How about Katniss starting to flirt again like she did at the quell chariots and finally getting to fluster Peeta for once.
Aww I love this! Thank you for sending it in! Here to go :)
The kitchen smells of cinnamon and warmth. Like safety after a lifetime of uncertainty. I’m kneading another batch of flour and dough, sleeves rolled up above my elbows, when I hear Katniss enter the kitchen.
I know she thought she was being quiet, padding in while I’m occupied, but I know she’s there. Anyone else may not have heard her, but after two stints in the arena and time being poked and prodded by the Capitol, my ears are always on high alert.
The first batch of cinnamon bread just came out of the oven, golden and split at the top, and I’m slicing it carefully, more for the rhythm than for any actual reason, when she speaks up.
“You know,” Katniss says from behind me, “if your plan is to fatten me up, it’s working.”
I flinch, not because she startled me, I always know when she’s around. It’s more in the way that she says it. Light. Teasing. Almost… playful?
I glance over my shoulder. She’s leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, hair messy in a way that makes her look impossibly soft. She’s watching me with that unreadable expression of hers that she wears like an armor, but there’s a glint in her eye. Something new. Or maybe something old that I haven’t seen in far too long.
“I, uh…” I blink, trying not to fumble the knife. “You haven’t been eating much. I thought maybe this would help.”
“It’s helping,” she says, her lips twitching.
I stop slicing. Just… stop. Because now, I can’t tell if this is just her being kind, or if it’s something else. My brain scrambles for solid ground and lands on, Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Definitely don’t blush.
“If… if that’s a request,” I stammer, focusing on the loaf in front of me. “I’ll keep making it.”
She walks toward me. Not quickly. Just enough that I can hear the quiet tap of her socked feet on the wood floor and feel my pulse jump. Her hand reaches out, fingers brushing the counter, and for one second I think she’s going to touch my hand.
She doesn’t, but the space between us feels thinner. Warmer.
“It might be a bribe,” she says, and she’s closer now. She’s close enough that I can see the faint constellation of freckles on her nose, the ones I used to draw in my head back in the Capitol to remind myself what home looked like, before they took that away from me, too.
“A bribe?” I asked, my throat feeling suddenly' dry. “For what?”
“Guess you’ll have to keep baking to find out,” She says, and shrugs like she’s bored, but the corner of her mouth lifts.
My heart skips. It actually skips, then starts hammering against my chest. For a second, I’m scared I might pass out into the cinnamon bread.
“Katniss,” I say, setting the knife down because my hands are starting to shake. “Are you… are you flirting with me?” It comes out too fast. Too breathless and eager.
She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t look away.
“I’m trying to,” she says, her volume a little lower, like she might be embarrassed now.
And I don’t know what to do with that. My brain stutters, trying to reboot, because I thought she was gone. I thought whatever we had before the war had been buried under ash and fear and everything we never said.
“Okay,” I say quietly, a smile forming. I see her shoulders relax, and it gives me the courage to flirt back. “Try harder.”
She blinks at that. Try harder. She wasn’t expecting me to push back. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Okay,” she says, after a beat. “Then maybe I’ll help you taste-test the next batch.”
“Yeah?” I ask, genuinely intrigued on where she’s going with this.
“Yeah.” She looks down at the bread, then up at me again. “I like it best warm. Fresh out of the oven.”
She’s not talking about the bread. I know that much.
And just like that, something shifts. Not loudly, and not with fireworks. But like a door clicking open, soft and sure.
She reaches past me, takes a slice of bread from the cutting board, and tears off a corner with her fingers. Before she eats it, she glances up and adds, almost shyly, “You can sit with me. If you want.”
I nod, already moving to grab the tea I’d forgotten I steeped.
