The Spaghetti

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It had to be the best spaghetti ever.

It wasn't for some prestigious cooking competition, or even for an application at the revered local cooking school; oh, no, it was much more important than that.

(You'll get the reason for the spaghetti sometime later; it's too important to reveal at the moment.)

The spaghetti had to be absolutely delicious, so good that even his brother—who was lazy and only liked his food doused with unhealthy amounts of ketchup—would fall in love with his cooking. That's how good it had to be.

It had to be absolutely perfect.

He'd tried making spaghetti several times before, of course, to no avail; he'd tried them and they were, well, kinda really bad.

And so, he appealed to his good friend for help; she was the leader of the fencing club (I know; what kind of school has a fencing club? This guy's, apparently) and often finished in the top-three range of their class. His logic was that if she was so good at everything ("everything" being academics and athletics), then of course she'd be amazing at cooking, too.

They met after school at the girl's house, and he brought her a little gift—of course he did, he's a gentleman. They got right to the "lesson" (it was more like a normal cooking session for the guy, but with lots more yelling from his friend—he was considering bringing earplugs the next time he visited her) and when it was done, they both tasted the spaghetti.

It tasted burnt. Very burnt.

Both were completely confused; hadn't the spaghetti turned out fine? The noodles were cooked, the sauce was canned and had heated up perfectly, and there were no burnt spaghetti at the bottom of the pot...

Then he realized. When they had been boiling the water, he'd (somehow, beyond my reasoning) managed to accidentally burn the water. Subsequently, everything made with that water (the spaghetti and the sauce) tasted like it was burnt as well.

The girl apologized to her friend, saying she had encouraged him too much, but he shook it off and vowed to make the next batch better. Nothing could get him down! he shouted, and she joined him in boosting their egos.

On the way home, he realized that it was snowing. That it was February. That it was... the thirteenth of February.

Tomorrow was Valentine's day. Today was his absolute last day to get the spaghetti perfect.

Stepping into his kitchen at home and cracking his knuckles (while ignoring his brother's cringe as he did so), he got right down to work.

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Three hours later, nearing ten o'clock at night (an hour past his bedtime!), he managed to cook up the perfect batch of spaghetti. It tasted delicious. So good, in fact, that he might have... accidentally ate it all. All of it. Literally all of it. (Except maybe the paper plate.)

Whining at his loss, the boy decided to make another batch... but in the morning. He was tired.

Dragging his feet to his room, he collapsed in his racecar-shaped bed, dragging the checkered quilt over himself and snuggling in. Normally, he'd have his older brother read him a bedtime story, but he was so exhausted from making so many plates of spaghetti (they were really starting to pile up in his freezer...) that he fell right asleep.

That night, he dreamt of magical plates of spaghetti with wings, taunting him and saying how he'll never reach their level, how they're so much better than what he can make, etc., etc. He paid them no attention and vowed to wake up early the next morning.