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How hard could this possibly be? Venti wonders, staring at the disarray of ingredients in front of him, only a single moment away from chaos.
The bard has had his lover’s birthday on his calendar since the first time he mentioned it: One, because he knows Xiao wouldn’t repeat himself ever again and Two, because he has a memory capacity even smaller than a goldfish’s. Sometimes he even wonders where all these thoughts go, do they simply wash away with the alcohol—? And Venti forces himself back to earth. Even with all these months of knowing, he is as unprepared as he can get.
Venti has never needed to do anything hands-on in his life. For as long as he can remember, he’s always treated the Windrise tree as a home, bunking anywhere that looks comfortable enough away from trouble. For this reason, he hasn’t needed to worry about where to tuck his clothes or how to organise the plants on the window sill and much less, how to cook a proper meal without setting the surroundings on fire. Outdoor cooking most definitely hasn’t taught him a single lesson as to how to do it properly.
“Huh?! What’s this vanilla extract thing?” Venti scratches the back of his head. Pursing his lips doubtfully, he shrugs it off, assuming he’d manage without it. Maybe baking a cake for the first time on his boyfriend’s birthday is a terrible idea seeing as though he probably wouldn’t be able to boil rice on his own merit but Venti likes to think out of the box, do everything he’s not supposed to but because it’s cool. Bracing himself, he leaves the book open against the wall, coughing as a cloud of flour comes flying onto his face.
Does Xiao like chocolate? An image of Xiao nibbling on dark chocolate conjures in Venti’s brain with his usually unreadable expression. It’d probably be like most other food, where he has no real opinion on it.
“I’ll just make a chocolate cake instead,” Venti licks his lips, his face scrunching in disgust at the taste of plain all-purpose flour at the corner of his lips. Dumping however much cocoa powder he deems necessary (a horrible estimate, really), going somewhat off the recipe, he starts to stir the dry ingredients.
After a not-so-thorough round of stirring, he dumps the wet ingredients, doing a horrible job at cracking eggs. On his first attempt, he gets the white all over his fingers, the yolk missing the bowl and sliding off the counter. The second attempt leads to him having the egg white splattered all over his new shirt, which he really shouldn’t have worn -- and after wasting five eggs, he finally manages to crack two decent ones.
“Yahoo~” Venti exclaims in a celebratory tone, now stirring the wet ingredients in and creating a watery batter. For now, it looks kind of decent, thick as it should look but much darker than he expects. In the process of his intense stirring, he inevitably gets it on his face. Licking the chocolate, he winces, realising how bitter he is. He’s sure that he dumped an unhealthy amount of sugar, though. Shrugging, he digs through the cabinets for a baking tray, actually wondering if they have one in the first place.
With Venti’s careless hand, pots and pans are sent cluttering noisily against the ground. Xiao awakes, stumbling outside. He ruffles the bard’s hair in greeting, earning and unsuspecting yip from the musician. “Why are you making so much noise so early in the morning?” he rumbles in a low voice against Venti’s shoulder, sending a pang of excitement spiking through Venti’s heart.
“Go to the couch,” Venti cajoles trying to hide his set-up by whirling around and pushing his boyfriend away. Xiao, grumpy from just having woken up, doesn’t move, watching Venti with a pouty expression. When he averts his gaze to either side of Venti, he grows to realise what exactly his boyfriend’s trying to do. He bites his lip, trying to fight back a laugh. Venti furrows his brows, shaking the adeptus.
“Are you laughing at me?!” Venti gasps, his face reddening. Xiao doubles over, clutching onto his abdomen, chortling hard enough till by the time he’s done, he’s panting. He wipes a single tear from his eye, pecking Venti affectionately on the forehead.
With a cocky expression, he reminds, “You know you don’t have to do something over-the-top for me, you know? You don’t even know how to do the laundry.”
“I’m trying,” Venti slaps his boyfriend on the shoulder, swatting him out of the kitchen. Xiao grips onto his wrist, going onto his tip-toes to analyse the situation, “Don’t you need help?”
