. “Tho, uh, where do we thtart?”

“Well, you gotta come in first, you goober.” The boy replied with a hug before guiding the grey girl inside by the hand. “Still couldn’t come up with something you wanted to make?”

“Well, actually…” Veth took off her backpack and rummaged around in it, past the space where her books normally where in a racket of crumpling paper and plastics. “I brought thome things I already know.”

“Really?” Kris’ brow raised along with his smile. “What did you bring?”

His smile froze as the girl pulled out several coyote brown plastic packages. “Well, thethe are my favoriteth, and they’re eathy to make. Motht of theth are from thith year’th menu, but there’th thome from latht year’th. Don’t worry. They have a really long shelf life, and-“

“Veth?”

“Yeah?”

“Are those MREs?”

The worst part about that question was the fact that Veth knew that Kris wanted to hear an answer. She swallowed a lump. “Y-Yeth…”

The boy sighed and rolled his eyes but kept smiling. “Veth, we talked about this!”

“I knooooowww!” The girl whined, face pouting and foot stomping. “But I’m thcared!”
-
She was being melodramatic, but Kris was accommodating. “Oh come on, scared of what?”

“…thcared I’m gonna thcrew it all up.”

He could tell she was being sincere with that, and so he gave her the serious answer she needed to her. “There’s nothing to be scared about. That’s why I offered to teach you, remember?”

“I gueth…” Veth replied, eyes shifting to and fro. “I mean… are you sure we can’t at leatht crack jutht one of thethe open? I know you like Menu 2…”

“Yeah, I do like the shredded barbecue beef…” He wasn’t being dishonest either, but he also wasn’t going to back down. She needed this. “… but we can crack into that after I’ve taught you at least one dish, okay?”

She didn’t answer verbally, but he could see the contemplation in her face and the reluctant acceptance. All she needed was that one, little, gentle nudge.

“Right, Veth?”

“… okay.”

It was quiet, but her smile was back, even behind the embarrassed blush, and he knew she meant it. That was enough for him. “Alright then! Follow me!”

The grey girl could feel her heart race and she scolded herself for it, knowing how silly it was to be so nervous over learning how to cook, but no amount of conscious knowledge could cover up the subconscious fear of failure. For now, the best she could do was trust in her friend, starting with a question so she could put at least one uncertainty to rest.

“Tho, what are we cooking? Thomething fanthy? Maybe one of thothe pie rethipeth your mom knowth?”

Kris giggled as he took out two loaves from the bread box. “Ahaha! No, nothing that crazy. We’ll just start off with something simple.”

“Oh? What’th that?”

“Camel’s eyes!”

“BLEECH!” She was being over-dramatic when she gagged, but it was also honest. The thought of the texture of large, salty eyeballs made the vessel retch. “Krith, I’m thorry, but I am NOT eating eyeballth today, let alone cooking them!”
-
Kris snorted out a suppressed laugh from behind his puffing cheeks and Veth’s grimace evaporated into confusion. “*Pffft!* Uh, Veth…. they’re not literally eyes.”
Now she just felt silly. “Wha-?… Oh. Uh, well, what are they then?”

Kris pulled out a half-empty carton from the fridge. “They’re eggs!”

The vessel felt as silly as she felt confused. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah!” He opened the carton. Six eggs. That’s all they would need for both of them. “I figured since your dad cooks with these a lot, we could start off with an egg recipe, you know?”

The girl nodded her head, feeling a little more comfortable with the idea. Even though she tired of eggs, she could tell Kris was taking them in a different enough direction to make them good to her again. “Alright, well… what are they exactly and how do we make them?”

“Simple. It’s just toast with eggs cooked together in the middle. I’ll show you.” Kris opened a drawer and pulled out some cookie cutters. “What shape do you want?”

Veth tilted her head to the side. “I thought we were making eggth, not cookieth?

