+A Cup of Milk Tea+

Coffee VI: Cake Crumbs

"No, you're not following the recipe, nii-san!" Umeka stomped her foot while waving her hands at Soujirou. Covered in flour, small puffs of smoke rose up with every shake of her excited hands.

"You beat the eggs in the flour!" Soujirou paused to push up his glasses, leaving a tiny smudge just under the bridge.

"I will, I'm just trying to seperate the yolk more cleanly this way." He turned back to the mixing bowl on the table. He gave a quick glance up as he tilted the yolk in half its egg shell carefully.

"What are you doing, Kerr?" Aidan enthusiastically waved a bottle in the air.

"Wouldn't neon green coffee cakes be fabu-"

"No." Soujirou's face gave off a look of warning.

"Neon orange?"

"No."

Aidan paused, watching as Soujirou turned his attention back to his eggs. Oh well, too late for that. And really, neon orange would look fantastic on a brown ceramic plate!

As the cakes came out of the oven, Umeka busied herself cutting them into little heart shapes (like the cafes do it in Shibuya, nii-san!) and Soujirou was sent to go brew up a pot of coffee to serve (whoever heard of eating coffee cake without coffee, tsk tsk Souji!). Bringing the steaming mugs, sugar and milk laced to taste in each one, he set them down on the counter.

"Oh, I'm going to get a bag to put Tori and Akiko's in and Richie gets four because he says he's going to frame the first one-" Umeka chattered on, both proud and pleased at her results, pulling baggies out and rummaging for ribbons. She was ready to run off to grab ribbons but stopped for a split second to shove one heart cake into both her minions' (her brother and Aidan were the best minions a girl could have) hands.

"Try them and tell me what you think!" She dashed off to find some ribbons to tie the presents with. Soujirou cupped his cake carefully, inspecting its bright orange colour and giving a small sigh (you could never win against Aidan's insanity) and took a small bite before sipping his coffee. He gave an approving sound.

Aidan lifted the cake up to look over, turning it this way and that to note the thickness and crumbly exterior. As he brought it down to take a bite, he noticed the crumbs that had fallen off his cake onto Souji's neck and shoulders below him. A playful smile ghosting his lips, he bent over and in a quick motion, brushed his open mouth over the back of Souji's neck, licking up the spare crumbs sitting on the bare skin above his collar. Soujirou jumped at the sudden contact but Aidan already had his other hand up on his shoulder to keep him in place, brushing the rest of the crumbs off ever so helpfully. Soujirou had a look of flustered annoyance and he opened his mouth to hiss something.

"So? How was it?" They both turned to see Umeka, breathless from her dashing, hair flipped around her cheek so a strand was in her mouth. She spat it out and then looked from one to the other, clueless to what had just occured between the two older boys, eyes wide in barely contained anticipation for their verdict.

"They were good." Soujiou managed to say, forcing himself back under control and taking another sip of his coffee to hide his momentary fluster.

Aidan smiled at Umeka with a slight bow of his head, waving the cake with a wink.

"Positively delicious!" She turned back to her ribbon tying, not even noticing that Aidan's cake had no bite marks in it.