The Yeast I Can Do

Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice is not mine.

A/N: In cross-reference to a particular relationship mentioned in The Cabin in the Woods (which is basically where I put every possible plot I can write in the course of my stay here). Please pardon the horrible pun. :D

Every Saturday, I'd pass by the Home Economics room, because the fleeting smell of cakes and pastries always linger across the building. They always keep the windows up, so it wouldn't pent up too much, and it makes good for students willing to pay for a treat or two. I used to be one of them, but I come around so often that Anna Umenomiya decided I'd go broke if I keep it up. She never bothered, though. I paid out of respect that the food she gave me didn't dance in my mouth.

Eventually, Anna got used to the fact that I was always going to be around, so she'd always have a special slice of cake reserved for me. It used to be different every week, I think I've pretty much had a taste of every possible flavor there is: banana, carrot, fudge, pecan, lime… The list would go on and on, but my favorite is chocolate rum. After that, I'd always end up with a slice waiting for me on the window sill closest to Anna's counter. Sometimes she'd even leave a glass of fresh juice. No matter what day it happens to be— before or after exams, school events, dates— Anna would always have something for me.

It was five minutes before ten when I decided to walk towards the building. Anna starts baking a quarter to nine, so they're fresh from the oven when I get there, and warm enough for me to eat.

I surveyed the kitchen for a tail of pink hair dangling from a hair net, but I couldn't find her on either direct or peripheral vision. So I stepped in, knowing I was welcome.

"Anna's not here," Mayuki Tono said when she saw me. Mayuki is a year older than us who makes the best tart around, but right now, she had just finished putting a batch of cookies of a tray.

I got one. "Is this gingerbread?"

"Is it good?"

I finished the cookie. "I'd rather the tart."

She laughed. They all liked my honesty here. "Come back later. Anna's in the kitchens. They were short of one man today."

I thanked her and slyly slipped two rabbits on her apron. Like Anna, she's been giving me free treats. "Don't worry," I said as I was on the door, "The cookies tasted awesome!"

Anna had learned to control her Alice over the years. It wasn't easy. In fact, she was terrible at first—and I mean really terrible. I would constantly hear her frustrated thoughts of why she couldn't control her Alice. Later on, Mr. Misaki, as the Technical Ability Class adviser, explained that most Alices are tied to one's emotions. Since Anna is fairly shy, considerably quiet and often finicky, her food will often result to, well, disasters.

When we were twelve, she found out that her pet dog died. We had finals that day, and Anna had been waiting for it since classes began because she was so eager to make her 'special' cake. I had a taste of it five days prior, when she ironically told me about her pet and her home. Since she got the letter that morning, she was obviously in no condition to resist her emotions from the twister it might cause on any food she touches. Her cake blew up every time someone would come near it.

For Nonoko's fourteenth birthday, Anna got sick. She didn't want to attend the celebration, but she promised Nonoko she'd make a batch of her friend's cream cheese cupcakes. Anna did... and then the cupcakes ended up singing awful songs right in the middle of the party. Anna cried, but Nonoko assured her that it was one of the most memorable birthdays she had.

For the Alice Festival that following year, Anna was tasked to make this big celebratory cake for the last day. She got really nervous about it, and spent a rough three days for the cake. It didn't blow up and smear us all in icing and confectioner sugar, but let's just say that I got in detention for trying to eat the whole cake right in the middle of the tables just to save Anna from being insulted because of her Alice.

Then finally, it was the last straw for Anna. She knew she's good, and her Alice has always been viewed by her as a gift than a curse. So she snapped, kept her emotions in check, and started to dominate the kitchens. She's not perfect, though, and she still slips every now and then... But I told her that we didn't want that.

"I just can't..." Anna had sighed, completely frustrated. "It's driving me nuts. I can't possibly be this unstable for the rest of my life!"

"You won't be," I assured her. "You're just having a hard time."

