Date Written: July 4, 2007
Summary: While father and daughter are fishing, what are mother and son supposed to do? Bake!
Flo: Happy 4th of July! Georgia is in the middle of a drought, we got water restrictions, and fire works are banned. But did that stop the men in my family? Hell no!
WARNINGS! None. Shocking! But watch out in later chapters!
Hope you enjoy!
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"Um, Fai-san?" Syaoran started as he and Fai sat in the living room, reading. Kurogane and Sakura had gone fishing and Mokona was no where to be seen, so it was just the two of them.
"Yes, Syaoran-kun?" Fai said, not taking his eyes off his book, So You Want to Speak Japanese?.
"Well, I was just thinking that it would be a good idea for me to know how to cook. You know, since it's just something that everybody should know but I don't have that much experience."
That got Fai's attention. He quickly shut his book and hopped over to join Syaoran on the sofa. "That's a great idea! Hm, where should we start?"
Syaoran ducked his head slightly before saying, "Maybe a cake?"
Fai clapped his hands as he praised Syaoran. "Syaoran-kun's so smart! That's just perfect to begin with! A cake was actually the first thing I taught Sakura-chan how… to…" Fai trailed off and just stared into space for a while, leaving Syaoran a bit confused. Slowly, a smile crept across Fai's face as something became clear to him.
"F-Fai-san?"
"Hm? Oh, I'm sorry Syaoran-kun! I guess I just zoned out there for a second! Now come on, let's get you an apron! I already have one special, just for you!"
"Just for you!" meant it had a little puppy sewn on the front complete with goggles. Fai's had a cat with a fluffy coat and he showed Syaoran that he had also had special aprons made for Sakura and Kurogane. Sakura's had a little kitty playing with a feather, while Kurogane's had a dog that said, "Kiss the Cook" on it. Syaoran suggested that perhaps it was best for Kurogane to avoid cooking due to his large build and their usually small kitchens. That got more smartness praising.
After all the necessary pre-cooking rituals were completed (aprons, hand washing, oven preheating, cake pan greasing, getting the ingredients, secret cooks-only hand shake), it was time to start the cake. Chocolate was deemed best because everybody liked it, despite what their ninja said. Pink icing was also chosen because Syaoran said it was Sakura's favorite color. Fai said that that was also a good idea because pink frosting tastes the best. Syaoran had never thought about it before, but the man was right. (1)
"Alright," Fai began, "what do the directions say, Syaoran-kun?"
"Uh, 'in a large bowl, sift or whisk together flour salt, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and cocoa.' Does it matter which we do?"
"Probably not, but I've always found sifting them easier. It also combines your ingredients much better. Your sifter is in the cabinet, so get to it!"
And get to it he did. While Syaoran fiddled with the measurements, Fai leaned back against the counter, occasionally giving advise such as using a knife to level off the flour. Other than the little things, Fai saw no huge reason to watch Syaoran like a hawk. The boy was very capable of doing things by himself, and this was just a simple cake. What could he possibly do to mess it up?
Fai got his answer when a cloud of floury substance puffed out and covered half of him and the front of Syaoran. After a slight moment of confusion, Fai looked over at Syaoran, an eyebrow raised in question as to how he managed that.
"I'm sorry, Fai-san!" Syaoran quickly sputtered. "I-I don't know what happened! I just began to turn the crank handle thing and everything just flew out!"
Fai paused again to contemplate this. After a while, he asked, "Were you turning the crack rather fast?"
"Yes?"
"Ah. With dry ingredients, particularly flour, you want to take it slow to avoid any of it flying out like it just did. Okay?"
"Okay! Sorry again."
"It's no problem! A very simple mistake! Just start over."
So he did. This time, Syaoran made sure to take it slow. Very slow. Eventually, Fai told him he could go a little faster, to which Syaoran did and ended up spilling a small amount out again. After brushing the piles of powder off the counter and into the bowl and convincing a horrified Syaoran that the counters were perfectly clean and that he'd done it a thousand times before and nobody had yet to get sick or die from it, the two cooks went to the next step in the directions.
"'Add one cup and two tablespoons of water and one cup and two tablespoons of oil,'" Syaoran read out. "'Mix for one minute.'"
Fai nodded for him to do so and went back to lounging against the counter top. He had to admit, this was very nice. He didn't really spend that much time with Syaoran and had always felt like the boy needed to find a more relaxing hobby. Sword training was nice, but he was such a nervous thing when he wasn't fighting or finding feathers. Baking was something that he could use as a relaxant for his mind, instead of overexerting his body and basically having Kurogane beating the poor boy up.
Fai glanced over to Syaoran, not really expected much. However, his mind stopped for a second in confusion when he saw what the boy was using. "Syaoran-kun, what is that?" he asked.
