Chapter 11: Don't Rush, You'll Definitely Mess Up

"We are in a place that is frequented by rich cannibals and run by a serial killer, and you have always made light of our situation. I can't help but feel you're also a psychopath to some degree." The sculpted man briskly walked past him.

Gavin just snickered at this comment, his head tilted down to hide a smile as he shoved his hands into his pockets. 

"Wow, and here I'm simply amazed by how much words I'm hearing from you at all." He walked right behind him. "You're clearly annoyed about the things I say but it's not like there's much to hear in the kitchen, you're certainly not helping light up the mood for anyone."

The sun-kissed baker immediately closed the door to his locker, swiftly turning around whilst he swung his coat on. He was just getting his arms through the sleeves as he glared suspiciously at the man.

"It's more than just your words honestly, a lot about you disturbs me." He glared at him from the corner of his eye.

Gavin cocked a brow at this comment, still grinning. 

The woman in the room was quietly about to leave into the kitchen, not wanting to get into the middle of their banter, she had the letter for the order of the night in her hand, memorizing it. 

A voice called out to here. 

"Oh Noemie! Do you, my station partner, find me disturbing?" Gavin asked in a sort of whimsical tone, throwing a mocking look to Roman.

"Noemie, could you please confirm that there's something off about how he reacts to this place?" Roman asked her next. 

"I'm not getting in the middle of this." She quickly answered as she left through the door. 

The two men left in the locker room looked to the doorway where her voice was just heard, and then to each other. Roman was silent with her absence, but then smiled. 

"Smart, she didn't want to humor you." 

"She didn't exactly answer your question either." Gavin smirked. 

Noemie sooner ignored the two men she left behind to bicker as she walked into the kitchen, looking at the staff and then at the order, the red clock up on the wall had just buzzed. Her eyes searched the room; there were the two dishwashers, the prep chef who was helping Alonzo last night, one chef who has their hands on their hips and is standing by the only station with a large pot, and Alonzo sitting in a chair in a corner, head in his hands. 

Noemie went over to greet him, still nervous about what the little letter said. She laid a gently hand on the soft man's shoulder, prompting his to lift his head up out of his hands and see the visitor. His eyes almost looked sunken, face pale and almost sickly, he was still sickened from last night's order. 

"Do you want to sit this one out?" she asked him. 

His eyes pointed over to the camera in the upper corner of the kitchen wall, rotating every so often to scan the entire room. 

"Ignore that, as long as you showed up, then you're not completely disrespecting her. If it is a problem, I'll take care of it." 

Still, the soft looking man shook his head. He took a long breath and stood, slapping both sides of his face, like that would take away his nervousness. He gave the woman a nod, ready to help prepare the order for the night, taking her hand as she pulled him up and to the table.

The order for the night, 'A banquet of intestines'.

Noemie noticed how the two men in the locker room still weren't done talking yet, so she took it upon herself to grab the ingredients from the freezer. This was usually a job for Gavin since he was the only one able to really stomach walking into a room full of body pieces and decapitated heads, much less grab the correct ones, since they are all wrapped in plastic. The benefits of having a mortician cook human parts instead of a doctor. 

For this night, Noemie decided to stomach it. She asked one of the other chefs to hold the door open for her.

The metal door was large and heavy looking but would swing open easily after turning the little handle that looked a bit like the shape of those old landline phones, there were the usual limbs on the shelves closest to the door, arms and hands in their own set of boxes, walk further in and you'd get to the feet, shins, and thighs. Don't try to navigate the maze of chopped parts any deeper, the ones further down and past the shelves are hooks with full naked bodies strung up, not chopped yet; that was a job for other people. 

Noemie needed to walk a little deeper into the freezing corridor for the torsos, for the ones who provided the ingredients decided there was no better container for organs and intestines, than the body it grew in. The manager thought it would be fun for the chefs to cut and carve them out, like some students did in rich schools, I think some other equally high-class restaurants do that too.

There was a cart sitting at the end of the freezing corridor, right in front of the shelf that had the heads. Two new heads sat on the shelf, turned to face whoever walked through the door and looked up.

