Summary: Cooking has never been Yoh's strong suit, but this time he outdoes even himself. Anna, as you might've guessed, isn't exactly happy with what he causes, either. So what'll happen now?
Written: In about 5 hours into the early morning of 6/18/2008.
Rating: T for innuendo, romantic themes, and coarse language.
Notes: Can't really say anything else about this story. It was surprisingly fun to write and, I think, one of the better things I've written lately. I hope you like it too, but even if you don't, please review!
Lights Out
Kiss #26
"Moonlight would provide the spark, and then I would stumble across your key, or break down the door to your heart…"
-Mayday Parade, Three Cheers for Five Years
There were easily enough groceries upon the kitchen countertop to stock a walk-in freezer and several pantries, and Yoh's arms still tingled from the exertion of trucking them home himself. The bulk of the groceries, however, were not destined for the refrigerator or the cabinet, but rather into one of the many pots and pans strewn before them, configured like a chromed drum set. Despite this, Yoh grinned carelessly as he rinsed the cookware. It didn't seem odd to him that a shaman of such formidable power should be so thoroughly whipped as to be reduced to a second-rate chef every mealtime; indeed, such rueful thoughts never seemed to enter his carefree mind. Rather, having been imperiled more times than most upper-tier combatants three times his age, Yoh had been ingrained with the philosophy of enjoying the little things in life, and of taking nothing for granted. Preparing dinner is a drudge, certainly, but it sure beats dying, he mused as he brought the stove to a shimmying red roil. With experienced, yet somehow still clumsy, hands, he coated a frying pan with a generous dollop of oil.
As the pan and its contents began to simmer, the cadence of Yoh's carefully orchestrated cooking—the frying pan's spatters, the strangely tranquilizing warble of the boiling pot of water, the occasional violent reports of the ancient rice cooker—intermingled with the television from the other room. His hands rummaged through the grocery bags still on the table and cupped around a variety of boxes and cans, which he began to arrange in the pantry.
"Mm, canned corn," he muttered to no one in particular. He needed no further prompting to pry open the can with a dull opener and tip its contents into a bowl. With a final flick of the wrist, he centered the bowl inside of the microwave. Then he turned his attention back to the stovetop, where he conducted the orchestra with a variety of implements—a spatula, a comically oversized spoon, a single chopstick that had been separated from its identical twin years ago and was probably now residing in the U-bend in the sink's drain. His diligence was soon rewarded; the kitchen now basked in the ineffable scents of a meal nearing completion.
"Ah," Yoh sighed in relief once he detected this medley of aromas. He opened the refrigerator and sorted the contents of the final grocery bag within. A bunch of celery and a head of lettuce disappeared into the salad crisper, but then Yoh paused with his hands grasping a pair of firm oranges.
"I might as well make something for dessert, huh? Why not?" He placed one of the oranges on the counter near the sink, along with a pair of nearly overripe bananas and a handful of strawberries.
"Now, where'd I leave that crappy blender…" Yoh rummaged through the closet beneath the sink, the two above the stove, and the one beside the refrigerator. At last he found, behind a hopelessly tangled whisk and a rusty sieve, the blender. He twiddled the power cord hesitantly, but he was right to be afraid; he was almost certain that it wasn't his imagination, the cord was really held together by a segment of duct tape.
"Oh well," he said in between chews of an orange wedge, "I can't blend these fruits by hand, now, can I?" He closed his eyes and slid the plug into the last free socket, and once he realized nothing bad had happened, noticed he was still holding his breath.
"Heh heh, no problem," Yoh gloated, triumphantly slamming the lid on the blender and pressing the Puree button. The subsequent high-pitched whine told him that despite the duct tape, the blender was still capable of getting the job done. Yoh still thought this as he reached out to shut off the stove, but as he did so a horrible discordant noise, like a chainsaw grating against a concrete wall, cut through the kitchen. He gasped, blinked his eyes, and reopened them to an entirely unfamiliar sight.
Just an instant before, the blender had been drowning out any other sound. Now, the feeble popping and boiling from the stove was the only sound, aside from Yoh's startled breaths. The television had ceased its buzzing. Most significantly, it was now pitch black.
Oh, crap.
In the darkness Yoh could only rely on his hearing to cue him in to what was going on. He flashed back briefly to the desolation of the training he had undergone about a year ago, to those long days in isolation in the total blackness of the cave, but now, as he heard lumbering footsteps from the living room, he could only wish to be in isolation now…
"What'd you do this time?" Yoh didn't need to be able to see Anna's face to know she was livid.
"Just…cooking dinner as usual," he shakily replied. Somehow, the sense that he was speaking to no one in particular made him feel as though he were speaking to God—although Anna was, in a way, omnipotent to him.
