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Monika stared intently at her own reflection in the mirror, reaching up to straighten out her bow for what had to have been the hundredth time by now. She had already fiddled with it so much, but she wanted to make sure that everything looked juuuust right. Satisfied with the angle and size of the ribbon, though, she leaned back again, taking the opportunity to give her outfit one last once over.
It was rare for Monika to actually pick out an outfit for herself like this. Whenever she was at school they all simply wore their uniforms, and so much of Monika’s free time was spent with clubs and other extracurriculars that she wasn’t normally getting home and changing out of said uniform until pretty late at night anyway. On the rare days she did actually have nothing at all to do, she wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet without sticking something else on her schedule, so she typically just spent the time lazing around her house in her pajamas. Now that she thought about it, she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she had really tried to put an outfit together.
All in all, though, she felt like she had done a good enough job with this. The knit sweater she was wearing was a little too big for her, but she kind of liked the baggy look it created, especially matched with the leggings she was wearing. And sure, if Yuri saw her dressed this way there might be some accusations of stealing her style, but Monika was willing to take that chance.
In all honesty, Monika was fretting so much over every little detail of her look that she probably could have spent forever in front of that mirror if something didn’t pull her away. Fortunately, though, that was exactly what happened, and a moment later her obsession with her appearance was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell from the first floor of her house.
"Coming!” Monika called out, long ponytail whipping out behind her as she twirled away from the mirror and hurried out into the hall. She hopped down the steps, one at a time but still at a quick pace, eventually hitting the floor in the foyer and scurrying forwards towards the door. She could already see another figure through the frosted glass that made up the window set into the front door, and as she tossed it open she was greeted by a familiar head of pink hair- barely visible over the top of the mountain of baking supplies Natsuki seemed to be carrying with her.
“You certainly came prepared,” Monika giggled, reaching out to take some of the burden off of her friend. “Let me help with you that.”
"Thanks,” Natsuki grunted out, from somewhere behind a bag of flower. From the looks of it she had brought everything they could conceivably need- milk, eggs, flour, sugar in both the granulated and confectioner variety, butter, cocoa powder- as well as a few things they wouldn’t. Monika had told Natsuki ahead of time that she already had plenty of bowls and spoons and pans in her own kitchen, but Natsuki had been adamant about bringing her own tools anyway. Monika supposed she could understand the mentality, but it still seemed excessive. This wasn’t Iron Chef. Or even Cupcake Wars.
“If I’d known you were bringing so much I would have offered to pick you up and help out with all of this,” Monika hummed, carrying the bags of sugar and flour in towards her kitchen and setting them down on the counter. Natsuki followed along behind her, and as she put the rest of the utensils and ingredients down, Monika was finally able to get a good look at her. Natsuki’s appearance was… decidedly less put together than Monika’s own. The other girl was wearing a baggy sweatshirt that looked like it had seen better days, and a pair of leggings that looked just about worn through. Which, Monika supposed, made sense. It seemed a little foolish to wear your nicest clothes when they were liable to end up covered in flour and powdered sugar. Suddenly, she felt a little stupid for putting so much effort into her own appearance.
“So!” Monika said, clapping her hands together and quickly trying to distract herself from that train of thought. “What are we making today? Cupcakes?”
“Yeah,” Natsuki replied, nodding as she surveyed her ingredients. “But not just plain old boring cupcakes. Since tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day and all, I figured we should do something thematic. So I found a red velvet recipe online.”
“Ooh, how fun! You really thought this through, Natsuki.” Natsuki had mentioned, a few days prior, that she intended on baking something for the club for Valentine’s Day. It had been little more than a throwaway comment, but it had ended up being one that Monika latched onto. She had invited Natsuki to come over her to place to do the baking, citing some reasoning about how it wouldn’t be right for her, as club president, not to volunteer to help out with something like that. And she supposed there was a grain of truth to that. But in actuality, she had some ulterior motives going on as well. “So, where do we start?”
