Team Present, prompt 4: I love you like a fat kid likes cake.
Title: The way to a man’s heart
Pairing/Group: Koyama/Shige, News
Rating: pg13
Warnings: outbreak of fire (no one gets hurt)
Summary: Instead of being allowed to promote their sexy side, News is relegated to the kitchen. Shige thinks baking is a great new creative outlet, but he may need some help.
Notes: I hope you enjoy this!
“I thought we were the sexy group now,” said Shige. He cast a disdainful look at the array of suggested props for the new theme. They didn’t look very sexy.
“Me too,” Koyama said absently, picking up a spatula to get a closer look at the bright pink handle.
“Aren’t we supposed to be competing with Yamashita-kun over who is the most… you know, erotic? Though I think he cheated with that album title.”
“Yamashita cheats with his face,” Massu muttered to the ceiling. The others pretended they hadn’t heard, although Shige made a face. They weren’t giving up yet. They were still totally in the game.
“I hate to think I wore that leather getup for nothing,” Shige complained.
“Oh shut up, you loved that,” said Tegoshi. He scrunched up his face trying not to laugh too hard at Shige’s expense; at least not hard enough to warrant a day’s long sulk. They’d made vague plans of going for drinks after work and Tegoshi hated to pay for them when there were perfectly capable senpai around to do it. Not that he normally thought of Shige as his senpai, but alcohol … and Shige being an old bore … had a way of really emphasizing those four months.
He pointed one of the pink spatulas at their luckless manager who had been hovering around anxiously. Koyama had moved on to inspect the hand mixer.
“Why isn’t our photo shoot sexy?” Tegoshi demanded. Their manager had the decency to look embarrassed.
“You know, personally, I was all in favor of you four being the new sexy group,” he thought it prudent to mention.
“So who demoted us to the kitchen?” Shige asked, grimacing at Koyama who seemed to be enjoying himself quite well and not helping their cause at all. Koyama didn’t notice; he’d found a recipe book with colorful pictures. Sato-san shuffled his feet and fumbled with his glasses.
“I ran into some problems,” he said vaguely.
“What kind of problems?” Koyama asked. He was finally distracted from all the cute things to make food with by a twinge of his mother hen instinct, which watched over hapless managers in addition to members.
“We kind of had a fight over who was to dominate the ero market,” said Sato-san. He wrung his hands nervously.
“A fight?!” all four of them exclaimed.
“Tell me you at least punched him in the nose,” Tegoshi added hopefully.
“A fight with Yamapi’s manager?” Massu asked. Sato-san looked up in surprise.
“Oh! No!” he assured them. “With Yanagihara-san, KAT-TUN’s new manager.” The four of them let out a collective groan.
“Not foiled again by those guys, surely,” Shige muttered. He made some unconsciously violent movements with a large spoon.
“She’s really…” Sato-san paused and licked his lips, trying to come up with an appropriate term, “Quite something,” he finished lamely. “We played rock paper scissors for it,” he added.
"You lost our sexy to rock paper scissors?" Tegoshi moaned. "I'm disappointed in your managerial skills."
Koyama elbowed him and gave him a disapproving Leader look, while Sato-san muttered in the general direction of the floor that he was sure she cheated.
"Well, that's neither here nor there now," Koyama said briskly. "Anyway, we'll be absolutely fine!"
"I just wanted to look cool for a change," Shige whined. Massu gave him a sidelong glance.
"Trust me Shige, in your case, that ship has sailed."
"Hey!"
"Sank, come to think of it."
"Hey!!"
"Wow, you’re on fire today, aren't you?"
"Now, now, enough of that," Koyama said cheerfully, throwing an arm around either of their shoulders. "Like I said, all isn't lost. Don't you see? It’s all about what the fangirls think and I can tell you this, girls absolutely love cake!"
"Wasn't that fat kids?" Shige asked after some consideration.
"Nope, definitely girls," Koyama assured him, still smiling brightly but gripping his shoulder just a little tighter ... just a little tighter than was comfortable ... Shige squirmed. "And stop listening to Ryo-chan. I'm smarter anyway, I went to university."
