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“Ah, hello Ms. Hu. May I ask what you're whipping up here?” Xander asked as he strolled on into the kitchen, coming in to grab a snack. He was a bit surprised to see Hu in the kitchen trying to crack an egg since it was not near one of their mealtimes, and she was not the one of the people that they had decided would cook for today.
“Hello, Xander,” Hu greeted as she cracked the egg and caressed the shell in one hand, opening the trash bin and throwing it out with the other, “I'm just whipping up a cake. Eden had told me that the cake she baked with Min, Rose and Teruko was destroyed, so I figured I could surprise them with a new one.”
Xander widened his eyes for a brief moment in surprise that someone would do something so kind, and he beamed, “That's so considerate of you! Do you need a helping hand?”
Hu smiled back due to feeling the waves of proudness from Xander hitting her, “You are certainly not obligated to help me, but if you would like to join in baking with me, you're welcome to lend a hand. Arei’s been helping me too.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, Arei popped up from being behind the counter, clearly pissed, “Ugh! You just had to give me away, didn't you!? That was my perfect chance to scare him!”
Xander rolled his eyes at Arei’s antics, and Hu, who had used to be one to scold Arei for behavior stood silent, and started mixing the wet ingredients.
Xander walked towards their side of the kitchen, ultimately landing left of Hu, as Arei was to her right, “Alright. What would you like me to do, Ms. Hu?”
“You can mix the dry ingredients,” Hu replied, as she continued to mix the wet ones.
Xander immediately got to work mixing the dry ingredients with the wooden spoon that was left in the bowl, but Arei started to cry, “What am I supposed to do, Hu!? You wanted to include me for baking, but now you won't let me do anything!” Arei whined.
“Arei, verbatim, you said to me, ‘I don't wanna get my beautiful, dainty hands dirty! I think I'll just eat the sweet treats when they come out of the oven instead.’, Do not say I'm forcefully not allowing you to participate,” Hu scolded, clearly on her last nerve with the girl.
Arei leaned on the counter with her elbows, put her head in her hands, and pretended to cry while she in truth, sulked.
A few seconds went by before Hu finally finished mixing the wet ingredients, “Xander, I'm surprised with your strength you haven't spilled anything out of the bowl! Everything is looking great.”
Xander blushed, slightly embarrassed, “Ms. Hu, I can be gentle when I need to. The incident with Mr. Ace was a… freak accident, you might call it.”
“You know, I don't think it's an accident!” Arei piped up cheerily, and then smirked, “That coward had it coming.”
“Ms. Arei, I promise you, it was not my intention to hurt Mr. Ace during wrestling,” Xander said as he finished mixing the last of the dry ingredients, “I just thought I would show him I am stronger than I look.”
Arei cackled, “Oh, you totally meant it!”
“Enough, Arei. Xander, let me take your bowl,” Hu said and Xander complied, taking the wooden spoon out, leaving it on the counter, and letting Hu take the bowl in front of him, “I can finish mixing everything together, then we wait for the mixture to bake. After that, we can prep the icing and decorate as a group. How does that sound?”
“That sounds great! Thank you for letting me join, Ms. Hu,” Xander confided, and smiled at Hu. Arei subsequently left the kitchen after saying she'd be back in 30 minutes, and that she was bringing a special guest.
Hu began to fold all the ingredients together with a spatula as Xander walked towards the cabinet on top of the refrigerator, where they held cereal, “Say, Ms. Hu, would you like a snack? I'm bringing down some oatmeal for myself right now.”
“That actually sounds very nice, I'll have some oatmeal, if it's not too much of a bother,” Hu answers, her focus still on the bowl.
“Nonsense, you're never a bother! Would you like a specific flavor of oatmeal? It seems like we've got apple cinnamon, cinnamon and spice as well as peaches and cream left,” Xander told her, inspecting the box, “It seems we're all out of the maple brown sugar flavor.”
Hu chuckled, “That's Levi. Whenever Whit doesn't make us all pancakes for breakfast, he eats that flavor of oatmeal. I'll take peaches and cream flavor, please.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Xander and Hu sat at the island in the kitchen, Xander chowing and Hu taking careful bites of their respective oatmeals. In between bites, the two had stricken up a conversation about their talents.
“I'm real glad you're more one of the reasonable people around here, Ms. Hu,” Xander commented, then shoveling down another bite of his cinnamon spice oatmeal. Once he gulped that down (in a speed that surprised Hu), he looked down, “I try to be the best version of myself possible but I feel I can't help but get into fights with some of our classmates, all of the time.”
“Don't beat yourself up Xander, really,” Hu offered an encouraging smile his way, “Nobody can blame you. A lot of our classmates are… well, rather troublesome. Especially Ace, Arturo and Arei, to name three.”
“Hey!” A high pitched voice squealed across the kitchen, and both Xander and Hu immediately turned to see Arei, dragging someone under a bedsheet, so Xander and Hu couldn't make out who it was, (but they had a guess based on the fact the person was very tall), “We’re here!”
“Thank goodness Arei did not hear that,” Xander mumbled to himself.
“Aaand, our special guest for decorating is…” Arei went on her tip-toes and pulled the bedsheet off the person, leading with the part of the bedsheet that was covering their arm, to reveal an exhausted Levi.
“Arei, was that really necessary…?” Hu spoke up as Levi rubbed sleep from his eye, “I mean poor Levi looks like he just woke up from a nap.”
Levi was about to open his mouth, but Arei opened hers first, “That's because I just woke him up from his nap so he could come help us! “
“And why would you do that?” Xander asked Arei, feeling pretty bad for Levi, “And Levi, why would you go along with this!?”
Again, Levi was about to open his mouth, but Arei opened up hers first, “Well, Levi promised me he would be nice to me from now on, so I figured I would present him with an offer he couldn't refuse!” Arei chirped, clearly very pleased with herself.
Levi looked at Xander and Hu with a straight face, “Arei told me it would be mean of me if I declined her offer, so I came.”
Xander facepalmed and Hu spoke up, her face with a smile but her tone confused, “You do know it wouldn't have been mean if you declined and went back to sleep.. right? Obviously we're happy to have you, but if you would like to nap, please nap.”
Arei beamed and skipped on over to the refrigerator, pulling the tubes of icing that were kept there, “Don't listen to Hu, Levi! Come grab the food coloring so we can dye the icing different colors!”
Levi swiftly walked over to the cabinet that held the food dye.
“Levi- you really don't have to-” Xander spoke up, but Hu tapped him on the shoulder before he could speak anymore.
“It's not worth it, he's not going to get it into his brain that Arei is manipulating him. For now, let's just assemble this cake,” Hu explained to Xander as she finished the last of her oatmeal.
Xander and Hu put their empty bowls in the sink, and took out new ones to dye the icing.