This is a something.
In short, it's a cooking AU that does not involve a lot of cooking and a romance that does not involve a lot of romance. Outside of that? It's a ridiculously long take on me trying to woo you with humor. I have little doubt that it won't work, but here's to trying, yeah?
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this work. All characters belong to Disney/Marvel. The plot, however, is entirely my own.
WARNING! This story contains Hidashi. It is a non-related AU that involves startlingly little actual romance and aged up characters, but if you find Hidashi squicky in any way, you should probably stop reading. That is all.
Chapter 1: Shrimp Flavored Mistakes
The world ends on a Saturday. Somehow, Hiro is not particularly surprised by this.
"I leave you alone for two weeks— two weeks— to go back to Changwon and what do I come home to? 'Hey, GoGo, don't freak out, but I'm at the E.R. Sorry I might not make it to your welcome home party!' End message. What the absolute hell, Hamada? You can't just—," she cuts herself off with a huff, cheeks puffed up red and angry, her arms crossed in front of her chest, "You."
"Me," he shrugs. He doesn't have much to say for himself, not with cotton still taped to his arms where IVs were only hours ago and deep purple-blue bruises forming along his veins. They look like spots; he thinks he may have been a leopard in a past life.
It's been a while since he's slept.
"Well, Hamada? Going to explain?" Tiny black and purple sneakers tip-tap against the tile in his entryway; almond-shaped brown eyes narrow.
Hiro blinks, "I'm fine. 'S not that bad." He shrugs again like that'll pacify her— like he doesn't know better— before flopping back onto his couch. He's never been so happy that his apartment is so small. His legs are shaking.
"Hiro, explain. Now."
He sighs, mushing his face into one of his equally mushy pillows, "I just felt funny in the lab— had a headache and kept getting dizzy. Dr. Callaghan made 'Sabi take me to the clinic and then they sent me to the hospital. It was no big deal. The doctor just said I was dehydrated and a little malnourished. Food, Gatorade, and vitamins and I'll be as good as new in a few days."
"So, basically, I wasn't here to feed you and you stopped eating," GoGo deadpans, popping her bubble gum with her hip cocked to the side. "Great. Fantastic. Eighteen years old and you can't even remember to feed yourself."
"Hey! I had ramen two nights ago, thank you very much." He sits up a little quicker than necessary and is greeted with the room spinning on its axis. He barely manages to catch himself before he nosedives into the coffee table.
GoGo looks less than impressed, "Right. And instant ramen counts as a food since when exactly, Mr. Super Genius?"
"You're mean," he whines as he shakily slides back down onto the couch, "and I'm sick. Why are you so mean to me when I'm sick? I thought you were my friend."
"I'm your nanny," she snorts, turning on her heel. Those tiny sneakers march her into his kitchen and moments later, Hiro can just barely see her riffling through his pantry out of the corner of his eye.
He blinks and a packet of instant ramen nails him in the forehead.
"Ow, dude! I'm already sick— are you trying to injure me too?" He rubs at the spot indignantly. Another pack bounces off his shoulder. Shrimp flavored, he realizes belatedly. The absolute worst. "Hey, that hurts!"
GoGo crosses her arms over her chest, her pink lips set in a disbelieving frown. Almond brown eyes stare into chocolate orbs.
"Fine," he acquiesces, voice set in a low mumble, "It doesn't hurt. Just stop hitting me with them." He turns away and buries himself against the fabric of the couch. It's cold, it's three-something-or-other in the morning, and he's tired. He can be forgiven for pouting. "Meanie."
"Instant ramen and gummy bears," GoGo accuses from across the room, her voice getting steadily closer. She stops right in front of him, her hands set on her hips, unimpressed, "You disgust me."
"And you hate me," he murmurs into the mushy cushion, "Why did I call you again?"
"Because you don't want Wasabi seeing your apartment."
"Oh, yeah. That makes sense," he yawns.
GoGo sighs, "This can't happen again, Hiro."
"I know," he exhales dejectedly, his mouth slack. "I know, okay? It won't. I'll be better."
