Cheffin' with Shinji
Title: Cheffin' with Shinji
Word Count: 1,610
Characters/Pairings: Shinji, Kanji
Contains: Comedy, Language, Suggestive, Crossover
Rating: T
Summary: P3+P4 crossover; Home Ec class with the baddest of the bad.
Altitudinous, puffy white chef’s hat-check.
Crisp, clean, and sanitarily conditioned (or “the three c’s,” as he liked to call them) apron-double check.
Kitchen ladle of judgment-check-a-roo.
“A’ight!” The distinct, authoritative voice of Shinjiro Aragaki, resident chef extraordinaire, shouted as he pointed his ladle at a group of bumbling, unreliable looking teenagers in similar garb-minus the dazzling hat, of course.
“Welcome to ‘Cooking Shit with Shinji’-and that ‘shit’ is gonna taste damn delicious if I have anything to say about it!”
He gestured to his ladle to a person standing beside him wearing a puffy hat too-albeit a slightly smaller one.
“I have deemed this man the only one worthy of serving as my assistant chef-everyone give a warm welcome to Kanji Tatsumi.”
“‘Sup?” The gruff voice of the guy who clearly looked like juvenile delinquent ready to beat the crap out of you said nonchalantly-he polished a very large butcher knife in his hands.
No sane person would sign up for this Home Ec class.
But nobody here was very normal anyway, so...
“Earlier, I had asked you all to find a partner and divide into teams of two...then to take turns drawing from the ‘Secret Cheffy Box’-” Shinji jerked his ladle in the direction of a colorfully decorated, cheap-looking cardboard box... “-which would contain slips written with a ‘Secret Cheffy Concept’ for the inspiration of your dishes.”
“Now,” he began with an assertive tone, “my assistant and I shall begin tasting your creations!”
“We will be grading based on how well you’ve incorporated the pièce de résistance-the ‘Secret Cheffy Concept’-into your work, and, of course-taste!”
“You start on that end, I’ll start on this end, then we’ll meet up in the middle for the assessment.” Shinji expressed to Kanji while pointing his ladle in different directions. He then handed one of the two clipboards sitting on the counter to Kanji, and took the remaining one for himself.
“Got’cha, senpai.”
Shinji approached his first table-and oh shit, it was his girlfriend. He’d have to give her a good score no matter how it tasted. However, he kept his face as stern as possible and cast a critical eye at the soupy-looking dish in front of him.
“Rise Kujikawa and Minako Arisato, huh?” He muttered, glancing at the information on his clipboard... Their Secret Cheffy Concept was spice.
“Uh-huh~” The Rise girl said in a voice so cute it could kill-and now that he thought about it, she sounded an awful lot like...
“Hey, you’re right-he is kinda cute...” She continued, this time seeming to speak to Minako.
Shinji reddened and scowled with irritation-and just what had these two been talking about?! And he definitely did not like the way this Rise girl stretched that last statement of hers.
“I know, right?” Minako’s smile was painfully innocent. “Hands off though bitch, ’k?”
“-O-KAY, then!” Shinji said quickly and loudly to cut off the two bombshell redheads before promptly scooping a ladleful of their suspicious, crimson fluid...
“H-How is it, senpai??” Minako asked in anticipation.
He tasted nothing...no, wait...there was a little something in there-maybe more of a kick...no-holy shit that’s spicy!!
“What did you put in that-!” He started to exclaim with watery eyes when he noticed that their cute, smiling faces were suddenly turning pouty... “-because it was friggin’ delicious!” He finished, stifling a cough.
“Yay~!” They exclaimed, going all girly on him while he argued with himself that they did, indeed, use spice.
Kanji approached his first table.
“Hey, senpai.” He said casually as he recognized Souji Seta resting his head against his hand with a rather bored look to his face. “-and ‘Chidori Yoshino’?” He read off the clipboard to identify the weird girl in Lolita who was sitting next to him. With their combined irritated expressions, they gave off a kind of unfriendly, “go die in a fire, please” aura.
“‘Hospital food’, eh? Well, let’s see what you’ve got.” Kanji tucked the clipboard beneath his left arm and smacked his hands together in anticipation, looking for their dish-except he didn’t see a dish.
“I hate hospitals...” The girl said with detestation.
“Tell me about it...” Souji concurred.
Shinji hadn’t even approached his next table when he heard bickering.
“I’m telling you-beef! It should be beef bowls!”
“No, you tasteless prep-boy! Steak!"
“That’s it! These gloves are comin’ off! Beef!!”
“FFFFSTEAK!!”
Shinji proceeded to give his friend a good smack over the head with his ladle of judgment.
“Ow! Shinji, what the-!”
“Listen you two meatheads! We work together in Shinji’s Cheffy Kitchen, got that?!” He pointed his ladle at both of them in an incriminating way.
“But Shinji, the beef-!”
