Twisted-Wonderland: Our Precious Treasure (Part 1)

(34) TCT: Stirring Secrets!

"So, what are you planning to make?" Jonah asked as he turned off the tap and dried his hands. Currently, he and Senior Rosehearts were at the Heartslabyul Dorm's kitchen. Rosehearts was wearing a pink frilly apron, which he said he was borrowed from Senior Clover. And honestly, Jonah didn't know which one was funnier: the fact that Senior Clover had a frilly pink apron, or the fact Senior Rosehearts, the former Crimson Tyrant, was wearing that said apron and still had that poker face.

Rosehearts looked up. "Um..." He looked down at the cookbook he was holding, flipping the pages before stopping. "Strawberry tart? There's a recipe here." He walked up to Jonah and showed the recipe to Jonah.

Jonah skimmed through the recipe before nodded. "Yeah. We can make those," he said as he tied his white apron behind his back (because Senior Rosehearts said so). "Alright, let's look for the ingredients."

It turned into a fetch quest, looking for the ingredients around the kitchen: flour, butter, lemon, strawberries, and various other stuff. Jonah finally found the granulated sugar on the cupboard, but when he turned around he saw that Rosehearts was holding a small glass bottle in his hand. When he walked up to him, he saw that it was a bottle of Walrus-Brand Young Oyster Sauce. "Senior Rosehearts," Jonah said, raising an eyebrow. "We don't need oyster sauce."

"We don't?" Rosehearts turned his head toward him with a confused look. "But Trey said that a delicious tart always has oyster sauce as a secret ingredient..."

...

Oh.

OH...

Jonah quickly covered his mouth to cover his giggle. "Sweet Nebula, you nearly fell for that."

Rosehearts blinked nervously. "Eh? But it helped with you soup ...?"

"It does, but it won't work with dessert as well," Jonah said between his laugh. "Sure, we use salt to bring out the flavor, but the oyster sauce will be too strong for it."

"Oh." Rosehearts looked down to the oyster sauce. "Yeah..." He was smiling, followed by a laugh. "I'm so stupid."

Jonah stopped laughing, but his smile never left his face. "Okay, let's start." Rosehearts nodded and Jonah took the oyster sauce from his hand as he continued, "You can make the crust while I make the cream."

"Alright."

The two boys went to their stations. Jonah prepared a bowl to mix the custard. "How many tarts do you want to make?"

"Maybe, three," Rosehearts answered as he poured flour into the food processor. "It's only fair since we also have three tarts at the last party."

Jonah nodded. "That's understandable."

They did their job. Senior Rosehearts finished earlier and put the dough into the fridge. Jonah was whisking the cream as he poured the milk, while Riddle was cutting the strawberries.

"Here." Jonah walked up to Rosehearts with a spoon of the cream mixture. "Taste it."

Rosehearts took the spoon and put the tip into his mouth. The cream was sweet, a bit lemony, but it had a perfect consistency. "Hmm..." He licked his lips. "Taste great."

"Is it?" There was still a bit of cream on the spoon. Jonah then just put the whole spoon into his mouth.

Rosehearts' face immediately went red. "Wh-What are you doing?"

Jonah pulled the spoon out from his mouth. He started his senior confusedly. "Huh?"

"I just licked that!" he yelled, gesturing to the boy and spoon. "You can't just put that in your mouth! That's unsanitary!"