The cake
Herobrine strode through the long corridors of his castle.
He was angry!
He didn't know how long he had been standing in the training hall waiting for Nuka to train with him, but it had definitely been long enough!
He suspected that he understood why Nuka didn't show up. This was the first time that this happened and it was right after Herobrine dumped him a few days ago, refusing to answer his questions. He hated being asked about his past, though! Those questions really got on his nerves!
Besides, I'm sure there's at least one history book in the library that tells all this without me having to do it, even if the story it tells isn't quite right, Herobrine thought with irritation. Well, he better have a good excuse! He scowled as he turned a corner and headed for the door leading to Nuka's room.
He knew very well that I wanted to train with him today!
Herobrine yanked open the door, ready to give Nuka a good telling off, but to his surprise no one was here.
Where could he be? Herobrine took a few steps into the room and looked around with a grim frown. He wouldn't have dared to escape, would he?
Well, let's hope for his own good that he didn't! Herobrine thought angrily as he tried to ignore the brief flicker of fear. Closing his eyes, he let his senses wander throughout the castle until he found what he was looking for - a small, strong heartbeat and a few footsteps that were not too far away from him and definitely belonged to Nuka.
He's in the kitchen! Herobrine thought before opening his eyes and teleporting to the kitchen door, where he immediately noticed the smell of smoke.
Alarmed, Herobrine yanked the door open, whereupon he was immediately greeted by a large cloud of smoke, which immediately enveloped him and gave him a coughing fit.
As the smoke cleared, Herobrine could see through his narrowed eyes, Nuka standing in the kitchen, looking quite winded.
His face and pretty much everything else about him was covered in flour, and even the improvised apron he was wearing hadn't really been able to protect him from the flour.
"Hey!" he said cheerfully as he spotted Herobrine still standing in the doorway, looking at him with a surprise, "what are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Herobrine replied, as his slightly shocked gaze fell on the kitchen behind Nuk, where the clouds of smoke were now slowly clearing, revealing all the mess behind him.
"What in the Nether are you doing in here?"
Nuka flinched and took a step back, before smiling at him nervously.
"Well...I...I baked a cake," he finally replied sheepishly, to which Herobrine raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked at him perplexed.
"You… what?"
"I baked a cake," Nuka repeated. Turning around, he walked to one of the ovens and pulled out the cake, which actually didn't look as bad as Herobrine expected, given the state of the kitchen, "Doesn't it look good?"
Herobrine did not answer that. Instead, he just stared at the cake, unsure of what to say or do. He was not prepared for this.
Herobrine bit his lip, as embarrassment welled up inside him, but was immediately replaced by anger.
It was unbelievable how easily something like that could upset him!
"I was so afraid it wouldn`t work," Nuka continued lightheartedly as he placed the cake on the table and looked at Herobrine with relief in his eyes, "I've never baked a cake before, you know."
Herobrine just nodded in response as he eyed the cake before turning his gaze back to Nuka.
"Why did you bake this cake?" he asked, whereupon Nuka's smile disappeared and he lowered his gaze.
"Well...I...I have a birthday tomorrow you know?" he continued with a glance at the cake and his voice filled with longing "and I… I haven't had a cake in a long time, let alone the chance to celebrate at all and so I thought since I'm not on the run for once and you have a kitchen and the right ingredients, I can try to make one for myself."
Herobrine was silent when he heard this, but before he could say anything, Nuka put on his grin again before turning away and sitting down at the table.
"I hope it tastes good," he continued with a nervous glance at the cake before turning his gaze back to Herobrine, "Want to try some?"
Herobrine backed away and eyed the cake suspiciously.
"Won't you save it for tomorrow?" he asked, uncertain, but Nuka just shrugged.
"Yes," he said, "but before I do that I want to know if it tastes good and I could use a second opinion… Don`t worry it's okay", he added when Herobrine still looked doubtful. "It's not poisoned." He smiled sheepishly.
"Unless... unless you're allergic to nuts."
Herobrine couldn't help it, he smiled.
