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“… so. Um. I’m really sorry, Mrs Tsurugi…”
Kagami looked around the kitchen. It was – messy, in a sense, but it was a controlled kind of mess that was somehow compartmentalised, small clusters of chaos organised into a structured whole. One half of the kitchen island was drowning in flour and bits of sticky dough; the other was somehow completely free from all that, but instead it had multiple cakepans, one breadpan, and two frying pans stacked into disorganised towers. All of them seemed clean.
The kitchen counter – the one by the sink – was dominated by dirty dishes. Among them were several other breadpans, a pile of teaspoons and regular spoons and baking spoons, several spatulas, a zester, three large knives, multiple forks, two thermometers, cutters, dusters, strainers, and glass bowls of various sizes. The sink itself was filled with dirty soapy water, with multiple damp washcloths lining the edge or hanging over the faucet. On the other side of the sink, several freshly cleaned dishes were drying off on a rack.
Then, there was the oven, and the counter next to it. The countertop seemed to hold all the eggshells and lemons and oranges and surplus butter that must have been used over the course of the night. There was also chocolate, milk, various nuts and seeds, a half-full packet of sugar and an almost-empty packet of flour, remains of fruits and berries, and some grated cheese in a small jar. The oven – the culprit, so to speak – stood open, smoke still lazily drifting out from whatever it was that had been burnt inside of it; they looked like regular bread rolls, but the cheesy overtones to the smell and the tang of pepper suggested they weren’t really regular at all.
The kitchen table was the only part of the kitchen not in some form of disarray, but it wasn’t tidy, either. There were two loaves of bread arranged on a wooden board, a small bowl with berries and chocolate, one platter stacked with muffins, and a tray decked with two each of plates, mugs, teaspoons, knives, and forks.
And finally there was Marinette, a mess all unto herself, her nose white with flour and her hair dishevelled.
Kagami didn’t know it was possible to feel this many emotions at once. She was impressed, surprised, her ears were still ringing from the fire alarm and the fear that had followed with it still hadn’t completely left. She was tired and a little bit annoyed, and she wanted to kiss the flour off of Marinette’s nose, because this was the sweetest and dorkiest and stupidest thing Marinette had ever done, and Kagami also wanted to grab Marinette by the shirt and tell her off. She was angry but in a protective way, she was in love but in an exasperated way.
And there was another fear too, now, on Marinette’s behalf only. Tomoe was frowning severely, arms folded and foot tapping, and Marinette withered under her unseeing gaze.
“Let me get this straight, young girl,” said Tomoe. “You came to my house, without my permission, to have a sleepover with my daughter.”
“Um… Yes.” Marinette’s voice was meek.
“You snuck past all our security systems and got into her room by yourself.”
“Yes…”
“You woke up in the middle of the night, and went down to the kitchen.” In contrast to Marinette, Tomoe’s relative quietness sounded like a thundering storm far away, an avalanche up in distant mountains.
Marinette cleared her throat. “Actually… I just couldn’t sleep. So I just got up and. Um. I’m sor-”
“Silence,” said Tomoe, holding up a hand. “You went down to the kitchen to make… food. In the oven. And you burnt your final batch of food because you were doing the dishes and forgot to check the time.”
Marinette nodded. Then, she seemed to recall that Tomoe was blind, and balked – making a sound like “Errughhnnnyes! Yes.”
“Kagami. What is the time right now?” Tomoe turned her head slightly to the side.
“Twenty-one minutes past five, Mother,” she said. The clock above the doorway ticked over to twenty-two minutes at the word ‘five’, but she bit her lip and didn’t interrupt.
Tomoe sighed in something that might have been resignation. “When did you start baking, Ms Cheng?”
“Um,” said Marinette, looking confused. “I… got here… it was after one. I don’t –”
“What did you do when the fire alarm went off?”
“Called the… fire department. Told them not to come. Um. And I… disconnected the alarm so it would stop beeping, but…”
“Tell me again. What were your plans after you were done?”
Marinette squirmed. Kagami’s annoyance was fading fast. There was just something about seeing Marinette in a level of discomfort that twisted her whole body, made her face scrunch and unbunch, made her eyes drift over to Kagami for help and reassurance, that eroded away most of Kagami’s frustration. Marinette had done a series of things that were very stupid, but that was more a fact to acknowledge than it was something to get worked up about.
