exotickittyyocoding➸ ❛❤ ↳redvelvet:cake. )
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║▌│█│║▌║││█kittyTAGS: FLUFF × COOKING × RexoSUMMARY: REINA AND BAKING...NOT THE BEST COMBINATION UNLESS YOU ADD A BIT OF MINHWAN~
DAY ONE – NIGHT.
One could say that a reunion with their in-laws was a nerve-wracking experience but unlike the first time Reina met her in-laws, this time she had a stronger desire to prove how she could be a great wife to Minhwan. Despite the circumstances that the two are in, Reina still took the second meeting as her chance to not only impress Minhwan’s parents but at the same time thank them for taking care of a handsome and hard-working son as well.
“Aigoo…this is going to be difficult.” Reina pouted as her head leaned onto the wooden desk with a stack of cookbooks next to her. Ever since her parents told her that there was going to be a meeting between the parents and their children about the wedding, Reina was determined to bake something for them. But unlike a traditional housewife, Reina was not good at cooking at all. Her experiences with cooking always led to disasters, but there was always that one small instant where her cooking was not as bad as people expected. However, throughout several trial and error incidents, she learned after a while to stay away from anything culinary arts related. Turning her head to the smaller stack of books that she went through, Reina grabbed the book that was on top and opened it to the page that she bookmarked. “Castella.” Reina read the title of the recipe out loud before skimming through the directions. With very minimal knowledge about cooking and baking, Reina could understand some of the parts while others…well, she stood there clueless and confused. Then as she flipped through the next few pages, she saw a couple more interesting recipes to her yet even though some of them seemed rather easy to make, Reina knew that she couldn’t make an easy cake just to impress her in-laws. No, she wanted to pick a cake that gave some sort of a challenge to her but at the same time be a bit easier for her in case disaster ensues.
Getting up from her seat, she decided to ask help from the only one person she believed had the capabilities to make any delicious cake in one attempt; Yamaguchi Jin Ah. Ever since she met her cousin’s wife, Reina always thought of her as her inspiration to learn some skills that she would have learned in a home economics class. At the moment, Reina was in desperate need of help and with no one to really help her, she decided to ask Jin Ah for assistance. The brunette female took the phone and dialed the number to the Yamaguchi residence all the way in Japan. It didn’t take long before Reina heard someone on the other line, “Hello, who is this?” The familiar female spoke fluently in Japanese.
“Annyeonghaseyo, Jin Ah unni. It’s me, Reina.” Reina spoke in Korean, which was the other female’s native language. “Oh! Reina! How are you doing?” Jin Ah spoke with a hint of excitement in her tone of voice especially that the call was rather unexpected.
Reina explained, “I’m alright, but Jin Ah unni I need help. You see, I want to bake a cake for my boyfriend and his parents later this week and—“
“Wahhh~ Reina, is this the man that Mr. Fujita set up the arranged marriage with? I heard that he got the approval from obaasan. He must be a really charming man if he got obaasan’s approval!” Jin Ah exclaimed with joy. She continued further, “I can’t believe that you’re getting married to him too. Ryuuji told me that he was good-looking too…ahh, you two must make a wonderful couple.”
“Ah…um…unni, I don’t know what to bake for them. I’ve looked through several recipes but it’s difficult to pick one and some of them are too easy. I want to try something a bit more challenging to impress them yet I don’t have that much time to make a decent cake.” Reina nodded as she glanced at the calendar before realizing that she only had less than six days to make a delicious cake for them.
“Oh? You’re making cake for your in-laws? But I—“ Jin Ah stopped as she didn’t want to criticize about Reina’s baking skills especially that the older female was able to see Reina in action when it came to the kitchen and even she was terrified as well. “Please unni! I really want to impress them…and show that Minhwan is going to marry an amazing wife that will make him happy. You know how it feels to be in here since you did the same with Kenta oppa too.” Reina pleaded and hoped that her cousin-in-law would take her request into consideration despite her lack of talent in baking.
Hearing a soft sigh on the other end of the phone line, Jin Ah gave in, “Oh okay, I’ll help you. I’ll give you the recipe to the cake that I made for Kenta’s parents. They loved the cake so I’m sure that your boyfriend and his parents will love it too as long as you follow the instructions correctly.” Reina immediately squealed as her face lit up with a huge smile on her face. Eventually she grabbed paper and a pen to write down all of the instructions with the intention to make a cake that would allow others to have faith on her baking skills.
DAY FIVE – LATE AFTERNOON.
Reina spent several hours every day getting the recipe down yet she kept making careless mistakes that the maids within the house were getting worried as well. Her first few attempts were mainly due to leaving the cake in the oven for too long while her recent tries consisted of not putting enough of certain ingredients onto the cake. However, with so many attempts done in a short amount of time, the brunette also made a huge mess on the kitchen that she was receiving some lectures from her own mother about tidying the kitchen. “I added the right amount of food coloring and mixed the cake properly.” Reina muttered to herself as she was staring at the oven for the past couple of minutes. Looking at the TV nearby, she decided to turn it on and an upbeat music started to play in the background. Instantly recognizing what it was, Reina started to dance and sing to SNSD’s Cooky commercial. Unaware of her surroundings, she continued to dance and sing since she always believed that singing and dancing while cooking was a great way to make the food delicious. By the time it got to Sunny’s part of the commercial, Reina sang as she gave all of her effort to be cute especially through her gestures, “If you want me, I’ll be cutie cooky girl~” Right after the line, she quickly shifted to acting sexy and sang, “If you are tired of boredom, I’ll be sexy cooky girl~”
Once the commercial ended, Reina looked back at the oven and seeing that the cake was nowhere near baked, she returned her attention back to the TV especially that there was something that instantly caught her attention. With a grin on her face, Reina suddenly forgot about her cake and focused on MBLAQ’s live performance of ‘Run’. Seeing that there were only four members instead of all five, Reina pouted, “Seungho oppa! He’s not here…I wonder why.” Even though Seungho’s disappearance in the number would have kept Reina disappointed for a while, she quickly forgot about it the moment the camera was aimed at Lee Joon. “Woah…Lee Joon oppa?!” Reina exclaimed in shock as she realized that MBLAQ’s main dancer had a change in hairstyle and likewise, her infatuation towards the idol arose once again. Now that the female was practically so focused on the performance, it didn’t take long before one of the maids came in and snapped her out of her attention. “Miss Reina, what about your cake?” The maid, Bo Ra asked before looking at the oven.
