Author's Note: Yes, yes, it has been awhile, but it's always a while with me, no? Anyway, hopefully, I shall be getting things out sooner to you guys.
I wrote this chapter about two years ago and I wasn't going to use it, however I've decided to. My writing style back then is far different than it is now, however I don't fancy rewriting the whole chapter so I'm not. I'm posting as is, and damnet, we're all just going to have to deal with it
The next two chapters will be of similar birth. They will be old. We will deal with it. Again. And you may get a chapter next week. Maybe.
Important: This chapter actually goes before the previous chapter, as soom of you may notice. If I go back and switch the chapters around, people may get confused and thing think that I haven't updated because the new chapter isn't the last chapter. I hope that makes sense.
Enjoy!
My Hand In Yours
Incident Four: The Cookies
It all started when Rain baked a few batches of cookies for the fundraiser hosted at the hospital where she worked. She wasn't the greatest at making meals, however she was fairly good at dessert. She was confident that she wouldn't kill anyone if she baked cookies for the fundraiser rather than if she made some paella or something—which had actually made Domon quite sick a few days earlier, although he hadn't told her. Anyway, Rain made ten batches of cookies when she got home from work. They were of different varieties: oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, walnut, butter and lemon. While she was wrapping the cookies up in the decorative boxes she'd bought for them, she'd dropped a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies, thus ruining them.
Knowing that she couldn't just bring twenty-four or four kinds of cookies and then twelve of one, Rain decided that she just wouldn't take the oatmeal raisin cookies into work with her. So she finished wrapping up all the rest of the cookies and left the twelve oatmeal raisin cookies on the kitchen table.
"Rain, I'm back," Domon called as he entered the front door. He'd been home when she first arrived but went out to "finish something" in his words. Rain knew better than to ask what.
"I'm in the kitchen, Domon," she called back as she placed the boxes in the refrigerator.
"What are you doing?" he asked as he watched her struggle to open the fridge door with four boxes in her hands. He remained standing at the door, knowing that he should help, however far too amused with watching her trying to do it on her own.
"Nothing, really," she responded. "I just finished my baking."
"Baking?" His narrowed his eyes at her back, which was all he could see of her at the time. "What were you doing baking?"
Finished with her task, Rain closed the refrigerator door and looked at him. "I told you a few days ago that I was baking for the fundraiser at the hospital."
"No, you didn't. You said you were thinking about baking for the fundraiser at the hospital." This whole situation wasn't good in Domon's opinion. He didn't want to come home and find out that his girlfriend had killed someone with her cooking. She'd almost done it to him before. (Point in case, the paella incident).
"Well, I made up my mind, and I did."
He rolled his eyes at her response. "Well, you look like you had a good time," he said dryly, smiling at her apparel. She had a white apron tied around her waist, all different kinds of stains from her day of baking all over it and on her shirt, plus her arms. She'd even managed to get some flour on her right cheek and forehead, which he really didn't know how but didn't dare question. He decided then that he really didn't care if she killed someone. Rain just looked too damn cute in her little baking apparel.
"Ha, ha, ha. Very funny," Rain commented, knowing good and well how she looked. She walked over to the table and picked up a cookie. "But since you're here, you can be my taste-tester."
"I can be your what?" Domon asked incredulously, watching Rain come closer to him with the cookie from hell in her hand.
"You can taste my cookies and tell me what you think. You know, if they're good or not. It's oatmeal raisin. Here, taste it." She placed the cookie in front of his face.
Domon gulped hard. He feared the cookie in front of his face more than he feared any opponent he'd ever faced. Because with that cookie came a lot of responsibilities. If Domon decided to eat that cookie, he would not only be risking his safety, but he also had an obligation to tell Rain what he thought of it. And if he knew Rain like he thought he did, he knew that cookie would taste like pure baking soda. It's something she'd done as a child. She'd put too much baking soda in a batch of ginger snaps and it was all that you tasted when you ate them. The baking soda had even over powered the taste of the ginger. If he told Rain that her cookies were… distasteful, she'd get sad and probably cry. And Domon didn't want Rain to cry. Especially not because of something he said.
