Chapter Text
“Why the hell am I here again?” This was not what Mordred had expected when she saw Ritsuka excitedly heading to the kitchen, her steps light and her face beaming with excitement. It wasn’t his intention to exactly follow her (when he was still using most of his efforts to avoid any confrontation with his father) but Ritsuka did not hesitate to give a loud noise of excitement and physically drag Mordred to come along with her.
(Later, Ritsuka would claim that Mordred can still get easily spooked but Mordred would furiously continue to deny any of this statement. He was merely caught off guard, that was all .)
Anyway, when Ritsuka had first poked her head into the kitchen to see who was there, to which Mordred only saw Emiya’s silhouette from his peripheral (which was not surprising, considering everyone silently and unanimously chose him as the chef for everyone since anything he made tasted so damn good and somehow manages to cater to everyone’s tastes ) but when he followed Ritsuka who had already made her way to Emiya who was busy stirring the ladle the moment she stepped in, he almost screeched the moment he saw Arturia sitting patiently on the dining table who just stared at Emiya cooking away.
It was clear that Arturia paid no attention to Mordred’s presence anyway, so when he loudly declared he was leaving and going to bother someone else, Ritsuka immediately turned around to face him and start giving him the kicked puppy look (the worst part is that Mordred is soft to that look if Ritsuka were the one to be giving him that). Coupled with Emiya’s side glance at him as a reminder (or a warning, he could never tell when it comes to that guy) and Arturia’s frown when Emiya had paused in cooking for her, Mordred reluctantly sat down a seat away from Arturia’s right and stared to the other side of the room, forcing herself to not make any signs of acknowledging Arturia’s very near presence. If the tension in the room was palpable, nobody did the honour of trying to break the mood, which was probably the best as Emiya and Ritsuka pointedly ignore them as Ritsuka started helping Emiya prepare the plates and start prepping for dessert making while having small talks (to which at certain times, Emiya would make choked noises throughout their conversation, which Mordred did not want to know, at all considering the amount of shenanigans Ritsuka did).
It felt like eternity before Emiya’s voice broke the silence and told them that the food was done and immediately as he finished his sentence, Mordred swore Arturia’s face was shining too brightly at the mention of her meal was ready. While Emiya was busy serving extremely huge portion for Arturia who was at the verge of drooling endlessly, Ritsuka had approached her to ask if he had wanted some as well since there was a lot of extra left.
“Nah, not really up to eating right now.” Mordred waved his hand dismissively before he watched Ritsuka leave to clean up the pots they had used and storing away the ingredients that they had no more use of at the time. When she left, Mordred was perfectly content at continuing the ignore King Arthur charade before he felt something poking on his left cheek. At first, he tried to ignore it but it grew more persistent that he snapped his head and stood up to see what the hell was her problem now, ready to scream profanities right to her face (which she always ignored but maybe when he pushes her buttons hard enough, she’ll finally snap). The moment he opened his mouth, a spoonful of fried rice (which was really delicious ) was shoved into him, causing him to splutter for a moment before he finally chewed on the food and then swallowed while he marveled the taste.
“It tastes good, isn’t it?” Mordred, who was still dumbfounded at the fact that Arturia actually spoon fed him her food, which she would never do so to anyone else just nodded while staring at Arturia who still calmly at her food. “Now sit down.” Still dumbfounded, he wordlessly just followed what she told him to do before Ritsuka placed a plate in front of him despite the fact that he had declined the offer for food.
“Eat.” This time, Mordred snapped out of his trance hearing the tone Arturia was using against him (that one dismissive tone she would use against him) but deciding to ignore her, he began to eat his own portion of fried rice.
(And if either of them heard Ritsuka whispering to Emiya how this was a good start to mending their relationship, they both chose to ignore her words.)