"My heart smiled when you kissed my lips. What a sweet surprise." – Jan Arden
"Chloe, dear?" Chloe's mom asked as she entered her room. "Are you okay? You've overslept. You didn't even wake up when I said you had to braid your hair this time."
Chloe fidgeted in her bed before responding. "Mhgh. I'm okay, mom. The boys dragged me out in the middle of the night to make me come see a new pokémon they found, so I'm worn-out. Those two can be a real handful."
"You know, I really have no problems with you leaving your hair the way it is."
Chloe remained silent as she got out of bed and picked up a hairbrush. "This conversation is over", she told her mother with a slight blush.
"Did you remember?" Chloe's mother asked with a smile.
Chloe dropped the hair brush. A chill ran down her spine. "Remember… what?"
"It's your friend Mika's birthday today!"
Chloe stood there mutely for a few seconds, before exclaiming, with a most alarmed expression on her face:
"THAT WAS TODAY?"
"Oh my god oh my god oh my god, I'm so doomed!" Chloe repeated while she ran around the living room in a panic.
"Chloe seems excited!" Ash commented innocently. Goh frowned at him. He couldn't tell if the other boy was being serious or if he had somehow learned sarcasm in-between today and yesterday. "What's a 'doomed', by the way?" Well. It seemed it was the former option. If it was anyone else, Goh would have been aggravated, but for some reason he found it endearing.
"Cinder…", his pokémon commented, likely expressing something along the lines of 'I don't even know how to react to that'.
Chloe stopped running and looked despondent. "It means there's no hope. I should have made a list of all the recipes I was going to make, bought all the ingredients… now there's just no time for any of that."
"Recipes?" Ash asked.
"Recipes for Mika's birthday! She asked me to do the catering because she knew I was a good cook!" Chloe explained. "There's only three hours left before the party starts! If I show up there empty-handed, I'll not only look like a bad friend, but more importantly-" Chloe cringed as if something terrible had just occurred to her. "Everyone will think I can't cook…!"
Chloe shivered as she imagined all the things (she thought) her schoolmates would say about her.
"I thought Chloe was a nice girl, but she doesn't even know how to cook?"
"She's always dressing so trendy-like, but maybe it was just overcompensating for the fact she can't cook, you know, like a NORMAL person."
"Yeah, she puts so much effort to look fashionable, but I bet when she gets back home, she just stays up all night reading weird manga."
"I know, right? She's just one of those chicks that's trying to fit in as hard as possible. But she'll never be one of us."
"She's so fake. So fake."
"Fake. Fake. Fake. FAKE. FAKE. FAKE."
"Aaaah, NO!" Chloe screamed as her little fantasy segment ended.
"I get it now! Being doomed must be a bad thing!" Ash declared as he leapt out of the couch, ready to take action. "Goh, we have to do something!"
"It is technically our fault she woke up late." Goh mused. "But what can we do, exactly?"
"Chloe! What if you teach us to bake and we help you? Three people will be able to cook much faster than just one!"
"But there's no way you'd be able to cook as well as I can", Chloe replied. "And like I said, I didn't even make a list of what I want to bake."
"We'll just play it by ear! I'll ask my mom to bring some baking supplies."
"Good idea, Ash!" Goh said. "I never baked before, though."
"It'll be a learning experience, then!" Ash said, grinning.
"…Thanks, guys. This means a lot to me." Chloe told them. "I'll get a cookbook and then we can start doing this", She said as she walked away. "Not sure how I'll manage to drill proper cooking techniques into those boys' thick heads, but I'm sure I'll think of something…"
Ash and Goh returned to the kitchen after picking up aprons for themselves as well as chef's hats they got from who knows where. When they arrived, they were greeted with a Chloe who looked rather more stone-faced than she usually did.
Goh didn't know why Chloe had a green beret, or why she decided to wear it, but he decided he didn't like it, nor the way she was holding that megaphone.
"ALRIGHT, YOU PIGS IN HUMAN SKIN!" Chloe shouted. "I'm going to turn you from the ignorant dunces you are now into 5-star master chefs, so listen closely! I'm not going to repeat myself, you hear?!"
"Eeeep!" Goh yelped. "Yes, ma'am!" Ash and Goh gave her a military salute in response.
