[Home Ec] Midorima Shintarou x Reader

*~Home Ec~*

How you got stuck with Shūtoku High's shooting guard after school baking a cake together was ultimately dependent upon three things. One, you were absent on the day of your Home Economics final. Two, Sensei was kind enough to give you one opportunity to make it up after school today. And Three, Midorima Shintarou, said shooting guard, friend *cough crush cough* of yours and fellow home ec student, couldn't bake or cook to save his life.

You pushed your (h/c) hair behind your ear as you tried to not despair over yet another charcoaled, mushy blob. Your partner had managed to somehow burn and undercook the cake batter at the same time.

"The directions said to bake it at 172 °C for forty minutes, so I thought baking it at 344 °C for twenty minutes would be more efficient, nanodayo."

"There's a reason you have to follow the instructions as written Midorima-kun," You pointed out while mentally facepalming.

For someone who was so smart, he could be quite dumb.

You sighed as you began to once again mix ingredients to make more batter. Looking over to the many bottles and containers you had spread out across the counter, you noticed that you had run out of vanilla extract from the many failed attempts.

No this can't be right. We need the extract to make the strawberry shortcake! Without the cake it's just cream and strawberries... And you could almost imagine the disaster that would happen if you two tried to turn that in.

Quickly scanning the counter and slightly panicking, you saw that there was a small bottle set quite far away from the other ingredients. Grabbing it, you read that it was vanilla extract and breathed out a sigh of relief.

A voice cut you off before you could even put the extract into the batter.

"And what do you think you're going to do with that (y/n)?" Midorima's deep voice questioned.

"Put it in the cake batter?"

He quickly grabbed the bottle out of your hand and looked at you with discontent.

"I don't think so, that's my lucky item."

You would've laughed at the irony if it weren't you in the situation. You had known about the shooting guard's quirky belief in Oha Asa and lucky items, often bringing a variety of random objects to his games in order to perform his best and never miss a shot.

You'd be damned if his admittingly endearing superstitions kept you from getting a good mark on your final.

"But we need that vanilla to make the cake!" you pleaded. Midorima clearly didn't look convinced and only held onto the bottle tighter.

"What if that's the purpose of your lucky item today? What if Oha Asa predicted that we would run out of vanilla, and your lucky item was destined to save the day? It could make the best strawberry shortcake in the world, and we would get the highest marks in the class!"

Midorima, on his part, looked like his mind was blown. "Use the lucky item nanodayo?"

In a last ditch attempt to convince the basketball player, you clasped your hands together and pleaded at him with large (e/c) eyes.

"Please Shin-chan?"

You could barely notice the red that was beginning to appear on his cheeks.

Midorima quickly went to fix his glasses with one hand and shoved the vanilla extract to you with the other, the glare from changing the position of his glasses prevented you from properly reading his expression.

You smiled and continued making the batter, pouring it into the mold, and putting it into the oven at the correct time and temperature.

After finishing, you turned back to face Midorima with a grin.

"Thanks for letting me use your lucky item Shin-chan!"

"Tch. I just wanted a good grade on the final. And don't call me Shin-chan!" he scolded. You began to laugh at his sudden coldness.

"Kazu-kun is right, you're such a tsundere! You care, admit it," you prodded at him.

He rolled his eyes and pulled a book from his book bag and began to read it while waiting for the cake to be done. You decided to let the topic go and take a short nap because after all that effort, you deserved it!

~Time Skip to 39 minutes later~

You awoke to Midorima poking your forehead, attempting to wake you up.

"Oi (y/n), I think the cake is done nanodayo."

"How long has it been?" you groggily question him.

"Around forty minutes."

"What?!" You jumped up, grabbed oven mitts, and took the cake out as fast as you could from the oven before it became burnt.

Luckily for the both of you, Midorima's lucky item seemed to live up to its name because the cake was perfect. It looked so good you wanted to cry; your efforts had finally paid off. No lie.

You flipped it out of its mold and got the cream and strawberries you two were supposed to decorate it with.

"You can handle decorating a cake, right Shin-chan?"

"Tch, yes I can handle decorating a cake."

"No need for the attitude, it's not like you can easily make a cake Shin-chan." you joked.

"Shut up nanodayo."

You laughed and cut the cake into two layers, then spread the whipped icing and cut strawberries on top of one of the layers, and put the other layer on top of that. Happy with the basics of the cake being finished, you grabbed a bowl of sweet cream and some of the rest of the strawberries and handed them to Midorima.

"I'm not going to do all the work, you have to help," you told him, grabbing some cream and strawberries of your own.

Midorima went next to you so he could reach the cake better. You took a spatula and started icing the cake; Midorima tried to mimic your actions but didn't quite get the technique down. He wasn't covering much of the cake, actually he got a lot more of the cream on the counter.

"How do you spread the cream like that?" he asked.

"Well it's quite ea-" your words were cut off by the sound of you accidently splattering some of the cream from your spatula on his face when you quickly turned to face him.

"Shin-chan...what are you going to do with that cream..."

Midorima had dipped his spatula in his bowl of cream and had a giant glob of icing steadily approaching you. He proceeded to spread it on your face.

"Mrrf."

"I think I've got the hang of it now," he stated with a smug smirk on his face. You angrily wiped the icing off of your eyes and mouth.

"No," you said while grabbing your own bowl of cream, "it's more like this."

And with that you shoved your bowl into his face, effectively covering it with cream. You took a strawberry from your pile, swiped it across his cheek, and ate it.

"Delicious," you claimed with a cheeky grin.

Midorima took his glasses off, wiped them clean, put them back on and looked at you with a deadly stare.

"I see," he began. He held your shoulder, keeping you in place; he took his own bowl of cream and shoved it in your face.

"Like this then."

He took a strawberry, swiped up the icing that was across your lips, and ate it.

"You're right, it does taste good," he informed you with a smirk.

You blushed and quickly turned back to finishing decorating the cake. You used what was left of the icing and arranged the strawberries prettily on top.

Finally, the cake was done.

And, to both you and Midorima's chagrin, Sensei strolled into the classroom soon after that.

"I'm not going to ask," Sensei said upon seeing both of your icing covered faces. She proceeded towards the finished cake in front of you two and cut a slice out with a knife from the counter.

"This might be the best cake ever produced from this classroom!" Sensei exclaimed. She eagerly finished the slice of cake she had and quickly had another slice.

"You two get the highest marks on the final," she informed with a grin. You turned to Midorima and engulfed him in a hug, a bit out of character but you were elated from the good news. Midorima in turn patted your head.

Sensei cut some slices for you and Midorima to eat and left the classroom.

"Sensei was right, this is really good. And I'm not usually one for sweets," Midorima stated.

"Mmm," you agreed with a mouthful of strawberries and cake.

"You still owe me for the lucky item (y/n). And since you have eaten the cake and technically the lucky item, you're going to be my substitute lucky item. You'll follow me around for the rest of the day today nanodayo."

"Is this your tsundere way of asking me out?" you questioned.

"Tch, no," Midorima replied as he busied himself with finishing the rest of his cake.

However, you noticed the slight dusting of pink on his face and smiled while taking another bite of cake.