1827/Parents

Parents
Date of Scene:	02 August 2024
Location:	Dorms
Synopsis:	Mamoru asks Makoto to make cookies for him to bring with him when he visits his parents' memorial the next day. They make them together and talk a little bit about brighter things.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Makoto Kino

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's Friday, August 2nd, and Mamoru texted Makoto half an hour, maybe forty five minutes ago, asking if she could make some kind of cookies for him-- for tomorrow-- he knew it was short notice, but if it was possible, were there any ingredients he could bring?

He's at her door now, carrying both whatever she said he could bring and some chocolate he bought because he couldn't help himself. Also a couple of cans of coffee, and a couple of cans of juice-- he's got a shopping tote in one hand, and it's hot enough out that he's in cargo shorts and has his t-shirt sleeves rolled up.

"Hi," he says sheepishly at the door, "sorry. I come bearing bribery? I hope you like chocolate. And coffee. Or juice. I brought juice too, just in case."

Makoto Kino has posed:
The text he got back was a cheerful 'you're in luck!' As far as ingredients, all she asked him to bring was rosewater; when she greets him at the door, she already has an apron on over her t-shirt and shorts. She grins at his sheepish greeting.

"No bribery needed," she assures, "but I do like chocolate. And coffee, and juice. I actually had something halfway made up already, but it turns out Yamada-kun's already making cookies for Chiyo-chan. So it's your lucky day. We'll have to go downstairs to use the oven, though."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"That's fine!" Mamoru says cheerfully, shoulders relaxing a little bit as he pushes his glasses up. "And I brought the rosewater -- you know something I was thinking of, was, is it easy to make rosewater? Is it just like tea but with rose petals?"

A beat. "I mean I'm sure you can guess what I'm thinking. Because they smell just a little different, you know? It might taste a little different too."

He hands over a big chocolate bar and says, "Here, squirrel this away for you for later before we go downstairs; I brought one to split, too."

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Pretty much!" Mako confirms. "I haven't worked a lot with rosewater until recently, so I haven't tried making my own, but it shouldn't be too hard to make using fresh petals." From the look on her face, she does indeed know exactly why he's asking. "I thought about that when you texted, actually, but it's extra steps. Something to try another time?"

She accepts the chocolate bar with a little dip of her head by way of thanks, and moves to stash it in her desk. Then she picks up a tote bag of her own that's been left in the seat of her chair, and turns back to Mamoru with a bright smile. "So, let's go!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru can be cheerful, but right now he can't be bright -- he looks grateful, though, for Makoto's brightness. "Onward," he agrees with a smile of his own. "And we can definitely try that another time. Thank you for doing this on such short notice, truly."

Other words are still stuck in his throat, but he can't make them come out in the hallway, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to make them come out in the stairwell, or the downstairs kitchen.

He's like a crane, tall and spindly, grown up but not out yet, and he trails after Makoto like he's made of paper, with a fragility that's poorly hidden to someone like her. It's been there to varying degrees since the end of Hematite, lurking behind good cheer and worry, and it's been magnified since the fight on the hospital roof.

But he follows gamely, carrying rosewater and chocolate and coffee and juice. And he forces a little bit of it out in the stairwell, "Tomorrow's my day to visit my parents," he says, quiet and stilted against the sound of their feet on the stairs.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto pauses on the landing long enough to glance back at him, brows lifted slightly; it takes a beat, maybe two, for comprehension to set in. When it does, though, the brightness of Makoto's expression softens into a quiet understanding. It's the look of someone recognizing a bit of herself in someone else - the puzzle piece clicking into place.

"Oh," she says, and doesn't press for elaboration.

What she says instead, as they reach the bottom of the stairs and head towards the dorm's kitchen area, is: "It's fine, I promise. I was planning to do some baking today already, so please don't think you're putting me out of my way. I'm happy to help."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There, yes, good, it's out and she understands and he doesn't need to elaborate at all. His shoulders let go of the tension that had flooded them for just a moment, and he smiles again, this time smaller.

