Spring of Sweetness, Softness, and Stickiness Errand Hanami Dango Group

If Kazuo arrived out of breath and looking like he had recently been in a tussle, it was only because someone was far too stubborn for his own good. He paused at the edge of the beginnings of the gathering, noting that he was thankfully not late. That would be an embarrassing slip of etiquette. He took a moment to adjust his kimono and hakama then approached the tables where he would undertake his part of the errand.

“Edelhardt-senpai,” Kazuo greeted the older Gryffindor girl who had decided to host the errand, bowing politely to her. “Thank you for arranging this hanami.” With his self-imposed formalities out of the way, he took off his haori and tied back the sleeves of his kimono to keep them from getting dirty. It was far from the casual yukata he would have normally chosen to wear to a hanami, but this gathering was meant to be a showcase of Japanese culture and he had wanted to add to that theme as much as he could. He settled onto one of the picnic table benches, waiting for the other volunteers to arrive so that they could begin the arduous task of dango making.

He had made dango a few times with his grandmother when they visited the estate in Niigata for hanami. The yard had so many sakura trees, Kazuo had loved climbing their branches to sit among the pale pink blossoms and enjoy a book and the bento his grandmother would make for him. Seeing the bowls of flour and sugar brought back memories and he smiled softly. His glance settled on the tofu and he frowned a bit. His grandmother’s recipe did not use tofu. He also didn’t see any anko which was a shame. He loved adding a bit of the red bean paste to his dango.

As the house-elves came around to distribute tasters, Kazuo eyed them with suspicion, politely declining. He would eat the ones he made himself. His attention returned to Griseldis as she began to explain the process, noting that it was just as his grandmother had taught him, with the exception of the addition of tofu. Easy enough.

Now, how many were they supposed to make? Enough for the other group as well? How many had signed up? He couldn’t remember. Well, he would make enough for Hana and Akari at the very least. Maybe make extra for Hana, he certainly seemed to enjoy Japanese sweets, after all. With the thought of presenting his dango to his friends clubmates and getting to see Hana making tea for him firmly in the forefront of his mind, he collected his ingredients and began to mix, doing his best not to let the flour dust his kimono. It really was simple and the act of it was soothing in its way.

He divided the dough and coloured it, the bright pink of the strawberry powder reminding him of another sweet he liked to enjoy during hanami. Ichigo daifuku, a treat he hadn’t had since coming to London. He wondered if Hana and Akari had ever had daifuku. He would have to ask. And if they hadn’t, he would find a way to get some for them.

As he rolled the balls, a relatively mindless task, he glanced around his table to see who else had volunteered, and how far along they were.

Word count: 573/1000

Outfit Reducio

Open to Interactions Interacting with: @Griseldis Edelhardt Mentioning: @Hanako Tone @Akari Sato

Open to interactions!
Mentioning: @Griseldis Edelhardt, @Kazuo Shimada

March 26th

Calypso Starling liked to be early. That way, she didn't miss anything and could scope

out whatever situation she was in before everyone arrived. Plus, it's polite to be early. Or at least not to be late. If you're too early that could be rude, and- Shut up, Calypso. Great. The Dango-making hadn't even started yet and her brain was already on overdrive. Oh well, she was used to it by now. And so, the young Gryffindor made her way across the grounds, noticing the soft pink cherry blossom petals drifting from the trees and pooling on the path.

She approached the cluster of picnic tables that had been brought out for the occasion, a spread of ingredients covering their surfaces. Cal was only the third person there. Other than the Gryffindor prefect who was hosting the whole ordeal -Griseldis, Calypso thought her name was- there was only a boy clothed in an elaborate kimono. He was dutifully forming dango, but glanced up as she approached. Calypso gave a small wave. Sitting down at the table, the girl got directions from Griseldis and began to mix her dough. There was a surprising lack of ingredients needed, and Calypso found the task to be a rather simple one. She kneaded together the rice flower, white sugar and tofu. The latter seemed a strange ingredient for a sweet, but in it went. She separated the dough into thirds, and colored it with the strawberry and matcha powders. She realized, as she worked, that the colors mimicked that of a blooming cherry tree. Green for the leaves, and pink and white for the blossoms. It was all very spring-ish. Which she supposed was the point. Her first dango was a bit malformed, ripping a bit as she skewered the rice balls and sitting lopsided on the stick, but her next one was much better. Soon she was producing fairly even, nice-looking dango, and she was quite proud of herself.

