Notes:

+ Just a couple of oneshots for Touken Week on Tumblr!

+ They're all set in some magical ambiguous period between Shuu and Aogiri when Touka and Ken get closer to each other. yeaahh wooo

+ Chapter Summary: Touka needs Kaneki's help deciphering a complicated book. (Written for the "Cooking" prompt.)

+ Hope you enjoy~


Room Temperature

After Kaneki opens his apartment door, a whole minute passes in fidgeting silence before Touka finally says something.

"I need your help," she blurts.

"Ah — s-sure," he says. "Of course. Anything. What is it?"

Her hands are behind her back, and remain there as she lets herself inside. She kicks off her shoes, keeping her back to him somehow, even as she makes a quick round of his apartment.

"So you like books, right?" she asks, peering very closely at his bookshelves.

"Ah — yeah, I —"

"Even really complicated ones?"

"Well, I wouldn't say — really complicated — but, ah —" He clears his throat. "Do you need help studying or something?"

She faces his kitchen counter with a grim mouth. He winces. I'm having a test, he's ready to hear her say. I'm studying Don Quixote. I need to summarize something in the Tale of Genji. I can't understand the characters in this archaic literature.

"Yoriko's birthday is soon," she manages. Finally, her hands come out from behind her back. She slams a huge, heavy hardcover on the table. The title is, Let's Make Cute Cakes!

"I want to make her one of these," she said, "but it doesn't make any sense at all."

She flips through the pages, fast, frantic. "I thought there'd be a simple one that I could do. But each one has a million things you put into it! And it keeps saying stuff about preventing the cake from getting burnt, or too sticky, or it not rising…look at this picture, look at it. In the first one, it's all liquid — and in the second, it's suddenly all solid? After warming it up? And what's this mean — 'room temperature?' What kind of room are they talking about?"

He tries and fails to prevent a chuckle from bursting out. She shoots him a glare and he stammers, "Uh — you mean they really didn't specify what kind of room? Let me see." And when she shoves the book over at him, he squints at it and says, "Wow, you're right. All it says is 'room.'"

"Right? This is stupid. This whole thing takes so much effort! How do you stuff like this every day, every time you want to eat?"

"Well, to be honest, most people don't really bake cakes every day to eat. If you're nervous, you could always just go buy it at a bakery."

"I'm not nervous," Touka grumbles, snatching the book back and flipping through it.

"And," she continues, more quietly, "there's no way I'm just buying something from a bakery when she goes through all the trouble of making me food all the time. I have to make her something."

"But," she continues, even more softly, "there's no way I can tell if these even will taste good. Or if I'll do it right."

He wants to laugh again — at her downcast gaze, her white knuckles, her pursed lips as she regards a strawberry roll cake as if it might reach out of the pages and smack her across the face. He approaches, peers over her shoulder.

"All of these look great," he says. "I'm sure all of them taste good."

"But which one tastes the best?" she demands. "Come on, haven't you eaten anything like these before? Which one is the best kind?"

When was the last time he'd eaten cake? Hide must have gotten him a cake, at some point. Most likely his mother had made him one, too. He turns the pages, scratching his chin in thought, and then stabs his finger down.

"This one," he declares.

"Be-rry Chi-ffon?" Touka reads hesitantly. Her nose wrinkles. "Are you sure? It looks…so weird."

"Yup. Some of these ingredients are in season right now," Kaneki says.

"And…so what? Is that good?"

"It's really good. It means you're really thinking about what tastes good."

"So only some things taste good at certain times? Ugh." Touka considers just a moment longer. "Alright, that one it is, then. What do we do first?"

"Wait — you want to — make it right now?"

"Of course! You said you'd help, right?"

"Well, yeah, but — I have a shift in two hours —"

"Don't worry about it, Nishio will take it."

"He — really? He said he'd take it?"

Touka rolls her eyes. "Well, not yet. But he will. He still owes me."

"What? For what?"

"For not smushing that loudmouth girlfriend of his."

"Touka, that was — months —"

"Come on already, we're wasting time," she says, and without further ado drags him out.

