Hate To Love You... (Hawks/Keigo Takami x Reader)

Chapter 54

Clicking my tongue softly, I look over the ingredients of the recipe I'm making. The excitement aerating through the kitchen as this is the first meal I've made for both Keigo and myself since we got home from the hospital. My mom and my Aunt Yuna now leaving the pair of us to our own devices now that Keigo's bandages have been relinquished and I have all the medication I need. Albeit reluctantly, my mom did go back home and try to stay there for the day today by my request. With everything slowly dripping back to normality, I wanted to get back into the habit of cooking dinner for my boyfriend and I. I wanted to get back into feeding my dog at certain times. I wanted to get back into the normality of having a schedule for the day.

Sure I can't go back to work yet but it's nice to have things at home being somewhat normal. I'm still on medical leave until my pain medication for leg and back is seen through due to the side effects being drowsiness, fatigue and slight headaches from time to time. So I couldn't really do any work until I had seen my medication through.

However, Keigo is still my human canvas for when I want to try certain designs. Him and I spend about an hour or two just trying out designs to make sure they worked every day so I still had the habit of doing the makeup.

As I go through the list, I mentally check each item of food off in my mind to make sure that I have it all. Knowing that I have at least a certain about of teaspoons of certain ingredients and two of a certain product. A faint hum leaving my lips as I pull out the olive oil from the cupboard and set it on the counter before grabbing a cooking pop to prepare the vegetables for the meal I'm about to attempt in making.

Due to Keigo and I almost living on takeout and more salty meals since living in the hospital due to the convenience of it all, I decided that it was time that we started stocking the kitchen up with more healthier foods. Mom had done the grocery shop for me (again, my medication really doesn't let me) so I knew that everything I had asked for was bought. It wasn't that we were being unhealthy, we still have salads and stuff but I'm slowly starting to get sick of eating fried chicken every night...

I'm sick of chicken altogether at the moment!

So, to widen Keigo's palette and realise that there is more food than just fried chicken, I decided to make a lovely meal that doesn't have chicken in it. I decided to go with a dish with beef instead of chicken. A homely, welcoming dish of beef stew and homemade dumplings that I'm sure Keigo will fall in love with. A recipe that my mother had given me to have a go at when I told her I wanted to get back into cooking after being starved on purpose for days on end because some dick wanted my quirk.

With everything laid out on the counter, I immediately begin to grab the beef an me begin to cut the string off it. Then, I begin to cube the beef into smaller pieces. Once it's sliced up into cubes, begin to crush a couple of cloves of garlic and place them into a small bowl accompanied by some red wine and sage and thyme. After mixing the little solution together, I begin to massage it into the cubes in a bowl to make sure that the meat soaks up all the flavour and make sure that there is enough to feed both of us.

I then begin to sort out the vegetables. A faint hum leaving my lips. Grabbing the knife from the drawer, I begin to slice up red onions, carrots, celery and potatoes. Making sure that each and every one of them is sliced perfectly and easy to stew. I grab a frying pan from the cupboard and then balance it over the cooker before adding olive oil and then butter. Once the butter is melted, I add the onion and the marinated beef with a little bit of salt and pepper before allowing it to fry. Letting the smell waft through the kitchen while I grab a measuring jug to make the stock.

As I tousle the beef and onion around the frying pan, I change it into the large pot and then add the beef stock. As it simmers, I add the potato and the carrots and the celery to allow to stew before placing a lid on the pot and letting it stew away. My mouth already watering at the sheer anticipation of what this will taste like.