Chapter 20

After getting back home Hitomi found studying much harder than before until, after a few hours of not making any progress, she simply gave up, turned on the TV and simply zapped through the channels just to have something to do.

It worked well enough, until Hitomi found herself getting bored out of her mind, got up and changed into a simple jogging suit and did a few rounds around the block before heading to one of the parks she knew. A few children were playing around at the swing nearby.

The German spotted a good spot with enough space and headed over, opening the jacket and letting it fall on the ground, then rolled up the sleeves of her simple white T-shirt.

She took a deep breath, stretching a little, then got into position. The Karateka practiced her katas for the next hour until she was drenched in sweat. Wiping some of it from her brow she looked around and noticed that the children had stopped playing and were watching her in awe.

Showing them a toothy grin she grabbed her jacket, bound it around her waist and jogged back to her apartment, feeling rather refreshed despite her workout and her mind being clear of her worries for the time being, and hey she burned off some of that cake too.

Back home she checked for any mail and, when finding none, simply jogged up the stairs and entered her apartment, humming the tune from a song she heard on the radio and undressed, throwing her sweaty clothes into the laundry, then made her way into the bathroom to take a quick shower.

Afterwards, as she was drying her hair, she took a quick look at the clock and noticed that it was already evening, but after all the cake earlier she wasn't really hungry so she just sat down on her sofa and decided to watch a movie before calling it a day.

But when she lied down later that evening sleep wouldn't come. She tossed and turned, throwing off her blanket then covering herself again before sighing and opening her eyes, simply staring at the ceiling, her thoughts going back to her current dilemma.

When did it start She wondered, crossing her arms behind her head. Thinking back to the past days she wasn't so sure that this attraction was as sudden as she thought it was. She already saw some of her actions in Hong Kong in a different light, like how she acted when they shared a bath, or how she was seeking closeness with her whenever she had the chance without even realizing it.

So could her actions before that be an indication of her feelings as well and if so, when did it start?

In New York? During the tournament?

Or maybe even before that? Now that she thought about it she was always a bit on the more touchy-feely side with even her female friends, but Leifang didn't mind it over the time that they've known each other.

She wasn't sure about anything anymore, only that the best thing she could do right now was to ignore what she felt towards her friend. For her and for their friendship's sake. At least she told herself that, but the truth of the matter was that simply ignoring what she felt could not happen as long as Leifang was around, which would be for a few weeks.

Just bear it Hitomi, you can do it. She told herself. If she managed to bring tomorrow to a close without wanting to jump Leifang, then she could do it for the time that the Chinese would spend here and soon enough she would be up to her neck in her studies, leaving her with no time to think about her feelings and, soon enough, getting over them. Afterward you'll be laughing about all this.

There would still be the little fact that her sexuality wasn't what she thought it was and telling her father about it, but that was a hurdle she would take another time. First things first.

And the first thing on her list right now was getting some sleep and while it didn't come as quickly as she would have liked, it eventually came to her.

At least it was a start.

Hitomi woke up to the sound of her door bell ringing. Opening one of her eyes and groaning when she saw how late it was, she dragged herself out of the bed and left her bedroom, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." She muttered when the doorbell rang again. She straightening the long T-shirt that doubled as her nightgown so that she wouldn't show too much skin and pressed the buzzer, letting the person, who was probably Leifang anyway, in.

A fresh breeze hit her in the face as she opened the door, making her wake up completely. She rubbed the back of her hand against her eyes once more to clear them completely and stretched a bit to loosen some kinks in her back.

She was stifling a yawn when Leifang came into view, wearing a simple black t-shirt and a long jeans patterned skirt, the heels clacking with every step she made in the hallway.

"Hey." Hitomi greeted her, catching herself checking her out a little and averted her eyes smoothly, looking at the smiling face of her friend.

"Hi," she was greeted in return. Leifang looked her up and down and giggled. "You look like you just got out of bed."

"That's because I did. Didn't get much sleep last night." she explained, stepping out of the way to let her friend in and closing the door behind her. She pointed to the living room and stifled another yawn. "Why don't you sit down while I go change?"

"Sure, take your time."

Hitomi walked back into the bedroom, changed into some comfortable house clothes and made the bed while she was there before heading into the living room where her friend was sitting, waiting patiently and looking at the books strewn out over the table that the Karateka had left there the previous evening. Her gaze was focused on the math book and the several notes scattered across it.

"Yeah, math isn't one of my best topics." she explained while sitting down beside her.

"I can see that," Leifang replied amused, lifting one of the notes she had scribbled hastily. "So why bother studying it in the first place?"

"It's part of my pedagogy studies, and since I needed some minor classes I decided that one of them would be math. Guess that was the martial artist in me wanting to beat a challenge."

"Hmm, I see..." Leifang gathered up all of her notes and put them together then placed them neatly onto the table. "So should I help you? I'm actually rather good in math."

"Thanks, I'd appreciate it." She grabbed the book and pointed at the part where she was currently stuck. "I can't figure out how to solve this one."

Over the next few hours the two of them studied together, with the Chinese helping her and explaining something whenever she couldn't figure it out by herself, improving her progress tremendously.

After having gotten math down she turned to one of the easier topics, which she had to do alone because of the language barrier, and a few minutes later she found the Chinese simply staring at her as if she realized something only now. "What?" she asked.