“First things first, preheat the oven,” Natsuki told her, before grabbing up the sticks of butter. “And soften these in the microwave. Just for a few seconds though! Don’t let them explode.”
“You’ve got it, boss!” Monika could tell from the look Natsuki gave her that the other girl didn’t entirely appreciate the nickname, but she wasn’t going to apologize for it. It was fitting, after all: while they were here in the kitchen, they were on Natsuki’s turf, and Monika was sure the first-year knew more about what they were doing than she herself did. Besides, Natsuki was kind of cute when she was trying to act angry like that.
Monika followed through on Natsuki’s instructions, starting to get the oven warmed up and plopping the butter into a bowl before placing it in the microwave to start softening it. While she waited on that she glanced back over her shoulder, watching as Natsuki began to sort out the rest of their ingredients. She’d already gotten out her measuring cups, and was beginning to portion out everything they would need to make the batter, one component at a time. The look of concentration was something Monika had never really seen from her before, but there was something endearing about the way she seemed so intensely focused on what she was doing, leveling off the excess from each scoop to make sure she got the exact right amount before moving onto the next one.
“Do you have a-” Natsuki started to say, glancing back over her shoulder at Monika at that point. It was only then that she realized she was being stared at, a small scowl twisting across her face. As she realized she had been caught Monika quickly glanced away, trying to act like she had been doing anything else, but it was a little late by that point. “Were you watching me that whole time?”
"Was I?” Monika replied, laughing a bit uneasily. “Well, I guess I just wanted to see your process. That’s not weird, is it?”
“Well, I guess not…”
“Anyway! You were saying something?”
“Right. I was asking if you have an electric mixer for all of this,” Natsuki said. “I would’ve brought my own, but… It’s big. And heavy.”
“I think my parents keep one under here somewhere,” Monika hummed back, scooting over to the kitchen island where Natsuki had her measuring station set up and crouching down into the cabinets. She only had to dig around for a few seconds before finding what she was looking for, although actually getting it out was a different story entirely. As predicted, it looked like nobody had used the standing mixer in a while, and quite a few things had gotten cluttered around in front of it during that time. Monika ended up clattering quite a few of them around as she tried to pull it out, but eventually she succeeded, hoisting the somewhat heavy piece of machinery up to the countertop. Maybe she was enjoying the opportunity to show off and act tough just a little bit more than she needed to.
“There we go,” Monika said, putting her hands at her hips and triumphantly surveying her handiwork. “Think that’ll do it?”
“Yeah. This should be fine.” Fine took the wind out of Monika’s sails a little bit, and wasn’t quite the level of praise she had been hoping for, but maybe she was getting ahead of herself. One by one Natsuki poured the ingredients she had measured into the mixture, instructing Monika to grab the butter once all of the dry components were in place as well. The softened butter joined the rest of the ingredients, mixed in a little bit at a time, at which point Natsuki grabbed the eggs.
“We need four of these,” she instructed. “You know how to crack them, right?”
“I’m not a child, Natsuki,” Monika giggled. “Just because I don’t bake as much as you doesn’t mean I don’t know how to crack an egg.”
“Alright. But if any shells end up in the batter I’m making you pick through to dig them back out,” Natsuki warned.
“Noted.” After that Monika snatched up one of the eggs and, true to her claims, cracked it perfectly against the side of the bowl, managing not to let anything fall into mixture. “See?” she boasted. “Not bad, huh?”
“It’s cracking an egg. That’s not something to brag about.” Once again, Monika’s sails continued to find themselves deflating, and she put a small pout on her face as the two of them mixed in the remaining eggs. Those were followed up with milk, sour cream, vanilla extract, and just enough red food coloring to give the batter a pinkish hue.
“Are you sure that’s enough?” Monika asked, peering down into the mixing bowl. “It doesn’t exactly look red yet.”
“It’ll get darker when we bake it. Trust me. If we do too much it’ll come out looking gross.”