"Just cooking dinner, huh? With what? A machine gun?" At this Yoh shut his eyes tightly and staggered back—not necessarily because Anna's retort was particularly vexing, but rather because at that moment Anna clicked on a flashlight and the beam flooded directly into Yoh's dilated pupils.
"Sorry," Anna said, completely unconvincingly. The blinding beam lingered upon his face for another moment before it darted about the room. "Well, at least you managed to finish the cooking before you did…whatever the hell you did," she observed, shining the light upon the stovetop. "Wait a minute…oh Yoh, you monumental dumbass."
Yoh froze. In the dark corner of the room to which he had slunk, he thought he could sneak a bite of the meal he had prepared. The light flitted to him now, and on his tiptoes with a fork in an extended arm, he looked pretty silly.
"Good lord, Yoh, it was the blender that made that horrific racket, wasn't it?"
"It, uh," he stammered, nervously twirling the fork, "well, it might have been…"
The way she suddenly strode over to the blender made Yoh wonder whether his fiancée had bionic eyes. She shone the flashlight upon the cord, pointed a finger at the segment of duct tape, and hissed, "What'd you think this was for? Decoration?"
"I—I—um," Yoh tried, but it was no use.
"You know what was on TV before you decided to use the blender?" Anna fumed. "An All My Descendants marathon. Which is only my favorite soap opera ever. Now, thanks to your electrical finesse, I'll never know what happens."
Yoh sighed. "I'm sorry, Anna."
"Whatever," she spat. "Well, the evening's ruined, but I'll be damned if you're gonna let me go to bed pissed and hungry. Let's eat."
"Hey, you know, it's not a total loss," Yoh said after hesitating. "Nothing's quite so memorable as a candlelit dinner."
Anna's hollow laugh sank Yoh's spirits once more. "Candles? What the hell do you think this is, a five-star Italian restaurant? I don't have any goddamn candles, just this one flashlight. Now serve me the entrée and quit getting all romantic on me. I don't think I need to remind you that you're in no position to get flirty with me tonight anyway, Mr. Duct Tape."
Dejected, Yoh wordlessly scooped food onto Anna's plate and, after making another such plate for himself, sat at the table. She propped the flashlight upright so that it projected a dull circle of light at the ceiling, dimly illuminating the room.
"So," Yoh began, then immediately regretted it as his mouth suddenly felt like it was stuffed with cotton. "Uh, what's that show about? All My Descendants?"
As he took a quick gulp of water, he saw Anna's face stop chewing to form a frown. "Since when do you care?"
Yoh was chugging his water like a frat boy might chug beer. "Since the power went out."
"The power didn't just go out," Anna snapped accusatorily.
"Fine. Since I royally messed up and blew out the power. So, getting back to that show of yours…"
Anna started fiddling with her chopsticks. "Typical soap-opera stuff. You know, romance and relationships. Keeping a girl happy, and if you don't, she'll probably cheat on you. In other words, shit you'd never understand."
"Hey, I try to keep you happy, Anna. Maybe I should watch with you next time, then. Pick up a few tricks."
"Yeah, right. Watch an hour of TV and suddenly become a perfect person. Come on, Yoh, not even an infomercial would dare to promise that much. And quite frankly, if you can't figure out what I like and don't like on your own, nothing else can."
Yoh propped his arm upon the table to support his forehead. "Come on, Anna. Just give me a chance. I know you don't think much of me, but I can make you happy, I swear."
Anna's face was completely bereft of any emotion whatsoever, as usual. In fact, her gaze wasn't directed at Yoh, whose heartfelt words would've garnered the attention of any other young woman. Instead, she was impassively glancing downwards at her half-finished dinner. "All right. Yoh, consider this your chance."
Yoh, who had been watching Anna nonchalantly playing with her food, was startled by her sudden offer. "Huh?"
"You heard me. If we get the power back fast enough, I can still catch the tail end of the marathon. If you do that, then I'll have to acknowledge that you really do try to make me happy." She said this as though reading a passage aloud from a rather dull textbook. "The circuit breaker's outside, round back. You probably just blew a fuse, so just swap each one out till the power comes back on. Think you can handle it?"
