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The stars of the eternal night of Castle Town glistened outside of your kitchen window. It had been many months since you had acquainted yourself with the Dark World, but it somehow never ceased to enchant you. You took a brief moment to admire the twinkling lights, before focusing once more on the task at hand.
Your cozy kitchen was strewn with cutlery and rogue bits of cookie batter. The smell of molasses still lingered in the air as you stirred cookie batter with a wooden spoon. You felt the gentle warmth of a shadow creep up behind you. To anyone else, the looming figure of a humanoid shadow man might be cause for concern. You, however, leaned into your boyfriend’s touch as he gently tucked your head under his chin. Jive leaned over you to sprinkle raisins into the cookie batter, as you had requested.
“Thank you, dear,” you murmured, and Jive replied with an adorable honk. He had been your eager student today as you taught him the ins and outs of baking. You showed him how to pack brown sugar with his fuzzy hand, how to crack eggs in one swift move, and now, how to mix in the raisins without squishing or breaking them. To your amusement, Jive had taken the liberty of buying matching aprons for you and himself. Both aprons read “Kiss the Cook!”, and the two of you had spent longer than you’d like to admit doing just that before getting started with your cooking lesson.
The batter grew thicker as you continued to stir. You concentrated on making sure it was thoroughly mixed, but the density of the batter was making it more and more difficult to do so without straining your arm. You were so entirely focused on stirring the dough that you almost missed a fuzzy finger scooping up a glob of raw batter. You whipped around to see Jive raising the finger to his mouth.
“Jive!” you yelped, gently pushing his hand away from his mouth. “You can’t eat raw cookie dough! You’ll get sick!”
Jive let out a confused trill at your actions. If he had eyes, he would have been giving you the largest, saddest puppy dog eyes known to man. He reluctantly wiped his hand with a nearby towel. A twinge of guilt washed over you. Even after all of this time, you had to remind yourself that things worked differently here. Maybe Shadowguys couldn’t get food poisoning, or maybe the batter was safe to eat, after all. Still, you didn’t want your boyfriend to take any risks with his health. You grabbed the hand you had pushed a moment ago and rubbed soothing circles into the back of his hand with your thumb. Jive let out a quick note of contentment as a grin returned to his face. You smiled back, heat rising to your cheeks.
Jive eventually pulled away and let you finish preparing the batter. From the corner of your eye, you saw him whip his saxophone out of his suit jacket. You gave a slight chuckle - the Dark World seemed to have no end to its cartoon logic, including your boyfriend’s ability to keep his saxophone with him at all times. You began rolling the batter into small balls as Jive started to play a lively tune. You recognized the song he was playing from an old cartoon, and you hummed along with his masterful music.
“Is you is, or is you ain’t my baby? Maybe baby’s found somebody new… Or is my baby still my baby true?”
Jive continued to play as you put the cookies in the oven and set a timer. The wait didn’t seem nearly as long as it was while you were listening to Jive serenade you with jazz. You politely clapped at the end of each song, and Jive gave exaggerated bows before playing his next tune. At last, you heard the timer ding, and you put on an oven mitt and placed the tray of cookies on the counter.
Jive was bursting with anticipation to try his first ever homemade batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. His head was turned towards the tray, and although he lacked distinct facial features, you could tell he was giving the cookies a look of longing that nearly rivaled the way he looked at you sometimes.
“We need to let them cool first,” you reminded Jive as he reached towards the tray. This time, he heeded your advice and played one last song while the cookies cooled.
The moment of truth had arrived. The two of you were sitting at the dining table, the tray of cookies between you. Each of you had a plate with one cookie, alongside a glass of milk. You bit into the cookie… and it was better than you could have imagined. Pleased that your hard work had paid off, you savored each crunchy bite. As for Jive, the moment he had taken a bite, he had leapt out of his chair with joy. He couldn’t stop himself from playing a quick ditty on his saxophone in his elated state. He went back to scarfing down the rest of his cookie as you giggled at his antics. You leaned across the table to brush away the stray crumbs that had landed in his beard.
“Having fun, huh?”
Jive nodded as he picked up another cookie. He paused for a moment, then placed half of the cookie in his mouth. He let the other end dangle towards you. Jive pointed at his torso, and you saw that he was still wearing his “Kiss the Cook!” apron. With a smile, you bridged the gap between the two of you and bit off half of the cookie. Your lips met in a quick, sweet embrace. You pulled away from him to finish eating, and Jive chased your mouth with his own, half forgetting he was still chewing. You chuckled again as you finished your half of the cookie.
“Awww, Jive…” you cooed, “I wonder what you think is sweeter… the cookies, or me?” Before you had time to dwell on the fact that you had really said something so corny, Jive walked to your side of the table and pulled you out of your chair. He used one arm to hold you against him, and another to gently tilt your chin up with his hand. Your lips met his own once more. The two of you were exactly where you belonged: wrapped in each other’s arms, with the smell of freshly baked cookies drifting through the air.