A/N: Hey, everyone! So, this oneshot comes at the request of Shslcardiologist. I hope that you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: Sword Art Online is not owned by me. The OC in this story is not the creation of mine. She belongs to Shslcardiologist.
Klein grabbed the last glass, wiping it dry with his hand towel. Once the glass was dry, he placed it in the cabinet, throwing the towel onto the counter afterward. He turned, beholding his handiwork. Dishes done, trash disposed of, apartment presentable. But before he could pat himself on the back, there was a knock on the door. She was here.
He ran to the door. He grabbed the handle, about to open the door. But before he opened it, he quickly stopped himself. He quickly looked himself over, making sure he was as presentable as his apartment. After a quick examination and some minor adjustments to his clothing, he decided he looked good enough and twisted the handle, pulling open the door.
That was a mistake.
Though he was presentable to pretty much anyone else, when he beheld her beauty, he couldn't help but feel like a sloppy mess.
Standing outside his door was a beautiful young girl. Despite her height, she was not actually a young child, she was a young adult. Golden hair flowed from her head, over her crimson jacket, and down her back. Her irises were a wonderful red. Two lovely cherry blossoms were placed in her hair, a compliment to her name. These flowers did not call attention to themselves, instead, they worked together to magnify the young girl's beauty. This was the person standing outside his door, looking up at him with a bright smile, as if seeing him truly brought her happiness.
"Hello, Klein!" the young girl greeted.
"Hello, Sakura." he greeted, smiling right back at her. He moved to the side, allowing access into his home. "Come on in."
She took a few steps in, stopping right behind him as he shut the door.
"So, not that I mind or anything," he began, turning around after the door was shut, "But why did you want to come over?"
"Um... well, remember that time in the game when you were saying you could actually cook in real life, but in the game it's different, and then I was surprised you knew how to cook, and you said you made delicious cookies?" Klein nodded. "Do you also remember how I said they sound great, and then you told me you should make some for me when we get out of the game?"
Klein raised a brow. "You... want me to make you cookies?"
Her cheeks turned pink, and she averted her gaze down to the floor.
"Y-yes... if it's not too much trouble... I'll help you make them, of course!" she quickly added.
"Man," He chuckled. "And here I thought you just wanted to hang out with me."
"I-I mean, I also want to spend time with you..." she muttered, her cheeks growing darker. However, Klein either didn't hear her or he just pretended he didn't.
"Alright, if you came all the way here so I could make you cookies, how can I refuse?" He shrugged.
From the living area, Klein led her to his decent sized kitchen. A square column in the corner at the front of the kitchen was the only thing separating it from the living area. He had a nice amount of counter space, the counter running from one side of the stove- which was pushed against the middle of the wall -turned the corner, and ran all the way to the end of the room. While the stove was resting near one end of the counter, his fridge sat at the other end of the counter. And at the middle-ground of the counter there was a sink built in. Of course, he also had cabinets, both above and under the counter.
"Alright, first we need some bowls," Klein said.
He walked over to the other side of the counter, away from her who stood at the end, near the stove. He knelt down, opened one of the cabinet doors, reached in, and pulled out two mixing bowls. Standing back up, he brought the two bowls back to her. He placed one bowl down in front of her and placed the other in front of him, near the sink.
"Now, an electric mixer..." he muttered.
He came closer to her. Really close to her, actually. So close that she blushed from the proximity. If she were to guess, if you take a thick book, like a dictionary- a thick one -it would just barely be able to squeeze between them. Yet, while she was clearly flustered by this, Klein seemed to be unaffected.
Klein knelt down, causing her to let out a quiet whimper. He heard her whimper, and as he began to lift his head, he noticed her exposed knees quiver ever so slightly beneath her peach skirt. Slightly confused, he lifted his head to meet her eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Y-yeah... I'm fine." she replied, turning her gaze away from him in embarrassment.
"Alright, let me know if you're not feeling well."
She sighed, he could be really oblivious sometimes.
After grabbing the mixer out of the cabinet, he shut the door and stood up, placing it atop the counter.
"Now we'll need the beaters..."
He reached over to the side, pulling open a drawer and grabbing out two metal beaters for the electric mixer. Before he closed the drawer, Sakura managed to sneak a peek inside. She was quite surprised with how neat and organized everything in the drawer was. She was expecting it to be a jumbled mess, but it wasn't.
"Now all that's left are the ingredients."