"You might think cooking is a joke, but it's not! Being a good cook means the difference between life or death! Not that you ladies could tell the difference!" Goh and Ash nodded fearfully. "So get those ingredients out of their packaging like your lives depend on it, soldiers!"
The two boys fell to their knees. "Anything you want, just please don't hurt us!"
Chloe sweatdropped and looked at them awkwardly. "Too much, huh?" She removed the beret from her head and sighed. "I thought some motivational techniques would help, but I guess not."
"Just read the stuff that's in the book!" Ash pleaded. "That was so scary!"
"Um. Let's see here…" Chloe leafed through the book with an embarrassed look on her face.
"Let's start you off with something simple, like donuts…"
RECIPE 1 – Chocolate Donut
"This is the simplest recipe we'll try today", Chloe explained. "Even you two could pull it off, I think. I already took the liberty of preheating the oven, so now we need to mix the ingredients."
"Cinderace?" "Pika!" The two pokémon said, carrying bags of flour and sugar on their hands.
Chloe walked up to them and took the bags from their hands. "Seems like it'd be a health risk to let pokémon touch the ingredients", she commented.
"Hey, we bathe them every day!" Goh protested. "You're just saying that because you're scared of pokémon."
"I'm scared of pokémon touching me, there's a difference!" Chloe huffed. She handed each of them a fork. "I'll add in the ingredients and you guys mix them into the batter, okay?"
Goh gave her a weary glance. "As long as you don't start shouting at us again." Chloe poured the flour, chocolate, sugar and other ingredients into two bowls and handed them to the boys. "Now start mixing!"
"Swish, swish, swish, swish…" Ash repeated as he spun his fork into the bowl to turn the ingredients into batter. "This is really fun!"
After a while, seeing that the ingredients were sufficiently mixed together, they put the bowls down.
Ash stared at the batter with desire in his eyes. "…Can I eat it?"
"It's not for you!" Chloe protested.
"He can have just a little bit, can't he?" Goh stuck his finger inside his bowl and put a tiny bit of chocolate inside Ash's mouth. As Ash swallowed the bit of chocolate he gave Goh a happy smile.
Chloe was appalled, but said nothing as she took out a donut pan from a drawer and set it on the table. Ash moved closer to the pan to examine the chocolate. "Mmmmh…" He whispered, sniffing the food's aroma.
"Too bad there's no ketchup here for you, huh buddy?" Ash commented to Pikachu.
"Pikaaaa", the yellow pokémon sighed as he recalled fond memories of drinking entire bottles of ketchup.
RECIPE 2 – Berry Sweet Muffin
"This one's a little harder", Chloe stated. "But only a smidge. Let's try making you add in the ingredients this time. Did you pay attention while I was doing that?"
Goh and Ash scratched their heads. "Uh, no", Goh admitted. "I think we both assumed you weren't going to change things up on us."
Chloe raised an unimpressed eyebrow at that, before telling them, "Well, it's not that difficult, so I think you'll do fine. Let's add the dry ingredients first." She pointed to the various bags and bottles on the table, and Ash and Goh picked some of them up and walked toward the bowl to add them.
"You have to be careful to not put too much, so grab your spoons and- ASH, WAIT!"
Chloe could only gawk helplessly as Ash poured every single bit of his bag of baking powder into the bowl with a pleased smile. "There you go!"
Pikachu coughed as his face became covered in powder. "Pika…"
"Uwah!" Goh exclaimed in shock. "That's way too much baking powder!" Behind him, Sobble and Lucario stared at the amusing scene, silently judging.
Ash's smile changed into a sad frown. "Oh no, did I mess it up?"
"Pretty much. But don't worry, I hadn't even put the other ingredients in yet. I'll just go get another bag, and you guys can clean this place up." Chloe said in as comforting a tone as she could muster, and left the kitchen.
Ash stared at the powder-covered table with an odd look in his eyes. "Are you okay?" Goh asked him.
Ash turned to look at his friend. "I was just so excited to start cooking the muffins, I didn't wait to hear the instructions…I'm sorry."
"Hey. Hey! Don't let something like that get you down. It was just a mistake, no harm done. To be honest, it was actually pretty funny!"
Pikachu shook off all the powder that was covering him and climbed on Ash's shoulder. "Pika-pi!"
