Chapter Text
“Hey, I’ll be at the office late tonight. D’ya think you can make dinner for yourself and Power?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine, Aki! I can feed myself! How hard can it be?”
“Why does this have to be so hard?” Denji slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table. Power, eyes flicking up over the top of her handheld gaming device, absentmindedly prodded him, “Huh? D’ya need any help?” Denji didn’t respond, knowing Power’s “skills” (or lack thereof) in the kitchen.
It was something Denji was insecure about. As a byproduct of his lackluster upbringing, the most he could whip up was a bowl of cereal- maybe a Hungry Man on a good day. He tried to not let his incompetence get to him, but nights like these sucked . They kind of reminded him of the hungry, cold nights he spent in his lonely little shack up in the mountains, sleeping the pain away. They reminded him of scrounging at night in the trash outside restaurants hoping to find something edible, or if he was really lucky, something warm . They reminded him that, no matter what, he didn’t have a normal childhood, and he would never have a normal life.
“Why don’t we just get a pizza or somethin?” Power kicked back in her seat, putting her feet on the table (only because Aki couldn’t tell her not to). “Domino’s would really hit the spot right now!” She glanced out the dark balcony, watching the clothes on the line flutter in the cool, evening air, flowing into the appartment. Denji sighed. “Aki would be on my ass. That jerk’s always ‘buggin me about ‘learnin to cook n stuff, you know?” After a moment of silence, Power smacked the table with her palm, startling Denji up. “Since when have you cared about what Aki thinks?! Cmon’ man! Let’s- let’s dispose of this evidence, and go get some pizza!”
Denji didn’t want to resort to this- the most cop-outiest stereotypical ‘teenager can’t cook’ last resort. Pizza. But he had to be honest, Power was right.
That night, when Aki came home to the apartment, he put all the pieces together in a second- a real modern day Sherlock. His eyes tracked from the, now congealed, forgotten pot of goo on the stove, to the very unsneakily hidden pizza box half sticking out of the trash, to Power and Denji, knocked out on the couch, little spots of red sauce around their mouths.
And Aki sat at the kitchen table, breathing in the cool night air and appreciating the rare tranquility in the house. Meowwy purred against Power’s chest as it rose and fell and Denji curled himself up an armchair. He looked cold, so before Aki hurried off to bed, he tossed a blanket over the sleeping boy. There, much better. Aki thought to himself that he probably looked like his father when he would toss a blanket over him when he fell asleep in the living room, and he smiled.
Aki was going to teach Denji how to cook.