Disclaimer: Ranma ½ belongs to… sigh… Rumiko Takahashi. Oh, how I envy her.

Chapter Three:

Someone's in the Kitchen With Ranma!

Akane:

"R-Ranma…?" I whispered, so low that it was barley audible. "You want to help me cook?" Wow, that was a first. It just dawned on me that Ranma always complained about my food, but he never actually asked to help me. The only time we were actually cooking in the same room was when we fought over who's food was better and Mrs. Saotome was there. Ick, that brought back some bad memories.

"Yeah," Ranma said, casually. "What's the big deal? I mean… its just c-cookies." He put his head down and began to blush when he uttered the last word. I couldn't help but smile. He looked so… so… cute when he blushed. Sure he may act like a macho man every now and then, but this was the real Ranma.

"Well, thank you Ranma!" I gushed. "This really means a lot to me!"

"S-sure." he replied, his eyes still focused on his feet.

We walked silently to the Tendo kitchen. What kind of cookies should I bake? Chocolate? Fruit? Nut? Peanut Butter? Then again… what kind of cookies did Ranma like? Maybe if I combined everything together, it would be better! Yeah, that's what I'd do!

I opened the nearest drawer on my right and took out two aprons. One with orange polka dots and a plain yellow one. I handed the yellow one to Ranma.

Ranma stared at the apron in disgust. "What! I am NOT wearing an apron, Akane. Who do you think I am? What kind of a man wears a frou-frou yellow apron!"

I kept the atmosphere calm. I didn't want to start a fight already. "Well, Ranma… why don't you just turn into a girl? That would make it less humiliating."

"I'm not changing into a girl and I'm not wearing an apron, Akane."

"But what if you spill something?"

"I'm not going to spill! I'm a master at cooking. Masters don't spill."

I gave him a sideways glance. Ranma was always the master of everything. "Suit yourself," I shrugged.

I put on the orange apron and put away the yellow one. Then I rolled up the sleeves of my blue shirt and made a fist. "Alrighty then, lets get cooking!"

"Whoopee." Ranma said sarcastically.

Ranma:

I couldn't believe what I had gotten myself into. Now I was stuck in an unguarded kitchen with AKANE. Oh well, maybe some of my excellent cooking skills could improve her rock hard, deadly cookies.

Akane walked over to the oven. "Well, first we have to preheat the oven!" she yanked the oven to a whopping 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Akane!" I screamed as I jumped over to the oven and turned the knob so it was a safe 350 degrees. I let out the breath I was holding in and I turned to her. "Are you crazy! You can't bake cookies at 600 degrees!"

"Oh," Akane said, quietly. She bit her lip. "Maybe that's why the cookies always turned out burned."

"Uh huh, ya think!"

"Well, then, I'll just start making the batter. Ranma, can you get me two large eggs?" Eggs. That sounded perfectly safe and normal. Thank God.

"Sure, Akane." I said as I strolled over to the refrigerator and took out two eggs from the small blue carton.

"Here you go," I said as I handed them to her. She smiled sweetly at me and for once this day, I had to admit, she was really cute.

Then she began humming and throwing in the eggs. Yes, my friend. I said throwing in the eggs. Shell and all. I grimaced.

"Akane," I said softly. "You have to crack open the eggs."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot!" Akane chirped. She grabbed her big old mixing spoon and began swatting the eggs inside the bowl until the eggs turned this big goop of mush filled with eggshells.

Oh, gag me.

"No, Akane. You have to crack open the eggs before you throw them into the bowl." I got out a new bowl. I cracked open one of the eggs, perfectly of course, and they plopped into the bowl. "See?"

Akane frowned. "These are my cookies, Ranma. Let me do the cooking!" she said as she grabbed the bowl out of my hand.

I shrugged. "Whatever, Akane."

Akane flung open the cupboards and grabbed everything she saw. Including horse radish, pickled relish, hot sauce, olives and canned sardines. She began to open the bottle of hot sauce but before she could pour half the bottle into the mixture, I grabbed her hand.

"What are you doing!" I said to her. This woman must be crazy. No wonder her food always tasted disgusting!

"I'm making a super cookie. Instead of making just chocolate, I'm mixing everything! More is always good, isn't it?" she said, shyly.

"Akane…" I groaned. "No, more is not always good. Maybe that's why your cooking always tastes like a giant hairball. Don't add your own touch to recipes, okay?" I grabbed the cookbook she was reading.

"Now lets see. We need melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar all mixed in one bowl. Can you get that, Akane?"

Akane nodded as she got the ingredients and did as I told her to.

"Now, put in the eggs and stir in the milk and vanilla." I looked over at Akane and she was actually doing pretty good. Although she stirred too hard and the batter went flying everywhere.

Akane stopped stirring and she sat down on the ground, tears were beginning to form in her eyes. "I can't do it." she cried. "I can't do anything right!"

No, anything but tears! I walked over to her and crouched down. "Akane, please don't cry! Sure you can!"

I grabbed her hand and helped her up. I walked her over to the kitchen counter and grabbed the whisk and put it in her hand. This time, however, I wrapped my arm around hers and grabbed the whisk so that my hand on top of her hand and we were both holding the whisk at the same time.

"See," I said while moving her hand so that she was whisking the batter slowly. "Like this."

We cooperated throughout the entire recipe perfectly for the first time. We actually talked like normal people, too. But there was one thing that distracted me, and I just couldn't help it…

I kept my hand entwined in hers throughout the entire recipe.

After we finished the cookies and they were baking in the oven, the house filled with a delicious nutty buttery kind of smell. We made five dozen large sheet double chocolate cookies.

Akane took off her apron. "I'm going to take a bath now, Ranma. I'm covered in batter and flour!"

I laughed. "Yeah, yeah, yeah…"

She walked towards the entrance of the kitchen but then she stopped suddenly. She turned around to face me with the biggest, cutest smile I'd ever seen.

"I forgot to say… thanks, Ranma. For everything…" she said and walked off.

After she walked off, I just stood there. In the middle of the kitchen, doing absolutely nothing. I was just standing there. But one name kept running through my mind the entire time.

Akane Tendo.

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A/N: Wow! These chapters are coming along fast, aren't they? Well I've got so many ideas! So, Akane FINALLY learned how to cook something that wasn't toxic, huh? Chapter 4 will be out really soon, I promise!