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Todoroki had cut his finger with a kitchen knife. Again. He reflexively stuck his finger in his mouth as it started bleeding.
“That’s it, that’s the last time.” Iida told him impatiently, beckoning with his free hand. “Give me the knife, you are clearly unsuited for cutting vegetables.” He continued stirring a steaming pot with his other hand.
Todoroki relinquished the paring knife to Iida and gave a quiet ‘thank you’ to Deku, who handed him a napkin to stop the bleeding. Deku smiled and opened a nearby drawer to fish out the band aids. They’d decided to store them in the kitchen with them after the second time this happened.
Todoroki pressed on the cut until it stopped leaking enough to cover it up. As three of his other finger were already wrapped up, Todoroki let Deku apply the bandage.
From the way his friend stared at his injured hands Deku could tell Todoroki was feeling discouraged.
“Hey, Todoroki, why don’t you stir the pot and let me take over the vegetables?” Deku offered. He then gave Iida a pointed look to Iida. Iida winced, clearly getting the point, and awkwardly offered his position at the stove to Todoroki.
“Umm, yes, please, Todoroki, come stir. Stand here, come, over here, little closer. There. Here’s the spoon.” Todoroki took the spoon gently and dipped it into the water.
Iida nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, exactly, just keep stirring. Counterclockwise. Yes, like that. Keep doing that and don’t let it boil over.”
Deku smiled to himself as he watched his classmates. It was a couple days before Christmas Eve and it was their turn to cook dinner. It had been decided by the class that everyone would take turns making meals for the group in the evening. Breakfast and lunch were a free for all, but dinner was the time they all came together. As many of them had little to no cooking knowledge, someone with experience was always included in the three person groups. Tonight was Iida, a group favorite, Deku, who could hold his own, and Todoroki, who might as well have never set foot in a kitchen in his life.
They drew lots out of two boxes to see whose turn it was. Once box had the names of the resident chefs of the groups, and the other had everyone else. They picked one chef and two helpers each night.
Apparently the other times Todoroki’s name had been drawn, his classmates had quickly decided he was so hopeless in the kitchen that they demoted him to either cleaning dishes or just sitting on a stool with his hands safely in his lap. When Todoroki had told them about this and offered to just stay out of the way Iida became incredibly offended.
“One cannot learn if they never practice!” He declared, hands waving for emphasis. He then set Todoroki up with a cutting board and a pile of vegetables and walked away looking satisfied. At that point Deku slipped over and offered Todoroki actual advice and showed him how to use the knife without slicing his fingers off. The results of this training appear to be mixed.
Deku scraped the non-contaminated vegetables into a pan and joined Todoroki at their kitchen island. It had two stovetops so two people could be working across from each other at a time. As Iida moved hurriedly around the room, checking everything, Deku began to sauté the vegetables, adding spices he remembered seeing his mother use.
Iida was circling around the kitchen, muttering loudly to himself.
“Okay, the pasta is cooking. Did we salt the water? Yes, yes, okay. Midoriya is doing fine with the vegetables. Now it’s just the bread. My bread and we have perfection.”
Deku caught Todoroki covering his mouth with a hand to hide a smile, quickly concealing his own as well. The bread was Iida’s baby in the whole affair. He had told them proudly how it was an old family recipe, passed down through generations, as he carefully measured out ingredients. At one point he had both of them turn their backs so they couldn’t see what he was adding. It was this secretiveness as well as the way he lovingly kneaded the dough and shaped the loaves that endeared the two other boys to Iida, despite his constant hovering and critics of their cooking skills.
Todoroki continued diligently stirring the noodles while Deku snagged a piece of zucchini from the pan to taste. It needed a little more salt. As Deku poked around the counter for the salt he called out to Iida.
“Hey Iida, do you think all this is going to be enough? Should we make more?” The amount they we’re making seemed massive, but they did have 17 other hungry classmates…
Iida had paused at the stove with his back to Deku. He didn’t respond, seemingly ignoring Deku’s question.
Deku wasn’t peeved, Iida often got lost in concentration, but he did need an answer so he called out again.
“We could always put on another pot of pasta, what do you think? Iida?”
Iida remained silent still. Deku was growing worried. He asked again. “Is something going on?”
Now Todoroki spoke up, his face showing concern. “Iida, what is it?”
Iida still didn’t answer. Deku abandoned the pan and rushed over to his friend. His words came out in a rush. “What is it? What’s going on!”
“The stove…” Iida whispered. “I didn’t turn on the stove…”
“Wha- oh. Oh…” Deku watched as Iida listlessly put hand on the door of the oven.
“Everything is ruined.” Iida whispered, now leaning his forehead on the stove as well. Deku had to fight a laugh at Iida’s dramatics, trying awkwardly to comfort him.
“It’s okay, we can tell people dinner will be a little late?” Deku offered.
“It’s too late. Everything is ruined. I’ve destroyed dinner. The stove will never heat fast enough, it will take hours…” His words were dramatic but Iida’s mechanically was really. At this point Todoroki had come over.
“I could heat up the oven.” He offered. Both Iida and Deku turned to him, surprised. But Todoroki looked more assured of himself than they had even seen him in the kitchen.
He gave the slightest smile. “Fire is something I know well.”
Iida bounded up and grasped the hand on Todoroki’s fire side in both of his.
“Thank you, thank you so much Todoroki! You’re our savior!” Iida gushed, and then stood up tall once more. Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, he began doling out instructions.
“Now, we start by pulling the bread out, of course.” He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, now reciting from memory. “The oven needs to preheat slowly until it hits 300 degrees Fahrenheit, then we insert the bread. From there we raise the temperature again, but by increments, to avoid burning the bread. You don’t want to flash bake it, it will lose all its light texture and turn into-“
“Todoroki, no!!!”
Iida opened his eyes in puzzlement just as a huge blast of fire struck the stove. All three of them watched wordlessly as plastic and metal melted and smoked, flames gently licking the nearby cabinets. For a moment everyone was quiet and the world was still, then time started again with Iida screaming.
“I said a slow heat!”
“I’m sorry, I got the flame’s heat wrong…”
“Oh no, burning plastic is toxic I think! We should-!”
There was an angry hissing behind them, and a new wave of smoke billowed its way around the room.
“The pasta, it’s boiled over!”
“Crap, I left the vegetables burning!”
“Sorry guys, I was trying to help-”
The fire alarm started blaring and voices rose from outside the kitchen.
“Oh no, oh no! What are we going to do-!”
“Stay calm! Todoroki get the fire extinguisher from under the sink!”
“It’s gone, we had to use it the week before when I-”
“THERE’S NO EXTINGUISHER??”
“Hey! What’s goin’ on in there you guy- Oh my GOD!”
“Is that a fire?? Mina, call 911!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, we can handle this!”
“CALL A TEACHER!”
“What did you boys do??”
“I’m sorry…”
---
In the end the vegetables burned, the pot boiled over, and the oven melted around the bread. The local fire department put out the smoke, the teachers gave a furious kitchen safety lecture, and instead of a homemade meal Class 1-A ordered pizza, and Todoroki was excused from kitchen duty for the rest of time.