Tokine had not had the best of weeks. At least it was Friday and she got to come home early today and who knew, maybe she'd even find her husband conscious instead of fast asleep. Maybe today the madness would end. She got into the teachers room and spied a vaguely brown and white mass on her desk, one of her co-workers looking at it in horrified fascination. So maybe not.
The moment she got close enough, Hana held up a card, "It says here, this is from Yoshimori? And it's apparently, Not yet perfect, but done with all my devotion." she read out. Tokine couldn't help a small smile escaping her. It was after all how he always described loving her.
"Sooo, what is it your husband does again?" Hana asked with another horrified look at the thing on her desk.
"He's an architect." Tokine sighed, poking at the mass of chocolate, sugar coating and was that radish?, - in the very vague shape of a..house? A car? She couldn't even tell – that he had left on her desk sometime this morning.
"Well, I just hope that he does better work with actual houses," her colleague snickered, "Why is he giving you whatever this is anyway?"
"Hey don't mock, he's actually excellent at making sweets, he even won an amateur contest for making a candy sculpture once." And when they had handed him the trophy for his candy castle he had nearly cried. And then had cried, later, after they went home and the news really sunk in.
"Well if he's that good, what in the hell possessed him to put vegetables into this?" Hana asked incredulously.
"That may have actually been my fault. Sort of." she admitted. Seeing her friends raised eyebrow she hastened to add, "Well, only in the sense that I was maybe not as clear as I should have been!"
"It's just..." she hesitated, looking over her shoulder to make sure Yoshimori was nowhere in the vicinity, "He's great at baking. Really great. And don't get me wrong, coming home after work and finding a cake in the shape of a giant thumbs up, or cookies with encouraging messages in frosting on them is really sweet and uplifting."
She gripped the sides of her head, "But that's all he ever makes. Especially if he decides on a new project and bakes and bakes and bakes until he deems it perfect. And normally it's fine, but his company was on break for longer than normal and the house smelled like sugar for two weeks."
She sighed. "I might have snapped and screamed at him that I can't stand sweet stuff all the time and why he can't just make something with a little more nutritional value and a little less sugar."
Basically, with that she had sent him into another baking frenzy, because according to him, he couldn't rest until he made something that she would love to eat. Which had the unfortunate side effect that they hadn't had sex in a week, because he got home from work and baked until he dropped from exhaustion.
A light went on behind Hana's eyes. "And so, instead of just taking a pastry break or making pasta, he decided that clearly the thing to do is try to integrate vegetables into the candy he makes."
Tokine nodded miserably and dropped her head on the table when Hana started cackling madly.
She opened the door cautiously and was immediately assaulted by the smell of cinnamon and walnuts wafting through the air.
"I'm in the kitchen!" Yoshimori yelled instantly. Steeling herself, she put a smile on her face and reminded herself that he loved him. And that it was better than the smell of paint stripper and glue. Which she could look forward to the moment another deadline for a model house loomed.
This isn't helping. She shook her head.
The kitchen looked even worse than she had feared. Another side effect of Yoshimori's baking sprees was that for however long they lasted, the kitchen would look like a minor bomb went off in it. Baking supplies where everywhere and every surface had acquired a fine coating of flour.
In the middle of all of this was her husband, who whirled around and gave her one of those huge smiles that still, after all these years, made her smile back at him automatically.
He was wearing a dish towel on his head as usual, as well as an apron over what seemed to be his work clothes. Meaning he had come home from the office and ran into the kitchen. She could not help noticing that these were her favourite pair of pants, because they made his ass look great. God, she needed to get laid, this was getting ridiculous.
"Honey, I think I've finally got it, sorry about the radish-zucchini-chocolate-bear" oh, so it had been a bear, good to know - "I left you for lunch. I tried to keep it in the form as long as I could, but it was already listing when I snuck out of your office again, and I wasn't super happy about the taste anyway. But this is it, this is a savoury candy delicacy, here try i-" she cut him off with a kiss, because what did it matter that all her clothes smelled vaguely like sugar or that her home would probably go up in a simply spectacular explosion should she light even one matchstick.
Yoshimori was thoughtful and adorable and apparently finished with this latest obsession of his and she really needed to make out with him right this instant. He leaned into the kiss and stepped closer, but suddenly he stopped himself and moved back again.
"Hey now, nothing like that, you still have to taste-test this new cake. It's got red cabbage, you'll love it." and he held up a fork with a piece of what looked like walnut cake topped with white frosting.
He looked so hopeful she didn't even think about refusing and took the bite with a little sigh. I'm such a sucker for him.
"Wow, this is actually really good!" she exclaimed, and she wasn't lying. Everything blended well together and if it was still sweet and not exactly what she had meant, there was no reason to tell him that.
"Isn't it? I've been experimenting a lot and the key is to put the vegetables in as early as possible in the process, I've got a zucchini-lemon cake in the oven right now and -" he broke off, finally noticing that she had taken away his spatula and the fork and was slowly moving both of them out of the kitchen - "you are not actually interested, are you?"
"I'm always interested in things you like, you know that. And I love that you are still so passionate about this, even if I'll probably never really understand it." she said, subtly steering both of them out of the kitchen.
"You have no room to judge me, you made me watch all of the Gundam shows. Twice." he teased her, opening the bedroom door when he hit it with his back.
"Those shows are a great part of our cultural heritage and we are not talking about that now." Reaching behind him, she undid his apron and pulled it over his head, taking the dish towel with it.
"Oh? So what are we talking about then, Ms Tokine?" he said, instantly ruining the effect by giggling a bit.
"We, " she said, raising her eyebrow and finally pushing him onto their bed, "are talking about food" she climbed on his lap, "and my appetite."
"Then, my dear guest, what would be your pleasure today?" he asked in his most over the top waiter impression, a shit eating grin on his face.
She settled fully on the bed, put her arms around his shoulders, leaned forward and whispered into his ear: "Something I can sink my teeth into."