Chapter Text
Watching the Great Galar Bake Off was Raihan’s guilty pleasure. He couldn’t bake for shit, but he was still suckered in by the soul soothing niceness of the whole thing. It was like putting twelve Milos in a tent to make mouth-wateringly good looking baked goods every week.
Raihan liked the two hosts too, talk show hosts from his parents’ era, and he’d been bummed like the rest of the country when they’d stepped down at the end of the last season, along with one of the judges. Rumours were that the show was going to have a rotating celebrity judge each year, and the internet had collectively lost it a few months ago when the show had announced that the replacement hosts would be Galarian royals Sordward and Shieldbert. Raihan had just thought yikes, and hoped that the show would just give the two a bit-piece at the beginning, and nothing else for the rest of the episode.
He’d still love the show, though, he knew. So when his agent rung him up to tell him that this year, the show was adding a series of one-off celebrity bake off episodes to raise funds for rebuilding after the destruction of the darkest day, Raihan didn’t hesitate for a second. Could he bake? No. Was he going to compete on the show? YES.
After all, he’d been thinking about ways to help raise funds for all of the repairs that the castle needed, because even his sponsorships weren’t going to cover the amount of damage the energy plant had gone through. He hadn’t totally caught everything that Hop had gushed about, but apparently the ramparts at the top of the castle that had also been blasted to bits had something to do with a legendary pokemon that had come out of another dimension, and a pokemon that lived on Hop’s belt, because he kept touching it as if to make sure it was okay there. Raihan was going to get the full story out of that kid one day.
The league was looking to all the gym leaders to help smooth over the “incident” with Rose. Raihan wasn’t sure how much it would actually help people feel goodwill towards the league after everything that had happened, but he believed that every little bit helped. Leon and Gloria had the burden of grand gestures to rebuild trust. Raihan was going to humiliate himself on the greatest baking show in the world, but maybe make a halfway decent cake.
It was going to be okay. He had a month to practice.
So he called Sonia up immediately after agreeing, to beg for her help with learning how to bake.
It hurt a little that she’d laughed for a solid two minutes, but Raihan already had a bottomless, gaping wound in his soul from Leon’s loss and the end of an era, so that was just icing on the cake anyway.
Icing was probably something he’d need to learn how to make too.
-----
In the warm sunlight of his kitchen, Raihan stood, tense and sweating a little under his loose, white shirt with a cartoon camerupt printed on it, as Sonia slowly chewed a piece of the cake he’d made. It was a layer cake with three -- count it, three -- whole layers. Yellow and chocolate layers too.
“So? How is it?”
Sonia drew out a long “hummmmm,” as she set the fork down on the plate, and folded her hands together over the table. The white lab coat she now sported really was a flattering look on her, Raihan thought.
She gave him a look that he was used to seeing across from the battlefield, lips pulled into a small frown.
“Raihan… I’m sorry to say that…” Her lips quirked, as she took in how tense Raihan looked, clutching the edge of the table.
“...You’re actually not going to make a fool of yourself.”
“Yes!!!!!!” Raihan crowed, sinking onto his knees and pumping both fists up in the air. “I did it! I baked a motherfucking cake! Three layers, baby!”
Sonia rolled her eyes, exasperated, and crossed a leg over the other, while her yamper ran up to jump around Raihan, clueless as to why but enjoying the celebration.
“You sure did. And it was moist, and you didn’t drown it with almond extract like last time.”
“Did you hear that!” Raihan scooped the yamper up and grinned at it. “It was moist! Moist.”
“Oh my god, give him back,” Sonia groaned, getting up to save her pokemon from Raihan as he started to waltz on his knees with him.
Getting up as well, Raihan walked over to the table to spear his own fork into the cake and taste it again. Sonia watched with a soft smile as Raihan looked a little amazed that he’d pulled this off. He wasn’t going to be winning any showstoppers, but he might actually be able to hold his own with some of the easier challenges. As long as he was careful about his baking and measured everything just right.
“And for god’s sake, taste what you make before you get too far to fix it.”
His rotomphone whizzed out of his jacket pocket hung over the chair, and circled up to Raihan’s face. A new message from the Bake Off organisers about the show. Raihan tapped the screen to open the message, still chewing.
Then he inhaled on the cake and had to smack his chest until he coughed it up.
“Raihan?!” Sonia hovered next to him with a hand on his back.
“No way,” he croaked. “No way.”
“What?”
“K--” He wheezed. “Kabu’s the new celebrity judge.”
