thearena | Why don't Sponsors ever send mayonnaise?

Who | Kousuke Nitou and you!
What | It's raining frogs and fish? Nitou thinks it's raining dinner.
Where | The castle and the edge of the forest.
When | Thursday, Week 3, before Nitou goes into the catacombs.
Warnings/Notes | Nothing outside of normal Arena things besides a small bit of bathroom humor.

[The Castle]
After the past couple of days of intense, skin-searing sunshine that exacerbated all the burns Nitou had picked up when he'd gotten hit by lightning, rain, any sort of rain, was a relief. Even if it meant getting pelted with fishes and frogs. They weren't dangerous, just kind of weird and gross to get hit in the face with.

Yet even though there had been food provided in the castle the day before, one meal wasn't enough. Nitou knew that you had to strike when the opportunity presented itself, and so he'd scrounged around in the castle in order to find some sort of container in which to catch the falling frogs and fish. The problem was that in his zeal to find a container, he'd neglected to take into account several facets of medieval life. Such as medieval toilets and the fact that the basin he'd conveniently found in one of the bedrooms was in actuality a chamber pot and not something he'd want to keep potential food in.

He was running around outside, trying to catch as many fish and frogs as he could in the chamber pot he'd removed from the castle. Nothing at all to see here, move along, hope he's going to wash those really well before eating them, and maybe a Sponsor would gift him with some hand sanitizer if they took pity on him and the object he was handling.

[The Edge of the Forest]
Nitou wasn't too worried about making a fire. The fire would show everyone where he was, but so was that marker hanging over his head. There was no point in worrying about it. Even if the forest creeped him out and he only hung around the edges, he was good at this survival stuff. He knew what he was doing, and it wasn't long before he'd set up a fire.

There were a few empty bottles of Tracker Jacker hand sanitizer scattered around the area as Nitou set up some of the fish and frogs cooking on skewers and a rough spit he'd built over the fire. Sure, he could use some mayonnaise, but he had more than he could eat by himself. That was doing about as well as could be hoped for in an Arena. He was in a good enough mood that he might be willing to share with anyone who came across him, if they weren't actively trying to kill him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He did. And he feels bad. So he gives a very empathetic nod in return and takes a testing nibble at his portion of fish. "...f'you say so." The fish, it tastes like fish, and he's fine with that. So he's taking a bigger bite, chewing it quickly, and then picking a bit of bone out of the spot that he has bitten off.

"...when you say it like that, it sounds like you've had inedible chicken."

"You ever forage out of a dumpster?" Nitou takes another bite of his frog. "Believe me, inedible chicken is out there. It exists."

Haruto grimaces. "Why do these conversations always come back around to dumpsters?" It is not enough to put him off his feed, though, and he's taking another bite of fish.

Nitou considers this. "Well," he reasons, "that's where I go for food back home if I'm really desperate, and here in an Arena?" He pauses to swallow the mouthful of frog he's been talking around. "I'm really desperate."

"Okay. Okay, when we get back home?" There's a dramatic pause while he takes a bigger bite of fish and hastily chews and swallows it. "You are not eating out of any more dumpsters, even if I have to follow you around and feed you myself." If it sounds ridiculously over-protective, well... it is. But he's not thinking of it like that. He is just trying to think of some way that will make Nitou's existence moderately less gross. Honest.

And maybe dare the sponsors into dropping something to eat alongside these fish and frogs.

It does sound over-protective, but you know what? Nitou doesn't care right now. They're on camera, the cameras eat that up. "Are you kidding me? Can you even cook?"

...which is actually an honest question, because subterfuge is not Nitou's strongest skill. "I mean, I've cooked way more than you."

It's getting easier and easier to play towards the cameras, the more time he spends in Nitou's company. If he weren't so hungry, he might worry about that.

"Mpph!" That's a sound of protest through a mouthful of fish, and then a few more similar sounds follow as he picks a fishbone out of his mouth and tosses it aside. "...I do! I've made breakfast for people before!" Which was never as good as the breakfasts that Mr. Wajima put together. He could never keep the yolks solid on fried eggs, and tended to almost burn the bacon. But that totally counts as cooking. "You've cooked over campfires more than me."

"And what's the important thing here?" Nitou grins. "Campfires. There's not gonna be an Arena where they give us a real kitchen." He pauses, debating how much he wants to play this up for the cameras. "Even if they did, I'd worry it would explode or kill you with a gas leak or something. So here? Let me do it."

"Aah, I don't know, didn't they have a cafe in one of them? A museum one?" He waggles that fish-on-a-stick at Nitou once. Just once, because the waggling is threatening to let the rest of the meat on it drop away. He's quick to reach out, catch it, and stuff it in his mouth.

"....I shouldn't complain about being spoiled."

"Yeah, but still, that's not the same!" Nitou stuffs more food into his own mouth. "Nothing wrong with being spoiled, but someday, you gotta learn how to take care of yourself when nothing else is there!"

"It's totally the same!" No, it's not. But it's fun to keep the argument going. He stifles laughter with another bite of fish, and then another... and then it's all gone but the head and bones. And okay, he's nibbling at the head a little, too.

"Hey, I have been learning to take care of myself! I've figured out rabbit snares!" And he's very proud of himself for this.

"So have you caught anything with the rabbit snares?" Nitou's grinning now. "That's the really important part."

"Yes! Rabbits." Well, one rabbit, which was a considerable triumph on his part, but he doesn't want to brag.

(That's a lie, he really wants to brag, but Nitou is not the right person to brag to about that.)

"So don't think I'm going to just lie around and let you take care of everything, alright! I've got this."

"Is that so?" Nitou grins approvingly. "Well, alright! My rival should be able to hunt." He takes another bite of his food. "So next time, you can take care of dinner."

"Next time, I will!" He'll have surely caught more things by then. Foraged up more food. He'll... the first word that comes to mind is impress, but no, shouldn't it be show Nitou? They are 'rivals', after all...

He dismisses the thought with a shake of his head and reaches for another skewered fish. "Though I hear you can't live on rabbit forever. Is that true?"

"Well...probably. I think you need to throw a vegetable in there every so often." Nitou thinks on it for a minute. "But rabbits eat vegetables...so maybe you can!"

"Well... vegetables, sure, but I thought it was something about fat, too...." Nitou probably knows best, though. He shrugs and bites into the new fish with a content sound.

Why don't Sponsors ever send mayonnaise?

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And fade?