✍🏻See You Again

21 🫐 Chapter 21

"Where did you learn how to cook?"

Yuzuru asks me while we're in the kitchen after I promised to teach him some basics. After the bed fiasco a few days ago I don't bother coming up with any ingenious seduction plans anymore but still use any chance I get to be close to him. Just like now when I'm filling up little dumplings and folding the edges up to make them perfectly round and he's standing right behind me, looking over my shoulder. I fight the temptation to lean my back against his chest and instead answer his question as calmly as I can while his shallow breathing repeatedly lands on my neck.

"My dad taught me. Or rather I taught myself mostly by watching him. I was his guinea pig to test whatever he cooked before serving it to my mum."

"Isn't your dad American?" He muses and momentarily leans more forward over me to see better but a second later pulls back again. "He taught you Japanese cuisine?"

"Yup," I take a deep breath to steady myself, trying to stay composed. "He likes cooking and he wanted mum to have a little bit of her own culture at home so he taught himself. He told me he can't get very creative at work, so he likes to be creative at least in the kitchen. Which let me tell you, some of the things he made me taste test should count as child abuse. But I was like 6 years old, so even though I got quickly hesitant after some of his fails, it was enough for him to just put some rainbow sprinkles on top and I ate it."

I shiver and crinkle my nose, recalling when he once made a miso soup from fresh seaweed and the whole thing was so salty I almost fell off the kitchen counter he always sat me on.

"And your mum let him test those things on you?"

I laugh when I hear the genuine concern in his question and can't help but find it cute.

"She didn't know. She works in pharmaceutics, in a research team, and has quite irregular working hours and a lot of overtime. Whereas my dad works as an accountant for one big law firm. Once, after he yet again made me test one of his cooking abominations I asked him if he can't be creative at work so he doesn't have to be creative in the kitchen and he told me that creativity in his line of work is what gets people in jail. And I was a kid so, in my head, I thought if he won't be able to cook at home, he'll end up in prison. So I kept it as our secret and ate whatever he gave me, afraid that if I don't, the FBI will knock on our door one day and take him away."

He laughs and ruffles my hair, not seeing my pursed lips at that gesture of his that he recently started to do as if I was his sister or something. "You try now," I mutter and take a step to the side, pushing him to the dumplings.

He nods and his face is so serious when he gently picks up the first sheet of dough that I can't hide my grin. He scoops up a little bit of the filling and puts it on the dough so carefully it looks like he's doing some physics experiment but actually follows everything I was doing until now so precisely, that he ends up with a perfect dumpling.

"Well done!" I beam and poke his side, watching his face spread into a wide, happy grin and even his chest puffs up a little. "Now you can do the rest." I point at the large ball of untouched dough and walk away, still catching by the corner of my eye how quickly he deflated and his shoulders slumped down. I laugh out loud as I leave him there to fight the battle on his own, justifying it by giving him chance to properly practice but deep down I know I want to make him suffer a little for ignoring all of my signals and attempts at flirting.

By the time he calls me back to examine his creations, I feel a little bad but the guilt is quickly replaced by surprise and then envy when I see all the dumplings he made are way rounder and more even than any of mine. Fucking overachiever.

"Is this good?" He asks sheepishly, awaiting my words as if not seeing the perfection himself.

"Yeah, they're good, Yuzu," I mutter and get the water boiling but still catch his little smirk and realize his coy question was only a faked modesty to piss me off. Before I can slap him he walks away to his phone and I wonder if he's again checking the weather forecast like he usually does at least 256987416 times a day.