#with otak scratched into his back

[tired-demonspawn]

one thing i didn't expect from this update was old man yaoi, but old man yaoi i got

[obihiro-division]

Veiled Vanguard Drama Track 1 - Bare to the World

Part 1

Chaos is swirling all around Hisoka Tetsuma, his ears ringing loudly from whatever gun had fired within the warehouse. Like a avalanche, more and more bodies started to fall around his legs screaming for help, salvation from the monster let loose upon the poor unsuspecting men. Whipping his head around he sees his twin brother, running towards him in a silent scream before a shadow looms over the two of them.

And right before he wakes up, Hisoka watches his brother get speared by one clawed hand.

【 Spur Stud Ranch, Hisoka’s Living Quarters 】

Jolting awake, Hisoka flails his blankets off his body as if he were trying to escape his own nightmares into the physical world. Drenched in sweat, the man gasps and clenches at his torso to make sure his body is intact. It takes awhile, but eventually the man calms down enough to slump his body back down in his bed letting his breathing even out.

It has been nearly two years since the incident yet his mind can’t seem to let him move on. In his dreams and even in his waking life, the image of his twin brother Haruto haunts him. Hisoka knew that he needed to give it time. But no matter how much his few supports had repeated those comforting words, it never eased him in the slightest.

Seeing that there was no point in trying to force himself to go back to sleep, the man went about to start his day. Cleaning himself, greeting the other early morning workers, then getting to his favorite part of his job: Taking care of the horses. That is, when he isn’t cleaning up their stalls or mixing their feed, and instead taking the time to groom and ride the horses…

【 Spur Stud Main Barn 】

Checking into the main barn’s lounge, he goes to start a pot of coffee for the more caffeine addicted workers that have yet to arrive. Seeing that he also would probably need the stimulation to stay awake for the day, he made sure to get his biggest thermos so that he could stay wired for the day.

Ken Otake: Hey, Tetsumasu!

Nearly dropping his drink in surprise, Hisoka whips around to stare at the barn manager in alarm.

Ken Otake: Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. You have a package.

Hisoka: P-Pack…?

The man’s voice cracks, not that his manager seemed to pay any mind. He hands the large box over to Hisoka, scratching his head seemingly in equal parts confused about the package’s origins and contents. 

Ken Otake: This thing’s pretty heavy! It says its from the capital… You got like a sister over there? Or maybe even a girlfriend?

The comments alone was making Hisoka sweat, but the implication of it being from a significant other got a blush out of him.

Hisoka: N-No! I mean… It’s probably just my uh, ma! That’s probably it…

It seemed that Otake wanted to pry into the matter further and tease Hisoka. The man was quick to dodge any further comments both literally and figuratively, as he patted the manager awkwardly and spoke in a more confidant tone.

Hisoka: Thanks for delivering it to me Otake-san. I’m just gonna drop it off… I-In my room.

That was a partial lie that unfortunately slipped towards the end of his statement in stutters. But it was enough to get him out of the main barn and make his way back in the direction of his living quarters. Instead of going to the employee’s residential building however, Hisoka made a hard turn to go to one of the abandoned barns further out the on property. The walk would be long and it might bring suspicion to what he was doing, but his imagination was going wild about the package and what its contents could be. What if this is a GPS tracker? What if this is a bomb? What if this is the head of some random guy who he might have known?

By the time Hisoka had snuck into the barn through a giant hole in the wall (the door was rusted shut), he carefully set the package down in the middle of the dilapidated building and walked back slowly. When all was silent, he let out a surprisingly shrill scream for someone with a baritone voice.

Hisoka: THEY FOUND ME, FUCK!

Starting to pace around the barn, Hisoka began to rant.

Hisoka: I thought I covered my tracks? Fuck, I knew I should have started to go under a fake name. But I panicked! I panicked because I was scared. Toshiko-san was right, I was bound to get found by some pissed off gangster sooner or later!

With a one, two stomp, he points at the box in an accusatory tone.

Hisoka: Why now?! Why the hell did this have to appear right when I was getting comfortable in my new life?!

And in an exhausted sigh, the man falls to his knees not caring about the dirt and bugs that scattered around him.

Hisoka: Do I really have to live my life on the run? That… That was the last thing I wanted to do. I worked so hard to get here… How could I have ruined it?

Letting his hands massage his temples, his temper starts to mellow out. And with that, Hisoka is overcome with curiosity. Considering Chuohku had made an effort to send this package, he might as well check out the contents, right? If this was some sort of trap, he might as well accept fate.

