Yeah...this was a birthday fic for my friend, .Ink.Infinity. and it's a week late. Of course, she had to have her birthday on the busiest week of he entire year for me...Fun. So, a week overdue, without further ado, I present to thee, Birthday Cake.

Disclaimer: There's a reason they call this place "Fan Fiction..." but no, I do not own it. It must be so disappointing. I own Ink, though.

- Birthday Cake -

Kurama had a problem.

Well, more or less, he always had one (that's what you get letting a century old fox demon inhabit your unborn body) but that could be ignored, in time.

This one had to be dealt with quickly. Time was running short.

His friend, Ink (known only to her friends – Kurama was a very close one) was turning one year older. Overhearing her expressing the wish for a homemade chocolate cake, he immediately set off to make her one.

It was turning out to be harder than expected. Especially when you throw a clueless-to-human-things fire demon into the mix.

Now, with the kitchen a mess (said fire demon being the cause of most of it) Kurama didn't know what to think.

And then, when he thought things couldn't get possibly worse, he heard the doorbell rang, and the front door of his house opening, and following that was the cheery voice of none other than Ink.

Of course, upon hearing her voice, Hiei, who thought she was as annoying as the ferry girl, Botan, flitted out the window, leaving the red-headed fox in the middle of a mess of raw eggs, flour, sugar, and cake mix.

Ink walked into the kitchen, revealing herself to Kurama. Short black hair, indigo eyes, and the usual mischievous smile completed her look.

"Ohmigosh!" she exclaimed, seeing the mess. She pushed bangs out of her face (a nervous habit of hers) and eyes widened upon seeing the state of the normally-very-neat Kurama and company: the kitchen.

Kurama just sighed, wondering how in the world he had gotten into this mess (literally) in the first place.

Oh, right, it had started with Hiei. Who wasn't there anymore.

"What are you trying to do, fox?" Hiei's bored tone shattered the silence Kurama had been recently enjoying, however scarce that moment was.

"I'm trying to bake a cake, Hiei. Ink's birthday is coming up soon, remember? This is for her; you'd like it almost as much as ice cream, it's very sweet. Care to help?" Those last three words were three that he would never ask Hiei again. Never.

"Hn." The red-eyed Hiei moved from the door-way to stand next to Kurama, who, he noticed, had his hair up in a pony-tail. Only his bangs (which wouldn't tuck into the band) were hanging down in his face.

"What did you do to your hair, fox?" he asked in a bored tone, not exactly caring much for the answer.

"I put my hair up so it wouldn't get in any of the cake batter," the kitsune replied, getting pans and various things for a cake recipe.

He pulled out a small blue recipe book, flipping through the pages.

"Aha!" he cried softly, landing on page forty-eight. It was entitled "Basic Chocolate Cake."

"Hiei, could you please go to the fridge"–he pointed over to where it was–"and get me two eggs please?"

Hiei did as he was told, while Kurama retrieved the rest of the components to the recipe – baking soda, the bottle of vanilla extract, and the cocoa powder.

The red-head walked around the mahogany table to a cupboard, pulling out the bag of sugar, and then walked to the other side of the room for the bag of flour. Hiei, on the other hand, set the eggs on the table next to the package of sugar, and his eyes widened as he saw how they rolled around the table. Mystified, he gave one a push, and it fell off the edge, plummeting to the floor. He gave a startled yelp and dove for it, catching it near centimeters from the tile. His foot hit the table in the process, and the package of sugar gave a shuddering wobble before spilling half of its contents right over Hiei's head.

"Hn." His eyes narrowed while trying to shake the pieces of white out of his hair, while Kurama spun around to see what happened. He sighed, exasperated, at what he saw.

"Please tell me you didn't just spill the sugar all over you," Kurama moaned softly, pinching the bridge of his nose with his index finger.

"…I didn't," Hiei smirked. Kurama rolled his eyes.

"No matter, we still have enough."

"Fine."

"I'll clean it up in a minute. Just…don't do anything."

"Fine."

Kurama set the bag down on the counter towards Hiei, who lifted up his other hand to try to get the sugar out of his inky hair. Of course, that hand was the one holding the egg he had caught, and he dropped it, sending it crashing to the floor where it landed with a sickening splat!

With a sigh, Kurama raked a hand through his hair. "Hiei," he said slowly, "could you go and get me the washcloth from the sink, please?" Hiei stood up, and tried to run over to the sink, but slipped on the sticky gooey eggey mess. He slid into Kurama, who tripped and backed up into the bag of flour. It fell over into the cocoa powder, and the entire mix fell onto Kurama, who promptly toppled to the floor onto Hiei. Now, with a cocoa-powdered face and white hair, he turned to face Hiei.

"It never ceases to amaze me how messy you can make things in such a short span of time."

He gave a "Hn," and turned away. Then the doorbell rang.

