Cooking by the Book

Soon was not soon enough, but the cake would take a while to cool. It wasn't like those wouldn't take just as long. So Aoi needed to practice patience, and her face gradually reverted to not-puppylike. "I shall accept the offering then. Yes, sweets..."

"I am just happy, Rin will be protected and... I can stay by his side for now." Aoi felt a little bad about her actions, so she tried to explain them off with a sheepish grin. Maybe she had been too forceful.

"I have the ingredients at home, so next time I have a chance in the kitchen there I'll be sure to make them."

He'd be sure to make extra as well, so not only could he share some with Aoi and perhaps other members of the division but Nozomi as well, and then maybe some for a nice dessert snack later as well. In the end he'd likely end up making too many due to getting caught up into cooking anyway, so quantity wasn't necessarily a worry.

"I'm glad, I'm glad you're happy and I'm glad that I'm able to help."

Whenever it came to using his status for anything, he liked to do so for good rather than selfish reasons -- this occasion, he thought it was good. He was helping a friend and the person she cared for dearly. It made him feel happy he could do that.

"Yay! You are the best captain. The most magical... You can cook such yummies." She was definitely easily pleased and seemed rather enamored in the idea of baking. Her hair fanned a bit behind her as she spun around in a circle, humming to herself. Food food food.

"Hm... well what do we do now?" The cake still wasn't cool enough. Should they make frosting?

His smile remained due to her compliments, he wouldn't know about best but still...it felt nice to receive such nice words.

He glanced over at the cooling cake as Aoi questioned what they'd do next, "We should probably get started on the frosting now, since you wanted zebra strips I suppose black and white frosting? Or were you wanting to do other colors?"

"I can have..colored zebra frosting?" Aoi's voice dropped to a whisper, her eyes almost as big as dinner plates. The thought of colored zebra stripes had slipped Aoi's mind. You could DO that? Sparkles fluttered from her eyes as she stared up at Masaru.

Still in that whisper, almost as if she was in a holy place, she continued. "Can they be bright orange and laser green? With a purple skull?"

Once again Aoi managed to catch the captain by surprise, as he hadn't thought about such a color combination before...It was certainly doable though.

"Sure, we can do that. We should have what we need here to make icing of those colors." He responded kindly. "So bright orange and green along with purple. Got it."

While Aoi watched in awe, Masaru started preparing the ingredients for the frosting. She grabbed whatever he asked her too and soon there were three sets of icing, the purple being the smallest while the orange and green (dayglo and bright) were in two larger bowls. They would cover the cake so there needed to be a bit more than the purple, which would be accents.

Aoi may have sneaked some tasting of the frosting and her mouth may have had tints of color on it. Totally not a giveaway... Making the icing had taken a bit, and now Aoi stared impatiently at the cake. She wanted, she NEEDED to color this thing. Looking to her Captain, she tapped her foot. "Is it ready now?"

Giving a laugh, Masaru nodded.

"It should be ready to decorate now."

Now that the icing was done the cake should be cool enough now. Glancing at the cake he gave another small nod. "If you need help with the stripes or anything I can help...drawing with icing can be a bit more difficult than it seems."

"I have to do this... alone. I hope you understand me." Aoi's face was utterly serious as she gave Masaru a rather formal bow. As she rose up, her face was one of intense concentration. Taking first the orange, she quickly and very badly covered parts of the cake with it. Her lines were more squiggles and whenever she tried to smooth a place it ended up worse than before. Adding the green to the mix only made things worse. Soon Aoi was covered in the frosting, oddly enough rather perfectly striped. However the cake... the poor cake.

It hadn't deserved this. In some places while trying to fix the 'zebra' stripes she had swirled them into some odd color that didn't look nice. Any help Masaru would offer, the young woman would solemnly turn aside. The cake looked awful, not at all like it should, as she quickly started on 'skulls'. They...were just weird purple blobs that maybe you could make out an eyehole on? In fact, with the addition of the purple...

The whole cake looked like it was some oddly alien diseased monsterosity. However it wasn't moving, so that was a distinct improvement. Putting the finishing purple boil on the cake, she set down the icing bag and turned to Masaru. Her face was excited and happy and she almost shook as she exclaimed. "Its perfect! Look at it! Oh wow this was so fun I did such a good job!"

Standing back, Masaru watched as Aoi...decorated the cake. It wasn't exactly turning out picture perfect but Aoi was having fun with it and that was what mattered when decorating a cake or anything. As long as someone had fun doing it then it was all good in the end, even if things didn't turn out exactly like one pictured.