"I think Ryo-tan slept with a lot more girls though," Tegoshi interrupted thoughtfully.
"That is really not the point," said Koyama; he glared briefly and hotly at the offender. "As I was saying, girls really love cake. This is a well-known fact. They love cake and they will also love us, because we will be cool and handsome and ... and this is important ... holding cake."
"I think I preferred the stripper approach," said Shige. "I'm sure I can’t bake a cake to save my life."
"You sucked at stripping too," Massu said helpfully. Koyama strengthened his grip on their arms so they couldn't reach around him and pull each other's hair out ... much ... and sighed. Dealing with high maintenance idols all day was hard work. The manager offered him a tentative half smile of fellow feeling and wandered off to get everyone coffee.
"Koyama, teach me how to bake," Shige demanded, arms folded and scowl on his face. Koyama laughed and pulled him over towards the couch.
"We've already discussed this, Shige. You know you don't actually have to be able to bake a cake! You just have to smolder attractively while holding one."
Shige's scowl deepened.
"Or you know, smile, whatever, we weren’t all born to smolder" Koyama said quickly. He smiled a little guiltily, because instead of looking fearsome Shige really just looked cute when he tried to look this angry. That wasn’t a bad thing necessarily - cute Shige made Koyama want to hold him and kiss him and he was sure, if he’d been so inclined, bake him a million cakes. Covered in embarrassing hearts drawn with red icing.
But Shige didn’t need to know that so he just smiled a little guiltily and never mentioned the word cute. He only thought it very hard.
"No. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it properly."
"Shige," Koyama said, linking their arms. "You know you don't have to be good at everything. I would think you'd have plenty of creative outlets without having to make a mess of the kitchen ... by the way, those photos you sent me of the beach were really amazing!" He grinned encouragingly, but Shige was not to be deterred.
"I get told really a lot that I can't sing or dance," he pointed out.
"Massu and Ryo-chan don’t count. Anyway, you can do loads of other stuff!" Koyama protested.
"Exactly."
"No wait, that still doesn't mean you have to be able to do all the other stuff."
"I've decided it does," Shige said stubbornly. Koyama groaned and, for lack of a desk, leaned forward to bump his head against Shige's bony shoulder.
"I really don't know why I put up with you."
"Because in addition to being really talented, I am endlessly charismatic?" Shige suggested. Koyama groaned again and Shige burst out laughing.
Koyama hummed as he moved to sit upright again. He’d never been a match for Shige’s stubbornness, so most of the time he didn’t even pretend anymore.
"It's not like I've baked anything since I was like, eight, and then I just handed my mom stuff, but I've got a cookbook you can borrow. It's really straightforward. You’ll be fine.”
Famous last words. He considered the phrase.
What Shige wanted to do, right now, despite being a twenty five year old university graduate with a sense of pride you could bounce rocks off, was to sit down on the floor and have a good cry.
What he should do, right the fuck now, was find a way to put this fire out, before it went from worrying to cause of death.
Koyama rushed in late to practice at a quarter past one, still struggling to put his earphones in his bag. He stopped short at the display. Massu was laughing so hard that by now he was lying on the floor in the middle of the dance studio, shoulders shaking and tears on his cheeks. He still had a newspaper clutched in his hand.
"He's been like this for a full ten minutes now," Tegoshi said conversationally. He was sitting with his back against the mirror, stretching his legs.
"I assume he heard about Shige."
"Did he really - did he really - really have to be rescued by firefighters?" Massu gasped.
"That's not funny," said Koyama. But Tegoshi snickered and Massu went limp again with laughter.
"He could have been seriously hurt!"
"I wouldn't be laughing if he had been!" Massu protested, struggling to sit up. "As it is though ... come on, Koyama, he set his own kitchen on fire! I mean, seriously. Seriously."
Koyama was just about to try and save what was left of Shige's reputation, when the door flew open again. He jumped up … but it wasn't Shige. He deflated and gave an awkward little wave; he'd forgotten Kanjani8 had practice today too.
"Where's the danger to society?" Ryo asked, looking around the room.
