Disclaimer ~ I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Prompt: Skull cooks
Skull hummed a cheerful tune to himself as he browsed the fridge for ingredients. Normally he would save himself the trouble of cooking and just find something from the nearby town to eat, but today Skull decided to spice it up a little. He wanted omurice, but there wasn't any good Japanese restaurants in their little Italian town, so Skull decided that he would cook it himself.
"Jackpot!" he exclaimed, finding the last ingredient he needed behind some leftover Chinese takeout and the milk carton. One couldn't make omurice without eggs after all.
Now that all his ingredients had been gathered on the counter, Skull began his prep work. But first he needed his headphones. As was his habit when cooking or working in his garage, Skull would wear his headphones and ignore the outside world for a while. Simply allowing himself to be absorbed in what he was doing.
Humming along to his music, Skull focused solely on his cooking. Making sure everything was finely diced, the meat was fully cooked through, the rice was perfectly seasoned and sautéed with the onions, and finally ending with the eggs made into a light, fluffy blanket to cover the mixture.
So absorbed in what he was doing, Skull never noticed the others gathering one by one to watch him cook. Nor did he hear them talking due to the music blasting in his ears. And it didn't help that Skull's back was towards the door, so he couldn't see them gathering there. Normally these were the ideal conditions for Reborn or Colonello to jump scare Skull, but both were mesmerized watching the cloud. Nobody had seen him cook before, none of them even aware he knew how to cook, so it was quite surprising to see him moving around the kitchen fluidly, almost as if cooking was his profession instead of stunt riding.
"Who knew he could cook, Kora?" Colonello asked, glancing at the others gathered. Around him. Like him, they were attracted by the wonderful smell emanating from the kitchen. It was heavenly enough to drag even Verde out of hiding.
"Muu. It is a surprise," Viper spoke. They filed the information away for later use.
"The lackey's food better be good," Reborn Tsk'd, pulling the rim of his fedora down to cover his eyes.
"I'm more concerned about how he hasn't noticed us yet. We aren't exactly hiding our presence after all," Fon said calmly, although with a hint of concern. Even Skull's limited situational awareness compared to theirs should have been more than enough to sense them standing there, even without looking at them.
"If you look closely, you can see he has earbuds in," Verde pointed out. Fon gave him a pointed look.
"Would that have stopped any of us?" he countered. Verde had to concede to that.
The conversation died down as they returned to watching Skull's expert movements while he prepared his meal. Alas, all good things must come to an end as Skull pocketed his earbuds and grabbed a fork from the drawer.
"If any of you are hungry, I made enough for everyone," Skull called out without turning around. Being called out like that came as a surprise, since it never once seemed like Skull had noticed them standing there.
"How long have you known we were there?" Lal asked as the group took their usual places at the table. All of them were completely unashamed at being caught.
Skull passed out plates of food, sitting each one in front of them along with utensils. "I heard you talking as the song was changing," he explained.
"Dig in," Skull said, taking a bite of his omurice. The others followed suit cautiously, but began devouring the meal as soon as the taste hit their tongues. Easily the best thing any of them had ever eaten. All of the plates were finished in record time and Skull found himself on the receiving end of six pairs of pleading expressions.
"More please?"
Hello readers of fanfics! Tis me! The Author! Returning after an eternity of writer's block and minimal free time. Dramatics aside, sorry it's taken so long to get back to posting. Honest and truly, I genuinely forgot I had several chapters ready to be posted, and only recently found any time to work on new updates. A few weeks ago I bought a Bluetooth keyboard so I could write on my iPad while babysitting. It's been a literal lifesaver. I'm not even kidding. It's impossible to type on a laptop when you have a six month old in your arms passed out but the Bluetooth keyboard is small enough I can type relatively decently one-handed. Or I can use the baby to balance the keyboard enough to where I can use both hands. But yeah, since buying that, I've been able to actually get some writing done. I started a completely new fic, which I will be posting along with this chapter and several others, and I have been working on typing up old chapters I wrote in a notebook but haven't had the chance to make digital yet. Fun piece of advice, do not try to work on your fanfics when working in the ER registration. It was a slow day and we had caught up on everything we needed, so I thought "this is a great time to type up that chapter that I need to do!" And as soon as I opened my notebook we had a patient walk in so I had to hurriedly put everything away. And this happened, I kid you not, seven times the entire day. We didn't even have that many patients that day! When I just have my keyboard and iPad it's fine. But as soon as I pulled out the notebook, whoo boy.
Enough of my ramblings. I still have a ton more ANs to finish so I can go on a posting spree. Hope you all enjoy that craziness. Thank you all for reading this story and sticking around despite my slow updates! I'll see you all on the next update!