"I never knew you needed reading glasses." Leifang said and had to suppress a giggle. "You look so cute!"

Hitomi felt herself flush a little and turned her attention back to the book mumbling: "Yeah whatever."

"Aww, don't be embarrassed. They suit you."

"I guess..." Hitomi simply continued to study as her friend watched her, concentrating as best as she could on the matter at hand instead of on the closeness of her friend.

After another thirty minutes the German put down her pen and looked at her friend, feeling rather hungry. "How about we skip the studying for now and get to the cooking? I'm getting pretty hungry."

Leifang's face lit up at the mention of that and nodded enthusiastically. "Sure."

They headed into the kitchen and Hitomi pulled various ingredients, as well as two stainless steels pots, a smaller and a larger one, and put them onto the counter, opening a package of milk and pouring it into the smaller of the two then turned to her friend.

"We'll be doing Croquettes today." Hitomi explained.

"Oh! I know those" Leifang said.

"Good, now here is a little fact, normally in Germany we make them out of potatoes, but today we're gonna do it differently." She lifted her finger and pointed at the meat. "First off we'll be cooking the chicken breasts in the milk, now we could do it with water too, but since we'll be using the milk anyhow it will have a bit more of a meaty taste, which is good."

After explaining she put the pot with the milk onto the stove and turned it on, then opened up the packages of the chicken breasts and washed them together with her friend. By the time they were done with that the milk was ready, so Hitomi put the meat in.

When it was finished she put the meat into sieve that she placed over the sink to let it dry a bit and when it was dry enough she placed it onto a cutting board, then handed a knife, hilt first, to her friend. "Could you cut those in very small bits? I need to prepare something else."

"Ok." Leifang said and grabbed the knife, getting started on cutting it when Hitomi showed her exactly how she should do it.

The brunette took the other pot and poured some oil and flour into it, looking over her shoulder to the Chinese, her eyes wandering over her body, down to her butt, then caught herself and turned back to what she was doing.

"Shit." she swore silently under her breath, nearly having put in too much, then put the pot on stove, grabbed a whisk and stirred it until it turned into paste.

"Hitomi, I'm finished."

"Good, bring it here." The Chinese did as she was told and Hitomi told her to pour it all into the bigger pot while Hitomi was still stirring it, increasing her speed.

"This needs to be stirred for fifteen minutes and after that it needs to cool down, for that we'll put it into this Tupperware box," she nodded towards the plastic repository. She stirred for a few more minutes and looked at Leifang, who was watching her in turn. "Wanna try?"

"Sure." They switched places and Hitomi stood close behind the Chinese, grabbing her hands and showing her exactly how she should do it and the German closed her eyes, inhaling the sweet fragrance of her perfume. Dammit!

"W-well that's how you do it." she said and let go of her, looking at the clock to hide the small blush on her face. "Um, do that for another 5 minutes and then put it in the Tupperware, it'll need to cool off for a while until we can work with it, you mind if I go take a shower?"

Leifang smiled at her and shook her head. "No, I think I'll be fine here so take your time."

"Great. Turn off the stove when you're finished and let it cool down on the air before putting it in the fridge." Hitomi went into the bathroom, undressed quickly and looked at her reflection in the mirror; good, the blush was already gone. She stepped into the shower.

After thirty minutes Hitomi stepped out of the shower, her hair still a bit damp, and saw her friend sitting on the sofa flipping through a magazine. "Everything went ok?"

"Yeah, I did as you told me." The German made her way into the kitchen cleaned the pots, put them way and checked if the sauce was already cold enough. Satisfied with it she pulled out the Tupperware and called Leifang over.

"All right," she said and pulled off the lid. "This is Bechamel sauce."

"Mhm, and how will that become Croquettes?"

"There comes the next part," she said and grabbed a few eggs and cracked them open over a bowl and let their content flow down into it, cleaned the whisk from before and beat the eggs. After having done that she opened a small receptacle filled with bread crumbs, then washed her hands. "The next thing we'll have to do is shaping the Bechamel into a cylindrical form."

She cut a small portion with a knife and showed her how it was done. "Like this."

They both worked on shaping them together, which took them a bit of time, since they joked a bit around while doing so, the Chinese bumping her hips against Hitomi's who retaliated until they both burst into laughter.

"Ok, that's the last one." Hitomi said and washed her hands again, then went to grab a frying pan out of the cupboards, placing it on the stove and pouring some oil into it, swaying it from side to side to spread it . "Your job now is to dip them into the egg and breadcrumbs and place them on the cutting board over here, I'm gonna take care of frying them."

"Okidokie." Leifang gave her a thumbs up and went to work and Hitomi had to clasp her hand over her mouth or else she might have laughed when her friend looked totally grossed out as she did what she was told, complaining that it was slimy."

"Come on, don't be a baby."

"Hmpf."

Chuckling to herself she shook her head and put the croquettes into the frying pan, watching her friend over her shoulder from time to time, who was slowly taking a delight in what she was doing. The Karateka couldn't stop the soft smile from forming on her lips and she felt her heartbeat going a little bit faster, a pleasant feeling coursing through her body.

For a moment she was simply content with everything, then dropped the smile and went back to what she was doing.

She didn't notice that she wasn't chiding herself this time.

Hitomi, you're being quite obvious you know.

Really I should stop writing about cooking when I'm getting hungry. That's never a good combination.

Well onto the next chapter then.