"Shige's not here yet," Koyama said, and he was glad of it. It must have shown on his face because Ryo rolled his eyes.
"Just punch him in the arm for me and tell him he's an idiot, okay?" He'd taken a few steps down the hall before he turned and peeked back in. "Oh, and that I reserve the right to laugh at him for five minutes straight when I see him again. And that he’s buying me a coffee if that makes me spill mine." He waved cheerfully. "Do your best today, guys."
Koyama groaned and slid to the floor next to Tegoshi. Tegoshi patted his knee.
“I don’t want them to make fun of him.”
Tegoshi cocked his head to one side in confusion.
“Why not? Everyone always makes fun of Shige. That’s what he’s here for.”
“That doesn’t make it any better,” Koyama said. Tegoshi shrugged.
“His ego’s big enough to last him, I wouldn’t worry. Also,” Tegoshi smiled brightly, “he’s always got you.”
Koyama snorted and dropped his head back against the mirror.
“That’s really awfully cheesy.”
“Isn’t it though? I’m so glad you finally realized,” Tegoshi said peacefully as he went back to his stretches.
"I'm here to save the day!" Koyama announced brightly after letting himself into Shige's apartment. He’d decided cheesy was severely underappreciated and the world could do with some more of it. Shige looked up from his book. He made a face for a moment like he was trying for a glare, but the grin was working harder to spread across his face.
"You sure came at the right time," he said, closing his book. "They brought over the new oven today."
"You had to get a new one? It was that bad?" Koyama asked with a wince. Shige raised one eyebrow and bopped him on the head with his hardcover before putting it back on the top shelf of his bookcase. Koyama was momentarily distracted; Shige looked really nice in those jeans, he thought. He should wear them more often.
"The oven was the problem in the first place. It was too old."
"Oh,” Koyama said distractedly, trying to drag his attention back to the conversation.
"You really thought I was clumsy enough to set a cake on fire?"
"Honestly? Yes, absolutely. Are you sure you didn’t?"
"... It was maybe fifty percent my fault but really no more than that."
Koyama laughed. He grabbed the bag he brought from the table and dug around for the cook book.
“Here,” he said, pushing it in Shige’s hands, “I’ve marked an easy recipe. It’s just flour and eggs and milk and the like … oh and cocoa powder, I brought some in case you didn’t have any. You like chocolate cake, right?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Shige said, scanning the recipe and frowning, “This still looks complicated, though.”
“I thought you might say that,” Koyama said, sighing in exaggerated resignation. He snickered when Shige raised the book threateningly again.
“Give me that. I’ve already thought of a plan.”
“A plan? I like the sound of a plan.”
“This is the best plan,” Koyama promised. “It’s the plan called I’m going to do my very best to bake a cake and you can play my assistant and hand me stuff.”
“I don’t like this plan.” Shige frowned. “There’s not exactly much pride in just handing you stuff. And no scope for creativity either.”
“Fine, I’ll let you mix the ingredients as well. Mixing is definitely part of baking. More importantly … there’s never any creativity in following a simple recipe.”
“Yes there is,” Shige maintained.
“Well. I suppose that at least clears up the mystery of how you blew up your kitchen.”
“I only blew up my kitchen a little bit,” Shige muttered in protest and Koyama reached over to mess up his hair.
“Of course you did.”
Shige quite liked cooking. Cooking made sense; you found some ingredients that were interesting, you flung them into a wok, poured a generous helping of some fascinating sounding sauce over it and there you go. You spent your evening being creative and at the end of it you had food.
In his brief experience with the subject, Shige had decided he didn’t care for baking. It reminded him too much of science in high school but with less Bunsen burners and more sugar. But still a high risk of setting himself on fire.
Shige was an artist. A natural distrust of science was in his genes.
That was almost an actual excuse for managing to get chocolate cake mix on his ceiling, he thought. But still, baking with Koyama wasn’t all bad. So far Shige had found two items to add to his list of why he might bother with baking cakes.
Number one was licking the cake batter of the spoons and the (mercifully not pink) spatula. It was delicious and, as far as Shige was concerned, made the whole fire thing redundant. This was a big plus in his book.
