Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach; it's Kubo Tite's, and should definitely stay that way.
The Mixer
"How did she say this was s'posed to work again?" Abarai Renji grunted, turning the box upside-down and glaring at its underside as if it were a particularly venomous snake.
"Well, we just put that in a bowl, add the ingredients it lists on the back, and stir it using a... "mixer"," Kuchiki Rukia replied, head tilted sideways to read the directions on the upset box. "So first, we need a bowl..."
The two shinigami set to ransacking the apartment's cabinets immediately, Rukia carefully replacing all she moved and Renji carelessly tossing any and all implements over his shoulder. Rukia finally located a large metal bowl and set it on the counter with a clank.
Renji tossed the box into it and said, "Okay, that's in the bowl. Now what?"
Rukia blinked at the box-in-a-bowl contemplatively. "Somehow, that doesn't seem quite right..." she mused, looking at it closer. She picked the box up again and reread the backside. "Ah, I see! We have to open it and put what's inside into the bowl!" She slipped a finger under the top tab and popped the box open, revealing a bag containing a pale brown powder inside.
"Y'wanna remind me why we have to do this part again?" Renji grumbled, watching her tear the bag open and dump its contents in the bowl. "I could've distracted Ichigo easy. Dueled him."
"Then we would have ended up missing his birthday entirely, because neither of you would be willing to stop when the time came," Rukia replied, digging around the refrigerator with one hand, still reading the box in the other. "Anyway, it's probably better if we do this part. Orihime is nice, but..."
"Her cooking skills ain't anything to write home about, yeah, I know," he finished for her, leaning against the counter. "Still might've been a better idea than making us do it."
"Possibly, but we're doing it anyway, so shut up and crack a couple eggs," Rukia replied, emerging from the refrigerator with several ingredients balanced on one hand.
A few minutes later the bowl was half full of ingredients, though the wet were pretty much sitting on top of the dry. "Now we mix until it's combined..." Rukia read off the back, "Have you seen a mixer around, Renji?"
"I think. Hang on." He turned toward his pile of discarded implements, digging back through it. "It was one of the first things I found."
"So why didn't you keep it out?"
"'Cause I didn't know we needed it!" he shot back, pulling the mixer free from beneath a blender and slamming it on the counter.
"I'm not even going to reply to that," she sighed, rolling her eyes as she plugged the mixer into an available outlet. Then she carefully turned the instrument over, back upright, rotated it once clockwise, rotated it once counterclockwise, before muttering, "Now how do we work this thing..."
"Just hit a button and see what happens," Renji said as if it should have been obvious. Rukia shrugged, figuring he was probably right for once, and pushed the mixer's switch all the way up. The beaters quickly rotated, and both shinigami were happy to find it such an easy thing to use. Renji grinned and took the mixer from Rukia once she shut it off. He placed the beaters into the mix and quickly flicked the switch on--
And splattered unmixed cake batter all over Inoue Orihime's kitchen. He cursed violently, turning the machine off again with such force he nearly broke the switch. "What the hell!" he exclaimed, looking down his front, which was now covered in the sticky goo. "It doesn't say that'll happen!"
"I don't think it's supposed to happen, Renji..." Rukia stated calmly, wiping the remnants of an egg off her cheek. "We were probably supposed to start slow, and work up to the fast setting..."
"Well why doesn't the damn box say that?!"
"I bet it's common knowledge to humans, but since we're inexperienced with mixers, we didn't realize it till it was too late..." Rukia mused, looking around the messy kitchen. "We should probably clean this up before Orihime gets back with Ichigo."
"The hell we should. If the box didn't tell us, we didn't do a damn thing wrong," Renji reasoned, setting the mixer on the counter and stalking away. Rukia shook her head, following him out if only to drag him back.
"Idiot."
Author's Notes:// So here's a stab at a more light-hearted fic, since I don't seem to be writing many of them lately. Heh. This was going to turn out more shippy, but it didn't work that way. Maybe I'll add another chapter with that. I don't know. What do you think?