It was Friday when I had finally figured out what to bake with Hana, and the choice wasn't grandiose by any means, but it would have to be done because I had all the ingredients at hand.
Cupcakes, That's what I chose to make, the ingredients were all strewn about the counter of my Kitchen. I had placed them there earlier before Hana would arrive and of course informed my mom that she was coming, at exactly 5pm is when she was supposed to be here. I had no idea why she decided to not come with me after school, in fact it seemed counterintuitive for her to go back to her home, for whatever reason she had in mind.
Just as I was beginning to pull out my phone to text her, I heard a knock at the door, I walked from the kitchen to the front door and looked through the peephole, only to be met with nothing on the other side of the door.
"Ding dong ditchers, really?"
I opened the door instantaneously, and peeked my head through the door. No one was there, I looked behind the door and it was the same story, someone had actually decided to mess with me, at the exact same time Hana was supposed to be here.
I put my head back inside my home, and closed the door, locking it, before I turned around and was greeted to the sight of a dark figure peeking their head from the doorframe that led to my kitchen, staring at me.
This of course scared me shitless, my heart pounded out my chest as I twisted my body with such a huge amount of force that I tripped and fell onto the ground.
I laid on my back, at this point I just accepted my fate.
And then I heard laughing, the figure was laughing their heart out, I sat up confused as to what was going on, until the pitch of said laughter became apparent, It was Hana.
"You should have seen your face Masaichi!"
Now that I got a closer look at her, she was wearing an outfit that would of made people mistake her for a burglar or a ninja, she was wearing a full black spandex suit, with a pair of black shorts and a black t shirt, she was also wearing black boots, she was blacker than the night, however she wasn't wearing her glasses, did she sneak into my house to do this while basically blind?
I stood up and planted my arm against the nearby wall to my right, and let out a groan.
"What the hell are you doing, trying to give me a heart attack?"
Hana unzipped the hood of her full spandex suit, and shook her head to reset her hair, whilst also revealing to me a beaming smile, before taking out her glasses from her pocket and putting them on.
"Masaichi, did you know that your window is unlocked?"
"That doesn't matter, you broke into my home!"
"Well I mean, you already invited me so I thought I would be able to let myself in."
"Thats why you didn't want to come with me after school, im such an idiot."
"No, you just were woefully unaware of your surroundings."
I pushed myself off the wall, and took a deep breath. She really couldn't have just walked up to my door like a normal person, huh?
"Shut up, where did you even get that?"
"Found it."
"Where?"
"In one of the moving boxes my dad didn't unpack."
"Where is your bathroom? I need to change."
"The hallway you exited my bedroom from, first door to the left."
"Thank you, Hotshot."
As she walked off I saw her pick up a satchel off the ground, she seemed to have left it there before scaring the life out of me, she picked it up and held it close to her chest before entering my bathroom.
*****
When Hana came out she was wearing a light purple apron, and the outerwear she had on earlier to cover up the vulnerable spots on her spandex suit, we stood over the counter and the ingredients, she had no idea how to help so I had to guide her naturally.
"Alright so I mixed everything else together mostly beforehand, except the wet and dry ingredients, see those eggs?"
Hana turned her head towards the small bowl containing two eggs, the yellow yolks glistened and reflected the light off the ceiling fan.
"Mhm."
"I want you to mix it in with the flour."
"Oh, alright."
Hana picked up the eggs and dumped them into the flour, some of the soft white powder jumped into the air, before settling back into the bowl.
Soon enough we had a workable batter that we poured into muffin tins and set into the oven for about 20 minutes.
I was turned away from Hana, putting away the bowls we had used for the ingredients into the dishwasher. I felt Hana lightly tap me on my shoulder, I turned around and saw she had icing on her finger, and a mischievous grin was on her face.
"Masaichi remember when I promised to treat you if you went into the photography club with me?"
She moved closer to me, putting her finger forwards towards my face, I responded by backing myself up into the counter away from her.
"Oh so you're just going to force feed me icing, and consider that as my compensation, also I joined the club out of free will because I wanted to, not because I felt Incentivized to."
"Whatever, come here!"
She moved closer, her finger hovering just above my mouth, oh hell no.
A grin spread across my face, I'm not going to make this easy for her, she is not feeding me anything.
"NO!"
She moved to intercept me, I feinted that I was going to run to the left before ducking under her right arm, and full sprinting it towards the kitchen table, Hana followed me in pursuit and caught up to me, I put up my arms to block my face but it was too late, she grabbed one of my arms and quickly smeared a generous portion of frosting on my face, I wriggled against her iron grip but she kept persisting, I tried to get her off me and ended up hitting the side of my sofa, Hana not realising I was about to fall, fell with me also onto my couch, her face landing on top of my chest.
Words could not describe how utterly flustered we both felt in that moment, Hana was frozen and wouldn't move.
Hana yelped, and pushed herself off me, and stood up on the floor, her mouth was shut tightly and her face was a deep red, her hands were balled up in fists.
"Pervert…"
"You were the one who made me trip, It's not my fault!"
Hana stayed silent at that, I did also, there was nothing else to really say except move on I suppose.
I stood up from my couch and checked the timer on my phone, there was still one minute left until I had to take out the cupcakes.
"Hey Hana?"
Hana crossed her arms, she was still blushing furiously, but she looked like she regained more of her confidence.
"Yes?"
"Cupcakes are almost done."
*****
Me and Hana were sitting across from each other at the dinner table, she had eaten the breakfast I had made here before, so this was the second time she was eating in my house hold, we both had a cupcakes set up on a coaster for each of us, we had crudely spread frosting over the tops of said cupcakes and called it a day, they looked scuffed but at least they looked edible, oh and did I forget to mention that we sat in complete silence whilst spreading the frosting?
Hana was in the middle of taking a bite of her cupcake when I spoke up.
"Sorry about that earlier, that must have been really uncomfortable for you."
Hana looked at me, and set her cupcake down, she took a somewhat small bite and was still chewing, she put up a single finger to signal that she needed a second before speaking.
"No it was my fault, I got a little too rowdy."
"Hey Hana?"
"What is it?"
"What do you want to be, when you grow up?"
Hana raised her eyebrow, and crossed her arms.
"Nothing really comes to mind, I mean I'm a first year, so I still have plenty of time to think of something, I suppose."
"Do you think we should invite Haga, and Matayoshi here some time?"
"What do you mean, like you want to do a group hang out or something?"
"Something like that, yeah."
Hana sat there, thinking for a moment before responding.
"Maybe, for now let's enjoy our cupcakes in peace."
"Fair enough"
And so we did, we ate cupcakes until our stomachs felt full to bursting.