“I’m managing,” Venti holds up a finger confidently, then looks back to the chaos behind him. His confidence wavering, he adds, “I think.”
“I’ll let you do what you want for ten minutes but once I’m done with the laundry, I’m going to help you, okay?” Xiao knocks his boyfriend lightly on the head. Venti, knowing he wouldn’t be able to bargain with the stubborn adeptus, complies and immediately gets back to work once the coast is clear. With his bony arms, he tries his hardest not to spill the bowl of batter while pouring it into the baking pan. His wrists tremble at the weight of the bowl but he manages, also impressing his boyfriend who’s been watching him carefully while he takes their washed clothes out into a basket.
“You’ve gotten stronger, haven’t you?” Xiao yells, heading out to the balcony.
“I’ve carried you before!” Venti snaps back. How could Xiao forget such a victorious moment? Venti would never forget the look of flusteredness on the adeptus’ face, how he flushed and his arms went limp around his shoulders out of disbelief. Venti chucks the tray into the oven, referring to the recipe book for the timing.
Right as Venti’s about to flip the switch on the oven, Xiao screams from the veranda, “Did you remember to preheat the oven?” He peeks outside, folding a pair of boxes when he sees Venti’s finger hovering over the switch but not touching it. Embarrassed, he promptly takes out the cake and then leaves the oven to preheat. Trying to cover up his blunder, he immediately gets to mixing up the cream to be spread on the top of his cake. This task proves to be easier than the previous one, although at the back of Venti’s mind is the debate over whether he should settle for buttercream or a drizzle.
Shrugging, Venti decides to go with both, melting chocolate down in a pot and trying to mix up a chocolate buttercream to fill into the cake. While engrossed, he finds his bowl being taken from his arms and it’s at this point that he realises how worn out his arms are from all the mixing. “I’ll do this for you,” Xiao nudges his boyfriend playfully, doing his task dutifully.
“Don’t you get tired of doing work all the time?”
“I wouldn’t be dating you if I did,” Xiao mocks, pressing his lips against Venti’s cheek. He lifts the whisk mid-air, the buttercream a surprisingly soft and foamy texture. “I think you got the ingredients right for this one—Don’t let the chocolate burn!”
Quick on his feet, Xiao sets the bowl down, stretching for the stove to turn it off. Venti giggles awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head and getting even more flour into his hair. Taking the chocolate on his finger, he licks it, nodding. “Wanna try?”
“Mmm,” Venti comes jumping forward like an over-enthusiastic child, sucking chocolate off Xiao’s fingers. Xiao chuckles, tickled by the tip of Venti’s tongue.
“You’re so...” Xiao coos, and Venti proves the unspoken point, running his tongue along the corner of his mouth where there’s a tiny amount of chocolate. Satisfied, he watches his boyfriend who can’t help but get a little flustered. More than a little, because one’s heart doesn’t throb dizzily fast if they’re a little nervous.
Beep, beep, beep, the demonic little machine of an oven snaps them back to reality. Xiao’s a little mad at its temerity, that it interrupted them so shamelessly. Sulking a bit, he holds out the oven where he gestures for Venti to pick the tray out.
“Mittens,” he reminds, watching Venti attempt to take it with bare hands. He shakes his head disappointedly, watching his boyfriend scamper around in search of the mittens. Upon finding a pair hanging on a hook, he tip-toes, trying hard to reach for them but still a fingertip away. Before he attempts to climb on the counter just to get the gloves, Xiao comes to his rescue, holding his hip and bringing them down for him.
“Can you help me with the decorating?” Venti questions with pleading eyes and Xiao can’t turn the offer down. He hasn’t been planning to, either way. They allow the cake rest for a bit, finally cleaning up the kitchen. Venti’s reluctant to clean but after a couple of grimaces and trying to remind himself that he has to be responsible for his boyfriend (for one day), he joins in with a rag, scrubbing the counters and walls.
“How’d you mess up so much?” Xiao chuckles and Venti really doesn’t have an answer.