"… Water?
"Good. Now what is that you're measuring it with?"
"A tablespoon?"
"Try again."
Syaoran looked at the initials engraved on the spoon and quickly turned red. "A, uh… teaspoon." (2)
"That's right. Here." Fai took the tablespoon off the ring with the other measuring spoons and gave it to him, along with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, it's not that big of a deal. If you had poured it in, it would be easy to fix. Again, it's a common mistake!"
"Thank you." Fai noticed that Syaoran was quickly loosing his confidence. He was concentrating very hard on pouring the rest of the ingredients. "'Add eggs, ¾ cup of water, vanilla,'" Syaoran read to Fai when he finished. "'Mix three to four minutes with an electric mixer.'"
"Have you ever cracked an egg before?" Fai asked. Syaoran shook his head. "It's very easy! All you do is take an egg, like so, and gently hit against the side of something. Once you get a good enough crack, you take the end of both sides and basically pull them apart. See?"
Syaoran nodded, took an egg of his own, and began to lightly tap it against the side of the bowl. Fai was going to suggest the side of something else, but by the way he was hitting it, he doubted that he would manage to get shells into the mix.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…
"You can hit it harder than that, Syaoran-"
"…kun."
In went exactly half the egg. Half the yolk, half the white part, and half the shell. The other half went onto the counter and began to drip onto the floor. While Syaoran cleaned up the egg and frantically apologized for making a mess, Fai fished out the egg shells in the batter, again telling Syaoran his hands were clean and he'd done it a thousand times and nobody had yet to get sick or die from it. He then had to somehow manage to get another half of an egg into the batter as he had Syaoran practice cracking the other four eggs in a different bowl. It took about fifteen minutes, but the boy did it without a single bit of shell going with the egg's insides to which Fai was thankful for and didn't hesitate to praise him for. It got a bit of his confidence back which was good. Fai didn't want to deal with a nervous Syaoran when this was supposed to be a relaxant. Even though Fai wasn't all that relaxed himself at the time.
"Alright, now we mix it all together with the mixer," Fai said, with a sigh of relief. "You see that little lever thing on the side there?" Syaoran nodded. "Just push that to the first notch and it will mix everything up for you. Okay?"
"Okay!"
Syaoran began to go to turn it on and had just put his finger on it, when out of nowhere Mokona popped out and shouted right in Syaoran's ear, "Hi, Syaoran-kun!" causing the poor boy to trip and push the lever to maximum speed. The machine gave out a loud whining sound as the batter flew all across the kitchen and onto the two people standing in front of it. Meanwhile, Mokona had taken refuge in Syaoran's clothes. Shielding his face as best he could, Fai felt around the machine looking for the lever while Syaoran ducked down to avoid any more of the batter. After being coated in a mix of wetness, dryness, and actual batter, Fai found the lever and pulled it back successfully turning it off.
"Mokona," Fai said from his slouched position over the mixer. "Where have you been all day?"
"Mokona was playing hide and seek!" the meat bun said, poking it's head out.
"… Why?" You have to give Fai credit when it came to keeping his temper. The man had just dealt with a surprisingly incompetent boy when it came to cooking and was now covered in batter thanks to a little white ball of fluff. Yet, he wasn't yelling like a certain ninja would be long ago. Bravo, Fai.
"Because I wanted to see how long it took for someone to find me! It was taking too long, though, so I decided to use one of my super secret techniques: surprise attack!"
"Well, it worked. Now how about you go and make sure Kuro-rin isn't being a naughty boy and hiding dirty magazines for me?"
"Mokona is up to the challenge!" It gave a small salute being bouncing away. Fai felt a little bad about having to get rid of it, but the thought was soon gone when he took a look at the state of the kitchen. He was really beginning to feel the stress of a mother.
With a small sigh, he said, "Come on, Syaoran-kun. We should start cleaning this mess up to get it over with."
"Okay, Fai-san." Syaoran said as he got up from his hiding spot. When Fai looked over at him, he immediately burst out laughing. Poor Syaoran was in not much better condition than himself. He could just barely make out his face as Syaoran looked as if Fai had completely lost it.
"Syaoran-kun!" Fai got out between gasps for air. "You… You look like a… a cake monster!"
Syaoran, still confused, looked at himself with the help of a spoon and began to laugh a bit as well. "Well, look at yourself, Fai-san!" Fai did so and soon found himself holding onto the counter to keep himself up, he was laughing so hard. "Imagine what the others would say if they saw us."
"Probably that we're idiots! Okay…" Fai took a few deep breaths before continuing, "Let's get ourselves cleaned up before we-ah!"