"Well, it was cute the way Pikachu was all white afterwards." Ash admitted. "You always know how to cheer me up, huh, Goh?" Ash wrapped his arm around Goh's shoulder and the two gave one another very wide grins.
After a few minutes, they managed to return the kitchen (mostly) back to its original state, and Chloe came back from her search with a new bag of baking powder. "Okay, now to ACTUALLY start cooking the muffins."
The trio each poured a little of the ingredients into the bowl. Chloe also added a spoonful of salt. "And now we mix them together! Just like we did with the donuts before!" Chloe instructed, using a spoon to mix the four ingredients, smiling as she stirred them with her spoon.
"Wow", Goh exclaimed while giving an odd look to Chloe. "You look… actually happy. Are you sure you're not coming down with some illness?"
"Ha ha!" Ash laughed.
"Very funny. Here's your spoons, by the way. Try not to break anything."
RECIPE 3 – Rainbow Cookies
"This one is really tough, to be honest. I would have picked something less difficult, but Mika asked for these specifically..." Chloe said, taking another ingredient the boys hadn't seen yet from the cupboard.
"What is that?" Goh asked.
"Almond paste."
Ash looked inside the paste's container and commented "It looks delicious!"
"I don't even know what an almond is. How do I not know what an almond is?" Goh wondered, looking at the gooey blocks with a weirded-out stare.
"I'm gonna put those under the mixer. Ash, please add the sugar."
Ash picked up the bowl of sugar. "While that happens, you're gonna whip up the egg whites, okay, Goh?" Chloe ordered.
"Okay!" Goh said, picking up the bowl with the egg whites and stirring them. "Swish, swish, swish…" He repeated, mimicking Ash's noises from earlier and moving his spoon faster and faster as he went.
"I-I'm not gonna drop it all in this time. Not gonna drop it all in…." Ash repeated while pouring the sugar into the bowl with the almond paste. Slowly. "This is just not as fun."
"I'm done with the egg whites!" Goh declared, showing the bowl he was holding to Chloe.
Chloe put her hands over her face. "Goh… Goh, why is your face covered in egg whites?"
"Uhh…"
Chloe sighed. "This is getting to be harder than I thought." She grabbed a towel and cleaned Goh's face for him.
"D'awww, I wanted to clean his face", Ash said, disappointed.
"Knowing you, you would probably just lick it all, Ash." Chloe remarked.
"Guilty as charged!" Ash replied.
"A-ah?" Goh yelped in response, unsure how to react to that declaration. "D-don't say such scandalous things, Ash!" He told him, blushing hard.
Ash would have replied but just then, a moody piano melody started coming from somewhere. "Isn't that your phone, Chloe?" He asked.
Chloe nodded and took her phone out of her pocket. "Who is it?"
"Chloe! Hello. It's Mika's mom."
Chloe started sweating. "Hello…"
"It was so kind of you to offer to show her your cooking skills and save us money by making all the pastries for her birthday. I'm just calling to make sure you haven't forgotten."
"N-no, of course not. I wouldn't do something like that."
"Good to hear! We'll be waiting for you! Goodbye, Chloe."
"Goodbye."
Chloe ended the call and looked at the time. "There's only an hour left until the party! We have to hurry things up!" She threw the book– the cooking book, that is – at Cinderace and Lucario and started grabbing all the utensils and ingredients and handing them over to them. "You guys make the rainbow cookies, we're gonna make the cake!"
"Cario!" "Ace!" The two pokémon replied and swiftly went to work.
"I thought you didn't want the pokémon to help with the cooking", Goh pointed out to her.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures! Come on, guys, move, MOVE!" Chloe shouted while pushing Ash and Goh to another table.
"You're starting to sound like Army General Chloe again." Goh noted.
"Uhh…Army General Chloe?"
"Like when you were wearing the green beret and bossing us around with that megaphone!" Ash said, to clarify Goh's statement.
"Oh boy. I'm never going to live that one down…"
RECIPE 4 – Vanilla Birthday Cake
"We need to bake the three layers at the same time and stack them together. So I'll trust you both have enough sense to do it right this time."
"Don't worry, we will!" Ash stated with confidence. He and Goh quickly finished mixing the ingredients into the cake batter. Chloe did the same.
