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Laying on the couch, Naib bores holes into the white ceiling of his shared apartment complex. Today is February 14th meaning today is Valentine's Day, and Naib can’t help but panic. This will be his first Valentine's spent with Jack and he wants to make it special, but he doesn’t know what to do. He is terribly unprepared and already spent half the day doing nothing except spacing out, staring at the ceiling.
Then suddenly, an idea struck him: perhaps he could prepare a nice romantic dinner for Jack. That’ll be perfect, Naib thought to himself. However, his cooking skills are lacking and he might not be able to cook that well, especially as well as his boyfriend, but that’s nothing a simple Google search can’t help solve. He’s sure he’ll be able to prepare a very delicious dinner Jack won’t forget.
After spending some more time thinking and drafting out a plan, Naib concludes that he will prepare a simple steak served with red wine for dinner. For desserts, he’ll make bread pudding, Jack’s favorite. He hopes his boyfriend will, at the very least, like his attempt at cooking his favorite dish. They’ll dine at the dining table where Naib would have set up dimly lit candles and deep red rose petals sprinkled around the room to get that romantic vibe he’s imagining. Though Naib doesn’t know much about romantic vibes, he has seen those cliché rom-coms so he has somewhat of an idea of how to set a romantic mood. And that settles it; a very cliché romantic dinner with his boyfriend on their first Valentines’ together, a perfect date night. However, he must get this done before Jack comes home, and he comes at 8 o'clock and it’s already 4... Shit, he must get started right away. Naib quickly gets up, grabs his jacket, and puts on his shoes, before he rushes out of the apartment building, sprinting as fast as he can to the local grocery.
Coming back home, Naib drops 3 separate bags of meat, ingredients for bread pudding, and fake blood-red rose petals on the kitchen counter. Naib also bought a small bouquet of beautiful fresh roses of the same color as the fake petals. He sighs as he stares at his purchases, not knowing where to start. Eventually, he chooses to begin with setting up the roses in a glass vase filled with water. The glass vase belongs to Jack and used to house his lovely roses, but he grew tired of getting more roses to fill the vase over and over again. Naib started putting one rose in at a time, but could only manage to fit a few roses in as the vase was very narrow. However, while trying to rearrange them to look nicer, he accidentally pricks himself.
“Shit…” Naib curses at the sudden sting, a small bead of blood forming on the tip of his thumb. Hissing quite loudly, Naib rushes to clean the wound and bandages it before resuming rearranging the roses. He plops the vase on the dining table before giving his attention to his next task: making the steak. The young man sighs.
After a long while of trying to follow a recipe he found on Google and looking through the cabinets for spices, Naib finally manages to get to the actual cooking stage of the instructions. Jack usually likes his steaks medium rare, while he likes them a little more done. But Naib doesn’t know how to cook a steak, and the instructions for the recipe were not so clear to him. He sighs again for the third time that day, praying he won’t fuck this up.
He fucked it up.
The steak was completely burnt. It’s a damn charcoal rock at this point. Naib honestly didn’t know how long he was supposed to cook the steak for and wasn’t paying attention to how long he had been cooking. Groaning loudly, Naib gives up on the steak for now and looks at the time. It’s 6:14. Naib has two hours left before his boyfriend gets home.
“Oh thank god,” Naib sighs in relief as he rechecks the recipe. Baking the dessert won’t take a little more than an hour or so, he’ll be fine.
Putting the batter into the oven and setting a timer for 45 minutes, Naib cleans up the mess he made while he was mixing ingredients. This cooking shit is difficult for Naib who only knows how to enjoy eating the end product rather than making it. Naib sighs again as he looks at the burnt steak, opting to just throw it away and have Jack cook something for them. Even if it would be embarrassing to ask, he would rather not want to starve tonight. Naib decides to do the other tasks he planned. He finishes scattering the fake rose petals everywhere around the apartment in a matter of seconds; it was an easy task. Setting up the candles is also an easy task because there are quite a bunch of candles already laying around the house. Jack just likes buying these candles to “get in the mood” or whatever reason it is, Naib doesn’t get it. Naib takes a while trying to find a lighter, but eventually, he finds it and starts doing rounds around the apartment, lighting up every candle he sees and turns off the lights when he finishes.
