Hideo's Gift

Hideo has a gift, and soon finds out just how important it is to others.

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Based on this writing prompt:

[WP] You're just starting out as an apprentice in a restaurant and aspire to be a world class chef, but you find out that whenever anyone else eats your food, their clothes explode off their body spectacularly.

A month had passed. The term 'noodify' - an amalgamation of nudify and noodles - a term coined by a Washington Post article Hideo was reading, wide-eyed, that had caught his eye and made him chuckle. He couldn't believe the news had reached America so soon. He was still in shock about it all. He looked up at his hotel wall where he had begun a collage of pictures. Mostly topless women taking their picture with him, all dirty and sweaty from the hot kitchen, and them with their ugly duck face and bare tits. He had seen the censored video that had gone viral. Still, nothing could explain why it was occurring.

The local fame was beginning to explode. He had to take a break, and his boss suggested getting a hotel room under a different name to get away from it all. Apparently, his boss needed time to reassess the capabilities of his current location which he had never predicted to be so busy, even with Hideo's absence. It was then there was a knock at the door. Hideo was not expecting anyone. His friend, Lee, wouldn't normally come by until later, after his shift at the restaurant to bring him food.

He eyed the peephole. He could see a hotel employee, a beautiful Japanese woman. "I didn't order room service." Hideo watched as it looked as though the employee looked down and nodded to someone he couldn't see. He tried to see further down through the peephole, but it was too late. A cable snaked under the door was releasing a powerful knockout agent. Hideo fought it off, but that only served to keep him from falling over as opposed to sort of crumpling down to the floor.

Hideo awoke to a blinding hooded light dangling above him, and he quickly discovered he was gagged and, well bound to a chair. He had seen enough movies to understand what was going on, and despite the slight trickle of urine he felt in his lap, he did his best not to show too much fear. His imagination had somewhat prepared him for this moment, at least the idea that it could happen. He tried to peer beyond the cone of light and struggled to see a faint silhouette. He could tell that person was talking, but soon realized how quiet it had been since he awoke. He tried to speak and couldn't even hear himself.

A tablet came into view with some text. "Temporary deafness is a side effect of the knockout agent," was all it said. Hideo nodded in understanding. He watched as a woman's hand, nails painted with a shimmery cobalt blue in some kind of illusory pattern that messed with his still-adjusting eyes, swiped the tablet and a new message appeared, this time it was a question. "What is your name?"

Hideo furrowed his brow as he soon felt the knot loosen on his gag, and he was quick to spit it out. To his knowledge he spoke his name out loud, but wasn't truly sure of what they heard made sense at all. Of all the disorienting feelings he was currently experiencing, not being able to hear what he was saying seemed to throw him off the most. He tried popping his ears like when the pressure is too great, and he soon started hearing things faintly, albeit muffled as though the sound had to travel through a pillow first. The tablet left his view and he could hear what sounded like a conversation. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but he noted the cadence of their spoken word sounded funny. Funny, like how Americans speak in the films he's watched. Before he could react to that notion, the woman from the other side of the peephole broke through the cone of light. Her action wasn't menacing, but for some reason it scared the ever-living-shit out of Hideo, and the rest of his bladder decided to empty. Her stern but beautiful face did its best to hide a smirk at seeing him piss himself. Her expression soon returned to its emotionless state as she spoke up, "What is your name?"

The sudden scare must have cleared up his ears some, as he could more easily make out what was said. He could tell she was of Japanese descent, except that her dialect was off, just like the American tourists that do their best to speak Japanese, although hers did sound more convincing. Hideo was now convinced these were likely CIA or FBI agents. "Does the CIA make it a habit of kidnapping strangers?" he asked with a smirk.

Surprisingly, her face remained expressionless, "Nothing in your file said anything about you being a smart-ass. Please state your name for the record."

This made Hideo feel uneasy. Her tone was more serious this time, and the lack of confirmation as to whether or not they were CIA made him swallow hard. He suddenly felt more eager to cooperate, "Hideo Nakamura." It was then he heard one of the others speak up along with typing sounds and mouse clicks, but they were speaking English, despite having a Japanese accent. At one point, he made out his name being repeated and his address, as if there really was some kind of confirmation occurring between them. The woman produced the tablet again and began playing a video. He immediately recognized it as the viral video.