Sonia’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god,” she repeated, and there was glee in her voice as her eyes grew wide and shone. She shook Raihan by his shoulders. “Oh my god. You’re going to be baking for Kabu.”
“I didn’t even know he could bake!” Raihan protested. “Since when could he bake? Isn’t that unfair? Huh?”
It really was. It was bad enough that Kabu was so nice to all the little gym challengers, wore the shit out of his high socks that wrapped around sinfully thick calves just right, and had a way of looking at Raihan that made Raihan’s palms sweaty, now that they were both leaders of their respective gyms. Raihan had just been feeling like he was closing a gap, that if he just kept working hard, one day he’d meet Kabu’s eyes from across the stadium, and the other man would look as hungrily at him as Raihan felt when he saw Kabu. Kabu had never even responded to any of Raihan’s suggestive looks or flirtatious compliments, and so Raihan was determined to stand out so much until the other guy was completely overwhelmed.
But he was going to fall behind, if his baking was so bad to Kabu, the expert judge.
He sat down grimly at the table, and sank his head in his hands. Sonia rubbed soothing circles on his back.
“I’m so doomed,” he bemoaned. He turned to squash his cheek on his palm, and looked up beseechingly at Sonia.
“Hey, you're a pokemon professor in training now. You're looking into legendaries with awesome powers and stuff. Can you just take over my body and cook for me? Please.”
“Raihan!” She snorted and smacked his shoulder. With a weary frown, she shoved her hand under his armpit, ignoring his squawk, and hauled him to stand up.
Staring fiercely up at him, she said, almost as a threat, “You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me? If you want to win Kabu over, it’s not going to be through moping about how bad you are at baking --”
“Hey--”
“You need to just do your best. If Kabu doesn’t go for that, then… That’s his loss.”
Raihan let himself sulk for a few seconds over how Sonia was right about this. He had this habit, didn’t he? Of chasing after things he could never quite achieve.
“But I’m a catch and he’s hot,” he muttered, kicking at the ground and making Sonia groan exaggeratedly and throw her hands up in the air.
“Then tell him already! I just don’t want to see you sabotaging yourself or having a miserable time on your favourite show.”
A small part of Raihan’s aching chest felt soothed by that, and he gave Sonia a small smile, as he wrapped his arms around her in a hug, and dropped his face in her bushy ponytail.
“Okay.”
“Good.”
Raihan smirked into her hair. “You know, you could’ve just told me you’re soooo into me.”
“Ugh, why do I even bother -- You’re such an idiot,” Sonia muttered, as Raihan cackled.
--------
Raihan was still wrestling with feeling not happy that Kabu was going to be the one eating Raihan’s barely pretty okay baking, but so happy that he was going to see Kabu. He didn’t get to see much of the fire gym leader during the off-season, but now he was going to get to talk to Kabu. And ogle Kabu’s ass subtly and out of the view of the cameras. Sure, it would only be for the two days of this special episode, but it was better than no days.
None of that turmoil showed when he landed on the field where they were shooting, his flygon immediately dropping down to the grass to sniff around at it and stretch out for a break, after flying from Hammerlocke to Turffield. Raihan rubbed her head and belly for a few minutes, staring intently at the white tent decorated with alcremie pillars on either side of the entrances. This was it. He was going to be on Bake Off. He was going to do his fucking best.
“Oh. It’s you.”
Raihan looked up at the bored, almost snide tone that sounded from behind him, and he saw Opal’s new protege. There’d been so many new faces and shakeups in the league after Rose’s fall from grace, but he was pretty sure he could remember this guy’s name. Starts with an S, ends with Uperiority Complex or something, right?
“Hey, Bede,” he said instead. “You’re on the show too?”
“Unfortunately,” the younger man answered, lips thinned and arms folding across the uniform that he was wearing of Opal’s gym. “Someone on the league’s board thought it’d be a good way for me to ‘promote myself’ since I’m ‘so new.’”
Raihan was genuinely impressed by how much Bede could make his lip curl while he was speaking.
Raihan’s flygon sat up and looked Bede up and down, while he scratched her neck. Recognizing the former challenger whom she’d fought, she nosed her way into his pokeball.
Sore loser, he thought fondly, and looked up at Bede, bracing his hands on his knees to stand up, and add, “Yeah? I’m sorry, man. That sucks. Promotion’s hard work and it’s not something most of us think of when we want to make a living battling.”
For a moment, Bede looked wide-eyed at him, as if stunned. He sniffed and looked away, frowning again. “Well, yes. No one even asked me if I could bake.”
“Well… Can you?” Raihan asked.