Reaching towards the package, the man tentatively tore the packing tape off to gently lift the flaps open. But right as he was about to look inside, the sound of the barn’s rusted doors rattling startled Hisoka. His yellow eyes stared at the doors, watching, waiting for the sound of someone to try at the doors again. Internally, Hisoka’s brain was already going a mile a minute. It’s the cops, here to detain him now that their bomb failed to detonate! …Or something even more ridiculous. These thoughts were overwhelming his mind, distracting from the shadow that loomed above him before it was too late.

Hisoka: …SHIT!

In a shout, the red head whips around to strike the stranger only to stumble in his crouched position. As he scrambles to stand properly, to fight back against his assailant, Hisoka is pushed onto his back instead. Straddled by a green haired man, dressed in the fanciest suit Hisoka has probably seen in his life, Hisoka struggles to take a swing at him. Only the man pins each arm one by one, before leaning down to stare down at Hisoka with cold purple eyes.

Jack: …That’s no way to greet a guest, Mr. Tetsumasu.

To be continued…

[dearmadalice]

@nekkyousagi - A little blurb in which Date Shigezane seeks advice for his romantic plight from vegetables and Kojuro

“Is there something wrong with me?” Shigezane leaned against his hoe, blinking sweat out of his eyes while he pouted at Kojuro. “Yes,” Kojuro answered. He didn't look up from his task. He picked up a stone he had turned up and tossed it away and out of the field. “But, you should be more specific. Otherwise we'll never get anywhere with this conversation.” Shigezane huffed and whined again. “Funny,” he snorted. “Mean Tsuna . . .  but what I mean is there something wrong with me as a man?” Shigezane scratched the side of his face. “I always thought I was sorta good with women . . . but I think I've lost it.”

Kojuro gave Shigezane a look. “Specifics,” he said again. Then he shook his head. “Sometimes that happens to a man when he's far past his prime.” Shigezane turned a violent shade of red and grumbled angrily. “Asshole. No, I mean . . . like. It was easy before. Talking to them and getting them to like me. But now I feel like they don't understand what I'm trying to say.” Shigezane kicked a bit of dirt and started plowing, sighing heavily. “Or maybe I just got stupid all of a sudden. I don't know how to be any more obvious than I already am!” “I thought you made a promise not to repeat the mistakes of your past.” Kojuro looked at Shigezane, who was still paying strict attention to the dirt. “Or should I remind you where your actions landed you? Your daughter?”

Shigezane turned red again. “N-not like that,” he mumbled. He turned red again, and his youth was apparent on his face and in the way his hands tightened against his tool's handle. “I mean . . . real love, Tsuna. I didn't want to marry those other girls but . . . I really want to. I'm really serious this time!” Shigezane's brow furrowed and the set of his mouth stiffened. Kojuro sighed a little. “Is Miss Otake giving you trouble?” Shigezane inhaled sharply. “H-how'd you know?!” Kojuro started laughing then. “You're right. I don't know how you possibly could be any more obvious about it.” Shigezane acted very much like a love sick fool around the young country woman Otake. He tripped over himself and was always practically pinned to her side. He whined when she was gone. And he spent far too much time thinking over letters to send her. A man who had always had so much confidence in his writing, suddenly having so much trouble? Shigezane groaned again. “If I'm so obvious to you then why do I feel so useless?” Shigezane fell quiet, stopping his work. Kojuro looked him over, and saw that the younger man was much distressed. He understood why Shigezane had wanted to help in the fields. Kojuro used it as a way to work through his own troubles, and to get a few moments of peace away from his other, numerous responsibilities. Shigezane had been seeking the same. “I don't know what to do, Tsuna. I think she's starting to hate me.” Shigezane's whole posture slumped. “But I guess . . . I guess that makes sense.” “I don't think she hates you,” he said. “If she did, you'd probably know. She'd tell you.” One of her many quirks was her sometimes crude bluntness. To his knowledge, she had never said anything to indicate Shigezane was some intolerable lout. “But you can't force her, Shigezane.” “I know.” Shigezane rubbed the back of his neck. “I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did that.” He looked over at Kojuro and shook his head. “I already know what I have to do. I guess I just needed to hear it.” “And what would that be?” Shigezane took a breath. “Let her go, I guess. That's what you'd say.” Kojuro walked over, and smacked Shigezane on the back of the head. “That isn't what I was going to say. I was going to say, that if you truly wish to pursue Miss Otake that you need to be yourself. Offer yourself. And if it's meant to be, it will be.” He could hardly believe he was giving Shigezane romantic advice. Then he smacked the other man again. “It isn't the Date way to just give up. We fight.” That seemed to resonate. Shigezane's eyes burned to life, his lips curling into a smile. “You're right! Of course you're right!” He dropped his hoe, bouncing over a row of radishes as he started back towards the estate. “I'm going to write a letter!” he exclaimed. “No . . . I am going to go see her! I'm going to show her that a Date man is a real catch! That Date Shigezane is the greatest catch in Oushu!” Shigezane flexed a little and then laughed. “Thanks, Tsuna~! You're a real help!” Kojuro stood there a moment, before he realized Shigezane's work wasn't nearly done. “G-get back here!” he shouted. “Finish what you started! Shigezane!” But the other man had already bounced out of the fields and onto the main road back to the castle, well out of earshot. He hoped Shigezane would be a less useless husband one day than a farmer.