They get to the kitchen area and he puts the bag down next to where Makoto puts hers, then takes out a can of coffee and pops the tab on it after shaking it. "What kind of cookies are we-- are you-- making? That need rosewater?" He sounds hopeful, for sure.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"You can help if you want to," Makoto offers, as she brings things out of her back to line up on the counter like she's setting up stations. A package of almond flour and one of confectioner's sugar; a little canister of ground cardamom. A few utensils and things. "There's some assembly involved. Or you can just keep me company while I work, that'll be fine too."

She goes to the refrigerator, emerging with a mixing bowl covered in a hand towel. "Do you remember asking me to try to figure out how those sweets were made, a while back? Usagi-chan was going to give you the ones she and I worked on..."
The sidelong look she gives him is slightly hesitant. That was not a good time for him or for Usagi, so she's not entirely sure if Usagi remembered such a minor detail in the tidal wave of emotions.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Oh!" there's absolutely brightening, Mamoru is *brightening*. "Yes-- yeah! And they tasted almost exactly right! Like, almost exactly which is so hard when all the ingredients are so different, simply by way of genetic drift and modification from the plants we were using at the time--"

He goes to wash his hands before trying to help, and his enthusiasm is likely a welcome difference from his mood a couple of moments ago. "I'm so sorry I never thanked you for them! Things got very complicated very quickly."

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto shakes her head, smiling warmly. "No, they really did. There was no chance to even think about it, so don't apologize. I'm glad you liked them - Usagi-chan helped a lot in figuring out which spice to use. Otherwise I'd still be doing trial and error on you for months, probably."

She takes a moment to check over her supplies and get the oven pre-heating, then returns to begin measuring almond flour and powdered sugar into a mixing bowl. "If we make rosewater from some of your roses, we can probably get it even closer. Not to mention using it for other things. It might be nice to try infusing them into honey, too, there's a lot you could do with that..." The thoughtful look that comes over her face does nothing to affect the easy confidence of each movement; she closes the packages back up and puts each one back into her tote as she's done with them, before picking up a measuring spoon to add the cardamom. "We did kind of guess at the proportions, but I suppose that worked out."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I've always heard baking was a science, but if you can just guess at proportions and come out with sweets like that from description it's clearly also an art, and you're Da Vinci," Mamoru says firmly, like it's something everyone should automatically agree with.

He dries his hands with a paper towel, then looks like he's looking for <s>trouble to get into</s> something to do to help. "And if I don't take the magic out first, maybe it could even be some kind of magic rose-infused honey. I don't think they could heal like Chiyo's sweets, but something made with it might at least be a pick-me-up of some kind."

Makoto Kino has posed:
"You're praising me way too much," Makoto protests, but she looks pleased all the same. "It'd be worth trying, for sure. Even though I doubt we can make anything like Chiyo-chan's sweets, being able to put a little magic into something we can carry with us and share with other people would be a good thing, I think."

The rosewater is slowly stirred into the mixture; seeing Mamoru looking at loose ends, she holds forth the bowl. "Want to taste test this, and tell me if it's enough cardamom or if I should add a little more?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"It already smells like a memory, I don't think I'm overpraising you," Mamoru says with a laugh, and then does take the bowl -- takes a spoon, too, and lifts out a ball-ish lump of the cookie dough and promptly tries it.

He very dramatically sags against the counter as he hands the bowl back. "Ah, a piece of heaven on the coast!" he says with a hand over his heart. "When we're older I want to build a house like that one, my grandparents' house on the coast of what's Tunisia now. I got to show it to Usagi when you were all in that portal, and I could share a dream with her. But I'd like to be able to share that house with everyone. It was always cool inside even when it was very hot out, and it smelled like salt and baking seaweed and spices..."

He laughs self-consciously. "I mean, that's when I introduced her to these sweets, too. But -- it's a beautiful area. I went looking at travel blogs and touristy sites to make sure it still is."

A beat. "That's enough cardamom," Mamoru says very sheepishly.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto smiles warmly at him, cradling the bowl in both hands. "It sounds lovely," she says, with a faint trace of something wistful in her voice. "I'm glad the two of you got to share that. When you build your house there, I'll be sure to visit and see it for myself."

