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“Stress-baking?”
Hero could only thank the years of big brother experience in dealing with Kel’s surprise! pranks that he only flinches at Mari tapping his shoulder, rather than his arm giving out and dropping the pan of banana bread mix onto the kitchen tiles. He turns to face her, as casually as he can pretend not to be a little panicked at her sudden arrival. The batch of cookies are still inside the oven, but would she already sniff it out from the smell?
“Mari! It’s good to see you. And no, I’m not, uh, stress-baking. Just baking. Like normal.”
Great start, Hero! He could hear the voices of his high school best friends, Ryan and Ben cackling in his head. He wishes he could shush them, if only it didn’t involve pinching his own damned self.
“Good to see you too. Though, I've never seen you bake before,” Mari says, eyeing the kitchen with great interest as she leans against the counter island, ignoring the perfectly usable bar stools behind them. “What’s the occasion?”
“It's just…our first day-off in a while. Wanted to try my first baking attempt while we still can,” he lies, praying to God his poker face holds up.
“Mm, and it’s not because Valentines is tomorrow?”
“No!” he shakes his head, almost tipping the pan.
“Okay, keep your secrets then,” Mari says, her eyebrows wiggling exaggeratedly. Was it any fair his chest warms at her silly face? Having Mari Suzuki back in his life shouldn’t mean he’d stumble around like the same lovestruck first-year (and second-year…up to fourth year) he was in Faraway Catholic, but even seeing her on a relaxed day-off, wearing a cozy-looking purple sweater made his hold on things unsteady.
What happened to playing it cool? Instinctively, he looks down to the black stubs on his ears and tries to shake himself out of it. He manages to open the oven handle with his one ungloved hand and position the pan to enter squarely on the top row, not interfering with the middle row of cookies, when he hears a sudden gasp come from Mari and his world shifts a hundred degrees.
“Hero, oh gosh,” why was her voice shaking—Hero cranes his neck, gazing at her in worry when he sees her open-mouthed shock morph into a sputtering laugh and—“hear me out, there’s this guy called Henry from Arts 1 lec and he’s major golden retriever personality, like green flag and super cute and tall— ”
The pan clumsily lands inside, a bit of the bread mix spilling to his oven mitts. Mari’s snorting laughter rings out. His whole face burns. “Mari! How’d you even see that post ?”
“It was the first thing on my feed,” Mari says, in between her bouts of laughter.
“No, no, no, don’t tell me it spread,” he nearly buries his head into his hands before he feels Mari reach out to grab his slightly soiled oven mitt from him.
“Silly,” she says, tossing the mitt into the sink, “you nearly smudged your perfect face, Hero.”
She’s never going to let me live it down. He bows his head, wishing something would clock him to the next semester already. Preferably with a memory-wiping device or a fake name while he was at it. Maybe if he could get Kel to impersonate him for a day…no, the memory-wiping device would be easier to get than that. That freedom wall post wouldn’t go away, no matter how much he tries to block it, he knows.
His spiraling imagination is interrupted with the sounds of Mari playfully smacking his arm. “Aw, there, there. I’m sure it’s not easy being the campus crush.”
“What did I even do to deserve this?” He mumbles.
“Are you bragging?” Mari faux-gasps.
He sends her a glare. It does nothing but sharpen the twinkle in her dark eyes.
You know I only have eyes for you Mari, he thinks of saying, mostly because it’s true and a little bit because he wants to see her thrown off for once. But seeing the tray of cookies nearly toasted grounds him. The pretty blush that might cross her face isn’t worth botching the three months of we-text-everyday friendship they have. He promised himself he would be a real friend this time. And that starts with this.
“A-Anyway, are you done now? Cause I do need a…” he coughs and tries to put on a serious-sounding voice, “a taste tester, right now.”
Her dark eyes crinkle like she’s about to laugh again. “For your secret admirer?”
“You suck. No more…baked goods for you.”
“I’m just teasing,” Mari says, a touch of gentleness in her voice that Hero doesn’t know how to deal with, “I’d be glad to taste your cookies, Hero.”
Wait. “How did you—”
“I bake, remember?” Mari taps the table and points towards a stainless bowl he had left out— oh —“the chocolate chip smell’s still there even with your banana mix. And you got some excess chocolate mix in one of the stainless bowls.”
“Right,” he sighs. He should’ve washed the bowl instead of leaving it out in the open, should’ve stayed grounded to reality rather than float in delusions of a perfect surprise. Now, there’s no surprise at all. A sludgy feeling of shame weighs down on him. Last Valentines, he had spent days baking until the real date came and the plastic wrapped brownies remained in his bag, his feet unwilling to move a step forward. This Valentines, what would it be?