“Alright! You’re the boss!” Once again, that nickname seemed to earn her a great amount of ire from Natsuki, and once again, Monika didn’t seem to care. In fact, she looked quite proud of herself as she removed the bowl from the mixer and detached the whisks, holding one out towards Natsuki with a small wink. “Wanna lick these clean?”
“And get salmonella? Pass.” Defeated by just how quickly Natsuki had shot that suggestion down Monika let another little pout come to her face, reluctantly carrying the whisks over towards the sink to rinse them off while Natsuki started to prepare the cupcake trays. She was still tempted to lick a bit of the batter up herself, but it just wasn’t as fun when she was the only one doing it.
“How many cupcakes is this recipe supposed to make, anyway?” Monika asked, raising her voice a bit to be heard over the running and splashing of the water from the sink.
“Thirty,” Natsuki replied.
“That many, huh? That seems like a lot for just the four of us.”
“Nobody said they’re just for us. We can share them with other people too.” The moment Monika heard that her cheerful expression faltered a bit- not in the sense of the dramatic, clearly showy pouts she had been putting on earlier, but in the sense of a hint of genuine distress appearing on her face- and she felt an unexpected pit form in her stomach. She was probably just being dumb and worrying about nothing, but…
“Oh yeah?” Monika asked, her tone staying uncomfortably flat as she spoke the words. She shut the water off and set the whisks aside to dry, but as she turned back to face Natsuki once again, she had managed to force a smile to return to her face. Maybe it looked just a little bit strained, or was a bit too over the top, but she wasn’t going to let Natsuki see her looking sad. Instead she scooted right over next to her club member again, telling her smile to turn playful as she leaned in close. “Anyone in particular? ‘Cause you know, giving someone cupcakes on Valentine’s Day could have a certain connotation.”
“It’s not like that,” Natsuki huffed, immediately reaching up to shove Monika away from her. “I have other classmates and stuff outside of the club you know.”
“Are you suuure? You’re not keeping a little secret from us, are you Natsuki?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Monika did, of course, doubt that Natsuki would have come clean and admitted to it even if there had been a certain someone she had her eye on, but something about that response felt genuine to her. Monika liked to think that she knew all of her club members pretty well by this point, and if she had actually hit the nail on the head with this, she would have expected Natsuki to get more defensive about it. Not just annoyed that Monika had asked her a stupid question.
“Alright, if you say so,” Monika hummed, letting her teasing tone mask the genuine sense of relief she was actually feeling at the moment. “Do you want help filling up the cups?”
“Yeah,” Natsuki grunted, all too happy for the change of subject. “And then we can get started on the frosting while these bake.”
“Then let’s get right on that!” As she spoke Monika had already started grabbing up the paper linings and popping them into the tray (heart-patterned ones, of course, in honor of the holiday), and as soon as she was done with that she and Natsuki both grabbed spoons, starting to fill them up.
"Remember, only do it about two thirds of the way,” Natsuki said, although the amount of precision she was using seemed to be a lot more than “about.” It was reminiscent of how focused she had been when first measuring out the ingredients, and Monika found just as much amusement in watching it now. “Otherwise they’ll overflow when they rise.”
“Got it!” Monika replied, doing her best to match Natsuki’s portioning as they went along. By the time they were finished it was pretty easy to tell which half were Natsuki’s and which half were Monika’s- Natsuki’s were much more neat and uniform, with almost exactly the same amount of batter in each cup. Monika’s, meanwhile, were a bit more loose, quite a few of them also ending up with little dribbles of batter around the edge where she hadn’t quite gotten everything in without a mess.
“Well… I guess this is good enough,” Natsuki decided, after a brief inspection of their work.
“Good enough?” Monika laughed, reaching up to scratch at the back of her head. “You’re a pretty tough critic!”
“Well, if I’m gonna sign my name to something I’m gonna make sure I do it right.”
“You don’t sign your name on cupcakes, Natsuki.”
