What the heart wants

The Dinner

Rain

Rain wasn't worried about his plan for him and Sky to cook a dinner for P'Phayu and P'Pai. It would be a piece of cake, pun intended. Even if Rain had zero skills in the kitchen, he knew Sky was a good cook and Rain would just be his assistant.

Rain had double, triple checked the recipes they would be using and he had picked up all the ingredients after school the previous day. P'Phayu and P'Pai were meeting a group of friends for an basketball game after classes so Rain and Sky were going to prepare everything at P'Phayu's house.

The menu was simple enough, roasted chicken thighs, asparagus, rice and even a chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries. What could go wrong?

The first thing that went wrong was Rain and Sky noticed a funny smell from the pack of precut chicken thighs.

"Rain did you check the date on these when you picked them up?" Sky asked squinting at the numbers on the pack. "These are out of date."

Rain frowned, "why would the store stock them if they were out of date?"

"I don't know maybe someone made a mistake. Stay here, start the rice and cut the asparagus like I showed you. I will run and get another pack and pick up a premade cake since we won't have time to make both the cake and the chicken thighs by the time I get back. You do know how to use the rice cooker right?"

"Of course," Rain said and Sky seemed to not notice the uncertainty in his voice.

The second thing that went wrong was that Rain put too much rice and not enough water in the cooker. He had googled it but he didn't realize that different cookers took a different amount of water.

The third thing that went wrong was that Sky texted that there were no chicken thighs at the closest marker, he would try another store but they were running out of time.

The forth thing that went wrong was that Rain cut his finger slicing the asparagus. Rain had never cut asparagus before and they were much more difficult to slice than he had anticipated.

Sky finally made it back with the chicken thighs just in time to clean and bandage Rain's finger. The asparagus were pretty much unusable since Rain had bled on them so they decided to just toss those and stick to rice and chicken thighs.

"Where's the cake?" Rain asked. Sky smacked his forehead he had forgotten in his rush to get back.

"Do you smell something?" Sky asked as they made their way back to the kitchen. Rain looked over and realized that it wasn't steam coming from the rice cooker, it was smoke. The rice was burnt to the bottom of the cooker in an unusable mess. The cooker would probably never come clean again. There was really no point of chicken with nothing to go with it  and they were out of time so Sky put those in the freezer for another day.

It was at this point that Rain sat down in the middle of the kitchen crying with Sky hugging him and patting him on the back. That's how P'Phayu and P'Pai found them a few minutes later.

Phayu

Coming home to find his boyfriend crying in the middle of the kitchen floor, being comforted by Sky while Stormy pawed uncertainly at his elbow gave Phayu a jolt. He could smell the burnt rice and see Rain's bandaged finger so it wasn't hard to guess that the cooking had not gone well.

He picked Rain up to take him to the bedroom leaving Sky and Pai in the kitchen looking helpless. He sat Rain down on their bed and held him while Rain cried it out.

"I tried so hard, P'Phayu," he sobbed at one point, "I just wanted to make you a nice meal for once since you always cook for me."

"I know, cute boy. I love that you tried even if things went wrong." P'Phayu said rubbing his back.

"I never do anything right." Rain said sadly.

P'Phayu pulled away and lifted Rain's chin to make him look at him. "That's not true, you do so much right it's scary."

"Like what?" Rain poured.

"Well let's see. You are a good pet parent to Stormy and Cloud, a good son, a good friend to Sky and Ple, a good student, you make everyone around you feel good with you wonderful personality." P'Phayu ticked these things off.

"What else?" Rain asked starting to calm down.

"Well you have the best and most wonderful taste in boyfriends that ever existed." P'Phayu smiled teasingly booping Rain on the nose with one finger.

Rain giggled and hugged Phayu to him.

"Ready to go downstairs? We can order something in and still have a nice dinner." Phayu asked. Rain nodded.

Downstairs they found that Sky was already on dinner, having sent Pai out to get pizza.

After that the night turned into a pretty nice one. The four of them sitting around eating pizza and laughing about the ruined dinner.

"I guess we'll need to go shopping tomorrow," Phayu told Rain at one point.

"Why?" Rain asked.

"For a new rice cooker of course." Phayu said laughing, causing Rain to pout cutely.

Once Pai and Sky left, Phayu and Rain cleaned the kitchen and threw out the rice cooker, it was old and really beyond saving. Phayu had seen an advertisement for a new 'fool proof' model the other day. Maybe, just maybe, Rain wouldn't be able to destroy that one. Although anything was possible with Rain, Phayu thought with a smile.

Rain

"So what series are we watching tonight?" Phayu asked. They had just finished one series and Rain always had another lined up.

"Oh, I think you will really like this one, it looked really good. It's about a pair of identical twins and when one is beaten up and put in the hospital the other twin pretends to be him and takes his place in this gang. I have been wanting to see it for ages."

They settled onto the sofa, with Rain contentedly laying his head on P'Phayu's shoulder. Rain thought he really did have the best taste in boyfriends.

********

Notes:

Not Me is one of my favorite series, I recommend it for anyone who hasn't checked it out.