“Hey, did you get any idea yet?” asked a man who stood at the door with his black Armani suit, looking sharp and well-fitted. He was carrying a bag in one hand and holding his phone in the other. He was not a model but with his physique and style, he might as could be. His sharp eyes focused on another man’s back who had been sitting in the middle of the room.
“Oh boss,” responded the man in the middle room without fully turning his body to face his boss. “Urm... Nope. Nothing...”
“How many times have I told you to not call me that when there’s only the two of us here?”
“Sorry boss. I mean, Dom.”
Dom or Dominique Leblanc his full name, the man in a suit who appeared to be the boss let out a heavy sigh. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “You know there’s only one week left till the competition, right?”
“Urm...Yesss. But, I have no idea what to cook.” The man who seemed to be a chef laid his head on the table whilst staring at his laptop. He had been studying and searching the internet for a new dish for a few days already but there were still no results.
Sigh. Dom let out a deep sigh once again. “Come on, Allen. Tell me. What’s your plan? Your base?”
“Hurm? What base?” Asked Allen Delun, oblivious.
“Seriously Allen? What were you looking for all this time?”
“I don’t know. I was just looking around and thought maybe I could get some idea after I see something.”
“Oh, God!” Dom’s blood boiled. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. If you weren’t my friend I would have fired you, you know.” Dom took a piece of paper from his bag and sat in front of Allen. “This is what people call ‘brainstorming’. What’s your base? What are your basic ingredients? Meat? Vegetable? Fruit? What meat? What vegetable? What fruit? Chicken? Tomato? Apple? What is it, Allen? Think!”
“Aaaa...” Allen looked around the room with his mouth open. Dom could be really scary when he was serious and Allen could not dare look into his eyes. Dom might kill him any moment if he didn’t think fast. “Mushrooms! Mushrooms! I think I want to make mushrooms.”
“You can’t make mushrooms. You cook it,” Dom said in an annoyed tone. “But mushroom is a good idea.” Dom then wrote the word ‘mushrooms’ in the middle of the paper and drew a circle around it. “Now what mushrooms do you want? What kind of dish do you want to make of it?”
'Damn, so many questions. My brain feels like it’s fried already,' Allen complained in his head while pretending to think about the dish. “Hmm... Baked lemon chicken with mushrooms.”
“What the fuck is that?” Dom questioned Allen. “Sounds like the chicken is the main ingredient. But there’s mushroom. So, I think it still counts as a ‘mushroom’ dish.” Dom mumbled more to himself than to Allen.
“It’s a lemon-infused chicken that's topped with a creamy mushroom sauce...”
“Shut up.” Dom interrupted and wrote down ‘baked lemon chicken with mushroom’ on the paper in his hand. “It sounds good already. Don’t talk about it unless you’re going to make it now.” He ignored Allen’s giggle and asked him, “What about dessert? You know you have to make a dessert too, right?”
“Stuffed mushrooms?” Allen proposed, “Mouth-watering stuffed mushrooms.” He added then laughed.
“Sounds great.” Dom laughed along with him and wrote the idea down. “You still haven’t answered my question. What mushroom do you want to use? I think round mushroom sounds good,” suggested Dom.
“No! No! No!” Allen protested. “Too common. I saw this interesting mushroom on the internet. Let me check it again.” Allen began typing on his laptop while looked at him curiously. After three minutes of searching, Allen shouted, “Found it! Hydnellumpeckii!”
“What the fuck is that? English, please.” Dom grumbled. Allen turned his laptop to Dom and on the laptop’s screen showed a picture of a round cap mushroom with a lot of bright red liquid droplets on top of it. Dom fumed after he saw the picture of the mushroom,
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU WANT TO COOK THAT?”
“Yes...I guess. What’s wrong?” Allen feigned innocence and it made Dom’s blood boil even more.
“WHAT’S WRONG YOU ASKED?” Dom pressed his face on his palms. “I knew you were dumb, but I didn't know that you were blind too. Did you see what the mushroom looked like? Did you read what they wrote there? Do you want to kill people?”
