Dan's Tour

Fortuna was beyond excited to score a tour inside of Dan’s sweets workshop. Whenever she could afford to support his business (which wasn’t very often, as she had some high-end preferences and some low-end funds most times) she regularly gave compliments to his work. 

She wasn’t very particular about flavors and combinations of flavors, so the lack of any criticism whatsoever earned her some positive favor with Dan, whose ego she easily inflated despite his lack of many words. After a few times of asking when she might get to see how the mochi’s made and buttering him up, he eventually relented and thought he might show off his work areas to someone so grateful and understanding of his skills.

The tour of the rooms was very basic and no-nonsense as he usually spoke, pointing out what each station was for and what each tool was, details that for the common individual would be incredibly boring and tedious but for someone of at least an intermediate level in the craft would be far more relevant. Not really understanding all of the terms and tools, Fortuna managed to get some other related conversation out of him that she could better comprehend by asking various questions about the process and his opinions: “What happens if you don’t use mochigome and use a different rice instead?”, “How come you haven’t tried making savory mochi dishes aside from dango?”, “How do you feel about people buying dango for their imps instead of themselves?”, and others.

Normally, he would be pretty annoyed by this amount of inquisitiveness, but since the questions seemed genuine and Fortuna was clearly excited to be having the tour he was open to answering them all. However, that didn’t mean his answers weren’t terse as usual: “Without the right amount of starch the mochi won’t take shape.”, “My dango is the most popular and cost efficient. I don’t want to waste my time.”, “I don’t make dango for imps.”

The final question brought a bold question to Fortuna’s mind. “Could I watch you make dango?”

Dan paused and turned, looking at Fortuna for a moment. Her eyes were as large and pitiful as ever as she tried to look extra cute to get a positive response. “It would be so cool to see a master at work! I only ever get to pick it up from the counter, so to see it actually made would easily be the best part of the tour.”

“Hmm…” Dan considered the thought, thinking about the time and resources it would take to make. He was leaning towards answering with a no, but when she saw the decision creeping on his face she tried to look even more excited. Most people didn’t treat watching dango get made like it was tickets to a concert, so he felt like maybe giving her a demonstration would be more worthwhile than he thought. “Alright. I’ll show you how I make them.”

Leading her to his mortar, Fortuna pulled up a chair to get a clear angle while Dan quickly got set up and started. As it was simply running through the motions for him, he reiterated some of the details he explained to her prior about the process and why he was pounding and moving the mochi in each way. Fortuna had less questions this time since she could actually see what he was doing and following along, but she still made some remarks here and there: “Wow, no wonder you’re so strong. This is a lot of work.”, “It looks so soft!”, “You make it look so easy.”

When the dango was finally completed, he handed it to Fortuna. “This is for you. I appreciate the interest you’ve shown in my craft, and perhaps one day when you get stronger you can give it a try yourself.”

Her eyes seemed to light up at the gift, which she accepted eagerly. “Wow, thank you! It was really awesome getting to learn how you do it. I’d love to learn how to make dango someday from you too, I think you’d be an amazing teacher!”

Dan smiled and nodded, feeling flattered and proud of himself. By the time Fortuna left the shop she had already eaten the entire thing, and wondered if maybe she should have asked for a freebie to go… though that might have been pushing it.