“I… was going to give Kagami breakfast in bed,” said Marinette, staring at the floor. “And I was going to clean everything up! I swear. But the fire alarm happened, and then… um…”
As Marinette trailed away, Tomoe turned away from her and instead made to face Kagami. Kagami stood to attention, head up straight, though she did glance sideways at Marinette in what she hoped would be a brief look of reassurance. She was less than reassured herself, however.
“Kagami. You have disobeyed me. You brought home a girl without asking for permission, and you have let her roam around my house unsupervised.”
Kagami flinched. “Yes, Mother. I apologise.”
Tomoe regarded her quietly for a few seconds. Which was unusual. Usually, Kagami would get a mouthful of anger in a situation like this, and receive some type of punishment. Kagami was expecting to be grounded, and forbidden to ever invite anybody to the house again, and to clean up all the mess in the kitchen. But instead, Tomoe seemed to be thinking.
“… Do you care for her?” she asked eventually, expression unreadable.
“Yes, Mother. I do.” Even if Kagami had wanted to lie, she wouldn’t have been able to. She glanced sideways at Marinette again, and smiled at her – and got a smile in return. Not just a smile, but a look that seemed specifically engineered to dig deep into Kagami and lie down there, warm and protected.
Tomoe sighed again. “Normally, I would forbid the two of you from ever seeing each other again. However,” she held up her hand, forestalling both their reactions, “I can see that would do no good in this situation. This girl you brought home managed to sneak past state-of-the-art security systems, including motion detectors and surveillance cameras and a tall protective fence. There is no way for me to put a stop to anyone of such caliber.
“On top of that, she is industrious enough to make all this food from scratch, simply because she couldn’t sleep. She is level-headed enough to notify the fire department in a tense situation, and diligent enough to try to clean up after herself.”
Kagami couldn’t stop a proud smile from curling her lips. Yes – that was Marinette, through and through.
Tomoe turned back to Marinette. “I disapprove of your subterfuge and deception, Marinette. But I won’t prohibit you from seeing my daughter. I also suspect that I would be unable to arrest my daughter’s feelings for you. However, you will notify me before the next time you come to visit. And you will clean up this kitchen right now and put everything back in its place. Is that understood?”
Marinette swallowed audibly. “Y-yes! Thank y-”
Tomoe held up her hand one more time, clamping it shut to emphasise the level of not-talking she wanted. She walked over to the table and picked up a muffin from the platter. There was no expression on her face as she took a bite out of it and chewed, with an air of gravity like she was judging Marinette’s baking for a prestigious competition.
“As good as I could possibly have expected,” she said after a few seconds. “There had better be a breakfast ready for me when I wake up, and these muffins will be part of it, or I am going to change my mind about your relationship. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to bed.”
Tomoe left. Marinette stared at Kagami – but Kagami just smiled and walked closer.
“You are an idiot,” said Kagami. “Did you make all this for me?”
“I… yes.”
“Then you are an adorable, lovely, amazing little idiot, and I want to kiss you,” said Kagami. She was aware that her voice was maybe a little flat and disinterested – that wasn’t on purpose, so much as it was an effect of her earlier emotional charge having already dispersed from her. The surprise and fear had passed, and so had the desire to shake Marinette by the shoulders for making her worry. Now she was just in love.
And Marinette was flustered, because her cheeks were red, and she was happy, because she smiled, and she was confused, because her eyes were unfocused and flitted back and forth between Kagami, the kitchen, and the doorway Tomoe had left through. “Um,” she said.
“We will take care of the kiss later,” said Kagami. “But first, we have some cleaning to do.” She grabbed Marinette’s hand – it was still a little damp; she had been hurriedly and fruitlessly trying to finish the dishes before anyone could discover her in the kitchen, even as Tomoe’s footsteps thundered down the steps. That was how Kagami had found her – hands in the water.
“No – no, that’s my job. You should go back to sleep, I made this mess, it’s my responsibility.”
“And it’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t set off another alarm.” Kagami tugged her along to the sink. “You should take the dishes. I will start tidying the island. No complaining.”
Marinette stood there, still helpless, but with a growing smile. “Okay,” she said.
The smile remained, even after Kagami splashed her with dirty water, and didn’t leave until they went to sleep exhausted at eight in the morning.