Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK

Illusions of the Sun

5: Nothing Like a Home Cooked Meal

When the hospital called, neither Kaito nor Shinichi had picked up the phone since they had both been at school. Therefore they didn't get the news until they got back and saw the message light blinking on the answering machine. Slightly confused by this since practically no one had their phone number, they'd pressed the button to play their messages. When the speaker announced that she was from the hospital, both boys had suffered a moment of panic before the rest of her words sank in.

"Did I hear that right?" Kaito demanded the moment the message stopped. Excitement simmered just below the surface of his voice but he held it in check as he turned his gaze to meet Shinichi's.

The oracle nodded, a matching smile breaking out across his face. "If you heard her saying that your mom's coming home this Friday then yes, you did."

The magician let out a whoop of delight and yanked Shinichi into an enthusiastic hug which left the oracle struggling for air. "It's about time!"

"Kai—can't breathe…!"

The magician loosened his grip and backed off a step, still grinning like a loon. "We can call in sick on Friday and go pick her up."

Shinichi let out a sigh of relief as oxygen rushed back into his lungs. "I'm sure they'd understand if you just told them the truth."

"It doesn't really matter anyway," Kaito replied, waving away the comment with a careless sweep of his hand. "We should celebrate somehow," he mused. "Something unique. That we haven't done before and that she wouldn't expect."

"We could make something special for dinner," Shinichi suggested. "She's been in the hospital all this time, I'm sure she'd appreciate some good food."

"You know, that's not a bad idea. Question is, can we cook?"

"We won't know unless we try," Shinichi reasoned. "It couldn't be that hard… We just need to go to the library and borrow some cookbooks. As long as we follow the instructions exactly I don't see any reason for it not to turn out okay."

X

Operation Dinner began with a dozen different cookbooks acquired from the local library. Since neither of them had any idea of what would be best, they had picked the ones with the most appealing pictures. As Kaito said, "If it tastes mediocre, at least it'll look good."

Shinichi wasn't sure if this was the best philosophy to go by, but it was better than nothing so they had borrowed the books and brought them home to sort through. Two hours of flipping through glossy pages covered in beautiful photographs of various dishes and they had selected a recipe for crab cakes (Kaito liked that the name sounded funny), curry (because they knew what it was), and a hot fudge sundae cake (of course dessert had to be full of chocolate, the more the better). Personally, Shinichi didn't think it sounded like a very balanced meal (weren't there supposed to be vegetables? Or did the veggies in the curry count?), but at least the main dish looked easy enough to make and the rest of it entertained Kaito enough to ensure that he wouldn't lose interest.

The next step was a trip to the super market. Up until that point they had mostly ordered out or bought simple foods. Still, this was a kind of everyday adventure that Shinichi rather thought would be good for them. They'd have to learn to cook eventually after all. Eating out all the time was too expensive.

Kaito had only ever gone to the grocery store to pick up snacks—mostly when Shinichi wasn't looking—so the only part of the place he was familiar with was the sweets aisles and the small bakery in the back. He was fairly happy for matters to stay that way and just let Shinichi deal with the proper food but this was a special occasion. His mother was finally going to be discharged from the hospital and they would all be together again. If that wasn't worth celebrating, he didn't know what was. But he still wanted to get a pack of those delicious chocolate bars he'd discovered on his last trip to the market.

"Why don't you go get the vegetables and I'll go find the coco powder and the rest of the baking stuff?" he suggested the moment they stepped through the automatic doors. "Then we can meet up at the meat section."

Shinichi gave him a puzzled look (Kaito still didn't like to let him out of his sight when they were out) before realization dawned and he sighed. "Just don't get too much candy. You're going to get cavities if you're not careful." And the magician already had too much energy to burn without the extra sugar. But saying that would only encourage him.

"Of course not," Kaito agreed airily in a manner that told Shinichi he was going to have to check over their selection before they checked out lest their pantry be more sweets than food. "Remember, head to the meat section when you're done. Whoever gets there first should pick out the chicken for the curry."

Shinichi watched the magician bound towards the baking aisles with the sudden feeling that this whole escapade was a bad idea. He shook it off, reminding himself that they were just trying to cook something. It wasn't rocket science. Lots of people did this kind of thing every single day without anything bad happening. And surely there was only so bad it could get.

With that semi comforting thought in mind he approached the islands of vegetables and fruits that occupied the left half of the store.

"Let's see…" he murmured to himself as he perused the list he'd written up in the pocket notebook he'd acquired from the local bookstore. "We need carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, onions, mushrooms…" Funny. The list looked a lot longer now that he was here. "Well, I guess we'd better get started."

