Summary: As it turns out, Shiro is a Leap Year baby! So since there actually IS a February 29th this year, Adam's going to celebrate it with some cake-building. He's definitely no chef, but it turns out passable. Tastes pretty good too! Also some stuff is talked about.
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Admittedly this is kind of an ambitious project. It's a lot of work, and Adam's ribs are aching. And he's nervous it isn't going to work. Mainly because he's never actually worked with marzipan on a cake before. It seems simple enough -- cake, apricot jam, marzipan, black-colored sugar paste icing, and then some powdered colors sprinkled over it to make a 'space' theme. But things are rarely as simple as they seem.
Yes, it's a lot of work. But, well. It's Shiro's birthday -- his ACTUAL birthday, since he was born on Leap Day -- and Adam's not about to let this opportunity pass. So he's been working on a cake for Shiro. It's about all he can do at the moment, so he's doing it up big. He is a little sore, yes, but he doesn't know how long Shiro's going to be out job-hunting, and he'd rather not have him come back while he's trying to get things put together. So it's work, work, work, until he gets it finished. It won't look professional, because it's NOT, but hey, he tried.
Finally though, he's got it done. He sets it on the kitchen table with a sigh of relief. It's a bit lopsided, the marzipan and the icing is creased a little in one or two places, but it doesn't look that bad. It's a chocolate cake, with black sugar paste icing, powdered blue, purple, and green sprinkled across it to indicate nebula-like clouds, and white frosting that he watered down a bit so it would drop/splatter for stars.
And, for the cherry on top, a smiling white cat-face dominates the top of the cake. It's a simple design, but it's cute. So, with everything done, Adam inverts a large enough opaque bowl over the cake on the table to hide it... and then sits down. The kitchen is still a little messy, but Adam just plain /hurts/ right now. Lots of bending and tilting his upper body this way and that.
('Ridiculous... that making a cake should completely exhaust me like this,') Adam grouses to himself silently. ('I'll be so glad when these ribs have stopped complaining.')
On the bright side, it isn't as if Shiro's not doing work at all. He tends to be doing little odd jobs here and there in the midst of his job search...which is far less an issue of lack of jobs and more an issue of really just NOT knowing what he even wants to do. He worked toward the one goal for so long and only just finished the outcome of that not long before arriving here. What to do?
It is an interesting deviation from the normal today for Shiro, however. Granted, he only realized last night, but it IS his birthday today. Only his 7th one in his entire life. ...horray being a leap year baby. He makes his way back into the apartment upon having finished for the day, and then flops his way onto the sofa just that touch more casually than usual. "Hn? Hi Adam," he greets, "...you look kind of wiped out, are you going to be alright?"
Adam sits up straighter as Shiro comes back in, but winces a bit. Yeah, that didn't feel good. But nonetheless, he nods to the question. "Yeah... I'm fine. Just worked on something that was a bit labor intensive." Which is probably the thing on the table in the kitchen/dining room, underneath the big bowl. "I still need to clean up, though... it was a bit messy. But I was a little sore, and I didn't want to strain my ribs too much."
Sigh. Well, half of one. There's a hitch in the sigh, and then he exhales the rest of it as a grunt. "Ow. ...Yeah. Suppose that means I'm not ready to get up and clean up in there," he reasons. With an obvious frown, because he HATES leaving a mess. So instead he asks Shiro, "How did it go out there? Any luck?"
"I managed to find some things I could help out with, but still haven't managed to settle on a job," Shiro replies, "...I could clean for you, because you seem to have already done a lot of work on it. You should really be more careful and rest some."
"Things will be a lot easier when I can help you out there," Adam observes. And he resists the urge to apologize... AGAIN. As for Shiro cleaning up in there? "That would be nice, thank you. Just as long as you don't look under the bowl on the dining room table. It's a surprise for you, for your birthday." He seems fine with Shiro knowing there IS a surprise, but not knowing exactly what the surprise /is/. Here he smiles. "Happy Birthday, by the way."
Shiro grins at this and blushes slightly. "Ah, thank you," he replies, "I didn't even know it was one of these years until last night." He'd set to cleaning up as offered and tilts his head. "Well...to be honest, it's not as if I'm having trouble finding work itself, I just really don't know what to do."
Adam chuckles. "I noticed you looking at the calendar, yes," he replies. "So I had to do something special, since the actual /day/ of your birthday only happens every four years." As for finding work? Adam shifts to sit somewhere he can more easily look in Shiro's direction without turning. Then he notes, "That's true. I don't know what sort of things you were doing back home. That said, it sounds like things had just settled down from a major space war. I don't think there's going to be any space wars going on here."
