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Kotetsu leaned on the doorbell for the third time in as many minutes. "Bunny, we're going to be late! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" Bunny called, his voice muffled by the door. "Just give me a minute."
"I gave you three," Kotetsu grumbled, and dug his key out of his pocket so he could open the door. "I'm coming in."
"Damn it, Kotetsu, don't—"
He pushed the door open and strode into the—surprisingly empty—living room. "Too late! Uh, where are you?"
A familiar groan of frustration came from off to the right, and Kotetsu immediately followed it into the kitchen. "You know, usually you're the one complaining about me being late, so this is kind of a..."
He took one look at the kitchen and trailed off. There were five cakes on the counter—three round and two rectangular—and only two of them were iced, and it looked like a flour bomb had exploded halfway up the cabinets. Bits of chocolate and colored icing and some kind of candy decorations streaked across the counters, and Bunny stood in the middle of it all with a sixth cake in front of him that looked like it was halfway through being decorated. He had a smear of chocolate on one cheek, a streak of red and green icing across the other, something white and powdered all over his black shirt, and Kotetsu was pretty sure that was chocolate in his hair. It was the most disheveled he'd ever seen Bunny look, which was saying something, given how many actual fights they'd been in.
"What happened? Are you opening a bakery?" Kotetsu asked.
"Please go back outside," Bunny said. "I'm almost finished."
Kotetsu eyed the unfinished cakes on the counter. "Uh, what about those?"
Bunny turned back to the cake in front of him and bent over it with a piping bag. "I only need one."
"So why did you make six?" Kotetsu froze. "Wait, were we supposed to bring dessert?"
"You weren't supposed to bring anything," Bunny muttered. "Now go wait somewhere you won't bother me."
Kotetsu took that as an invitation to walk on into the kitchen to examine the cake Bunny was making. "So what kind of cake is that?"
Bunny shifted so he was blocking Kotetsu's view of the cake. "Chocolate. Go away."
Like that was really going to stop him from trying to get a glimpse of the cake. "What are you putting on top of it?"
"Icing. Go away."
Kotetsu tried to peer over his shoulder. "But Bunny—"
"I swear I will get red icing on your vest," Bunny threatened, and pointed at the living room. "Out."
Kotetsu made a face and backed off—Bunny wasn't bluffing and Kotetsu liked this vest.
He wandered over to the other side of the counter to look at the unfinished cakes, and poked at one of the round ones. It looked like it was chocolate, too. "So what are these other cakes for?"
"They were test cakes," Bunny said.
Kotetsu brightened. "Test cakes? So can I try them?"
"They're not any good."
Kotetsu rolled his eyes and went to get a fork. Bunny was too much of a perfectionist sometimes; he'd bet the cakes were delicious.
Sure enough, the first chocolate cake was one of the best he'd ever tasted. "What the hell is wrong with this one?"
"It's too dry," Bunny said.
Kotetsu frowned at it. "Really? I can't tell."
"It is. And one of the sides caught, so it's burned."
Kotetsu eyed the sides of the cake and poked them with his fork. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Bunny glanced up from the cake he was icing just long enough to glare at him. "Why are you eating it?"
Kotetsu took another bite of the not-burned, not-dry chocolate cake. "Because it's good, and because we're going to be late for dinner, so you're responsible for feeding me."
Bunny sighed exasperatedly and went back to icing the cake.
Kotetsu went down the row of test cakes, taking a forkful of each one and listening to Bunny list their flaws—too close-textured (it wasn't), not lemony enough (it was fine), and not chocolatey enough (it was at least as chocolatey as the first cake).
The last cake was one of the ones that had been partially iced, and Kotetsu jabbed his fork into the side. "What was wrong with this one?"
"I messed up the icing—shit."
Kotetsu looked up to see Bunny staring at the test cake in abject horror, and he looked down to see what could be so terrible about it. Apparently Bunny had gotten part of the way through decorating this one before he'd given up, because the writing on the top said Happy Birthday K—
The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and Kotetsu wondered why he hadn't clued in when he'd seen all the cakes. "Bunny, are you making me a birthday cake?"