Calloused fingers grab his chin and Hiro vaguely wonders if she's going to hit him again in some misguided form of tough love. It's happened before.
"I was worried about you," is what he gets instead.
He blinks— once, twice, three times— before he blurts, "I'm sorry. I just— I was busy and then I was working and I don't think about that stuff when I'm— but you always do it for me and I didn't—"
She cuts him off with a hand over his mouth and another buried under his bangs. They're absolutely frigid. "This can't happen again," she repeats, sighing just slightly before releasing him and pushing him further into the couch's overstuffed cushions; he goes willingly. "I'll figure something out. But you have a fever and I'm obviously not getting home tonight. So, what do you need, Hamada?"
"'m cold," he says miserably.
GoGo nods once before moving to grab him a blanket out of the linen closet at the backside of the kitchen.
"You're the best," he calls after her.
"I know."
"And I love you."
"I know that too."
"And you're my absolute favorite person in the whole wide world."
"You're pushing it, Hamada."
One week later, Hiro finds himself standing behind a steel table with his arms crossed over his chest. "This is a horrible, horrible idea."
"You're fine, Hamada. Stop whining."
Hiro sighs, rapping the toe of his sneaker against the concrete floor. Tap, tap, tap— one, two, three. Chocolate brown eyes scan the room morosely. It's small, with a dozen or so steel tables all crammed together and a fully stocked pantry on the far side. Behind him, there's a row of old ovens that look like they've seen better days and directly in front of him, there's a separate station with a mirror attached to the top and a flyer haphazardly attached to the side with 'Winnie the Pooh' patterned duct tape.
'Cooking Made Easy: Now That's a Tasty Combination!'
Dear god, kill him now.
"Come on, GoGo. I don't need cooking lessons! I'm fine on my own!" One thin black eyebrow rises and disappears beneath violet hair in a silent challenge. He blanches, "Okay, okay. So, maybe not perfectly fine— But you could totally teach me! You're a good cook! Why don't you teach me instead?"
Pink bubble gum pops and GoGo goes back to filling out the stack of paperwork in her hands, "You still remember what happened when I tried to teach you proper citation when you were a freshman, right?"
He remembers. He was fourteen and stupid (except not really) and she was assigned to mentor him because he was too young to work in the labs without supervision. She was less patient back then. She hit him. A lot. He has yet to mess up a report citation. "Unfortunately."
"Case and point. Here," She tosses him a purple thread necklace with a nametag looped through its string.
He scowls, "Gummy Bear? You named me Gummy Bear? What is this?"
"You're supposed to be named after a food. Just be happy I didn't name you Sour Patch Kid."
Slim fingers slide along the offending rectangle and he shrugs, pulling it over his head. Little victories. He's counting it as a win.
"All right, so I've filled everything out for you already. You just need to sign the bottom of the waver saying you won't sue if you injure yourself and turn it all in when the teacher gets here." Calloused hands push the stack of paperwork towards him and then cross in front of GoGo's chest. "Until then, just stay out of trouble. Don't touch anything. Don't tinker with anything. And don't even think about leaving. Wasabi and I are getting dinner at the restaurant across the street, so I will know about it."
He sighs, slumping against the table, "It's official. You're evil incarnate. I take back every nice thing I've ever said about you."
She shrugs, "I can live with that. I'll see you in two hours."
"'Kay. Cool," he mumbles into the steel top, "Just leave me here. All alone in a strange place surrounded by people I don't know. Not dangerous or anything." He looks up just in time to see her wave him a backhanded good-bye before disappearing through the door, the little bell jingling in her wake.
The traitor.
Chocolate brown eyes roll and Hiro takes a moment to glance at the clock hanging just above the door. Seven minutes. In seven minutes, he'll be officially enrolled in a cooking class that he definitely does not want to take or have any part of for the next six weeks. Because it's cooking and losing four hours every weekend is almost the same as losing an entire day. And really, who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to host a class on Saturdays and Sundays?
