As of 6 minutes ago, happy birthday, DKDC!
It seems that changing my schedule without mentioning it last chapter made a lot less people see it posted, or perhaps it simply wasn't conducive to reviewing. Oh, well, now we have another one, and close to the original timing before the change! Not much to say, so I'll keep this AN short and sweet, like a taiyaki.
Rito hummed to himself as he washed his hands in the sink built into the work station, smiling to himself as Saruyama helped Sairenji with sorting out the ingredients and tools they'd be using. Rito wasn't a very good chef, but he had learned a little from observing Mikan, and he was well aware of the blunette's experience. It seemed she also shared his reservations about letting Saruyama deal with the food, because she, as the de facto leader of the trio, had relegated him to operating room technician, keeping the area clean and passing them the tools they'd need once they got started.
Lala wasn't present, having been essentially banned from any cooking classes after repeated disasters the first few times she tried, and thankfully, Momioka and Sawada were already invested in their own station, so there wasn't anything to interrupt the relatively peaceful atmosphere of the small group.
However, that being said, despite Saruyama not pointing it out and Sairenji staying quiet, she still cast glances occasionally as Rito replaced the bandages on his hand, which had gotten wet when he washed them off, and tossed the wadded up old gauze in the trash. He pretended not to notice her worried expression as he brought the bandaged hand into a fist to ensure that he'd wrapped it properly, and smiled. "Okay, all good." he stated, and the girl nodded, coughing into her hand before looking at the recipe page, a simple one for making taiyaki, which Rito did have some experience in making for Yami.
"Let's see...Saruyama-kun, filter out some brown sugar. It doesn't really matter how much, just enough to have extra. Yuuki-kun, you'll be doing the bean paste, so start blending it." She tapped her chin as she thought over the process, and Rito smiled at the sight.
He rarely got to see Sairenji nowadays, and even less often did she go into leadership mode like now. It was easy to forget that she was a skilled athlete, considering how shy she always was and how little she seemed to show up nowadays. Curse those legal issues.
He went to work as she'd said, opening up the blender and dumping in the container of beans they'd been provided, before moving to also include the sugar, while Sairenji tilted her head.
"What are you doing? You're supposed to blend first, then mix."
"The shop I go to all the time does it this way, I've tried it a few times too and it does pretty well." he said, grinning. "It makes the paste chunkier, but Yami seems to like it, and she's basically a connoisseur of Earth food at this point."
The girl blinked, before smiling, and she had to bring her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. "Yuuki-kun, you're always thinking of other people, aren't you? Even when they aren't around."
Saruyama laughed, reaching his hand to slap his friend's shoulder, before catching himself and bringing it back before the brown sugar could go flying from the sieve he was holding. "That's Rito for you, he can't keep his nose out of other people's business no matter what he does!"
The boy smiled at the two's statements, before turning to take the now-blended mixture out of the blender, adding water to the bowl and starting to mix it. "She's over at the house so often that Mikan taught me how to make it, since she sleeps over at friends' houses sometimes and I'm always at home. Though, it's pretty much just making a batch every week or so and leaving them in the fridge."
"It's surprising that you let Yami-chan get so close all the time, isn't she pretty much trying to kill you every time she sees you?" Saruyama asked, and the boy shook his head, turning to focus on mixing.
"That's more of a school thing, and she never does more than give me a few scratches. I guess you could say it's her daily ritual, and it's really not that big a deal. I shouldn't stop her, especially after the stuff I had to do when she went Darkness."
Sairenji frowned at the statement. "I heard about that from Lala-san. You never really mentioned it afterwards, how did she react anyway? I know Yami-san is very against ecchi things, even though it was kind of surprising when she showed up with you…"
Right, he'd forgotten that she had witnessed the start of the battle proper along with Kotegawa. "She apologized and didn't really hurt me too much afterwards, so things just kind of went back to normal. Though, I do get the feeling she's been avoiding me a little, she hasn't been to school as much as before…"
"Nobody really knows what Yami-chan is thinking." Saruyama said, laughing as he passed the now-filtered sugar on to Sairenji, who set to work starting on the batter while Rito turned on the stove to cook the beat paste. "I wouldn't let it get to you, if anyone could guess what was in her head, they'd deserve some kind of prize."
Rito chuckled at his friend's statement. "Except Mea. She'd be cheating."
The monkey boy tilted his head in confusion, before nodding in understanding. "Ohh, right, you did mention that she's a Trans too. Can she read minds?" Rito didn't need Psycho Dive to recognize the blush stickers that formed on his friend's face as his grin widened to a dopey expression. "I wonder what she'd think of she saw inside my head! I've got nothing to hide!"
Sairenji sighed while Rito shook his head. "It's hard to hide anything if there's nothing there, Saruyama." he stated.
The trio continued to chatter, mostly meaningless stuff related to their classes and the construction that made Sairenji's route to the school annoyingly longer than usual, as they continued to make their taiyaki.
Soon, it was time to finish it, and as Sairenji pressed space into the molds with her finger, Rito stuck the paste inserts in and let Saruyama close them up, resulting in a set of six relatively decent-looking pieces sitting on the display plate.
"Alright!" Saruyama said, grinning as he took one, and the other two did as well, leaving the other three to be graded as the teacher had begun walking around to check on each group's progress. "I've been starving since we started, let's eat!"
Sairenji smiled as she held hers up, while Rito did the same. "Yes, let's see if Yuuki-kun's method worked. Itadakimasu!"
While Saruyama stuffed half the pastry into his mouth in one bite, Sairenji gave a much more sensible bite, and both of them ate in silence as Rito watched, waiting in anticipation for the verdict.
He didn't really mind if it wouldn't go well, this was just for fun after all. Plus, this was Mikan's recipe, and he trusted her skill. And, with the glittering expression in the two's eyes, it seemed to work.
"So good!" Saruyama said, waving the other half as Sairenji nodded.
"I didn't realize that you could make it clump up like that!" she stated, smiling as she took another bite. "I've always tried to make it as smooth as possible, but it has a bunch of chunks of less sweet stuff, and it balances out the sugar, so-"
Rito couldn't help but tune out the cooking term-filled ranting, but he still laughed anyway, happy to be complimented by his longtime crush. "It was just a small change, and I was just copying what Mikan told me. It could have ended in disaster for all I knew."
"Yami-san has good taste if this is how she likes it." Sairenji said as Saruyama took another one from the plate. "Hmm, maybe if we put a little less flour in the batter, then we could make it more obvious too...I might start making this at home too!"
Rito laughed again at the excited girl, while Saruyama nodded in agreement. "Hmm, hmm. Maybe I'll use it as a peace offering if she ever bothers me. Kind of like throwing some clothing at a polar bear so you can run!"
"She isn't that scary!" Rito complained, and his friend simply shook his head.
"Hmm, you're right. She isn't scary, she's terrifying. Anyone but you wouldn't stand a chance!