Clumsiness runs in his blood.
Pulling out a box of strawberries from the refrigerator, Xiao lets them rest, carving a few once he’s done with his part of the cleaning. The bard raises his head, questioning his actions but Xiao gives me the ‘trust me’ look. When the cake is cooled, Venti cuts it in half horizontally, leaving both halves on a large plate. Xiao leaves a few carved strawberries on the chopping board although some look like they’ve been reduced to nothing but skin.
Like a professional, the chef-disguised-as-an-adeptus spreads the buttercream on one side of the cake, then assembles them back together, drizzling the melted chocolate over the top.
“We’re not having any dessert for the next week, ‘kay?” Xiao shoots Venti a particular stare but the musician’s much too awestruck to notice. He pipes the remaining buttercream like miniature dollops of whipped cream, laying out the strawberries carefully. They seem to sink into the drizzle, almost like they’ll fall through the cake too. By the time Xiao’s done, the cut up strawberries now form the image of a rose.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?!” Venti gasps, dumbfounded at the adeptus’ skill. Looking at him, you’d never guess this uncouth, mostly-rude Yaksha had any skill worth offering other than assassinating and Venti didn’t either.
“Was I supposed to do nothing for 500 years?” Xiao purses his lips but Venti forces a close-lipped smile. That’s exactly what I was thinking.
“Go to the living room, I’ll bring the cake there,” Xiao instructs but his boyfriend, of course, makes a detour to grab a bottle and two glasses of wine. He moves with a skip in his step, making room on their coffee table. Then Xiao sets it down, marvelling at the beauty of a cake. He nods approvingly, realising it turned out much better than he’d expected. To be fair, anything better than a charred kitchen seemed like the best possible scenario.
“Oh, I’ll get the cutlery,” Xiao announces, ready to stand but his suddenly-hyped boyfriend beats him to it, scrambling forward and backward with a cake knife and forks in his hand. Xiao nods, impressed at this new behaviour, savoring it before this ideal of the bard is gone. When Xiao cuts into the cake, Venti conjures his lyre, singing “Happy Birthday” softly. Xiao can’t help but grin, deaf to the rest of the world and only focusing on Venti’s voice, his favourite song.
“Ack, how much cocoa did you put in this!” Xiao winces. Taking a piece of cake between his fingers, he stuffs it into Venti’s mouth mid-sentence. Venti chews, his expression going blank. He tilts his head innocently, “Whatever seemed enough.”
“I think it’s a bit more—” Xiao chews, now getting a bit more used to the taste. “A lot more than enough.”
“I did go off the recipe,” Venti confesses.
“It’s not bad,” Xiao shrugs and Venti pauses. “Today’s a good day,” he continues and there’s the most adorable smile Venti has ever laid his eyes on.
“Hhh, wait,” Venti crawls forward onto the couch, picking a strawberry from the top of the cake. He runs it around in the chocolate a little and then pushes himself up onto his knees, kneeling and now his body over Xiao’s. His boyfriend gets the message to look up, observing with a questioning stare. “Yeah?”
“Let me feed you,” Venti cajoles so Xiao parts his lips, expecting Venti to stick the strawberry into his mouth and nothing more. But of course, Venti has countless tricks up his sleeve, too many for him to do something that’s predictable. With his teeth he bites the bottom of the strawberry, picking the leaf off. He bends, turning his neck so the top half of the ruby fruit slides perfectly through the gaps of Xiao’s teeth. Their breaths intertwine, the bitter smell of chocolate lingering at the tips of their nose.
Something about the way their noses touch but their skin of their lips are still a miniscule distance away, how they can only look into each other’s eyes and nowhere else, how even the birds have stopped chirping to honour their moment - it’s addictive, more so than wine or tofu or anything else in the world. Heart speeding, Xiao bites the fruit and swallows, pulling Venti in by his jaw. He cranes his neck, any distance between them now gone.
Xiao wonders how Venti’s lips make even bitter cocoa taste sweeter than sweet.