Those are supposed to be the good days— the tinkering-outside-of-class and the No-I'm-not-awake-at-noon-why-are-you-calling-me days. He's supposed to be lazy on the weekends. Not go to some stupid class on the far side of town while his soon-to-be-ex-best friend guards the exit.
The whole thing's a mess. Hiro blames the ramen— the shrimp flavored, specifically.
"Umm, excuse me?"
He jumps, momentarily startled, his facial features relaxing just slightly from the position his brooding put them into. Big brown eyes blink at the man in front of him and the man blinks back, a lazy smile pulling at his lips. Hiro swallows, "Yes…?"
The man gestures to the empty table beside him, "Is this table free? It looks like everywhere else is taken."
Hiro glances at him wearily for a moment before turning toward the room at large, nibbling at his lower lip when he finds that the man is right. There aren't any tables left and somehow or other, the room completely filled up without him noticing. Great. Fantastic. Now a dozen and some odd amount of people are going to have a front row seat to his atrocious cooking skills.
He feels himself deflate, his shoulders pulling inwards. At least when GoGo laughs at him he knows she doesn't really mean it.
"So, umm, is it?"
He turns back to the man with an embarrassed puff in his cheeks and a shrug of his shoulders, "Yeah. Have at it."
"Thanks."
Hiro slumps back against the table and faces forward, willing the class to hurry up and start and finish so he can leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the man settling himself behind his own table, fretfully laying out his paperwork in organized little stacks. He seems more than happy to be here. Hiro hopes he doesn't feel like talking.
He is not so lucky.
"You here to learn how to cook?"
Hiro raises an eyebrow, knotting the sleeves of his hoodie around his fingers as he glances back at him. The man looks nice enough with his strong jaw and warm coffee brown eyes, but Hiro's seen that kind of nice-guy smile pointed his way before on guys just like this one. Guys that are just a few years older and more than six inches taller with muscles galore and girls fawning all over them. Guys just like the ones from high school that used to lure twelve-year-old him behind the backside of the library where the cameras didn't quite reach and the beating could go on just that much longer. He's made his mistakes— and he's not nearly so trusting anymore.
So, he shrugs nonchalantly and twists away, leaning against the far corner of his table with his jacket pulled tight across his chest.
The man doesn't get the hint, "So, uh, Gummy Bear, huh?"
And he doesn't sound like he's making fun of him, but Hiro hears it in his voice anyway, his back straightening just slightly as he turns to read the name printed across the man's own nametag.
Dashi, it says.
He scowls, "At least I'm not soup."
And damn him, Dashi just laughs until the teacher walks in, all leggy and blonde in her bright yellow dress and plain white stockings.
Hiro spends the next few minutes trying to hide his burning cheeks against the tabletop.
He is only somewhat successful.
"What do you mean you're not going back?"
Hiro shrugs mostly to himself, his body carefully hunched over his desk as he busies himself with the final touches on his most recent microbot upgrades. They're completely unnecessary since he's already gotten approval from Krei Tech to manufacture the prototypes for his previous design, but his first year graduate project hasn't been cleared yet and he's got nothing better to do with his time— besides possibly sleeping, but he doesn't do much of that anyway. "I mean I'm not going to take the class, GoGo."
"I wasn't aware I was giving you a choice." He's given a moment to recognize the hard edge in her voice before his chair's being yanked back away from his desk and he's spun around at a dizzying speed. He winces. Almond-shaped brown eyes do not look pleased. "You need to learn how to cook so you don't end up back in the hospital again. Do you like being poked and prodded?"
"That happened one time! One time! I know better now— and I'll be more careful. Promise," he plasters on a smile and hopes she believes it. Because he's sincere, but he's also really bad at remembering such things. From the way one inky black eyebrow disappears beneath dark, layered hair, he's pretty sure she's not buying it.
And she isn't. "You mean like you promised you were going to start sleeping regularly after the incident with finals your freshman year? Right," she snorts, "I see those panda eyes, Hamada."