“I’ve ‘bout had it up to here with all your damn beef, Aki!” Shinji interrupted him. “And another thing!: How about being a gentleman and letting the lady here decide what you cook!” He said in more of an order than a suggestion.
“Thank-you, Captain Chef, sir. I was trying to tell him-” The steak-enamored brown-haired girl began...
“Her-a lady?!” Akihiko couldn’t help blurting out.
“Oh, ohhh no you did not just-!” The spunky girl wasn’t one to take any shit, and Shinji could respect that-but not in his kitchen!
“If you two don’t buckle down and learn a little thing or two about teamwork, then I’m gonna have both your hides on cleanup duty! And all meat is good! ...Except spam! Now get cookin’!”
Kanji made his way to the next table.
“Dude! Rel-ax! The ‘Junpei Grand Slammwhich Guest Starring Yosuke’ will give us a flawless score!” A kind of stupid-sounding guy with a goatee announced loudly.
“Dude! How can I relax?! There isn’t anything ‘original creation’ about you stuffing pepperoni into a PB&J! Not to mention-ew!”
This wasn’t sounding very appealing to Kanji.
“And why am I the pepperoni?!”
“‘Cause it looks like those orange headphones you wear!”
“Dude, pepperoni isn’t orange!”
“...Oh. Must be a bad batch or somethin’ then... Heh heh.”
This really wasn’t sounding appealing to Kanji.
“Okay, ‘Junpei Iori’ and Yosuke-senpai... What ‘original creation’ have you suckers got?” Kanji interrogated with disgust in his voice after glancing at his clipboard.
“W-Well, uh-” Yosuke started, but Junpei interrupted him.
“-Sir! Please... Allow the ‘J-G-S-G-S-Y’ to speak for itself, and take your tastebuds on a journey!”
...Whatever. Kanji was game.
“...”
“This...hell, I ain’t gonna lie to you guys. This is pretty damn nasty. I’m gonna have to give you guys an F.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Junpei’s voice cracked in disbelief.
“See? I told you so!” Yosuke said heatedly before letting out a whine. “Aww, man... I can’t believe I let you do this!”
“Dude, it’s totally no big deal! I get F’s all the time!”
Shinji went to his next table-only one left after this. Not everyone could screw things up, could they? He heard a lot of laughing coming from this next one...
“‘Ryoji Mochizuki’ and...‘Teddie’?” Shinji stared at the weird name that had no last name for a minute before looking at their Secret Cheffy Concept-sweet.
“Th-that’s us!!” Said the blonde boy whom he could’ve sworn was sparkling. “Bet you could BEAR-ly wait to see us, huh? Ha ha ha!”
This kid sounded like he had forgotten to take his medication.
“Pfft! Good one, Ted!” Said the guy in the ridiculous scarf-that should not be worn in Shinji’s Cheffy Kitchen, mind you-as his eyes teared up from laughter.
“Your dish?” Shinji questioned with a firm tone.
“Uh-ahahaha!! One second-” The scarfed boy finished his fit of laughter before stating:
“We kinda ate all the sugar, so y’see we only had these blocks of baking chocolate left, so me’n Ted just decided to write the ‘sweet’est love notes on ‘em that we could come up with!”
The two of them broke into unprecedented laughter again.
“See?” Teddie held out a square of chocolate with some godawful pickup line written on it.
Shinji used his ladle of judgment to crack the square in half.
“-Hey! We were going to pass those out!!” They protested.
“In Shinji’s Cheffy Kitchen, we also do not pickup chicks-or eat of all Shinji’s damn sugar supply!”
Kanji checked his clipboard as he went for his second-to-last table.
“Naoto Shirogane and Minato Arisato.” Goddammit! Anyone but Naoto-kun!
When he approached, he purposely avoided looking at her, because he knew he’d turn ridiculously red if he did-seeing her in an apron, offering him food she cooked...
Then he saw this guy.
And he looked fucking exactly like...
“Is something wrong, Kanji-kun?” Naoto asked.
Kanji kept the clipboard directly in front of his face the entire time.
“N-No! Great job, delicious, gotta go!” He stammered out quickly before booking it.
“But you didn’t even taste-” He heard the guy start to say.
“If I say it’s delicious, then it’s freakin’ delicious!!” Kanji shouted as he walked away rapidly, clipboard still over face.
Shinji and Kanji had somehow met up at this last table.
“Guess we’re doing this one together then, eh?” Kanji stated as he turned to see what was cooking at this particular table.
“Yukiko Amagi and Fuuka Yamagishi.” Shinjiro read off.
A bowl of grotesque, repulsive, unidentifiable matter awaited them. It was purple and gray-and was that a tentacle sticking out? The smell alone was enough to knock someone out.
“You wanna go for it?” Shinji asked, gesturing to the dish with his ladle while bowing slightly.
“No way in hell, man.”