60 - Prompted Vignette- Post-Another Day
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Another Cooking Class
So basically, Shiki somehow convinced Neku that his precious Sunday morning would be spent, not scouting around for potential Tin Pin rivals, but inviting her and the other Crayon Warriors into his house – for cooking classes.
Don't ask how it happened, it just did.
"Heehee, you've got quite the spacious kitchen for a NEET living alone," said Pink, inspecting the sink and opening the cupboards to check what were in there.
"I'm not a NEET," Neku pointed out, "I do go to school."
Joshua straightened up. "Hmm."
He doesn't believe me at all, that brat.
"Yo, Blue, whaddya cookin' for us?" asked the tall blond, looking like a fish out of water, standing in the clean kitchen.
"I'm not cooking for you. I'm teaching you how to cook," he reminded Beat. "Or at least, that's what Green wants to do."
"Yep!" Shiki declared, having whipped on an apron (Wait, how did she know where to find it?). "If you don't want to cook you can go ahead and watch some TV, I'll let you have some of my share."
"Awesome! Thanks Green!"
Beat then exited the kitchen and Neku presumed the flop he heard was Beat sprawling himself over Neku's couch.
Ugh, this is my house. Not that his companions seemed to realise.
Black, who had been quiet all this time, started taking things out of his fridge. She looked quite careful in doing it too, staring at the contents for moments before slowly removing it from the fridge. Though her expression would make it seem like she knew what she was doing, the fact that she had taken out the combination of cheese, a bottle of coke, and ice cream, told him that she was clearly as clueless as the rest of them.
"Have any of you guys tried cooking anything before?" Neku asked, sighing.
"I tried my hand at making chocolate once," said Black thoughtfully, "but I accidentally used salt instead of sugar."
Who does that?
"No, my maids cook for me. Cooking is too common for someone like me, dear," said Pink.
Then why are you here!?
"I can use the toaster," Green added.
That's not cooking –
"Fine, fine, it's something."
This was going to be difficult, Neku predicted.
And he wasn't wrong.
Joshua had absolutely zero experience in cooking, and with his personality, he criticised every little thing that Neku had tried to tell him to do. Neku wasn't sure if Joshua was doing this on purpose or if he just seriously sucked that much at following instructions. (It was probably the former, if you asked Neku).
Rhyme was slightly better – she was diligent and wilfully went with whatever Neku tried to tell her to do, step by step. The only thing was, she kept trying to add weird and wacky ingredients that Neku didn't even know he had into what they were making.
For Tin Pin's sake they were just making omurice.
He found some consolation that Shiki didn't seem to be doing too badly.
That was, until he saw her trying to practically break his glass bowl in attempt to mix the milk and egg together.
"Green, stop," he said, "let me do that."
She widened her eyes and drew the bowl and whisk closer to her protectively. "No way, I want to try doing this myself."
"You won't get it right if you keep trying to destroy the cooking tools." Neku rolled his eyes, holding his hand out so that she would pass it to him.
"No means no! I'm not learning how to cook if you're doing all the work." She had a stubborn look in her eyes that told him that she wasn't about to back down.
"…Fine, we'll do it this way."
Before she could protest, Neku stood behind her, taking hold of her right hand, which was loosely holding the whisk and holding the bowl steady with his other hand. He was taller than her, even if it was just a bit, but it was enough so he could see what he was doing.
"You need to hold the whisk tighter Green, or it's not going to do anything."
"I knew that," she muttered, though she didn't start complaining about his assistance.
He guided her hand so that she was whisking the mixture in a clockwise motion, without overdoing how fast she went. "You need to beat it so that it becomes a bit frothy, but you don't want it to become too fluffy."
"I've got it!"
Her face was now scrunched up in concentration, and she looked like she was actually taking whisking the mixture seriously. A smile crept up onto her face as she started getting the hang of it.
At this point, he wasn't really helping her any more, but he kept his hand atop of hers, all the same. No point in moving it now, since it would probably break her focus.
His neck started aching slightly, though; he had been trying to lean over her to see what she was doing. He risked resting his head slightly against her shoulder, and she didn't seem to notice or she did, and didn't mind.
Her hair's soft, he thought absently. A few strands of her pink hair had come down her face from his movement and he wondered if that was obscuring her view. Cautiously, he removed the hand that he had been supporting the bowl with, since she was holding onto it too, and gently brushed the strands to the side.
Lowering his hand again, he thought against grasping the bowl again as that probably would disturb her. Irrationally, his arm seemed to think that wrapping itself around the front part of her form would be less of a bother.
The way she stiffened told him otherwise.
Oh shit, she noticed.
"We haven't even turned on the stove and things are already heating up here, hmm?"
Oh shit, he noticed.
When Rhyme turned away from her own task to see what was going on, Neku had already separated himself from Shiki by at least a metre, though he kept his mask of complete indifference intact.
"You're done, Black? Great, we'll start cooking everything together now," he said, drawing attention away from him and back to the actual food.
Surprisingly, Joshua hadn't said anything more, and Shiki wasn't acting any differently either.
Even more surprisingly, the end product of their fruits of labour didn't turn out that bad.
"Huh," said Neku, taking a bite out of their dish. "That's actually some pretty decent omurice."
The three novice cooks smiled at each other triumphantly, glad their food turned out well.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
"…Is that the fire alarm?" Shiki asked, looking panicked. "Did we do that?"
"Yeah," said Neku, knowing the sound by the routine drills. This wasn't a drill. "We turned everything off and nothing's burning so it can't be us."
"Yo!" yelled Beat. When did he get in the kitchen? "Uh Blue, I think I broke your toaster!"
…
And so, the Crayon Warriors made a brave escape down the emergency staircase, unable to quell the fearsome, sparking toaster.
A/N: Tadaa! Double update strikes again! See what I did there in the last A/N by saying 'Another update' heheheh. -shot- Anyway, I went with two funny ones this time, one which as in Another Day-verse because that hasn't appeared for over 20 chapters. I got prompted by my best friend and the prompt for Chapter 59 was 'Lipstick Stain' while the prompt for this one was 'Smoke Detector'. The smoke detector being Joshua noticing the Neshiki going on -shot- or like the real one that detected the burning toast at the end. And yes fire alarms do go off at burning toast. Trust me, I've experienced it. Several. Times. o.e
But yes I hoped you enjoyed that. I am still doing my exams but I did this when I had a break today~
Thank you for the reviews to: Omega Zekrom, B.A.G-GOMEZ, I'll Break Your Heart, Xerzo LotCN, The Professor of time, Crow's Gamble, RandomReader13 and Trajectory of Simplicity
Until next time! :D
- Dina (17/5/2014)