"No, you don't. They're just… Yeah, okay. You've got me there," he grimaces, shrinking just slightly in his chair, his fingers nervously drum-drumming along the arms. "But I just— I forget, okay? And then I remember, but then I'm working and—," he blinks, a metaphorical lightbulb flashing above his head as a sly grin works its way across his lips, "What makes you think cooking won't be the same way? I know how to sleep, but I don't. So, what if I learn how to cook but I still forget to eat? The whole class would be a waste! A full six weeks of weekends— gone!"
"But at least I'll know that you have the physical ability to take care of yourself. And you don't do anything on the weekends anyway, you hermit. Losing four hours a week of tinkering with whatever you can get your hands on is hardly going to hurt you— or do you like having a microwave that sings Smash Mouth lyrics every time you turn it on?" She flops back onto his rumpled bed and he has the decency to look at least a little sheepish.
The singing microwave thing was kind of a mistake— that he hasn't been able to fix. Yet. He's working on it. Sometimes. When he gets around to it.
"Besides," GoGo adds with a grin quirking her pretty pink lips, "I already paid for the course. You're stuck."
"Actually, I'm not," Hiro smirks, leaning forward in his chair, his skinny ankles bouncing against the carpet, "See, I told the teacher I was just thinking about attending yesterday and she said that final registration isn't until we start cooking tonight. You'll get a full refund if I drop out now."
GoGo hums like she's thinking it over before, "So, you talked with the teacher? You like her?"
"Honey Lemon," he rephrases with a shrug. "Yeah. Sure, I guess. She seemed nice enough. A little too enthusiastic maybe, but not bad."
"And you think you can learn from her?"
"Sure…? We didn't really cook or anything yesterday, but she was really into it. All about answering questions— that kind of thing. Why?" His fingers tip-tap against the arm of the chair; his toes curl into the carpet.
"Because," GoGo sighs, pushing her bangs out of her eyes, "I want to know why you're so against going back. If you like the teacher, what's the problem? And don't say you don't care about cooking, because I'm going to make you learn one way or another."
Hiro slumps, his shoulders deflating as he manages another halfhearted shrug. He knots his fingers together in his lap. Because, honestly? He didn't hate the class. The teacher, Honey Lemon, had been really nice about everything. She didn't treat him any differently than anyone else even though he was easily the youngest one there and about halfway through, he actually started to get excited about learning how to make the different pastries and things. But…, "I don't know."
One black eyebrow arches, "I think you do. Spill it."
Chocolate brown eyes blink at her before he sighs and looks away, a familiar heat running up his neck and spreading across his cheeks. He's not a little kid anymore and he knows he needs to stop being so childish, but it's GoGo. She's almost like the older sister he never had. "So, uh, there's this guy in the class," he starts a little uneasily, biting at the tip of his thumb, "His table's right beside mine and, umm— Yeah."
She eyes him for a moment and he feels himself redden even further, glancing down at his lap. "Did he do anything to you," she asks carefully, like she's trying to soften the blow. And this has happened before, when he was a much-too-young freshman and she caught a couple of the older students sabotaging his equipment in the labs. Four years later and her mentioning it is no less mortifying than it was back then.
But…
He sighs, "No, no— He just wanted to talk before class started and— I don't know, okay? He already knew the answer to all of the teacher's questions and it— it was just… weird?" His fingers run through his hair anxiously and a tense smile turns up the corners of his lips, "That sounded so much better in my head."
"I would hope so," GoGo smirks, rolling her shoulders, and Hiro feels some of the tension leave his own body, a nervous sort of chuckle pushing passed his lips. "So," she continues, "he hasn't done anything. Do you think he will?"
He glances up at the ceiling, mulling it over. "No? I mean, probably not. He seemed friendly, I guess."
"Then it shouldn't be a problem. Get dressed. You're going to class."
"But, GoGo—"
"No buts." She stands with an air of confidence and newly inspired purpose and Hiro knows he won't be getting out of the stupid course. At least he can hang onto the hope that Dashi will drop out. "I left Wasabi waiting for us in the car."
