Written for the SECOND round of the Royal Flush Spread the OTP Love! challenge. Typo extermination is very much welcome. This is my second Sweet drabble, cliche as usual, and inspired by Kyoka's prompt word: Cookies. Please read and give constructive criticism!
Marui was in a bouncy mood.
Well, he was usually in a bouncy mood, but today, he was feeling bouncier than usual. He chewed, blew and popped his gum in rapid succession as he caught the train that would drop him near his house. Slung over one arm was his tennis bag, as usual, but in his other hand, he had a plastic bag full of baking materials.
Yes, baking materials. Like flour, sugar and the like.
Marui had popped his bubblegum fifty seven times before the train pulled in at the station he was supposed to get off at, and as he strolled towards his house, he began to blow up the fifty eighth bubble, humming cheerfully to himself all the time.
Marui had everything as planned. He would reach home at a quarter past four (he'd counted), the house would be empty (as his parents were conveniently overseas) and the place would be his. He would then proceed to get a new gum stick from the stash he had stowed away in a secret hideout in his room, then start baking.
It sounded extremely simple, didn't it? And what was the adorable red-head baking anyway?
Marui was baking cookies. After much thought and deliberation and advice from an amused Jackal, Marui had decided to bake the classic chocolate chip cookie, because, apparently, those were the easiest and yummiest (not to forget sweetest) cookie to bake.
But the cookies weren't for him. To Marui, that was a sort of flaw in that plan of his to make chocolate chip cookies, not being able to eat them himself, but then again, after much thought, he was pretty sure that Jiroh would offer him some.
After all, they were boyfriends, and boyfriends were supposed to share.
Still humming cheerfully, Marui let himself into the house. He put the bag of baking materials on the kitchen counter, and went to dump his school bag in his room. The tennis bag he left carefully on his bag. Retrieving a fresh stick of bubblegum, Marui descended on the kitchen, ready to bake his soon-to-be fantastic chocolate chip cookies.
First, he got out the recipe he had printed off the Internet. He glanced at it, trying to find the first step in making delicious chocolate chip cookies.
Ah, there it was. '1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Line two baking trays with baking paper.'
Marui looked around. Oven? Did he really need an oven to bake cookies? Frowning, Marui wondered what he should do when he didn't have an oven.
Oh well. He had a microwave, and that one was even better, because it didn't need to be preheated. He decided to skip that instruction and go directly to lining the baking trays. He hunted around for a bit and finally managed to get two pieces of baking paper on the trays.
On to the next instruction. '2. In the mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time, and add vanilla extract until incorporated.'
Marui stared at the instruction. Wait, what did it mean by 'cream the butter'? He understood sentences like 'beat the butter' or 'whip the butter' but 'cream'? Was that a noun or a verb? Nonplussed, he took out the mixer, butter, some (extra!) sugar, a bottle of vanilla extract, and hesitated.
Perhaps 'cream the butter' had been incorrectly worded. Perhaps it had actually been 'mix cream with the butter' and somehow, the author of the recipe had left out those two very important words. Feeling very smug about his cleverness, Marui rummaged about in the refrigerator, finding a small bottle of cream sitting abandoned on the top shelf of the refrigerator. He took the cream and emptied its contents into the bowl, mixing it vigorously with the other ingredients using the mixer he had bought just for the occasion.
'3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to egg mixture and beat until incorporated, adding chocolate chips halfway through mixing.'
Finally, an instruction he could understand perfectly. Popping his limegreen gum, he obediently mixed all the dry ingredients together, exulting the fact that he wasn't that stupid to take the word 'beat' literally. He tipped the floury mixture into the watery beaten egg concoction, and applied the whining mixer like he'd seen the professionals do on television. So far so good – he even thought that the mixture rather resembled one done by a trained cookie baker. He was about to move on to the fourth step until he remembered that he hadn't added the chocolate chips to the dough. Silly him. It wouldn't be chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips, right?
He emptied the whole bag of chocolate chips into the mixture, and consulted the recipe again.
'4. Drop two tablespoon dough onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for about 12-14 minutes or until golden brown around edges. Cool on wire rack.'
Wire rack? Well, Marui didn't have a wire rack. Would his cookies turn out weird because it hadn't been cooled on a wire rack? Surely not, he reasoned, because he could blow on it and cool it that way too, right?
Fetching a spoon from an obscure drawer, Marui dipped it into the mixture that now looked so prettily golden and dotted with brown freckles that Marui was almost tempted to have a little taste. But no, it hadn't been properly baked as cookies yet. He had to be patient a little while longer.
He blobbed two tablespoons of dough onto the baking sheets, repeating it wherever he wanted a cookie to spring up. It was a bit like a fairy magic wand, Marui mused, as he thought about how the lovely, warm cookies would form when it baked.
When the mixture had been spread (unevenly) on both plastic baking trays, Marui carried them over to the microwave. He balanced the trays in both hands while he studied the microwave buttons frowning as he realized that there were no 'bake' command buttons.