[its-lifestyle]

On a sunny Thursday afternoon, three friends sit down together for a meal. Interestingly, it is the sole male among the three who has done all the cooking.

“It took me three days to prepare all this food,” exclaims David Neo, a senior lecturer at the faculty of film, theatre and animation at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).

His friends are in awe and conversation flows as plates are piled with food. “Ooh, what is this?” asks the cheerful Dr Lee Su Kim, author of the popular Kebaya Tales and the founding president of the Peranakan Baba Nyonya Association KL & Selangor.

“It’s called bakwan goreng and it’s a meatball with some spices in it,” says Neo, poking the plump rotund balls he has carefully fried up.

“I don’t know how to make any of these things. But I know how to make pongtey in a pressure cooker,” laughs Melissa Chan, who recently wrote a book called Stories Of One Malaccan Family.

The three laugh merrily and turn their attentions to eating. Although none are related, they share a common bond: they are all Peranakan Chinese.

History of the Peranakan Chinese

There are nine different Peranakan communities in Malaysia – the Peranakan Chinese in Penang, their counterparts in Melaka, Portuguese Eurasians, the Hindu Chetties in Melaka, Jawi Peranakans (made up of Indian Muslims married to Malays), Arab descendants (Muslim Arabs married to local women), the Peranakan Chinese communities in Terengganu and Kelantan and the samsam Peranakans (who are of Thai and Malay lineage).

Of these, the Peranakan Chinese in the Straits Settlements (Penang, Melaka and Singapore) are the ones that most people are likely to be familiar with. In Melaka, this community typically speaks Baba Malay while in Penang, Hokkien is the language of conversation.

Peranakan Chinese can trace their ancestry back to the 13th century when Chinese merchants travelled to Malaysia and ended up marrying local women and settling in different parts of Malaysia. The women they married themselves came from multiple places – Batok, Java, Sulawesi, Thailand and Bali. This intermingling resulted in a unique cultural identity that has – to a certain extent – prevailed to this day.

The word “Peranakan” itself literally translates to “child of the land”, but within the Peranakan Chinese community, men are called Babas and women are called Nyonyas, although there is some contention in this regard as the word Baba is typically limited to male descendants who have been here for generations, as opposed to families whose lineage traces back to late 19th and 20th century Chinese immigrants, termed singkehs.

“These days, there are very few families where both parents are Peranakans, as many have married outside the community. After the war, a lot of the Peranakan families were letting their daughters marry the singkehs because they showed potential. So with time, the culture is getting more watered down because it’s just one side of the family that’s represented,” says Neo, who is a descendant of the famed Tan Tock Seng (who founded the Tan Tock Seng hospital in Singapore).

Chan, Neo and Lee believe that while there is definitely a loss of culinary identity in modern Peranakan Chinese, evolution is key to sustaining the community’s culture.

Food and occasions

Back in the day, the Peranakan Chinese culinary identity was forged based on the Nyonyas, the matriarchs of the homes.

The Nyonya women developed their well-rounded culinary skills and hone recipes that then became tightly-guarded family secrets.

“The food culture is a very rich culture and it’s all deeply family guarded secrets. So different families will have different versions and it’s really families distinguishing themselves, especially the prominent families. In fact, if you find similarities between your food and another Peranakan Chinese family’s recipes, you might actually be related!” says Neo.

As Peranakan Chinese food is notoriously laborious and time-consuming, in the past, the work was often made easier because women from different branches of the family would come together to cook for weddings, banquets and family events.

While the Peranakan Chinese have a litany of dishes for different occasions, one of the occasions that necessitates cooking up a storm is the practice of ancestral worship or sembahyang abu.

“Ancestral worship is very central to the culture, so depending on who they venerate in the family, if it is grandma, then they will do a sembahyang abu on her birthday, death day and Chinese New Year,” says Neo.

The dishes served for these ancestral homage typically take the form of the forebears’ favourite meals and are presented in multiples of four, with up to eight or 12 dishes laid out for the prayers. Aside from ancestral worship, there is also the concept of tok panjang, or long table meals which involve elaborate festive meals with dishes like pork pongtey and pork with buah keluak arranged on a long table for Chinese New Year, weddings or other festive occasions.

