An opportune time for a mangy lonely heart to find himself saddled with responsibility quietly assumed and all the dedicated cyberspace scrounging his particular job entailed. Say what one will of the obligate search engine obsessions, be it of relevance or hopelessly barren yields of usable information, it had kept Yamcha blissfully unaware of the ongoing grandeur surrounding the world's most overt Hallmark holiday. A secret blessing, no matter how anyone could spin it, effectively sparing his immediate company of witnessing his yearly trudge through the five stages of grief, typically drawn out through the week prior before ultimately culminating in one ice cream-fueled evening of unseemly self-pity. Bullets dodged this time around, minimal time spent idling around the usual urban haunts that were no doubt plastered with bubblegum colored promotional materials pushing couple's specials, reservation opportunities, and things of that sort. The weather had been much too foul to consider on-the-ground reconnaissance, or a discreet trailing of his reluctant client during her strolls to and from the floral shop — a failing on his part, to stricter minds. In any case, the live-in confidant failed to put together the points connecting Kurumi's straining workload and the catalyst for such a flower-frenzied rush, and thankfully they were all better for it. He had an inkling it must have thoroughly swamped her regardless of the case, seeing less of her on that morning and missing her arrival entirely before an ensuing recovery crash… All seemed well in spite of it, greater picture considered.

Early on the morrow, he enjoyed the homestead solitude without subjecting its walls to a tumultuous breakdown of his unmanageable bedding — so twisted now that it began to fit into the cramp box of a "room" with several pocket springs bent out of shape in surrender to the very resolute corners that decreed the manifesting twin contort to meet spacial standards. It helped too that the frugal denizen had cleared the area of dishware before they could begin to pile up, thus eliminating the chance of performing yet another disharmonious ceramic symphony. A convenient 《BOM!》 was his loudest transgression against resting ears, though they lay far enough for an ingenious device's trademark burst to go unassailable, muffled as ground zero was behind two closed doors and a stretch of adjoining hall. Emerging thereafter with a sleepy eyed survey and uncovered yawn, he began his barefoot lumber toward the kitchen for want of immediate sustenance: milk. Far from a favorite, betraying the implications of its constant use, there were few things so quick and easy to offer ghosts of satiation before an undying appetite. The soft food helped him catch his bearings, still blinking away the crusts of sleep clinging underneath round eyes, and while coffee might have served him well here, he would sooner get to preparing an actual meal before clumsy hands fiddled with a new coffee machine.

A marriage of Kurumi's generous resupply and one bizarre unmarked Styrofoam clamshells squirreled away on the refrigerator door's interior shelf, just underneath a couple bottles of condiments; it would not be outlandish a thought if it had gone unnoticed all this time, and yet it had been there about as long as Yamcha began leaving traces of his presence. Fermented soybeans, as it turned out. Carried over from the dregs of his own home's fridge, likely the only thing that had not spoiled and could keep an extended period of time for emergency cravings such as these. Blessed was the small square of cellophane within, keeping the growing stench of its nutritious fermentation from seeping out to infect perfectly fine meats and produce of its acquired taste, as the weeks that had transpired since purchase endowed the strange collection with a stronger character. Grotesque, slimy knobs of soybeans were stirred in their shells with their complementary packages of spicy mustard and soy sauce, and served as the basis for breakfast: crudely shaped rice balls.

Discretion led the apparently domesticated wolf's hand, putting a serving of newly purchased rice to work in a stovetop pot without much room to err. He knew his culinary limitations well, but it was only after the granules took in the boiling water and began to fluff out did he realize he had produced a gross excess of a portion. Whoops. Meal preparations were almost always conducted by his furry compatriot, and the chance instances where he was to pull his own weight, he had cooked for two… hence a small part of overestimation. In no time later, both ingredients were joined — 'beans at the core of the roundest triangles one could ever lay eyes upon, and garnished further with meager dollops denoting the innards, albeit with a few rings of chopped green onion. Hard to refer to the fermented base as "filling" when his stash had to divvy up into twice the amount of projected rice balls, but that was the way life was turning his course. Yamcha took had his fill right there at the counter, leaving the sticky pot and utensils in the sink with a half-baked show of consideration given by a sudsy fill and leave for later. What he had not eaten as breakfast were stored on the refrigerator's top shelf in transparent snapware, yellow note square stuck upon its red lid.

「 rice gets big when you cook it
   made too much!
   gonna be out today on a work thing
   super secret stuff, so
   eat if you didn't, weirdo
                              -🐾
   p.s: destroy this note!            」


Mindful enough to put the carton of milk back in the fridge, there remained no other signs of him other than the obvious. Yamcha made himself scarce by noon, likely to try and flag down the very short list of contacts he could claim in the local police force.