Record #8

"Commander, want to bake a cake together?"
“…Huh?”
Before I could even process what she said, Robella had already grabbed my hand and dragged me into the kitchen.
–––Looking back, I could sort of understand. We'd just finished watching a tokusatsu episode, and the cake featured in the story had clearly piqued her interest. Still, I didn’t expect her to act on it this quickly. To be honest, neither of us were exactly kitchen-savvy types. Faced with the array of ingredients and tools laid out before us, I began to second-guess this whole idea.
"Don’t worry, Commander."
Robella grinned, pointing to the recipe.
 "If we follow it exactly, there’s no way we can mess it up!"
“…Alright then.”
I braced myself. Even for someone like me, as long as we stick to the instructions, it should be fine… right?
…
…That hope crumbled fast.
The next half hour could only be described as complete chaos. I followed Robella’s directions—mixing flour, sugar, butter—and grabbed the mixer to start blending. Only, I’d never used one before. One slip, and flour exploded everywhere, even ending up all over Robella’s face.
"Ah—sorry! Sorry!"
I scrambled to wipe it off, only to smudge cream on her nose in the process. Great. Now she looked like a blotchy-faced kitten.
“Pfft—hahaha!”
Robella burst out laughing at my flour-covered mess of a face. Her carefree laughter was infectious, and soon, I couldn’t help but laugh along.
“Commander?”
She tilted her head, curious as I stared at her in a daze.
“Ahem… uh, Robella—right now, you… you look really cute.”
I couldn’t help but say it, my voice slipping into a sheepish chuckle.
She blinked. Then in the blink of an eye, her pale cheeks flushed a deep crimson. Flustered, she ducked her head and wiped at the cream on her face, suddenly avoiding my gaze.
After much fumbling, we finally got the batter ready. I carefully poured it into the mold and slid it into the oven. Robella set the temperature and timer, and only when the cake came out golden and puffed did we both breathe a sigh of relief.
“Now… for the final step!”
Robella picked up a piping bag filled with cream.
“Time for the icing!”
“Alright!”
I grabbed my own bag, eager.
“What kind of icing do you have in mind?”
“Hmm…”
She thought for a moment.
“What do you think, Commander?”
I recalled the tokusatsu show we’d just watched and grinned.
“How about we draw the face of the masked hero?”
Once the icing was done, we finally sat down to taste our hard-earned creation. Admittedly, my drawing was more… abstract art than heroic likeness, and the cake looked kind of strange. But the flavor was unexpectedly delightful.
“Robella, your baking’s seriously good,”
I said honestly.
“It’s all thanks to the recipe,”
she said with a modest smile.
“And besides, without your help, it wouldn’t have turned out this special.”
“Special?”
“What I wanted to experience wasn’t just the cake itself… but the time we spent making it together.”
She blinked at me, softly.
“I hope that from now on, we can keep doing things like this—watching tokusatsu, baking cakes, talking about silly little things…”
She looked at me with bright, expectant eyes.
“What do you think?”
“…I feel the same.”
We exchanged a smile.
Just like Robella said, this crooked little cake we made together… will probably remain one of my dearest memories.