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Caught on Camera

Photograph: Cream Coats

Shinichi frowned slightly at the blobby, white figures that dominated the next photo. "Are those supposed to be snow sculptures?"

"Doesn't look like snow," Kaito mused. "Looks kind of like cream."

"…Cream sculptures?" Shinichi glanced at their parents. Even for them that would be weird.

"I'd look again if I were you," Chikage laughed lightly…

. . . . . . . . .

The smell that filled the Kudo house that day was nothing short of divine. The creator of this wonderful aroma was one Kuroba Chikage. She had offered to bake cakes for the charity fair being held in front of the Beika Museum and as the Kudo Manor was closer she had acquired the use of their kitchen. Now its temporary ruler, she had ordered the rest of the adults to occupy themselves elsewhere and not get in her way. She had stopped letting her husband into her kitchen while it was in use long ago after the first exploding cake had plastered icing all over her walls. The two Kudo parents weren't quite as prone to making things go bang, but neither of them liked cooking much and there was nothing more irritating in a busy kitchen than idle hands. So it was that Toichi, Yuusaku, and Yukiko had all exiled themselves to other parts of the house. Chikage was a very even tempered woman, but she could be a tyrant in the kitchen and none of them wanted to incur her wrath.

She had decided that she would bake ten cakes for the fair, one for the two families to eat later that day, one for the Kudos to keep, and one to take home. The sugar consumption in her own household was somewhat on the high end after all so she might as well stock up. With everything organized in her mind, she set to work with the determined vigor of a woman with a deadline to meet.

The only occupants of the house who were unaware of the current situation were the two toddlers who had been set down in the living room. Yuusaku had been assigned the duty of keeping an eye on them, but he had run up to the library to fetch a book with the thought that he could read the two a story. Of course, the toddlers didn't know this.

Shinichi, Kaito had discovered, really liked to sleep, so that meant he had to take advantage of every moment that his fellow toddler was awake. Like now. And since the man with the glasses had gone away it seemed like a great time to get moving.

Frankly Shinichi was getting bored. There was nothing new in the living room to explore and most of his toys were upstairs and he was getting tired of waiting for his father to come back. So when Kaito glanced at him before clambering off the couch, he naturally followed. Kaito, he'd learned, had a nose for finding interesting things.

Following the wonderful smells, the two boys made their way into the kitchen. Once there however they were sidetracked by the tablecloth. It was a new one patterned like autumn leaves and Kaito noticed immediately how some of the leaves were shiny. Intrigued, he sat down beside the trailing edge of the cloth and pulled on it, watching as the motion made the leaves shimmer through a range of bronze and gold lights. He grinned and glanced towards Shinichi who was examining another patch of shiny leaf patterning with great curiosity like someone wondering how it worked.

Chikage jumped as a loud clang split the warm, kitchen air and she whirled towards it just in time to see the last tip of the table cloth slither over the far edge of the table. Dropping the egg shell she'd been holding hurriedly into the sink, she made her way to the table and looked over the other side. The table cloth lay pooled amidst a sea of foamy whiteness. The extra large mixing bowl which had once contained thirteen cakes' worth of cream lay almost empty not far from it.

And there, smack in the middle of the mess, sat two cream covered toddlers blinking up at her with wide, startled eyes.

The part of her that was keeping a checklist of everything she had to get done and the timetable she'd constructed groaned inwardly at the thought of having to remake all that special cream, but she couldn't really be angry with the two little boys. Instead she moved around the table and knelt down to check that neither of them had gotten hurt. Although she knew exactly who was going to be cleaning all the cream up off the floor. Upstairs one Kudo Yuusaku sneezed just as he finally decided on which books to bring downstairs.

. . . . . . . . .

…"We wouldn't have gotten off half so easy if it had been one of us," Toichi mused. "You two should be grateful you were so young."

"Indeed," Yuusaku agreed with a grimace. "I was scrubbing that floor for hours."

Shinichi snickered. "Now that would be a picture worth having."

"You know, the thought crossed my mind as well," Toichi said with a grin. He snapped his fingers and flipped around the item that appeared in his hands to reveal—a photo of Yuusaku sitting on the Kudo kitchen floor with splotches of cream all over his clothes and hair as the two toddlers sat beside him, apparently busy plastering more cream onto him as he tried to fend them off. This time it was Yuusaku's turn to grumble as the rest of the room had a good long laugh at that.

TBC

A.N: Not exactly a birthday cake, but it's what came to mind. Anyhow, see you next time!