[Log-Baking a Bunta cake]

[oshitari_kenya]

Who: Kenya, Zaizen, Tachibana, Marui
When: The 12th of November
Where: Kenya's room, the kitchens, and beyond.
What: Baking a Bunta cake.



It was the day after Kenya had so gracefully fallen into a hole, and Zaizen was hanging out in his husband's room using the excuse of 'taking care' of him. Which mostly meant cuddling. A lot of cuddling. And some talking, when they weren't kissing and stuff like the stupid honeymooning couple they were.

Which was right now, it so happened. Zaizen sat there, looking thoughtful as the iguana climbed all over him. "So... Bunta-san seems more serious about this relationship than I expected. It's kind of cute, honestly."

Kenya smiled, playing with Zaizen’s hair with his uninjured hand. "Yeah, I wasn't expecting him to check in with us before kissing people and all that." He was really touched, honestly. "...so I feel really how upset he was yesterday…"

Zaizen nodded his head in agreement with that. "He was pretty upset... And to think before then I kind of doubted how serious he was, too. I guess we should do something nice to make up for it all."

The question of course was what should they do?

Kenya thought about it for a moment. "Maybe we could Tachibana-san to help us make him a cake or something?" He suggested.

Zaizen blinked. A cake, huh? "Well, it won't be as good as the stuff he makes, but he does seem to like getting free food made for him so... okay, I guess."

Kenya grinned. "Yeah. He loves eating sweets and if he doesn't have to make them, all the better!" He sat up. "And we could decorate it!"

Zaizen nodded, getting more into the idea of baking a cake for their boyfriend. "We could decorate it to look like his favorite thing... him."

He got off the bed so that they could head to the kitchen to begin this project.

Kenya put Yuuko in her enclosure and then followed Zaizen. "This is going to be so fun!" He said, a skip to his step.

"Yeah, I'm sure Tachibana-san can make sure we make a good cake... Hopefully he's free." Zaizen commented, entering the kitchen with Kenya and honing right in on the man. "Tachibana-san! We need your help!"

Words he knew Tachibana couldn't ignore.

Tachibana was just getting ready to leave the kitchen when the base’s resident married couple approached him. “What’s up?”

“Please help us make a cake for Bunta!” Kenya pled.

Zaizen nodded his head. "We want to bake a cake for Bunta-san to apologize for some stuff... can you help us?"

Tachibana chuckled. He supposed making his grandmother’s altar could wait a few more hours. “Alright. I’ll help.”

Kenya smiled brightly. “Thanks, Tachibana-san, you’re the best!”

Zaizen smiled too, one of his rare happy smiles. "Thank you, Tachibana-san! We can handle decorating it, we just need help making the cake and frosting."

You know, the important parts.

Tachibana laughed as he started pulling out the ingredients. These two were ridiculously adorable. “That’s great because I’m actually terrible at decorating cakes.”

Kenya grinned. “Leave it to us, Tachibana-san!”

Zaizen nodded. It couldn't be that hard to decorate a cake. "We want to make it look like Bunta-san. A Bunta cake." He explained, perfectly deadpan as he punned. "So maybe make white frosting and we can color it with food coloring?"

Tachibana stared at Zaizen for a moment before bursting out in laughter. Yes, Tachibana enjoyed a good pun every now and then. “Yeah, no worries, I can just make white frosting and let you guys go nuts.”

Kenya tilted his head. He wasn’t sure what was so funny.

Zaizen frowned when Kenya didn't laugh at his attempts at being funny too. Well, it was kind of unusual for him to make a joke. Whatever.

"Should we just make a big sheet cake and cut it into shape after it cooks, do you think?" Zaizen asked, moving on from his attempt at humor.

Tachibana nodded. “Yeah, that’s the easiest way to do it.” He chuckled at Zaizen’s frown. “Some people don’t know a good pun when they hear it.” He said reassuringly.

'Some people' were his husband, apparently. Oh well, maybe he'd figure it out later. "Okay. So a sheet cake... what do we do to make it? Last time I tried to bake it didn’t go so well."

“I’ll take care of the ingredients, I’ll have you guys mix.” Tachibana said, getting all the ingredients ready. Once he had them in a bowl, he handed it over. “Stir until it looks smooth.” He said to Kenya.

“I’m on it!” Kenya said, stirring with all his might.