"Is this the result of your cooking?" She had timed her question perfectly as on the video, a woman's clothes exploded off of her body. The video was paused before the ensuing mayhem could be played, capturing the woman's incredibly surprised expression, which had always at least brought a smile to Hideo's face, but not this time. He was actually getting annoyed by the pretentiousness. It was blatantly obvious to him why they had broken the law and kidnapped him. Still, he felt it was smarter to play along.

"Yes, that is the result of my cooking." He said as blandly as possible.

He caught a micro-expression flash across her face, and she shifted her position. It was the first time he had noticed her move to get comfortable. Someone reached into the light with a bowl of steaming ramen. She grabbed it from them, then asked, "So, if I were to eat this, my clothes would explode off of my body?"

Again with the rhetorical questions he thought, and his annoyance began to bleed into his tone, "If that's take-out from when I was cooking, then what do you think?"

If micro-expressions were an Olympic event, he was sure she would win gold, as he saw the slightest smirk drape across her lips before grabbing the chopsticks, which oddly enough had the same color and pattern as her nails. She quickly slurped up some noodles, chewed and swallowed. She passed off the bowl, and Hideo cringed and leaned back as far as he could, peeping a little with one eye. Sure enough, in grand fashion, her clothes exploded from her body as if yanked by a thousand strings. This time her expression wasn't so 'micro', as he easily read the flurry of ecstasy it showed. She didn't hide this fact, neither did she hide her nudity. She obviously didn't grow up here, he thought. It became apparent to him that they weren't special agents.

"Where did you learn this power?"

Her nudity was distracting. Hideo did his best to shift his legs to hide his growing hard-on. He failed at this about as bad as he failed to maintain eye contact. She should've been a model, or porn star, he thought.

"Where did you learn this power!?"

Her demanding tone had whipped his proverbial draping tongue back into his mouth, "I don't know."

By now someone had draped a robe over her shoulders and she gracefully closed it. It was then she noticed the tent in his lap and threw a hand over her mouth as she giggled. The others soon joined in laughing. The English-speaking Japanese man had a particularly obnoxious and grating laughter. He heard one of them shout out, and he heard an English word he recognized, "boner."

The humiliation only served to add to Hideo's annoyance with these weirdos. He struggled against his bonds even though he knew it was futile to do so.

The woman cleared her throat loudly, and quickly the laughing and snickering quieted. "I must apologize for my colleagues and their lack of professionalism," she stated elegantly as she came closer and crouched next to Hideo. He watched as she began untying his bonds. He admired how deftly and gracefully she did so, and was finally able to cover his hard-on that, despite the humiliation, had never left. He was satisfied to remain in the chair.

"Who are you people?"

The woman had returned to standing in front of him, and it was then other lights came on to illuminate the entire room, and he could now see the others. There were only four of them. Another woman who looked Native American, now handing him a glass of water. A tall, American man wearing fatigues, holding an assault rifle, and last, but not least, the source of the hideous laughter. A balding, overweight, middle-aged, Japanese man with thick-lensed glasses seated at a computer.

"My name is Kaida Kurasawa. My colleagues and I are part of a secret organization that protects society from ancient 'truths' as we like to call it. What some would call magic or witchery."

"I'm no witch, nor do I know any magic."

"Our little charade was to test whether or not you were Izanagi no Mikoto. It turns out you're not, but your apron here has tested positive for blue jade."

Hideo knew about exalted men from mythology and he had even seen pink jade, "What is blue jade?" he asked now remembering her nails, the chopsticks.

"It's a rare form of jade only ever found on Mu, an ancient land no longer with us. It has a unique quality in how it transfers energy in an explosive manner."

"Is that really what's making people's clothes explode?"

"Our guess is your lack of intention while using the apron. You're not guiding the energy during the process, but the cooking still forces it out. It gets released when people break its bond with the food, it tries to go back from whence it came, which happens to be from a special cloth with it sewn into the seams. It finds cloth again, but not the same kind, and the energy has no place to go at that point as it tries to bond with the inferior materials."

For a moment, he thought these people were just crazy, but how does one make all that up? "So, I guess now you have to confiscate my great grandmother's apron."

"Precisely."

By Chris Grey

From: United States

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