Work Text:
Shakira's new song slaps.
Kai has been listening to it non-stop. He isn't exactly sure what the whole drama that it has behind it, but for what it is? Impeccable. Another absolute bop. Queen.
It helps him concentrate on the (harder than he thought) task at hand.
God bless cooking Youtube channels man, because the influencer doesn't know how they manage to always seem so cheery when cooking is always so shit. Maybe the backbone of society really is middle aged women explaining how to make mug cakes with only three ingredients and no oven.
Right. Uh, for context: Kai has been trying to bake a cake for the past two hours. The keyword here is trying. Thirty repeats of the same song (no he doesn't have issues shut up) and like seven different recipe videos later, he is finally getting somewhere... If you are willing to ignore the two almost fires he generated and the four unusable aberrations against humanity currently in the trash that we shall not speak about.
This is the last fucking time he promises his viewers anything related to cooking ever again.
At least homemade cooking, anyways. He could probably pull off a store-bought cake as made by himself if he's really desperate…
Good thing is that most of the others are away, either in extracurricular classes or hanging out outside: There's only like two or three people in the shared apartment right now and they are all in their rooms enjoying the fact that they don't have to socialize (or asleep, which he was banking on). Nobody to yell at Kai because of—
“... Aren’t you banned from cooking?” Someone calls behind him in theatrically perfect timing and the influencer jumps out of his skin like a cat seeing a pickle.
Why does he have the curse of being a sitcom protag, goddamnit. Perfect for content, yes, but for anything else? Fucking end him already.
Kai whips his head around to the offending party, only to find a tired-looking Damon staring back at him, brow raised, phone in hand. Shit, did he wake up from his Jean-mandated nap already? (Not as if Kai's music didn't wake him up or anything)
“Damon, don't scare me like that!” the influencer screeches, despite being fully aware that it is going to continue happening. It is not the first time, after all. Nor will it be the last.
Turns out that the debater has this fun, fun habit of walking around without making a sound for no reason; Something he shares with Eva, actually, but she at least has the decency to be more elegant and apologetic about it. Damon, in the contrary, doesn’t give two fucks. If anything, he probably enjoys scaring kai shitless.
“Again: Aren’t you banned from cooking?” The debater repeats himself, tilting his head like a questioning cat despite the lack of expression on his face. “Give me a good reason to not call Akire right now.”
Moving away from the scare swiftly, the influencer pulls his most ‘I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life’ face in hopes that the debater suddenly forgets this entire conversation and just agrees with Kai because he has pretty privilege. “Weeeell, I am banned from cooking, not baking.” he muses like an angel song.
Damon stares, unimpressed. “I am calling Akire.”
“NOoooooOOo,” The influencer immediately wails like a child that didn’t get the toy they wanted, “Dami, Dami, don’t be so meaaaan,” He cries as he launches himself to the other in theatrical over-exaggeration, barely meeting his objective before the debater instinctively flinches away like he was struck.
Upon realizing the mistake (Kai is way too touchy-touchy and tends to forget, oops), the influencer straightens and mutters a passing, soft apology. The debater doesn't acknowledge what happened like you don't want to acknowledge texting your ex while black-out drunk.
An awkward kind of silence prolongs in the room, if you don't count the chorus of the repeated at nauseum song. Which they don't.
“...The fuck are you doing, anyway?” Damon eventually asks, more to placate the unbearable atmosphere they've both accidentally created than actual curiosity.
Kai swears he is a social butterfly able to make unending conversation should he need to (hell, he basically makes a living out of it), but goddamnit man, there is just something about the debater that just makes him crumble like an introvert with social anxiety. Probably it has to do with how unorthodox Damon is (He didn't even know who Kai was! Who raised this guy?!). That is, at least, what he is going to tell himself until the end of times.
Yet still, he takes the conversation topic and fucking RUNS with it, “Oh! Right, uh, I am making a cake for my—” he stops dead on his tracks mid dialogue, suddenly aware of a very important detail.
Shit, right. Uhm..
“...You- You know what cakes are, right?” Kai finds himself asking, just to be sure.
Nobody wants another pancake incident.