"Not so fast you splash it everywhere!" Zaizen clarified, reaching through the flying batter to slow Kenya's hands down. Well, now he was a little messy. Oh well.

Kenya laughed sheepishly. “Oops…sorry, Hikaru.”

Tachibana, meanwhile, was preheating the oven and getting the cake pan out.

Zaizen licked some batter off of his own arm and shrugged. "It tastes good, at least. Want to try some?"

Kenya nodded and licked the rest off of Hikaru's arm. "Yummy!"

Zaizen smiled at Kenya, charmed by his closeness, and pressed a small kiss to his nose. Yup, it was PDA o'clock. "Okay. Keep stirring. We'll make the best cake for Bunta-san!"

Tachibana just shook his head, trying not to watch as the two had their moment.

"It's almost done!" Kenya said, being very careful not to splatter anymore batter.

Zaizen looked at the batter, thoughtful. Bunta-san could no doubt do better, but he thought it looked (and tasted) pretty solid. "...so we just put it in the pan now?"

Tachibana nodded."Yes. I have it all ready for you."

Kenya smiled and went to gently pour the cake in the pan. "There we go!"

Zaizen nodded. "Looks good! Let's bake this now!" He moved to open the oven up and carefully slide in the pan. There, they were practically pros!

Tachibana was working on the icing now. "I set a timer. When it goes off, just take the cake out and let it cool."

Kenya nodded. "Yeah! And then decorate!"

Zaizen started separating the frosting into bowls so that they could start coloring it, nodding his head as he listened to Tachibana. "Thanks, Tachibana-san. We appreciate it."

Tachibana nodded. "If you two are good then, I'm going to head off."

Kenya smiled. "We've got this! Thank you, Tachibana-san!"

Zaizen nodded. "Have fun doing your thing, Tachibana-san." He looked at Kenya. "Help me raid Bunta-san's fridge for stuff to use to decorate the cake?"

Kenya nodded, waving at Tachibana as he left. "Yeah, this is going to be so much fun!"

Zaizen went over to start looking through all of Marui's foodstuffs. There were bound to be cool cake decorations here. "Yeah, I've never decorated a cake before. Should be interesting."

He pulled out an assortment of candies. They could use these for details!

"Me, either, but it can't be that hard…right?" Kenya said, finding the food coloring. "It's just like painting, right?"

Zaizen nodded. "I don't think it should be much different, yeah. So pink for the hair, skintone for his face... what color clothes should we dress him in?"

"Um…purple!" Kenya grinned. "I think he looks nice in purple!"

Zaizen nodded. "It suits him. Matches his eyes." He dripped some food coloring into one of the bowls and started mixing up pink for Marui hair.

Kenya did the same to make purple. "I hope he's feeling better today. He was really shaken last night…"

"Yeah... it freaked me out a little actually. I've never seen someone have an attack like that." Zaizen confessed, using a teeny bit of orange to attempt a flesh tone. It was... okay? "I mean, you falling into a sandworm hole was scary, but his reaction was just as scary."

Kenya bit his lip. "Yeah…I didn't mean to scare anyone. I'm glad he wasn't mad at me, but I wish I could get that worried look on his face out of my head…"

"It hit too close to home, I guess. His injury in the caves is really haunting him." Zaizen shook his head. "Hopefully time helps. Sucks to see him get so upset."

Kenya nodded. "Yeah. Hopefully this cake will make him smile, though!"

"He does love some cake." Zaizen agreed, blinking as the oven beeped and going to retrieve the freshly baked cake, carefully turning it upside down over a tray to slide out of its pan.

It was... mostly intact.

"I guess I'll cut this into shape..." Zaizen offered, not sure what else to do.

Kenya watched. "We can make it a cute little cartoon Bunta." He offered. "Like more round…?"

"Super deformed." Zaizen started cutting out the shape. Big head, small limbs, little torso.

The end result was... well, it existed. Maybe it would look better with frosting.

"So now we frost it, right?" Kenya asked, grabbing the frosting bowls.

"Yeah... That should make it look better, too. Let's do this." Zaizen agreed, grabbing a knife to start smearing color on the rather... ugly shaped cake.

Kenya tilted his head as the frosting melted. "Is that supposed to happen?" He squeaked. Still, he grabbed a knife to do the same.

Zaizen squinted. This was harder than he had expected. "This is... well, I guess it's the thought that counts, right? Let's just try to finish."