"Domon, take the cookie," Rain said again. She slowly began to see the panic on his face. "Is something wrong?"
"I—" Domon started, preparing himself to lie. "I don't like those kinds of cookies."
Rain's brow furrowed at his statement, which she knew was a lie. "You don't eat oatmeal raisin cookies?"
Yeah, that was it. "No, I don't." There was a lot more confident in his lie.
Rain narrowed her eyes at him. "That's impossible."
He looked a little shocked. "It is?"
"Yes, it is. You use to eat the oatmeal raisin cookies my mom would make for my lunch when we were children, remember?"
Domon was beating himself to a pulp internally for forgetting such an important fact. He loved oatmeal raisin cookies. When he was a kid he'd kill for one. Literally. He and Rain would always switch the cookies their mothers gave them for lunch. Domon gave Rain his three lemon cookies for her three oatmeal raisin. It wasn't that he didn't like lemon cookies, it was just that Rain hated raisin's with a passion, and hence, she didn't like oatmeal raisin cookies.
"Well, I don't like them anymore," Domon countered, not wanting to admit that he was lying, even if it was to protect his own safety.
Rain stared at him startled by his words. "You—Domon Kasshu—don't like oatmeal raisin cookies anymore?" she asked in disbelief.
Domon had to admit, this sounded like a stupid lie even to him. But he couldn't go back and change it so he just kept up with it. "No. I don't."
"I don't believe you," Rain said quickly.
"Believe what you want," Domon replied in his infamous indifferent tone. "But that much is true. I'm not going to be your guinea pig because I don't eat oatmeal raisin cookies."
Rain listened to him, slowly crushing the cookie with each word he spoke. Domon watched as the crumbled cookie fell to the floor and looked up into the angered blue depths of his female partner. "You're unbelievable, you know that?" she said angrily.
He looked at her confused, still not quite use to all the mood swings that she went through within a matter of seconds. Lacking anything to say that would satisfy her, he chose an alternative. "Are you going to clean that up?" he asked, referring to the cookie crumbs on the floor.
"This is insane!" she shouted suddenly, throwing up her hands into the air out of her apparent frustration. She dropped the remainder of the cookie that was still left in her hand to the floor and began to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Domon asked. He was used to being the one walking away. She was the one who slammed the doors. He heard her mumble something about laundry. And, there it was. The basement door slammed and she went down the staircase.
The problem started with Domon's lie. Seeing as there was absolute nothing wrong with Rain's cookies, the lie was unnecessary. However Domon hardly knew that the cookies wouldn't give him a case of stomach cramps, so, to him, the lie was necessary. To his well being.
The problem escalated big time a few minutes after Rain went down into the basement and Domon realized he was hungry. He looked in the refrigerator and realized that Rain needed to do some major grocery shopping. His stomach growled. He started searching in the cabinets for something decent to eat however everything in them had to be cooked. That was Rain's job and right now he knew better than to ask her to make him something to eat.
So there they were on the table, those eleven perfectly shaped cookies.
His brain tried to tell him to stop. He knew he couldn't eat those cookies. They'd kill him. Rain would kill him; he'd just lied and said that he didn't like them. But his stomach didn't care, and, at the moment, that part of his anatomy had all decision making privileges. It wanted food. He took a bite out of one of the cookies on the plate and nearly choked in surprise. He didn't know if it was because he was hungry or just because they were, but Rain's cookies were good. Really good.
Needless to say, five minutes—scratch that—three minutes later, those eleven cookies were gone and a certain dark-haired King of Hearts temporarily satisfied.
It was around ten-thirty when Rain finished the laundry. She came upstairs with the laundry basket in hand and went upstairs to the bedroom to put away the newly washed clothing. She went downstairs to the kitchen to make something quick to eat for the two. She'd calmed down since the whole cookie incident with Domon, telling herself that she'd overreacted. And who knows, maybe Domon didn't like oatmeal raisin cookies anymore. But then she looked at the kitchen table and saw the empty plate. And if she hadn't eaten any of her cookies, then they should've still been there right? But they weren't. Meaning someone had eaten them. Someone like Domon.
The woman grinned in a self-satisfied manner as she walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. She knew he'd been lying to her; she knew it. She stood in the door frame and watched Domon flip through channels on the couch from behind.
