When I woke up the next day, I immediately knew something was terribly wrong. Not only was I freezing even though I was underneath two of my thickest blankets, but there was a terrible stench wafting through the room. Getting up from bed, I was forced to somehow put on three sweaters while plugging my nose. It was difficult, but I managed to get the job done and I made my way out of my room.
And I wished I had just stayed in bed.
It felt like I got punched in the face from the horrendous odor that was circulating throughout the room. If I had a gas mask I could probably block out some of that awful stink, but I think the mask would just end up disintegrating as soon as I put it on, the odor in the apartment was that bad. Also, even though I had three of my thickest sweaters on, I was still shivering like I was stuck in Antarctica with only a tank top and shorts on. When I looked up at the ceiling, there was a thick trail of smoke leading out from the kitchen and out the broken window which was bringing in the winter weather outside.
Immediately, I went over to the broken window and covered it with a blanket that was sprawled over my couch in the living room. I held it there with emergency laundry pins and even though it didn't completely block out the cold, it was good enough for me to cease shivering once I backed away from the window.
Finally, I turned around to see what the heck was going on in the kitchen. There, I saw the biggest mess I had ever seen: There was pancake mix splattered in various areas of the kitchen, including the ceiling; egg shells all over the floor with some yolk fluid covering the counter; a column of black smoke was traveling to the ceiling angrily from the burner; there were a ton of used cooking utensils tossed around the kitchen, including the BBQ brush; and lastly the fridge was wide open and a carton of milk had fallen on the floor with a trickle of milk leading from the top.
I just had to stare at this mess for the longest time to find the right words to say to this. First I wanted to scream out a stream of swear words to that Ulquiorra, but I quickly rationalized that it probably wouldn't get me anywhere if I did that. Trying to calm myself down as best I could, I shouted, "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Ulquiorra turned around, revealing his entire front to be wasted in pancake mix and milk stains, "Making breakfast, like you said."
"That's not breakfast! This is break-my-kitchen! Haven't you ever cooked before?" I came closer into the kitchen, but I was slightly afraid I would die tragically from inhaling all that smoke. When I saw what he was frying up on the frying pan at such a high heat, I realized there was a lump of something black sitting in the middle of the frying pan.
"No." He replied unabashedly, "Though I did once bring food to a prisoner."
"That doesn't count!" I yelled. I paused a moment, trying to regain myself. It's all right, Keiko… it's his first day – perhaps this is just a really bad premonition for something good that's going to come from my decision I made when I was half-asleep. Speaking of good things…, "Did you put my coffee on?"
"I did. It's over there." Ulquiorra pointed to a mug that was just sitting there amidst the chaos that surrounded it. Relieved that he at least got the coffee thing right, I went over to it and looked inside. My eye twitched when I found out that all that was in the mug was a bunch of coffee grinds floating around in some water along with something else.
"…what the heck is this?" I asked quietly.
"Coffee. I also went ahead and put some lemons in it." He replied.
"You put lemons in tea! What planet were you born on?!" I demanded.
"Heuco Mundo." Ulquiorra responded so quickly and so seriously that I couldn't find any words to impart to him after he said that. 'Hueco Mundo'? I didn't know if it was him who was losing it or it was me who was losing it.
"A-anyway… today I'll make my own breakfast, since I have to leave for work soon. While I'm doing that, clean up this mess you made. Before I leave, I'll tell you what I want you to do for today and you'd better not mess it up." I scratched my head, turning off the burner and popping some toast in the toaster while in the corner of my eye I noticed that he quietly got to work cleaning off the counter.
"All right… after that little 'display', let's call it, what else do you not know how to do that I should know of?" I wondered, sitting down with a cup of actual coffee in front of me as well as a slightly burnt piece of toast with lots of butter slapped on it to cover the gross burnt taste. I wasn't the greatest cook myself, but still I didn't destroy the kitchen when I did make something. Still, he did prove himself a little bit when he cleaned his mess up – there wasn't a spot of pancake mix anywhere to be seen.
"I do not know how to operate certain machines that this world has. I also do not know where to get food or what currency I should use to buy items. I don't know how draw water from the water basin on that countertop; I also don't–," He began.
"OK, OK, I get it. You don't know how a lot of things work here." I interrupted, beginning to push the panic button when I glanced at the clock and saw that it said '8:12 am'. My shift started at 10:00 am and I had so much to tell him so he didn't ruin anything like he did just now. Biting my lip, I wondered how I was going to deal with this dilemma properly. I could just start with him doing one task at a time…? Or two? Two couldn't hurt. GAH! Why didn't he know how to turn on a faucet for goodness sake?! Calming myself down mentally, I continued with, "Okie-dokie, then. Today, I'll teach you two new things: You will learn how to do the dishes and you will learn how to follow a recipe. Those are your tasks for today – are you prepared?"
"As I'll ever be." He replied.
"I didn't hear you say it!" I coaxed, smirking at him.