He blinks, "But you've been here for at least an hour…?"
"And it's really hot outside. What's taking you two so long," Wasabi cuts in from the half opened doorway. Dark brown eyes scan the room and his normally dark-skinned friend goes very, very green. Hiro's almost impressed. "Is that a sandwich?"
Hiro follows his gaze to the corner of his dresser where a rather strange looking lump is sitting half squashed beneath a pile of old textbooks. His head tilts to the side. "No," he answers honestly, "I think it was a sandwich."
"…I'll be in the car."
Tap, tap, tap. He lets out a shaky sigh, nibbling at his lower lip as he looks around the pantry. Despite the list of ingredients in his hands, he's not entirely sure of what he's supposed to grab. Because, yeah, sure— he knows what butter and eggs look like and approximately where to find them, but where would cornstarch be? What even is that? And granulated sugar? Is that like normal sugar? Is there even more than one type of sugar?
His shoulders deflate and he takes a moment to glance back at the room at large, where all of the other students have already grabbed everything they needed and started preparing their dishes. Hiro wishes they were all cooking the same thing so he could cheat— just go to all the same places the other students did and grab all the same things.
But they're not and he's absolutely baffled. He's never even tried shopping outside of the instant food aisle at the supermarket near campus and he's woefully unprepared for this. How's he supposed to learn how to cook when he can't even find the right ingredients?
Slender fingers knot around the paper in his hands and he feels himself beginning to panic— because he's falling behind fast and wow, isn't this supposed to be a cooking class? Isn't everyone supposed to be terrible? Is it just him? It's just him. It at least looks like it's just him and—
"Oh, Gummy Bear! I didn't realize you were still over here. Do you need some help?"
Hiro jumps and nearly falls over his own feet trying to turn around, his sneakers getting tangled up in one another with him pitching forward and swinging his arms to right himself. When he manages to look up, Honey Lemon seems vaguely concerned. He reddens, "I, umm…"
The paper in his hands crinkles loudly between them and he feels himself grimace. She smiles and big green eyes light up behind magenta glasses. "Not a frequent shopper," she questions, her pink lips quirking to the side.
"Not exactly." He tries to sound cheeky and confident, running his hand through his hair and smiling, but his voice breaks and squeaks like his childhood cat's chew toy.
And he was so sure he was finished with puberty already.
Huh.
The more you know.
"Well, that's perfectly fine! You're certainly not the first. And with no experience, I don't have to work to get you out of any bad habits yet. Here." She plucks the list from his hands with her perfectly manicured nails and her eyes light up as they scan the page, "Oooh, lemon meringue pie, my favorite! Here, here, here."
Her palpable excitement is hard to ignore and Hiro can't help but smile along as she drags him around the pantry with her heels click, click, clicking, and her hair swish, swish, swishing as they move. Honey Lemon seems more than pleased loading him down with ingredients, talking a mile a minute as she explains everything to him, but Hiro barely catches any of it, only managing to file away that yes, there is indeed more than one type of sugar and cornstarch is basically just another type of flour before she dumps him back at his station with everything he needs in hand.
He lines the ingredients up on the table and takes a deep breath, nibbling on his lower lip before nodding.
Step one: complete. He's got this.
Probably.
And surprisingly, he does. The recipe's a little complicated because he has to keep track of multiple parts at the same time, but Honey said they would all be somewhat difficult before they had gone up to pick their recipes. She said she was testing how well they followed instructions, and well, Hiro can do that. He can read and replicate and forty minutes later, his pie is sitting in the oven waiting for the meringue to brown and he's bouncing on his heels in anticipation.
He's a little wound up. Which is fine, because he knows he did everything right and his pie is going to turn out perfect and Honey Lemon will like it and—
"Yours nearly done?"
Hiro scowls, stilling. The only downside of the night (with the exception of the pantry, because nope, nope— he's not counting that. That definitely never happened) is that Dashi showed up again. He's officially enrolled now and assigned to the table right next to Hiro's for the next five full weeks. That's ten days he's going to have to deal with this guy. Ten days for two hours a day— twenty hours of his life spent with him smiling from six feet away and answering all the questions in just the right way and making… really perfect chocolate cake.
