They say that good things come to those who wait. That's probably true. In my case, those good things involve cheaply made and usually somewhere between inoffensive and genuinely repulsive bread, sauce that's either too potent or too bland (never in between, and not great either way), and... Cheese. Lots of variation in the cheese. Toppings too. I've had some, like, freaky good frozen pizza pepperonis. Also, some mediocre ones, and definitely a lot of terrible ones.
Anyways, the 5 of us, were, still, sitting around the table, the time for pizza drawing ever closer.
The next few minutes went by relatively fast. We talked about this and that, nothing particularly important, some of us took bathroom breaks, most of us got glasses of water, including me because at the rate I'm drinking cola I'm gonna get dehydrated soon (though, I still do have my cola out), and Michaus was yelling even more than earlier. That last one was probably because soda is, like, a direct injection of sugar into the bloodstream, and, given that he lives here in a farm town, he very well could have, just now, ingested more sugar than he's ever had in his life.
It's a good thing, that, for now, he's decided to sit still at the table, so he's just being a little loud and kind of... Vibrating. So, yeah. That's what's goin' on.
Last we checked, there were a few minutes left on the oven. Almost there.
I took a hefty sip of water. It was quite refreshing, after drinking cola for so long. I could feel the cells in my body celebrating. Little did they know I had more cola yet to drink.
Speaking of cola, Charolette actually seemed to be enjoying hers. I think Michaus enjoyed his as well, but it was a little hard to tell if he actually enjoyed the drink or if he just enjoyed triumphing over it. Most of what he said beyond that was a little incomprehensible.
"Y'know, at the start, I was a little-" Charolette began, before being interrupted by a burp. Happens. "beh, skeptical, but this 'aint bad. It's got an interesting flavor."
"Darn right." I said, taking a sip of my cola and hearing the chorus of suffering my cells produced as they gave up on life.
"I don't know how you can stomach drinking that." S said. "I've had poison that went down easier!"
"You've had poison?" I asked.
"Yeah. Lost a bet with an chemist. Wasn't super bad or anything, just vomited a little."
"W-why take a bet where the penalty for loss is poison?" Zramazos said, looking confused and a little frightened. My thoughts, exactly.
"Fun." S said, simply.
Huh.
"What'd it taste like?" Charolette asked.
"Well, it was a cheaper thing, so it was quite gross. Incredibly bitter. Smelled pretty nasty, too." S explained.
"Doesn't sound like a very effective poison." Charolette said.
What kind of conversation is this?
"Probably isn't. Don't know how anyone would swallow that stuff unwillingly." S concurred.
"Poison is cowardly!" Michaus shouted.
There was an awkward pause, for a moment.
"Can't fault its effectiveness, though." Charolette pointed out.
I mean, I guess that's true...
S seemed to agree.
I took a hesitant sip of my drink. Why talk about poison when we're all about to eat? C'mon.
*EEEEEEEP*
The oven's piercing cry filled the room, derailing everyone's trains of thought.
The pizza was ready.
"Ooh, it's done." Charolette said, getting up.
"Oh, uh, do you need any-" Zramazos began.
"Nah, I got it."
Thus, she put on oven mitts, opened the oven, and took the pizzas out of the oven, and lay them on the counter.
"Alright, so, should we split 'em both 5 ways?" Charolette said.
"Traditionally, it's cut 8 ways." I said, flexing my sick pizza knowledge.
"Really? Why's that?" Charolette asked.
"I... Don't know actually." Huh. Why are they always cut into 8ths? I mean, it makes it easy to share, but why 8ths specifically? Is it because it's satisfying to make 4 cuts in a circle? Or is it satisfying because it reminds us of pizza? Oh shoot, philosophy.
Actually, it's probably just because that's a convenient size.
"Wouldn't that leave us with a spare piece?" S mentioned.
"It would, wouldn't it?" Charolette said. "I'll just do 5ths, that's easier."
I guess that's fine. Just feels wrong, though. At least it's not cut into, like, squares or something. What's up with that, anyways?
