a/n: Reposted from lj.
Love and Chocolates
"You know, it's almost Valentines Day, Yu-dear," his mother announced in the half excited, half curious tone she'd taken to using whenever the subject of romance occurred to her. "Do you think you'll get any chocolate this year?"
At the breakfast table, Yuuri had the sudden frightening speculation of how Valentine's might be celebrated in Shin Makoku if it even existed there. The thought of Gunter offering him candy while Wolfram attempted to kill anyone bearing chocolate within a hundred paces of the Maou set him choking on his scrambled eggs. His mother seemed not to notice.
"I found a recipe for bittersweet goat cheese truffles with cinnamon that they say are all the rage in Paris, and I'm sure your father will simply adore them since dark chocolate has always been his favorite." She smiled brightly, lost in a nostalgia Yuuri hoped would last until he could gulp down the last of his orange juice and escape out the front door.
"We could make them up together!" she beamed, as her youngest son cursed his luck. "A double batch is just as easy to make as a single one, I'm sure, and you know how much fun we have cooking as a team." Her cheerfulness was devastating.
"But mom, only girls make chocolate for Valentine's Day." He tried to sound more reasonable than desperate.
"Call me 'Mama', Yu-dear, and anyway, we've always made chocolate together! Why would you want to stop now? Are you saying you're too grown up to participate in our wonderful family tradition? Have you gotten too old to spend time with your mother!" Her eyes were suddenly brimming with maternal melodrama and Yuuri wondered if there were any way to cross dimensions using a tablespoon's worth of orange juice in a plastic cup. He drank it. Nothing happened and his mother looked on expectantly.
"It's not that," he hedged, trying to come up with a believable excuse since the obvious one clearly hadn't worked. He grasped at a straw. "I just don't have anyone to give it to." Well, at least not in this universe. He wondered if Conrad even liked chocolate or if Wolfram would know what it meant. A vision of flame tigers flashed across his mind and he shook his head to clear it. When he looked up, his mother was shaking her head sympathetically.
"Oh, Yu-dear! That's simply not true!" She sighed and appeared on the verge of some even more embarassing display when his brother entered the room.
"Yes, I've always looked forward to your Valentine's chocolates." Shori's expression was both serious and thoughtful and Yuuri wanted to crawl under the table. Why did his family have to be completely nuts?
"I still remember the very first ones you made, when you were five years old," he commented in a dramatically wistful tone that convinced Yuuri his brother was already rehearsing for a career in public speaking. "True, it was mother who measured the ingredients."
"And prepared the pans," she added.
"And performed all of the actual baking," Shori agreed.
"But Yu-dear did the mixing all by himself," his mother informed her youngest son, reassuringly. That the only sort of reassurance Yuuri wanted was proof his mother didn't still believe him to be a girl would never occur to her.
"And it was that tiny influence that truly made all the difference," Shori finished, accepting the plate of toast their mother handed him. "Truly I cannot wait to see what sort of chocolates you will make this year." His tone was lofty, but not quite enough to get truly angry over. After all, it was a compliment, regardless of the implications involved.
"I'm not making any chocolates this year!" Yuuri insisted anyway. A little too forcefully. His mother paused in cleaning up the kitchen. His brother froze mid-chew. Both eyed him with concern. He flushed and softened his tone. "Look, I just... I'm not in the mood, okay?" His brother could choke on his toast for all Yuuri cared, but he honestly didn't want to upset his mother. Shori's eyes turned vaguely disapproving, while a tiny, deliberately brave smile imposed itself on his mother's face.
"Well, Yu-dear, I suppose if you really don't want to..." Her sunny tone floated over the breakfast table like the sword of Damocles, just waiting to hammer him with a razor sharp maternal guilt trip. Yuuri looked from one relative to the other, and sighed.
"I'm going to go check a couple things with my friends," he said at last. "If there's nothing going on, I guess I could help you this afternoon." It was hardly a promise – particularly since he had every intention of begging Murata to come up with an iron clad excuse for him, like a special practice session or an exam that needed studying or even a land war in Francshire. This didn't matter to his family. Shori nodded approvingly as he finished his last bite of toast and his mother beamed, already pulling out mixing bowls and sheets of waxed paper. He smiled weakly, as expected; glared at his brother, ineffectually; and headed back to his room.
---
He had wound up returning to the kitchen a mere fifteen minutes later. Of all the times for Murata to come up empty, this was by far the most inconvenient. Then again, "inconvenient" was really Murata in a nutshell, so rather than curse him the rest of the afternoon, Yuuri had given in to the inevitable and had a good time cooking with his mother. After all, just making Valentine's chocolate didn't mean he had to give it to anyone.
Seen in that light, it wasn't so bad, and truly, he didn't spend enough time with his mother. They had worked well together as always, melting and mixing and dipping and decorating until at last the bowls of chocolate were empty and the sheets of waxed paper full. Yuuri had allowed his mother to hug him and praise the loveliness of this year's batch. He'd thought that was the end of it.
Returning home from the evening stroll he'd decided to take, he realized his judgement had once again failed him. Father and Shori had apparently been sent off for some together time, and his mother was waiting with ribbons and wrap.
"So, Yu-dear, how many special someones should we give these to this year?" He stared at her. He stared at the vast accumulation of truffles. He noted the bright red wrapping paper speckled with golden hearts as well as the air-tight disposable plastic containers clearly meant to be filled and wrapped. She had at least enough packaging for a dozen small presents. How many girls did she think he might possibly want to embarrass? How many... He shuddered, and decided he sure as hell wasn't even going to think that. That would be too much.
The clock on the microwave read 1704, then 1705. His mother's smile began to look a bit fixed. Nothing for it. The learning diplomat and future king took a deep, steadying breath and picked a number.
"Seven," he decided, and watched his wistful parent's eyes light up.
"Oh, that's wonderful, Yu-dear! Do I know any of them?" She began separating boxes from the stack, oblivious to his sudden panic. Seven? Why the hell had he said seven? Three would have been plenty and really, he was planning to throw every last one of the damn things inconspicuously into some trash can. Hearing the pause, his mother laughed. "Oh, there there. It's good for a young man your age to have one or two secrets. But you will let me know if you get serious about any of them, right? I mean, I certainly would want to meet your fiance before you asked her because a daughter-in-law is someone a mother should know about as soon as possible..." She chattered on, handing Yuuri empty boxes to fill.
For his part, he was finding breathing a little difficult. If his mother were ever to meet Wolfram... Well, it simply didn't bear thinking about. At least she had speculated as to the potential women in his life. He loaded the first box with chocolates.
If truth be told, he could only think of one other truly important woman in his life at the moment, but that in itself was reassuring. Greta would surely like a little chocolate, if it came to that. Thoughts of making his daughter smile produced a sudden strange empathy for his mother, and once again he allowed himself to calm down. It was strange to think of himself as a parent – even an adoptive one – and therefore somehow closer to the woman cutting wrapping paper at his side. But yes, Greta would certainly like chocolate, and really when he thought about it, little tokens of familial love weren't such a bad thing.
In Shin Makoku, they probably didn't celebrate Valentine's Day anyway. He packed his boxes, then helped with his mother's as well, and finally sat with her as they each took one truffle for themselves. It was tradition. The candies were surprisingly delicious. And perhaps one day he and Greta could sit in a chocolate-scented kitchen just like this.