This idea came to me when I was making cookies earlier today.

Summary: On a rainy and otherwise uneventful day, Pence and Olette decide to bake cookies. In doing so, Olette finds out that baking cookies isn't quite as easy as she thought, and there's more to Pence than meets the eye. PencexOlette if you squint.

Baking Cookies

By FlikFreak

Twilight Town was known for its normally sunny weather, but rain did sometimes come. Today was one of those rainy days, and Olette once again found herself dodging underneath awnings and zig-zagging across the street to stay as dry as possible. It wasn't very effective, but it worked to a degree. Only when Olette found herself passing a familiar house did she pause.

"Aren't you getting wet out there?"

Olette paused, glancing at the window nearby to see Pence peeking his head out. He had on his usual Dog Street attire, but over his precious red jersey was what appeared to be an apron. She quirked an eyebrow. "Hey, Pence. What're you up to?"

Pence grinned. "Just the usual. Wanna come inside? At least until the storm's passed."

"Sure." Slipping her sneakers off at the front door, Olette stepped inside and out of the rainy outdoors. She had rarely visited Pence's home – usually everyone went to Roxas's place for some fun unless they just stayed at the Usual Spot for the day.

Pence's family was rather well off, but they were content with a smaller home than most families of their class. The interior was warm and welcoming – much like Pence himself – and like many homes of its build, the kitchen was near the front of the house, usually intended so that a mother cooking dinner could keep an eye on her playing children by simply glancing through the window. For Pence, the concept seemed similar, although this time he had kept an eye out for a friend passing in the street. The said kitchen was currently a mess: there was an open bag of sugar sitting on one side of the counter with a container of flour right next to it. An egg carton lay half-open near the sink right next to a box of baking soda. Various other containers were stuffed in the same area, and their contents had already been separated into various measuring cups or spoons. Olette stared in disapproval at the empty mixing bowls currently on the island of the kitchen. "What exactly were you doing when I came in?" She asked.

"Baking cookies," Pence replied without preamble.

She blinked. "All this to bake cookies?" She said in wonder.

Pence nodded. "Yeah. This is one of the easier recipes I'm trying. It's on the back of the bag of chocolate chips that I got at the store the other day."

Curious, Olette picked up the said bag and read off its contents. "Vanilla extract, brown sugar, flour, butter, baking soda…" Olette stared wide-eyed at the rest of the recipe. "Wow…I didn't know making cookies was so…so…"

"Complicated?" Pence suggested, to which Olette nodded. "I thought that too when I first started. It's actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it."

"I usually just buy cookie mix from the grocery store, so I guess I wouldn't know." Olette read on, blinking. "…I didn't know you could put salt in there, too."

"Salt helps bring out the flavor," Pence explained, picking up an egg and cracking it open. "It's pretty important in a lot of foods."

"Can I help out? I've never made cookies from scratch before."

"Sure!"

And thus the escapade began.

"We only have one stick of butter," Olette observed, "But the recipe calls for two… What do we do now?"

Pence shrugged. "Easy. We just halve all the other ingredients to match."

"We'll only be able to make half as many cookies, though…"

"That's fine. We can always make more later."

"Pence, I think this bowl is too big…"

"No, it's fine. It'll be just the right size once we add the rest of the ingredients…'specially the chocolate chips."

"Oh, I forgot about those."

"Yeah. You always add them last."

"Now I get it…do we add them now?"

"Not yet."

"Olette! Stop eating the cookie dough!"

"But it tastes so good!"

"We have to bake it, otherwise there won't be any actual cookies!"

"Oh, okay…"

"Do you like your cookies soft or crispy, Olette?" Pence asked as the two crouched and watched the cookies bake through the little window on the oven door.

Olette bit her lip briefly in contemplation. "Well, my mom used to make them really flat so that they'd be kinda crispy, but not as crispy as potato chips or anything…they were really good…but I really like the chewy ones best."

Pence grinned. "Okay then. We'll make this batch chewy."

"Should we lower the temperature?" Olette asked, reaching for the dial above the stove.

Pence shook his head vigorously. "No no, leave it like it is. It's not the temperature it cooks at that makes the cookies soft; it's the amount of time you leave them in."

Olette tilted her head and stared through the oven window. "So…if you leave them in for less time, they'll come out softer?"

"That's right."

"And if you leave them in longer…"

"Then they'll be crisp. Leave them in for too long and they'll be really crumbly and they won't taste good, though…any longer than that and they'll start to burn."

"Can't you just cut off the burnt parts?" Olette asked.

"Not always," Pence replied. "With some recipes, even if you only burn one part, the whole dish will taste awful. That happened when my dad tried to cook garlic bread once…he set it on fire on accident, and even though we managed to save it, the parts that weren't burnt still tasted like charcoal."

"You seem to know a lot about cooking, Pence."

Pence nodded proudly. "Yep! I'm going to go to a culinary school when I graduate."

Olette chuckled. Pence sure liked food alright, but she never expected him to hold to it so well. "I bet you'd be a great chef."

"Nah," Pence replied, glancing at the timer and reaching for the nearby oven mitts. "I'm better at baking than cooking. I'd like to open up my own bakery once I'm all done with school."

"Really?" Olette said, smiling.

"Uh-huh. I've been teaching myself to make cupcakes and other stuff, but I haven't made cookies in ages, so I decided to bake some so I wouldn't get rusty. Stand back a bit, I gatta take them out." Pence pulled open the oven door, reaching in and pulling out the first tray of finished cookies and setting it on the stove. "I can cook normal stuff, though, just not as well. Like, for example, I can make mac-and-cheese entirely from scratch."

"I always eat the box kind," Olette thought aloud. "You know, the ones that you only add milk and butter and stuff?"

Pence laughed as he shoveled a few of the cookies with a spatula, placing them on a wire rack on the counter. "Olette, you haven't lived until you've tasted real mac and cheese. It makes the box kind taste like plastic."

Olette smirked and crossed her arms. "You should make us some. I bet Roxas would really enjoy it, and Hayner would dive at a chance to eat free food, anyway."

"Why don't I whip us up a batch tomorrow?" Pence suggested. "Tell everyone to come over to my place and I'll make us some. We can watch movies and stuff, too; I rented Bolt yesterday."

"That sounds like fun. I'll be sure to let everyone know!"

"Er…Pence?"

"Yeah?"

"These cookies taste kinda funny."

"Yeah…they do. I think maybe we added too much salt…" Pence gave the nearby mixing bowl a scathing glare, as though it were responsible for the atrocity of putting too much salt in the cookie batter.

Olette shook her head. "No, they're not bad…just different."

Pence still looked rather defeated. "Still, I shouldn't have put that much salt in…at least I know what to do better next time."

Fifteen minutes later, the storm had cleared and Olette was heading home with a small box of cookies under her arm. The moment she got home, she picked up the phone and dialed.

"Hello, is this the – oh, hey Roxas. Yeah, I just got back from Pence's place. He wants us all to meet up there tomorrow for movies. No, don't worry about the popcorn, we've got the food issue covered, trust me. Okay, see you then."

She hung up, and dialed again.

"Hey, is Hayner home? Oh, hi. Yeah, I was just calling to tell you that Pence wants us to meet up at his place tomorrow. He's got a sort of dinner-and-a-movie thing going – he's got the food taken care of, Hayner. Oh, you mean the movie? Bolt. Yeah. See you then."

On her way past the kitchen to her bedroom, Olette cast a stay glance to the cookie mix and the boxed macaroni and cheese. Shaking her head and grinning, she headed upstairs.

That bit about garlic bread catching on fire? True story, although it was my sister and not my father that did it. XD