Noemie froze, a shiver running slowly up her neck and down her spine as the two heads stared at her. One mouth hung open, like it was screaming before rigor took a hold of it, the other had something stuffed inside its mouth so that only their eyes could scream and cry, but Noemie refused to walk any closer to see what it was. Both pairs of eyes were wide open. 

Despite this odd fear of seeing two decapitated heads, she moved at a careful speed grabbing the nearest handle of the cart and pulling it towards her, wheeling it over to the shelf of upper human bodies. She moved to lift all the pieces for tonight inside the cart, torsos and organs without their nests. 

That cart was pushed out of the freezer for the other chefs to receive while Noemie continued to stay inside, looking for the shelf with the blood bags. 

Gavin and Roman who were finally done bickering, entered the kitchen and noticed she wasn't in sight, the freezer door was open. Gavin walked in to help her while Roman hesitated, becoming visibly disturbed by all the chopped parts in boxes. 

"Can't find the blood bags?" Gavin asked as she knelt down next to her. Noemie thought maybe they would be on the bottom shelf.

"Where are they usually kept?"

"In a different section. You go out, I'll get them for you." 

"Merci beaucoup." She sighed in relief, taking his hand to swiftly stand up and letting out a chilled shudder.

She breathed on her hands and held them together as she exited the freezer. Roman who took the place of the chef holding the door greeted her, he held the door back with his back and held out a hand to her. 

She gave him a confused look and tilted her head, placing her cold and red hands into his open palm. He held them up to his lips and blew warm air on them, this made a tint of pink appear on Noemie's face as her eyes darted to and away from his face. He was casually leaning against the large door and the lady only stood there, letting him cup her hands in his warm ones.

"Do your hands hurt?" 

"Not anymore, thank you." Noemie replied. 

The redness of her fingertips was fading, she reeled them back and kept rubbing her hands together, the last of her chilled shudders leaving her body. 

"I should get to work; Gavin will bring the blood out soon." She nodded her to him.

He gave a small smile and nodded back, crossing his arms over his chest while waiting. The lady pulled the cart to bring the torsos to the carving table, wondering which knives to use. Gavin finally came back with the blood bags, handing them to Roman before quickly going to help Noemie lift the cold bodies onto the metal counter. 

"Do you know which ones to use?" He looked over her shoulders at all the tools at their disposal.

"I'm trying to remember." 

Gavin hummed. 

They lifted the first torso onto the counter, Noemie let him take the lead in cutting it open like an open surgery to reveal the organs inside, handing him the correct tools to find and carve out the intestines. She observed what he was doing very closely, he gave her a look, offering his shoulder, and she perched her head to rest on it as she watched him calmly work.

"Don't draw too much attention, or it will be more difficult to sneak around later." She whispered to him so closely, no one else in the kitchen filled with sounds of clinking or footsteps could hear.

He giggled. 

"You can trust me." He said under a hidden smile.

Probably the bloodiest meal I've seen them cook, the intestines banquet required pulling these globs of red and pink, rope looking organs out of each torso, there were many chefs that night, considering the number of plates. The night chef who happened to be a mortician during the day, suggested grabbing and carving them out in the clumps they were, as pulling them out like actual ropes would take forever, and they lacked the grip for actual pulling. 

He was right, each piece of intestine looked about a few hundreds of centimeters, there were thick and thin ones mixed together because none of the chefs could bother sorting them, it's not like the place was a hospital, they didn't have to make it organized, just presentable. Blood poured down the tables and carts, and into trails of blood drops on the floor as they were transferred around to the other stations. I guess they didn't exactly congeal in the freezer, how strange. The stench of the intestines was very bad and so the prep chefs had to do their best to wash the smell out.

"Whoever wanted to eat a bunch of intestines must be either really gross or doesn't know a lot about biology." Gavin told Noemie as he carved out the third set of thin and thick organ tube ropes. 

"Maybe we should just cut off the end near the bottom." Noemie replied, setting the next set onto a cart to pass around to the other chefs, covering nose. "Then maybe it won't be as gross." 