A group of House Elves came to offer her dango from a platter, and she happily accepted one. The dango was chewy and tasted like sweet rice (probably because that was what it was made from) with a slightly sweeter after taste. The green tasted more earthy than the other two because of the matcha. Cal decided she liked it.
A few more minutes passed, and she made more of the sweets. Then more students began to arrive.

Word Count: 404/1,000

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Interacting with | @Alan Vanes | @Kazuo Shimada
Mentions | @Griseldis Edelhardt
Open to interaction, please owl~

Frankly speaking, cooking wasn't really Dee's thing. Neither was baking, at least without Ileen near to make sure she didn't (accidentally, almost) blow anything up. Really, the only thing that involved stirring and boiling things that Dee showed any kind of affinity for was potion-making. Sweets, however, were definitely Dee's thing, so it had taken as little as telling her that these dango thingies were Japanese sweets to get her interested in participating in this errand.

Alan was the one who had provided that incentive, easily convincing Dee to sign up for free sweets-making, with only slight danger of blowing something up. She might also have been the reason they were slightly late now, not that she'd ever admit it, one hand wrapped around Alan's wrist to drag him over to the picnic tables and slightly bouncing in excitement. They were, of course, accompanied by Tiger - not that anyone could stop Tiger from going where he wanted to. House-elves were still going around, handing out examples of what they were supposed to make - Dee quickly snagged one of the skewers - and Gris had apparently just started demonstrating how to make the dango. "Oh, these are pretty," she observed, inspecting the tri-coloured dango. "Have you ever tried them?"

Attention divided between Gris' demonstration, Alan, and the dango, she carefully pulled the pink one off the skewer with her teeth, and started chewing, her expression slightly suspicious. If it turned out she didn't like them, Alan might have a hard time convincing her to stick around. Luckily, it was good, although only slightly strawberry-flavoured, mostly just sweet.

Dango approved, she gave Gris a quick wave with the dango skewer and a smile, before she scanned the scattered students for familiar faces. "Oh, there's Kazuo!" she exclaimed, lighting up, and let go of Alan's wrist to wave at the Japanese boy who was already busy making his own dango. He was wearing... Dee thought it was called a kimono, but she wasn't entirely sure. Either way, it made him stand out among all the boring and casually dressed kids like Dee herself, and the Ravenclaw's smile brightened a bit more. "Let's go sit with him?" For a moment, Dee considered whether he looked out of place between the other students, but really, he made it work.

Only listening to Alan's response with half an ear, she was already skipping over to Kazuo's table (hopefully Alan knew her well enough at this point to not take it personally). She also didn't wait for any indication that it was okay to sit down before she slipped into the seat across from him while chirping a greeting. "Hi Kazuo! You don't mind us sitting with you, right?"

Vaguely remembering the demonstration, she inspected the bowls containing the ingredients. Had there been instructions on how much they needed of each? If so, she'd missed them. Perhaps Alan had paid more attention? Dee narrowed her eyes slightly, then tilted her head to one side, looking at Kazuo's bowl. "You look like you know what you're doing," she observed with a cheeky smile. "How much of these do I need?"

Word Count | 524/1000

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Open to Interaction
Interacting with: @Griseldis Edelhardt
Mentioning: All

When Haley was woken up in the morning by the warm rays of the sun, she knew that today was going to be a beautiful day. After getting out of bed, she looked out of the window and smiled in satisfaction. The sun was shining, spring had arrived and everything was blooming beautifully.

Just as Haley was about to think about what she would do today, she remembered that she was already scheduled and joy rose in her. She would be making Japanese desserts with some other students today and she was very excited about it.

The day flew by and she found herself back on the stairs in the castle, making her way to the meeting place for today's venture. When she arrived outside she could already see the picnic tables in the distance after a few steps and consciously she started to walk a little faster. With a big grin she arrived and greeted the other students, "Hello!"

After Haley had sat down at one of the five tables and everyone had found their seats, the house helps arrived and everyone was able to take a sample of the Japanese dessert. Haley thanked the house elf who came to her table and took one of the wooden sticks on which were three different coloured hanami dangos. She had never tried them before and was very curious about the taste. The colours immediately reminded Haley of spring and somehow it all went together. She took a cautious bite and felt her way to the feel of the texture and the taste. The balls were incredibly sweet and Haley was sure Simon would fall over backwards at the taste.