The second was that he found it uncomfortably easy to identify with Ryo’s fat kids and Koyama’s girls. Flying blatantly in the face of everything the world should be, Koyama made baking a chocolate cake look heart clenchingly attractive.
He grabbed the mixer to attack the second bowl of flour, butter and eggs … because he’d assured Koyama he was entirely capable of making his own cake from scratch now … his eyes still mostly on Koyama, who was humming to himself while setting the timer for the first cake. He put the mixer in the bowl and flipped the switch.
Koyama laughed.
“Come here, you’ve still got a bit of flour on your nose.”
Shige crossed his eyes trying to see and rubbed at his nose with the sleeve of his sweater.
“Oops,” he said sheepishly when it came back white.
“Well,” Koyama said, looking around the kitchen, “I think we’ve managed to clean up most of it, though I’m really glad we didn’t try this at my place.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know hand mixers could go wild like that.”
“Me neither. The more you learn.” He gave Shige a sidelong look. “Though I suspect there’s a special trick to it.”
“I promise I’ll never try baking again, okay?”
“Great. If you ever feel you need to take up a new hobby again, you can always try painting,” Koyama suggested, looking up. “Your ceiling needs some work, anyway.”
“You know I’m blaming you for going for chocolate cake.”
“Hah!”
“The thing is, I saw our new stuff today. I just came to tell you, you know, that what you lack in actual skill you more than make up for in looking gorgeous while holding a cake,” Koyama said, his cheeks a dark pink. He was holding a huge chocolate cake in a box. Shige thought he could just make out some curly red icing.
“Thanks. I think. You look really good holding a cake too?” Shige tried because despite his few adventures in baking, his life up until this point had not prepared him for Koyama showing up at his door at eleven in the evening holding a cake and telling him he was gorgeous.
He’d clearly been missing out.
“Come in,” he said, stepping aside.
“I think this one came out pretty well,” Koyama said, hands fluttering nervously as he talked, after he’d deposited the box on the kitchen table. “I sort of practiced. With my sister. We had a weird sort of sibling bonding moment or something.”
“Right,” Shige said, because he wasn’t great at diffusing awkward situations.
“I wanted to share it with you.”
Shige nodded. “It looks great,” he said encouragingly. Koyama flashed a quick smile.
“I want to kiss you too,” Koyama continued, taking a deep breath. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Because of the cake?” Shige asked stupidly, a little mystified. Koyama shrugged. He was beyond explaining at this point.
“Okay,” said Shige.
“Okay?”
“Yes. I feel about you what people who really love cake feel about cake, too.”
Koyama laughed. Shige grinned nervously because he was sure the world had known more eloquent love confessions. Koyama looked happy though.
In fact, he was still smiling as he took a step closer, and leaned in. His lips were soft and warm against Shige’s own. Shige curled his fists in Koyama’s shirt to pull him closer; Koyama grinned against his mouth and pulled him closer still, one hand on his hip, the other curled around the back of his neck. Koyama’s tongue slicked against his bottom lip and Shige opened his mouth, a small moan escaping his throat.
“Oh,” he said a little breathlessly when they broke apart. Koyama hummed, pressing small kisses against the warm skin of his neck.
“What about the cake?” Shige mumbled. He couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say and he really wanted to say something right now though he couldn’t think why.
“You’re really hung up on the cake, aren’t you?” Koyama teased, stepping back. His eyes sparkled.
“I want to know what’s with the colorful icing,” Shige replied airily as he stepped towards the table, groping for the first semi-logical excuse that presented itself.
“Ah,” Koyama said. He wrapped his arms around Shige’s waist and put his chin on his shoulder as Shige fumbled with the cardboard box.
Koyama’s approach to icing was similar to Shige’s approach to cake in general, but with a little bit of effort he could make out several curly hearts and, mega sized all over the cake, a very wobbly
I love Shige more than I love cake
Which was pretty dumb. But that was okay, Shige thought as he twisted around in Koyama’s arms to recapture his mouth, although his smile was too wide to kiss properly. If not a pastry chef, he could at least be enough of a literary genius for the both of them.
img credit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Poll Team Present Prompt 4
Pairing/Group: Koyama/Shige, News
Rating: pg13
Warnings: outbreak of fire (no one gets hurt)
Summary: Instead of being allowed to promote their sexy side, News is relegated to the kitchen. Shige thinks baking is a great new creative outlet, but he may need some help.