Allen turned the laptop to himself and scanned the picture. “I see nothing wrong with the mushroom.”
“Oh, Goooodddd!” Dom scratched his head and pulled his hair a few times. “I will become bald because of you!”
Dom stood up and went to stand behind Allen. “Look at that mushroom. What’s that bright red pigment on top of it? It looks like it’s ‘bleeding’. Full of blood. It’s so gross.”
Dom pointed at the text below the picture and read it out loud, “This species has earned several descriptive common names, including the bleeding Hydnellum, the bleeding tooth fungus and more importantly – the Devil’s tooth. Do you really want to cook that?”

“Well Dom, you didn’t read it till the end.” Allen scrolled down the page and read it,
“It is also known as strawberry and cream and the red-juice tooth.” Allen faced Dom and said, “See. You can think of the red pigment as strawberry jelly in a cream soup. So nice!”
“Fuck you!” Dom cursed and walked out of the room. Allen thought Dom had left him to do his work, but a moment later Dom came back with a glass of water. “You make me want to vomit,” Dom groaned and took a seat.
“Well, this mushroom has never been used in any dish. So, imagine this,” Allen was trying to convince Dom to support him. “This is gonna be the first dish that will use this mushroom as an ingredient.” Allen paused and looked at Dom in the eyes. When Dom didn’t say anything, Allen continued, “And you are going to be the first one to taste the dish!”
“And the first one to die?”
“Dom, you are not gonna die from eating it. There’s no toxin in the mushroom,” Allen showed the article about the mushroom to Dom but he didn’t seem convinced. Allen tried again, “I’m going to win this competition. This is the dish that’s going to win. You are going to be the first one to taste it before the judges and you can even write a review about it if you want. You can get famous!”
“I don’t know how that could make me famous other than dying,” Dom mumbled. He let out a heavy sigh and drank his water. “You are really talented in cooking, Allen. You always make a good dish even on your first try. You better make a good dish and win the competition with this fucking mushroom.”
“Yey!” Allen rejoiced, knowing that Dom had given up and allowed him to cook the mushroom of his choice.
Dom took his pen and began writing the name of the mushroom on the paper he had earlier. “Where can you find this mushroom?”
“Let see,” Allen scoured the article and read what he found. “It said it could be found in North America and Europe...”
Dom hurled the pen he was holding across the room. “How do you plan to get this mushroom? Buy it online? You only have a week until the competition day. You don’t have time to wait for the fucking delivery! Besides, I don’t think someone even sells it online. I bet it’s not even on the market!”
“Wait! Wait!” Allen interrupted Dom in hopes of stopping him from getting angrier. “It said that the mushrooms have recently been discovered in Iran and South Korea. Woohooo!”
Allen was excited, but Dom, on the other hand, looked unhappy. Deep down he was still hoping that Allen would not use the mushroom for the competition. “I’m going to kill whoever found those mushrooms here,” Dom stated, clearly even more annoyed than he already was. He questioned Allen before drinking his water. “Whatever. Did it say where you could find this mushroom?”
“Let see...” Allen read some more. “It said...It said it can be found in. Urm... Forest... How do you pronounce this word? Aaa- absinthium Forest.”
Suddenly, Dom coughed really bad and almost spurted out the water he was drinking. Allen dashed to Dom and gave a few pats on his back. Allen let out a small laugh, “You should drink slowly, you know.” Dom shook his head a few times, still coughing. “T-that’s... That’s not it.”
“Then, what is it?” asked Allen. He took Dom’s glass and went out to fill it with water. He gave Dom the water but in return only received a glare from him. Allen knew whatever Dom was going to say next, it’s going to be very serious. “What is it, Dom?”
“Forest. . .” Dom started but his voice was shaking so much that he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He drank the water and whispered, “Absinthium Forest...You don’t want to go in there...”