"It’s a metaphor.” Monika just giggled again, scooping up the the tray and carrying it towards the oven. “How long are they supposed to go in for?”
“Twenty minutes,” Natsuki replied, opening up the oven door for Monika to slide the trays in. Once that was taken care of Monika herself turned the dial above the stove to set the timer, then turned back towards Natsuki, smiling brightly.
“Alright! Onto the frosting?” Natsuki simply nodded in response, walking back over to grab the bowl they had been using for the batter previously.
“We’ll have to clean this out.”
“I can take care of that!” Monika replied, reaching out to snatch the bowl up. “You can get the ingredients ready. I figure I’d probably just get in your way if I tried to help with that anyway,” she laughed, tapping her fingers against the sides of the metal as she returned to the sink.
“It sounds to me like you just want me doing all the hard work.”
“Well you were originally gonna do this all by yourself! So any help I give you at all is better than it would’ve been otherwise!” Monika glanced back over shoulder to give Natsuki another a wink after she said that, only to find the smaller girl with her back to her, already intensely focused on measurements again. It would have been disheartening, if Natsuki didn’t look so cute when she was like that.
When she was finally finished scrubbing the metal bowl clean and drying it off Monika brought it back over to fit it into place against the mixer, looking towards Natsuki once it was secure. “Ready?” she asked.
“Ready,” Natsuki replied. Cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla all went into the mixture first, followed by the confectioner sugar, little bits at a time. “You have to do this last part gradually,” she explained. “Otherwise the sugar gets all clumped up and nasty.”
“Huh, interesting!” Monika replied. “That’s good to know.” She already knew, but she decided to pretend she didn’t. Not really seeing any way to contribute Monika simply stood to the side as she watched the frosting take on the proper consistency, eyes flitting between the swirling of the mixer and Natsuki’s measured, deliberate work. It was only once the last of the sugar was mixed in and Natsuki had moved to turn off the machine that Monika spoke again, sticking up a finger and giving her friend a sly look.
“Think we should taste test?” she asked.
“No! Don’t stick your finger in there before you-!” It was a little late for that, though. Before Natsuki could even finish the sentence Monika was running her finger along the inside of the bowl, gathering up a big glob of frosting and popping it right into her mouth. Natsuki looked on in horror as Monika pulled a thoughtful expression, judging the taste for a few seconds before grinning.
“It’s pretty good. Want a taste, Natsuki?”
“Don’t you dare!” Once again, though, Monika didn’t seem to feel like listening. A second finger was already down in the bowl (at least she had the decency not to use the same one that had already been in her mouth), gathering up another dollop of frosting. And then, feeling especially mischievous, she walked towards Natsuki, plopping it right onto the other girl’s nose.
“Monika!” Natsuki blurted out, immediately recoiling backwards and starting to frantically look around the room. “That’s gross! Get me a paper towel!”
“Awww, come on,” Monika urged. “Have a little fun!”
"There’s nothing fun about having frosting on my face!”
“Fiiine,” Monika sighed, slumping her shoulders as she went towards the counter to get the requested paper towel. So far, she was really shooting herself in the foot here. Once she handed the paper towel over to Natsuki the other girl began furiously wiping her face off, wearing that same dirty scowl the entire time.
“Now can we get back to business without you making a mess out of everything?” she huffed, returning to the counter and scooping up the red food coloring. “We need to separate some of the frosting and mix this in.”
“Why?”
“For decoration, obviously.”
"Oooh, I get it! So we can draw designs on the tops of the cupcakes!” Monika concluded. “Very clever!”
“Don’t patronize me.” Natsuki was already in the process of scooping some of the frosting from the main bowl into a smaller one, although the measurements here seemed much less precise than what she had been doing in the past. Even as she added the red food coloring and started to mix it into the previously white frosting, it still seemed like she was just eyeballing it until she got the color she wanted. Eventually, once the whole bowl had taken on a consistent red color, she started to hold it out towards Monika- only to pause halfway through the motion.
