Aoki and I were enjoying the moment, the both of us keeping quiet. I had seldom felt this peaceful before, but this winter sunset just felt magical.

I was taking in the sights when I noticed an oddly Noémie-shaped silhouette in the distance. “How weird,” I thought, “I’ve never seen anyone who looks that much like her before.” The figure was headed our way, and as it drew nearer, I realized it was, in fact, Noémie. When she noticed us, she started running towards us at Mach speeds, despite carrying a heavy-looking tote bag.

“If it isn’t the girl herself!” she exclaimed when she reached us, hugging me. “Oh, and, uh, Aoki, you’re here too I guess,” she added, barely even looking at him.

He didn’t answer and looked slightly annoyed.

“Hi Noémie,” I said. “I didn’t expect to find you there. What were you up to?”

She looked at Aoki, who was standing next to us with a thousand-yard stare. She seemed like she was debating whether or not to make one of her explosive jokes, probably something along the lines of “Making sure he doesn’t kill you”, but chose not to in the end.

“I was just buying manga, and I tried out that new bubble tea place that just opened. You should totally go there with me sometime!”

I thought I saw Aoki shift out of the corner of my eye as she said that, but when I turned to look at him, he hadn’t moved an inch. Noémie put her tote bag down, and we made small talk for a moment. Then she picked it back up and left while typing something on her phone. Ten seconds later, I received a text from her :

“dont let ur guard down around this guy. im serious”

I got startled by the sudden feeling of a hand on my shoulder and nearly dropped my phone. I put it away hurriedly, as Aoki said :

“So that’s your friend Noémie, huh? You two seem very close.”

I looked up at him, worried that he’d seen the text. Thankfully, he was just staring in the distance, watching Noémie walk away.

“Yeah, we’ve been best friends since primary school,” I replied nervously.

“It must be nice to have a friend who cares so much about you.” He turned to look at me. “Shall we head home?”

For the third time in the day, I had to try to maneuver around the brambles of Aoki’s front yard. This proved to be a little more difficult than before, though, as the sun had set and I could barely see in the dark. Unsurprisingly, I ended up catching my sleeve on a thorn, ripping it in the process. I was still wearing Aoki’s winter jacket.

“Are you okay?” he asked, worried, as he stopped unlocking the door and backtracked to check on me.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, “but your jacket…”

“Don’t worry about that old thing! I can just buy a new one. I wouldn’t be able to buy a new you, though!” he laughed.

I gave him a look of disdain and that just made him laugh harder.

Going inside, he hung our jackets, which I was both wearing, on the coat rack, then headed straight to the kitchen. Before I could even ask, he answered my question :

“I’m going to cook us a little something. Just relax in the living-room while I handle it, and under no circumstances should you come inside! I wouldn’t want the surprise to be spoiled.”

I took no issue with that, and I made my way to the living-room as I started hearing utensils clanking in the kitchen. I just had to hope Aoki was secretly an amazing cook, or at least good enough that I wouldn’t regret staying over that night.

Lying on the couch, I began wondering. I hadn’t seen Aoki speak to anyone but me in the class or even in the whole school, yet he obviously wasn’t shy at all. Why would he keep to himself like that? No wonder everyone thought of him as weird. Even Noémie did, and she wasn’t usually so quick to judge.

What about her text? What was she seeing in him that I wasn’t to try to prevent me from hanging out with him? Maybe if she’d just gotten to know him, she’d have seen there was nothing to worry about.

“Crap!” interrupted my thoughts, and was soon followed by loud clanking, along with endless cursing and profanities I had never heard before. Disregarding his instructions, I rushed to check on Aoki in the kitchen, worried.

There he was, crouched over a poor frying pan bleeding with tomato sauce, sponge in hand, trying to clean up the mess.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No! Why’d you come in?” he exclaimed, ignoring my question. “You were supposed to wait in the living-room!”

He held up his hand, as if that was going to hide anything about the situation, and I noticed it was red, like he’d burned himself. I walked over to him, avoiding the tomato sauce, and crouched next to him.

“Did you get burned?”

He sighed.

“I guess it’s too late to pretend now. Yeah, I grabbed the frying pan weirdly, I burned my hand, and the pan fell to the floor. So now my bolognese sauce is ruined, and so is the floor.”

“Come on, it’s not a big deal. You need to get some water on your burn…” I tried.

“No—  it IS a big deal!" he interrupted. “I was supposed to cook a great dinner for us, but now the dinner is on the floor!”

I slid my arms under his in an attempt to forcibly pull him up, which I somehow managed to do despite his build. To be fair, he’d probably done most of the work.

“It’s fine, you can just start over,” I reassured him. “I’ll help you.”

He sighed again and walked over to the sink to get some water on his burn.

“Okay, you can help me. I’m just disappointed I won’t be able to surprise you with the dinner.”

“Hey, it can be fun to cook together!” I said to lift his spirits.

My encouragement worked ; Aoki was a surprisingly easy guy to cheer up. He soon had that bright smile of his back on his face.

“Alright, you can start cutting onions while I handle the mess!” he ordered me joyfully.

I took out a knife and a cutting board and started executing his commands. Soon enough, we became a functional cooking team, with Aoki as the chef, and me as the sous. Watching him, I got the chance to learn his bolognese recipe ; and I had to admit, it smelled pretty good.

About five minutes before the pasta was done cooking, he handed me his wooden spoon. I instinctively grabbed it before he said anything.

“Keep stirring the pot or the spaghetti will stick to the bottom, I’m going to set the table!” he explained before he darted out of the kitchen. But why? Surely everything you’d need to set a table would be in a kitchen.