Takashi Shirogane nods in reply. "Not just that, but as far as I've noticed there's not exactly a space program in general..." he states, "Since I was after this as long as I could remember, I haven't really thought of much else to do for work." He smiles at Adam's saying that he noticed it as well though. "Thanks, it means a lot..." Sure, Adam likely would have remembered, due to the time they were together, but with them having had that argument like they did, it wasn't expected of him to put in so much effort.
"I have to wonder if there even /is/ a 'space' here," Adam replies. "I half feel like this place is just some dream world that I'm going to either wake up from or..." Bad Adam! No negative thoughts! "...Or, well. Just wake up from and only half-remember it." And he blushes a little at Shiro's mention of how much the gesture meant, feeling absurdly pleased. "You're welcome. It's not professional quality, but I'm not sure of the prices around here yet, and I wasn't sure I could have afforded to just buy something."
And he doesn't say it... but he wouldn't have just bought something anyway. Because it meant more if he could make it himself. He wanted it to mean something.
...And there he goes blushing again. ('Ugh... stop that, you're not a teenager anymore!')
Takashi Shirogane rubs at the back of his neck a little. "Yeah, I still haven't grasped what kind of place this really is..." he admits, "Or how I even got here...but well...more important immediates." He finishes up the cleaning and peers at the bowl curiously. Shiro's a good boy though, and doesn't look under it.
Adam agrees, "That's been bothering me too. I've been trying not to think too hard about it, but..." He trails off, but Shiro probably know how that ends. Adam trying not to overthink something, especially something like 'where the hell am I?', is a lost cause!
And he notes Shiro looking at the bowl. "Don't even think about it, Takashi," Adam says firmly, but with a hint of amusement nonetheless. Still, though, he's not completely unsympathetic to Shiro's curiosity. So he makes to stand up. It's less painful, enough that he doesn't do more than frown a little.
"All right, I'll have mercy on your poor curious mind," Adam teases. He heads to the table, takes hold of the sides of the bowl, and finally lifts it to display the cake underneath. "Happy Birthday," he offers, with a smile.
Shiro grins in reply...so much so that he looks like he's holding back an urge to react a lot harder. "Ohh, that's so cute," Shiro replies, "You did a great job on this, Adam..."
"Thank you," Adam returns, also grinning. And also trying not to blush. Then he just has to criticize his own work, a little. "The marzipan went a little sideways for some reason and got stuck, and it creased a little on the sides. I'm glad it didn't seem to effect the rest of it too much."
This causes Shiro to chuckle about it. "Don't worry about things like that," he says, "That just proves it's home made. ...when do we get to eat it? ...actually I shouldn't be in a rush...it seems a shame to cut into that face..."
Adam chuckles. "I was a little afraid of that," he confesses. "That you might not want to cut into it, I mean. It's all right, it's just marzipan and icing, it's not a real cat." And no, Adam's not the mean-spirited type, so he wouldn't mimic a meow when the cake's cut into. That's not his style.
"Yeah, I know, it's just cute," Shiro replies with another grin, "That said though...back to the question of when we want to eat it."
"Do you want some of it now?" Adam inquires. "You're a bit too old for me to scold for eating sweets before dinner," he notes. "It won't make you develop bad habits. So if you want a piece of cake now, I'm sure it'll be fine."
"Maybe if we both have a little sliver just to try it," Shiro says, "A full slice can wait..."
Adam nods. "Sounds fair," he agrees, and goes to get a knife, a couple of small plates, and a couple of forks -- all the cake-eating equipment they'll need! "Do you want to cut it or do you want me to?" he asks. It's Shiro's cake, after all.
"I can cut it," Shiro answers with a smile, "Besides, you've already worked a lot harder than expected of someone in your state." That said, he'd cut them both small pieces to taste so as to not spoil eating actual food later. "Thanks again."
Adam chuckles. "You're welcome. I thought that it might at least make being stuck here a little better if you had a little something for a birthday celebration. There's not much I can do yet, but that was actually pretty fun to make. Would have been more fun if I wasn't aching so much, but since I'm eating something..." He stands slowly. "I'll be right back, I'm going to get an aspirin." Not the heavy-duty stuff. He doesn't want to fall asleep facedown in his cake.
"It's cheered me up," Shiro notes. Though, to be fair, if him disappearing from home is ALL that happened, he can accept his current situation easily. They can do the rest without him. They've proven themselves.... Still, it did cheer him up more than he knew he needed.