As they worked it at least kind of started to look like Marui. A melty, kind of scary Marui.

"Maybe we can use candy for his face?" Kenya asked. It was really starting to look like a blob.

Zaizen nodded and started sticking bits of candy on to kind of make a face. God, this was bad. And getting worse. It seemed to be melting.

"Maybe we should bring it to Bunta-san now?"

Kenya looked a little disheartened. "Yeah…I'm worried we're making it worse…" It was the thought that mattered….right?

"It just drives home how impressive Bunta-san's skills are, honestly." Zaizen said, covering the cake up and picking up the tray. For better or worse it was time to go show Marui their work.

Kenya followed behind, knowing Zaizen wouldn't let him carry anything. "He is really impressive! But…we put a lot of love into it?"

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll appreciate it. After all, it will taste good at least." Zaizen pointed out, hitting the buzzer for Marui's room with his elbow. "Delivery for Bunta-san!"

That sounded like his two favourite people at his door, so of course Marui got up and answered it himself. “Zaizen, Ken-chan!” He beamed at them with metaphorical hearts floating around his head, glad to see them and glad for a distraction from the script for his next video that so wasn’t writing itself. “What’s up? Something smells good!”

Kenya smiled brightly. "Well…we wanted to cheer you up after yesterday, so we made you a cake! Tachibana-san helped with the baking part."

Zaizen nodded his head, stepping into Marui's room and setting the covered cake down so that Marui could, uh, discover it for himself. "We decorated it with love."

He made dumb heart hands at Marui to emphasize the love put into decorating the monstrous cake.

A cake? For him? Marui was too thrilled to even respond, immediately bouncing over to the cake to see what they’d made for him. He rips the tinfoil off with the excitement of a kid opening presents on christmas, and… bursts out laughing. What the hell was that?! He held onto his sides for dear life, unable to control the laughter pouring out of him.

Kenya pouted. "We tried our best…" He said. He knew it didn't look amazing. "It's supposed to be you."

Well, at least Marui was enjoying the cake. Zaizen sighed. "Decorating it was more trouble than I expected... it kind of melted. But yeah, it's clearly you. Looks just like you."

Marui did his best to regain control of himself enough to speak, wrapping himself around Kenya since he wasn’t taking things quite as well as Zaizen was. “Aww, Ken-chan, don’t look like that. It’s so cute, I love it.” He smooched Kenya on the nose, then pulled away to look at the cake again. What a masterpiece. “You tried so hard. You said Tachibana helped you make it, right?” Hopefully that meant it tasted better than it looked.

Kenya nodded, relaxing a little. "Yeah. He made the cake and the frosting, so it should taste good!"

"Neither of us have any real experience baking so we thought it would be better to ask someone who knew what they're doing for guidance." Zaizen confirmed, scooting up to Kenya to press against him, trying to get him to relax more. "Apparently we need guidance for cake decorating too. You'll have to give us lessons."

“Here’s lesson number one straight from the master himself: you gotta let the cake cool before you ice it. Completely. That’s why I look like a handsome version of the guy from Robocop.” Marui dipped his finger into the icing on the edge of the pan, giving it a taste. “Did you bring plates and forks?”

Kenya blinked. "Oh no! Tachibana-san told us to let it cool! We totally forgot!" Well, now he felt dumb. "We forgot plates and forks, too."

"I can go get something after I get a picture of Bunta-san with the cake for my blog." Zaizen said, already getting ready to snap a picture to live in infamy. Might as well, after all.

He snapped the photo, looking at it and nodding before turning to go get plates and forks.

Marui got his own picture as well, because of course this had to be saved for posterity. Then he started pulling cans out of his mini fridge, passing one to Kenya so they had something to drink when Zaizen got back. In the meantime, it was loving on Kenya time. “It really is cute you know, but you’re way cuter. I can’t believe you two made me a whole cake just to cheer me up. I’m sooo lucky.”

Kenya took the can, smiling softly. "I mean…it was my fault you were so worried. We just wanted to make you smile again!" He moved closer, hugging with his good arm. "Even if the smile was making fun of our terrible decorating skills!"

“I was just a bit freaked out, you came back in one piece so everything’s okay.” Marui was downplaying what was very much a panic attack, and good luck on getting him to change his mind. He leaned into Kenya, snuggling him shamelessly. “Mostly, anyway. Do you need me to feed you until your arm is better?”

