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Jirou knocks on the door of the Yaoyorozu estate mansion (one of several mansions, she reminds herself) feeling a mixture of things. Mostly excited, because she’ll be alone with Momo for the whole day (and that needs no further explanation), but also scared. Scared because the reason why she’s at Momo’s house in the first place is because Iida had tasked the whole class with baking something for the upcoming cultural festival, and knowing Momo, she probably won’t let Jirou leave until they’ve baked a five-star luxury dessert worthy of worldwide recognition.
“Jirou!” Momo opens the door with a smile and her long, black hair tied up into her usual ponytail. A blue, pin-striped apron is tied around her waist. There’s a smudge of flour on her cheek. Jirou barely, just barely, resists the urge to sigh in the lovelorn, yearning sort of way that is only really done in rom-coms and Nicholas Sparks movies.
“I was just boiling the flour, so perfect timing!” Momo says. “Mori-san is watching it right now.”
“Oh, sweet—wait, what? You’re boiling flour?” Jirou raises her eyebrows in concern. “And who’s Mori-san?”
“My family’s butler, of course,” Momo waves her hand casually. “You met her when I held the study group here. And please come in, you’re going to catch a cold if you stand outside too long, you know.”
-
“You’ve been boiling flour?” Jirou shouts once they’re in Momo’s kitchen, but then she realizes that she’s shouting, and lowers it to so she’s shouting a little less.
“Well, yes,” Momo says meekly, scratching at the white smudge still on her cheek. “But I was just following the recipe. Is it not accurate?”
“Very,” Jirou sighs. “Look, it says it’s from Reddit, you can never trust that place. Also—” she whips her head around “—Mori-san, why didn’t you do anything?”
The blond woman adjusts her glasses. “Truthfully, I didn’t think she was serious in her intentions.”
“Why don’t we move onto another topic of discussion?” Momo interjects, letting out a nervous laugh. “For example, Kyouka—let’s start baking!”
It takes Jirou a few seconds to respond from the shock of the sudden use of her first name— Kyouka, Kyouka, Kyouka —until she realizes that it’s been longer than a few seconds and she should probably at least blink so Momo doesn’t think she’s unconscious.
“Y-Yeah,” she coughs. “What are making again?”
“Oh, you’ll love it!” Momo beams. “It’s a Napoleon cake! What’s special about it is that it has up to sixteen layers and a custard filling. It’s supposed to be a bit time-consuming, but other than that, I don’t think it’ll be too hard.”
“R-Right,” Jirou says feebly. Stay strong, she tells herself, it’s ok if it takes a while! Or if it’s hard! You have Momo!
-
It’s been two hours. In any other situation, Jirou would be elated. Two hours with Momo, practically alone (okay, other than Mori, but still, pretty much alone). In any other situation, she thinks it could safely be considered a date.
But there’s something about this specific scenario that is distinctly off-putting. Maybe it’s the bags of spilled flour on the floor. Or the eggshells mixed in with bowls of strangely-colored batter. Or the fact that has become blatantly clear to Jirou in the past few hours.
Momo does not know how to bake.
“It’s fine, Kyouka!” Momo says. Her voice is strangled, but her eyes are cold and hardset like a soldier about to step onto a battlefield. “Just a few more layers—we’re almost done—”
“Momo,” Jirou says softly. “You—you don’t know how to bake, do you?”
“No, no,” Momo says hastily, her cheeks turning beet red. “I do, really! Well, I mean, I know the basics. I know...how to crack eggs…”
“Didn’t they teach you how to in your private training, or something?”
“Not in particular,” Momo admits. “All my food-based training was tea-tasting, or learning how to cook traditional Japanese cuisine.”
Jirou takes a moment to think on this, and then she inhales deeply. The scent of brown sugar wafts up her nose, which was not her original intention, but it’s a welcome odor. “It’s okay, Momo. But, maybe we should hold off on making the Napoleon, because neither of us are really good at baking, you know? So it might just be easier to stick with sugar cookies, or something.”
“But we’ve come this far!” Momo cries. What exactly is your definition of far? Jirou thinks. “And—oh, Kyouka, I’m sorry, this—this has been such a waste of your time, and I don’t want to waste more of it, but if we just gave up ...that wouldn’t feel right either. You know?”
“Yeah,” Jirou smiles. “I know.” She hands Momo a whisk. “Let’s get back to baking, then.”
Momo smiles, triumphantly whipping her whisk into the air. A glob of batter hanging off it falls off and hits her cheek.
Cute, Jirou thinks,
-
“I give up,” Momo says thickly, no more than three and a half failed cakes later. “I can’t—these stupid layers...they’re not even layers! And the custard is sour! I—” her voice cracks. “I’m sorry, Kyouka, this is all my fault—”
“Don’t say that,” Jirou says. She reaches for a nearby oven mitt and uses it to wipe away the tears dripping down Momo’s cheeks. “It’s not your fault. Screw Napoleon for inventing this stupid cake.”
“Napoleon was the leader of the French revolution,” Momo sniffles. “I don’t think he has anything to do with the cake.”
“Still,” Jirou chides. “We’ve been trying our best. That’s what’s important, that you’ve been trying.”
“But if we had just done cookies like you said...instead of this mess,” Momo says. “And the class will be so disappointed! We won’t even have anything to turn in—poor Iida, he’ll be so upset—”
“No way will Iida be upset!” Jirou says. “If you tell him how much we’ve been working at it, he’ll probably start crying too.”
“So he’ll still be upset!”
“Okay, but not at us. And even if we don’t have anything to turn in, I don’t think anyone will care. Like, I’d be looking forward to Satou’s cake if I were you. His Quirk was practically made for baking, after all—” She pauses. “Momo?”
“Mhm?”
“Why didn’t you just use your Quirk to make a cake?”
“W-Well, it’s—rather difficult to explain,” she stammers. “But it’s much harder for me to create food objects because they require direct fat, and of course, the ingredients are expirable, it’s really quite different, and—also…” her face turns bright red again. Cute, Jirou thinks, before banishing the thought from her head.
“I thought it would be more fun if we could do something together like this,” Momo says softly, twiddling with her fingers. “Though, of course, that didn’t really work out—”
Jirou cuts her off with a kiss.
“I think it worked out just fine,” she grins. Momo giggles sheepishly, but before she can lean in again, a voice interjects.
“Have you ladies finished baking yet?”
“Mori-san!” Momo gasps, whipping her head around. “Um, yes, I’d say we’re...fairly done.”
“Good,” Mori looks down at them through her glasses. “I presume it didn’t turn out very well, judging from the state of this kitchen...but that’s fine, as I’ve baked a spare cake ahead of time.”
“Huh?” Momo and Jirou say simultaneously.
“What? Where? How?” Jirou says.
“In the second kitchen,” Mori says matter-of-factly. “And being a good butler means being a jack of all trades.”
“You have two kitchens?” Jirou asks in disbelief, turning to Momo.
“Technically three,” she says. “Though the third one is for our chef staff only.”
Somehow, Jirou isn’t surprised that Momo practically has her own restaurant staff.
“I’ll be going now,” Mori says with a bow. “I would start cleaning up right away, but it seems that you two would like some more alone time together.”
They turn to look at each other, Jirou with a grin on her face, and Momo smiling sheepishly. Yeah, she thinks. That doesn’t sound half-bad.