"If I let you see this you’re not gonna smear it on my face again, are you?” she asked warily.
“No, no,” Monika chuckled in response. “I've learned my lesson. It looks good though! What do you think you’ll decorate yours with?”
“I dunno,” Natsuki replied. “I haven’t really thought it through yet. Hearts, maybe. Or little cupids. We’ll see. What about you?”
“Do we each get half of them?” Monika asked, to which Natsuki nodded. “Well in that case…” She trailed off for a moment, silently mouthing a few things to herself while tapping fingers against her leg, one by one, as if she were counting something off, before nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’ve got an idea! You’ll have to wait and see for yourself, though.” Natsuki gave her a somewhat skeptical look at that point, but quickly decided she didn’t really care enough to push the issue any further, so she let it drop.
It was only another minute or two after that before the timer beeped, and Monika grabbed some oven mitts to pull the tray out from inside. Natsuki used a toothpick to probe the center of one of them and, finding that they were suitably baked through, gave them her seal of approval. From there the two girls started carefully removing them from the tray, being careful not to crumble them in the process, and giving them a little time to cool while they did so. And then, it was time to frost.
Natsuki was still healthily cautious regarding frosting and her nose.
Frosting the cupcakes, as it turned out, was possibly the most difficult part of this entire endeavor. Monika had figured it would be simple, just spread some frosting on top and call it a day, but it was quickly proving to be more challenging than that. Getting the frosting to actually spread out evenly seemed damn near impossible, especially without tearing up the surface of the cupcake. Natsuki already seemed to have this down to an art, but Monika’s cupcakes were coming out looking a lot messier, to say the very least. At a certain point, after a few of them had been done, Natsuki looked up, a disapproving frown appearing on her face as she saw how Monika was doing.
“Seriously? You’re happy with those?” she asked.
“Aha, well… I wouldn’t really say that I’m happy with them,” Monika admitted. “But I think this is about as good as I’ll get without a lot more practice. Unless you have any pointers for me?”
“Just… Put a bunch on the top and then try to smooth it all out,” Natsuki replied. “But not too much at once! Or else you’ll just make a mess of the whole thing. It’s a balancing act.”
“Got it. Thanks, Natsuki.” Monika wasn’t sure how useful that information would actually end up being, but she decided to at least pretend it had been insightful. Unfortunately, it still didn’t seem like those few words of guidance were going to be enough for her to suddenly perfect her frosting technique, and by the time they were finished it remained just as painfully clear which girl had been responsible for which cupcakes. Monika didn’t necessarily think hers were the worst thing in the world, but they were definitely messy and lopsided, and Natsuki didn’t seem thrilled as she looked at them. Compared to her own, each of which boasted a perfectly smooth layer of frosting at the top for her to use as a canvas, Monika’s looked like a trainwreck.
“Well… I guess these are good enough,” she decided, fighting back an urge to take over and refost all of Monika’s cupcakes for her. Instead she grabbed the bowl of deep red frosting that she had colored previously, setting it between them before digging two small piping bags out from her stack of supplies. “Have you ever used these before?”
“Not personally, no,” Monika replied. “But I’ve seen them on cooking shows and everything! So at least I know how they work.”
"Alright. I guess they’re not that hard anyway. Just make sure you hold them from the back so the frosting doesn’t leak out everywhere.”
“Will do!” Natsuki took a little bit longer to fill the two bags, fitting on the tips before handing one to her assistant.
“We each get fifteen,” she told Monika. “You can decorate them with whatever you want. Just make sure to keep them festive! These are supposed to be Valentine’s cupcakes, after all.”
“Of course,” Monika giggled back. “I’ve already got something perfect in mind.” The only question was whether she would be able to execute on that vision. But hopefully her idea wouldn’t end up being too difficult.