X

What Kaito loved most about this particular super market was that they had an entire aisle devoted to chocolate. Other lesser candies had been relegated to the next row over to make room for everything from black chocolate blocks the size of bricks to chocolate covered pretzels. He'd already grabbed two boxes of coco powder and dropped them in his basket. Now it was time to pick the real treats and oh there were just so many to choose from!

Should he get a bag of milk chocolate covered raisins or some of those mint chocolate patties? Or maybe one of those mixed assortment bags. That one sure looked full of interesting things.

Or he could get some of each. He'd just have to go check some of the extra items out before going to meet with Shinichi.

Mind made up, he dumped his findings into the basket and continued towards the aisle where he thought the flour and other baking necessities would be.

X

Shinichi was hovering over the apples (he'd decided to pick up some fruits while they were there) when he heard someone call his name. Looking around, he saw Ran coming towards him. Like him, she had a shopping basket over one arm.

"Do you come here often?" she asked as she approached. "I've never seen you here before."

"No, I've only been here a few times since we moved here," he replied.

Ran nodded, glancing into his basket and raising her eyebrows slightly. "Wow that's a lot of food. Is it for some kind of special occasion?"

"Kaito's mom is being released from the hospital tomorrow," Shinichi explained. "We've decided to make something special to celebrate."

"Oh I see, congratulations," Ran said with a warm smile. "In that case you should really buy these," she added, her hands darting this way and that over the produce display with the assurance of an expert. "Everything at this market tends to be pretty fresh, but these look the most healthy. And look here, that one you picked up a moment ago is bruised."

Shinichi nodded as he trailed after her from island to island, listening to her explain the fine points of how to pick high quality produce. "I never realized there was so much to think about. Do you cook a lot then?"

The girl laughed a bit sheepishly. "Yeah. Cooking's always been a hobby for me. And my dad can't cook to save his life so if I want the house to stay standing I have to keep him out of the kitchen."

"Keep the house standing…?"

Ran sighed, exasperation clear in her voice as she explained. "Let's just say that last time he turned on the stove he left the pot on too long and ended up starting a fire."

"I see." Shinichi made a mental note to pick up a timer. "Well, thank you for all the help. I had no idea there was so much to pay attention to when getting ingredients."

"I'm glad I could help," she replied. "If you ever need any tips, don't hesitate to ask. By the way, if you live around here, you should make sure to lock all your doors and windows whenever you're not home. There's been a few break-ins in the area."

"We'll remember. Thanks again."

Shinichi was not at all surprised to see all the various types of chocolate that hadn't been in their baskets when he'd gone through the checkout line appear in the cupboard while they unpacked. What he was surprised to see was the tub of chocolate ice cream that materialized in the fridge. How had Kaito managed both to keep the tub hidden and stop it from melting? Shinichi would have thought he'd used real magic, but Kaito was fairly good about keeping his promise not to use that in public.

X

The actual cooking part of the experiment went…well, it could have gone better certainly, but Shinichi was relieved to say that nothing caught fire. There were however a few bumps along the road that he would look back on in the future and wonder if he should laugh or groan.

"Uh…Shinichi?"

"Huh?" The oracle glanced up from the open cookbook he was reading to see Kaito staring down into the sink. "What is it?"

"Did we buy extra cucumbers?"

"I…think we might have. Why?"

Turning fully to face Shinichi, Kaito held up two thin, pale green sticks. Shinichi stared at them for a moment before he realized that they were the cucumbers Kaito had been skinning. What was left of them anyway. Each of the pale, green cucumbers was about half the size they had been before the skinning.

"…"

"…"

Rising from the table, Shinichi moved over to the sink and looked down. Sure enough, the cucumber peels littered the metal basin in countless strips of dark and light green. Some of the slivers were mostly the pale green of the cucumber interiors with only threads of darker green skin.

"It wasn't easy getting all the bits," Kaito said by way of explanation, sounding slightly sheepish but also kind of amused. "Sorry."

They'd ended up skinning all six cucumbers. The post-skinning results grew progressively less diminutive with each of Kaito's attempts, but not by much. Apparently skill with his hands didn't translate to the skinning of vegetables. Shinichi decided to skin the carrots himself and set Kaito to cutting up the things that would go into the curry.

"Remember, everything's supposed to be cut to about the same size."

Kaito flipped the knife he was holding so that it spun three full circles in the air before catching it again and grinning. For added effect blue and white sparks spun through the air in the wake of the knife's sharp edge as though it had cleaved the air itself into pieces. "Got it."

