Cooking with Akira:
Because Akira wanted to limit the club’s exposure to humans, each member was in charge of helping the household run smoothly by helping out wherever help was needed and performing the chores assigned to them.
On this particular morning, it just so happened that Ash and Akira were assigned to cooking duty. In order to have enough time to prepare a big, traditional Sunday morning breakfast for all the members of the club, they had planned to meet in the kitchen at five, but neither made it until nearly six-thirty; Ash, because she overslept, and Akira because she was doing whatever it is Akira does.
“Well, we won’t have time to make the biscuits,” Ash said.
“That’s okay,” Akira said tiredly. “I don’t know how to make biscuits.”
Ash glanced at the recipes they had highlighted the night before in preparation. “Actually, I don’t know how to make any of this.”
Akira shrugged. “Neither do I, but we can just follow the recipes. How hard could it be?”
Very hard, it turned out.
Griffin blanched when the dark brown substance Ash served him fell to his plate with a clatter. “What the hell is this?” Ash studied what she was serving. “I think these are the eggs. Or maybe the French toast..?” Murmurs of discontent filled the table.
“I’m not going to eat this s-“
“Is this even edible?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Gawd, take a cooking class or something!”
And since they had nothing better to do, they did.
..
“All right class, we’re going to begin with a salad!”
“You know something?” Ash said to Akira as they both slowly and carefully peeled, sliced, and diced vegetables.
“What?” asked Akira, her tongue sticking out in concentration as she carefully sprinkled feta cheese over the lettuce.
“This isn’t so bad!” Ash carefully arranged tomato slices on top, and they both smiled in satisfaction at the finished product.
And so it went, with Akira and Ash attending a cooking class three times a week and slowly learning how to make delectable stuffed tomatoes, broccoli and cheese soup, sourdough bread, as well as learning the measuring tools (Ash had grown up with the metric system) and how to follow a recipe.
As Ash and Akira improved in their cooking, they grew to even enjoy cooking, and they both looked forward eagerly to the day the class instructor would deem them worthy of learning how to fry chicken.
The long-anticipated day finally arrived, and Ash and Akira were so excited they could scarcely contain themselves. Ash had never had fried chicken before, but she had heard wonderful things about it, and although Akira preferred raw meat, she still loved fried chicken.
They decided that Akira would bread the chicken, then hand it to Ash to fry when the oil was hot enough.
Ash carefully poured out the right amount of oil into the frying pan and set it on the stove. She then cautiously turned the stove on and watched nervously as the oil heated up. When the oil was hot enough that the water Ash flicked onto hissed and popped, she turned to Akira. “I’m ready to start frying the chicken!”
However, instead of handing Ash a piece of breaded chicken, Akira looked guiltily on the floor. Ash looked in the breading bag, but there was no chicken in there. “Where’s the chicken?” she asked Akira.
“Well,” she said abashedly, “I was too nervous to eat breakfast this morning, and when I saw the chicken, I just went kind of berserk.”
“Akira!” Ash scolded, but a giggle escaped her. “Can werewolves get salmonella?”
