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Jaden looked over the cake he was making, prodding it with a toothpick and watching to see how it reacted. The toothpick came out clean so he knew it was baked through, but it didn't look as springy as some of the other cakes he noticed coming from the ovens of his classmates. He must of done something wrong. He frowned a little as he looked back down at the cake. He'd followed the recipe to the letter....mostly. It had called for a certain amount of cocoa powder to be added, but Jaden thought it might not be quite enough so he'd tipped in a little more. Then the batter had gotten a smidge too thick so he put in a teeny bit more milk. It looked right after that, but apparently the baking process hadn't gone the way it was supposed to.

Cooking classes were always pretty hard on the hybrid. He just couldn't taste anything he made unless the flavors were quite strong, so he couldn't tell if he'd gotten the recipes correct or not. He was always making little flavor adjustments, but it seemed like 9 times out of 10 those adjustments always majorly backfired...

Jaden looked back down at the recipe sheet and reread it, frowning. Maybe he'd messed up somewhere else along the way. He knew from Arinas that baking was one of those precise arts, and too much or too little of anything, or even temperature differences, could spell disaster in the results.

Jaden looked up, startled. He'd been focusing so hard on going through the recipe and trying to figure out exactly what it was he'd done wrong that he hadn't heard anyone approaching him. He recognized the other student instantly, though it was more because her appearance was so memorable than because he paid attention. Honestly he still kept to himself so often that he only barely knew his other classmates by sight, and could maybe give the names of only one or two of them. Though more comfortable in his own skin than he used to be, Jaden was still quite shy and hesitant about approaching others.

It probably showed in his body language. His shoulders hunched slightly and his wings drew forward a little, cupping his body a bit more closely. He ducked his head and felt a slight flushing of his face as he tried to figure out how speak worked again.

"Ah, my cake just looks a bit different from everyone else," Jaden said softly, peeking up from under his bangs and feeling a bit embarrassed at his cooking blunder. He still hadn't been able to figure out what it was he'd done wrong.