"I'm a god, Nuka," he replied in a slightly mocking tone while looking at the boy, who was still sitting at the table and looking at him with an uncertain look,
"I can't be allergic to anything."
"Good, then you can try it," Nuka replied cheerfully, after which he cut the cake into pieces and put 2 of them on different plates, before turning again to Herobrine with an expectant look.
Herobrine looked at the piece of cake doubtfully for a moment before he finally sighed and surrendered to his fate.
"You're not going to give me a choice, are you?" he asked him, to which the latter just shook his head with a grin.
Herobrine sighed deeply when he heard this, before sitting down on a chair opposite Nuka and looking at the cake in front of him, still not quite convinced.
What have I gotten myself into? he asked himself as he carefully bit into the piece of cake.
As he chewed, he could see that Nuka had leaned over and was waiting for his reaction, but to his surprise, the cake didn't taste bad, it tasted surprisingly good, much better than he had expected.
But of course he would not tell Nuka that.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the cake and let Nuka fidget for a while until he had swallowed the bite.
"I guess it's edible," he said indifferently and shrugged his shoulders, whereupon Nuka looked at him with disappointment, before he turned to his piece of cake and tasted it as well, whereupon his face quickly changed to a satisfied one.
"Mhmm!" he made and looked at Herobrine enthusiastically, "That tastes good! Much better than I expected!"
"Well, even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn," Herobrine said, whereupon an indignant, "Hey!" came from Nuka.
"Where did you get the recipe for this?" he asked, while he took a piece of the cake, hoping Nuka wouldn't notice how much he liked it. Luckily, Nuka still seemed too busy with his own piece.
"Oh well, after you kicked me out, I followed your advice and went to the library to look for a book," he finally replied without looking at Herobrine, "and there I remembered that my birthday is coming up, so I looked for cooking and baking books and found this." He pointed with his thumb behind him, where Herobrine could just make out an open book among all the ingredients.
"I just started leafing through it out of curiosity and then I found this recipe and decided to try it."
"Oh, I see," Herobrine replied, looking at the book with surprise. He didn't even know that there were books like this in his library.
I should probably look around there more often, he thought, as he turned his gaze back to Nuka, who was still busy eating.
"Did you find anything else in the library?" Herobrine asked, to which Nuka nodded.
"Yes, I did," he mumbled as he continued to eat his cake, avoiding Herobrine's gaze.
"So, you have your answers now?" Herobrine asked. Another nod.
Good, Herobrine thought with relief, and turned back to the cake, so at least I don't have to answer any more questions.
"Were you really locked up here for 300 years?"
Herobrine sighed when he heard that.
So much for the hope of not having to answer any more questions, he thought resignedly, before lifting his head and looking at Nuka.
"Yes, I was," he returned gruffly and turned again to his piece of cake, hoping Nuka would be satisfied with this answer.
"Wasn't it terrible to be locked up here for so long?"
Herobrine raised his head and looked annoyed at Nuka, who had now stopped eating and looked questioningly at Herobrine.
"No, it was great!" he hissed, his voice dripping with sarcasm as Nuka stared at him, startled, but then he lowered his gaze.
"Sorry," he mumbled meekly, sounding genuinely sorry, "That was a stupid question. Of course it was. But then why did you come back here?"
Herobrine sighed deeply when he heard that.
"You just won't give up, will you?" he muttered, raising his head and looking at Nuka, "Is all that really that interesting to you?"
Nuka just nodded in response.
"Well, of course. I know so little about you, so…", he answered and his look became uncertain again, "Why did you come back here?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Herobrine asked, to which Nuka just looked at him until Herobrine sighed in frustration. "Think about it," he explained to the boy, "Thanks to the 300 years I've spent in the Nether, I know it inside and out, and since Notch can't close it anymore or there would be a riot among the Minecrafters, this is the perfect retreat for me. No one, not even Notch would find me here if I don't want to be found."
With these words, he looked outside and he felt his heart grow heavy as he remembered days gone by when he had not yet been the ruler of this dimension.