Finally, he decided on 'cook', although some niggling feeling in him was seriously doubting that cookies were 'cooked' despite having a 'cook' in 'cookie'. Feeling that his thoughts were confusing even him, he inserted both trays into the microwave and closed the door.
Now, the instructions had said approximately 15 minutes, so Marui did what he had seen the pros on TV do – clean up the equipment. He was halfway stacking dirty bowls in the sink when there was an omnious crack and the sinister smell of something burning.
Marui dropped everything and rushed to the microwave. Surely it hadn't even reached 10 minutes yet? He paused the 'cook' operation and wrenched the door open.
He stared in puzzlement. The cookies looked fine, as far as he could tell, albiet a little flat and pale-looking, with the chocolate chips sticking out like dark pimples. There were no signs of burning anywhere.
He closed the door of the microwave and continued the 'cook' operation, but remained standing there, staring intently at the microwave as if daring the piece of machinery to emit another crack and burning smell. Perhaps it was the serious frown on his face. Perhaps it was the fact that he was too preoccupied staring at the microwave to chew on his gum. Whatever the reason, the microwave chose to spin the trays of cookie dough round and round, trying to cook them (it was on 'cook' mode, remember?), remaining obediently silent.
But once Marui retreated to the sink, the microwave let out another croak. This time, the smell of burning was stronger than ever, and when Marui opened the microwave door, he saw row upon row of round, rather flat dark-browned cookies beaming up at him cheerfully.
"Yes!" Elated, Marui carefully extracted both trays and bumped the microwave door shut. He laid the tarys on the kitchen table and pried one protesting cookie off the baking sheet, and after carefully removing his gum from his mouth, popped the cookie in and chewed.
It tasted great.
Well, it tasted great to him anyway. Marui beamed as he finished the cookie. He automatically reached for another (never mind that it was for Jiroh) when the doorbell rang. Marui hesitated, wondering if he should have another one anyway, but when the doorbell rang again, he abandoned the cookies and went to answer the door.
"Jackal?"
"Hey." Jackal, Marui's doubles partner on the Rikkaidai team, stood on his doorstep, a knowing sort of smile on his face. "May I come in?"
"Sure!" Marui held the door wide open. "Why are you here?"
"Well, you told me you were going to bake cookies today for Akutagawa, so I thought I'd drop by and catch some of the action." Jackal replied, slipping off his shoes. He followed Marui into the kitchen.
"Ta da!" Marui said proudly, presenting the cookies that he had so painstakingly baked. "Aren't they cute? D'you want to try one?"
Jackal accepted the proffered cookie. "Akutagawa's on his way here, by the way. I saw him, but took a shortcut so I got here first." He bit into the cookie, and almost flinched.
"Uh, Marui..."
Marui was busy scraping the cookies into a lovely little cookie box he had purchased earlier, and he looked up, not seeing Jackal's pained expression.
"Yes?"
"Just how much sugar did you put into this?"
"Um, just a little extra." Shifty eyes.
"Alittleextra?" Jackal eyed the recipe that was lying on the counter. "Just how much extra? It says here that only 310 grams are required."
"I put an extra 500 grams." Marui grinned sheepishly. "310 grams just seemed too...bland."
Jackal blanched.
Just then, the doorbell called out shrilly, and Marui looked around, excited.
"Jiroh-kun's here!" He went to open the door, leaving Jackal to contemplate whether to risk Marui's wrath and throw the cookies into the trash (thus saving Akutagawa from a diabetic attack) or to stay safe and leave the cookies alone. He hadn't settled on a decision before Marui came back, followed by Jiroh who looked animated and not in the least sleepy.
"I made cookies for you!" Marui declared proudly, presenting the cookie bag to Jiroh with both hands. He was so excited that he was blowing and popping his gum at twice its normal rate: blow (pause) pop, blow pop, blow-pop-blow-pop.
"For me? Really?" Jiroh took the box and then flung his arms around his idol and boyfriend. "Thank you!"
Anyone watching them would think they were two oversized kids, Jackal thought. And somehow...I got forgotten in the course of the story. He watched Jiroh take out one of the sugar-cake-disguised-as-cookie.
"I'm sure it'll be perfectly yummy!" He assured his anxious boyfriend, then took a bite.
Jackal inhaled sharply.
"I love this! It's delicious!" Jiroh exclaimed, and Marui was so pleased and flattered that he gave Jiroh an impromptu hug.
Oh, great. Jackal thought sourly. His good intention to save Jiroh from sugar poisoning had failed. Marui had already converted his boyfriend to Sugarnism. Now he had to deal with two hyper, overactive boys high on sugar cookies.
Life wasn't fair sometimes.
Disclaimer: Cookie recipe snatched off the web. It does not belong to me. Feel free to follow the instructions if you like, but I might have shortened sentences in some places...(shifty eyes). Also, I have no idea how microwaved cookies turn out. Probably worse than described here, but...literary devices, y'know?
And thank you to everyone who pointed out typos, and gave advice on how microwaved cookies might turn out. (shudder)
xEndx