one-shot; not exactly a domestic
pairing: aizawa kosaku/shiraishi megumi
word count: 2733 words
note: written for choikimmy, who gave me this prompt because she wanted more domestic!Aizawa/Shiraishi with a Shiraishi that could not cook. More notes at the end.

"Where are my keys?" Shiraishi muttered to herself, scrabbling through her bag for them which was a little hard to do with just one hand. She was holding bags of groceries in her other hand, and with a sigh, she dropped the groceries onto the floor and resumed her search for keys. She located them soon, and unlocked the door to their apartment, holding it open with one foot as she grabbed all the groceries on the floor, and pushed them in.

It was her afternoon off today; and under the normal and usual circumstances, one would still find her at Lifesaving and Emergency, standing in just in case the department happened to be short-handed, or if any major emergency occurred. It was a habit that her husband (over the years, as a colleague, a boyfriend, and a fiancé, he had said the same thing) didn't exactly approve of, but at the same time, he knew that he couldn't stop her, because that was just the way she was. She was the heartbeat of Lifesaving, after all.

Therefore, it really wasn't like Shiraishi at all, to not go to the hospital, but instead choosing to spend the day at the market and the supermarket, shopping for ingredients. But she definitely had her reasons today. It was their one-month wedding anniversary, and she was determined to make it special.

She planned to make Aizawa a delicious, home-cooked dinner.

Setting all the groceries in the kitchen, Shiraishi begun the process of taking out the fresh meat, the vegetables, and putting aside the dry ingredients. Ever since they got married, she had never cooked Aizawa a proper dinner. That in itself was definitely understandable; they were both so frantically busy, practically all the time. They knew that eating out all the time wasn't the healthiest idea, but realistically, that was the way it had to be, most of the time. They just tried their best to pick the more balanced and nutritious options when it came to it.

Her own mother had been a homemaker, and home-cooked meals were a regularity when she was growing up. Shiraishi remembered how her mother always had dinner on the table for her father, whenever he returned home from the hospital after long shifts. And she remembered how appreciative her father was, and how happy that he was with her mother's efforts. She wanted to put in the same effort for Aizawa. Sure, it might seem a bit cliché, cooking her husband a meal on their anniversary, but since she had never done it, maybe it could be considered special, instead of cliché.

Shiraishi wasn't a domestic, of course, the nature of her work hardly allowed her to be, and Aizawa never expected her to be one. Therefore, in all honesty…she wasn't that great of a cook. She could make salads, and simple soups where she'd incorporate soba or udon with some vegetables, but that was the extent of her cooking.

But it couldn't be soba or udon tonight, it had to be more elaborate than that. That was why she found herself staring at slabs of beef, fresh fish, green vegetables and an array of sauces and other dry ingredients that the cookbook had told her to buy.

She shot a quick glance at the clock; it was nearly four o'clock. She had an hour to quickly tidy the apartment, and start on her cooking. Aizawa would be home by seven o'clock, and she intended to get dinner ready and on the dining table by then. She quickly tied back her hair in its usual short ponytail, and grabbed the vacuum cleaner from storeroom.

Shiraishi was doing well so far. The beef was sliced, and marinating, and so was the fish. The vegetables were washed and cut, and now she had to mince the garlic and onion. Grabbing a nice sized onion, she set her knife to it, and sliced it. Immediately, her eyes starting watering, and she started sneezing, the knife slipping from her hand. Once her eyes stopped stinging, and she stopped sneezing, she looked down to see blood all over the onions and her chopping board. She had accidentally sliced two of her fingers during her sneezing fit.

Wincing, she quickly turned on the tap, and rinsed the blood off her hands. She examined the cuts, luckily, they were only shallow cuts, nothing that a plaster and some iodine could not take care off. Retrieving the first-aid kit, Shiraishi dabbed iodine on the cuts, and peeled off two plasters. It figures, she thought wryly. Years of holding a scalpel without incident, but hold a kitchen knife, and I cut myself.

Shiraishi was really not a domestic.

She threw all the bloodied onions into the trash disposal, and washed the chopping board clean before making her second attempt. She was more careful this time, and the onions and garlic were then minced, albeit a bit haphazardly.

She glanced at the clock; she had wasted a bit of time with the onion debacle, and time was running out. She had to push on with her cooking, and fast.

Cooking was so, so much harder that it looked.

Shiraishi gave a little scream as the oil spattered, and splashed her on the forearm. She had no idea why the oil was sizzling and sputtering, as she tried her best to stir fry beef without getting burned. Standing further away from the stove, she gingerly poked at the beef with the spatula. As she was adding the sauce, she then heard hissing sounds from the other side of the stove.