"Then", Chloe continued, "put the bowls under these electric mixers while alternating adding more flour and the milk. You have to add flour 3 times and buttermilk 2 times, got it?" The boys nodded. They continued heeding Chloe's instructions like this until the cakes were ready to be put in the oven.
"After they're done baking, we'll have to wait for them to cool off and then we can start putting them together!" Chloe remarked happily.
"You really do enjoy cooking, huh, Chloe?" Ash commented, looking at her joyful expression.
"Not as much as you enjoy pokémon battling, but yes. It's why I offered to bake all the sweets Mika wanted for her birthday." Chloe looked down at the floor. "I'm not good at picking gifts, and cooking is one of the things I know how to do very well, so…"
"You're good at playing the piano, though, aren't you? Why didn't you offer to write a composition for her and play it on her birthday?" Goh questioned.
Chloe gave him an awkward glance. "T-that would have probably been easier, yeah…"
They looked at the clock. "Only a half-hour left… thank god Mika's house is close."
Ash approached the two pokémon who had been making the rainbow cookies."How are things going over there? Everything okay?"
"Cinder!" Cinderace excitedly replied, showing Ash several cookies they had just cut.
"They don't look much like rainbows. That's so weird!"
"'Rainbow cookie' is just a name. They're based on the appearance of the Kalosian flag", Chloe explained.
Goh examined the cookies. "So they're neither rainbow-colored nor cookies? That is weird", he commented, before something else caught his eye.
"I wish they did look like rainbows, though! Rainbows remind me of the way we first met! Remember, Goh?" Ash said, trying to get his attention. Goh didn't reply. "Goh? We both jumped on top of Lugia's back at the same time." Goh continued to stare ahead in silence.
"And then when Lugia came up from the sea, it created a rainbow…You know? Goh?... rainbow?" Ash continued yammering, giving Goh what could only be described as a lovelorn glance.
"Ash, look at the front door. It's open." Goh pointed out. Ash and Chloe looked at where he was staring, and indeed, the door was open, giving them a view of the countryside.
"A-ah! Did someone just break in and we didn't notice?" Chloe speculated in a panicked tone.
"Never fear! An intruder can't enter a house without drawing attention to itself. Detective Ashlock Ketchum is on the case!" Ash told them, and began walking around the kitchen and sniffing around (literally) for the intruder.
"Your boyfriend is pretty weird", Chloe whispered to Goh.
"He's not my boyfriend!" Goh retorted angrily, also whispering.
"But you want him to be", Chloe observed. Goh did not deny it. "Maybe you should do something about that."
Ash finally looked at a spot behind the refrigerator and discovered the culprit. "Ah-ha…" He exclaimed in a low voice so as to not startle his target, and then with a single movement, slid his arm into the opening behind the refrigerator and removed the invader from its hiding spot.
"Sk…Skwovet?" The squirrel pokémon said sheepishly, with crumbs coming out of its mouth. It was holding one of the muffins the trio had made earlier.
"How did that thing smell the food all the way over here?" Goh questioned, mildly impressed at the small food-mongerer's tenacity.
"It doesn't matter, just get it out of here!" Chloe squeaked. Ash threw it out of the house and Goh slammed the door shut.
"Jeez…I should have known all this baking would attract at least some of your hundreds of pokémon." Chloe said to Goh.
"I'll make sure to teach Skwovet to not do that again… though I don't really think it will help." Goh replied while thinking about the last time Skwovet caused them trouble.
Ding! "Oh, that's the timer! Let's put the cakes together!"
Goh, Ash and Chloe stacked the three layers of the vanilla cake. "Almost done. Now we need to do the decorating." She grabbed a pastry bag from a drawer and handed it to Goh. "You'll do the frosting, Goh. I'll place the Strawberry Sweets afterwards."
"How do I do this?" He asked.
"You just squeeze the bag to make the icing come out. You have to cover the entire cake."
"Is there anything for me to do as well?" Ash inquired.
"No. So I guess you're free to do whatever."
"Yay!" He shouted delightedly. Ash proceeded to grab the muffin pan they'd used earlier and started eating all the icing. "No point in letting all this go to waste, right?"
Goh laughed at the cute display. "He really does just have a bottomless stomach, doesn't he?"
"Goh, pay attention. You're dropping icing all over the floor", Chloe admonished.
