HxH x Male Reader (on hiatus, sorry :[ )

Chap 11: Cooking x It x Up

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Whilst others now rotated their pigs above blazing fires, M/N was leisurely tugging his along, reaching the gates by the time most of his acquaintances meals were at the halfway point.

The group he was tagging along with looked at him nervously, worried he wouldn't be able to cook something up on time.
But strangely enough, the boy himself didn't seem to care.

He threw the mass on the counter of his station when he finally arrived, placing down the assortment of things he picked up on the way elsewhere.
Most of it, truly, wouldn't help him anyway.

He just couldn't bring himself to care that much about a challenge he was doomed to fail.

And so, he prepared the pig to the best of his knowledge, at least having the decency to portion it, unlike many of his other contestants.
When he finally had it in a pan, he threw in whatever he knew tasted good on its own, and left it to cook.

What came out was a slab of browned meat, unpleasant looking shrivelled herbs and other assortments of stuff stuck to it.
Kurapika, at the surprisingly pleasant smell, peeked over inspecting his competitors dish.
Though he felt then that maybe it wasn't justified calling him a competitor, not when his meal looked like that...

One man finished then ran to the judges, plate in hand, leading others to take initiative as well. Contestants now lined up to present their own dishes, though a consistent fate awaited each of them throughout each judging.

The female judge, Menchi, wouldn't even lay her hands on the dishes.

Gon, Leorio, and Kurapika lined up at Leorio's station, chatting with one another about the judges decisions while Kurapika came up with his own theory towards her choices.
M/N, who listened from afar, didn't quite agree with Kurapika's solution.
Why?
Because he was wrong.

Kurapika thought the judges would prefer a pleasant looking dish, in contrast to the whole pigs presented to them.
But M/N wondered, why would it matter what the judge thought of the appearance if the food tasted gross?

Taste was always first in a dish, and even though he could only ever make garbage for food, he knew that as fact.

He thought about telling the boy, but, a little part of his brain thought the situation was funny, so, he let it be.
It would be nice for the boy to come to his own conclusions anyway, if the older just spoon-fed him the answers, he'd never learn.

He smiled and pat himself on the back for his good behaviour, then joined the line to give the judges his own dish.

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Two small blue X's were presented to him upon the tasting of his food.

Even though Menchi was clearly hesitant, it seemed she realized that the boy did something other than just throwing a pig on a fire and so she tried it with an open mind.
But, as she expected, she should never open her mind.

The flavours clashed so severely she felt as though an all-out war was happening in her mouth. She made sure M/N was informed of this too.

"Overwhelming. My tastebuds can't settle on one flavour. Terrible. Maybe think harder about the taste next time. Fail."

She flipped her small sign over to reveal the blue X everyone else had received so far.
M/N understood this fail. To be fair, he didn't consider the flavours that mixing every plant he came across would create.
But to get an X from the generous Buhara too? That was a slap to the face.

He looked expectantly at the towering man, who looked kindly back.
"Too small a portion. Follow your fellow examiners and perhaps cook the whole pig next time."

Now M/N was loss. How was he supposed to win with this duo?
He'd  never figure it out as he was kicked away by the next applicant who came up behind him, unsurprisingly, holding a large plate with a whole burnt pig upon it.

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Inevitably due to strict, but fair, judgement, nobody passed.
This caused an uprise from the mad crowd as a man attempted to injure to confident judge, though he only ended up eating dirt to Buhara's fist.

The commotion was interrupted as some old man with a long, and strangely shaped, beard hopped out from a large air balloon, sticking the landing, and immediately starting to scold Menchi and Buhara.

He then let everyone know they'd change the phase so at least some could pass. Considering how hard he'd worked on the rest of the phases.
It'd be a waste wouldn't it?

So Menchi talked it over with the man, coming up instead, with another solution.

"Instead, we'll make boiled eggs!"

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