Fic [XXXHolic]: The Perfect Cake 2.5
Title: The Perfect Cake 2.5
Series: XXXHolic
Spoilers: only if you haven't read up to Ch.186
Paring: Watanuki&Doumeki (established)
Rating: I really tried to make it a R but after almost spontaneous combusting I gave up…
Summary: I saw this picture and my inner Yuuko told me to write the story, so I did…
Beta Reader: x_mog
Arthur Note: Two years ago I wrote a story in honor of Watanuki's birthday, and a year ago I found myself writing a sequel (which you can find both in here: I & II). Would I write anther story this April? I don't know. I'll have to wait and see what my inspiration tells me on the first of April. Writing this story I felt compelled to write it as an extension to my 'perfect cake' world even though you can read this without the first two - I hope you'll read it anyway.
The Perfect Cake 2.5
It's been a week since Yuuko has gone and the girls have come back. A week since Watanuki had decided to stay at the shop and wait for Yuuko to return. It's been a week full of grieving and sorrow.
"It has to stop."
Doumeki had said that to him, on the first day of the second week after they found out Yuko wouldn't be coming back. Watanuki knew deep inside him that he was right and that he was worried about him - a feeling that made him feel warm inside and disturbed at the same time. He didn't know what to do - if he were Yuuko he would drink himself silly…but he wasn't her. Even if he has now become the shop owner, he wasn't her. He won't drink Sake, not yet, not for a while...
So he did what he did best - he cooked. He made all the snacks Mokona and the girls ever wanted plus a separate range of snacks purely for Doumeki's consumption.
Now all that had left was the cake. It has to be just right. Watanuki decided to do a five layered cake; its height would even suppress Doumeki's height! He made the cakes into perfection and made all the right decorations. All that he had to do now was to put the cakes in order.
The first three cakes were no problem to put on top of each other and for the forth cake he had to use a stool to reach. The problem lay in the fifth cake - the stool was useless and to get the ladder meant he had to leave the kitchen, which meant that the girls or Mokona - or in the worst case scenario both the girls and Mokona, would come to the kitchen. He really didn't want to think what kind of disaster they would make to his cake - never mind that he made it for them.
Luckily a solution had appeared before he even had time to think of the possibility of putting the stool on top of a chair without breaking every bone in his body or worse fall on the cake… It was the startling 'Oi' that let him know that his stoic boyfriend had arrived in his kitchen. And if he wasn't mistaken, which he almost never was on this particular subject, he knew that his boyfriend was now giving him 'The Stare'; that intense gaze that he usually reserved for either a) eating (mainly Watanuki's cooking) or b) Watanuki himself.
It seems to Watanuki that 'The Stare' would intensify even more when he was wearing an apron. It was probably the prospect of the soon to be consumed food that made Doumeki look like he can't wait to devour whatever Watanuki has made. Honestly his boyfriend is pig - you would think Watanuki never bothered to feed him!
Anyway, Doumeki seems to come to the same conclusion that Watanuki had made a few seconds ago and offered his help which turned out to be Watanuki sitting on top of Doumeki's shoulders holding the final cake. He was rearranging the roses on the top of the cake when his cooking instinct (an instinct one can only develop from years of dealing with Yuuko, Mokona and Doumeki on the subject of food), told him that Doumeki has gotten a taste from the glaze of the cake - his cake! This of course led to Watanuki yelling, which in turn had distracted Doumeki which led to our boys to falling down to the floor - though fortunately no harm had come to the cake.
Watanuki was furious, though not as furious as he would have been if anything had happened to his cake. He was lying on the floor with Doumeki on top of him looking mischievous - not a good thing. Well not exactly not good, it really depends on the TPO*. And this is defiantly wasn't the time, place nor occasion.
Nope, absolutely not - even if Doumeki looked devilishly sexy (with emphasis on the devil part) and so what if the last week they hadn't so much as touched each other even by mistake. Really they hadn't kissed or done anything remotely boyfriend-ish. He had a lot to think about, a lot to do, lots of things he could have listed if it weren't for Doumeki's lips, hands and a certain part of his body which at the moment had distracted him…
Well let's just say that by the time the girls and Mokona were allowed to enter the kitchen it was suspiciously sparkling clean with a somewhat disheveled Doumeki and Watanuki and a huge cake right there in the center. Watanuki was happy it was still intact. That brute, Doumeki had nearly ruined it--Several times!
But now looking at the girls' expression he felt that all the troubles he had to go through (well okay - maybe not all of it was trouble) were worth it. Naturally in that exact moment, Mokona had decided to jump right into the cake thus destroying Watanuki's creation. Watanuki, enraged, could only chase Mokona with the intent to murder, while Doumeki and the girls had begun to eat the remainder of the cake.
In passing, between eating the cake and staring at Watanuki, Doumeki was beginning to feel these things are starting to become normal - whatever normal is. After all he had Watanuki and a cake…
*TPO means time, place, occasion i.e. the overall social situation. I saw this expression on Shimada Hisami mange "Kakeochi Kakugo" (Vol.2 Ch.4 P.142) and I thought it was something Watanuki would think.