Notes: I hope you enjoy this!
“I thought we were the sexy group now,” said Shige. He cast a disdainful look at the array of suggested props for the new theme. They didn’t look very sexy.
“Me too,” Koyama said absently, picking up a spatula to get a closer look at the bright pink handle.
“Aren’t we supposed to be competing with Yamashita-kun over who is the most… you know, erotic? Though I think he cheated with that album title.”
“Yamashita cheats with his face,” Massu muttered to the ceiling. The others pretended they hadn’t heard, although Shige made a face. They weren’t giving up yet. They were still totally in the game.
“I hate to think I wore that leather getup for nothing,” Shige complained.
“Oh shut up, you loved that,” said Tegoshi. He scrunched up his face trying not to laugh too hard at Shige’s expense; at least not hard enough to warrant a day’s long sulk. They’d made vague plans of going for drinks after work and Tegoshi hated to pay for them when there were perfectly capable senpai around to do it. Not that he normally thought of Shige as his senpai, but alcohol … and Shige being an old bore … had a way of really emphasizing those four months.
He pointed one of the pink spatulas at their luckless manager who had been hovering around anxiously. Koyama had moved on to inspect the hand mixer.
“Why isn’t our photo shoot sexy?” Tegoshi demanded. Their manager had the decency to look embarrassed.
“You know, personally, I was all in favor of you four being the new sexy group,” he thought it prudent to mention.
“So who demoted us to the kitchen?” Shige asked, grimacing at Koyama who seemed to be enjoying himself quite well and not helping their cause at all. Koyama didn’t notice; he’d found a recipe book with colorful pictures. Sato-san shuffled his feet and fumbled with his glasses.
“I ran into some problems,” he said vaguely.
“What kind of problems?” Koyama asked. He was finally distracted from all the cute things to make food with by a twinge of his mother hen instinct, which watched over hapless managers in addition to members.
“We kind of had a fight over who was to dominate the ero market,” said Sato-san. He wrung his hands nervously.
“A fight?!” all four of them exclaimed.
“Tell me you at least punched him in the nose,” Tegoshi added hopefully.
“A fight with Yamapi’s manager?” Massu asked. Sato-san looked up in surprise.
“Oh! No!” he assured them. “With Yanagihara-san, KAT-TUN’s new manager.” The four of them let out a collective groan.
“Not foiled again by those guys, surely,” Shige muttered. He made some unconsciously violent movements with a large spoon.
“She’s really…” Sato-san paused and licked his lips, trying to come up with an appropriate term, “Quite something,” he finished lamely. “We played rock paper scissors for it,” he added.
"You lost our sexy to rock paper scissors?" Tegoshi moaned. "I'm disappointed in your managerial skills."
Koyama elbowed him and gave him a disapproving Leader look, while Sato-san muttered in the general direction of the floor that he was sure she cheated.
"Well, that's neither here nor there now," Koyama said briskly. "Anyway, we'll be absolutely fine!"
"I just wanted to look cool for a change," Shige whined. Massu gave him a sidelong glance.
"Trust me Shige, in your case, that ship has sailed."
"Hey!"
"Sank, come to think of it."
"Hey!!"
"Wow, you’re on fire today, aren't you?"
"Now, now, enough of that," Koyama said cheerfully, throwing an arm around either of their shoulders. "Like I said, all isn't lost. Don't you see? It’s all about what the fangirls think and I can tell you this, girls absolutely love cake!"
"Wasn't that fat kids?" Shige asked after some consideration.
"Nope, definitely girls," Koyama assured him, still smiling brightly but gripping his shoulder just a little tighter ... just a little tighter than was comfortable ... Shige squirmed. "And stop listening to Ryo-chan. I'm smarter anyway, I went to university."