Damon narrows his brows and stares daggers at the influencer, offended at the question and offended at Kai's face. “I know what cake is, Monteago. I wasn’t raised below a fucking rock.”
One wouldn't have to ask these things if his family had their priorities straight, but oh well. The Maitsu family can't be proficient at anything except being shitty, as everyone has learned upon all these months of interaction with their youngest kin.
“Riight.” The influencer mutters, still unsure. Sensing the rising hostility and the possibility that the debater might change the subject, Kai then asks “Have you eaten a cake, then.” just to confirm.
The way the debater’s features narrow further and he tenses defensively is very much all the response Kai needs.
Damon sure is surprisingly easy to read about these kinds of things, huh. It almost makes up for everything else that remains unpredictable about his thought process (Who the fuck else would start ranting about the story of the pedantic rivalry of MGA and Mattel at ten at night after watching The Grinch? Just Damon Maitsu, in all his confusing yet amusing glory).
The debater opens his mouth to refute the statement, but HAHA screw you Kai already has witnessed this rodeo way too often to know what he is going to say.
“Damon, sweetheart, like half the class already hates your dad. Hell, I am seventy percent sure Wolfgang is already trying to get the bastard to court. Him never giving you cake would be one of his tamest offenses.” He deadpans, not for a second demeaning, but yet exasperated in the same way you would be with a loved one refusing to get their wounds treated.
A quiet ‘Let me help you,’ sort of feeling. Or a ‘Stop covering for him after all he has done,’ perhaps.
The debater flushes like he has been caught red handed with the cookie jar. Out of words, he closes his mouth, just to open it again to once more fail to speak. He fails the staring contests between the two of them to instead fixate on the floor like it holds the answers of the universe.
Damon tugs at his sleeve. “F-For the record,” He stammers out, ignoring how fucking weak his voice sounds (and so does the influencer, who just stares like a disappointed dad), “I have tried cake before.” He settles onto, despite that never being the argument to begin with.
Kai allows the redirection of topic just because he knows that pushing his luck with him is suicidal—nor does he want the debater to get actually mad. He is fully capable of making the influencer cry and Kai isn't chancing it—so he just nods along.
“Uh-huh. How was it, then?” The influencer asks, expectantly, brow raised.
There is silence for a second.
“... It tasted like cardboard.” Damon admits quietly, crumbling under his own weight under an expectant eye awaiting his answer.
Kai blinks, unimpressed. “Of course,” He sighs, rolling his eyes to his previously forgotten endeavors. An energy saving lightbulb turns on his Spotify Wrapped brain. “Tell you what: If you help me here, I am giving you a third of this one. Deal?” he offers swiftly, not because he needs help pfft you're crazy he has this super under control (Shakira and Mamá Mariela Cookings, the channel he is watching right now for a recipe, would beg to differ but nobody has to know that) this is all according to his plan yes yes.
Composing himself, Damon looks at the poor flour lying in the countertop and all the white powder around the kitchen like a knock-off drug cartel movie set. He stares at it for a solid second, and then at the influencer. “Half,” He bargains swiftly.
You little shit slash affectionate.
“Half is a lot, though. What if you don't like it?” The influencer tries, knowing full well he is not in the position to counterargument.
The debater settles his hands on his cardigan, then shrugs. “I could throw it at Tozu for entertainment or something.”
“... I can't tell if you are joking.”
“Sounds like a you problem.”
Five minutes go by until Damon's patience about the repeating song wears thin. Because he has no musical taste.
“... Kai turn that the fuck off or I will actually stab you.” The debater frustratedly musters, probably a step away from committing a felony.
“But it is a good song!!” Monteago whines.
“Not if you listen to it forty seven times, you psychopath—”
The song ends up being—sadly—turned off because Monteago values his physical and mental well being (And Damon had knives at arms length and haha no thank you he likes his fingers).
Sorry, Shakira…
Thankfully, Damon's survivalist cooking skills prove to be a valuable asset. The kitchen is very much not on fire, so that's a win by Kai’s book! In a relatively timely manner, they now have something that looks close enough to digestible cake batter. Kind of. He isn't sure.
