Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Day 2 - Cooking
"Hinata! The pot's making strange noises again!"
Hinata sighed at Naruto's booming, albeit a bit frantic, voice. Balancing precoriously on one leg, Naruto balanced himself on one foot at arm's length while holding out a wooden spoon, poking at it, as if the pot was in danger of growing legs, standing up and walking around the kitchen to swallow him. Hinata thought that delegating the stirring to Naruto was a good idea. She now knew it was not.
"I said stop it you stupid pot! Stop grumbling so much!"
"It's just boiling, Naruto-kun." She blithely slapped the his hand to release the spoon. "Off now with you. Stop harassing the pot and go help decorate the cupcakes."
"But I want to help," Naruto whined. He stuck his bottom lip and made it tremble. He widened his eyes and being the great ninjutsu expert that he was, he summoned tears into the corners of his eyes as he looked at Hinata.
Hinata only gave one perfectly arched brow.
"Pretty please, Hinata can I help you?" Naruto toned childishly.
"No."
He looked on the verge of breaking down and swimming in his tears.
"No."
Naruto proceeded to go down on his knees and dragged himself to her all the while pleading.
"No."
Pulling out his ultimate attack, he bit his thumb and slammed it at the ground. White smoke rose and obscured her vision. When it dissipated, a short, wrinkly frog with a cape stood on Naruto's shoulders with his hands clasped together. Eyes huge and shining, lips also out and trembling, they both begged while Naruto took one of her hand and kissed it.
Hinata hesitated. Naruto knew he won.
"Fine," she sighed. "You can slice the vegetables that will go into the stew.."
"Yay. Let's go Fukasaku." With a happy jump, the fox jinchuuriki stole a kiss off her lips and pranced towards the cutting board while Hinata shook her head.
"I hope you're giving me my treat Naruto-boy. That was hard work," she heard the frog say.
"I will, I will. Hinata's cupcakes are to die for."
"I don't know what's more shameful." Peering from his book, Kakashi's lazy eye slanted in disapproval. Beside him sat Asuma Junior, happily throwing sprinkles on top of his cupcakes with gusto. "Using a summoning jutsu like that or that you fell for it."
"Naruto-kun's excited so I can't turn him down." Hinata then strode towards them to contemplate the cupcakes they were decorating on the table. "Now how is the decorating going? Why is your one undecorated, Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi didn't answer. Instead he took chocolate button and placed it right on top of the cupcakes. "There. All done."
Patting himself on the back mentally, Kakashi agreed to himself that the simplest things in life are the most beautiful ones. He saw this as his most meticulously thought out work of art.
All Hinata saw was a plain cupcake with one chocolate button on top.
But she moved on. She was pleased that Asuma Jr. was having a great time decorating cupcakes. Being almost four years old, his fingers itched to smear anything he could get his hands on now and she had offered to babysit him on while Kurenai went shopping with the others. It was Kurenai-sensei's birthday today and she had offered to cook for them when Konoha's 12 and Kurenai's friends came and celebrated. Tonights dinner meant everything to her. The make or break of the night would be in her cooking. Coming home from a busy day is worth everything if they came home to a delicious meal. She couldn't let them down. She would make her food absolutely sublime. She would not fail.
"Uh, Hinata. There are fires burning in your eyes."
"Let her be, Naruto." Kakashi said offhandedly. "It's her 'passion of youth' and what-not."
Squinting his eyes at her, Naruto made a mental note to check if she was sick but continued chopping anyway.
Hinata then moved on to Asuma Jr. "Hello Asuma, what are you making?"
Asuma held up his cupcake and puffed out his chest in pride. "Foxy!"
She wasn't sure if that blob of orange could be called a fox but if he said so, then it must be. She took the other cupcake that was beside the fox one.
"This bunny is cute." She was quite impressed even though it still only looked like a blob of white. The lines were squiggly and his ears had molded together. The bunny's face was lopsided but she could still identify that it was a bunny, albeit a grotesque one. "Did you make it Asuma?"
Asuma Jr. shook his head. "Not mine."
Kakashi cleared his throat and pointed at Naruto, who grinned and gave her two thumbs up in the background.
Time to move on again.
Hinata stood beside Naruto and supervised his chopping. What she did see made her heart want to explode.
Naruto, in all his shinobi glory, threw carrots in the air. In a short space of time, which his father would be proud of, his kunai was in his hands and Naruto slashed meaningfully in the air. Hinata watched as a whole carrot disapppeared into sliced pieces as carrots started to rain down on them.
Looking like he was having the time of his life, Naruto lifted the carrot pieces to show Hinata what he'd done. "Look! Look Hinata!" He eagerly held up the carrot pieces beside his whiskers.
Which the carrots had as well. Whiskers that is. Each slice of carrot was shaped to be a fox head.
"Naruto-kun, what did I say about bringing a kunai into the kitchen?"
"I know, I know," Naruto intoned, "But a normal knife's not fun."
Hinata drew out a sight. "Naruto-kun, that looks extremely dangerous."