She sets the bowl down on the counter and rolls out a sheet of waxed paper, dusts it with flour. "In the end, they're simpler than I was expecting. The only complicated part is putting everything together... could you divide up the filling?" A tip of her head indicates the mixture he just tasted. "Should be two dozen equal parts, shaped into fingers. About..." Here a pause as she extends her own index finger and considers it thoughtfully. "...not quite seven centimeters long?"

Another pause. "Or if you'd rather roll this out, I can do this part."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I can shape them! The filling parts, I mean," Mamoru assures Makoto, then pauses for a second before getting some flour on his hands too. And he surveys the bowl, then, and carefully divides the big lump of it in two. Then he divides that one again, and again, like a cell dividing, but without the bits of filling actually getting bigger--

He is quite industrious in his rolling the filling into fingers between his hands, and he absolutely gets flour on his hands again now and then, whenever they start getting too sticky to be helpful.

"I like that place because-- there are only good memories associated with it, you know? Nothing emotionally mixed about it. I was small there and there were people who loved me and I could run around wild instead of being well-behaved all the time." He pauses and looks up, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Is it okay if I talk about that? About the Golden Kingdom."

Makoto Kino has posed:
With Mamoru at work shaping the filling, Makoto turns her attention to the other bowl, the one she took out of the fridge earlier. Uncovering it, she tips a lump of pale dough gently out onto the floured paper.

"I don't mind," she replies as she begins carefully flattening out the dough - first with her hands, and then more evenly with a rolling pin. "You can talk about it as much as you want. I don't really... remember very much about that time," she admits. "I'd like to hear about those good memories."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The mild alarm fades swiftly, and Mamoru laughs a little, still hiding behind his glasses as he rolls filling into seven-centimeter fingers. "I loved these when I was little too, and in the kitchens, whenever they made them for special occasions, I'm positive they made more than necessary so there'd be enough for me to steal some. It's magic that you've figured it out, you and Usagi, so quickly."

He almost steals dough here and now, but it would be FOOLISH when the finished product isn't so far away, and besides, there needs to be enough--

He doesn't think he's really ready to tell them everything about being Endymion. He doesn't think he's ready to introduce them to his other mother. That's all right. He has until the Fade makes him forget who he was all over again...

Mamoru ducks his head a little, hair falling forward to shade his face as he puts a lot of concentration and effort into making the pieces of dough as uniform as possible. His voice is at least steady when he continues:

"I grew up mostly in Elysion or in the Golden City, with heavily supervised tours of some of the regions it was safe to take a small crown prince to, and with some trips with Kunzite that were just us two in disguise. But I got to stay with my grandparents and a few guards, and then my grandparents and Kunzite, for two weeks every year and I got to just play, in the surf and the tidepools, with my hands in the dirt and my face in the sun..."

Makoto Kino has posed:
There's something meditative about the task at hand: methodically rolling the dough out, gradually thinner and thinner, while she listens to the pictures Mamoru's words paint. Makoto doesn't interrupt, content to let him speak while they both work at their current tasks.

When it seems he might trail off, she ventures to wonder, her tone mild and light: "When did the other three join you? Jadeite, and Zoisite, and...?" The third name, she doesn't quite manage to say aloud.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"All a bit older, at different times," Mamoru answers, gracefully dodging Nephrite's name as well. "Kunzite was with me when I was quite young. Three, I think? I remember meeting him for the first time. They were all older than me back then, but he was older enough that he really was kind of a babysitter early on. He chased me everywhere. They, though, they ran with me sometimes. It's -- some of it is getting harder to keep straight in my head because they're so different, in some ways, than they were."

He reaches up to adjust his glasses again and gets a smudge of flour on his face for his pains, and doesn't notice it. It lends an air of rakish mess to his already fluffy-haired careless fronting.

"Time and life and choices and traps made different people of all of us."

Makoto Kino has posed:
There's a soft hum from Makoto as she sets the rolling pin aside, and she nods. "I suppose that's something that can't be avoided, isn't it?" Looking thoughtful again, she selects a kitchen knife from among the utensils that came out of her bag. "Sometimes I wish I remembered more about what it was like, myself... but in the end, that was a different life."

She glances over, smiles at the sight of that smudge of flour. "It's still nice to hear about the good things, though. Thank you for telling me about it."

Careful and precise, she begins cutting the rolled-thin dough into strips.