Sakura watched as Klein walked around his kitchen, grabbing all sorts of things. Flour and baking soda from another cabinet, milk and eggs from the fridge, and several other things from another cabinet, such as vanilla extract, sugar, and the like. As he gathered each of the needed items, he placed them on the counter near the two bowls.
"Now we pre-heat the oven to three-seventy degrees..."
Walking up to the oven, Klein pushed several buttons. After that was done, he walked back to his earlier spot and turned to her.
"Alright, we can start making the cookie dough now." he told her.
"Okay!" she said excitedly. "What do I do?"
He handed her a sifter and a bowl.
"One and a half cups of flour." he said, before turning to his bowl.
"Okay."
She took the flour and the cup he had placed next to her bowl. After scooping up one cup full, she began to sift the flour into the bowl.
While she did that, Klein took the butter, sugar, and brown sugar, dumping them into his bowl. With all of those in the bowl, he grabbed the electric mixer and began beating them together.
"What next?" she asked, raising her voice above that of the mixer's noise.
He lifted his head, staring into her bowl. After confirming the contents he looked to her and replied.
"Teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon baking soda. After you add those to the bowl, mix them together." After answering her, he turned his attention back to his bowl.
He continued beating the sugar and butter together until the mix was nice and fluffy. Once he was satisfied with how it looked, he looked back up towards her.
"How's it going?"
"I just finished mixing them together." she replied.
"Good, now take over for me." He handed her the bowl, with her awkwardly taking over for him, due to her being unprepared for his sudden direction. She placed the bowl down on the counter, getting into the rhythm of the mixing. It took a few seconds, but she finally regained her balance.
Klein walked up behind her, reaching forward and grabbing the bowl with the dry mix. Him being right behind her, it was hard for her to keep her cheeks from lighting up. Even if she was calm, even if she wasn't nervous, she was still aware of his presence behind her, of the warmth radiating from his body, and that was why she couldn't stop the warmth flowing to her face.
After getting back to his spot, as she was mixing, he gently poured in the dry mix. "Okay, keep mixing this in." She nodded to his directions.
Taking the bowl once filled with the dry mix, he moved back to his spot he mixed the sugars and butter together.
After mixing the things together very well- well, at least what she thought looked pretty good -she figured she didn't need to keep as much attention on the mix as she ran the beater through it. Lifting her head from her bowl, she observed what Klein was doing.
He closed the cap on his vanilla, placing it down right next to the milk. He then took a spoon and began stirring the contents of his bowl together. Judging by the fact he placed the milk and vanilla next to each other, she figured those were the only two liquids in the bowl.
After stirring the liquids together till he was content with the mixture, he took the two eggs, cracking them open and dropping them into the bowl as well. She expected him to take his spoon and start mixing again, but he didn't. He picked the bowl up and started moving it around, swirling around all the ingredients inside.
After doing that, he stood up straight, as if he just realized something. He walked to the freezer, opening it and pulling out a package of chocolate chips. Ah, so that's what he forgot. After bringing the chocolate chips back to his bowl, he opened it up and poured some in, making sure he spread it out so it didn't just make one large mass in the center of the bowl. After he poured the choc-chips in, he picked the bowl up and swirled it around again.
Once he finished swirling the ingredients together, he turned to her. She quickly turned her gaze back to her bowl, acting as if she wasn't watching him. However, he managed to catch her turn her head away, and thus, realized she was watching him up till now. He didn't say anything though, he just smiled softly.
He brought the bowl and its contents over to her. He hovered it over the counter as he explained to her what he was going to do.
"Alright, I'm going to slowly pour this into your bowl. You keep mixing everything together." She nodded.
He moved his bowl over her's. He gently tilted it, slowly pouring the ingredients within his bowl down into her's. As the mixture spilled into her bowl, the spinning beaters splashed some liquid up at her face, eliciting a quiet squeal from the girl.
"Ah, sorry," Klein apologized. "Here, let me get that for you." He grabbed a napkin from the back of the counter, wiping off the liquid splashed onto her face.
"Th-thank you," she said, slightly embarrassed.
He watched the bowl as she mixed the ingredients. Once he thought everything looked good, he tapped her hand.
She turned the mixer off, pulling it out of the bowl and placing it on the counter.
Klein reached his hand in, feeling the dough. After a few moments, he declared, "Yep, this is good!"
He broke a small piece off, holding it up. As her eyes were fixed on it, he flicked the small piece at her. The small piece impacted her cheek, sticking to it.