"Oh no!" she gasped. She had forgotten to lower the heat for the miso soup, and the soup was now boiling over, spilling out of the pot. Groaning, she quickly turned off the gas, grabbing the pot instinctively without kitchen gloves, which was a big mistake. She yelped as the heat came into contact with her hands, and she jerked back. Thankfully, she had yet to lift the pot, if not, there would be soup all over the stove right then and there.

She reached over and turned on the tap, letting the cold water run over her scalded hands, noting that the plasters covering her cuts were slipping off, due to the constant washing. This was really not working out as well as she envisioned it to.

As she was discarding the plasters, she smelt something burning, and then a slight sense of doom, she turned to her beef, to see the sauce drying out and the meat blackening. Groaning, she took the saucepan off the heat, and stared at her beef in dismay. Taking a pair of chopsticks, Shiraishi poked at the meat. It actually didn't look too burned; it looked dried out more than anything else.

Well…extra sauce should fix that, she thought, as she poured the remainder of the sauce into the pan, heating it up carefully. Turning to her miso soup, she wrinkled her nose. There was only half a pot of soup left, thanks to the spillage from over-boiling. She opened the fridge and got out the tub of miso paste, and added another few spoonfuls into the soup. She then filled up the pot with more water, to the brim, and put the soup to boil again, carefully setting the flame to the lowest level.

Shiraishi sighed, pushing back her bangs, which were slightly damp with sweat from standing over the stove, and from running around trying to rescue her cooking. Aizawa was going to be home soon, and there was still so much to do.

She surveyed the mess in the kitchen, trying to think of what she had to do next. There was something important missing, she knew, problem was, it wasn't coming to her mind.

Oh. The fish.

Aizawa unlocked the door, entering the apartment, and he was greeted by the smell of food. The smell of slightly burnt food, actually, if he wanted to be specific. He took off his shoes, and hung up his jacket. His wife was nowhere to be seen.

"Megumi?" He called out. "I'm home."

"Ah, welcome home!" Her voice sounded out from the kitchen, and then she hurried into the living room to greet him. His brow wrinkled a little as he surveyed her. She was looking a bit breathless, a bit sweaty, and rather untidy. Her hair was in disarray, strands of hair escaping her usually neat ponytail, and there were stains all over her apron.

Wait…apron? Shiraishi never wore aprons, because she never cooked. But then again, that explained the smell of food in the air. Shiraishi was…cooking?

"I made you dinner," she said quickly, answering his unasked question. "You should go wash up, and dinner will be ready soon. I just need to dish out the pickled vegetables."

Just as she was about to head back into the kitchen, he reached out, and caught her wrist. "Megumi," he said slowly, brow furrowed. "Did you spend the entire day cooking…for me?"

A slight flush rose in her cheeks, as she nodded. "Well…I know you probably don't remember…and that's okay," she reassured him quickly. She was not one of those women who expected their husbands to remember every single date, and she knew that her husband was unlikely to keep such dates in his mind. "…but today is our one-month wedding anniversary. And I thought, well, I thought I want to make it special for you. For us."

Aizawa looked at his wife, in all her disheveled glory, and suddenly, he felt a huge rush of love for her flooding over him. Tugging her hand, he pulled her forward, closer to him, and pressed a kiss on her forehead, and then her lips. "Thank you," he says, touching her cheek lightly.

Her cheeks grew rosier, as she tightened her fingers around his, before releasing his hand, and pushing him gently towards the direction of their bedroom. "Go wash up," she repeated her words from earlier. "I'll set the table."

As Aizawa disappears into the bedroom, Shiraishi quickly went back into the kitchen, opening the oven to retrieve the fish. She had tried grilling the fish on the stove top with a grill pan, but for some reason, the fish ended sticking firmly to the bottom of the pan, and in trying to remove it, she basically massacred the entire piece of fish. Luckily, she had bought another piece, so she decided to shove it into the oven, on grill settings, to avoid another catastrophe.

But looking at the fish now, she wasn't sure she had avoided the disaster. Her nice, plump piece of fish had shrivelled, looking rather dry and sad. She groaned softly in disappointment, and then she heaved a sigh and scooped up the fish with a spatula, putting it on a plate. She dressed it with grated radish and lemon, trying to tell herself that it might taste better than it looked.

Shiraishi carried the plate out to the dining table, and placed it on the table, along with her teriyaki beef, tofu, vegetables and miso soup. It actually looked quite presentable, all the dishes, and she only hoped that it would taste good.

As she stood there, scruntinising her day's work, a pair of arms wound themselves around her waist, and Aizawa rested his chin on her shoulder. "You made this all by yourself?" He asked, a note of quiet amazement in his voice. "This is incredible."