As Griseldis began to explain how to make them, she put everything aside and focused all her attention on the steps, trying to keep everything in mind as best she could. Dough, dividing into three portions, adding powder, forming small balls, boiling and cold water. She repeated the steps a few more times in her head but was sure she could do it without any problems.

Haley started with the steps, first mixing tofu, flour and sugar into a dough. She kneaded it for a while before dividing the dough into three equal portions. At least Haley tried to make it three equal portions. Then she added the strawberry powder to one of the doughs and the matcha powder to another. Again she kneaded everything and after she was done with her dough she started to form the pink dough into small balls. But as easy as she had imagined it to be, she had her problems with it. The dough kept sticking to her hands. After a few failed attempts, she paused to look around the table and suddenly it came back to her. She had to put rice powder on her hands, then the dough would not stick.

No sooner said than done. Now the balls were much easier to shape and they no longer stuck to her fingers. It took a while until Haley had finished rolling all her balls and she was sure that everyone else had been much faster than her. But it wasn't because Haley was so slow, it was because her perfectionist nature, which came out here and there, made her shape the balls until they were really perfectly round.

While students here and there were already cooking their hanami dangos, Haley set about bringing the water to the boil, preparing another bowl of cold water on the side. She took some bamboo skewers and placed them ready to hand and waited until her water started to boil.

Word Count: 604/1.000

Closed To Interactions
Interacting: @Griseldis Edelhardt | @Haley Rose
Mentioning: @Alan Vanes
Languages: English | French | Italian | Arabic | Russian
Outfit
Word Count: 1053/1000

Open to Interaction
Interacting with: @Henry Knight

While Haley was absorbed in perceiving all the new things, she suddenly heard a voice next to her. Surprised, she turned her head and saw Henry already smiling at her. She hadn't even noticed that he had made his way to the table, but she quickly returned his smile. "Hey, not at all! Sit down." She offered with a quick wave of her hand and waited for him to sit down. They only knew each other from fleeting encounters but she was glad to have his company. So far she didn't know anyone else here and conversations with the Slytherin boy had always gone well until now.

"There's a lot going on but I'm fine so far. How about you? I'm not sure yet. Actually, I wanted to avoid my family for now, but knowing me, I'll change my mind just before the last minute." She laughed and at the same moment realized that it was probably a bit strange to talk so openly with Henry about it. "What about you?" she asked quickly before they could go further into the subject.

"Sure, go for it." Haley now offered Henry to use the same pot and just as the water started to boil she carefully dropped in her first dangos. Concerned, she looked to Henry, "I hope this goes well." And began to laugh uncertainly. But it wasn't long before the first balls began to float to the surface and Haley was able to cool them in the cold water afterwards. She repeated the process until she was finally finished with all her balls and then skewered them onto the bamboo skewers to finish.

For a first time, she was definitely pleased with her result, "Now they just have to taste as good as they look." the gryffindor girl joked but based on the ingredients she was sure you couldn't go that wrong. Even though she wasn't hungry and still had the sweet taste in her mouth from the first sample, her curiosity got the better of her and she grabbed one of the skewers and tried her first hanami danogs of her own.

She could see clear differences in texture and taste, but they were successful for her. Her balls seemed a bit firmer than the ones she had tried but they had definitely turned out sweet. Satisfied with her performance, she set everything aside and cleaned up her stuff before heading out again.

Word Count: 1.008/1.000

Alan had been looking forward to this errand, not for some mind boggling reason and also not because he was a good chef or anything, but simply because it sounded like it could be a lot of fun. He often baked cookies at home, either helping his mother or just because he felt like baking some for his friends during the early and mid winter season and sometimes that involved kneading and forming dough. He enjoyed that quite a bit and with friends or people you like being around he imagined it would be all the more fun. He had only seen pictures of Dango before but the name sounded quite funny and it looked extremely squishy and delicious, he just had to try them out now that he was given an opportunity to do so. Alan was also very sure that Dee would have fun too, at least both of them could turn and sabotage others by eating their finished products if the two of them found out that it actually was not as much fun as it sounded. But Alan had high hopes and looked forward to seeing whether they would taste as good as they looked. Upon arrival, he and Dee would have a bit of time to look around and Alan noticed that they must be one of the firsts to actually arrive because not too many students had found their way there yet.