"I think Ryo-tan slept with a lot more girls though," Tegoshi interrupted thoughtfully.
"That is really not the point," said Koyama; he glared briefly and hotly at the offender. "As I was saying, girls really love cake. This is a well-known fact. They love cake and they will also love us, because we will be cool and handsome and ... and this is important ... holding cake."
"I think I preferred the stripper approach," said Shige. "I'm sure I can’t bake a cake to save my life."
"You sucked at stripping too," Massu said helpfully. Koyama strengthened his grip on their arms so they couldn't reach around him and pull each other's hair out ... much ... and sighed. Dealing with high maintenance idols all day was hard work. The manager offered him a tentative half smile of fellow feeling and wandered off to get everyone coffee.
"Koyama, teach me how to bake," Shige demanded, arms folded and scowl on his face. Koyama laughed and pulled him over towards the couch.
"We've already discussed this, Shige. You know you don't actually have to be able to bake a cake! You just have to smolder attractively while holding one."
Shige's scowl deepened.
"Or you know, smile, whatever, we weren’t all born to smolder" Koyama said quickly. He smiled a little guiltily, because instead of looking fearsome Shige really just looked cute when he tried to look this angry. That wasn’t a bad thing necessarily - cute Shige made Koyama want to hold him and kiss him and he was sure, if he’d been so inclined, bake him a million cakes. Covered in embarrassing hearts drawn with red icing.
But Shige didn’t need to know that so he just smiled a little guiltily and never mentioned the word cute. He only thought it very hard.
"No. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it properly."
"Shige," Koyama said, linking their arms. "You know you don't have to be good at everything. I would think you'd have plenty of creative outlets without having to make a mess of the kitchen ... by the way, those photos you sent me of the beach were really amazing!" He grinned encouragingly, but Shige was not to be deterred.
"I get told really a lot that I can't sing or dance," he pointed out.
"Massu and Ryo-chan don’t count. Anyway, you can do loads of other stuff!" Koyama protested.
"Exactly."
"No wait, that still doesn't mean you have to be able to do all the other stuff."
"I've decided it does," Shige said stubbornly. Koyama groaned and, for lack of a desk, leaned forward to bump his head against Shige's bony shoulder.
"I really don't know why I put up with you."
"Because in addition to being really talented, I am endlessly charismatic?" Shige suggested. Koyama groaned again and Shige burst out laughing.
Koyama hummed as he moved to sit upright again. He’d never been a match for Shige’s stubbornness, so most of the time he didn’t even pretend anymore.
"It's not like I've baked anything since I was like, eight, and then I just handed my mom stuff, but I've got a cookbook you can borrow. It's really straightforward. You’ll be fine.”
Famous last words. He considered the phrase.
What Shige wanted to do, right now, despite being a twenty five year old university graduate with a sense of pride you could bounce rocks off, was to sit down on the floor and have a good cry.
What he should do, right the fuck now, was find a way to put this fire out, before it went from worrying to cause of death.
Koyama rushed in late to practice at a quarter past one, still struggling to put his earphones in his bag. He stopped short at the display. Massu was laughing so hard that by now he was lying on the floor in the middle of the dance studio, shoulders shaking and tears on his cheeks. He still had a newspaper clutched in his hand.
"He's been like this for a full ten minutes now," Tegoshi said conversationally. He was sitting with his back against the mirror, stretching his legs.
"I assume he heard about Shige."
"Did he really - did he really - really have to be rescued by firefighters?" Massu gasped.
"That's not funny," said Koyama. But Tegoshi snickered and Massu went limp again with laughter.
"He could have been seriously hurt!"
"I wouldn't be laughing if he had been!" Massu protested, struggling to sit up. "As it is though ... come on, Koyama, he set his own kitchen on fire! I mean, seriously. Seriously."
Koyama was just about to try and save what was left of Shige's reputation, when the door flew open again. He jumped up … but it wasn't Shige. He deflated and gave an awkward little wave; he'd forgotten Kanjani8 had practice today too.
"Where's the danger to society?" Ryo asked, looking around the room.
"Shige's not here yet," Koyama said, and he was glad of it. It must have shown on his face because Ryo rolled his eyes.