Both of the girls fell relatively silent as they began to pipe the designs onto their creations. Monika glanced up from time to time to take peeks at Natsuki, and every time she did she was greeted by that same look of adorable determination, causing her to smile softly to herself. She was also impressed by what she was seeing, though: unlike her own designs, which were starting to look sort of like a grade schooler had drawn them with their non-dominant hand, Natsuki’s designs seemed to be so flawless that she might as well have been working with pencil and paper instead of cupcake and frosting. One sported a flurry of tiny hearts, another showcased a single large heart with a rather detailed arrow going through it, a third opted for visual humor, showcasing a drawing of a bumblebee at the top, with a large “MINE?” printed underneath. They were miles ahead of Monika’s, in terms of both concept and presentation.
Monika wasn’t going to let that discourage her, though! She knew that Natsuki had a lot more practice in this sort of thing, and that was alright. For a total beginner, she liked to think she was still doing pretty well. The one perk of all of this was that, since her designs were so much simpler, it wasn’t taking her nearly as long to get through them. By the time Monika was putting the final touches on her last design Natsuki still looked like she had only gotten through about half of her own.
When her cupcakes were complete Monika looked down at them, setting her piping bag aside and giving her work a slow nod of appraisal. Suddenly, now that she was looking at her finished masterpiece, Monika was experiencing a moment of hesitation regarding what she was about to do. This whole day had been a series of missteps and stumbles for her, and most of her attempts to be fun and playful with Natsuki up until this point had failed sort of miserably. With that in mind, Monika supposed this little stunt was either going to make up for all of that or push the day past the point of no return, but she doubted there was a middleground. She was willing to roll those dice.
“Hey, Natsuki! I’m all finished,” Monika said, waving her friend over to her side. “What do you think?” Natsuki looked up from her own work as Monika summoned her, setting down her pastry bag and walking to where the taller girl was standing. As she came over and peered down, she was able to see how Monika had chosen to decorate her own cupcakes. The work was sloppy, and the handwriting was messy, but each of the fifteen cupcakes carried a letter, all arranged in order to spell out a very clear message:
“BE MY VALENTINE? ♡”
Natsuki’s eyes scanned over the cupcakes for a few seconds, taking in the message with a startlingly stoic expression. Monika, meanwhile, was looking at Natsuki look at the decorations, anxiously waiting for a reaction. Eventually Natsuki did look back up, although her face still wasn’t giving anything away.
“Spelling out a message like this is kind of a bad idea,” she decided. “As soon as people start taking cupcakes letters will be missing and it won’t make any sense.” Oh . Alright, that was a minor setback, but Monika could get through this.
“Well, I guess that would be a problem,” she agreed, letting a sly smile tug at her lips as she leaned in closer to Natsuki. “But what if the message is really only meant for one person? Then I would just have to make sure that person saw it before anyone else had a chance to snatch the letters away.” At that point a flicker of realization appeared on Natsuki’s face, although it still wasn’t the realization Monika had been hoping for.
“Wait…” she said, pieces slowly starting to fit together in her brain, even though the picture was still far from complete. “Does that mean… You…” Monika giggled playfully, pressing a finger up to her own lips.
“Shhhh. I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret,” she whispered. “Can you do that?” Natsuki nodded eagerly, suddenly seeming far more invested in this than she had been in anything else Monika had said up until this point. Monika’s smile stretched a little wider, and she leaned in even closer to Natsuki, letting her mouth hover right next to the other girl’s ear to really set the proper conspiratorial tone. “The person I want to be my valentine, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis,” she said, raising a single finger to boop Natsuki on the nose. “You.”
That finally got a reaction. The finger on her nose coupled with those words made Natsuki go stiff, and for a second or two it looked like Monika’s confession had caused her brain to simply shut down. Her face was stuck in a state of blank shock, turning about as deep red as the cupcakes themselves while she gradually processed what she had just heard. And then it all seemed to hit her at once.
"W-What are you talking about??” she blurted out, quickly staggering backwards a few steps and pivoting away from Monika, turning her back to the other girl. “This isn’t some kind of joke, is it?”