Alan glanced over at Dee upon being spoken to and hummed slightly, "I've never had them before in my life, no... But they just look so soft and delicious and colorful..." As the house elves would take their time and move around and through the small gathering of students, Alan would also opt to take one of the offered treats, inspecting it curiously. "Have you tried them before?" he would ask right back before finally trying a bite of the treat and while he at first had to get used to the chewy texture, he ended up really liking it. Despite being chewy it was somewhat sweet and the fact that it looked just incredibly cute made it taste even better. He could imagine why it must be such a popular candy!

As Alan was eating bits and pieces of the Dango in his hand, he also tried to pay some amount of attention to Gris who was doing her best to explain to the lot of them how to actually prepare the treat. Alan only paid enough attention to hear that there were very few ingredients needed for this special treat; four... or was it three? Alan was not entirely sure so he decided to count the ingredients in his head as Gris moved on to explain further how the preparation would work and how they would have to proceed to make the Dangos look nice. Meanwhile Alan was having trouble to remember even the name of the first ingredient as he tried to remember and in the end simply gave up on remembering, labeling it the foreign ingredient instead. But seriously how was he supposed to remember such ingredient names if they sounded nothing like the languages he was actually familiar with.

Soon however, Dee would demand his attention, by exclaiming the names of one of their school mates. Alan could have said class mates, but that would actually not be corrected or at least not for him and he doubted for Dee either. He didn't think that the other boy was actually as old as she was. But yeah, they did not share any classes and therefore Alan actually did not catch the other boy very often. If he remembered correctly the both of them had seen each other only twice, properly at least and perhaps sometimes in passing. But he remembered him being curious about the missing students, which had in return made Alan quite curious as well and while the busy prefect actually did not manage to investigate much for himself, he truly hoped that Kazuo had been able to manage some kind of progress in his research of some of the curious cases that happened in this school. Alan was also aware that the other kid really liked cats, so Alan was hoping that it would make the boy happy that Tiger was once again following the Gryffindor like a shadow.

With Dee already sitting down after they had approached the boy, Alan decided that it was safe for him to do the same thing so he would slip onto the seat next to Dee but not before greeting the other boy with a nod. Tiger who recognized a friend of his would walk over to walk past the Hufflepuff's legs, as if to greet the boy. Alan would just allow it to happen, knowing that the cat would not cause any actual trouble here and also knowing that Kazuo would probably not mind; at least Alan hoped that the other boy would not mind. Alan had to agree with Dee after seeing the Dango that Kazuo had been working on and would give a agreeing nod, to further show that he too was a bit amazed. "It does look great, I don't think I'll do as well because I only vaguely remember the demonstration... I was far too busy trying to remember the name of that first ingredient," he admitted as he slightly would tilt his head and glance at one of the bags, in the hopes that he would be able to spy the name. But from the angle he was sitting at he doubt that it would have been possible without reaching for it and he did not actually want to go that far just to satisfy the need to know. He could simply ask Dee or Kazuo and so he would, after about a breath long break, "What was it called again?" Alan began to somewhat assemble his work space, placing the bowl in reach so that he could properly get the dough going as he waited for either of the two to reply,

WC: 1012/1000

As he glanced around, he was joined by Calypso, who gave him a wave. He gave her a smile and a wave in return, watching her as she started on her own bowl of dough. She seemed to get the hang of it fairly quickly and he nodded absently in approval. He let his gaze fall back to his own growing stack of skewers, pausing his rolling to pop one of the finished ones into his mouth, chewing on the delicious treat as Dealla and Alan slid into the seats across from him. He hid his mouth politely behind one hand as she greeted him, quickly chewing and swallowing before responding. “Ohayo, Ouji-sama~” He greeted Dee with a grin then nodded to Alan. “Alan-senpai, nice to see you again.” He paused, glancing down as Tiger brushed up against him, eyes immediately brightening at the presence of the cat. His gaze shifted from the cat to his flour-dusted hands and back, sighing in disappointment at his current inability to give the cat any proper attention. “Hello Tiger,” He greeted instead. “Gomennasai. I cannot give you pets right now.”