Kenya cuddled back, shaking his head. "I don't need you to feed me, but I would like it." He said, cheeks pink.

Zaizen re-entered the room with eating utensils, looking over at Kenya and Marui and raising an eyebrow. "Oh, we're going to hand feed Kenya-san? I'm in."

He sat the plates and forks down to go cuddle up with Kenya and Marui as well, wrapping his arms around them both because they were both cute.

Unsurprisingly, Marui was living for the attention, and getting to love up Kenya wasn't bad either. He squished Kenya's face between his hands, practically cooing at him. "Look at his shy little face, isn't he adorable?" It was so funny to Marui that Kenya was blushing over asking to be fed, considering the other things they'd done together. People with shame were so cute, he couldn't help but want to tease him for it.

Kenya kind of loved being teased, but was still a bit shy about it. "It just have a working arm, so it feels silly…but I still want to do it."

"Kenya-san likes being doted on." Zaizen commented, swiping his finger through the frosting and bringing it to Kenya's lips to feed him the sugary sweet mixture. Suggestively.

“Good, because I like doting on Ken-chan.” A quick smooch on the cheek for Kenya and Marui pulled away from the others, serving up a single, large plate of cake and grabbing two forks. The cake was passed to Kenya and a fork was passed to Zaizen, before Marui sat himself back down. “It’s my cake so I get the first taste.” This was directed at Zaizen, for whom Marui was now waiting with open mouth to be fed by. Watch and learn Kenya, this is how you take the things you want.

Zaizen watched Marui behead himself and pass the head to Kenya, and a fork to him. And now... he was acting like a damn baby bird.

He met Marui's eye... and stuck the first bite of cake into his own damn mouth like the brat he was. Then he kindly bent over and delivered that bite to Marui, mouth to mouth.

Marui took the bite, and hmm the cake was pretty good, but, “That kinda loses its sexiness when it’s not jello, not gonna lie.” Hopefully Kenya was still hungry after that, because Marui was getting a bite ready and holding it up for him to eat. On his fork. Like how cake is supposed to be eaten, smh Zaizen.

Kenya was so very confused at the mouth-to-mouth cake, but he didn't say anything, happily taking his bite of cake. "Oh. It is good! Even if it wasn't very pretty."

Zaizen shrugged. He thought it was still pretty fun to feed Marui that way, damn it. "Glad the cake turned out good if nothing else."

He stuffed another bite of Marui's dumb cake into Marui's dumb mouth. The right way this time.

Good, cake tasted much better when it wasn’t slobbery, not that Marui was afraid of slobber by any means. He hummed happily and offered Zaizen a bite, then continuing to alternate between Kenya and Zaizen after that. It was the kind of fluffy nonsense that other people would cringe at, but hey, that was the point of dating if you couldn’t be over the top affectionate with each other.

Kenya was as happy as a clam, not even realizing or caring how others would see this. "I'm happy to see your smile, Bun-chan. I was worried after yesterday…"

"Yeah, it was scary seeing you like that. I like you more like this." Zaizen agreed, feeding Kenya another bite of cake. One of the candy eyes in this bite, actually. "You're a surprisingly cute guy .."

“What part of it’s surprising? I’m obviously adorable.” Marui puffed up in mock defensiveness. “Anyway, I told you I’m fine. You don’t have to worry, okay? I’m resilient, you can’t keep me down.” Believe him. People have tried.

Kenya chewed on his bite of cake before leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Marui's shoulder, like a cat. "I know, but I don't want someone I love to ever look that worried!"

Zaizen dropped his fork as Kenya said the L word to Marui. Welp, that was unexpected.

Kenya really was the sweetest. Marui petted his hair reassuringly, oblivious to whatever internal shock Zaizen was currently going through. “Then no more falling into holes. Deal?”

Kenya looked back up and smiled. "Deal." He turned to look back at Hikaru. "...Hikaru, are you okay?"

"...You love Bunta-san?" Zaizen asked, just to clarify. Wow, he'd thought Kenya would have the sense to warn him before saying something like that?

Kenya blinked, confused. "I mean, I care a lot about him. That's love, right?"

Zaizen shrugged. "You're so easygoing, Kenya-san."

Honestly, his mood felt a little sour now and he wasn't sure why.

Woof, mood killer. “Hey, don’t be jealous, he loves you way more. You’re the one he married, remember?” Marui doubted that damage control was going to help at this point, but he had to at least try. “You’re the one he wouldn’t shut up about all night on Halloween, not me.”