Bede cut a sharp look over at Raihan. “Of course I can!”
“Woah --” Raihan held up both hands, a confused grin on his face. God. Teenagers. “I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just here to have fun and hopefully not have to make choux pastry.”
Bede’s glare simmered down into a haughty stare instead. “Seriously? That’s incredibly simple to make. You just have to be patient enough when you’re folding the butter in.”
“Okay,” Raihan said slowly. “And how do I do that?”
And that was how he got a crash course in choux pastry making, the league’s new fairy-type gym leader lecturing him all the while that they were called over for makeup and to get their microphones attached. Bede clearly knew his stuff, and Raihan ignored all of the insults and snide comments that seemed like the guy just spouted off the top of his head. Better to get insulted now in private than humiliated on TV.
They had to split up when they arrived at the tent, one of the production crew leading Bede to one of the baking stations closest to the front of the tent, while Raihan was led out onto the field to record his pre-competition sound bites. After that, he was directed back to the tent, to get familiar with his workstation in the very back. Sometimes it paid to be so damn tall. Raihan would’ve been so distracted being close to the front, and that close to Kabu.
Propping his elbows on the smooth counter, Raihan waited for the interviews with everyone else to finish, and scoped out the other bakers getting set up around him. Bede, he already knew, and Raihan gave Ball Guy a fist bump to see them at the station in front of his. Raihan wasn’t sure which city’s mascot this was, but they seemed to be really in their usual shared persona, peppy as ever.
And the last contestant… Raihan did a double-take when he saw an amped toxtricity standing at the station next to Bede’s, bopping along on its feet to a song in its head and rummaging through the tools laid out on its station. Bede was staring suspiciously at it.
“Hey,” Raihan leaned across his counter and whispered to Ball Guy. “Is that a--?”
“Yeah,” Ball Guy whispered back. “Did you know they could cook? I guess it’s possible,” they continued on, tone bright as if they were handing over this nugget of information like a premier ball. “A lot of pokemon like the same taste profiles we do. And if they can play guitar, then they can cook, you’d think?”
The toxtricity, aware of all the stares it was getting from the other bakers around it, turned around and gave them all a rock metal sign, which had Raihan busting up. Holy shit. He recognized that pokemon now -- the lead guitarist for the all-pokemon band that’d played at the championship this year. The purple gloves it was wearing was pretty cute, and went all the way up its arms, likely as a precaution from accidentally getting anything toxic in the batter.
It figured that right as he was cackling, the judges and hosts walked into the tent. Well, two of them walked in. Swordward and his brother dramatically side-stepped in, long white capes fluttering behind their outstretched arms, held up to catch the wind.
“Greetings, competitors!” Swordward declared. “It is my pleasure, as [prince Swordward, descendant of the royal line of Galar] to give this season my royal blessing.”
Raihan reached up to tug his headband down, to hide his eyeroll. He missed the way that Kabu’s gaze cut to his action, and his eyebrow arched up.
“And I, Shieldbert, welcome you all to this hallowed tent,” the other royal said. Raihan couldn’t stop staring at their hairstyles as the two spoke, and only snapped back to attention when Swordward, with a flourish, finally let the judges introduce themselves.
Kabu inclined his head politely at the judge who’d been on the show since the beginning: Honey, the matron of the dojo on the Isle of Armor. She stepped forward with a bright smile. Raihan really liked her.
“Hello, guys! We’re so happy you’ve all come here to help support this special cause,” she sang out. “Now show of hands -- how many of you watch Bake Off?”
Raihan’s hand went up, along with everyone else’s.
“Wow!” Honey beamed. “Then I’m expecting great things from all of you, and I won’t need to turn any of your bakes over to my salazzle.”
There was a scattering of laughs, although Raihan was pretty sure that if he had to make bread, that was going to be the outcome for his. That was fine though. It was pretty fascinating to watch Honey’s salazzle light the whole bake on fire anyway, and they always made a show out of it.
“And now,” she said, “I’m even happier to introduce a face I’m sure you’re all familiar with, and who we’re so lucky to have this year: Mr. Kabu!”
The group applauded, and Raihan didn’t try to stop himself from clapping louder than everyone else and whistling. Kabu’s face stayed even, but a small corner of his mouth tipped up when he glanced over at Raihan, and nodded at him.
Ohhhhhh boy. Oh man. Raihan was trying so hard to avoid swooning that he gave in, exaggerating staggering against his countertop just to play it off, which earned him a pointed look from Kabu, before the older man turned to give his attention to the group again.