“Woah…”
The light that’s emitting from the candles makes the whole apartment look so… sexy. He never really paid attention to when Jack would light these up but now that he sees it, he can see their appeal. Naib throws himself onto the couch, admiring the view of his dimly lit apartment. The dimness fills him with a sense of drowsiness and it lulls him to sleep.
Naib’s nose twitches at the smell of something burning. His eyes shot open and he rushed to the kitchen, realizing the cause of the smoke. He quickly runs to the kitchen to take out the now burnt bread pudding. Turning on the kitchen lights, Naib could see how ruined the dessert is. Naib groans loudly as he angrily flings the tray of bread pudding into the trash along with his failed steak. He’s so disappointed and embarrassed at himself. Naib thinks how pitiful it is for a grown adult who can't even cook a meal for his significant other. His eyes start to swell well up with tears at the thought of how truly pathetic he is without Jack. Naib continues insulting himself, each insult getting louder and aching more. Quickly, he starts to quietly sob into his arms on the kitchen counter, which muffled any sounds from the outside world, even the sound of the front door opening. Naib didn’t realize the presence of the person behind him until their arms had wrapped around his small body. His body tenses with the contact.
“Dear…” Jack’s voice filled him with familiar comfort.
“I’m sorry.” Naib whimpers softly, “I tried to cook a nice meal for us, but I just burn everything I make—”
Jacks put his lips over his boyfriend’s, shutting him up. Naib’s eyes widen in shock before he closes them, welcoming the comfort that associates with Jack. His heart beats faster and his face is flushed as Jack pulls away, a soft smile visible on the tall man’s face. His taller boyfriend delicately wipes his tears away with his thumbs, cupping his face.
“It’s ok, my dear Naib. I’m delighted that you tried. Cooking can be difficult at first, but I believe you’ll get better at it and I will be here to help you whenever you need me.” Jack comforts Naib as he tenderly runs his fingers through his boyfriend’s hair, pulling on his hair tie and letting the hair strands fall around his shoulders. Naib likes the pats he receives from Jack; they always soothe him without fail. Jack brings his boyfriend’s hand up to his lips, giving it small pecks.
“Can you help me cook something right now then? I want to make this Valentine’s at least somewhat special for you…” Naib quietly spoke, averting his eyes with a small blush.
The taller man chuckles, “Of course, honey.” Jack gives his smaller boyfriend a delicate kiss on the forehead before standing straight up. “Let’s get started, I’ll carefully guide you through every step.” Naib smiles and nods, liking the sound of that, before following his boyfriend’s lead.
With Jack’s help, Naib had little problems cooking and in a couple of hours, he and his boyfriend were ready to have their first Valentine’s dinner together. The steaks smelled incredible and the bread pudding looks so delicious that it had Naib drooling. Naib starts making his rounds back and forth from the kitchen to the dining table with the plates of food, while Jack is setting utensils at the dining table and pouring two glasses of wine, one for him and one for his lover. Naib finishes making his rounds and turns off the kitchen lights before heading toward the dining table. He sees Jack just finish setting everything up too. The shorter man decides to be the gentleman this time and pulls out a chair for his boyfriend, looking up at his lover with a cute grin on his face. Jack chuckles at his little boyfriend, but accepts his offer and sits in the chair. Naib pulls out and sits in his chair, across from Jack, and the couple starts to dig into their food.
The steak is amazing. Naib moans as he takes his first bite, savoring the juicy, immaculate taste. His boyfriend knows his stuff when it comes to cooking because every dish he makes always impresses Naib so much. Jack watches Naib in amusement, his food gremlin of a lover had such cute reactions to eating his food, giving him the reason to cook so heartily.
Soon their dishes are wiped spotless, being one of the best dinners they had together. Naib is in bliss from the food and completely flushed from the alcohol. Jack, on the other hand, continues to drink from his third glass and chuckles at his low tolerance boyfriend.
“Hmmm... stop laughing.” Naib drunkenly slurs, too cute with his pink face to come off as intimidating, “Or else I’ll break your kneecaps.”
Jack chuckles even louder. “Aw, but you’re so cute, I can’t help myself, dear.” Naib grumbles at his boyfriend. He is going to demand cuddle sessions tonight as payment for laughing at him like this.