To call the situation awkward, would be a giant euphemism.
Awkward didn’t cover half of the day Hyoga spent with Shun in the kitchen, trying to bake something. To be honest, he wasn’t that bad with cooking or baking, not when he was a child in Siberia and had to learn how to survive, including how to cook something that tasted a little better than master Camus’s stew. No, the really problem was that Hyoga didn’t know if he was brave enough or too much of a coward to greet Isaac on that day - to bring him what Shun helped to bake.
(He wasn’t - and he was.)
A memory of a young Isaac trying to make him a cake of snow and mud resurged in his mind - or maybe it was a dream, a delusion after so many years, a daydreaming only a small child could conjure. A feeling of déjà vu so strong not even Hyoga could ignore.
That was why he was knocking on Isaac’s door with a well wrapped plate with half a dozen blue velvet cupcakes.
Yes. Awkward did not even come close to what that moment was.
“Isaac?” He called, from the door, feeling like a kid again. “Happy Birthday!” And although it was an assertion, it sounded more of a question.