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One thing Akiko had quickly realized was that Aiko liked the food he made. Whenever he brought food, she always wanted to eat it. She also seemed to like to beg him for food. It came to a point where he always knew she would want food when they hung out together.
Currently they were studying together at Aiko's house where Akiko, as usual, brought food. Akiko had made tortilla con queso for them to eat together.
"This is so good!" Aiko said as she took a bite. "How'd you make this?"
"It was pretty easy, Ai," Akiko said. Akiko liked making grilled cheese (it was his favourite food actually) and grilled cheese and tortilla con queso had a very similar and simple recipe.
Akiko started thinking there; Aiko likes food, right? Why not teach her? After they finished studying, Akiko asked her.
"Hey, would you want me to teach you how to cook?" Akiko asked her as he grabbed his stuff. "You like agedashi tofu, right? I know how to make that, I could teach you."
"Really?" she asked flustered. "I've tried before, and I almost ruined my kitchen! I made a grease fire, Aki," she said that last part sadly. She would have loved to cook with Akiko, but she was horrible at it! She sadly wasn't lying about the grease fire – the only reason her kitchen survived was thanks to her dad.
"Well," Akiko said, "If that happens again, you have me. Plus, if that does happen, I'll just take the fire in, it'll make me more energized."
That only made Aiko more worried. She was trying to make excuses to not cook together (no matter how much she wanted), but that clearly wasn't working.
"How about next weekend?" Akiko asked.
"Oh! Okay," Aiko worriedly said.
—
Next thing Aiko knew, it was the next weekend, and she was trying to figure out which room in the apartment building was Akiko's. She tried to subtly dress as nice as possible; she wore a nice floral sundress and she thought about wearing nice jewelry but decided against it because to her it would be too much. She thought she found the right room, then knocked on the door. It didn't take long for the door to open to reveal… no one?
"One second!" Akiko shouted from somewhere.
Aiko just stood in the hallway, not knowing where to go; she'd never been at Akiko's home before, but she liked how the hall looked. There was a mirror on the wall right next to the door where Aiko checked how she looked, leading her to her fixing her bubble braids a bit.
There was a small table with a dish on top of it that had a single key chain in it; Aiko figured it must have been Akiko's since he said his brother would be out at work. Aiko thought the key chain looked nice, it had two keys, a moon charm and a red feather charm.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Akiko apologized walking into the hallway. Aiko felt a bit over dressed because Akiko wore his pyjamas – a simple dark gray t-shirt that had a sort of rainbow design and plaid patterned pyjama pants. "You look really nice," he said smiling. "You can just put your shoes in the closet."
Akiko walked to the closet and opened it to show her all the shoes on the floor. Aiko put her shoes next to the boots she recognized because Akiko wore them to school every day.
"Are you thirsty?" Akiko asked. "It's pretty hot out and I know we don't live very close."
"Yeah, that'd be nice, thank you," she said and followed him to the kitchen.
Akiko went into the cupboard and grabbed a glass, then went to the fridge to grab the water jug and gave Aiko a glass of cold water. After he did that, Akiko grabbed everything they would need. She saw him grab a lot of things and she wondered if he had to get anything for this or if he already had them.
She decided to look around the room; the living room and kitchen were connected, only separated by a counter that had two stools on it (Aiko guessed it was used as a kitchen table). There were a lot of pictures on the walls as well. Aiko thought they all looked nice. The walls of the whole apartment were a nice light blue, like the colour of the sky on a nice Summer's day.
"Alright," Akiko said, causing Aiko to look at him. "I chose to make it using medium firm tofu because it won't be as hard as if we used silken tofu. Come here, and I'll show you what to do."
Aiko walked over to the kitchen, put her now empty glass on the counter, hoping that wouldn't he a horrible place to put it, and stood next to Akiko, not knowing what to do yet.
"So," Akiko started, "The first thing you do is wrap the tofu in paper towel and place it on this cutting board."
Aiko grabbed the tofu and carefully wrapped it in paper towel, then placed it onto the cutting board. "What next?" she asked.
"Next you place another one on top," Akiko said as he bent down and grabbed another cutting board. Aiko did as he said and placed the second cutting board on top. "Now, we have to press the tofu," Akiko said, putting his hand out to have a heavy book (it had to be over 500 pages, based only on the size) dropped into it by one of his feathers. "Just let it sit – that'll drain the water out of the tofu, it should take the rest of the time while we make the tsuyu sauce. Start by putting a saucepan on the stove."
Aiko did as he said and put the saucepan on the stove while Akiko turned it on.
"Now add…" he looked at his phone. "240 millilitres of dashi, then 30 millilitres of soy sauce and 30 millilitres of mirin into the saucepan."
Aiko did as he said (with him having to repeat the measurements a few times) and then let the sauce simmer. Once the sauce reached a simmer, Akiko turned off the heat and let it sit there on the stove.
"Now, we have to make the toppings – or actually just prepare them," Akiko said. "We have to prepare the green onions, daikon and ginger. I'm gonna cut the onions, and you can peel and grate the daikon and the ginger."
Aiko couldn't help but feel happy that she wouldn't have to go anywhere near a knife since Akiko had grabbed a vegetable peeler and gave it to her. Akiko got to cutting the green onions while Aiko started peeling the daikon.
While peeling the daikon, she got to thinking about the decorations in Akiko's home. A part of her thought there would be more in Akiko's apartment but there wasn't. There were a few pictures on the walls, but beyond that, there was almost nothing in terms of decorations.
