He shouldn't take the bakeries for granted.
Not that he ever did, but sometimes you forget to be grateful for the little things in life.
Such as the beautifully made cakes which were neatly frosted, elegantly decorated and most importantly—
Premade.
What made him think he could do this...?
The time was— who knows? Fuckin' early, that's for sure (like, 4 AM, maybe?).
It was late enough for it to still be dark outside, but early enough for his friend-turned-girlfriend Erika Karisawa to still be sound asleep in their shared room.
And because it was so early, Kyohei Kadota didn't dare turn on the lights to the kitchen, lest he alert her to his attempt at a christmas surprise.
Using headphones, he listened to this video on his laptop about how to make christmas cake— he had this recipe printed out, but figured watching someone do it would help him through the process.
So as carefully as he could, he measured out his ingredients (that he bought specifically for this-!), using the glow of the laptop to see ('Note to self: don't ever do this again'), and pretty easily put the ingredients together (save for when he missed the bowl, and got flour on the counter, and he then cursed—).
But here's where he came across an issue that he previously hadn't considered.
There was no way inhell he was going to hand whisk eggs for that a whole eight to ten minutes.
But the noise of the hand mixer was sure to wake Karisawa up.
So now he had to figure out what to do.
'Should I….? No….? Yes? I mean… Hand mixing it…..? That's so….. No…. I barely have time for that….. The bathroom has an outlet….? That's a horrible idea what if she has to go to the bathroom— What if you had just bought a cake— all of this coulda been avoided. No time to berate myself though, I guess so…. Ah…. how far away from the room can I get….?"'
So with the chain of thoughts, he came to a conclusion.
He didn't hate himself enough to not use the hand mixer.
Ultimately, he decided that the "best course of action" was to stand in the corner, as far away from their shared bedroom— (listen the kitchen isn't near their room, but he doesn't know how loud the hand mixer is, and, well, sound travels) as the appliance's cord would allow him, and try and use his body to help with muffling the sound.
Needless to say—
"Aaah?~ " the door to their room opened. He knew, and he didn't have to even look. "What could possibly be going on in my kitchen at this hour~ " While her voice was tired, he could hear her commonly-used, mischievous tone.
— that didn't quite work, did it?
He chose not to stop the hand mixer, you know, because well. He was caught, so he might as well get these eggs beat— let's just not let them over mix…..
He felt some sort of impending doom as her voice got closer, if he had to be honest.
"Is it aliens~ Are there aliens in my kitchen coming here to reveal themselves?!" she chirped. How can a voice that tired be that excited? "I bet their spaceship broke and they needed to reconvene in our kitchen~ Woah….." She then paused. "...it could just be Santa…. I mean- It's Christmas… I think…. " She kept walking, and he could tell she was grinning. "Is it Christmas or Christmas Eve? Do you think-" a gasp "What if Santa's an alien?! It'd make sense-! How else do you get gifts all around the world that fast?!" But she laughed, and jabbed him in the sides (wait when did she get behind him?!), which caused him to tense up, yell a loud 'Fuck!' and very nearly drop the eggs and beaters. However, because he only very nearly, and did not actually drop them, he sighed, extremely relieved.
"Good morning, Dotachin!" She grinned, real wide, and he meekly replied.
"'Mornin'..." but he couldn't help but smile a little himself. Caught red-handed. Whoops
"I think it's a lot better to see you in here, than aliens—" "It's even better to see you in bed, asleep, though, so tell me, Dotachin…. What are you doing.?"
He turns off the beater.
"Oh you know… stuff…."
"What kinda stuff?"
"Corner stuff"
"Naturally."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Dotachiiiiiiiiin-."
"Ah…. I was….. Tryina' make a cake, see…? "
"I cannot see, actually, because you haven't turned the lights on!" But she couldn't help but snicker. "Of all things to do this early in the morning—!" She shuffled away to turn on the light, and both needed a good minute to adjust. Kyohei looked at his eggs, briefly, decided that they were done, and so he shuffled over to the kitchen counter and put the eggs and hand mixer down. Erika looked over at the laptop.
"Ooooh…. Dotachin was trying to be nice and make homemade Christmas cake! Silly guy shoulda just made it with me and that woulda been more fun!"
"Ah…? Do you wanna do that?"
"Duh-!"
Kadota couldn't help but laugh, as he went over to Erika and gave her a small kiss on the lips.
"Thanks, Karisawa."
"I got you to thank for trying so hard just for me this early in the morning—"
"I got you to thank for giving me somethin' to try so hard for—"
And Erika gave him a hard, menacing stare resulting in Kyohei growing a tad bit nervous.
"Wh-what'd I do.—"
"How can you say something so perfect! How can you be so perfect!"
"Huh? I'm not perfect-."
"But Dotachin, you are—! I'm so lucky to just be with you-... "
"Hey hey, I'm lucky and more than happy to be with you too-"
"You're doing it again!"
"Doing what again?"
"That!"
"What?"
"Kyohei, do you really know how much you mean to me?"
"... More than I could ever realize, huh?"
"... That means you realize, then, yeah?"
"... I guess."
"So do you realize we've gone into an infinite cycle-!?"
"If I do, then wouldn't the cycle stop?"
"But if you realize it stops, then it'll keep going-!"
"...Let's go back to the cake-"
"Yeah!"
And so they mixed in the flour (folded in, actually), along with the butter and milk into the eggs, lined the cake tin, poured the batter into the tin. Then they put that in the oven to bake, hulled the strawberries, cut all but eight of them for the top of the cake, and finally made some syrup (because the recipe calls for that, so let's not skimp on that…. Though to buy cherry brandy just for this...).
All they had to do now is whip the cream, which was an easy task in itself (just watch and make sure it doesn't go to butter, but it really shouldn't go further than the "soft peak stage")
"That looks good, Dotachin, I'd stop there." And so he did, and she took a bit on her finger to taste. "Mm! That tastes nice, here, Dotachin, you try!" she scooped up some more on her finger and brought some to his mouth, which he opened.
'Cept at the last second, she booped his nose.
"Whoops~" she laughed, eating the rest off her finger.
"Hey..." he smirked playfully, taking a dallop of the whipped cream and smeared it on her cheek. "Now there's more on you than me-" and he grinned triumphantly.
"...Do you know what this means, Dotachin?"
"Oh no-..."
"Oh yes-"
Deadlock.
And suddenly.
Total.
War.
A grab for the bowl and for as much whipped cream as they could.
Cream flew.
Overhead, underhead.
On their heads, even.
Somehow, "A little goes a long way." really applies when you're chucking whipped cream around your kitchen at 4:49 in the morning.
It was over as quickly as it started.
"Ah shit….."
"...Whoops"
"Did we even have this much?"
"... Who knows anymore."
"Well, maybe we should buy a cake now-"
"Yeah but we gotta clean up-"
"...Well, maybe we should buy a cake now-"
"It's like 5 AM, no one's open-"
" I bet someone's open."
"I'm getting the mop and bucket."
"I bet we can order one online and then pick it up later~ I'll do that-"
"... You made this mess too you know-"
"Yeah but you were the one who wanted to make the cake and so rudely woke me up with your 'corner stuff'."
His face went red, and she snickered, then walked over to him and planted a kiss on his lips.
"You dug yourself that grave, Dotachin~ I don't think I can let go of 'corner stuff'."
"Oh c'mon—" He huffed, and shook his head. "Well whether you can let go of that one or not, you still gotta help me clean."
"Dotachiiiiiiin."