Just Like Snow

Chapter Fifteen

Dawn came sooner than MafuMafu had thought it would. Golden rays of sunlight streamed in through the windows, catching MafuMafu's attention. He hadn't gotten a wink of sleep and was only just now noticing how much time had passed. He sat up, stared at the clock on the bedside table for a moment, than got out of bed. Since it was morning now anyway, he might as well fix himself some breakfast. MafuMafu walked quietly to the kitchen, the only sound in the house being the soft pattering of his bare feet on the wooden floorboards and the low hum of the air conditioning system. When he reached the kitchen, MafuMafu glanced over at the couch in the living room where he knew Soraru was sleeping. It would still be a few hours before Soraru would have to get up for work, so MafuMafu reminded himself to be as quiet as possible. He didn't want to accidentally wake up Soraru and risk making the blue-haired male even more mad at him.

      "Hmm... What should I do about breakfast...?" MafuMafu muttered to himself as he looked over the kitchen.

  He still couldn't cook a thing, but surely there was something he could heat up and eat. MafuMafu remembered that there was still some food leftover from when Lon had come over yesterday, but he didn't really want that. Even though the food was admittedly delicious, MafuMafu wasn't too keen on accepting anything from Lon. She wasn't a bad person, he knew this, and yet she still wasn't someone MafuMafu could honestly say he liked. MafuMafu briefly wondered what this strange emotion was called again, before shaking his head and walking over to the fridge. He shouldn't become sulky over it, that's what Soraru had told him. If Soraru liked MafuMafu's cheerfulness, then MafuMafu was going to be cheerful, even if it was beginning to be a little difficult. MafuMafu opened the fridge door, and, to his surprise, a multitude of things fell out with a loud crash.

      "Aaah!" MafuMafu exclaimed loudly while jumping back in surprise.

  Though, realizing how loud he had been, MafuMafu quickly covered his mouth with his hands and looked back over at the living room. He heard Soraru shift about on the couch, but other than that there were no indications that he was awake. MafuMafu let out a shaky sigh of relief and turned back toward the fridge. He kneeled down and began picking up the things that had fallen, returning them to their rightful places. Smiling slightly in satisfaction, MafuMafu stood up once more then observed the fridge's contents. Most of the items were just ingredients to be used for cooking other things, so they were of no use to MafuMafu. Though, in a plastic container on the second shelf, there were the leftovers from the rice dish they had eaten last night for dinner. MafuMafu picked up the container, deciding that this would work, and brought it over to the microwave. Um... how long should I cook it for? MafuMafu wondered to himself as he put the container in the microwave. Unsure of the right amount of time, MafuMafu set the timer for five minutes and pressed start. The droning hum of the microwave filled the otherwise silent kitchen soon afterwards. MafuMafu leaned against the counter, left with nothing to do but wait. Five minutes passed by relatively quickly, and before MafuMafu knew it the beep of the microwave went off to announce that the food was done. MafuMafu walked over and took the container out, setting it down on the counter nearby. He then got a fork from a drawer and, without thinking, brought a large forkful of rice to his lips.

      "Ow! Ow! It's hot!" MafuMafu dropped the fork into the container and tried to ignore the burning sensation in his mouth.

  His tongue hurt a lot, bringing tears to eyes. In his preoccupied state, he didn't notice a very sleepy looking Soraru walk into the kitchen.

      "MafuMafu? What in the world are you doing up at this hour?" Soraru asked groggily.

  MafuMafu whirled around quickly, his eyes widening in surprise. "Soraru-san! Did I wake you up?"

      "Well, yeah. It's kind of hard to sleep with all the noise you were making," Soraru replied bluntly.

      "Oh. I'm sorry..." MafuMafu apologized sheepishly while veering his gaze to the ground.

  Soraru sighed. "It's fine. But seriously, what are you doing up? Don't you know how early it is?"

      "I do, but I couldn't help it. I've been up all night," MafuMafu mumbled in response.

      "You mean you haven't slept at all?" Soraru questioned, looking surprised.

  MafuMafu nodded mutely.

      "Geez, that's not good for you, you know. You should go back to the room and get some sleep right now," Soraru stated.

      "I can't..." MafuMafu said quietly.

  Soraru gave him a curious look. "Why not?"

  MafuMafu hesitated for a moment before answering. "Even if I tried to go to sleep, I wouldn't be able to. I have too many things going on in my mind."

      "Like what?" Soraru prompted him to continue.

      "...Well, I want to know why you're mad at me, for one thing," MafuMafu responded.

      "Oh my god... I told you last night that I'm not mad at you, didn't I?" Soraru said with evident exasperation.

  MafuMafu didn't say anything, he merely continued staring at his feet. Soraru sighed again and shook his head.

      "Well, if you're not going to go to sleep then I might as well stay up with you. I'm awake now anyways," Soraru stated.

  MafuMafu looked up at him in surprise. "But, Soraru-san, don't you want to go back to sleep? You don't have to go to work for another couple of hours, right?"

      "It's fine, so don't worry about it," Soraru waved off MafuMafu's words airily. He then turned his gaze to the plastic container that was still sitting on the counter. "Now, how about I make us some actual breakfast? That doesn't really make for the best morning meal, you know."

      "I know, but it's all that I could really eat since I can't cook anything," MafuMafu mumbled.

      "If you were hungry, you could've just woken me up so I could fix you something. I wouldn't have minded," Soraru pointed out as he went over to the fridge to get some things to cook with.

  MafuMafu gave a low hum, but said nothing. For some reason, it was frustrating how Soraru was acting like this was just a normal morning when he still hadn't explained anything. It was almost like he expected things to go back to normal just because a few hours had passed. Soraru-san did tell me he needed time to figure some things out, but how does he think I feel about this? Leaving me clueless like this... it's really not fair, MafuMafu thought to himself with a frown.

      "Hey, what's up with you? Why are you looking at me like that?" Soraru asked, looking over his shoulder at MafuMafu.

  MafuMafu hadn't realized he had been staring at Soraru with a very displeased expression for the past couple of minutes, and once he did he quickly tried to cover it up.

      "Oh, um, nothing. Sorry," MafuMafu replied quickly.

      "You sure?" Soraru questioned skeptically.

  MafuMafu nodded. "Yeah, it's nothing. I swear."

      "Alright then..." Soraru muttered before going back to cooking up breakfast for the two.

  This isn't just another normal morning, Soraru-san, and you know that, MafuMafu wanted to say but kept the thought to himself. Something's wrong here, and I'm not going to stop trying to figure it out.

A/N: Trying to get food when other people are sleeping is really a pain. There was a time when I made ramen noodles at one in the morning and I accidentally woke someone in my house up. That happened just this past summer actually w