“We are you little goofball! This is for the bread!” He handed her one of the cutters, shaped like a star. “Here, go take three slices of bread and cut the middle parts out with this. I’ll do my own and you can watch.”

They had come a long way since that last dark world episode almost a year ago, but try as she might, Veth couldn’t be parted with her pride. Having to watch someone else use a cookie cutter on bread felt so asinine, almost patronizing. She knew he never meant it that way, but in her mind at least, she also knew how to press a cookie cutter into some bread. Her eyes stayed on her own slices as she set to work, her lips pouting against a smile and her eyes rolling.

“There we go.” Kris pulled out his heart-shaped cutter and the perfect little piece of bread out of it. “So, Veth, how’s it comi- Oh my God!”
-
“Whaaaat?!” She pouted. She could never stifle her embarrassment when she heard him laugh like that.

“What are you doing?!”

The vessel looked down at her cutter, poised to press into all three slices at once – from the side. “I’m… cutting the bread in the middle?”

Kris shook his head and placed the slices flat alongside each other, pointing to the white center. “THIS middle, genius.”

“…Oh.”

“Hahaha!”

“*tch!* Shut up, Krith!” She punched the boy in the shoulder and folded her arms in a tissy.

Pain notwithstanding, he still laughed. “Oh my gosh! Come on, Veth!”

“I didn’t know you meant THAT middle!”

“I told you to watch me!”

“I don’t need to watch to thee how to cut bread!”

“Apparently you do…” He snarked, silently tanking another punch in the arm as Veth played up the theatrics and pouted comically hard. That was a good sign. It meant she wasn’t taking the ribbing personally. It was always good to see the progress she had made. “Come on, you can do it! Right in the middle!”

Veth rolled her eyes again as she finally let herself smile. “Fine…”

True to his word, it was simple enough. She was done in seconds. Kris gave her a thumbs up, then showed her to the eggs.

“Your dad ever let you crack these?”

“No. He usually doeth the cooking if it’th not rationth for dinner.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll get to that in a moment, but I just wanted to know before we got going.” The set a pan on one of the burners and set it to medium heat. “Watch closely. This is about where you want your heat to be when you cook these.”

“Ith thith when we put the eggth in?”

“Not just yet. First, we got to butter the pan.” Kris took about two tablespoons of butter from the butter dish on the counter, letting them sizzle in the pan before stirring it around with a spatula. “Make sure to spread it around… there. Now you put the bread in.”

“The partth we cut out or the crutht part?”

“The crust part. Let’s do yours first. Go ahead and set them in.”
-
The bread hit the pan with a quiet but satisfying sizzle. Veth watched with excitement as the butter simmered around the toast in a savory white-brown froth. The savory scent quickly flooded her senses, and she felt her mouth starting to water.

There wasn’t much time to savor it, however. Kris handed her the eggs. “Alright, we gotta be quick. But what you do next is crack and egg and pour it in the middle of the slice.”

“Jutht right in the middle?”

“Yep. Need any help?”

“No, I-I think I got it…”

In truth she really didn’t know much of what she was doing, but she knew she wanted to try. She took the egg in hand and tried cracking it over the pan, tapping it against the rim. Unfortunately, she overestimated just how much fight the eggshell would put up and she wound up nearly bifurcating the whole thing, spilling oozing egg white all over her fingers and the pan.

“Oh no!”

“It’s okay! Here, just put what you got in the middle.”

She could feel the honest care in his voice, and it made her feel warm inside. She imagined he would just tease her nonstop for it.

Fortunately, most of the egg managed to make it to the middle of the bread, and she picked up another egg to try again.

“Okay, here goeth…”

She was a lot more cautious, as she gently tapped the egg to get a feel for how much it would resist, dialing up the power until she felt it give. There was a little hole where the egg was starting to ooze out, but she wasn’t sure where to go next.

“Uhh.. ith that hole big enough?”