"Hey!" She frowned.
He chuckled, then smiled at her.
"Don't worry, I'll get it." he said.
He leaned over to her, bringing his face closer to her's. Before she could do anything, he gently pressed his lips onto her cheek, over the piece of dough that stuck there. Once he pulled the dough into his mouth and off her cheek, he pulled back.
"W-wh-what are you d-doing!" she shrieked, her whole face crimson red.
"I was getting that piece of cookie dough off your face," he calmly replied. "Although, between you and me..." He held a hand over the side of his mouth, whispering the next part to her. "I just wanted to give you a kiss."
His words did nothing to help her racing heart or her burning face.
"Should I not have done that?" he asked. "Are you mad?"
"N-no, I'm not mad." She patted her chest, trying to get a hold of herself. "J-just don't do something like that so suddenly and without warning again. I don't think my heart can take it."
"Alright, got it," he said with a soft smile. He found it rather cute that she was still easily flustered around him.
"So, what do we do now?" she asked, trying to move on from that whole ordeal.
"Now, we can start placing the dough onto the sheets to bake."
He walked to a drawer near the floor, next to the oven. He opened it and pulled out two baking sheets, bringing them back to the counter and placing them down next to the bowl of cookie dough.
He ripped out a piece of dough from the bowl, rolling it between his palms till it was nice and round.
"This is about the size you want to make each of them." he said, holding the round piece up for her to see.
Her brows furrowed as she carefully studied the piece of dough. He couldn't help but smile at how attentive and focused she was.
"Well, it's not that hard," he said, patting her head and placing the piece of dough onto the sheet. "Now you try."
"O-okay," she said, slightly nervous about messing it up.
She ripped off a piece, rolling it between her palms the way she saw him do it. Once it was nice and round, she moved her hand over to the sheet. Before she could place the piece of dough on the sheet, he stopped her.
"That's a little too big." He gently grabbed hold of her wrist, stopping her movements.
He moved her hand away from the sheet. He turned her hand so her palm faced up, allowing the piece of dough to rest on it. As one hand rested underneath her's, he reached over to grab her other one. She felt her heart speed up at the feel of his hands cupping her's.
He guided her hand, helping her to rip off the appropriate amount of dough. After it was down to size, he released his grip on her.
"Alright, now just re-roll that into a ball again." She just gave a simple nod to his words, unable to speak normally at the moment.
The reason he guided her hands through the movements, was to help her get a feel for how big the pieces should be. If he had just removed the appropriate amount for her, then it might take her a couple more tries to get it right. And he knew his method worked, because her next one wasn't oversized, nor was it undersized.
They managed to finish off the rest of them without any hassle. After the dough was all used, and two sheets were filled, they placed them in the oven. Once that was done, they retired to the living room, sitting on the couch as they waited for the cookies to finish baking.
They sat relatively close to each other, just not too close.
"Now, all that's left is to wait." he said with a sigh.
"Today was a lot of fun." she said. "Thank you!" She gave him a bright smile.
"Well, it wasn't just me..." he muttered, flustered for the first time since she got here. He couldn't help it, her smile was just too beautiful.
But he had to admit, today was a lot of fun. To think, none of this would have happened if they never played that game... To think, all of this almost didn't happen because of that game. The many difficulties they endured in that world, it really was a miracle they survived. But he'd be lying if he said there weren't times when they almost didn't make it. There were several times when a choice that was made almost resulted in death. If they had died in that world, this whole experience would have been lost...
"Klein?" her quiet voice broke through his thoughts.
He turned his head, fixing his gaze on her. Her eyes glimmered with concern. Why? Why was she concerned? His face. Was there something on his face?
He reached his hand up, touching his cheek. It was wet. Why was it wet? Did he-
Oh...
Realization hit him. The reason it was wet, the reason for her concern, it was because... he was crying. While he was in his thoughts, several tears managed to escape his eyes. The tears being brought on by certain memories.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He nodded. He smiled softly at her. "I'm just happy that you're still here."
Her eyes widened in surprise at his confession, before giving way to a soft smile like his.
"Yeah, I'm happy you're still here too."
She leaned over, wrapping her arms around him. He followed her actions, wrapping his arms around her.
A/N: Alright, that's the end of this story. I hope that I managed to get their characterization right. Klein did seem a little... I didn't nail him, I can tell that much, but it was still close enough, I think.
I hope you all enjoyed!