"…meat, check… the vegetables, check, and check… Oh yeah, the pre-made foods…"
Milanor was currently queuing in front of the grocery store's cashier while checking out his haul with the note Fianna left him earlier. The shopping cart was pretty damn full of ingredients and foods that he absentmindedly picked up through his tour of the store's floor. He couldn't care less about cooking himself, so more than half of these ingredients were things he wasn't familiar with. Milanor didn't even know he had been eating them.
An advertising text on one of the packages of the pre-made food caught his eye.
[Ready to eat! Just heat it! Open flame, microwave oven, volcanic lava, solar storm, or any source of heat will do! Even your ship's fusion reactor! Quick and easy, no more mess in the kitchen!]
[Disclaimer: Please don't actually heat it with a fusion reactor. The food will be vaporized.]
"What the heck with this thing...?"
As a shameless consumer of modern convenience, Milanor was awed and speechless from learning of contemporary sale pitches and their inherent hilarity.
Of course, either Fianna or Miledi would be the ones usually doing this chore too. And while Milanor thought about those things, he suddenly felt like he had missed something important…
This had been happening a lot recently… Milanor was sure that he wasn't that forgetful of a person, but maybe his being unaware of it was one of the symptoms…
That just felt depressing.
As the line moved slowly he heard someone's voice, "There you are! I thought you would already be done at this point." Fianna along with Naya entered the store carrying quite a lot of reusable shopping bags.
"Oh, you two. Uh, as you can see, this will be done in a minute…"
"That's strange, I only put a small list but you only just got to checking out?"
'Excuse me? Small? I have to utilize this cart to its maximum capacity and had even considered pulling a second one earlier. And she calls this small?'
Milanor felt like complaining about the unreasonable expectation placed upon him.
"I don't want to hear that from you who only just got done picking clothes… Ah, forget that. I wanna ask a quick question. Fia, how long will all of these last us?" he asked just in case.
"Hmm? Around… a month, I think?"
"…Why? Why would you think we need to buy provisions for a whole month?"
"What, why are you sounding surprised? I thought you would figure this out quickly seeing that you're the one who has experience with this. Aren't we like, heading to a border world where anything can happen?"
"Yeah?"
"So in the event of an emergency, we will be already prepared for a month of provisions. I'm thinking ahead, you know?"
She actually made a good point, when you think about it. Although, "We have our own rainy days reverse stored in the kitchen, don't you know that? I was sure I or Miledi had told you this before…" Milanor sighed with exasperation.
"You mean those bland nutrition gels and supplements!? How could you think those are acceptable for consumption!?" she objected with apparent shock. He had no idea why she was so particular about this.
"I mean, they're not made to be enjoyable in the first place… But still, they should serve their purpose well enough, yeah?"
"Nah ah, you can't convince me with that, Mil. They will be just for the real, true emergency. Only for the absolute last-ditch option, you got it?"
She laid the law, apparently. "Hah, okay, sure. Why are you so adamant when it comes to food anyway? Wait…" Talking about ration foods made him remember that essential thing Milanor felt he was forgetting. "Then I'll get you easy food that actually has taste, how about it? I'm sure not even you will object to this."
"Are you talking about that instant stuff you always crave every now and then? Those aren't real foods."
"Wha—!? Hey, don't you dare diss those magical cuisines! They're miracles among mankind's inventions, created long ago by our honorable ancestors and since then have been developed and perfected by dedicated masters for millennia!" he defended instant foods' dignity with passion. Milanor wouldn't tolerate any kind of slander, even from Fianna.
"They said those aren't good for your health."
"That's just propaganda spread by disgruntled chefs! The same loads of bull as how they claimed that instant foods have no 'soul' in them or whatever the heck that means. That's not real cooking? Hah! Why in the blazar name would they think the consumers would even give the tiniest crap about that!?" Milanor started ranting.
"Want to know something funny? In recent centuries, there have been popular, uh, 'diners' (?) set up in major planets that serve menus filled with nothing but instant foods gathered from the vast expanse of the galaxy! They're extremely popular and have to operate 24 hours just to satisfy the demands, you know how ridiculous is that?! That shows how much people love instant foods, don't you think?" He was getting heated again, which in hindsight was probably a bad idea to do in a crowded public space like they were currently in.
"You know what? You'll take this cart and check it out at the cashier. I'm gonna look for some right away—" Just as he was about to turn around and go back to the aisles, Milanor nearly bumped into someone standing right behind him. "Whoa! Excuse me."
"Holy Betelgeuse… It's really him… I knew it! I recognize that hair anywhere!" The person he just dodged squealed after seeing Milanor's face. She was unfamiliar to him.
"Little Miles! That's you, isn't it!?" She grabbed his arm like she wouldn't let go. "I had a feeling since I lined up behind you, but I can't believe that I really met you in a place like this!"
This plain-looking woman was getting uncomfortably close to him. This was a clear violation of private space, by a stranger no less. She was a stranger, right?
"Uh? Do I know you?" Milanor asked while trying to put a reasonable distance between them.
Fianna was looking dubiously at this blatant approach, and even Naya was also looking at him funny.
"Ah, I suppose you wouldn't remember me after all these years. Remember that forward exploration of Mod Charlotte 5 years ago? I was part of the logistic team at that time."
"Mod Charlotte? Umm, that was quite a while ago…" Milanor was around 14 or 15 at the time. Due to the increasing longevity and lifespan of humans, it had become harder to retain memories, especially from the younger days. Inconsequential ones, even more so.
If this plain woman was an eye-catching older beauty (Milanor was a kid, remember?) he might have noticed something about her, but he doubt that was the case. Alas…