AN: written for the prompt: any, any, "Ooh, cake!" (Clerks II). Sorry for the crack...
The cake showed up in the break room at ten A.M. with no sticky note or delivery notice. Between Nakamori-keibu filling his cup of coffee and Shinoda coming to look for the cigarettes he hid months ago in the back of the junk drawer before he swore off smoking (sort of. It was hard damn it) the box happened upon the countertop next to the sink.
The cake was a perfectly frosted rectangle decorated with sage blossoms and orange lilies painted onto the frosting with icing piped around the edges. Shinoda glanced in the box (having failed to find the cigarettes, damn his division chipping in to keep him smokeless) and thought that it might be Maotoba-chan's birthday. Because Maotoba-chan had mentioned a birthday last week and surely someone had bought a cake for her this week, though he couldn't remember the date. So he took a piece because anything sweet in the break room was fair game and if he couldn't have nicotine, sugar was the next best thing (he ignored his growing gut).
Jun found it next, and it was a pretty cake. She took two slices, one for herself and one for Maotoba, because Maotoba's birthday had been two days prior and she'd felt down for having had a stakeout in the middle of it. It was a very pretty cake and it looked like the nicest chocolate cake consistency she'd come across in years.
It took an hour for Nakamori-keibu to find it, and by that point the cake was half gone as officers guiltily snuck slices out of the box, none wanting to draw attention to eating it in case it actually belonged to someone. Nakamori got halfway through making a new pot of coffee before cutting a slice with the lilies on it. It tasted especially good with his coffee, offsetting the bitterness.
It took five minutes after that for Shinoda to rush to the bathroom.
Jun was right behind him.
When Aoko arrived with Kaito in tow, none of the officers were at their desks. "Meeting?" she wondered aloud.
"All of them?" Kaito said. The secretary was gone. The phone was ringing and no one was answering.
Aoko shrugged. She poked her head into her dad's office. No one. Kaito wandered to the break room.
"Ooh, cake!" he said grinning. He cut a slice with the sage blossoms on it. Aoko smacked him over the head.
"You can't just take someone's cake!"
"But it's chocolate." He held up the slice like it was as logical a reason as gravity was for a vase breaking when it hit the ground.
"It's still someone's cake!"
"Well, obviously they've already been eating it. There's so much no one would mind." He took a bite, chewed. It was the best cake he'd ever tasted.
"You're eating stolen cake."
He shrugged, kept eating.
"I'll tell dad you stole it."
"He's not gonna arrest me for eating cake, Aoko." He finished the cake and grabbed a drink of water from the faucet.
Behind them Hakuba wandered in, a frown on his face. "Do you know why everyone is lined up to use the restroom?"
Kaito looked at Hakuba. Then at the cake. "Dammit."