He blinks at it, taking in the way the cake lays on the cooling rack, smooth and rich and just— man, is he the only person here who doesn't know how to cook? "You've done this before," he says plainly, a little miffed, his brows furrowing.
"Maybe once or twice," Dashi admits, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. His cheeks tinge pink, the color slowly spreading across his face as he gives a little shrug.
And Hiro's not entirely sure of why that is, but he still frowns, an irrational part of him quickly becoming upset at the fact that Dashi obviously already knows how to cook and is taking a beginning class anyway. Because who even does that? He doesn't hang out in the freshman courses at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology just to show up the less advanced students. Because that would be rude and immature and—
Just what he expected from the guy that towers over him with his broad shoulders and his nice-guy smile. He doesn't know why he's so surprised.
"Why—"
The beep of the oven timer cuts him off and his mouth closes with an audible click. Chocolate brown orbs narrow before he twists away, grabbing the oven mitts off the counter and sliding them over his hands with ease. The tension drains from his shoulders and the spark of excitement that Dashi diminished comes back full force. Because it smells fantastic when he opens the oven and his covered hands latch onto the pie pan so easily and… oh.
It's flat.
The meringue doesn't look anything like the picture on the recipe. It's not quite as golden brown and the peaks have fallen. And it's completely and utterly flat, the supposed-to-be fluffy white substance nothing but a thick, spongy coating.
His shoulders deflate and he frowns, the pie pan held delicately in front of him. So much for his perfect pie. Is it even edible like this? All spongy and weird? He tilts his head slightly to the side, contemplating. It still smells delicious, but… isn't there something about poisonous flowers in the desert smelling wonderful to attract their prey? Maybe that's his pie. Maybe it's toxic and only smells good so it can poison people.
Anything's possible.
"Oh, did the meringue not rise?" Hiro twists on his heel and glares, his stupid flat pie held by his chest. Dashi blinks at him, coffee-colored irises wide as he smiles, continuing, "That's okay. Meringue's weird like that. I'm sure it still tastes fine."
His grip tightens around the horribly misshapen pie in his hands and he feels the familiar heat of embarrassment run up his neck to burn the tips of his ears. He grits his teeth.
"Yeah, well, I didn't ask you."
He's remarkably pleased by the kicked puppy look across the other man's face as he stomps away.
He's even more pleased when he climbs into the backseat of Wasabi's car half an hour later, bouncing into the middle seat with his partially eaten pie held carefully in his lap. His tooth gap shows in the rear-view mirror and GoGo's image reflects back at him, one thin black eyebrow raised.
"Someone looks happy," she says.
"I made a pie," he states matter-of-factually, smiling a little wider and holding it up like a present, spinning it on its side so GoGo can see through the clear plastic covering. There are a couple of pieces missing on the side closest to him, where yellow ooze is soaking into the Graham cracker crust and the meringue is shifting just slightly to the side, but all in all, it's still mostly intact.
GoGo blinks at it, "Is it supposed to be thick like that?"
"What? No," he squawks, "It's fine! I mean, it's not, like, pretty or anything, but Honey Lemon really liked it— and it still tastes good. See." He scoots forward and shoves it into the front seat. The pie slides to the edge of his fingertips and he nearly drops it in his exuberance. GoGo snatches it before it can hit the dash, inspecting the dish by twirling it slowly in her hands. She doesn't say anything, and Hiro feels himself slowly deflate, his shoulders hunching inward and his newly freed hands pulling at his cargo shorts. "You should, uh, try it," he adds after a few moments of silence, his voice quiet.
"Oh, no, you don't! You are not eating pie in my car," Wasabi pipes up, taking it from GoGo's hands and depositing it back into Hiro's lap, his seatbelt straining across his broad shoulders. "And put your seatbelt on!"
