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Ash slowly opened his eyes and glanced over at Eiji.
Eiji was curled up on the bed, in deep sleep. Because Ash let him sleep in today, unlike nagging him to wake up earlier and not be late for his college classes. About a year ago, their roles would’ve been swapped right now, Eiji yelling at ash to wake up instead. It was about 10am, and Ash secretly turned off Eijis alarm last night, because today is a special day.
Today was May 3rd. Eijis 21st birthday, and the first birthday Ash is celebrating with him, he wanted this to be special.
He sat up, still glancing at Eiji. A small smile formed on his lips as he leaned down, brushing Eijis bangs aside and softly kissing his forehead.
He stood up after that, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He brushed his teeth, ate breakfast, and drank coffee. Now he was sitting on the dinner table thinking about what to do.
He had already secretly went shopping at the grocery store yesterday to buy ingredients.
“This is such a stupid idea.” Ash grumbled under his breath, but he still got up and pulled out the ingredients from the highest cabinet, the one Eiji never checks because he can’t reach it.
Flour, egg, sugar, butter, milk, baking powder, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, and chocolate frosting. Eijis favourite flavour for cake.
Ash sighed. Thinking this is a stupid idea again, he had never baked a cake in his life. But for Eiji, hes a soft little whipped boy beneath his tough gangster personality. All he thought was about Eijis smile when he would see the cake, and he didn’t hesitate to pull out ingredients.
He grabbed a bowl and his phone to follow a recipe.
First step: 2 cups of white sugar.
“What the fuck is white sugar. Isn’t all sugar white?” Ash cursed quietly and grabbed a cup and filled it with sugar and repeated it twice and poured it into the bowl “Okay.. next.”
“1 3/4 cups of flour” he took the same cup and scooped up some flour, poured it, then again with about a third of the cup.
Next step: Half a cup of cocoa powder.
Ash grabs the same cup and fills it up halfway with cocoa powder, then dumps it into the bowl.
“Okay this is actually easy.” Ash said in relief.
Next step: 1 teaspoon of baking soda
Ash opened the drawer. All he saw were normal spoons.
“Fuck, we don’t have teaspoons. Whatever I’ll just use a normal spoon.”
He whispered, trying to be quiet as possible to not wake eiji up even though he’s across the whole apartment. Then he mixes all the dry ingredients together.
Next step: in a separate bowl add 2 eggs
Ash held the eggs and looked at them as if he had never seen an egg before. He tried cracking it against the bowl, but it was too soft since it was plastic. So he just takes a spoon and hits the egg with it.. Unfortunately for him the yolk falls down on the counter.
“Oh my god. Fuck.” He panics and looks for a tissue and wipes the counter using about 10 tissues.
He finally cracks the next 2 eggs properly and adds it to the bowl.
Next step: one cup of milk
Ash opens the fridge and takes out a carton of milk. At this point he has no patience to measure and just estimates and pours in an amount that seems like a cup.
“Yeah thatll be fine..” He thinks to himself as he closes the lid.
Next step: 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
“Not this teaspoon shit again.” Ash complains under his breath again and grabs a regular spoon to use.
Then he grabs a whisk and whisks all the wet ingredients. The tutorial used a electric mixer, but he didn’t have that, and it was too loud anyways.
After about 3 minutes of mixing, and his arm being sore. He looks over at his phone.
“Mix both bowls. Okay easy.”
He grabs the first bowl and tries dumping it into the second carefully, but despite his great aim he still missed terribly
“Oohh shit.” He panicked and dumped the entire thing and left the rest on the counter
“Yeah I’ll just clean that up later.”
He mixes all the ingredients together, and it actually looks like a good batter, he dips his finger in to try a little bit and raises his eyebrow.
“Damn I should be a baker, Im so good at this.”
Ash pours the batter into a baking tray with parchment paper over it. He stares at his “masterpiece” and dips his finger in the batter again to lick it
“This is soo yummy” Ash thinks in his mind, and then puts the tray into the oven at 350F. Then he walks over to the couch and sits down, letting out a sigh of relief. He checks the time. It’s 11:04am.
“Is Eiji gonna wake up soon? I mean.. he slept late last night so probably not till 12.”
He sits in silence for a second then pulls out a card he bought yesterday. It had a cover and an empty page. He opened the card and grabbed a pen nearby and started writing without even thinking, the words were just flowing, his hands moving without his mind even thinking.
“Dear Eiji
Happy birthday. You’re really old now. This is the first time I celebrate your birthday with you. Im so grateful I met you. Im so grateful I have you. I love you so much, I hope you know that. You mean everything to me, I hope you have the best birthday ever. I tried my best making it special for you. Happy birthday. I love you. -Ash”
He stares at the letter, trying to comprehend what he wrote.
“Fuck this is too cheesy. I can’t even erase it.”
He just sighs, closes the card and puts it aside. Then he gets up and checks on the cake. It’s been 25 minutes it’s ready now!
He puts on oven mitts, and opens the oven door to take the cake out. He places it on the counter and lets it cool off. Ash is looking at the cake, thinking that he actually did a good job.