"I'll prefer the compliments after you've eaten it," she said, turning around and brushing a quick kiss on his cheek. Pulling out his chair, she sat him down on it, and placed a bowl of rice and his chopsticks in front of him. Just as she was about to draw back, her husband stopped her, putting his hand over hers.

"Did you hurt yourself?" He traced the plasters on her fingers, looking concerned.

"Cut myself with a knife while cutting onions," she said sheepishly.

Aizawa had seen Shiraishi in action with a scalpel countless times, cutting into a patient's abdomen, slicing open a patient's chest or making incisions at a patient's neck. It seemed almost absurd that his wife, one of the best and most precise surgeons he knew, actually cut herself with a kitchen knife. While chopping onions. He pressed a kiss onto her fingertips, and then he released her hand. "You have to be more careful," he admonished mildly.

"Well, I've never cut myself with a scalpel," she echoed his thoughts, and her own as well, as she took her seat across from him. "So I didn't expect a kitchen knife to foil me."

She watched him expectantly as he took a slice of beef, and eats it, chewing slowly. "Well? How is it?"

He chewed it further, and then swallowed it. "It's good," he said, taking another slice of beef, and eating it with his rice, not saying anything else.

Shiraishi watched her husband, frowning a little. Aizawa was not a good liar, because he simply didn't see the point in lying, so he could never be bothered to lie. Looking at his face now, she was pretty sure that he was lying. She took a piece of beef, and popped it into her mouth, and then she winced. The beef was too salty, and the meat was too tough. It was like eating a piece of cardboard.

Aizawa had moved on to the vegetables, heaping his bowl with them, and he also picked at the fish, resolutely eating everything. She took a helping of vegetables, and as she ate the beansprouts, it was clear that the vegetables were undercooked. They were daunted with the taste of rawness, and she didn't use enough seasoning, so they were bland and raw. The fish was definitely dry, and she didn't get the proportion of mirin and sugar right, so it was too sweet.

Across from her, Aizawa took a sip of the miso soup, and although he quickly tried to hide it, she saw the slight grimace on his face. But even so, he continued taking a few more sips of the soup, before putting it down. Slowly, she took a drink of the soup, and it was all she could do not to spit it out; it was like drinking seawater. Seawater from the Dead Sea, even.

A wave of pure disappointment washed over her. She had so wanted to make it special for Aizawa, and all she manage to do was to ruin his dinner. She put down her chopsticks, and looked dejectedly at her food. "Kōsaku," she said in a small voice. "Don't eat it anymore. It's all borderline inedible. Except for the pickled vegetables, because those were store-brought."

"Megumi," he said, putting down his chopsticks, stretching across the table and picking up her hand. "It's fine, dinner is fine. I can eat it, and I will eat all of it."

"It's not fine, all of it tasted terrible," she corrected, looking down, feeling like the worst wife in the world. "I'm so sorry, I…"

In a flash, he was by her side, crouching down beside her, enveloping her hand in his. "Don't you dare apologise, Aizawa Megumi," he said fiercely. "You went through all the trouble, you even hurt yourself, and this was all for me. I don't care how it tasted, you cooked all of this, and I will finish every single bit of it, no matter what."

She looked at his earnest face, and she thought to herself, how much she loved this man in front of her. She brushed back his hair, smiling affectionately at him. "What if you die of sodium poisoning after finishing this dinner?"

"Then it'll be a good death," he said, without missing a beat, his hand tightening around hers.

She laughed, and leaned forward, kissing him. "You're ridiculous, Kōsaku, but I love you."

"I love you, too," he said, his eyes serious. "You're an amazing wife."

Shiraishi felt her heart melting. Her husband wasn't a man of many words, but the few words that he did say, he meant it with every fibre of his being, and she knew it. "Even though I'm the worst cook ever?" She teased.

"Even so," Aizawa answered, reaching up, cupping her face in his hands, and then he kissed her, slowly and lingeringly. He would willingly eat a hundred more of the same dinners, so long as Shiraishi was the one who cooked it.

A/N: Much of Shiraishi's fumbling in the kitchen are inspired by my own fumbling, when I ventured into the world of cooking in my first year in university. Oh, the epic fails I had.

Randomly, I was going to write Aizawa surprising Shiraishi with a present at the end, because he did remember their one-month wedding anniversary, but halfway through I scrapped it, because I actually think it's kinda un-Aizawa-like to remember. And also because I couldn't manage to work it in lol.

So there you have it, my attempt at domestic!married!Aizawa/Shiraishi. All reviews, comments and suggestions are loved, so drop some my way! 😉

Prompts are, as always, more than welcomed.