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Autor's in the kitchen today, wearing an apron and sporting clean hands and feet. He's noshing on Germknödeln--dumplings filled with spicy plum jam and topped with poppy seeds.

Humming contentedly, the boy combines a massive amount of bread flour and tapioca starch with some salt water in a mixing bowl. Autor blends the ingredients together with his hands to form a dough that holds together but isn't sticky. Then he rolls the mixture into a ball and bags it up in a Ziploc.

Grinning, he squeezes all of the air out of the bag before sealing it and placing it on the floor. The boy lays a towel over it. Then he takes off his shoes and stands on the bag in his socks, digging his heels into the dough ball.

Botherable, but he's on unsteady ground.

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Dr. Hannibal Lecter wanders into the kitchen, opens one of the larger fridges, and peers inside, sighing audibly.

Autor sharply lifts his head. He has four more times to knead and fold, and hopefully he can get that done without attracting Dr. Lecter's attention. So he glances away, pressing the balls of his feet into the dough, saying nothing.

"Hmmmmm..."

Dr. Lecter is looking into the fridge while cold wafts from out of it, apparently undecided.

Autor sighs. He brings his bag of flattened dough to the counter. The boy folds the dough into thirds before returning it to the bag and the floor. "What?"

"What are you making, Autor?" Hannibal says. "I'm a bit uninspired today. Perhaps you'll give me an idea."

Autor curls his toes into the dough. "None of your business," the boy says curtly. "... Can't you smell it?"

Dr. Lecter turns around and looks at him.

"Feet," he says.

Autor smirks. He can't help it; that's actually really funny, though he doesn't want to give Dr. Lecter the satisfaction of actually laughing.

He sobers up quickly, though, stepping on his dough. "I don't suppose you'll tell me about your plans for Miss Ava."

"They're no more fully formed than today's dinner plans," Hannibal says. "Perhaps actual sweet cupcakes, the next time we meet. She did enjoy the salmon ones."

"At least you seem to be honest," Autor mumbles, concentrating on the squishy mixture beneath his toes. "Why did she eat your food?"

"Because it's good," Dr. Lecter says, tutting mildly.

"Pfft," Autor says, shaking his head as he casts his eyes to the floor. He crouches to pick up the dough again and bring it to the counter. "I'd ask you to please leave her alone, but you probably won't. And I can't back up any threats that I'd like to make either, so."

"She is none of your business," Dr. Lecter says. "She's a very intelligent and independent young woman, and she has some sort of magic. You have no reason or justification to tell either me or her what to do, Autor."

Autor removes the flattened dough from the bag and lays it out. "I'm aware," he says, concentrating on folding it into thirds. "She is capable of doing whatever she likes, and I'm neither responsible nor in control of her actions."

He returns the dough to the bag and sets it on the floor again.

"Correct," Hannibal says. "I don't think that Miss Wilson needs, or wants, your chivalrous protection. And you do have other fish to fry."

Pause.

"Probably why you make udon, even. How touching."

Autor stumbles, his foot slipping off the dough. He glares up at Dr. Lecter, fists at his sides. "Why would you ask me what I was making if you already knew what it was?"

"I know now," Hannibal says. "Now I see what you are doing, and smell more than feet."

Autor grits his teeth, shame coloring his cheeks red. He has two more turns of the dough, and then he can flee.

He draws a breath through his nose and straightens his shoulders, resuming his gentle steps on the dough. Autor has to concentrate on not stomping.

"I should make something Japanese," Dr. Lecter muses. "Something harmless and fitting for an ordinary Friday. Perhaps nikujaga..."

Autor doesn't know what nikujaga is. But the image of Hannibal Lecter using Mirai as the meat for it floats into his mind unbidden.

"Leave her alone," he snarls, a primal sound more horrible than he's ever spoken before.

"Excuse me?" Hannibal Lecter says, giving Autor a side-eyeing grin, something like the worried smile of a layperson watching a psychiatric patient have an episode.

Autor signs again, retreating back to his tiny steps on the dough. He cradles his head in one hand for a moment, and then releases it, drawing a breath through his nose.

Now that he's gone and put his foot in his mouth, he's reluctant to open it again.

"Did you just try to perform something of a kitten-to-tiger transformation?" Dr. Lecter says, still with that cautious amusement plain on his face. "And convince me with it?"

"I wasn't trying to perform anything," the boy murmurs.

God, he's exhausted, and his shoulders are so tense. He rolls them, maintaining his balance on the dough, before crouching to pick it up again.

Hannibal starts getting things from the fridge and pantry, startlingly mundane things -- onions, potatoes, carrots, a small piece of beef, canola oil, dry rice -- augmented by a few packages and bottles labelled in Japanese.

"Good," he says. "Because if you were, you failed."