Let It Simmer Ch. 1 - Homemade Castelia Cones
Having returned to the future, Ingo finds himself stumped on just who he was before Hisui as his memories still haven't returned. As such, until he can find his way back to his home station he must spend some time in the modern-day Sinnoh. Left sitting around for the most part while the investigators do their work, he decides to put a gift given to him by his friends in the past to good use by making a food recipe blog of traditional Hisuian dishes.
It's by complete happenstance that Emmet stumbles upon his blog, having taken on cooking as a hobby during Ingo's absence.
As I said I would, I have now edited and crossposted the Submas Recipe Lore AU Snippet I posted here onto AO3 - I have also added an additional scene toward the end to connect it with the idea expanded upon on this anon ask I got! I'll continue to post all further snippets onto this series name. Please enjoy (again lol)!
Word Length: 1,163
Relevant Tags: Amnesiac Ingo, cooking, social media, texting, memories, Ingo and Emmet are internet friends, fluff and hurt/comfort, comedy, comedy of errors
Do not tag as ship. Doing so will incur an automatic and swift block.
Read it on AO3! Or below the cut. Enjoy!
Warden
I was curious though, I noticed that you don't post any recipes on your own blog. Is there a particular reason? I simply ask because I find myself curious about what dishes you enjoy, and wish to maybe try and make them as you have made the ones I've shared.
SitrusPieCrustle
Ah. That.
I do not make recipes. I just like cooking them.
So I have nothing to share.
Warden
I see. We are similar in this aspect then too.
SitrusPieCrustle
How? You have shared many recipes.
Warden
True, but please understand, they were gifted to me by friends that I can no longer visit. As a going away present of sorts I suppose would be the best way to put it. They often cooked most of these recipes during our time together so I am grateful that they provided me succinct instructions on how to recreate them whenever I wish. My sharing them with the rest of the Internet was a fleeting desire, as I was hoping to, in part, share Hisuian culture with the modern-day palette.
SitrusPieCrustle
The inherited cookbook, right?
I presume they have passed then. From your wording.
sorry if wrong
Warden
They have.
SitrusPieCrustle
Sorry for your loss. Very sorry.
Warden
No apologies necessary, it is a wound that has long since scabbed over.
SitrusPieCrustle
Still. Sorry.
[What Emmet couldn't have known was this: Ingo had spent a long day sitting and waiting for a promised phone call that never came. He had been told in advance by his case workers that they might have found a lead to his forgotten identity, but when the cellular device never rang it became clear that Ingo should retire his hopes for the night. It was incredibly late in the day, but just in time to have an active conversation with his newfound friend that he made from his recipe blog.
Their chats often took place hours in between each message due to the time zone difference, but he found it entirely soothing to talk about… literally anything other than the fact that he still hadn't found the people his heart longed for. He needed a distraction, and he hoped that Sitrus needed one too.]
SitrusPieCrustle
I have one recipe.
if you want to hear it
Warden
I would be delighted to.
[What Ingo couldn't have known was this: Emmet was verrry grateful that the website hosting their Private Messages didn't have a function to show when someone was typing. Otherwise, the minutes in-between while he failed and failed again to type: 'when me and Ingo-' backspace 'as kids my twin and I-' backspace 'something I loved to do with my brother-' backspace would have had him stressing about how his online pal was interpreting it.
Even now, after all this time, it still smarted to talk about his memories of Ingo. Some days were better than most, and on this day he settled.]
SitrusPieCrustle
Have you ever made homemade Castelia Cones?
Warden
I don't think I know what that is. We do not have it here at least.
Care to inform me, please?
SitrusPieCrustle
It's ice cream. Safe for Pokémon to eat.
And incredibly easy to make from home.
Not as tasty though.
I'll teach you. It will be fun. Promise :^)
Warden
I believe you and am excited to learn!
(Ingo had always found it difficult to focus on the face of strangers. It wasn't something that impeded his ability to go about his duties as a warden, but left him struggling to remember the features of a merchant he had spoken to days prior when confronted with them again or even some of his fellow Pearls during the early days of his stay in Hisui; something he had ultimately chalked up to a lingering aftereffect of whatever had impacted his memories.
"Aw, man." A young boy with a hazy face spoke up, staring dismayed down at the ground. A mess of white ice and an uneaten waffle cone lay on the concrete as a casualty of untied sneakers, the boy having tripped forward moments before and losing his grip on his treat.
Ingo, who was much younger than he had ever been in his life stared down at the catastrophe too. It was an unexpected loss of the allowance money they had saved up for weeks in advance but more than that it was the source of the building sadness in the one beside him. The two had been looking forward to buying the ice cream, but none were more excited than the boy in white overalls.
Without another second passing, Ingo extended his own twin cone. The boy might have blinked, but expressions and features were a blur in the leftovers of this moment, but Ingo's next actions showed that the other was indeed befuddled by the gesture.
"Here," Ingo's small hand pushed the cone closer as he explained. "For you."
"Ingo... that one is yours."
He shook his head. "Take it." He wanted him to have it, really he did. That was what a good older... was supposed to do, looking after the other.
The fuzzy edges where a mouth would be moved, extending upwards. The boy reached for the cone, gratitude oozing out of the painted wash that remained an unfinished layer on the canvas of Ingo's past.
But instead of taking the cone out of his hands, to Ingo's surprise his... held onto the cone with his hand wrapped around above his own.
"Let's share it instead! Yup!" he said to Ingo with a smile as bright as the stars in the sky, "There's more than enough for the both of us.")
As Ingo slowly lowered his spoon from his mouth, he didn't relinquish it before wiping away at his teary eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. The images—no, the memories—brought forth from the taste of vanilla lingering on his tongue were small and faded but it was so much more than he had started the day with. And that alone made it more precious than any jewel mined from the Sinnoh Underground to Ingo.
Freeing his hand by settling the spoon against the inside of the bowl housing the currently softening frozen cream, Ingo pulled his laptop closer to his spot at the table. He pried the lid open, carefully inputting the password set up for him (with a sticky note on the side frame in case he forgot), and went straight for the chat log he shared with his friend.
By now, Sitrus was probably on his way to or already at work and thus wouldn't see his message until later that evening—morning, from Ingo's perspective. But Ingo needed to let him know immediately what gift he had granted him.
Warden
Thank you for sharing this with me. Because of you, I was able to remember faintly a moment from my childhood which is something I couldn't have said yesterday. This means more than you could possibly imagine.
67 notes
·
View notes