Homemade
Athrun had never baked before. Not really. She’d seen her mom try a few times years ago, but she hadn’t learned anything other than the basic concept of flour and milk and eggs and sometimes butter and sugar.
Athesias’s kitchen was left piled high with dirty bowls and spoons, some filled with rejected batter or frosting that wasn’t quite right. There were perhaps a dozen or so full cupcakes that sat on a plate off to the side: rejects. Not good enough.
Perhaps she was too much of a perfectionist. But they way she’d looked at her, perfect was what was necessary. So she spent hours that night reverse engineering the cupcake, from structure and flavor, texture and crumb. Much of it was determination to make her smile again for real. But there was also a part of growing frustration in Athrun’s own inability to make just one cupcake.
Mari and Barney watched until they fell asleep. And eventually, when she thought the sun was about to rise, she put the finishing touches on the last cake she had time to bake: vanilla, with a glob of purple frosting tossed messily on top.
Perhaps later she would look back at it in disgust at how much a disaster it was; at how it was too dry, or how the frosting was too clumpy, or how the whole thing only really tasted like sugar. But she walked it to the bedrooms anyway and knocked on Ophelia’s door.
Her heart pounded and squeezed as she heard the groggy sounds of someone slipping out of bed. A yawn carried the lazy “Coming!” through the door, and she held her breath as it opened.
Wild and crazy bed head and eyes stained red from crying peeked beyond the door to face her, as Ophelia began to recognize her morning visitor.
“Oh...morning...what’s up?”
Athrun did her best to smile sincerely and not lose her composure at the sleep-stained girl before her, adorable in her wrinkled nightdress and still waking slowness. “I...made you something to help cheer you up! If you want it , that is…”
She looked down to the small plate and single cake she brought, and Ophelia’s eyes followed, catching the edges of her visitor’s blush before she saw what was being offered.
It took a heartbreaking moment for her to say anything, and the whole time, Athrun’s heart pounded like a marching snare. Finally, she spoke.
“It’s perfect. Just what I needed.”