“Natsuki,” Monika sighed, leaning against the edge of the counter. “You should know I would never joke about something like this. I’m being serious!”
“Why?”
“...Huh?”
"Why are you asking me this?” Natsuki repeated. She kept her back to Monika, crossing her arms over her chest. Even though she couldn’t actually see, Monika was sure Natsuki was wearing an indignant expression at the moment. Underneath all the blushing.
"Hmm? Isn’t that obvious? It’s because… Well, because I like you,” she admitted, letting out a slightly uneasy laugh. “Is it really that much of a surprise?”
“...Is this why you’ve been acting weird all day? With the frosting and stuff?”
“Am I that obvious?” Monika asked, laughing at herself yet again. “Yeah. I guess I was trying really hard to be flirty and playful and everything, but I should’ve known you wouldn’t be into that. Even if you are really cute when you get all grumpy.”
"Hey! No I don’t!”
“See? Just like that!” Natsuki huffed in response, scrunching her shoulders up more, but she quickly realized there was no way for her to win in this situation. Anything else she said or did would just prove Monika’s point even further.
“You still haven’t really answered my question anyway,” Natsuki insisted, eager to get off that subject. “I mean… Why me ?” Monika had sort of expected a question like this, and had already prepared a bit of an answer. She took her time while she spoke, though, tapping a finger against her chin and seeming to think it over a bit before she responded.
“Well…” she replied. “There’s a lot of reasons! You’re intensely passionate about the things you care about and enjoy, like you were the entire time we were baking today. You’re not ashamed to like what you like and be proud of it, even if you think other people might look down on you for it. You bring a fresh new voice to the Literature Club, and you’re never afraid to experiment with your writing. And like I said before, you’re really cute!”
“I’m not!”
“Those are all the reasons that come to mind immediately, but I’m sure I could think up plenty of others if I sat down and started writing out a list! But you would probably hate it if I did that anyway. So… Yeah!” she chuckled, trailing off awkwardly at the end of her thought. Monika wasn’t quite sure what else to say, and for a moment she was hoping Natsuki would say something instead. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, though, she spoke up again. “I know this is probably a lot out of nowhere, and if you want to take some time before answering, or-”
“Alright.”
“...Alright?”
"I’ll do it.”
"You’ll do what?” Monika asked, creasing an eyebrow skeptically.
“I’ll be your valentine.” The moment Monika heard those words she could feel her heart soar inside her chest. There was a brief moment where she was frozen in place, like the stretching of a rubber band just before it snapped, and then suddenly the tension broke and she was throwing herself across the kitchen, looping her arms around Natsuki from behind and scooping the small girl up into the air.
“Natsuki!” she exclaimed, finding that any thought more coherent than that was escaping her at the moment.
“H-Hey! Put me down!” Natsuki immediately started to thrash and squirm about in Monika’s grip, kicking her legs around as her feet were lifted off the floor, but it didn’t seem to achieve much.
“I will in a second. Just let me enjoy this moment!”
“I can still take my answer back, you know!”
“Alright, alright,” Monika laughed, gently setting Natsuki back down on the floor. “See? You’re fine.”
“You still haven’t moved your arms.”
“Yup! And I’m not gonna,” she warned, squeezing Natsuki a little more tightly from behind. “So, valentine , should we get back to decorating our cupcakes?”
“You already finished all of yours,” Natsuki grumbled. “And don’t think I’m gonna let you have any of mine just because you used them all for that stupid message!”
“I’ll just watch you finish yours instead, then. Hey,” Monika whispered, leaning a bit closer again. “Do you think anyone will notice if we sneak a few for ourselves before tomorrow?”
“Those are for our friends!”
“C’moooon. They won’t know how many we made.”
“...Fine!” Natsuki huffed. “One each, but that’s it!”
“One is plenty,” Monika replied, resting her head against the back of Natsuki’s. “Just as long as I get to share it with you.”