The debater has been staring at the mixture for a while now, since Kai started using the hand-blender (Damon doesn't like the vibration it produces as it stirs, they both learned as he almost dropped the machine out of startlement while trying to use it), in a way he recognizes as the ‘I want to do it but I am scared of your reaction,’ trademarked look.
The influencer stops the blender—It was already five minutes due, according to the video tutorial, but Kai is paranoic—and conveniently and unnecessarily goes to check the fridge.
He ignores the quiet ruffling that fills the quiet room when he isn't directly guarding the batter, indicating that Damon indeed took the bait.
It is kind of cute how predictable he is, in some things. Even if they all share a common threat that Kai doesn't want to think about.
Exhausted but slightly manic about his success, the influencer reaches for the cold water from the back of the fridge, moving past the chocolate sodas and named leftovers.
He gets a glass in the cupboard and looks at the debater questioningly.
Damon shrugs and Kai takes it as a yes, because of course he does.
He pours two cups.
The influencer starts downing his glasses like tequila shots.
Damon just stares at him like a white suburban mom, disappointed and racist.
They both have been staring at the batter for around five minutes, waiting almost anxiously for it to suddenly combust or something.
Deciding that they probably look dumb as hell standing still like this, Kai finally decides to speak: “Do you think it is good like that?” He asks to calm his worries, surely Damon would know if something is poisoned, right? If not, they could probably call Eva or something—
“It seems okay to me,” The debater says into his water cup, trying to act nonchalant about his gremlin crimes. “It's actually kind of good.” he admits on passing.
Aware that if he coos over the fact that Damon called his cuisine good he would be confessing he knows the debater has been eating it, he just snorts and musters “Pfft, yeah. The batter tends to be better than the whole finished cake, huh?” between soft laughs, trying his best to keep composure and not devolve into a twitter caveman and sink himself into the batter like an animal.
The debater, lacking as many braincells as the influencer (which he will later blame on tiredness to not look like a fool) about baking, asks a almost innocent-sounding “Then why don't people eat the batter itself?”
Oh. O h.
Like a hammer to the knees, Kai is hit by the sudden and intense reminder that oh, he is an adult. He doesn't have his mom helicoptering him to not eat the mixture raw for reasons never explained to him.
“... Uh,” He breathes like he was bestowed a divine revelation by the gods themselves. “Holy shit you're right.”
Fuck the viewers, he can buy something at the store later. He's about to achieve one of his childhood fever dreams and that is twenty times more important.
Wolfgang manages to return to the apartment earlier than the hour he established beforehand, and enters the fancy flat releasing a sigh he's been holding for hours.
While he removes his shoes on the entrance, he notices Damon on the floor of the hall. Sitting just beside the male common bathroom door, he stares at his phone disinterestedly.
“—Raw and lightly cooked eggs can contain Salmonella, a germ that causes food poisoning…” The debater reads aloud, voice even and almost baritone, like he is saying this to someone else.
“... Mister Maitsu?” Akire finds himself questioning, unsure of what he is asking.
“Hello.” Damon responds flatly.
Tilting his head in confusion, the lawyer creeps closer, softly, to see the young man lying on the floor. The debater doesn't spare even a glance at his direction (And Wolfgang mentally cheers because Damon didn't tense at this approach).
“What are you doing on the fl…” The older falters on his interrogation upon closer inspection; Damon’s skin seemed way too pale, and there was cold sweat pooling down his neck. He looked sick. “... You're rather pale, are you okay?”
“Yeah. I'm fine.” The debater now addresses Wolfgang, putting his phone down to stare at the man before him. Shrugging, he then casually adds “Kai isn't, though.” and gestures at the door before him.
Almost like on theatrical cue, there are the visceral sounds of someone's stomach failing miserably to keep itself together coming from the closed bathroom.
H U H.
After around ten solid seconds, it stops, and soon comes the characteristic sound of Monteago's exaggerated wailing which immediately corroborates the debater's claim.
Through sobs, the influencer manages to cry a rough “WHY ALL MY CHILDHOOD DREAMS MUST HURT ME THIS WA—” that gets interrupted by another wave of nausea and disgracing the toilet.
What the FUCK did he return for?
“Oh,” Is all Akire musters. “Oh.”