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3rd Floor Common Room, Monday Evening

He had a mid-term tomorrow. In cooking.

Thus, it made perfect sense to him, to wind up in the common room and attempting to cook.

Well.

Attempted to decide what he'd attempt to cook. Miss Lulu had said they couldn't use the recipes from class. This... would probably end badly.

[Open as a common room is!]

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He'd had the same thought, but upon seeing another student in the kitchen, he smiled.

"Working out your recipes for tomorrow or just making dinner?" he asked curiously.

He wanted a distraction. This would be good. Cooking was always a good distraction.

"Both?" Makoto offered, somewhat pathetically, without turning around and making sure to sound like a girl, "At the moment hiding in my room and forgetting about the mid-term sounds like the best idea."

He could barely manage what they'd covered in class. This mid-term was going to be unfairly difficult in his opinion.

"That sounds good."

He settled at the counter, figuring that it would be out on the radio about his greeness by tonight, so it would be silly for him to avoid everyone.

"The dinner. The cooking. Why do you want to hide in your room, incidentally? I was doing that most of the day myself, but that's because the island is playing games with me."

Makoto blinked, glancing at the... oh. "The green?" he said. "I'm guessing that's the game. You're in Maths with me, and cooking."

He shrugged a bit. "I'm... cooking's hard. I'm not very good at it, so hiding sounds like a good idea." In fact 'not very good' was a complete understatement.

"Cooking's not that hard," he said, standing. "But if you'd like help, I'd be happy to help you with things. I am the teaching assistant for the class, after all."

He smiled crookedly.

"I promise the green isn't contagious."

Well, Andrew hadn't turned green anyway.

"I probably should've asked for help before this," he admitted, "but I think I'm getting the hang of what we cover in class. I try to make that at least once or twice ~~handwavily~~ outside of class just for practice. It's just that she's asked for things we haven't covered..."

Makoto had to smile at that. "That's good to hear," he said, "because otherwise I'd start to wonder if our entire class from this morning would turn green."

"My boyfriend is still the same color as when he came to visit. I'm sure."

He walked around to lean on the counter.

"If you're getting the hang of class, I'm sure that this should be simple enough.

"Is there anything you like to do? Anything you're particularly good at?"

"Breakfast?" Makoto said after thinking it over, "That was... it turned out edible even on the first try, though Miss Lulu did have to step in and keep the toaster from lighting itself on fire." Pause. "And soup. Because it's just adding things and stirring." And hoping for the best.

"Well, what were you thinking of doing for the class?" he asked. "Because I'm sure most of it has plenty in common to do with both of those."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I want to do this soup (http://www.recipezaar.com/286326)," Makoto said, offering Liir the printout he'd gotten from the internet, "because that doesn't sound so bad. And maybe this salad (http://www.recipezaar.com/278729) but I'm not sure it counts, entirely, as a salad. It's nothing at all like what we made in class. And I've got utterly no ideas for a main dish."

He looked at the two sheets.

"Well, you've got an astringent, light salad and a heavier, spiced soup. Neither of them have any meat, so perhaps you'd want to have meat as a main dish."

He quirked his lips.

"Nothing with too much sauce," he said thoughtfully. "Since you have the soup. Perhaps something grilled with vegetables? For balance?"

"Is balance important?" he asked, glancing through the other printouts he'd gotten to see if there was anything that suited that idea. "And, um, well, I've found that meat's pretty much the hardest thing to cook. I still can't get the bacon not to burn."

Which was, entirely, the fault of him having the temperature up too high.

"The trick with meat is slow cooking," he said. "Slow, even heat so that nothing burns and nothing is left raw."

He crossed his arms over his chest.

"And of course balance is important. Don't you dislike it when all the food you're eating tastes the same?" Not that he hadn't lived that until he'd taken over the cooking. "Or it's all one way or another? All saucy or all dry or all salty?"

Some he'd known. Other things, he'd learned from the private sessions with Miss Lulu.

...not those. The COOKING ones.

Cooking meat that way sounded really boring, but Makoto dutifully nodded and figured he might as well try it tomorrow. He didn't want to affect his grade or anything.

"... I guess?" Makoto looked sheepish, "I've never cooked before coming here. I never really thought about it or anything."

"I had to cook for the lot of us, so I learned to keep things relatively sane," he said.

As sane as it could be.

"Also, grilled dishes are relatively simple. Season the meat, grill the meat, serve the meat."

He rolled his eyes.

"You just have to make sure you don't burn it and keep it relatively moist."

He'd 'forget' that last one when he was annoyed with the Witch or with Nanny. He couldn't do much to express his displeasure about things, but a dry leg of lamb said all he couldn't.

"You say that like it's easy," Makoto sighed, "I'm trying, really, things just keep not working out even if on paper they seem pretty straight-forward."

Nonetheless he was planning to write down Liir's advice the moment he got back to his room. More cooking advice was never a bad thing.

"It's easy once you have some practice. It's just something you learn to feel out.

He quirked thoughtfully.

"You might try grilled beef," he said. "Since there's such a range of cooking levels that are still considered appropriate. Undercook it, and you can claim you made it 'bleu'. Overcook it and it's just 'well done'."

He looked up from going over his printouts. "I get 'well done', but why would undercooked meat be called 'bleu'?"

Not that it really mattered, he filed the word away anyway, just in case he needed it.

"I don't have the faintest idea. I read that's what you call it in a book."

He shrugged.

"I saw it in more than one book, though."

That got a laugh. "Good enough for me," Makoto declared, "especially if it's not just one book saying that. None of the books I checked out mentioned anything like that."

But then he'd been going through the really easy cook-books. Undercooked was a much more comprehensible term at his level.

That's the fun of beef!

"Well, it's just a thought. You do what you think is best. If you have any questions on what you're planning, though, feel free to ask."

Makoto nodded. "I'll keep what you said in mind though. It's helpful, thank you."

He glanced over, flicking a bit of long blonde hair out of his way as he did so. "Have you decided what you're making for tomorrow yet?"

He nodded.

"I planned it out while I was hiding in my room earlier," he said. "It was good to keep my mind off things."

"Does the green bother you that much, really?" Makoto asked. "You could try pretending that it's just a costume, or body-paint if that might make you more comfortable."

Rikku poked her head in the door. "Ooooh. Something smells interesting."

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3rd Floor Common Room, Monday Evening

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