Sugar and Spice
Title: Sugar and Spice
Description: Makoto finds a late-night intruder in her kitchen.
A/N: Day 4 of Advent Drabblender 2011. Set in the same universe as Two Truths and a Lie (just before Crystal Tokyo during the Sleep, only the senshi, Shitennou, and U/M are awake in the Crystal Palace). It’s not necessary to read that one first, but it probably makes a bit more sense to have some of the backstory included in that fic.
Prompt: Christmas cookies
Someone was in her kitchen. More precisely, someone was burning something in her kitchen. Makoto stumbled out of bed and down the ice-cold hallway, wondering if she should wake Rei and quickly deciding against it. To say that Rei hadn’t been sleeping well lately was an understatement. So she would see whether she and her trusty fire extinguisher were up to the task first.
When she peered blearily into the state-of-the-art kitchen, Makoto saw that nothing was on fire, but it looked like the baking and dairy aisles of a grocery store had exploded over the countertops. In the middle of the island, trying to poke what appeared to be an impressively stubborn, already saturated-with-sugar-sprinkles cookie out of its cutter, was Minako.
“Minako? What are you doing?”
The blonde looked up, pushing her bangs out of her eyes and getting a sizeable clump of the very sticky dough in her hair in the process. “Making Christmas cookies. What does it look like?”
Making a mess, Makoto thought, but managed to bite her tongue as she eyed the ragged rows of misshapen cookies waiting to be slid into the ovens. This set over here was probably meant to be reindeer but looked more like the youma rejects of the Negaverse, and she thought the neighboring batch was supposed to be candy canes but the crooks had puffed up so much in the oven that they could be mistaken for golf clubs. The Christmas tree stems had all gotten caught in the cookie cutters, and what was left of the top halves bore an unfortunate resemblance to beehives or, well, the stylized anime version of poop. The tray closest to Minako looked like one of Ami’s biology experiments from when she had been doing an independent study on amoeba. Makoto could only identify what they had been intended to be since Minako had the snowflake cookie cutter in her hand and was brandishing it in a rather threatening fashion.
“It looks like you used flour for hairspray,” Makoto said matter-of-factly. She tried not to think about how long cleaning up the kitchen would take. “Is something burning?”
“Nope, I just forgot to set the timer for the last batch,” Minako said airily, waving her hand in the general direction of the stove. “But the ones in the ovens are doing fine.”
Makoto’s eyebrows rose as she examined the cookies, which were clearly identifiable as snowmen and which appeared to be burned permanently onto the tray. She decided to take a look at the contents of the ovens herself and, after a quick peep, thought it was best not to remind Minako that frosting was meant to be applied after the cookies had cooled down and not before the baking process itself. The red and green were melting into a wonderful swirly mixture that might not have looked out of place in a peppermint shake but certainly did nothing to improve the appearance of the cookies.
“Minako, why are you making Christmas cookies in July?”
“It’s not like it even matters what month it is.” The bitter edge to her voice was sharper than the scent of burned vanilla extract. Outside the darkened windows, the residents of Tokyo slept on day after day, and the changing of the seasons had lost their meaning.
Minako shook the container vigorously over the tray, and a cascade of blue sprinkles rained down onto the dough. A bit too brightly, she went on, “Besides, sugar makes everything better, don’t you think? These are for Ami.”
Considering that these were the snowflake-amoeba cookies, Makoto thought it was quite fitting.
The oven timer went off, and Minako turned to take the cookies out. For a minute, she stared at the sheets in silence, and Makoto feared that she was about to burst into tears.
Instead, her expression remained curiously fixed. Just as Makoto was about to say something, anything, Minako picked up the trays and scraped the cookies into the trashcan with movements whose grace was paralleled only by the anger they radiated.
“Makoto, why can’t I ever make anything right?” she asked softly, leaning her golden head on her friend’s shoulder.
Makoto rubbed her back with her free hand, ignoring the butter and sprinkles now adorning her pajamas. “What do you want to make right?”
“Too many things,” she sighed, thinking of the pain and confusion and affection in a certain pair of dark gray eyes.
“Minako?”
“Yes?”
“I really like having Christmas in July.”
“Really?”
“Really. Let’s make another batch of these…stocking cookies.”