Letting go of the counter top and taking a step was a bad idea, because Fai quickly slipped on an egg and fell flat on his butt. There was a pause as the shock wore off and then he was back to cracking up. Syaoran tried to help him up, but that resulted in slipping on some batter and falling himself. After a few more tries at getting up, the two cooks decided it was best to stay put for a while. Besides, they couldn't stop laughing in order to get proper balance.
"Is all cooking this difficult?" Syaoran asked, wiping tears from his eyes.
"No," Fai said, still lightly chuckling. "If it was, we would never actually eat our meals. Plus, I don't think my bottom could handle so much bruising." Syaoran had to snicker at that. "Though we should hurry up and get this in the oven soon. You want it to be a surprise for Sakura-chan we she gets back, right?"
Fai was able to make out a blush on his face under all of the batter. "… Yes. I think that this journey's starting to get to her and I was hoping that this might make her forget about it for a while. I know that it's not much, but there isn't much else I can do aside from get her feathers back."
Fai looked at Syaoran for a bit before taking some batter and tossing it at him, hitting the boy square in the face. "Don't be like that!" Fai commanded the bewildered Syaoran. "I'm pretty sure why I know Sakura-chan is looking so sad lately."
"You do?! Why?!"
"Because Syaoran-kun is." Fai had to chuckle at the face Syaoran gave him after he wiped away the cake batter. "Really, you two are so funny! You both are so worried about the other and when you see one is just slightly not one hundred percent, it worries the other and then you have yourselves constantly worrying about each other when there is nothing to actually worry about!" Fai took some batter off of his own head and proceeded to drip it onto Syaoran's to make sure he had his full attention and because it looked funny. "It's absolutely wonderful that you both are so conscious of what the other is feeling, but you sacrifice what you're feeling yourself in the process. Do you understand?"
Syaoran looked down for a second as what Fai said sunk in. When he faced him again, Syaoran quickly took some of the batter Fai had put on his head and flung right back at him and into his face, catching Fai completely off guard. Smiling, Syaoran said, "Thank you, Fai-san. I think I'll talk to Sakura when she gets home."
Fai wiped off the batter revealing a huge grin. "I'm glad I could be of service! If you need anything else, feel free to come to me. I doubt Kuro-wan would be able to actually talk about his feelings with anybody!"
"I don't know. I'm sure he would if you opened up to him more."
Fai's grin vanished completely at that, but he made sure to give Syaoran a small smile, anyway. "Maybe." This was followed by a handful of batter shoved down Syaoran's back, making him yelp at the coldness and all around strange feeling that it gave him. "While we wait for our special people to come home, what say you and I leave this mess exactly the way it is?"
"What?! But won't Kurogane-san-?"
"Exactly! Syaoran-kun is so smart!"
"Um, o-okay. And the cake? We don't have nearly enough batter now for one… and can we please not scrape off the stuff from the floor and put it in the pans?"
"If you say so. But the great thing about cakes is that you can also make cupcakes using the same exact recipe for regular cake! We have enough batter in the bowl for about five good sized cupcakes. We'll just have to cut the frosting recipe in half. Think we'll be able to manage getting up now?"
After a few more slips, they were able to get up and pour the remaining batter into the cupcake holders without any mishap. Later, as they were beginning the frosting, this time Fai playing a more active role in the process, they heard the front door open and Sakura's quick footsteps come running in followed by Kurogane's heavy ones.
"We're home!" she called.
"We're in the kitchen, Sakura-chan!" Fai called out. "Did the two of you catch anything?"
"I came close, but-" Sakura stopped when she came into the kitchen, her eyes going a bit big. Kurogane soon appeared and got the same look on his face as he surveyed the mess. He took one look at Fai's smiling face before grabbing Sakura's head and steering her down the hall without a single word.
Fai and Syaoran turned to exchanged looks before doubling over with laughter once again.
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1.) It's true! Pink frosting tastes the absolute best!
2.) This is similar to what happened when I was teaching my younger brother (14) how to bake brownies. The only difference was that he was about to put in a tablespoon of vanilla instead of a teaspoon. Ew.
A/N: This was hard! Father daughter bonding is so much easier to write. I guess since I'm a daughter. But I like how this turned out. It could be better, but it's a good start since I hope to have other chapters with Fai and Syaoran bonding.
Next chapter! I hope to have a whole family fic, with SakuSyao and KuroFai-ness. Especially since we're going to need it with 159 this week and all… GEEZ!!!! My hands were shaking with excitement and shock after reading those spoilers! Ooooh, I promised myself I would read the actual scans (I know where to get them, hell, I'm a member of the Tsubasa msn community! (VivaldiBizet)) when the entire Celes arc is over, but it's getting haaaard! But I know I can do it! -determined Sakura mode- Need 160 spoilers… it is precious to us… Okay, sorry for that rant.