“The whole idea of the tok panjang is to have a spread on the table,” agrees Neo.

Many Peranakan Chinese recipes have not been passed down the generations as modern Nyonya women simply do not have the time to produce these labour-intensive dishes anymore. Pictured here is taugey masak ikan asin.

Lesser-known Peranakan meals

Over time, Peranakan Chinese women have evolved, with many pursuing careers. While this is in tandem with a more global phenomenon, it has also resulted in the loss of many of the heirloom recipes that were typically passed down through the generations. “I eat some of this food at my aunty’s place because she cooks it. But none of my aunty’s daughters cook so I think the recipes will probably not get passed down,” says Chan.

“So it’s a double-sided kind of thing, the more independent the Nyonyas became, the less time they spent in the kitchen. In my grandmother’s time and mother’s time, they were always in the kitchen, celebrated all the festivals and did all the rituals. But few people do that now,” says Lee.

As a result, most people now get their first taste of Peranakan food from local restaurants purportedly serving the cuisine. Unfortunately, Neo says many of the recipes found in modern Nyonya restaurants bear no resemblance to the authentic Peranakan Chinese food he grew up with.

“There is so much that is being diluted and bastardised that when you go to a Peranakan restaurant, half of the menu is not Peranakan at all,” he says, as Lim shakes her head in disgust and mutters “Imposters!”

Still, some stalwarts – like Neo and his friends continue to champion the food and cook their heirloom recipes.

Neo, for instance inherited many recipes from his grandmother like his treasured buah paya masak titek, a light, aromatic soup enhanced with wedges of papaya that he continues to make to this day. “I think it’s not common because even though I’ve seen it in cookbooks, I’ve never had it in anyone’s home or seen it in a restaurant,” he says.

Neo says that most Peranakan restaurants do not serve anything close to the authentic Peranakan Chinese fare he grew up with.

Then there is blotok, a spice-laden concoction similar to otak-otak except that it makes use of fish, prawns and squid.

Meatballs laced with an assortment of spices form the backbone of the corpulent fried bakwan goreng – probably one of the most addictive things to emerge out of the Peranakan Chinese kitchen, if Neo’s version is anything to go by.

Neo says many of these dishes require back-breaking labour, including making everything from scratch, which is why most Peranakan Chinese have turned their backs on the cuisine altogether.

“I mean, our mothers used to cook like that. But nobody now has the time to cook like that. With Peranakan cooking, it is very labour-intensive because you make your rempahs from scratch. Everything that needs to be shredded has to be shredded by hand, because it’s also a reflection of being refined,” says Neo.

While Neo, Chan and Lee all believe that the Peranakan Chinese culinary identity is under threat, they are also pragmatic about the future.

“I think the younger generation should know about the culinary traditions but also how they are going to take that on – it would not be the same as the past because we have to constantly evolve,” says Chan.

Lee says this might mean really having to adapt with the times in more drastic ways, foregoing traditional ways of doing things in favour of updating recipes according to modern needs.

“There might be a day when you need a cookbook that shows people how to cook Peranakan food using shortcuts like pressure cookers and microwaves. I mean, we have to maintain some criteria but we cannot be sticklers about everything,” she says.

Read Part 2 of our series on different Peranakan culinary identities here.

BUAH PAYA MASAK TITEK

For the rempah 50g shallots 4 dried chillies 7g belachan 2 candlenuts

For cooking 400g firm unripe green-yellow papaya 300g prawns, peeled 50g dried salted fish (ikan kurau), cut into 1cm squares 1 litre prawn stock (made from boiling the prawn shells from the above prawns)

To make Pound/grind all the ingredients for the rempah into a fine paste. Set aside.

In a pot, fry salted fish untill it is fragrant. Add prawn stock and bring to boil. Add the rempah and stir for awhile. Add prawns, and lastly add papaya. Do not overcook papaya. Serve hot.

        BLOTOK

For the rempah 150g shallots 10 dried chillies 20g belacan 5 candlenuts 200g stingray, cut into bite-sized pieces 200g prawns, peeled 200g squid, cleaned, and cut into bite-sized pieces 1/2 cup coconut milk 1 egg 5 leaves daun kadok, finely shredded 2 small daun kunyit, finely shredded 10 leaves daun limau purut, finely shredded 4 stalks daun kesom (use leaves only), finely shredded banana leaves, cut into about 15 cm squares to wrap blotok

To make

Pound/grind all the ingredients for the rempah into a fine paste.

Combine all ingredients (except banana leaves) together and mix well. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of mixture onto each banana leave and fold into a boat, bringing the fours ends in, and secure with a toothpick. Steam for half an hour. Eat hot.

from Food – Star2.com https://ift.tt/34IIG98