It's a simpler recipe than usual, but still needs a lot of ingredients, most of which they — fortunately — are able to ask Yoshimura-san for. He parts easily enough with flour and oil and milk, and they pick up the rest, including eggs (which Touka sniffs cautiously, with a shrug), vanilla seeds (which Touka sniffs cautiously, with a gag). A baking pan, a bit of fruit. They forget, unfortunately, a pair of facemasks, and can't do anything but swallow and wipe their eyes as they begin the smelly, goopy process of turning ingredients into human food.

It's…fun. It's not sparring, but it's amusing. It's nice for once to be teaching Touka something, rather than the other way around, though she picks up quickly, and has a frightening (if not entirely startling) talent for beating yolks and butter and batter. After a while she figures out the recipe's rhythm and is measuring out powders and liquids in advance and hands him the next ingredient without prompting, helpfully pointing out lumps and slowness in his own endeavors.

Touka shoves the pan into the oven, sucking in a breath as the machine's heat abrades her fingers. The smell of warming dough becomes heady and pungent. She flings open all the windows and Kaneki drags a fan into the room to disperse the fumes as they continue on to the frosting.

"It's so hard to breathe," she coughs, and just as she does, Kaneki's hand slips and the cream he's combining splatters out of its bowl and across her face. She pales, her whole face contorting in disgust, her mouth opening in a shriek — "What the hell, Kaneki, what the fuck, get it off me!" — and before he can think he reaches over and thumbs it off her cheek and into his mouth.

They both freeze, eyes widening in shock, and horror. Touka blinks, flushes. Kaneki flushes too, and gags.

"Not into the frosting!" she yells, tugging the bowl away from him, so fiercely that it splatters even more onto her.

"Dammit!" she hisses. And then: "Don't you dare throw up! Not in the frosting! Don't!"

"I — I won't —" But it takes everything in him to spit out his mouthful into the sink with little more than a shudder.

Her clothing is oily with butter, stained with berry juice. She's covering her mouth and Kaneki hastily ushers her into the bathroom where she can remove her shirt in private. He thrusts in one of his shirts for her, and she comes out wearing it, looking a little pale but otherwise unharmed. And definitely more determined than before.

"I'm not going to let this stupid cake win," she growls, and makes a new batch of frosting to replace what was lost, stabbing and grinding the beater with vengeance. He quietly puts her shirt into the wash.

The timer rings. They bring the cake out, and Touka hisses at the burnt edges, and there isn't a scissor to trim them off, but Kaneki manages to maneuver his kagune into clumsily slicing off the cindered dough. He shows her how to spread the frosting over to cover it.

Touka lifts the open recipe book — lowers it, squinting — lifts it again — drops it.

"I think it looks okay," she decides hesitantly.

He regards it. Okay is certainly a way of putting it. It's lopsided — just a little bit — and lumpy — like a creature with a limp. And the berries got too wet, or something, so the cream looks disturbingly bloody.

It is, somehow, exactly the kind of cake he would expect a ghoul to make.

"It looks great."

She side-eyes him.

"Really?"

"Really."

"And it looks like it tastes good too?"

He stares as one side of the cake sags. Berry juice spills over the side in a seed-clotted, scarlet stream.

"You know," he says, "I really think it does."

She huffs. "You're a liar."

"I'm serious! In — in any case — I'm sure Yoriko will appreciate your effort. Are you going to take it to her now?"

Touka snorts. "No way. Her birthday's still in a month."

"A — a month?"

"Yeah. So we've still got a ton of time to practice. Well, I have a lot of time to practice, I mean. Though," she says, carefully, "it was kind of fun, wasn't it? To bake together? Even if…even if you can't eat this stuff anymore?"

He stares as one side of the cake sags even more. The berries topple from the top of it and glop onto the counter.

"You know," he says, "it really was. Even if I can't eat this stuff anymore."

There are — other things he could appreciate now, after all. He hesitates, then leans forward, and presses his mouth against hers — lightly — with a gentle sweep of his tongue. Touka jumps, flushes, pushes him back lightly.

"Stupid Kaneki," she sputters, and retreats. Circles the kitchen counter. Circles it again. Grabs a spatula to fan herself with. Mumbles, "Dammit, is it getting hot in here? Can't you do something about that? The room temperature's gonna get messed up."

"Is it hot? It seems alright to me," Kaneki laughs, and refuses to agree with her until she kisses him back.