The soda helped. Tatsumaki pressed the cold glass bottle against her lower lip, took another careful sip, and let the sweet orange fizz work on the residual fire still committed to burning her throat.
The second wave of spice arrived anyway, creeping up the back of her tongue.
She weathered it with the tight-eyed expression of someone who has decided that retreat is not an option, but is privately reconsidering the terms of engagement. Her cheeks had gone the particular, vivid shade of red that Sichuan peppercorn produces in people who have never personally met it before.
Jordan watched her stabilize and smiled. "So? What is the verdict?"
"Hiss." Tatsumaki drew a careful, sharp breath through her teeth. The intense burning sensation occupied almost all of her attention. "I do not... it is..."
He was already moving, scooping steaming meat and vegetables into a fresh ceramic bowl with the unhurried efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times. He set the newly filled bowl directly in front of her.
"Then try another piece," he said.
His voice was entirely too pleasant.
Tatsumaki caught his expression out of the corner of her watering eye. It was that particular quality of a smile that meant he was deliberately watching to see what she would do next. She identified the teasing challenge precisely. Her green eyes narrowed.
How dare you, she thought.
Her temper arrived like a physical switch being thrown in a dark room.
"Fine," she snapped.
The consequence of her stubborn decision was immediate and highly educational. The numbing spice, which had briefly retreated, came back heavily reinforced. Tatsumaki made it exactly two steps away from her seat before Jordan's hand caught her. He grabbed her gently by the back of her dark collar, steering her back to the table without any ceremony.
He reached down and produced a tall glass of chilled grape juice. It was cold-pressed and clearly premeditated.
"Here," he said.
Tatsumaki looked at the sweating glass. She looked up at him. She took the drink with the tense air of someone accepting terms they had not fully negotiated and drank deeply. The icy liquid cut through the brutal heat in soothing stages.
Jordan had prepared the juice before he even started the provocation. She registered this fact belatedly as the fire in her mouth finally died down.
She lowered the empty glass. She said nothing. Her face, still heavily flushed from the spice, had acquired a complicated expression that cycled rapidly through several emotions without settling on any of them. There was indignation, the residual burning sensation, and something softer that sat quietly underneath both.
She picked up her wooden chopsticks and went back into the fight.
Beside her, Fubuki was having a substantially better time.
She had some actual experience with spicy food. It was enough to know how to pace herself, and enough to know when to reach for her drink before the heat peaked rather than waiting until after the damage was done. Her lips had gone an attractive shade of dark red and her forehead had developed a light sheen of sweat, but she was eating steadily and with genuine enjoyment. She occasionally paused to fan her face gracefully with one hand while her other hand kept working the chopsticks.
The combination of effects, the flush of the heat, her intense concentration, and the unconscious charm of a woman entirely focused on a meal she liked, was producing a picture that King diplomatically kept his attention carefully away from.
He passed her another serving bowl instead.
Fubuki looked up, surprised by the gesture. "You did not have to do that. Thank you, really."
"It will get cold," King said simply, and turned his scarred face back to the boiling pot.
She accepted the food for what it was and ate happily. Around her, the hot pot battle had entered a sustained middle phase. The initial frantic sprint of the table veterans had settled into something much more methodical as the second and third rounds of raw ingredients cycled through the broth. Garou had recalibrated his martial approach twice already. He was now extracting food with the quiet, deadly efficiency of someone who had stopped treating this dinner as beneath him and started treating it as a complex combat problem to solve.
Fubuki, feeling well-fed and comfortably warm, found herself thinking professionally again.
She had been doing a quiet, thorough assessment ever since King arrived at the dojo. She analyzed his heavy aura, the precise way he moved his large frame, and the quality of that golden lightning when he had landed on the monster's body earlier that afternoon. The intimidating sound of the King Engine alone had told her something significant, but it was the Magnetic Field Rotation that had really caught her strategic attention.
A branch recommendation from M-City. A new hero registration happening this very month.
The Hero Association's ranking system had settled considerably since its chaotic early days. S-Class and A-Class were stable, featuring hard thresholds and limited upward movement. B-Class was where the real flux lived. There were hundreds of heroes in constant, bitter competition, the rankings reshuffling weekly as people rose, fell, took severe injuries, exceeded their perceived ceilings, or violently found them. The Fubuki Group's entire operational business model depended on identifying the talented people who had not reached their ceilings yet.
