SanaYuki Challenge 18: "Say ahh..."

Title: An Exercise in the Culinary Arts
Author: Penguin
Pairing: Sanada x Yukimura
Fandom: Tenipuri
Theme: 18: 「アーン？」 "Say ahh..."
Disclaimer: Tenipuri and all its affiliated hotasses belong to the not-late, rather great Takeshi Konomi-sensei.



Cooking class was, at best, a severely dangerous experience.

"Hey, what'll happen if I add this to--"

Sanada Genichirou had accepted this fact after three years of its very painful reinforcement. The best way to get through the ninety-minute period with any shreds of sanity left was to keep to his own business, he'd reasoned. Thus, he left Marui and Niou to their own devices in dealing with their latest culinary menace and focused his attention to making little frosting flowers on his cookies.

Marui and Niou were easily the main cause of the gray hairs Sanada had gotten over his stint in the cooking world. Over their partnership of the last three years, they'd managed to burn, explode, mutilate beyond recognition, and-or spike with alcohol anything and everything that they touched. It was a talent all their own. The teacher didn't bother to split them up--the idea was to concentrate the destruction in one area to make the cleaning easier.

It didn't help much, really.

"...it's wiggling. Is it supposed to wiggle?"

Sanada's eyebrow twitched. His palms itched. His mouth ached for the feeling of a "tarundoru" on his tongue. Instead, he got a cookie pressed to his lips.

"Chocolate chip. It's good for you--it makes your brain release endorphins to boost your mood," Yukimura explained sweetly. "Say 'ahh'..."

Sanada's other eyebrow twitched. The other cause of his gray hairs was smiling at him as if there wasn't a sentient being arising from his wayward teammates' cookie dough. Sanada and Yukimura had been cooking partners ("Baking buddies," as Yukimura described it) ever since first year, when the Sanada had taken it upon himself to protect Yukimura from the wiles of the kitchen world.
Yukimura, for all of his many and varied talents, was nearly as bad as Marui and Niou in all matters culinary. Except without the penchant for explosions. Over their partnership of the last three years, Yukimura had managed to burn, cut, and drop things on nearly every part of his body, and had made Sanada have mild heart attacks on each separate occasion.

"Don't worry, I think it's friendly!"

"How the hell do you know? Do you speak Cookie-Beast?"

One particular incident stood out in Sanada's mind: it was second year, and the class had been commissioned to create a full French meal for their final project. Sanada had been particularly suspicious of French foods ever since a childhood brush with escargot, and rooted himself next to Yukimura to guard him from a similar fate.
Yukimura had managed to avoid the snails, but made up for it by slipping while cutting the chicken for the main dish--giving himself a nasty, deep gash from the curve of his thumb to the base of his wrist.

It probably wasn't necessary to carry Yukimura to the nurse's office, but Sanada wasn't one to take chances.

"Thanks," Yukimura had said, his hand wrapped in gauze. "I'm sorry to cause you all so much grief."

"It's no trouble," Sanada had said, quietly. "Does it hurt?"

Dumb question, Sanada reflected. Generally, knives hurt. Still, Yukimura had just smiled and said,

"No, not terribly. It's on my left, so I can still hold a racquet. Tell everyone that I can get to practice tonight."

Sanada was torn between fanboying over his friend's devotion and pleading with him not to put his health in danger. The protective urges won rather handily.

"Yukimura, I'll talk to the captain for you--you shouldn't push yourself. If you opened your wound up again, you might have to deal with infections, and I won't have you putting yourself in more--"

He'd felt Yukimura's hand on his, then. He'd looked up; Yukimura was smiling. Yukimura leaned close, he'd felt his face begin to burn, he'd felt Yukimura's breath on his cheek--

"Genichirou," Yukimura whispered. "You have flour on your nose."

Sanada blinked, then flushed. Yukimura plucked a handkerchief out of his pocket, wet it with his tongue, and scrubbed at Sanada's face. After a moment, he pulled back for inspection. Smiling, he pecked a kiss onto Sanada's nose.

"Much better. Get back to class before Bunta and Masaharu create an army of radioactive pastry balls."

The pleasant memories were rudely interrupted by the loud cheers of Marui and Niou themselves.

"Hey, Yukimura!" yelled Marui. "We trained it to do a backflip! Can it be our mascot?"

"I thought Aka-chan was our mascot," Niou said, tickling their creation under its chin.

Marui considered this, then snapped his fingers. "We could make them fight for the title. We'd make a fortune on the bets alone!"

Yukimura smiled indulgently. "If you two can train it to sing the school anthem, I'd be happy to size it up for the mascot costume."

"Akaya can't do the anthem. Our child has a distinct advantage, wouldn't you say?" Niou said, proudly.

Marui blinked. "Wait, it's our child now?"

Niou gasped, pressing a hand to his chest in mock shock. "Of course. Don't you try to get out of your responsibilities for little Akaya-Two!"

"I thought we were going to name it after my mother!" Marui huffed, hands on his hips.

Sanada just rolled his eyes and went back to his cookies. Just keep to your own business for another twenty minutes, he told himself. Then there will be the opportunity for laps.