Any kind of help he offered just in case she needed it was turned down, and he complied respectfully to her wishes as she continued her mission of decorating the cake. While the cake wasn't exactly turning out with the imagined image...strangely Aoi was, as the extra icing that ended up getting on her somehow ended up perfectly striped while the cake...not so much.

Finally, Aoi set down the icing bag before turning to him with a bright expression to which he returned with a smile of his own.

"I'm glad you had fun, decorating can be one of the funnest parts of it even if the job can be a little messy." He said with a chuckle.

Aoi could not restrain herself anymore. She dove for Masaru, icing and all and gave him a big warm hug. Now Masaru was probably covered in as much icing as she was, but she held on and her tone was one of excitement. "Thank you thank you! It was the best, much more fun that cooking... Much easier too!"

She probably ended up grinding into his clothing a bit more icing as she rubbed her face in his clothing in glee. SUCCESS. WINNING. Aoi had done something related to cooking and wasn't a total failure!

He was a bit surprised at the sudden hug, but after a moment of surprise a smile appeared on his face before he patted Aoi lightly on the head. He was likely covered in icing now as well but he didn't mind it.

"I'm glad you had fun. Cakes can be a hassle sometimes but if you have fun making and decorating it I'd say the hassle's worth it."

"It is the most fun I've had cooking. And most successful! The cake didn't disappear like they normally do." Aoi nodded and held onto Masaru, feeling happy and warm. Her captain was so kind and generous...taking time to help her and care for her even after such a short time. She wanted to cry, she didn't deserve any of this...

It was like he was a big brother. She would enjoy this hug a bit longer. He smelled like icing. It was nice.

Masaru chuckled, he was really glad she'd had fun and enjoyed it, it was fun to cook with others and even though they'd talked about some rather serious subjects in between it had still been a great time. Plus, it was probably a good thing they'd talked about those things, if they just kept to themselves it would make it harder to really be friends, or even just subordinate and superior.

"Next time we can do something smaller and easier, like cookies. Like I mentioned before, those are a good start, and they're not as hard to make as cakes."

"Can we make a bunch of different kinds? I heard there are a bunch." Aoi was grinning from ear to ear, thinking of all the baking she could do with a MASTER like Masaru to teach her. She had learned so much about her Captain and was very happy with today.

It was odd, but she still looked up to him. Maybe even more because of it. He was still all the things she had thought before, but more due to his more human nature that was apparent. Still wasn't as cute as Rin though, though the scar was sexy.

"Mhmm, we can try all sorts of different kinds. There's plenty to chose from." Masaru smiled, noticing Aoi's increasing excitement about the idea of next time and trying out cookies.

"I'll be sure to pick up more ingredients too, I have extra back at home so I can just bring it here and then we should have enough to make a few dozen batches."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just go to your house and make it then?" Aoi grinned and turned to look back at her magnificent creation, before running around the kitchen while giggling. "I'm just so happy! I can't sit still! I finally made something that didn't disappear and its so pretty! Ahh! Thank you Masa!"

"I suppose it would be easier, if you'd like to come over to make the cookies that's perfectly acceptable." Masaru laughed as Aoi ran around, unable to contain her happiness from the activity.

"It's not a problem, I had just as much fun." He added with a final chuckle.

"You have spoken and it shall be done! Whenever you want me to come by, just stop by my quarters in the barracks. I'm really easy to find Masa!" Aoi grinned, still nyooming around the kitchen. She ran out into the hallways for a second before coming back in.

She then threw herself at Masaru in a surprise hug attack latching onto for a second before giggling and continuing her nyooming. It was warm in her heart, she liked the feeling.

"Alright then, I'll be sure to let you know when then." Masaru said just before Aoi ran out into the halls before returning, unexpectedly throwing herself onto him for another hug; which had cause the captain to stumble a step but he easily caught his balance, before she began running again.

He couldn't help but let out a few more chuckles at her excitement, it was amusing.

Aoi eventually Nyoomed her way out of the room. She might be back later. Or not. But for now she was enjoying her success as best she could, with hugs and cheery laughter.

As Aoi bolted away again, still caught up in her energetic excitement, Masaru glanced back at the cake. Carefully, he sat a transparent, plastic, cover over it so it wouldn't get messed up for now since no one was currently eating it.

He'd need to wash up later too, as he was still covered in icing from Aoi's decorating.

Still, despite the mess it'd been fun. It'd been lots of fun.