"Is something wrong?" Domon said out of the blue, startling the woman.
"You can say that," she said, quickly regaining her composure. She pushed a few stray hairs behind her ear. "The cookies that I had on the table, they're gone."
The cookies are gone, Domon gulped. Because I ate them. "So what?"
"Do you know what happened to them?"
"Do you really need to ask?"
"Not really. I already know you ate them."
"So why are we having this conversation?"
"Because you said that you don't like oatmeal raisin cookies anymore. But now the cookies I made are gone."
Annoyed that he had gotten caught in his lie and the fact that she was throwing in his face, Domon got angry. "Are you trying to start an argument?"
"Trying to start an argument? No, I don't think so. I just want to know why you lied to me to begin with."
"Does it really matter? You wanted me to taste your stupid cookies and I did. Are you happy now?"
Angered by his attitude, Rain's voice began to rise. "No, I am not happy! You lied to me! You said that you didn't like oatmeal raisin cookies anymore and then a few hours later I come back and they're gone. Doesn't that sound the slightest bit strange to you?!"
"You're just trying to start today, aren't you?" Domon said angrily, standing up to face the woman completely.
"I didn't start this! You did!"
"How did I start this?"
"You started this when you lied to me! Why can't you just be honest with me?"
"What are you trying to say? That I lie to you all the time?"
"I didn't say that!"
"Well, you're implying it!"
"You're such a baby, Domon!"
"I am not!"
Rain stormed off angrily for the second time that day. This time, she went upstairs to their bedroom and locked herself in. Domon, on the other hand, went to the little cave nearby their home to go calm down. Also, to give Rain some time to calm down as well. He knew that he'd upset her, he could tell by the way that she slammed the bedroom door. Yes, he made a science out of the way she slammed doors. And this time, it was bad. It wouldn't be good when he went to bed.
However, Domon never really did get to go to bed that night. He got some sleep, but on the living room sofa, for Rain wouldn't open the bedroom door when he knocked. The next morning, Rain didn't say a thing to him. She simply made herself a cup of coffee and drank it silently while Domon sat at the counter eating a bowl of hot cereal—the only thing he could make without burning—and watched her ignore him. She left a little while later without even saying goodbye, taking her cookies with her.
It continued for four days.
Domon tried to talk to her. He really did. Rain wanted to know why he lied to her and an apology for the whole incident, something Domon wouldn't give. She knew she was being stubborn, however she felt she had the right to be angry this time. He had no reason to lie to her; he never had to lie to her. The sooner he realized that, the better.
She received no apology from Domon. He seemed to be too stuck on trying to stammer out an adequate hello that she was usually frustrated with him by his third word and promptly marched away.
It made something within her squirm uncomfortably to think that she'd moved straight passed stubborn to childishness. By the fifth day, she was throwing around the idea of talking to him again in her head, however a phone call she received from Dr. Kasshu that day at work finally made up her mind.
"Rain, he's really distraught," he'd said to her. "He doesn't know what to do anymore. You not talking to him is killing him."
She'd only been trying to teach Domon a lesson. She hadn't meant to hurt him.
Dr. Kasshu also told her the reason why Domon had lied to her to begin with and, she had to admit, he had good reason to believe her cooking may have been lethal. He'd gotten enough stomach aches from her dishes in the past. Her cooking skills had just recently began to improve.
That night, when she returned home from work, he'd been sitting at the living room sofa, the same place he'd been when she'd accosted him five days before.
Ran sat down beside him, her eyes trained on the glowing TV set before her. She could feel Domon watching her though she didn't look at him until the program went on commercial. She used the remote to turn down the volume of television, then turned to him and said, "You know you can trust me, right?"
Domon gave her a funny look. "Of course I know that."
"Then you know that you don't have to lie to me—about anything."
There was a pause.
"Even if you think that the truth is going to hurt my feelings."
Slowly, he nodded, and Rain smiled at him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before turning up the volume on the television. She scooted closer to him and he threw an arm over her shoulder. They spent the rest of the night wrapped up together on the couch, the bedamned oatmeal cookies the farthest thing from their minds.
As always, please review!