Taste of a Memory

-Intro-

The clock was exactly 6 am when your eyes snapped open. Like clockwork, you sat up and got out of bed, going about your morning routine in the swift span of 15 minutes. Tying a sugar-white apron around your waist, slightly crooked to give you access to one of your dress-pants' pockets. You snatched up a white ribbon and drew your hair back, out of your face for all the morning preparations.

Slight taps echoed around the small restaurant below as you descended to the kitchen. Quickly rolling up your sleeves, you set about searching for all the required kitchen appliances. While walking past it, you snapped the coffee machine on as well.

The flames of the stove flickered to life under your swift hands, turning and pushing knobs to start on breakfast. Quickly whipping up a batter, you threw a pan on the stove and added a healthy dollop of butter before pouring some of the batter in, just the right amount. You started humming a small tune, feeling at ease in the early morning atmosphere. It didn't take long for various smells to start mixing in the air, from savoury to sweet, the table filling with plates alongside them.

Just as the coffee machine made it known it was done and you'd started to make yourself a cup of it, stumbling footsteps sounded from above, a clear sign that one of your Food Souls was awake. And, true to your thoughts, a few moments later a very sleepy Redheaded Slut walked in, rubbing his make-up free eyes. Though he didn't stay for too long, grabbing himself a plate of whatever appealed to him that morning before disappearing back upstairs, not to be seen for a few more hours.

You ignored the small passing scene, taking a sip of the freshly brewed, coal black coffee. And then cringed. You hated coffee. Much too bitter.

After that fiasco, you snatched a clipboard from the wall, starting on inventory while still occasionally sipping the only thing keeping you alert. You softly assessed what you'd need to get from the market, both for the opening of your new restaurant and for tonight's special, a summoning. Quite the exciting thought, one that you'd been waiting for for so long.

Of course, your decision wasn't without its criticisms, one of which walked down the stairs to the kitchen just as you got done with inventory, black hair disheveled and burning orange eyes dead set on a glare. Salmiac took a long look at the foods on the table, barely touched, sent you a swift look of annoyance, and then beelined for the coffee machine. You merely huffed out a laugh, setting the clipboard on its dedicated place on the wall.

After few moments of Salmiac nursing his coffee and you searching every nook and cranny for the cleaning supplies so that you could deep clean the kitchen, the pale Food Soul finally spoke; "Feelin' happy?"

His thick accent, that had never faded in the years of you knowing him, a strange mix of a very Northern stump and gangster talk, made it hard to really understand what he was trying to say, especially in the mornings when his voice was thick with sleep.

"Quite." You answered, finally locating the cleaning supplies in a cabinet below the sink, a place you perhaps should have checked first but didn't. You pulled out a disinfectant bottle and a rag, and started spraying the cleaner on every surface in the room, scrubbing vigorously.

Salmiac followed you with his orange eyes, glaring through his exhaustion. He wasn't happy about your sudden interest in gaining a new Food Soul. Well, sudden would be an overstatement. It had been years in the making, but Salmiac was the type of person to deny anything that he didn't like until he couldn't anymore. He had denied Redheaded Slut's presence for months when he first came until it became clear that you wouldn't be kicking him out anytime soon.

"Still pretty sure that tis whole things goin' to turn into a fiasco." You snorted at his pronunciation of 'fiasco', momentarily pausing your vicious scrubbing to face him, one eyebrow drawn high up with the slightest of slanted smiles accompanying it.