"Watari?" L said. He was bored, he had nothing to do. So, he was going to try something new.
"Yes Ryuzaki?" asked Watari. L stared at him.
"Well... there's something I'd like to learn to do." Now he had actually got round to asking, it didn't seem like such a good idea... Watari smiled.
"What would that be then? We can get someone to teach you if you need it."
"No, Watari. I'd like you to teach me. I think you'll find that it's something you're best at." Watari was intrigued.
"What would that be then?" L swallowed.
"Cooking. I'd like you to teach me to cook, please."
L followed Watari into the kitchen. Unfamiliar sights greeted him; he had never cooked in his life. Somehow, this thought made him nervous.
"I think fairy cakes are probably the best thing to cook for a beginner," said Watari. L agreed. L liked fairy cakes. L liked fairy cakes a lot. Watari pulled down a battered recipe book, and found the page for fairy cakes.
"So... these are the ingredients. The first instruction is to mix the butter and sugar together, so weigh them out first. Here they are." Watari handed L a bag of sugar and a tub of butter. L weighed out the butter.
"Um... don't I need a bowl to put it in?" He asked.
"Oh! Sorry, I forgot." Watari turned round and looked in a cupboard for a suitable bowl. Immediately, L's eyes were drawn to the bag of sugar. Absentmindedly, he dipped a finger in it and licked it off. Mmm... He glanced over to Watari. His back was still turned. Stealthily, L reached for a teaspoon...
When Watari turned round, the majority of the sugar had mysteriously disappeared. L put the butter in the bowl and began to weigh out what was left of the sugar. There wasn't enough.
"Watari? I need more sugar." Watari walked over to the bag.
"There's not enough?" L shook his head. "Strange..." Watari murmured. "I'm sure that bag started off full." L looked innocent. Watari sighed and looked in the cupboard for another bag of sugar. When he had retrieved it, there was a distinct lack of sugar on the scales.
"Ryuzaki! You can't make cakes if you keep eating the ingredients!" L paused, a teaspoon of sugar still stuck in his mouth. He removed it.
"Sorry. I didn't realise I'd eaten that much. It only felt like a little bit. I'll stop eating it now." He weighed out the sugar once again, Watari watching him very closely to make sure no more sugar vanished.
None did, and after the sugar had been weighed out L tipped it into the bowl and mixed it with the butter. He stared longingly at the mixture. Watari sighed.
"I guess you can try a tiny bit of that." Instead of delicately dipping a finger in as Watari expected him to, L spooned out a huge chunk of butter and sugar mixture with the wooden spoon, and shoved it into his mouth. Watari groaned, mentally kicking himself.
"Ryuzaki!" L looked at him, busy licking the spoon clean.
"Hmm? You said I could have a bit."
"Yes, but I didn't mean that much! You've practically eaten half a cake there! And you need that wooden spoon to mix the rest of the ingredients!" L looked at it.
"What's bad about that? I mean, I get why the eating half a cake bit is bad, but what's wrong with using this spoon?" Watari stared at him.
"Well... it's got your spit on it now. When you mix the other ingredients you'll be mixing the spit into it as well." L looked confused.
"Is that it? I have spit in my mouth anyway. It doesn't matter if I eat cakes with my own spit in them. If it was somebody else's spit, that would be different but as it is my own spit I don't see what the problem is." Watari groaned. Again. This was turning into a nightmare. No wonder some of L's previous teachers had run out of the classroom screaming.
"But what if somebody else wants to eat your cakes? Then they'll be eating your spit."
"But who is here to eat them apart from me? I know you don't like cakes."
"I..." Watari had no reply to that. Why did L have to be so good at arguing? "Well, OK. Use that spoon if you want." It probably didn't matter anyway... probably...
Next to go in was the eggs. L looked up at Watari questioningly.
"So, I just crack them on the edge of the bowl and let the inside fall into the bowl?" Watari nodded. "But what if I get shell in the bowl?"
"You could always pick it out. Or, if it's a tiny bit- leave it. It won't matter if it's too tiny." L nodded and brought the egg down on the side of the bowl. It cracked, and the egg fell in. So did half of the shell.
"Oops," L muttered and reached in to take it out. He removed it, but there were still small chunks of shell left.
"Watari..." Watari came to inspect the damage.
"It's not too bad. Just leave them. They're too small to make a difference."
"But, I don't like eggshell! It doesn't taste good!"
"You won't be able to taste it. The pieces are too small." Nonetheless, L wanted to get them out. He reached into the bowl, but the pieces kept slipping away from him. Eventually, he gave up. But now he had cake mixture all over his fingers, and some of this had dropped onto his shirt. His lovely white shirt.
"Ugh... I've got cake mixture on my shirt!" He grabbed some kitchen roll and attempted to remove it. The majority came off, but it left a stain. "Aww... that sucks..." He gave up trying to remove it and began mixing the eggs instead. Watari watched, this time with amusement.
"Rule number one, L. Never wear white while cooking." L scowled, and absently picked up the eggshell, twiddling it between his fingers. Crunch. L looked down at the crushed eggshell in the bowl.
"Damn!"
The rest of the ingredients went in without any major disasters. Finally, the cake mixture was finished.
"DON'T eat it," said Watari, as he went to get the cake cases out of the cupboard. L was ecstatic. He had actually managed to make cake mixture without too many disasters! Now he just had to put it in the cases and cook it, and that was the easy part. How difficult could it be?
"Hmm..." Watari said as he surveyed the mess L had made when spooning the mixture into the cases. Only about half of it had actually gone in; the rest of it was all over the table. And all over L's clothes. He picked at his now filthy shirt.
"I made a little bit of a mess," he said, stating the obvious. "I may need to go and change." Watari stared at him.
"Yes, you do that. I'll put them in the oven. Remember, come back in 15 minutes to check them. You can spend that time doing whatever you want. Just DON'T FORGET." L nodded and headed out of the room. Watari put the cakes in the oven, wondering if it was a good idea to trust L to remember them. Well, they were L's cakes, after all. Watari wiped his sweating brow. He hoped L wouldn't try this again.
After L had got changed, he wondered what to do with his 15 minutes and decided it would be best spent playing games on the internet. Well, he had nothing else to do. He was engrossed in this one game- quite tricky really- when he heard a noise. Beep beep. Beep beep.
"Strange," L muttered. "That's the smoke alarm." He froze as he realised what that meant.
Smoke.
Something burning.
Cakes burning?
"Ah, damn!" He sprinted out of the room. The computer bleeped and he looked back at it.
GAME OVER was displayed on the screen.
"AHHH!" I was doing so well...
L sprinted past Watari's room to the kitchen. Watari opened the door.
"Ryuzaki! You forgot the cakes, didn't you?" L didn't reply, bursting into the kitchen. The room was filled with smoke.
"Damn!" Coughing, L ran over to the oven and put the oven gloves on. He wrenched open the door to the oven and yanked the cakes out. A blackened mess greeted his eyes.
"Oh... I burnt the cakes..." Watari came over to look.
"Yes, you did. They look pretty burnt to me."
"Maybe they don't taste as bad as they look..." L picked a lump off one of them and put it in his mouth. He coughed and spat it out.
"Watari?"
"Yes, Ryuzaki?"
"I don't think I should try cooking again."