“My cake…MY CAKE!” Reina yelled as she turned around and checked the oven before opening and taking out the cake from it. As she swiftly placed it near the counter, she could feel her heartbeat racing as she was worried of burning another cake yet again. All that would determine whether or not the cake was ready was by the toothpick test and as Reina looked for the toothpicks, Bo Ra handed her a toothpick nearby. Muttering a soft ‘thank you’, Reina poked a tiny hole through the cake with the toothpick and as she looked at the toothpick, Reina felt elated. “I finally made a decent red velvet cake!” She reacted before realizing that this was only half of completing the whole recipe. With a stack of whip cream, strawberries, and a knife within close distance, Reina grabbed all of them and cut the cake horizontally with the maid’s assistance. After a while, she placed the top layer of the cake onto another plate and smeared whip cream on the second layer. Once she was done, she placed strawberries on top of it and repeated once again with the top layer after putting the top layer of the cake onto the strawberries.
Minutes later, Reina was done making her own strawberry red velvet chiffon cake and she felt accomplished. It was almost as if all of her hard work was slowly paying off on this one cake. However, she also knew that the cake she made was her ‘experiment’ and that she would need to actually make the same one on the day where Minhwan and his parents would be arriving. Still feeling nervous about whether or not her cake turned out well, she decided that she needed someone to try out the cake for her. Coincidentally, her father entered inside the house after a long day at work and with her mother accompanying him as well, Reina sought of this opportunity as her one chance to get a different person’s opinion. With some of the mess still in the kitchen, Reina hoped that her cake was delicious enough for her mother to forget about scolding her once again.
“Mom! Dad!” Reina smiled as she gave each of them a hug. She knew all of the work that the two of them had to go through for the company especially that they were slowly working on the transition from her father’s retirement and Minhwan’s debut as the ‘current’ CEO of Fujita Corporation. “Hello darling…oh, I see you made cake again.” Reina’s mother noticed the cake instantly before returning the hug. Likewise, Reina’s father did the same and as the two parents looked at the cake with much curiosity, her mother joked, “Reina, are you sure you didn’t put anything bad in this cake?” Everyone knew in the family that Reina’s disasters with kitchen usually resulted in her putting some unusual ingredients onto the dish, but this time Reina focused so much on getting the recipe down that she was confident that the cake was going to taste good.
“No! Of course not!” Reina protested before she grabbed some plates and utensils. While she was cutting slices of the cake, Reina could see the inside of the cake and just by the physical appearance she was excited that it was turning out well. When Reina was able to get two slices of the cake onto the plates, she handed them to her parents and watched their observation carefully. This was the first time in a long time that she ever gave her parents something to tried that was made by her and to her, it was nerve-wracking. Reina felt as if she was in a food competition being judged by how well her cake tasted.
“It’s scrumptious, Reina.” “This is really good!”
Hearing those words from her parents was by far one of the best compliments she ever got from her parents. She was grinning widely that for once she was able to bake something that suited her parent’s tastes. “Really?! Is it really that good?” Reina asked in reassurance before seeing nods from her parents. Without any hesitation, she continued to cut slices of the cake and as she took one slice for herself to try, she was also surprised by how well it turned out to be. Reina’s smile was so wide that she was also forming an eye smile as well by the wonderful feedback she was receiving. “Wahh! Now I just need to practice more and I’ll get it down by the time they come.” She stated with optimism as her motivation and hard work paid off at that moment.
Eventually Reina’s mother suggested to Daichi to rest in the living room for a while, which left Reina wondering why her mother did that. Soon Reina’s mother approached Reina before fixing her daughter’s hair. “Reina…when you bake something for someone and you know that it’s truly delicious, you tend to share it to every person that you love.” Her mother began to speak with sincerity before the two of them looked at each other in the eyes. “But for you, the secret ingredient that made this cake so delicious is love, or in this case your love for Minhwan.”
Pausing for a brief moment, she continued with a chuckle, “Cooking is such an interesting form of art because like paintings, music compositions, or other forms of art, artists always think of someone or something when forming their creations. But I believe that your inspiration was him.”
“Mom, you’re so weird.” Reina stated as she laughed at her mother’s explanation as well. Her mother responded back jokingly, “When did you get all of this determination just to bake one cake? Usually you won’t even budge to do anything kitchen-related.”
Reina didn’t even think of an answer for the question. She already knew why and at times she would wonder if that was how it felt to truly love someone and the other individual having mutual feelings as well. She replied shyly initially before giving a genuine answer, “Well, let’s just say there’s that one guy that I really like a lot…and I wanted to thank him for being a wonderful boyfriend to me regardless of the mishaps we’ve encountered. I also want to thank his parents for raising a lovely son who will do whatever it takes to make them happy.”
Her mother let out a cute ‘aww’ as she heard her daughter’s reply and Reina stood there with a smile on her face. Before the two could say anything to each other, Reina’s father called the two of them and with that they headed to the living room with smiles on their face as if only a mother and daughter could understand.