“Good morning, everyone,” he greeted, voice steady and clear. “I’d like to echo Honey’s thanks. It’s generous, to give your time and help the country come together after the recent catastrophe.” He gave them all a bow, and Raihan wished the cameras were rolling for this. Kabu was just so cool.
The director came along after that, going over rules and information of how the show was going to be filmed over the next two days, what to expect, and whether anyone had any questions. If Raihan’s gaze kept going back to Kabu, no one could blame him. The way that he looked in a charcoal-grey turtleneck was incredibly distracting.
All of this pre-game talk amped Raihan up, and he was bouncing a little on his feet as well, when everyone was herded out of the tent and to the top of the steps, for the opening shot of the contestants walking together into the tent. Ball Guy was chatting to a red-faced Bede ahead of him, trying to coax Bede into striking a pose with them when the filming would start, while the toxtricity followed behind playing air guitar.
Beside him, Raihan felt a hand curve over his elbow, and a voice that made him shiver.
“Raihan.”
He turned to see Kabu, who had joined to walk with him. The older man was looking up at him with an inscrutable expression, before the lines of his mouth deepened into a small smile.
His voice was polite as he asked, “Are you looking forward to the challenge?” Kabu’s eyes, however, were dark and fierce, a thrill for competition that Raihan’s own drive had always resonated with.
He flashed his teeth at Kabu in a toothy grin. “You bet. I’ve been practicing all month to knock your socks off.”
The older man chuckled, one hand covering his mouth. Typical Kabu, to not think about how sexy he looked in his socks that stretched around his calves in a way that made Raihan’s insides feel as jelly as a ditto.
“I’ll look forward to that.”
Maybe it was the sun shining down on them, or the breeze that blew and ruffled the ends of Kabu’s hair and kissed over Raihan’s skin, that had him blurting out, “so, how are you, Kabu? Is Motostoke -- the repairs, I mean -- how’s that going?”
Kabu’s expression grew solemn. “The stadium itself was the only physical structure to sustain damage. I would say that we were far more fortunate than some other towns. But tourism is down in the city. My gym members are mostly busy with rehabilitating the league’s image to our residents. People are uncomfortable at seeing how volatile dynamaxing could be, and the city has already received a petition from a concerned citizen group to develop more restrictions and safety measures around dynamaxing.”
He paused, and looked back up at Raihan. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”
Raihan gawped at Kabu for a moment. “No!” he protested, vehemently. “Never.” Kabu could recap Raihan’s entire 0-10 loss history of battles against Leon, and Raihan would still listen to all that and probably feel weirdly turned on by it.
“That stuff’s important,” Raihan added, when Kabu looked unconvinced and droll at him. “If you’re seeing the public’s reaction like this in Motostoke, chances are people everywhere feel that way. The whole league needs to know about this.”
Raihan shifted slightly on his feet under the weight of Kabu’s stare for a few quiet seconds, before the other gym leader gave him a short nod. “As it stands, I’ve told the commission already, and they are formulating a press policy. We’ll likely be told about it in the next gym leader meeting.”
“Given our marching orders, more like,” Raihan scoffed, and Kabu laughed. Like his head tipped back and with how his laugh resounded low from his chest, Raihan felt his heart stop for a moment. A huge grin broke out across his own face that he had to quickly fake a cough and cover.
“Of course a man who creates his own localized weather wouldn’t like following orders.” Kabu’s smile was sly, and Raihan had to wrap both his hands behind his head, faking nonchalance but actually fighting to keep his hands from reaching out to grab Kabu by the arms and beg him to make fun of him a little more.
“I’ll make it sunny for you any day, old man,” he grinned with a wink, and instantly regretted it because of course that had Kabu frowning slightly, and turning away with a small tug to his turtleneck. Ugh, and he’d been so good at being mature up until this point.
“Sorry,” he started, and Kabu held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s all right, Raihan,” he said, and yet Raihan pursed his lips, disappointed, when Kabu gestured to where the rest of the contestants were standing. “You should get to that. And good luck,” he added, in that encouraging tone of his, that warmed Raihan down to his toes.
“Thanks,” Raihan replied, and watched wistfully as Kabu jogged back to film whatever it was that the show had scripted for the judges. Was he ever going to be able to convince Kabu to take him seriously? He’d spent almost a year on his best behaviour, trying to keep a respectable professionalism between himself and Kabu during the league. He’d thought that if he’d shown that he was every bit a gym leader that kids could look up to, just like Kabu was to them, then they’d have something to talk about.
Now the biggest thing Kabu was going to remember about him was how badly he could mess up using an oven.