Bunny bent back over the other cake he'd been icing. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
Kotetsu grinned so wide it felt like his face was going to split. "You baked me six birthday cakes."
"I baked you one," Bunny said. "The others aren't good enough."
"Good enough?" Kotetsu took a heaping bite of the test cake. It was delicious. "What are you talking about? These are amazing."
Bunny sighed and pushed his glasses back up onto his nose. "They just needed to be better."
"Why?"
Bunny didn't immediately answer, and Kotetsu took another bite of cake and waited.
"Because you tried to throw me a birthday party," Bunny finally said. He still hadn't looked up from the cake.
Kotetsu raised his eyebrows. "Huh? But you hated it!"
"I don't like surprise parties." Bunny was very intently focused on icing the cake. "But it was the first time in twenty years someone other than Aunt Samantha wanted to do something for my birthday."
That was...kind of heartbreaking. Like most of the stuff from Bunny's childhood, to be honest. He didn't let much slip out, but what little Kotetsu had learned made him wonder what in the hell kind of life Bunny had had after his parents had died. And it made him want to do whatever he could to fix that.
"So. That's why I'm baking you a cake," Bunny said.
What Kotetsu heard was you tried to do something nice for my birthday, so I'm trying to do something nice for yours. And it didn't matter that he would've been satisfied with a not-actually-dry-and-slightly-burned cake, because Bunny wouldn't have been happy unless he'd done his absolute best to produce a perfect cake. Even if that meant baking five test cakes and blowing flour all over his spotless kitchen. Which was kind of stupid, but also very...sweet.
Kotetsu dug his phone out of his pocket. "So how long do you think it'll be before the cake is ready?"
"I'm almost finished icing it," Bunny said. "Why?"
"Because I'm going to call Antonio and tell him we're running late," Kotetsu said. "Is fifteen minutes long enough?"
"I think so."
Kotetsu started to call, and then something else occurred to him. "How long to get the chocolate out of your hair?"
Bunny jerked his head up. "I have chocolate in my hair?!"
"Just a little bit!" Kotetsu assured him.
Bunny did not look very reassured.
"Thirty minutes?" Kotetsu suggested.
Bunny nodded and went back to the cake.
Kotetsu made the call, which went to voicemail. Hopefully that meant they wouldn't be in too much trouble for being late. "Hey, Antonio. I took a nap this afternoon and I overslept a little, so I'm going to be late picking Bunny up for dinner. But we'll be there soon! I'm heading out the door right now. We'll see you all soon!"
He hung up and turned back around to see Bunny staring at him. "What?"
"Why did you tell him you overslept?" Bunny asked.
Kotetsu shrugged and pocketed his phone. "Eh, they'll expect it to be my fault. Now you have enough time to finish the cake."
Bunny looked like he was about to say something else, but he went back to piping icing on the cake instead.
Kotetsu used his fork to cut a decent piece of the iced test cake and sat down in Bunny's chair to enjoy it.
"You're going to ruin your dinner," Bunny said.
Kotetsu waved the comment away. "Shut up, it's my birthday cake."
"That's a test cake."
"A test cake for my birthday cake." Kotetsu took another bite. "So I have to eat enough that I know exactly how it tastes, so I can tell how the one you're decorating is even better, right?"
"It might not be," Bunny said.
Kotetsu scoffed. "Of course it will be. You made it."
He looked up from his cake to see Bunny staring at him again, with a look on his face that Kotetsu couldn't quite read. "What?"
Bunny ducked back over the cake. "Nothing. Just...don't eat too much of it."
"It's impossible to eat too much birthday cake, Bunny-chan."
"Then don't complain to me when you get a stomachache, old man."
Kotetsu made a face at him, even though Bunny couldn't see, and went back to enjoying his cake. After all, it was one of the best cakes he'd ever had.
(Probably, he would realize much later, because Bunny was the one who'd made it.)