Zaizen shook his head. "I'm not jealous." He just wished he'd been warned in advance, that was all.

Kenya looked between his husband and his boyfriend. "Wait, Hikaru!" He pouted. "You can't just be mad at a word. Of course I like Bunta enough to say I love him. But it wasn't a big old confession….just like, friendly. Like, I love you man!"

Zaizen continued pouting, now more embarrassed that everyone was embarrassed at his discomfort than anything else. "It's not a big deal."

It wasn’t embarrassment, it was concern. Or it was, now it was just sort of awkward. Well, Zaizen and Kenya could talk this one out on their own time, for now Marui thought a distraction was in order, and provided one in the form of cake. “Less talking more eating! Eat me, Zaizai.” Incoming: one huge forkful of cake, whether Zaizen liked it or not.

Zaizen opened his mouth to protest further and was assaulted with a mouthful of cake. Well, that could be worse. He chewed and swallowed obediently. And then stuffed an oversized bite into Marui's mouth. Take that!

Marui just shrugged and ate it. “Ohhh you beat me. You got me so good.” He liked cake. What did Zaizen expect?

Zaizen frowned, sat down the fork... and took a big handful of cake to smear across Marui's face.

Kenya just sat there and stared. If he was quiet, maybe no cake would end up on him.

Marui really should have expected retaliation, and yet here they were. The obvious thing to do from here was to get Zaizen back with his own face full of cake, but that would just turn into a food war, which would 1) be a waste of perfectly good cake and 2) make a huge mess, and since it was his room he’d be the one to clean it up. No, Marui’s plan was much more devious– he wailed dramatically, clinging to Kenya. “Look how MEAN he is to me, Ken-chan!”

Kenya laughed. "Really? I don't think he's mean." He wrapped his arms around Marui and started licking the cake off his face. "Wow, the cake got even sweeter!" He teased.

Zaizen just stared, not sure how his attempts to best Marui turned out like this. Well, whatever. "You like cake. I'm not mean."

“Nope, definitely mean.” Marui sat there, smug as anything while Kenya licked his face clean. Oh yes, Marui had won this round, Zaizen.

Once Kenya was done cleaning Marui up, he pulled Zaizen over with this good arm and kissed him. "You two like being mean to each other."

"I'm just playing with Bunta-san." Zaizen defended himself. "If I was actually being mean I promise you both would know it. But I like Bunta-san, I won’t be mean to him for real."

Marui nodded at Zaizen’s assessment of things. “Yeah, we have an understanding, it’s all good. If you don’t want to be pulled into it you should say so now, because you make a great pawn for ticking him off.” Like exactly how Marui had just used Kenya a moment ago.

Kenya tilted his head in thought. "Um…is there a safe word so we know if we crossed a line?"

Zaizen blinked. "Huh. Maybe not a bad idea I guess. Okay, what word do you want, Bunta-san?"

“I have to pick? Uh… banana.” It was the first thing that came to Marui’s mind. “I should remember that, and if I don’t, whatever, just say ‘safe word’, that’s pretty straight forward, right?” Marui was likely to just storm out if lines were ever truly crossed, but he supposed he could give this a go.

Zaizen nodded. "Seems reasonable enough. In case we ever cross any lines, I guess." And because it had been Kenya-san who had made the safe word suggestion. "But I mean, we typically don't do anything really extreme. We just pick on each other for fun."

For now, though, he pulled Marui into his lap to cuddle him. Because he actually really liked Marui.

Kenya smiled softly. “I know you guys are smart and know what is usually too much, but sometimes, things bother us that we don’t realize, so it’s nice to have a word we can say instead of trying to explain.”

“Listen to you, you should have been a therapist.” There were some nuggets of wisdom in there after all, and Marui had nothing against making bold claims to praise his boyfriend with, despite his occasionally lacking social IQ.

"Kenya-san can be pretty smart sometimes." Zaizen agreed, feeding Marui another bite of cake while leaning over to kiss his husband.

Kenya was blushing at the praise, happily kissing Zaizen. “Hey…can I have more cake?”

Zaizen nodded and spooned more cake into Kenya's mouth. "There you go, Kenya-san."

You know what they say, nothing goes better with cake than sex. Which is what Marui was about to suggest. Ha ha, feeding kink, who? Fade to sex, bye ;)