#mapsareforbraindeads

Valentine’s Day. A fun, yet very stressful time of year. Some people rush to stores to buy chocolate and flowers, plan a fancy meal, wear different clothes for a variety of reasons, but Light Yagami has decided to bake.

Baking and cooking are very different. When you cook, it’s usually pretty easy to change a recipe on the fly. Adding a little more this, leaving out a little of that, and so on. Baking? Baking is a science. You add half a teaspoon too much of something and the entire process goes tits up.

Before he’s even started baking, Light has brought out every single utensil and ingredient he’ll need. His first idea was making cake, but there is simply too much that could go wrong with cake. Brownies were a no go, and cupcakes are essentially like small cakes that he could also very easily mess up. After mulling it around, Light decided on cookies. But what kind of cookies? Classic chocolate chip? A fancy lace cookie? The kind you roll up and put in a freezer? Lemon crisps? Thumbprints? Snickerdoodles? What about something more out there, like springerle? Light doesn’t have the tools to make those, anyway.

Who could go wrong with a classic chocolate chip recipe? Simple and delicious, easy to make in bulk. His boyfriend’s diet consists of pretty much only sweets.

Right when he’s about to get started, someone joins him in the kitchen. “It’s not good to let eggs sit out.”

Light sighs. Out of all the people to interrupt him, it had to be none other than, “Near. I’m baking, the eggs will be fine for a few minutes.”

Near observes the ingredients scattered around the counter, and the various mixing bowls and utensils. Light goes back to reading the recipe, but stops when he hears tapping. Near is playing with the mixing bowls, stacking them in an odd way. He doesn’t stop even after noticing Light’s glare.

“What? You aren’t using them yet.”

“And how will I, when you’re playing with them like toys? Did you even wash your hands?”

Near rolls his eyes. “I’m not dirty.”

“So? I don’t know where your hands have been.”

“On the bowls. Obviously.”

Light huffs, snatching the bowls away and setting them in the sink. He gives them a quick wash while Near moves on to playing with the spatulas instead.

“Stop playing around. I’m trying to bake.”

“L kicked me out of the room to study something. I’m bored.”

“Either help, or find something else to do.”

Near gives a slight pout, pondering the decision. He’d like to tell Light he’ll do what he wants, but knowing this is for L, maybe he should give the guy a break. This time. He’ll go back to being a nuisance another time. Near walks over to the recipe book and scrunches up his nose. “This is boring.”

“Sometimes boring is better.”

“Only two teaspoons of vanilla? That doesn’t seem like a lot. Why not half a cup?”

“You have to be joking.”

“It doesn’t sound like a lot to me.”

Light pinches the bridge of his nose, holding back some colorful language. “I don’t believe they even sell vanilla extract in that large a quantity, unless you’re buying one of those bigger, aged bottles. This,” he says, grabbing the tiny container, “is how vanilla extract is usually sold.”

Near takes the small bottle out of Light’s hand. Once more, he observes it carefully. “Why is it alcoholic?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you making alcoholic cookies?”

“Do you know nothing about baking? I’m not trying to get L drunk off vanilla. Think of it like bier cheese, the alcohol basically gets cooked out. It’s just there for flavor.”

“Why are you putting something in just to bake it out?”

Light finally catches on to the joke. He glares, and Near gives a shit eating grin. “Very funny, Near. Hand it over.”

Near gives back the extract and moves on. Finally, after what feels like forever, Light starts working on the batter. Light mixes the dry ingredients together, then grabs a different bowl. Near stops him.

  “Why aren’t you putting the butter with the rest of it?”

Light is starting to feel more agitated. “It won’t mix properly if you do the ingredients in the wrong order.”

Near looks around at the remaining contents. “It all goes together anyway. Why does it matter?”

“It’s like math. If you do the equation in the wrong order, like not using PEMDAS, you’ll get the wrong answer. We don’t want the cookies to be messed up.”

That makes sense. Near doesn’t really understand the order of baking, but he definitely understands math. He’ll take Light’s word for it. The recipe backs up his reasoning, anyway. Near doesn’t lose the page as he flips through the book, noticing most of the recipes carry on that way. Dry ingredients, wet ingredients, mix. Seems simple enough.

The process has been prolonged by Near’s shenanigans, but the cookies are almost ready to be put in the oven.

“Why are you using such a small amount of dough?” Near questions, again.

Light has had enough. He turns his attention away from the batter and pulls Near over to the recipe book. “Look. Just look. We need to use one inch balls so that the cookies aren’t too small or too big. See the picture? If we use more dough, it won’t cook right. If we use less dough, it won’t cook right. The recipe is made for cookies like this!”

Near scrunches up his nose again. “L likes a variety of cookies. Underbaked, overbaked, just right- he’ll eat them no matter how you serve them. Why not make bigger cookies?”

“Because I want them to be perfect! I want to make something delicious for my boyfriend!”

With the argument happening, said boyfriend is able to sneak into the kitchen with ease. L quietly takes a look around, finding himself at the pot of gold- raw cookie dough. Salmonella be damned, raw cookie dough is a delight, a delicacy, one of the greatest things Watari would never purposefully let L have. He grabs a clean spoon and swipes some.

Oh. Oh no. He frowns.

“This isn’t right. At all.”

Light and Near freeze. With perfect timing, they both turn around to face L.

“He followed the recipe,” Near gets out first.

“Right, the recipe-!”

L shakes his head. He looks at the different measuring utensils laid about and figures out the issue with ease.

“You didn’t convert to grams properly. The ratios are all wrong. Also, it reeks of vanilla.”

Light glares at Near. Near smiles sheepishly. “Oops.”

L takes another spoonful of the cookie dough anyway. “It’s not horrible. You could try again.”

“I think I’ll go store bought this time.”

L smiles and tosses the spoon into the sink. “That might be a better idea for you two. Leave the baking to Watari.”