"Just punch him in the arm for me and tell him he's an idiot, okay?" He'd taken a few steps down the hall before he turned and peeked back in. "Oh, and that I reserve the right to laugh at him for five minutes straight when I see him again. And that he’s buying me a coffee if that makes me spill mine." He waved cheerfully. "Do your best today, guys."
Koyama groaned and slid to the floor next to Tegoshi. Tegoshi patted his knee.
“I don’t want them to make fun of him.”
Tegoshi cocked his head to one side in confusion.
“Why not? Everyone always makes fun of Shige. That’s what he’s here for.”
“That doesn’t make it any better,” Koyama said. Tegoshi shrugged.
“His ego’s big enough to last him, I wouldn’t worry. Also,” Tegoshi smiled brightly, “he’s always got you.”
Koyama snorted and dropped his head back against the mirror.
“That’s really awfully cheesy.”
“Isn’t it though? I’m so glad you finally realized,” Tegoshi said peacefully as he went back to his stretches.
"I'm here to save the day!" Koyama announced brightly after letting himself into Shige's apartment. He’d decided cheesy was severely underappreciated and the world could do with some more of it. Shige looked up from his book. He made a face for a moment like he was trying for a glare, but the grin was working harder to spread across his face.
"You sure came at the right time," he said, closing his book. "They brought over the new oven today."
"You had to get a new one? It was that bad?" Koyama asked with a wince. Shige raised one eyebrow and bopped him on the head with his hardcover before putting it back on the top shelf of his bookcase. Koyama was momentarily distracted; Shige looked really nice in those jeans, he thought. He should wear them more often.
"The oven was the problem in the first place. It was too old."
"Oh,” Koyama said distractedly, trying to drag his attention back to the conversation.
"You really thought I was clumsy enough to set a cake on fire?"
"Honestly? Yes, absolutely. Are you sure you didn’t?"
"... It was maybe fifty percent my fault but really no more than that."
Koyama laughed. He grabbed the bag he brought from the table and dug around for the cook book.
“Here,” he said, pushing it in Shige’s hands, “I’ve marked an easy recipe. It’s just flour and eggs and milk and the like … oh and cocoa powder, I brought some in case you didn’t have any. You like chocolate cake, right?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Shige said, scanning the recipe and frowning, “This still looks complicated, though.”
“I thought you might say that,” Koyama said, sighing in exaggerated resignation. He snickered when Shige raised the book threateningly again.
“Give me that. I’ve already thought of a plan.”
“A plan? I like the sound of a plan.”
“This is the best plan,” Koyama promised. “It’s the plan called I’m going to do my very best to bake a cake and you can play my assistant and hand me stuff.”
“I don’t like this plan.” Shige frowned. “There’s not exactly much pride in just handing you stuff. And no scope for creativity either.”
“Fine, I’ll let you mix the ingredients as well. Mixing is definitely part of baking. More importantly … there’s never any creativity in following a simple recipe.”
“Yes there is,” Shige maintained.
“Well. I suppose that at least clears up the mystery of how you blew up your kitchen.”
“I only blew up my kitchen a little bit,” Shige muttered in protest and Koyama reached over to mess up his hair.
“Of course you did.”
Shige quite liked cooking. Cooking made sense; you found some ingredients that were interesting, you flung them into a wok, poured a generous helping of some fascinating sounding sauce over it and there you go. You spent your evening being creative and at the end of it you had food.
In his brief experience with the subject, Shige had decided he didn’t care for baking. It reminded him too much of science in high school but with less Bunsen burners and more sugar. But still a high risk of setting himself on fire.
Shige was an artist. A natural distrust of science was in his genes.
That was almost an actual excuse for managing to get chocolate cake mix on his ceiling, he thought. But still, baking with Koyama wasn’t all bad. So far Shige had found two items to add to his list of why he might bother with baking cakes.
Number one was licking the cake batter of the spoons and the (mercifully not pink) spatula. It was delicious and, as far as Shige was concerned, made the whole fire thing redundant. This was a big plus in his book.