"Two years ago!" She snapped. "We're about to graduate the next year and my Alice still acts like I was ten!"

"You weren't so bad," I consoled her, remembering how she'd always make is a batch of cookies. "You're just growing up."

"Well... It doesn't sound that bad when you say it that way."

"Because it doesn't. We like you like that, Anna. We could do without our food breaking into a musical number every now and then, but we're okay. It's not like you need to be perfect."

So when I'd gone to drop by for her, I didn't expect the same frustrated girl fourteen months ago.

"What happened?" I asked, surveying the place. The kitchen being messy would be a typical sight, but Anna's space was like World War III had just arrived. "It looks like it's been bombed."

"Oh, very nice," I heard her mutter. Her hair was held up by the toque nearly falling on her face. She was manually and forcefully stirring the contents of a big stainless bowl.

"Anna?" I called her, slowly approaching, "Anna, I don't think you should stir like—"

Too late, I thought. The mix already blew up and flicked on my face. I took the towel hanging from a hook and wiped my face clean.

"Oh my god, Koko, I'm so sorry!" Anna gushed, her faces red in frustration than embarrassment.

"Maybe you should start relying on the cooking appliances than… you know."

She shook her head vehemently. "I can do this very well, thank you very much."

"I don't doubt that you can," I assured her, "But since lunch starts in less than two hours, you don't really have time to be picky."

"Two hours?" Anna suddenly shouted, her eyes wide, "Crap, I don't have time to make damn soup for three hundred damned guests in two damn hours!"

"Lay down the cursing," I mumbled. I wasn't one to talk, but Anna cursing never gave good results. An angry Anna usually means…

"There goes the potatoes," she grumbled, and we both watched a string more of the vegetables run away with some Texas accent.

"What's the deal about this anyway?" I asked her as she finally settled into mixing a new pot of soup. I put an apron on and washed my hands. I couldn't cook well enough, but I could hand her what she needed before she even had to say it, which was why she would sometimes allow me around her when she's working.

Anna sighed, as if I should've known, but her thoughts were too preoccupied with her soup. "It's for the conference that Hotaru's in," she said. "I was supposed to make the dessert, but Fujiko caught the flu and we couldn't trust Haruka to make the soup because of her sudden pepper addiction so now I'm stuck with vegetables running from me every second my voice raises!"

"Then maybe you shouldn't raise your voice?" I advised, keeping up a smile. "I'm pretty sure Hotaru doesn't need your added nerves on her soup. I don't think she'll appreciate your soup creating an awful stench right in the middle of her presentation either."

"Is that your way of helping me?"

"You're a selfless girl, Anna. I think you can figure this one out."

Anna stopped chopping the vegetables and carefully laid down her knife. "You're right," she said after a while. "I'm getting so worked up about nothing."

"It's not like this is your first big event," I told her as I perched myself on a stool, trying to balance a fork with my forefinger. "Remember the Alice Festival?"

"You mean when you forced yourself to eat a cake that probably tasted like mud?"

"Right," was my hasty curt reply, remembering how Mr. Jinno practically slapped a detention slip on my face for the havoc I had to create to stir people away from Anna's cake, "Maybe that's not the best example… Oh, I've got it— the Valentines' Party! Remember that?" I said excitedly. "That's when you made the best chocolate rum I've ever eaten!"

She rolled her eyes. "If you're just trying to make me bake you a cake, then it won't work. Hotaru's conference is first on the list."

"No, I'm serious! I don't know what you do, but I'm not really asking so don't answer!" I said hurriedly, "I don't want to jinx the only food that doesn't dance."

Anna gave a hearty laugh. She opened the pot of the boiling soup, and the steam and scent filled her kitchen space. "Thank you, Koko."

I like Anna. I'm not going to lie. She's thoughtful and mindful of other people. For someone like me, that's a really big thing. There are times when I couldn't control my Alice, or thoughts are just badgering me too much, so I need someone to help me not to help other people. No matter how caring Anna is, she knows her limitations. I, on the other hand, am still getting around to that.