"…Mistress Fukui." Ulquiorra conceded, not looking at me. Even though he seemed terribly ashamed of himself for submitting to this, I didn't give one ounce of care; it sounded wonderful to be called something like that.
Anyway, I got to my feet with my coffee cup in my hand and went over to where the sink was with a mountain of dishes waiting to be done. I waved him over and he obediently followed, which made me feel horny – like a dog owner feeling proud that their dog comes to them when they call them. Forgetting the feeling by the time he came over, I took my hand and turned the tap to the faucet which triggered the water into pouring in the sink. Before I wasted too much water, I put the stopper into place and watched the sink quickly fill up with water.
"The red tap calls upon the warmer water while the blue one is for the cold water. Put the stopper in the middle of the sink to fill it up with water. While that's happening," I picked up some dish detergent, "pour a tiny amount of this and you've got your dish cleaning sink. And I apologize for the lack of dish washer, this is a very old fashioned building."
"How does this work?" Ulquiorra asked with curiosity.
"How the tap works? Don't ask me, I have no idea." I replied honestly.
"What do you do after this?" He inquired.
"Well, when the water gets up high enough for your liking, you take a dish, clean it off with this sponge thingy and put it on the rack there. Once you're finished washing all of them, you have to dry them off with this here towel." I showed him a really old towel I got at the flea market for a buck fifty. I was a thrifty person in nature and I always bought things second-hand if I could.
"This sounds like a futile task. These dishes are going to just get dirty again." Ulquiorra pointed out. It was strange because the words sounded like they were complaining, but his tone didn't suggest that. I was surprised at how… collected he was.
"Of course it's a futile task – such is life; deal with it." I told him. Just as I said that I jumped at how high the water level had gotten while I took my eyes off of it and I turned the tap off. If there was one thing I hated, it was wasting water – the poor fish… Anyway, I turned back to Ulquiorra, "Oh yeah, and after you dry them you have to put them in the cupboards. I don't care where, as long as I don't see them when I get back from work, all right? Cool, that's the Crash Course on the Art of Dishwashing."
"Mistress Fukui, when are you leaving and coming back from your 'work'?" Ulquiorra wondered, which made me think of all those really adorable cat memes on the internet when they say stuff like 'when iz u comin back? i will miss u'. It was probably because his eyes looked positively cat-like, but that was beyond the point – he willingly called me Mistress Fukui! Ten points for Me-ffendor!
"I'm leaving at ten o'clock and I'll be back at around six o'clock this evening. Which means you have eight hours to do these two tasks I'm giving you today." I answered, walking over to the cupboard where I had all of my recipes written down. Flipping through the book, I looked for the easiest meal I could possibly give him when I came to fried tofu – I had the simplest version of it down in my book so I set it down in front of him but before talking about it I took a sip of my coffee. Though I accidentally took too much of a swig because I ended up coughing up some of the coffee onto the cook book. I tried to dry it off but it was too late; but I didn't worry about it, I could still read the ingredients so it was all good.
"OK – now on to following recipes: Basically all you have to do is know the difference between tsp and tbsp." I pulled out tablespoons and teaspoons and showed him the difference, only hoping I was making any sense to him. I continued on, "All the ingredients on this recipe are in this cupboard and they're all labeled so I think you'll be fine finding all these things."
"What does it mean by 'pan fried'?" Ulquiorra piped up.
"You know, it's when you cook it in that thing you were using to cook that lump this earlier today. But, um… don't cook it quite to that length. Just until it looks like how it does in this picture, got it?" I pointed to the picture of the pan fried tofu picture. He nodded.
"So it shall be done." Ulquiorra said. For some reason, I didn't feel quite so confident he knew what to do. I continued telling him all there was to know about following recipes until suddenly Ulquiorra spoke up again, "Mistress Fukui?"
"What is it?" I wondered.
"The time to ten o'clock is drawing near." He told me which caused my heart rate to climb exponentially. My blood ran cold when I realized that it was just as he said, it was 9:45 am!
"Shit! Got to go–!" I began, going for the door until I realized that I was still in my pyjamas. Double-taking I rushed back to my room and threw on my clothes and rushed for the door again. Though, for some reason, I suddenly felt like being a nagging mom who had to go but was leaving her child at home alone. I went back to him to yell, "Don't forget to do the dishes and make my supper! I'm going to be looking forward to fried tofu! Oh, and if you get hungry, there's a few things in the fridge; or if you get bored you can watch TV as long as you don't break it–,"
"I'll be fine. Just get to work already." Ulquiorra interrupted me, which caused me to blush from embarrassment but race out to my car anyway. What the heck was that? 'I'll be fine'? I wasn't worried about him I was worried about what state my apartment was going to be in when I got back from work. Still, when he said that… I suddenly felt as though I shouldn't worry about him – that he actually was going to be all right.
Geez! What was wrong with you? Get your head back in the game, Keiko! I shouted to myself in my head as I started up the engine and backed out of the parking lot.