Adam returns soon after, having taken the aspirin already. Pills at the dinner table... he hates having to do that, so he tries not to. He nods to Shiro's mention of being cheered up. "I'm glad. I also felt like I was actually doing something useful for once instead of laying around like a dead weight." Yeah, he doesn't like this whole 'taking it easy' thing. He's doing it, but he doesn't like it.
"I know, it's a pain in that sense too when you are recovering," Shiro agrees, "Hopefully you don't have to get used to it. We'd both hate you to be unwell too often." He'd wait up on Adam before eating into his small slice. "It's good too."
Adam nods. "That, at least, is a good thing. Once this thing with my ribs clears up, that should be the last of it for a while. The eye surgery shouldn't keep me out for too long, and it'll at least be some time before my vision deteriorates enough that something else needs to be done."
"That's good, yeah," Shiro replies, "Have you seen any places that interested you while you were out and about? In general I mean...like anywhere you might want to go and look at more in depth some time?"
"I haven't been able to look at too much," Adam replies. "Just, I do know there's a place I /don't/ want to go. Reality just... breaks down there, and further in it looks even worse. Whole chunks of the street missing, and literal cracks in the fabric of whatever this place is. Though, I'm going to check out the school once I recover, see if they need a teacher."
"I wonder if I should try non-militant teaching," Shiro states, "But I don't know if that'd be so good an idea for...reasons... Maybe something with animals?"
Not being privy to what happened to Shiro, at least not in specific terms, Adam tilts his head. But he's not going to ask now -- he knows Shiro doesn't want to tell him much while he's still injured. "That's possible. Though I haven't seen too many animals here. Given how people come here, and -- from what I've read -- there isn't much else here but the city and a little surrounding land, I'm not sure whatever brings people here is going to bother with bringing animals. I've heard there's a bounty office, but I'm not sure if it's hunting people, or hunting animals."
Takashi Shirogane shakes his head. "I'm not sure I like the sound of bounties either," he states, "...maybe racing? ...and this is why I'm having no luck with my job hunt..."
"Do they have any racing venues out here?" Adam inquires. "I haven't seen any, but again, I haven't been able to walk too far, so I didn't get to look at a whole lot of the place. Though noticed an arena too, but that's a little too dangerous, I think..."
Takashi Shirogane shudders a little at that note, staring at nothing for the shortest of moments before pulling himself back together as expected. "Yeaaah, no arenas," he mutters, "I've had more than enough of that particular thing..."
"That's fine," Shiro replies, "You haven't known about it long...or in any kind of detail..."
"True..." Adam agrees. "Just... I know you've been wanting to wait until I was recovered to tell me the nitty gritty. But if you do need to talk about it, don't let that stop you. I'm almost recovered anyway; it won't be much longer." More quietly, he reiterates, "So... if you do need to talk, I'm here."
"Let's not today," Shiro replies, "You were putting me in such a good mood...but I can tell you soon. Thank you...I'll try not to burden you over much when I open up about it."
Adam nods. "Yeah, I can understand that. It's your birthday, I want to try to give you a good one." But he does also note, "No, I said I'd help you, that you could talk to me about anything you wanted. That means /anything/. And if you don't want to talk about it yet, I'm not going to make you. When you're ready, I'll be here."
Takashi Shirogane clasps his hands together as he peers thoughtfully at his empty plate. He looks as if he has to shake away some thought before he gives another nod. "It'll be soon," he states simply.
Adam tilts his head slightly, also noting that strange hesitation, the odd kind of... blankness? "Takashi?" Then Shiro's back, and Adam blinks. Though, since both plates are now empty -- yes, Adam ate his own piece of cake too -- force of habit rears its ugly head, and Adam stands up. Slowly, since he's used to doing that now. He makes to pick up Shiro's plate and take both to the sink. Now that he's more or less off the crutches and the cane, he has both his hands free for this. Though as he does this, he asks, "Are you all right? Did I say something else that made something unpleasant come up?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Shiro states, "It was...er...just a random, passing thought that I needed to get rid of."
Adam nods, no idea what it might have been. But he's not going to press. Birthday! Happy things! And... well, he doesn't feel comfortable hugging Shiro -- or maybe he feels /too/ comfortable with the idea and that's why he can't, it's hard to tell -- so as he moves away from the sink, he places a hand on Shiro's shoulder. Bro squeeze! "Happy Birthday, Takashi," he offers, with a smile.
Shiro smiles and pats at Adam's hand before squeezing it a little in turn. "Thanks...you're still the best Adam," he says in reply.
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