With greetings out of the way, he passed bowls and ingredients over to Dee and Alan, indicating the three ingredients and amounts in answer to Alan’s question. “Flour, sugar, and tofu. Tofu is called bean curd in English, I think. It’s not always used. My grandmother made dango without tofu, she just used water to make the dough workable. I don’t think she gave us a set amount. I’m making extra for Hana and Akari since they went to do the tea-making task. So I guess… make as many as you think you can eat, plus extra for the rest of the students?” He gave a shrug at that, glancing over to the blankets that had been spread out beneath the trees, wondering how Hana and Akari were doing. Hana was probably still mad at him but hopefully, the dango he was making would suitably assuage the other boy’s pride over being assaulted. Well, even if Hana didn’t forgive him, he had no regrets. The older boy looked good in the kimono. He shook his head, returning his focus to the task in front of him.

“It’s not that hard, Alan-senpai. Just mix the three ingredients in the bowl until the dough is smooth, then roll them into balls.” He began rolling more of the dumplings as he spoke, showing them. “I’m almost done rolling so I can start boiling the water while you roll and maybe if we work together, we can get to the eating and tea-drinking quicker. I assume that’s the real reason people came, not the cooking lesson?” He grinned as he switched his attention over to set up the cauldron and ice water for cooling beside it. “Hanami is my favourite thing to do back home, in the spring. Tokyo is so pretty when the trees are all blooming. Everybody finds the time to go for a picnic.”

Word count: 573 + 510 = 1083/1000 - Complete

Outfit Reducio

Open to Interactions Interacting with: @Dealla Prince @Alan Vanes Mentioning: @Hanako Tone @Akari Sato

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Interacting with | @Alan Vanes | @Kazuo Shimada
Open to interaction, please owl~

Her mouth too full to speak, Dee only shook her head at Alan's question whether she'd tried dango before. "Hadn' ebn hea'd o' dem, 'onebtly," she replied after swallowing enough of the dango to speak somewhat intelligibly. Passably. Another swallow. "But they're good, aren't they?"

Kazuo obviously had much better manners than she did, because he politely decided to chew and swallow before responding to their sudden arrival. Dee paused, blue eyes narrowing, more in curiosity than dissatisfaction. She pointed at him. "What did that mean? Oh... Ohayo? Ouji... sama?" The words were likely a little mispronounced, but recognisable. The task at hand momentarily forgotten in favour of asking intrusive questions about other people's past, Dee reached for one of Kazuo's finished dango and slightly tilted her head to one side, curiosity shining from her blue eyes. "I remember you said you lived in Tokyo in the Hometown errand, right? Why'd you move here? Why is your English so good?"

She was chewing Kazuo's hard work while she listened to his instructions, then reached up to tie her hair into a ponytail, wrapping the hair tie from her wrist around it with quick movements. It didn't sound any more difficult with his explanations than it had with Gris', so she was rather confident she should be able to make those, especially if she didn't even have to measure the ingredients. Just... enough of each, and hope it turns into dough. They might not turn out as pretty as Kazuo's, but as long as they tasted okay, she'd take it.

"I've had tofu before," she said while she added all the ingredients into one bowl, her eyes focused on the task. "Although never in anything sweet, and I don't think it was... soft like this." With a slightly fascinated expression, she poked the soft silken tofu, then shrugged and started mixing the ingredients with her hands and some measure of enthusiasm. The kneading had been her favourite part while making cookies last summer, too.

Once it was a somewhat smooth dough, she squinted down at it, skeptical, before breaking off a piece and putting it in her mouth. Well, it was... sweet. She wasn't completely sure what the texture was supposed to be like, but she thought it was close to what the dango she'd stolen from Kazuo had been like. A quick glance at what remained of the Hufflepuff's dough showed something with a (probably, hopefully) similar texture, too, so... good enough.

Splitting the dough into three pieces, she kneaded a generous amount of strawberry powder into one - couldn't harm to have it taste a little more like strawberry - and then a just as generous sprinkle of matcha powder into another - while matcha was not her favourite green tea, she liked it well enough - and thus ended up with somewhat more brightly coloured dough than planned.

"I'm here for the food," she confirmed, nodding, no trace of hesitation as she started forming the pink dough into vaguely round lumps. "Eating the food," she clarified, directing a mischievous grin at the two boys. She'd gladly leave handling the cooking part to Kazuo. She'd skip right from eating dough to eating finished dango.

Word Count | 524 + 535 = 1059/1000

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