The next few minutes went by quietly as the assorted curry ingredients were reduced to small pieces one by one. Shinichi was slightly shocked when he was presented with several trays of perfectly cubed cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, and even meat, but, well…even if it looked weird, at least he could say with perfect honesty that they were all exactly the same size.

"I'll finish the curry," he announced, finding the mental image of Kaito at the stove…unsettling. "Why don't you do the cake? The instructions are bookmarked."

Cooking, Shinichi decided as he stirred the contents of the curry pot, was actually kind of relaxing. All you had to do was follow the instructions and watch as something new appeared. It was almost like a different kind of magic seeing all those raw ingredients come together and become something else entirely. The fact that you could eat what appeared was a nice bonus too.

By chance he glanced over to where Kaito was hovering over the baking dish containing the soon-to-be-cake and yelped. "Kaito! What are you doing?"

"Adding the chocolate of course," Kaito replied without looking up from his work. "What does it look like?"

"It says one fourth of a cup, not two whole cups!"

"But it's a chocolate cake," the magician protested. "How can a chocolate cake be good with only one fourth cups and some teaspoons of chocolate in it?"

"Why didn't you just buy some chocolate bars then?" the oracle huffed, snatching the pan out from under Kaito's clutches and beginning to try and gently scrape the excess chocolate powder off of the top of the mix. It didn't work very well.

"I did," Kaito replied, trying to take the pan back so he could replace the powder Shinichi had managed to remove. "But that doesn't mean I don't want the cake to taste good."

"Lots of chocolate does not equate tasting good," Shinichi countered, shouldering his way between Kaito and the pan and using himself to shield the cake mix from the magician who seemed intent on drowning it in coco powder. He shot a glance at the numbers on the oven and noted that it had finished preheating. Quickly, he picked up the pan and dove for the oven. Pulling it open, he shoved the cake mix inside and shut the door before Kaito could grab it again.

X

Kuroba Chikage looked up at the house her son and the boy she thought of as her second child had escorted her up to and for a moment she felt her eyes tearing up. She blinked quickly to clear the tears away, not wanting to worry the boys who she could feel were watching her anxiously. She had never said anything about it to Kaito during the times she had been allowed to see him during their imprisonment, but she had lost hope years ago of ever being able to go back to that world that had begun to feel like a distant dream…of ever being able to really live again. And the thought that her children would never have the chance to grow up and make friends and go out there to fulfill those dreams they used to talk about all the time… There were no words that could describe the terrible ache that realization had brought with it. Not only had she lost her husband and two of the best friends she'd ever had, but she had failed their children and couldn't do a thing about it.

She had been utterly useless, and she would never be able to forgive herself for that. But now…now she was standing here with both of them by her side and it was all real.

Real like the smiles they had worn when they had greeted her at the hospital that day.

"And this is your room," Shinichi was saying as he and Kaito showed her into a sizable room furnished in warm colors. "We, uh, didn't know what kinds of patterns you'd like," the oracle continued, looking slightly embarrassed. "But you can get it changed if you want. They have a lot of patterns at the store and they said it was all right to go switch colors when we told them, and—"

"It's wonderful," she assured him, smiling warmly as she took in the room. "Thank you both."

"Oh, and we made lunch!" Kaito announced, herding them all towards the kitchen.

Chikage blinked in surprise at the pronouncement. Neither boy had ever shown any interest in the culinary arts as far as she could remember (and frankly she'd never liked the idea of her son in a kitchen).

Kaito pulled out a chair for her before making a beeline for the silverware as Shinichi dealt with the serving. Three plates of curry and white rice were set out on the table along with…flat, crunchy looking brown things.

Shinichi caught her looking at the odd, brown things and blushed. "Uh…just think about them as…crab cookies, I guess."

"Okay," she agreed, hiding a smile. "So when did you two learn how to cook?"

"We got cookbooks from the library," Kaito replied, handing everyone their own set of utensils before plopping into a chair himself. "There's dessert too!"

"Really? And what might it be?" Chikage asked, rather curious.

To her surprise, the innocent question caused Shinichi to groan as Kaito grinned and scratched the back of his head. "Chocolate ice cream. It was going to be cake, but…it didn't turn out right."

"And whose fault would that be," Shinichi muttered, grimacing at the memory.

"Aww come on, it wasn't that bad. At least we know what not to do next time."

Chikage laughed as she picked up her spoon. It was the first time she had laughed in such a long time that it sounded foreign even to her own ears, but it felt good too. It was…like seeing the sun rise in a clear sky after a night full of storms.

It wasn't the best tasting meal in the world, but no one could say it wasn't interesting. And it was the first meal they had all sat down to together in this new home and that made all the difference.

TBC