"Let's try that, this is almost as gross as cooking livers." He pushed down a gag based on how his Adam's apple slightly moved.

"Finally, you're reacting like the rest of us." Roman murmured as he rushed past them.

Noemie handed him a pair of scissors to make the work a little easier. 

One set of intestines were boiled with other vegetables and turned into a soup, another was sewed onto skewers and barbecued, or chopped up, lathered in something and roasted in these large, hot machines until the skin turned crispy, like those ducks that were roasted and hung for display at those Chinese restaurants with display hooks. The roasted intestines didn't actually look as pretty as crispy roasted ducks would, but my appetite was watering at the smell of it. 

The fourth pair of thin and thicker intestines were cut and covered in a layer of flour, beaten egg yolks, and then this pile of crumb looking things before being dropped into boiling oil. They smelled really good, and it was very funny to watch Noemie and Gavin try their best to cut the "Damn slippery things", as Gavin mumbled to himself earlier. 

When scooping the intestine soup into a large fancy bowl, Alonzo couldn't keep it together any longer and ran to the nearest sink, vomiting green and yellow stuff. Honestly, some humans can be so strange, there are plenty of humans in other places who eat animal intestines, why, crows would much prefer organs over baby birds. 

Noemie went over to support him; her job was finished after the fifth set was given to the soup chef, so she was free. Her hand rubbed up and down his back soothingly as she tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear, away from his mouth. He heaved and breathed in broken rhythm, tears welling up in his eyes.

Alonzo had long hair as well, but not as long as Noemie's or Roman's, and by that, I mean it's not long enough to put all of the hair into a ponytail, some short locks will slip out of the hair band. She turned the faucet on so he could rinse his mouth.

"Go sit down, I'll take care of the rest for you." She commanded rather than asked. Her firm hand gripped onto his waist as her other hand supported his chest, moving him back to the seat in the corner. The pale and sickly man had no mental resolve to fight back, or he didn't want to. 

Roman who was done making his bloody drinks and these dark red rice cakes, was sneaking a glance over his shoulder to her. Gavin was also doing the same, but he wasn't subtle about it. He leaned his back and elbows against the metal counter, not caring about the blood staining the back of his coat, just staring as Noemie moved Alonzo to sit down, he was hyperventilating, and she rubbed his shoulders to calm him down. 

She took his place in helping the other chef prep the rest of the dishes, the soup was filled with the boiled intestines coiled in the middle and decorated with chopped vegetables, the barbecued and skewered ones were stacked into a pyramid pile on a big rectangular plate, same with the roasted ones. Gavin stepped in to help her with those, taking them out of the hot machine with some tools. 

"Don't get too connected to him." He whispered to her as he helped to stack each skewer. He said it so quietly so that no one would notice, even the movement of his lips were too small to see, but Roman did. 

Roman was giving the tall man a glare as he passed the rice blood cakes over to be stacked onto a large platter of their own, though he made no move to say or do anything. 

"I'm not, it's mostly pity." Noemie murmured back.

The fifth batch of intestines was drained from the boiling water and coiled into a pyramid on a very large plate of its own, like a giant, single piece of pasta with a meaty color. It was decorated with some sort of white and yellow powder, smelled like cheese, that's probably what it was, or garlic powder.

Gavin gently took her by her shoulders and pulled her away from all the large plates of cooked human colon parts. He noticed Roman's stares and came up with an idea, deciding to get handsy with Noemie, as much as she would allow. Those two were on a frontal body hug with each other, and after last night, much closer than Roman would know or expect. 

The man with glasses smirked at the baker as he wrapped his hands around Noemie's waist, hugging her from behind while the woman paid no mind. He looked over to the pastry chef, Roman's hands were gripping his forearms as he had them crossed, a vein popping through the skin of his hands, the tall man nodded his head to him, almost like saying 'want to join?'. Noemie still paid no mind to Gavin even as she could certainly feel his face snuggle closer into her hair, she stared at the door to the dining room, happily taking a breather as the other chefs moved the large plates onto individual carts for the red room, her hands laid over his.