"What kinda knife do you cut this with?" Charolette asked.
"A pizza cutt... Oh, wait." Y'know, if they're not familiar with pizzas, they're almost certainly not familiar with pizza cutters. "Uh... hold on, let me see what you have."
I went over and looked in the knife drawer. There were, well, a lot of knives in there. Shocker, I know. I recognized some of them. Not by name, but, like, I'd seen 'em places. Though, these looked far nicer, a lot more expensive looking than what I'd seen. It's hard to pinpoint what specifically, but something about the obvious quality of the blade, the refined look of the grip, the sharpness of everything, it all looked very nice.
Despite that, it doesn't look like there's a pizza cutter anywhere. I guess this world must still be in the early day of frozen pizzas, if pizza cutters aren't a household standard yet. Give it a few years, though.
My first instinct was to ask S to cut it with his glass blade to cut the thing, but using glass to cut food seems like a health risk. I mean, I think that any shards of glass will just disappear once he gets rid of the thing, but... Better safe than sorry.
Hmm... I guess you could probably just use a chef knife, right? Yeah, that'll probably work.
"What's a pizza cutter look like?" Charolette asked.
"It's kinda like a regular knife, but the blade's circular and rolls around." I explained.
"Oooh! Hold on, I might have something for this! Michaus, come with me!" Charollete exclaimed, heading upstairs.
"OK!" Michaus said, also heading upstairs.
"Oh, uh, I can help t-" Zramazos began.
"Nah, think we've got this! We'll be back in a bit!" Charolette said, heading up the stairs.
"Oh, eh, okay." Zramazos said. Then he let out a deep sigh. He looked rather disappointed.
Dang, dude.
That's rough.
He and I made eye contact on accident. I nodded lightly and looked slightly down.
He returned the nod and, too, looked down ever so slightly.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye, S, also, looking down slightly.
Dang, dude...
It wasn't long before Charolette and Michaus returned from their trip upstairs. Charolette was holding something.
"Like this?" Charollete said, showing the object to me. It looked... like a pizza cutter. Though, the grip was a little weird, in fact I'm pretty sure it was just a short wooden rod, er, a rod made out of wood. Still, it looked like a functional pizza cutter.
"Uh... yeah." I said, more than a little surprised.
"Did you just, like, have that lying around?" S asked.
"Well, I had this metal sheet that was kinda misshapen, just lyin' around, not doin' anything, so, I figured, if I just attach it to this chunk of wood from god knows where, it'd probably made a good pizza cutter thingy." Charolette explained.
"How'd you get it all... circular-y and blade-y?" S asked.
"OOH! I did that! Magic!" Michaus 'explained.'
"Yeah, figured he'd be good at this sort of thing, considering he's had practice makin' blades." Charolette said. "Don't usually like using magic, but we were a bit short on time so I... reluctantly... made an exception." She seemed visibly repulsed by her actions as she said this.
"He's made blades? Like some sort of apprentice blacksmith?" S asked.
"I made this!" Michaus said, pulling out his greatsword.
Eh?
He... made that?
"MAGIC!" Michaus 'explained' once more.
"So, it's like a summoned thing?" I asked. Like the wolves catface made that one time, right?"
"No, it's a real sword. He used magic to make it." Zramazos said. "you wouldn't believe how long it took..." Zramazos looked thoughtful as he concluded. Seems there's a story to this.
"Huh..." I let out.
"Anyways, time to cut the thing. Hey, Zramazos, could you get the plates out?"
"Oh, uh, yeah, sure!" Zramazos said.
Nice.
And, before we knew it, at long last, the pizza was cut.
What sat before each of us was two uncomfortably large slices of cheap pizza.
I took a sip of my drink.
I took everything in, for a moment.
I took a bite of the pizza.
It was good.
Despite everything... the cheap bread, the crappy sauce, the cheese... despite all of that...
Frozen pizza is really freaking good.
Even in another world.