"But we're still in the parking lot," Hiro grumbles, falling into the familiar argument with ease, dutifully sliding back in his seat. His feet drum against the floorboard and chocolate brown eyes inspect the lemon meringue pie in his lap, his fingernails experimentally pulling at the tin. Well, it is kind of ugly.
"You never know when an accident could happen. Buckle up ev—"
"Just click it, Hiro," GoGo cuts him off with a roll of her eyes. Wasabi glares at her indignantly, but Hiro does as he's told, strapping the seatbelt across his waist with a little sigh as they start moving toward the main street. "Besides," she continues, kicking her feet up against the dash, "I hate lemons. I wouldn't like it."
He blinks, "Oh."
"Yeah, oh," she snorts.
"More for you and me then, little man," Wasabi adds, eyeing him in the rear-view mirror with his dark brown irises. "Just, you know, not in my car."
Hiro feels himself smile, his lips turning up at their edges as he leans back in his seat. He's not nearly as excited as he was before, but he's still unbelievably satisfied with his ugly, misshapen pie. He doesn't remember ever being this happy about anything that wasn't robotics related, "Then when we get back to the apartment?"
Wasabi shrugs, carefully merging onto the highway, "Sure."
"No," GoGo says. She and Wasabi share a look that Hiro chooses not to interpret before GoGo continues, "You have to eat dinner first. I'll make you some stir fry or something."
"Yes, mother."
"Don't push it, Hamada." She gives him the look and he feels himself smiling cheekily back, resisting the urge to stick out his tongue. His foot press, press, presses against the back of her chair and she swats at him playfully. It still stings, but... well, GoGo could do way more damage if she wanted to.
"So," Wasabi says, letting the word roll off the tip of his tongue, "I take it class went well?"
He pulls his leg away from GoGo's swatting hand and folds it underneath himself, carefully maneuvering the pie out of harm's way. "It went okay," he shrugs, going for cool and nonchalant, but the way his lips quirk and his shoulders straighten more than give him away.
"No guy troubles," GoGo asks.
Wasabi sputters at the wheel, "Guy troubles?"
Hiro blinks at him strangely before shrugging again, his smile widening at the edges, "Nope."
"Nope?"
"Seriously, what guy troubles," Wasabi continues. He turns to GoGo, "When did this become something we had to worry about?"
She pats his arm consolingly before twisting around in her seat, "So, you were worried about nothing."
Chocolate brown eyes roll, "Well, no, not exactly. It was really weird that he knew all the answers to the questions yesterday and it at least looked like he knew what he was doing today." He took a moment to remember the way Dashi's chocolate cake rested on the cooling rack and the way Honey Lemon eyed it before taking a bite, snickering at the memory before continuing excitedly, "But he can't cook! At all. Everything he makes looks great, but it's awful. This is, like, his third time taking the class!"
Bushy brown eyebrows furrow, "Isn't that kind of sad though? I mean, at least he's trying."
Hiro frowns, thumbs running along the rough edges of the pie tin. His toes curl in his sneakers. "Well, yeah," he concedes, nibbling at his lower lip, "But, everybody has to be bad at something. And I highly doubt that guy is ever going to have a need to cook for himself." Judging from what he's seen, guys like him with their broad shoulders and strong chins— they have people more than willing to do it for them.
"You never know, Hiro," Wasabi shrugs, drumming against the steering wheel at a stoplight, taking a moment to glance back at him.
"But—"
"Wasabi's right."
"Guys," he groans, "can't you just let me have my moment, please?"
"Nope," she pops the 'p', "Now, be still or you'll get flour all over Wasabi's backseat."
"What? I thought you said they wore aprons? Come on, not in my car!"
Hiro smirks, "Actually, it's cornstarch."
A/N: This story is a practice in humor I started writing last September and finally finished up this past January. In total, it's three parts. The remaining chapters will be posted whenever I find the time (I'll likely be posting on Sundays).
Anyway, even though this story is already completed, I would love to hear your thoughts! All reviews are welcomed and responded to!