"Anna," one of the cooks tapped her ladle against the stainless counter, "Is your soup ready?"

"In a while," Anna replied, her face lighter and calmer than when I first came in.

"I thought you had two hours?" I asked Anna, as soon as the cook was out of ear shot.

Anna nodded, her face concentrated into the spices she was dashing. "That means less than an hour. Lunch needs to be served fifteen to thirty minutes to the schedule. The trip from here to the conference room would take about five to ten."

"Why couldn't we have that rule?" I scowled. "Then I wouldn't be stuck learning how to add the alphabet!"

"Because you're not Hotaru," Anna pointed out, laughing.

To be honest, a blasé Anna in the kitchen is a rare sight to see. Her personality usually ranges from short-tempered to hot-tempered—it's either she's about to get annoyed, or she's already annoyed. Like Natsume, her thoughts are always fast and cross once you toss her with the stove and a knife. Although Natsume's can be accounted to the fact that he'd rather the ground swallow him whole than be caught in an apron.

Anna took a pot holder and held the oven open. "Koko, would you mind?"

I jumped off the counter and helped her take out the baked good inside the oven. When we've gotten it on the table and she took off the cover, I almost drooled at the steaming deviled crabs.

"This is cheating!" I pointed an accusatory finger, "You're being biased because Hotaru's our friend!"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," Anna laughed. "I just figured, since she's been working her butt off for this, Hotaru needs to at least feast on her favorite food."

"Why? She's been nothing but mean to everybody."

"No, she's just mean to you because you knocked her coffee down yesterday."

I shivered with the memory of Hotaru's eyes staring daggers at me during breakfast the previous morning. If Kitsuneme and Mochu didn't drag me out (my feet barely touched the ground so I assumed they half carried me in the air), she probably would have bitten my head off.

"Hey, Koko?" Anna asked me after a while. I had retreated back to the comforts of the counter, watching Anna go around tossing things on the pots. From the swinging half doors, I could see that everyone else in the kitchen was hustling around. This must be some conference Hotaru's having. Although when I come to think about it, every event that concerned Hotaru Imai was a big thing.

I looked up at her. "What's up?"

"If you still want that cake, I'll be in the Home Economics room at three," she told me. "But I'll have to go to Central Town before that."

At sixteen, Anna wasn't surgically attached to Nonoko's hip anymore. They used to be together in everything. Back in elementary, they tailed everyone together like two puppies. Eventually, Nonoko had to practice her Alice with fellow future chemists, and Anna had to master hers, which she had to do alone. It was much easier with us boys, because Mochu liked to fly things, and Kitsuneme liked to fly, while I just read everyone else's minds. Although being in the same ability class, Anna and Nonoko had to do things separately when learning their Alice was the task. Beyond that, though, they were still two great friends. In fact, I hardly imagined Anna going out with anyone else than Nonoko or one of the girls.

"I'll go with you," I said, knowing that it was what she wanted to ask me. I didn't need to use my Alice with that. "Maybe we could go get some ice cream while we're at it," I added, not missing a beat.

Anna's face beamed, and although she looked like she had run a marathon on the school field five times with Wakako using her Alice, I can't help but think how pretty she is. "Thanks, Koko," she said, her bright smile still intact, "I'd like that."

I mirrored her expression. Hearing my friends get worked up about their Alice was one thing; seeing them actually having a hard time is another. For a Mind Reader, my Alice is pretty useful when it comes to friendship. I know when someone needs a hand, but I know when to avoid the thin line bordering the difference between friendly concern and nosy stalker.

Anna's a great friend. She bakes me the best cake in the world every week for free. She never gets short of a helping hand and she's always in a rush to make sure you're well. I hope that Anna gets to have a friend who would do the same thing to her. She's not asking for volunteers, because that's just the way Anna is, but for now, I can be that selfless guy. After all, it's the least I can do.