Food Is Much Easier To Figure Out Than Gender

The tightly-wound human-shaped stress machine that is known as Komatsu

Komatsu was a very confused adult. He was lucky enough to be brought up by a family that didn't mind much that after six years old, he never wore another dress, and cut his hair short in the most manly style he felt that he could pull off. Of course, his parents thought that it was mostly because he was interested in theater, and chalked his almost constant "cross-dressing" to his zeal for acting. Komatsu didn't really feel like telling them that being born with a uterus was not the best thing that could have happened to him. "Girl", "Daughter ", "She", and "Her" never really seemed to fit right with him. So he stopped using them. It was easier and more comfortable to be a guy, and though it still didn't feel completely right, Komatsu felt more at ease this way. For a while, it was good.

Then Komatsu became an adult, and suddenly there were so many more things that he could be. A chef was the most prominent and obvious option. Cooking had always felt right. Then Komatsu found something else that felt right, and it included showing up to work in the occasional skirt and heels. Everyone at work knew him to be a guy, but it was relatively easy explaining to them that the whole idea of gendering clothing was kind of stupid anyway. Komatsu had stopped dressing "like a girl" when he was young, but that was because of what people considered criteria for a girl where he grew up. Komatsu didn't have anything against dresses, really. Just hire they made him feel closed in and nauseated as a kid. At the age of 22, Komatsu was relatively comfortable with himself, and he wore whatever he thought was both practical and comfortable considering the situation. Most of the time he bound his chest, but sometimes he didn't. His friends at work called him "he" and "she" and "they" and Komatsu found himself not caring at all, as long as he was still Komatsu. And he was. Now here he was, three years later, and things were finally right.

Butt now was hardly the time to be thinking about that sort of thing. Komatsu was in the middle of getting lectured by a director of the IGO, and he couldn't afford to space out.

"The gourmet assembly this time is composed of not only the leaders of other countries, but our company's president as well. This is not the common folk's party at some gourmet garden, you know. I want something with more impact! Impact, got it?" Wow, he was irritated.

"Umm..." Komatsu tried to remain respectful as he answered. "That's the highest quality meat we can get here..."

"Can't you get me some Galala Crocodile meat?" The director asked.

"The top-ranked crocodile meat!?" Komatsu almost yelled. We can't get that here! This is only a five-star restaurant- who does he think gets all this stuff, anyway? Those things have a capture level of 5! A tank has difficulty taking one down! Though I can't deny that I'd love to be able to cook one...

The director was still talking. "Looks like there's no other way... Even though it'll cost quite a lot, we will make a request to a Bishoku-ya."

"A Bishoku-ya that can slay a beast like the Galala crocodile..." Komatsu marveled. "It's gotta be Toriko!"

And that's how I ended up here, I guess. Standing on a cliff, waiting for this guy to notice that I'm standing here. So far he's only eaten, drank, and lit a cigarette tree stem. I gave him the job offer, did he not hear? I don't really want to ask again, he looks like he could snap me in two!

The blue-haired man in question turned his head. "Oh? What...? Who the heck are you?"

I was right. He didn't even know I was here!

After trying to explain the request out again, and a fiasco involving a Pincer Fish and a Five-tailed Great Hawk, Toriko agreed to the job, and Komatsu found himself both relieved and scared out of his wits.