The second was that he found it uncomfortably easy to identify with Ryo’s fat kids and Koyama’s girls. Flying blatantly in the face of everything the world should be, Koyama made baking a chocolate cake look heart clenchingly attractive.
He grabbed the mixer to attack the second bowl of flour, butter and eggs … because he’d assured Koyama he was entirely capable of making his own cake from scratch now … his eyes still mostly on Koyama, who was humming to himself while setting the timer for the first cake. He put the mixer in the bowl and flipped the switch.
Koyama laughed.
“Come here, you’ve still got a bit of flour on your nose.”
Shige crossed his eyes trying to see and rubbed at his nose with the sleeve of his sweater.
“Oops,” he said sheepishly when it came back white.
“Well,” Koyama said, looking around the kitchen, “I think we’ve managed to clean up most of it, though I’m really glad we didn’t try this at my place.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know hand mixers could go wild like that.”
“Me neither. The more you learn.” He gave Shige a sidelong look. “Though I suspect there’s a special trick to it.”
“I promise I’ll never try baking again, okay?”
“Great. If you ever feel you need to take up a new hobby again, you can always try painting,” Koyama suggested, looking up. “Your ceiling needs some work, anyway.”
“You know I’m blaming you for going for chocolate cake.”
“Hah!”
“The thing is, I saw our new stuff today. I just came to tell you, you know, that what you lack in actual skill you more than make up for in looking gorgeous while holding a cake,” Koyama said, his cheeks a dark pink. He was holding a huge chocolate cake in a box. Shige thought he could just make out some curly red icing.
“Thanks. I think. You look really good holding a cake too?” Shige tried because despite his few adventures in baking, his life up until this point had not prepared him for Koyama showing up at his door at eleven in the evening holding a cake and telling him he was gorgeous.
He’d clearly been missing out.
“Come in,” he said, stepping aside.
“I think this one came out pretty well,” Koyama said, hands fluttering nervously as he talked, after he’d deposited the box on the kitchen table. “I sort of practiced. With my sister. We had a weird sort of sibling bonding moment or something.”
“Right,” Shige said, because he wasn’t great at diffusing awkward situations.
“I wanted to share it with you.”
Shige nodded. “It looks great,” he said encouragingly. Koyama flashed a quick smile.
“I want to kiss you too,” Koyama continued, taking a deep breath. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Because of the cake?” Shige asked stupidly, a little mystified. Koyama shrugged. He was beyond explaining at this point.
“Okay,” said Shige.
“Okay?”
“Yes. I feel about you what people who really love cake feel about cake, too.”
Koyama laughed. Shige grinned nervously because he was sure the world had known more eloquent love confessions. Koyama looked happy though.
In fact, he was still smiling as he took a step closer, and leaned in. His lips were soft and warm against Shige’s own. Shige curled his fists in Koyama’s shirt to pull him closer; Koyama grinned against his mouth and pulled him closer still, one hand on his hip, the other curled around the back of his neck. Koyama’s tongue slicked against his bottom lip and Shige opened his mouth, a small moan escaping his throat.
“Oh,” he said a little breathlessly when they broke apart. Koyama hummed, pressing small kisses against the warm skin of his neck.
“What about the cake?” Shige mumbled. He couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say and he really wanted to say something right now though he couldn’t think why.
“You’re really hung up on the cake, aren’t you?” Koyama teased, stepping back. His eyes sparkled.
“I want to know what’s with the colorful icing,” Shige replied airily as he stepped towards the table, groping for the first semi-logical excuse that presented itself.
“Ah,” Koyama said. He wrapped his arms around Shige’s waist and put his chin on his shoulder as Shige fumbled with the cardboard box.
Koyama’s approach to icing was similar to Shige’s approach to cake in general, but with a little bit of effort he could make out several curly hearts and, mega sized all over the cake, a very wobbly
I love Shige more than I love cake
Which was pretty dumb. But that was okay, Shige thought as he twisted around in Koyama’s arms to recapture his mouth, although his smile was too wide to kiss properly. If not a pastry chef, he could at least be enough of a literary genius for the both of them.
img credit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Poll Team Present Prompt 4