A direct branch recommendation from M-City would likely skip the C-Class entirely. He would probably land squarely in B-Class.
If he is B-Class, even mid-tier, Fubuki calculated, the deputy team leader position would open up naturally for him.
"Mr. King," she said softly, speaking during a natural lull in the eating. "The M-City branch recommended you for official registration. You said it would happen by the end of the month?"
King moved his attention away from the bubbling pot. "That is right."
"Branch recommendations usually come with a preliminary rank assessment," Fubuki continued. She kept her tone pleasant and conversational. It was the interested but casual register she always used when she was trying not to sound like she was actively recruiting someone. "I happen to know a fair amount about how the internal Association system works, especially the parts that do not get explained to new heroes. It might be very useful for you, if you are just starting out."
"Industry inside information?" King considered this offer with genuine interest. Jordan had been incredibly thorough about physical training and power applications, but he had not particularly elaborated on the tedious Association bureaucracy. "Please, go ahead."
Fubuki set down her chopsticks and became visibly enthusiastic.
She started with the actual ranking mechanics. The information was genuinely useful and clearly explained. Then she moved on to the unwritten, unspoken protocols between the various hero factions. Then, with a conversational pivot smooth enough that it might not have been noticeable to someone less socially attuned, she transitioned to the particular way that organized hero groups accelerated individual development. She talked about how they provided operational support and ensured someone always had your back during the notoriously difficult early months of a hero career.
She was midway through outlining the Fubuki Group's hierarchical structure and its notable success rate with promising recruits when she noticed a shift in the geography of the table. King had quietly, incrementally moved his seating cushion to the spot directly across from her at some point in the last three minutes.
The wide table between them now served as a massive, natural physical buffer.
He has been edging away from me, she realized.
King's scarred expression remained completely unchanged. He looked courteous, attentive, and gave absolutely nothing away. But the physical distance had definitely shifted.
Fubuki kept talking anyway, adjusting her pitch. She reached the specific part about deputy team leader availability. She picked up her cup of warm tea to clear her throat.
"If Mr. King is interested, I can guarantee the deputy position within a very short timeframe. The existing membership questions would need to be worked through with the others, but I will handle those personally."
"Oh, really."
King's face was doing the specific thing faces do when the mouth is saying the polite, socially acceptable words, but the mind is having a completely separate and much more honest reaction. A faint, nervous twitch appeared at the corner of his lips. "That is very generous of you. Thank you so much."
Managing an organization, King thought with internal dread. An entire organization full of people. People who would want to talk to me. Frequently. Every single day.
He had not actually refused her offer out loud. This was the ongoing strategic problem with being fundamentally too polite to interrupt someone.
Fubuki read the lack of a direct refusal as highly encouraging. She leaned forward slightly, closing the distance over the table. "By the way, the branch recommendation. It comes with a preliminary rank designation, right? Do you know what they assessed you at?"
King thought about the paperwork briefly. "They said S-Class."
Fubuki went very, very still.
It was not the thoughtful stillness of active consideration. It was the absolute stillness of a complex computer system receiving entirely unexpected input and pausing all other background processes while it frantically worked out what to do with the new information.
The ambitious light in her eyes completely extinguished. Then it came back. Then her expression did something highly complicated as reality crashed down on her.
"Ah." She reached blindly for her glass of soda. She drank. The sweet fizz that had been so refreshing a moment ago now tasted like it was actively judging her life choices. "I see. Right. Of course."
King registered the sudden, pale change in her face with genuine concern. "Miss Fubuki? Are you feeling alright?"
Another S-Class, she thought, feeling completely numb.
She was currently sitting at a table with two S-Class heroes, one newly confirmed S-Class candidate she had monumentally underestimated, her terrifying sister, and whatever impossible category Jordan Evans occupied that the Association ranking system apparently had not fully finished processing yet. She had walked into this dinner arrogantly thinking the hot pot was the most significant thing happening tonight. She had been incredibly incorrect.
"I am fine," she said, weakly waving a hand in the air. "I was just the one making assumptions, that is all."
"What about the Fubuki Group?" King began, his tone careful.
"Forget I mentioned it." She said it simply, without any lingering bitterness. It was just the clean, rapid acceptance of someone who has forcefully updated her worldview and is desperately trying to move forward with her dignity intact. "Please, do not ever think about it again."
She picked up her chopsticks with a trembling hand.
Across the table, the hot pot war continued without her assistance.
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