"Yeah but I'm a shinobi. I can totally handle it."
Hinata doubted it. The last time he had done such things, he managed to prick his finger and wallowed in pathetic pain as he watched her cook for the rest of the day. Not even a kiss and colour banadages could cheer him up.
There was only one thing to satisfy him. She would do it with him to make sure he won't hurt himself.
Telling him to move a bit, she stood infront of him to guide his hands. She placed her hands on top of his which held the knife and she slowly helped him cut the vegetables.
Naruto, of course, took advantage of this situation and pressed himself closer to her and rested his chin on her shoulder. He managed to sneak a kiss to her neck before Hinata could stutter out a plea to pay attention.
Then Hinata noticed something. "Where's Fukasaku?" she asked him.
"Oh him? He went back. But he tried some of the icing straight of the bowl and pretty much jumped into it and drank it, it was kinda gross really." Naruto scrunched his face in the way that she adored so much. "So I just let him take it with him."
Hinata nodded along with his story until something registered in her mind.
Wait, the icing.
"No, no no..." She muttered to herself as she felt the cold edge of panic creep up on her shoulders. Looking through the fridge she confirmed what she already knew. "No, no no! Naruto-kun! That was special buttercream icing! " Her voice was steadily rising in pitch.
Naruto looked guiltily began to panic at the rise of her voice.
She heaved, turned every nook and searched every corner before accepting the truth. "We ran out of cream," she whispered brokenly. "Naruto-kun, we ran out of cream. We ran out of cream! We ran out of cream so now we can't make anymore because we ran out of cream and the cake won't be complete because there won't be buttercream icing because we ran out of cream and buttercream icing were Kurenai's favourite!" The stress threatened to crack her voice. The thought of a icingless cake was enough to make Hinata faint.
"Uh, uh, don't worry Hinata! I'll go make some more!" Weaving hand signs as familiar to him as breathing, Naruto yelled out, "Kage Bushin No Jutsu!"
Instantly a clone appeared beside him. "What's up boss? Why's m'lady panicking on the ground."
Failure. That's why. This dinner had to be perfect and it would not be perfect without buttercream icing!
Naruto fumbled with his pockets before throwing out coins at him. "Go!" he barked, "go to the nearest store and buy some cream -"
"Whipping cream," Hinata added.
"-whipping cream and come here stat!"
The shadow clone nodded before jumping out through the kitchen window. Naruto noted that he had been spending too much time with Kakashi-sensei lately and picked up on his bad habits.
Now that was sorted, Naruto ran to Hinata and engulfed her in his arms. "I'm so sorry Hinata! I didn't mean to give him that icing!" he desperately explained.
After talking herself out of her panic, Hinata patted his arms and leaned into his embrace. She took a deep breath in, "It's okay, Naruto-kun. Let's just focus on getting the other ingredients."
"Oh! I know! We would need icing sugar right? I can get that!" Before Hinata could even reply, Naruto had zoomed off to the other side of the kitchen and the cupboards. As he was carrying the bag of icing sugar towards her, Hinata saw the moment disaster struck.
Her fox, so eager to please, too fast for himself, tripped on his own foot and sent the bag flying. Waving his arms frantically, he tried to catch the bag. Hinata vaulted herself off the floor to do the same but their efforts interfered with the others. Limbs got tangled, elbows were shoved as the both fell sprawled to the floor. Doing its best impression of a gymnast, the bag tipped upside down and with a regretful howl, Hinata watched as the content splattered all over her and Naruto.
Silence descenced unto the kitchen. Kakashi read his book. Asuma Jr. chortled out a laugh. Hinata's blush was painted white by the sugar as she lied on top of Naruto and Naruto looked stricken.
"I'm sorry Hinata." Naruto began. "I'm sorry for ruining your cake and effort and the icing and the cream and dragging Kakai-sensei here when I was suppose to be babysitting him, ugh." He reached up to her face to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. He let his hand fall and his face contorted into a look of guilt and remorse.
"I'm sorry."
Hinata ignored all of it. All she could see was Naruto's face comically powdered in icing sugar. She couldn't help it. She began to laugh. As if the sugar put her priorities straight, Hinata giggled as she swipped a finger across his nose and licked it.
She closed her eyes in delight before kissing the bridge of his nose and licking the sugar off her lips. "I don't mind," she answered in reply. And she didn't. If her food ended up being a disaster tonight, it was worth it just to experience the past couple of seconds with her Naruto-kun. Her idiotic, loveable buffoonic Naruto-kun. She sighed contently as she brushed the sugar out of his hair.
"Really?" he asked hopefully.
"Really but," she broke off to kiss the sugar of his lips before smiling, "Thanks for trying."
He broke his signature grin before kissing her nose and tasting the sugar caught on his lips. "Hinata, you are the best."
His eyes glinted in a way that made her blush. "And you taste delicious."
He caught her lips in a warm kiss. Hinata sighed in content. Kakashi never faltered from his book but had the decency to cover Asuma Jr's eyes and Asuma Jr clapped his chubby hands in applause. All was right in the kitchen.