Even in the grayish aura of the dying flashlight, Yoh's grin shone through. "Anything for you, Anna." And with that, he was out the door. Had he chanced a look at Anna before departing, he might have seen, even in the faint light, the stunned expression she was wearing thanks to his touching words…
Anna finished her dinner unhurriedly, scraping every last grain of rice from the plate before rising to deposit it into the sink. Quite a meal tonight, even if it was spoiled by the darkness. That fiancé of mine just might be picking up a trick or two in the culinary arts…
Is it possible that he's trying harder just for my sake? she wondered. Nah, he's probably just getting better with practice. He can't possibly have any feelings for me, right? I mean, I think it might actually be okay if he was…I have to admit, I feel myself falling for him bit by bit…
Before she could pursue that thought any further, she gave an exasperated start. That idiot didn't even take any fuses with him? How's he supposed to fix a blown fuse empty-handed? I mean, the guy's got heart, but that's not going to conduct electricity. She kneeled down under the sink and cast about for the toolbox. She lugged it out from beneath the sink, and looked up, only to stare the blender square in the face.
Ah, the root of all of tonight's woe. I hate to admit it, but it's almost my fault. I should've tossed it out when I severed the cord…Duct tape, what was I thinking? The stuff's useful, no doubt, but no miracle worker. I wonder what he used the blender for, anyway? Ah well, Yoh's been out there awhile, I should get these fuses to him before he electrocutes himself or something…
With the toolbox in one hand and the blender jug in the other, she strode outside. It was quite a bit brighter outside; the night sky was cloudless and dominated by a full moon. She rounded the corner, knowing the circuit breaker was mounted on this back wall, and expected to see Yoh before it, futilely prodding and cajoling its innards to work, but he was nowhere to be found. Anna found, strangely enough, that she wasn't as annoyed as she expected to be by this turn of events. Instead, she meandered through the rock garden and sat down on a smooth boulder.
"Anna."
She gave a muffled shriek and glanced about her frenziedly. Yoh was reclined upon an adjacent rock, his arms folded behind his head. "I'm sorry, Anna, but it's really no use. I mean, honestly, I can barely change the batteries on my Oracle Pager without breaking something. Compared to that, the circuit breaker's on a whole different level."
Anna found no words to this candid admission. Again, the annoyance that normally welled within her at Yoh's incompetence did not manifest itself.
"Anna, if you'll forgive me for saying so, I think it'd be best if we just forgot about the power outage for tonight. Besides," he said, sitting up and pointing at the jug in her hand, "it looks like you found dessert."
"Oh?" For the first time Anna gave the jug's contents a careful look.
"Yeah. I made you a fruit smoothie. I thought you deserved a good dessert, to make up for the crappy dinner."
Anna's face at that moment was disarmingly affected, and her gaze rose from the jug to stare intently at Yoh, but he took no notice and continued, "Anyway, sorry I'm making you miss those soap operas. But take a look at this night sky. What a beautiful sight!"
"It sure is."
But Anna wasn't looking the same place Yoh was, and her voice came from much closer than it had been earlier. The proximity of her voice startled Yoh the same way it had scared her just moments ago, and he recoiled from the boulder and bumped ungracefully into the back wall of the En Inn. Disoriented, he wobbled dangerously for a moment, until two slender yet sturdy arms steadied him.
"I guess you were right about two things tonight, Yoh."
Wrapped tightly in Anna's arms, with the warmth of her body so snugly enveloping his, Yoh found it rather difficult to focus on what she was saying to him, but he took a couple of shaky breaths and tried his best.
"You really do try, Yoh," she said, looking up slightly, directly into his eyes. "And this truly is a beautiful sight."
"Um, er, ah," Yoh stammered, and even under the diffuse moonlight it was obvious he was blushing furiously. "Not as much as you…"
It was her turn to blush. She loosened one of her arms, plucked up a fuse, and slid it into a socket in the circuit breaker. "Yoh, you light up my life," she whispered as the lights within the house flickered on.
"Oh, geez," Yoh laughed nervously, "how corny! And you say I'm the hopeless romantic—"
Honestly, Anna had no rebuttal to Yoh's point; in fact, she had nothing to say at all. But her lips were certainly active enough to speak sentence after sentence. Yoh accepted her wordless argument upon his lips and began to talk back, again without speaking. Yoh's head was in danger of hitting the wall again, but he found Anna's hand there instead. He moaned softly as her other hand caressed his back; he thought Anna might like it too, and his exploratory fondle was acknowledged by a similar moan. The short, quick breaths upon each others' lips filled them with a kind of passionate, intense suffocation, and they wanted more, but their lips inevitably parted.
Yoh rested his chin lightly upon Anna's tender shoulder, still softly embracing her. He was still breathing hard and, nuzzling her perfectly smooth cheek with his nose, asked softly, "So, now that the power's back, do you still want to watch All My Descendants?"
Anna squeezed her arms tighter around Yoh. "No. Tonight," she said, "there are more, ahem, pressing matters to attend to, I think."
She looked down suggestively, and Yoh blushed more intensely than ever when he realized exactly how he was "pressing" against her there…