"Uh, whoops. Sorry about that." He replied, trying to focus on the cake instead of Ash's cuteness.
As he did so, Chloe began placing the strawberries on the surfaces already covered in frosting. "Finally… It's all done! And right in the nick of time." Chloe frowned. "But there's only ten minutes left. How am I going to drag all this food over to her house?"
Ash licked his lips to clean some of the chocolate off of them and took a pokéball out of his pocket. "Gengar, come out!"
With those words, a purple pokémon with a rounded body appeared in the room. "Gengar!"
"Gengar will help you take them there! He can lift all the food with his telekinesis, so you don't have to worry about dropping them on the way!"
"Wow", Chloe muttered, "Now I'm the one wondering if you're okay, Ash."
"…I can be smart when I want to!" Ash pouted. As all the foodstuffs they had made began to levitate in the air and move in the direction of the door, Chloe also started to walk out.
"I can't thank either of you enough, seriously. I wouldn't have been able to finish even half of that if it wasn't for you guys."
"No problem, that's what friends are for. Sorry for all the messes", Goh replied. "And… Chloe?"
"Yes?"
"Seeing you being happy like this… it was really nice. Maybe we should cook together more often."
Chloe blushed. "Yeah, maybe. Bye, guys!" She said as she closed the door again.
Ash looked at the door with a bittersweet expression. "All that food and it wasn't even for us…" His stomach grumbled.
"You're still hungry even after eating so much batter?" Goh asked, though his voice made it clear he was unsurprised.
"Baking makes anyone feel hungry, I think."
"I guess." Goh glanced at the empty table. Well, actually – mostly empty.
"Hey!" Goh exclaimed. "Gengar forgot one! There's still a donut sitting there!"
"Really?!" Ash ran up to the table and grabbed the donut. Then he walked back to where Goh was with it still in hand. "Want a taste?"
"H-huh? I thought you were really hungry!" Goh protested.
"Come on, we made this together, we should eat it together too! Say 'aah'…" Ash said while slowly dragging the donut in the air toward Goh's mouth. Goh blushed, but did not turn away. He opened his mouth up to eat it…
As Goh began to take a bite of the doughnut, however, he felt something soft and warm press against his cheek. His heart began to race faster as he processed what that meant. Ash was the only one near him, so…
Goh turned his head to face the boy beside him, who was licking his lips happily. "Mmh", he heard Ash say. "Delicious!" Ash exclaimed, with his thousand-watt grin that always succeeded in melting Goh's heart.
"…Buuuh?" Goh managed to squeak out.
"Tastier than any candy!" Ash told him with a wink.
"W-when were you going to tell me that you wanted to be my boyfriend?" Goh asked with a stutter.
"Huh? I thought we were already-"
"Don't you dare complete that sentence."
Goh and Ash sat on a hill outside of the Cerise residence. It was nighttime.
"So…we're dating now", Goh remarked idly.
"Pretty much. I never really know where friendship ends and dating begins, honestly", Ash confessed. "I just… do things. If I like someone, I just go ahead and tell them."
"That's so you, Ash." Goh said with a smile.
"I had lots of friends who knew how to cook, but I never tried doing it myself", Ash commented. "It was really fun, but I don't think I would have the concentration to finish anything if I tried doing it again. I think I would just end up eating all the batter." Goh laughed at that statement.
"But that's why we're the best partners, aren't we? You act on instinct, on your feelings. I stick to real things, to facts and figures. You're quick to take action, but that also means you're rash. I'm always considering the right course of action, but sometimes I deliberate too much. But when we're together, you teach me how to be impulsive when the situation calls for it, and I'm always the one to stop you from acting without thinking." Goh put his hands on Ash's, interlocking their fingers. "We complement each other. We fit each other – like a hand and a glove. That's what I always wanted to tell you, but never had the courage. Until now."
"Seems like this day was pretty productive for us, huh?" Ash joked.
The boys looked deeply into each other's eyes, and remained that way for a while, not saying much. Then Ash broke the silence.
"Hey, Goh. I want seconds."
"Seconds of what-" Goh started to say, before Ash interrupted him with yet another kiss, this one on the lips. This time, Goh did not let the surprise stop him from kissing back.
They may have met each other several months ago, but Goh was now realizing that his and Ash's journey together – their real journey – was only just beginning.