After a few minutes of letting it cool down, he takes the frosting and a butterknife to spread it. Then he uses blue icing to write words onto the cake.
“Happy birthday Eiji!” In messy and shakey handwriting. After he’s finished he looks at the results.
It looks… sloppy and terrible..
The frosting isn’t even, the writing is curved to the side.
Ash just stares at the cake. Then he just sighs and puts everything hes holding down on the counter.
“Fuckkk i just had to ruin it. But atleast I know it tastes fin-“
Before he could finish he hears a sleepy voice coming near him
“Mmh.. babe?”
Ash flinches at the fact Eiji woke up. It’s a bit early to wake up for someone who slept at 3am yesterday. He runs out of the kitchen to greet Eiji.
Eijis standing there with his pyjamas, messy sleepy hair, and looking half awake.
“EIJI! Your awake! You should go brush your teeth..!” Ash yells nervously.
“Mm.. yea? Why are you screaming whats wrong?” Eiji mumbles.
“Nothing nothing go brush your teeth.” Ash says as he turns eiji around by his shoulders and lightly pushes him towards the bathroom. Eijis too sleepy to even process whats happening and follows whatever Ash is doing.
Ash immediately runs over back to the kitchen and sets everything up on the dinner table, the cake, a few dumb balloons, and a plate. He backs up a little to look at everything. It looks messy and dumb, but kind of cute.
Before ash can even fix anything he turns around and sees Eiji behind him. His eyes widen and he just stutters something out in shock.
“Uhh.. Happy birthday babe.. I made this for you..” He turned to the cake.
“Wait, you made this for me?”
“Yes..”
Eiji stays silent for a moment, still processing whats happening. The silence and intensity is driving Ash insane, even though it’s about 5 seconds of silence.
“Uhm.. i know its not the best but..-“ Before ash can even finish his sentence eiji just pulls him into a tight hug
“Ash.”
“Yea..?”
“Thank you so much.” Eiji pulls away from the hug and gives ash a small peck on the cheek and then turns towards the cake to look at it. Ash just stays there, blushing a little bit, but it’s obvious on him because of his pale complexion.
Eiji lets out a small giggle that catches Ashs attention. Yes. Thats the smile and laugh Ash wanted to hear.
“It looks.. interesting. But cute. I love it.”
Ash immediately catches on to Eijis teasing and just pouts a little.
“Tch. It tastes good.. i think.”
Ash takes a knife and cuts a piece for eiji and puts it on his plate.
“Here.. try it.”
Eiji picks up a spoon and takes a bite out of the cake. Ash stands behind him, a little nervous and impatient, eagerly waiting for eijis response.
“Mm! This is actually really good! I like it.” Then he glances over at the card on the table.
“Hm? Whats this?” Eiji grabs the card.
Ash lips curl into a small soft smile and he gets a little flustered at the praise. Then he stops smiling and clears his throat and his eyes widen as he snatches the card away.
“HEY. uhm.. read it when you’re alone ‘kay? Not right now..” Ash says nervously as he faces away. Hes blushing a lot now. “I was going to get you a gift but I had no time. I’ll get you one soon.”
“No I want to read it.”
“NOO. READ IT ALONE.”
Eiji stares at him for a second then his lips curl into a small smug smirk and he just closes the card and puts it back.
After about an hour. They’re lying on the couch together now. But more like fused together. Eiji is lying down in his back while ash is attached to him like a clingy golden retriever. His leg tangled with Eijis, and his face buried in his neck.
“Your so clingy today.” Eiji teased as he softly rubbed circles onto ash’s back. Ash just responded with a grumble.
Eiji looked over, he still took the card with him, and ash wasn’t looking anyways, so he just quietly picked the card up and started reading it.
He immediately began to smile at ash’s sweet words, even blushing a little bit.
Ash suddenly lifts his head up to reposition and stops when he sees eiji holding the card. Eiji also stops, staring back like a deer caught in headlights. Ash immediately snatches the card away and throws it on the floor and just buries his face back into eijis neck in embarrassment.
“UGH EIJI. I TOLD YOU NOT TO READ IT NOWWW…..ITS EMBARRASSING ” Ashs complaining was muffled and he was blushing up to his ears. Eiji giggled at him and tilted ashs head up. That small laugh is like music to Ash’s ears.
“Heyyy it was cute i like itt. Your writing is so sweet.”
Ash blushes even more and groans. Then he leans in close and kisses eiji. The kiss was soft, slow, and sweet. He pulled back after a few seconds. Their faces close now.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you..” Eiji smiles at him and gives him another quick kiss. Ash smiles back and him “I love you ash.”
“I love you more” Ash responded and buried his face back in eijis neck, softly nuzzling into him.
“No you don’t” Eiji argued back and brought his hands up to ashs golden blonde hair and played with a strand.
“Shut up yes I do.” Ash grumbled as he gave him a small kiss on his neck and leaned into eijis touch. Eiji just smiled back and hugged him tighter.