“Try sticking your thumb in and pulling the halves apart with your fingertips.”
-
Not wanting for the bread to burn, Veth quickened her pace, but kept focusing on Kris’ instructions, heeding them, and splitting the egg perfectly. The sound made her brow raise, and seeing the egg drop into the buttered toast put a smile on her face. It wasn’t some masterpiece or example of high, artful cooking, but as far as she was concerned it was a first step in that direction, and that filled her with pride in a good way.

“Okay, one more.”

“I thee it.”

Once more, she pulled it off, this time almost flawlessly as the last egg barley left a drop on her fingers. “Ith that it? How long do we wait?”

“Not long actually. GO wipe your fingers off because you’ll be flipping these in a second.”

“Flipping them?” she asked as the paper towels took the egg off her hands.

“Yep.” Kris handed her the spatula almost like an action hero would hand over a gun to a sidekick. “Give it a try.”

“Are they ready already?”

“They’re getting there. Each side gets done pretty quick, and we took some time while you were cracking them.”

Veth took the spatula as if it really were a gun, shyly and with trepidation, but she got a good grip of it as her fear washed away under Kris’ watch. It wasn’t long before she was maybe a bit too comfortable with it, making flourishes with it as if it were her old dark blade.

“You can take the girl out of the throne, but you can’t take the throne out of the girl…” Kris quipped, shaking his head with a sardonic smile. “Don’t let your camel’s eyes burn there, Empress.”

The vessel bit her lip and made a motion pretending to strike at the boy. Satisfied with his flinch and his persistent smile, she relented. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

The bravado melted away for a bit as she nudged the spatula under the toast and eggs. She could feel it sliding under smoothly as she got a feeling for whether or not she had a good enough hold on it to flip it. Carefully, she raised the first camel’s eye up, looking for the best way to maneuver it.
-
“Real quick, before you flip it…” Kris set a little more butter underneath the toast. “The top layer will have soaked some up, so always replace just a little when you flip it over.”

“Gotcha…” Veth’s eyes now focused on her utensil, making sure her food wasn’t going to slide off.

“Steady now…” Kris leaned in, eyes fixated on Veth’s progress. “Easy does it but be quick.”

“I got it, I got it…” The girl bit her lip as she tilted the bread to the side, hoping for it to fall on its back while being wary of the semi-liquid egg sitting on top of its cooked portion. With a flick of her wrist, the bread and egg were on their backs, sizzling in the new butter and clean of the other two slices in the pan. “There! Did I do good?”

“That was perfect! Now, do the other two.”

Something about the way he watched her and encouraged her seemed to take all the pressure off. Anyone else would have seen her tossing the food into the ceiling they would have made her so nervous, but around him, she felt fine. She felt comfortable, like she wouldn’t ever be judged harshly. Something about that made it a lot easier, almost like she had been doing it her whole life. Twice over she flipped the camel’s eyes over two fresh dallops of butter, and twice over she did it perfectly. Toriel would have been clapping and squealing with glee if she had seen it. For now, Veth was content to hear Kris’ appraisal, which luckily wasn’t as over the top as his mother’s but was every bit as warm.

“Hey, that was pretty good!” There was a warmth on his face that neither Veth nor anyone else saw very often. “See? You’re not so bad at this!”

Veth shrugged, pretending that those praises weren’t sending her self-esteem into the stratosphere. “Eh. What can I thay? I’m jutht naturally gifted, I gueth.”

Kris lowered and shook his head. “*Pfft!* Of course...”

“… But of courthe, I have thomeone really good teaching me.”
-
Now it was Kris’ turn to feel good about himself. Not so much for being considered good at teaching, but for the sake of the trust it took for her to say that. “Thanks, Veth.”

The grey girl eyed the pan again, looking over her handiwork. “How long until it’th done?”

“Not too long. Only two minutes per side, tops. Then we put the cut-out in the pan and let those toast and it’s all done.”

“Ith there a way to check for sure?”