Oblivious to his turmoil, Mari lets out a sigh, drawing his attention. He’s close to bowing his head and apologizing for ruining it all when the determined look in her eyes freezes him on the spot.
“Sorry if I’m asking too much. Or teasing you too much. It’s good that you’re baking for Valentines. Chocolate chip’s the best gift, right?”
His mouth dries. What?
Mari’s nose scrunches into a brief moment of disgust. “Unless you’re baking raisin too?”
“N-No, of course not.”
“What I’m trying to say is,” she leans closer, some emotion flickering through her face before she offers up a smile, “if you ever need help with your…plans, I’m here.”
Hero’s heart twists. He wants nothing more than to hold her hand but he knows he’s bound to be conscious of his sweating, shaky palms just like their high school graduation. He settles for resting his hand on the counter top, inches away from brushing hers.
And quietly, he confesses, “Thank you, Mari. But actually, I wanted to give these to you. As a thank you for the cookies back in junior year. And for being my—my friend. I couldn’t have gone through this semester without you.”
Mari starts, her pretty lips parting in surprise. Her hand brushes his, and the timer for the cookies dings before he could apologize or before she could let him down gently.
His head feeling strangely empty, Hero goes through the motions of wearing the unsoiled oven mitt, taking out the tray of cookies, and setting it on the counter. As it lands, when he feels her arm on his shoulder. Her eyes are on the golden brown cookies.
“You baked all of these for me?” Something feather-light and vulnerable and utterly doubtful is in her voice. He desperately wants to take that away.
“Yeah, just like you did for me,” he says.
A sharp intake of breath—shock?—comes from her. “You knew?”
Hero tilts his head, confused. “Yeah? You told me you baked all those cookies yourself, for all your friends.”
She finally tears her eyes away from the cookies and stares at him like he is a puzzle she’s trying to figure out. It’s hard not to fidget under the intensity of her gaze. He takes off his oven mitt and clasps his hands together, like a prayer.
“Did I, um, get it wrong?” he asks, voice small.
At once, all intensity clears out and she bursts into a fit of giggles. “You’re so—”
“So what?” he asks dumbly.
His heart nearly stops at the sight of her eyes crinkling into a soft smile, the kind she reserves for funny cat videos she receives from her brother or the regular calls she has with the girls from Faraway Catholic, catching up with the latest gossip. He’s never been on the receiving end of it, not until now.
“So sweet. So silly,” she reaches up to pinch his cheeks on both sides, her fingers not all soft and actually a little painful, “Thank you, Hero.”
He must’ve mumbled out a yes, because she nods and softens her pinching to light squeezes. Oh, his cheeks must’ve reddened even more from that, judging from her light chuckles. Hero does his best not to curl up and hide from her, even when every cell in his body wants to fizzle out from her touch. He gestures at the cookies, hoping she’d take the hint and let him go before he explodes.
“Mm, I think I’ll hold on a little longer. It’s a fun stress-reliever,” she shrugs, her smirk striking his whole body into shock for a second (or ten), “plus, the cookies haven’t cooled down yet.”
He touches her hands on his face, panic rising within him. “You’re eating here?”
“Why not?”
Frowning, he takes her hands off him and stammers out, “But i-it’s not Valentines yet. And it might only cool by dinner.”
“It is, in some countries,” Mari says, her eyebrows wiggling again. Cute, he thinks, in spite of his body thrumming in embarrassment.
“And,” squeezing his hands—they haven’t let go yet— she adds, “don’t you think cookies make the perfect dessert?”
It’s over. A straight shot to his crumbling defenses. (Did it even exist with Mari Suzuki reappearing in his life?) Hero bows his head, aware of his total defeat. There’s no beating Mari, not when his hands are starting to shake from holding hers for too long.
“So where do you wanna go? Any cravings? My treat.”
He gawks. “Huh? I don’t—”
“C’mon, it’s only fair for you to choose, Hero. You’ve already got a good list of places you wanna try out. Plus, you’ve already baked me these lovely cookies,” Mari points out, her lower lip jutting out into a small pout.
His heartbeat pounds even to his fingertips. Did she feel it at all? He leans away from her, not wanting to test that out, when she squeezes his hands again and he realizes that if everything from here on out would just turn his face into a numb, red tomato, then Hero really doesn’t know what else to do but to fall into the moment now.
Facing her urging eyes, Hero lightly squeezes her hands and says, “Okay, okay. Let me go through my list. And I’m still paying.”
“We’ll see,” Mari says, in a singsong voice, swaying his hands along with her.
He laughs, a taste sweeter than chocolate on his tongue, and follows her lead.
(He's simply falling like a domino.)