A part of her was surprised that Akiko lived in an apartment in the first place. With Akiko's brother being the #3 hero in the country, she would have thought they'd live in a nicer place than an apartment in a busy part of Kyoto. But she could also tell that the place was undeniably the home of Akiko and his brother, with pictures of the two of them on the walls and mantel and she could see Hawks' headphones on the counter as well as a spare pair of gloves for him.
It felt very homely to her. It made her feel more comforted. When she was invited over, she was worried that Akiko's home would be a very fancy place and she would feel out of place, but when she looked around, you almost couldn't tell it was the home of one of the top heroes of Japan.
Once she finished up with the daikon and ginger, she saw that Akiko had also finished with the green onions.
"We just have to set them aside for now," he said. "I know you said you had trouble with heat, so I can just deal with the oil." Akiko grabbed the oil and started heating it up.
"I like how it's decorated here," Aiko told him.
"Really?" he asked. "Normally people I invite over think it's bland. I know that it's not much, but me and my brother prefer to have it not cluttered at all."
"Is there a reason behind that?" she asked.
"I grew up not having much," he said as he checked the temperature of the oil. "Because of that, I know the value of having things. Some people don't realize how lucky they are with what they have until it's gone. Or, in my case, until you now have a lot when you didn't have much." He looked at her and his eyes went wide then he looked back to the oil and cut the tofu into pieces as he said, "Sorry about my, sort of, sob story there. I just think it's important to notice the value in things, and I find that a lot of people don't, and that's why there's so little decoration in here. We both know the value of having things, so we know it's more important to have few things you care about rather than a lot of things you couldn't care less about."
With Akiko saying that, it made Aiko think that she may have not appreciated what she has enough.
Next thing she knew, Akiko had plated the tofu. "And now, we have successfully made our first agedashi tofu together!" Akiko announced as he held out two bowls. He put the two bowls on the counter in front of each stool as well as chopsticks next to each bowl.
This made Aiko see Akiko as more human than before. Aiko always knew he was someone behind the mask of 'Hawks' younger brother', but this really humanized him.
"Sorry," Akiko said as he sat down. "I shouldn't've brought that up."
"No, it's okay," Aiko said as followed him and sat in the stool next to him. "I think it's important that I know about you – since we're friends and all. And I think that I do sometimes take things for granted, so it's a good lesson to learn."
Akiko smiled at her and took a bite of his tofu. "I personally don't think it's something sad, but I've been told that it's pretty sad," he said. "It doesn't matter. I don't have to live like that anymore."
"There's a lot more to you than people think," Aiko said as she took a bite, realizing how good the tofu was. "I think a lot of people don't look too deeply into who you are, and I think it's important to know who you are beyond what everyone thinks."
"You think I'm overlooked?" Akiko asked. "If anything, people look too much at me, just because of who my family is." His fingers had found the black gloves on the table and absently started playing with them, the food momentarily forgotten. "People think they know who I am better than I do."
"I just think people need to get to know the real you," Aiko said. "If they knew who you really were, I don't think they'd think they know you better than yourself; and for the record, I think no one knows you better than you do."
"That's more true than you think," Akiko said sadly, picking up his chopsticks again and eating another piece of tofu. "Do you want to know a secret? You can't tell anybody about this. I'm serious." To Aiko's nod, he continued. "There's a reason not much is known about me and my brother. It's because the commission didn't want the public to know certain things."
"You're in a training program at the commission, right?" Aiko asked. She remembered hearing about that program; the whole point of it, and why the public thought it was good, was because it took children from less fortunate families and turned them into heroes if they had enough potential, which Akiko most definitely had.
"I used to be and that's what it was disguised as," Akiko said, very calmly as if he wasn't explaining a secret about a very important government organization. "It– this is a lot, so just bear with me. That program was a front for a human trafficking scheme. The commission bought all the kids in the program from their parents, including me and my brother." Akiko paused for a second, given Aiko a moment to process what she was just told. "Another secret about me and my brother is our dad. Our father wasn't on the right side of the law – nowhere near it, hence why he was arrested. He was arrested when I was five and I was sent to the commission following his that because the rest of my family was either dead or out of the country. They gave my dad some money for parental rights of me."
Aiko couldn't help but wonder, what the hell happened to him? He was what? How is he so calm about this?
"I trained there for almost 12 years," he said calmly. "That was until me and my brother left the commission. It was a lot of fighting on our part, but we left. Honestly, I thought it would be a lot more to get away, but it seems like they were almost happy to get rid of us. But that's probably because I caused a lot of trouble. I'm still surprised by how quiet we were able to be and how the media never got a hold of it. Well, I guess people at the commission wouldn't want the media to see them so badly. Luckily, we don't have to worry so much about it anymore," he smiled as he finished. "The commission's been a big part of my life for years, so I'm happy to be free now. After what happened, the commission lost parental rights over me and they were instead given to my brother since Dad's still in prison." He paused again, letting Aiko process again. Then he smiled a mischievous smile. "You know, Matsubara isn't my name."
"It's not?" she asked. "What is?"
"My name is actually Akiko Takami," he confessed.
After some thought, Aiko said, "I think, if you can get through that, you can get through anything."
"Thank you,” Akiko said with a nice smile on his face. "You're a really good friend and an amazing person, Ai."
That day, Aiko realized that her crush wasn't on Akiko Matsubara, younger brother of the #3 hero, Hawks, but was instead on Akiko Takami, her friend.