My One and Only

Chapter 20

It had been a few days since Sakura and Itachi had returned home from the family gathering. Sakura hadn't seen much of Itachi because he'd gone back to his normal routine as well as catching up on things left undone because of the small vacation. 

This wouldn't have felt so weird before, but because of how close they were nearly the entire stay at his uncle's home, suddenly being apart from him the entire day was strange. Sakura had also fallen back into her routine of attending the ladies academia.

It was one unusual morning today. They were having breakfast together after several days of eating separately. Itachi's schedule had finally loosened up and he could utilize a bit more of his time for himself.

Watching as the cooks and maids brought out their food, Sakura remembered Queen Mikoto's strange fondness for cooking. She stared at her meal with a pensive look, thinking back to how Mikoto had told her it was a relaxing activity to do.

"What's wrong?" Itachi asked taking her out of her thoughts, "Do you not like the food?"

She immediately shook her head, "No, that's not it. I was just thinking about how it seems like it would be fun to cook something."

Itachi hummed and put his chin in his hand, "then how about we try it."

Sakura's eyes lit up, "Right now?" She asked a bit too excited.

"No, not right now." He said, immediately taking the wind in her sails. She sat back gloomily just as quickly as she had perked up.

Despite her obvious disappointment, Itachi continued, "but later today, we could cook something for dinner. It wouldn't be prudent to attempt to make the entire meal ourselves, but we could try to make the dessert at least."

Sakura nodded enthusiastically, "Okay! We could make a chocolate cake! Or cookies!" 

Sakura rambled on with her ideas of what they could bake later in the evening while Itachi nodded and smiled amusedly at her antics.

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Just like he had promised, in the evening Sakura found herself being led to the kitchen by Itachi with her hand in his grip. He took her down a long staircase to where his staff cooked their meals, which was curiously found underground.

In the end, they had decided on chocolate chip cookies. Sakura liked chocolate chip cookies and they were, supposedly, easy to bake. It was the obvious choice.

Itachi brought out a sheet of paper with instructions and set it on a countertop next to the one they would be working on. They were in a private area of the kitchen so no cooks were milling about around them. 

He walked over to a cabinet and opened it up, "The ingredients should be in here." He told her looking through it. "What's the first thing it says we need?" 

Sakura turned and walked over to the recipe, "Uhhmm, Oh! Flour,"

He brought the flour over and carefully set it on the table. They measured out the amount needed and put it into the bowl. They continued like this for a while. Everything seemed to be going smoothly and they were just about to finish with the cookie dough.

That is until Sakura moved to grab the chocolate chips and accidentally knocked over the flour. Unfortunately, Itachi happened to be positioned right in front of it. Sakura snorted before quickly bringing her hands up to cover her mouth in an attempt to not cover up her high-pitched cackling.

Itachi was covered from head to toe in flour. It started from the top of his head, his bangs full of flour, making its way down his face. His eyelashes were white and his mouth was coated with the powdery substance. It went down his neck to the front of his shirt until finally reaching down one of his pant legs.

Sakura turned around, reaching for the chocolate chips and trying her best to not look at him. She bit her tongue to keep herself from making any noise. He was sure to be upset about her mistake and it wouldn't help her case if she was laughing.

She quietly emptied the chocolate chips into the bowl, concentrating wholly on her task. Itachi didn't say anything either. It was completely silent as she slowly mixed the chocolate chips into the cookie dough.

It stayed tense like this, neither of them saying a word and Sakura not even brave enough to look up at him. 

That was why it caught her completely off-guard when she felt something pouring over her and instinctively closed her eyes as it fell into her face. Only to open them back up to see she was white.

She was even more covered in the flour than Itachi had ever been. Speaking of him, she looked up to find him standing over her, his face visibly less covered in flour, and the now empty bag still in his hand as he stared blankly at her powder-covered form. The only emotion in his face being the silent laughter in his eyes.

Without saying a word, he threw the empty bag away. Sakura's eyes followed blankly after him. Looking at her appearance in a reflective storage cabinet, she could see her face looked like it had only two floating eyeballs and the outline of a mouth covered in white.

He didn't have to go so far as to dump the entire bag on top of her but she supposed it was only fair. What wasn't fair is that she would likely be getting rid of flour in her hair for at least the rest of the week. Neither said a word as she returned to the table and they began to roll up the cookies into small balls. Sakura was a bit disgruntled and Itachi was laughing in his head.

They finally finished and placed the tray full of small cookie dough balls into the oven. Dinner would be served in twenty minutes. Sakura worried about getting the flour off of her.

At least she had worn an apron. They went back up the stairs into the main living space. Itachi's cooks would worry about getting the cookies out on time before they burned. Sakura just hoped they would taste like the flour currently taking residence in her hair and under her clothes was worth it.