A/N: 781 words; I literally wrote this and Day Eight in one sitting (not including brief editing) and I am proud of that; no warnings other than moderate language

Day Five: Clione - Baking

Cursing whomever it was that picked the oven he was currently fighting with, Clione tried to not pull out his hair as he tried to figure out why it wasn't turning on. It was already a finicky, temperamental thing that only allowed a select few to use it, but everything he currently was doing led to the same result: a cold oven while there was bread nearly done proofing.

"Piece of shit!" he cussed, kicking the appliance. That didn't set it off either. He didn't get it—everything was plugged in and attached correctly, nothing was missing or out-of-place—why wouldn't it work?!

"Doing that isn't going to make it any better," Shachi said. Clione looked to see his crewmate standing there, reaching for an apple that was sitting in the fruit bowl. "We used to go weeks sometimes without using it."

"How in the hell did you get anything done?" Clione wondered. Shachi shrugged.

"At least the Captain won't miss bread, and a happy Captain leads to a happy life."

"I guess." He looked over at the bread pans and tried to think of what to do. "I can't stick them in the freezer at this point, so now what?"

"Get creative."

"…and how do you propose I do that?"

"You can always do what Penguin and I did when we wanted a bit of pizza back in the day." Clione tilted his head and frowned—huh…? "There's another oven on the ship, if you know where to look."

Clione thought about that for a moment before it clicked in his head. "But Ikkaku will kill us."

"Ikkaku's on rest shift."

Oh… he had a point.

It did not take long for Shachi and Clione to bring all the bread pans to the boiler room, confusing Uni as they invaded the operation with their own. Shachi located the door they'd use as an oven and Clione slid the loaves in, hoping it would work out alright. It seemed like it did, with the shelf on the inside of the boiler furnace just big enough for what he had, with a lip on the inside edge so that the pans didn't slide off. To be honest, Clione was impressed with the idea even slightly working—maybe if he'd spent more time in the boiler room, he'd've thought of it earlier…

"Are you sure that's going to be alright?" Uni wondered, pointing at the oven door. "That's kind of taking a big risk, isn't it?"

"Nah; Ikkaku would be the one who'd hate it the most, and she's not scheduled for another five hours," Clione reasoned. "Besides, Shachi said he and Penguin did it all the time."

"Then why is he not here?"

"…because he's got other things to do? I don't know." It was true that Shachi had very conveniently slipped out of the boiler room, but that was neither here nor there, right? "Besides, they're almost done."

"If you say so," Uni warned, going back to monitoring his series of pressure valves and thermometers. He didn't want to seem to be involved—oh well. That was fine. Clione peeked in on the bread and felt highly accomplished—it was done. He put on his oven mitts and began to take the pans out one by one, setting them down on the high-temperature thermal mat he was standing on before transporting them to the kitchen. Bringing them over two at a time, he was nearly done when Ikkaku almost ran into him in the doorway.

"What's that…?" she asked, pointing to the pans. Clione presented them proudly (whilst unknown to him, Uni facepalmed at his stupidity).

"The oven in the kitchen wasn't working, so I used an alternative," he said. "It worked well, didn't it?"

"You used my furnace to bake bread?" Ikkaku frowned. He shrugged.

"Only because the oven was being a shit; looks like they turned out great, though."

"Okay, here's a tip for you: never, ever use the furnace to bake anything ever again. The potential mess is not worth cleaning up." Her warning out of the way, she then folded her arms as she stared him down. "Now, who was it who gave you the idea? Penguin or Shachi?"

"Uh…"

"I'm not an idiot; which one?"

"Shachi…?"

"Good. You live another day." She walked away, seemingly too calm for what just happened, with Uni leaning down to look at the bread for a moment.

"Better leave now while you have the chance," he warned. Clione did not give him the chance to say it again, bolting off in the direction of the kitchen, the sounds of Ikkaku arguing chasing him as he made it to safety.