“Yeah. You can just look under them, see fi they’re golden brown. That’s usually a good way to tell if the eggs are done too.”

Flipping the first with her spatula, she saw that their talking had amounted to those two minutes. “I think thith one ith done!”

“The other ones aren’t far behind, then.” He handed her a plate to serve herself on. “Go ahead and plate yourself up. Then we’ll re-butter the pan a little and get the bread done. That’ll take no more than a few seconds.”

The vessel carefully flipped each camel’s eye onto her plate as she turned to her mentor. “Hey Krith?”

“Yeah?”

“… Thankth.”

“No problem, Veth.”

It's not that he was cavalier about it, but he didn’t seem to understand what she really meant by that, so she clarified as she set the butter and the cutouts into the pan. “I mean… thanks for, well, you know…?”

Kris’ brow went sideways. “’You know’ what?”

Veth was finding it hard to put in words, but she found them as her cutouts finished. “You know jutht… for being willing to do thith with me. Even if it’th thomething thilly like cooking.”

“It’s not silly. “He assured her. “It’s something you wanted to do, right?”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know if I trutht anyone enough the way I trutht you. I mean, I don’t know of anyone elthe would have told me yeth, and even if they did, I don’t know if they would have been ath nithe about it.”

Kris drew close, taking her plate and setting it on the counter to get his hands on her shoulders. “Veth, look at me.”
-
It took her a moment to comply, but she managed to do so after a quick little breath. “Yeah?”

“You know they don’t hate you, right?”

She didn’t reply. She wanted that to be true but didn’t trust it just yet. “Maybe.”

“No, no, not ‘maybe.’” Kris shook his head, eyes still locked on her. “Remember how you thought you’d screw up cooking tonight?”

“Yeah?”

“And we see now that you were overthinking that, right?”

She couldn’t; summon even a whispered ‘yes’ to that, so she nodded her head instead. She kept her eyes on him she he would know she was being honest about it.

“Then trust me when I say you’re overthinking Susie and Noelle too. They want to meet you, Veth. They want to know you. The real you.”

“Do they really?” Her tone carried two questions in one. One asked if he was telling the truth. The other was asking herself if she was ready for it to be true.

“It’s okay if you’re not ready yet.” The boy reassured her. “One step at a time, right?”

“Yeah.” Veth nodded. “One thtep at a time.”

“And we’ll take that step eventually, but for now?” He took her plate again and handed it back, still piping hot. “Let’s see how you did!”

Veth digested the last of Kris’ reassurances before the scent of butter and toast and eggs snagged her by the nose. “They sure thmell good…”

“Yeah, they look good, too!” Kris handed her a fork from the drawer. “Well, you cooked them. Honor’s all yours!”

The vessel sunk the tines into the golden-brown egg and toast meal and cut off a piece for herself, glistening with freshly burst egg yolk and butter. No sooner did it hit her tongue than her whole face lit up like a Christmas tree. It was simple, but savory, the bread soaked through and through with both the yolk and the butter, tying everything together with the smoothness of the well-cooked egg white between it all. It took her a moment to chew it, not because it was tough, but because she was that reluctant to part with it.
-
Kris giggled as she swallowed it, and the goofiest expression went wide across her face, her eyes so wide she looked like a tree-frog. “I assume it’s good?”

“It’th amathing…”

“I bet! What’d I tell you?”

“W-what did you tell me?” She asked, snapping back to reality as she dug her fork in for another bite.

“That you’d do great!”

The next bite tasted even better with those words as seasoning. Something about them told her more than just accolades for her cooking, and she didn’t need Kris to spell it out. For the first time in a while, it felt like she could finally say those words to herself. She finally allowed herself to think about it and really believe it. Whether it was her grades or getting along with Kris’ other friends, she felt a warm reassurance in her mind and in her heart, and she heard it in both Kris’ voice and her own.

She would do great.

[the end}