Fungiform pea-what!

Hikaru lost interest as the four gangsters weren't talking about Genji anymore. Maybe they wanted to find Genji and take his guns for their group. Hikaru's main goal right now was getting stronger to defend himself from parasites and humans.

He was strong but he lacked countermeasures against guns. A headshot could probably take him out. He had a tentacle shield to protect himself from bullets but that wasn't foolproof. He could probably apply Phillip's spike formation in making some armour and thicken his skull to stop bullets but he hasn't tested that yet. The more distant the derivative technique is from its area of expertise, the more difficult it is to do.

That is to say that making an armour using bone production and spike manipulation is more difficult than if he had a shield or armour ability. If he had every other enhancing ability, some of them would overlap and makes things easier to learn, but right now he only had control of tentacles and spikes. Preying on the gangsters wouldn't be a good idea right now.

He got his body to divert resources from tentacle and muscle cell production to start mass production of collagen fibres (fibrous proteins which serve as nucleation sites for bone mineral crystals) and a mineral component approximated to calcium hydroxylapatite (where the calcium and phosphate ratios range between 1.37-1.87). The chemical composition of bone.

He needed to prepare not only against firearms but melee weapons and damage in general. Hikaru could quickly replace damaged cells with healthy cells that were made in advance. The time taken to restore structural integrity was the time it took for healthy cells to migrate from storage and the time for disassembly of damaged cells and the assembly of healthy cells.

That can take no time at all depending on the severity of the wound. However, to make the required cells on the spot would take a lot more time as it would depend on the speed of cell division. Hikaru could heal a severed arm in a couple of hours which was a medical miracle compared to the average citizen, but he couldn't afford that kind of time during a battle.

The tentacles he summoned during the fight with Phillip were pre-made and only depended on his cell migration and building speed. That was why he still needed time to make his tentacles bigger by transferring cells that made up the tentacles, the bulk of which were muscles.

"It's pretty obvious that steak is your favourite, but why is that?"

"What's your favourite food?"

"Erm, I have lots of favourite foods. Like sushi, unagi, soba, onigiri, sashimi, tempura, udon, yakitori..."

'... Isn't this just everything?'

He was discombobulated. Not even Botan's punch put him in a daze as he is now.

Chiho looked at Hikaru eating indifferently and without a pause. She couldn't pick up on what he was thinking or feeling.

"You could say I'm a bit of a foodie so, as long as the food is good, I'd like it."

Chiho thought for a moment.

"My favourite type of sushis are unagi sushi, shime saba, aji, ika and a couple more."

"Shime saba then, what do you like about it?"

"Mm, it's got a salty and tangy taste. The smell is pretty strong and is a put off for someone who's not used to eating it but I kinda like it."

"The answer is the same as mine."

'It is? Wait, how!' She thought.

Chiho was confused. Steak and shime saba sushi are two different things. Hikaru seemed to be pacing his words with his chewing but it was more so because he was unmotivated in answering Chiho and the way he was answering her was a kind of pep talk to motivate him.

"The steak tastes different from the sushi but it doesn't matter what the food tastes like. It just so happens that each of us has innate preferences and the conditioning to like certain types of food regardless of flavour. For example, there's a couple of scientific theories like what food you were exposed prenatally can lead to the increased liking of that food."

"Ahh, prenatally?" Chiho asked confusedly.

"While in the womb... Your mother's diet influences the kinds of foods you eat in the future."

"Ahh, right."

"People can also like foods because of a joyous moment which they can associate the food with or some people avoid foods because of one traumatic incident, perhaps the food was spoiled or allergenic to them. It also depends on the taste buds you are born with. Depending on your genetics, you could be categorised into a regular taster, non-taster or super taster.

Hikaru was draining some of the steak sauce that he had dipped in from a piece of steak on his fork to the edge of his plate before putting it in his mouth.

"Super tasters have more fungiform papillae taste receptors and so can taste bitter things more intensely than others. They're more likely to dislike bitter tasting foods like vegetables. A lot of poisonous substances are bitter like wolf's bane or natural toxins in fruit or vegetables. This taste aversion is a survival mechanism to avoid food poisoning.

"What you like about the shime saba is what another person dislikes. People don't like food because of what the flavour profile says, they like food mainly because of biological and psychological factors. The flavour only differentiates between what foods they like and dislike."

Words were coming out of his mouth non-stop like machine-gun bullets.

"Think of food as numbers that are selected because of an algorithm with a random seed. Associated with the numbers is a label, as an item description. The numbers weren't chosen because of the item description but because of the algorithm and chance."

'Genetics, poison, random seed, fungiform peanuts-what!'

Chiho tried reciting what had been said in her mind but she was lost after the part where the mom's diet can make the baby like the foods the mom eats.

'Who said that I don't have to be smart as Hikaru to date him!'

...

'Aimi did...'

She started missing her again. If Aimi was here, she would probably be in a conspicuous and eye-catching disguise. She would be her invisible wing-woman speaking to her through the ear pods like a data analyst and giving advice from the shadows. Seeing that her image of a lively Aimi was at odds with the current Aimi made her glum.