“Those were angels, Mako-chan. Angels!"
Description: Makoto finds a late-night intruder in her kitchen.
A/N: Day 4 of Advent Drabblender 2011. Set in the same universe as Two Truths and a Lie (just before Crystal Tokyo during the Sleep, only the senshi, Shitennou, and U/M are awake in the Crystal Palace). It’s not necessary to read that one first, but it probably makes a bit more sense to have some of the backstory included in that fic.
Prompt: Christmas cookies
Someone was in her kitchen. More precisely, someone was burning something in her kitchen. Makoto stumbled out of bed and down the ice-cold hallway, wondering if she should wake Rei and quickly deciding against it. To say that Rei hadn’t been sleeping well lately was an understatement. So she would see whether she and her trusty fire extinguisher were up to the task first.
When she peered blearily into the state-of-the-art kitchen, Makoto saw that nothing was on fire, but it looked like the baking and dairy aisles of a grocery store had exploded over the countertops. In the middle of the island, trying to poke what appeared to be an impressively stubborn, already saturated-with-sugar-sprinkles cookie out of its cutter, was Minako.
“Minako? What are you doing?”
The blonde looked up, pushing her bangs out of her eyes and getting a sizeable clump of the very sticky dough in her hair in the process. “Making Christmas cookies. What does it look like?”
Making a mess, Makoto thought, but managed to bite her tongue as she eyed the ragged rows of misshapen cookies waiting to be slid into the ovens. This set over here was probably meant to be reindeer but looked more like the youma rejects of the Negaverse, and she thought the neighboring batch was supposed to be candy canes but the crooks had puffed up so much in the oven that they could be mistaken for golf clubs. The Christmas tree stems had all gotten caught in the cookie cutters, and what was left of the top halves bore an unfortunate resemblance to beehives or, well, the stylized anime version of poop. The tray closest to Minako looked like one of Ami’s biology experiments from when she had been doing an independent study on amoeba. Makoto could only identify what they had been intended to be since Minako had the snowflake cookie cutter in her hand and was brandishing it in a rather threatening fashion.
“It looks like you used flour for hairspray,” Makoto said matter-of-factly. She tried not to think about how long cleaning up the kitchen would take. “Is something burning?”
“Nope, I just forgot to set the timer for the last batch,” Minako said airily, waving her hand in the general direction of the stove. “But the ones in the ovens are doing fine.”
Makoto’s eyebrows rose as she examined the cookies, which were clearly identifiable as snowmen and which appeared to be burned permanently onto the tray. She decided to take a look at the contents of the ovens herself and, after a quick peep, thought it was best not to remind Minako that frosting was meant to be applied after the cookies had cooled down and not before the baking process itself. The red and green were melting into a wonderful swirly mixture that might not have looked out of place in a peppermint shake but certainly did nothing to improve the appearance of the cookies.
“Minako, why are you making Christmas cookies in July?”
“It’s not like it even matters what month it is.” The bitter edge to her voice was sharper than the scent of burned vanilla extract. Outside the darkened windows, the residents of Tokyo slept on day after day, and the changing of the seasons had lost their meaning.
Minako shook the container vigorously over the tray, and a cascade of blue sprinkles rained down onto the dough. A bit too brightly, she went on, “Besides, sugar makes everything better, don’t you think? These are for Ami.”
Considering that these were the snowflake-amoeba cookies, Makoto thought it was quite fitting.
The oven timer went off, and Minako turned to take the cookies out. For a minute, she stared at the sheets in silence, and Makoto feared that she was about to burst into tears.
Instead, her expression remained curiously fixed. Just as Makoto was about to say something, anything, Minako picked up the trays and scraped the cookies into the trashcan with movements whose grace was paralleled only by the anger they radiated.
“Makoto, why can’t I ever make anything right?” she asked softly, leaning her golden head on her friend’s shoulder.
Makoto rubbed her back with her free hand, ignoring the butter and sprinkles now adorning her pajamas. “What do you want to make right?”
“Too many things,” she sighed, thinking of the pain and confusion and affection in a certain pair of dark gray eyes.
“Minako?”
“Yes?”
“I really like having Christmas in July.”
“Really?”
“Really. Let’s make another batch of these…stocking cookies.”
“Those were angels, Mako-chan. Angels!"