"That makes sense," he heard Nuka say a moment later, "but how did you get out of here anyway?"
"That," Herobrine said without taking his eyes off the window, "is a long story."
He turned back to Nuka, expecting him to ask further questions, but to his surprise, Nuka just nodded.
"I get it," he replied and smiled, "I won't ask any more questions."
"You know," he continued a moment later, looking longingly at the cake in front of him, "I don't know if I should find it sad or funny that this is going to be one of my best birthday parties."
"Why is that?" asked Herobrine, confused, to which Nuka shrugged again.
"Well," he replied quietly without looking at Herobrine, "because I've never had any birthday parties. I always celebrated with my mother… alone..."
He sighed.
"I asked myself so many times, on each of my birthdays, if all this would be the same if I didn't have these powers. Maybe if i didn't have them, I would have had friends to celebrate with. Maybe I would have even been popular and my...my mother would still be alive."
He shook his head slightly and Herobrine could see that he was close to tears.
"Maybe I would have even had a career later and my parents would have been proud of me," he murmured softly more to himself than to Herobrine. But I am not a normal boy..."
His voice became quiet. "Even if I would like to be..."
At that point Herobrine decided it was time for him to intervene.
"Nuka, stop it," he said sternly, and the boy was startled and stared at him in surprise, as if he had forgotten that Herobrine was there.
"Believe me," he continued, "it only depresses you to think about how much better life could have been if this or that hadn't happened. You can't change it anyway, okay?"
Nuka was silent at first, but then he smiled.
"Okay," he replied quietly, to which Herobrine nodded contentedly.
"There you go," he replied and stood up, "But you will clean up this mess."
Nuka sighed with relief when he heard that.
"Oh, yeah, no problem" he replied, making a gesture with his hand and all the things scattered around the kitchen started to float and put themselves back into the chests, but Herobrine wouldn't let him do it that easily.
Quick as a flash, he grabbed Nuka's arm so that he was startled, whereupon all the things immediately stopped floating and fell back to the floor.
"Without your powers," he said with a wicked grin, "as a small punishment for forgetting the training today."
Nuka looked at him in confusion before he realized what he meant and his face began to pale a bit with shock.
"Oh..." he muttered and took a few steps back, "The training. H-Herobrine ...I-I'm so sorry. I didn't..." Herobrine raised his hand and Nuka fell silent.
"I'll let it slide this time," he murmured softly before standing up and walking towards the door, but turning back to Nuka just before he did so, "Just do us both a favor and get this done, okay?"
Nuka just looked at him in surprise at that, as if expecting more than just that from Herobrine, but then he nodded quickly.
"Good," Herobrine only replied to that and before he turned around and disappeared from the kitchen.
Once in his room, Herobrine flopped down on his bed and pulled the covers over him, but he couldn't fall asleep while thinking about what Nuka had just told him.
He couldn't help but feel sorry for the boy.
His world had already collapsed at the age of 12, and Herobrine knew only too well how it felt to live a life before, only for it to change abruptly one day, and now he was on his own.
And I was lucky, he thought, I was already 15 when I learned the truth and everything changed. If that was already terrible for me at that time, I don't want to imagine what Nuka must have gone through.
Maybe I should give him a present, he thought.
But what do you give a boy like Nuka? Especially since the gift shouldn't be too obvious, otherwise he might think that I care about him!
He hasn't been to the Overworld for a long time, he suddenly heard a soft voice in his head say, I'm sure he misses the green of the meadows and would be happy to see the blue sky again.
Possibly, Herobrine thought grimly, but I can't just let him go to the Overworld. The danger of him escaping is still too great, and how in the world am I going to explain to him why we are there?
At that moment he remembered how Nuka had talked about his wish to be a normal boy and an idea came to him!
Yes! he thought, and he felt a sense of satisfaction rise up inside. That's how I could do it! This way we could go to Overworld and do something useful at the same time!
This is going to be great! he thought before closing his eyes and sinking into sleep.