"Kurama-kun?" Ink was standing over him, a concerned expression on her pale face. He was shaken out of his reverie to look up at her. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he stated, pushing hair out of his eyes, scowling when flour flew into his face and the air around him. She giggled. "What?" he asked.

"It's just that you really look like Youko Kurama with that hair color," she giggled harder. Catching a glance in the reflection of the stove, he received a shock. It was a bit shorter, but it really looked white – or silver, from the illusion the oven gave off.

"So tell me," she asked, standing up and leaning against the counter, wary of the mess of ingredients, "what happened to make the ever-so-neat Kurama turn his kitchen into looking like…like…Hiei happened to it?"

"You answered your own question there," he stated dryly. She laughed.

She cast a quick glance around the room again. "Why don't you get cleaned up?" she suggested. "I'll try to clean this mess. Where is Hiei anyway?"

"He left about three seconds before you entered this hell." A corner of his lip curved upward.

"What were you trying to do?"

"Bake a cake."

"Why?"

He only smiled mysteriously, and turned, walking out of the room. She, thinking it was for Shiori, smiled and began to ponder how she would ever clean this room up.

One shower later, Kurama was standing in the bathroom blow-drying his hair when Ink knocked on the door. "Come in," he called, and the door opened.

"It's clean," she said brightly. He laughed at her optimism. "Are you sure?" he asked. "It's only been a half hour since I walked upstairs."

She shrugged. "All I had to do really was wash the floors and counters."

He shut off the hair-dryer and picked up a brush, running it through his hair a few times, while raising an eyebrow. "And that took less than a half hour?"

"Yep."

"I'll take your word." He set down the brush, turning off the bathroom light, and walked out, but not before running his fingers through his long tresses to make sure the flour was really out.

Back in the kitchen, Kurama did have to gape at how clean she had made it in the limited amount of time she'd had. It almost sparkled; the counters were wiped down and washed, the flour was clean from the egg's interior, and new ingredients were lined up on the counter away – thankfully – from the edge.

She waved the little blue recipe book in front of Kurama's face. "I'm guessing you'd like to bake a chocolate cake?"

"Yes." He still couldn't get over how his kitchen looked.

"Do you want help?"

He had to think about that for a minute. The last time he had asked for help, it had turned into a disaster. But that was Hiei. This was Ink. They were two different people. His eyes closed, and then opened again before he answered. "If you'd like to, then yes."

"All right, let's get to work." Offering him a hair elastic, they rolled their sleeves up and set to work.

She mixed the cocoa power and the vanilla together while he beat the butter in the mixer. Looking to see what he was doing, she flitted over and sprinkled the sugar in the bowl and they cracked the eggs together, hands bumping as they tried to catch all the yellowy liquid in the bowl. She tried to whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt, but ended up spilling half of it on the counter. He sighed, and continued while she fetched a washcloth.

"I'm no got at whisking," she apologized.

"It's nothing," he chuckled, and flicked a bit of the batter at her. She laughed.

They finished the batter and set it in the oven. Kurama sighed in relief and flopped with grace into a kitchen chair, with Ink following. Grabbing a timer, he turned the knob to the "thirty" place.

"What are we going to be doing for thirty minutes?" she sighed impatiently.

"I'm not sure. Would you like some lemonade?" he asked politely.

"Sure. Oh, I know what we can do! First, get me lemonade," she ordered. He did as asked.

"All right," she said immediately when the two glasses were set down on the table, "I know a game we can play." She pulled a quarter out of her pocket. "Here are the rules: I throw a coin in the air, you call out whether it's heads or tails. It tests our sixth sense."

"Is that all you can think of?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes," she sighed dejectedly. "But are you backing away from a challenge, Kurama?" He knew she was teasing him.

"Of course not." And it began.

So it went on, each taking turns to flip the coin. Kurama ended up with one-hundred sixty-seven right, Ink with one-hundred sixty-six.

"If I win, we're tied," she grinned.

"And so will be the tiebreaker," Kurama said smoothly. He tossed the coin up in the air. She shouted "heads" just as the timer rang.

Kurama caught the coin while pressing the switch. "So what did it land on?" she asked.

"Heads."

"Yes!" she shouted jovially.

"The cake is done," he pointed out.

She blushed, remembering that she had forgotten about it. "Whoops."

He pulled the cake out of the oven and set it on the cooling rack, prying the dessert out of the pan.

"Are we going to frost it?" she asked, her impatient nature showing once more. When it cooled, he handed her a knife and some chocolate frosting.

"Chocolate frosting? I love chocolate frosting!"

"I know." Kurama took a bit of the fluffy mixture and dabbed a bit on her nose. Huffing, her tongue poked out trying to reach for it while looking cross-eyed to see it. He laughed at how childish she looked.

They eventually covered the entire chocolate cake in frosting, and she inquired, "Are you going to sign it?" to which he held up a pastry bag filled with purple frosting.

"What are you writing?" she whined, for Kurama turned so she couldn't see the cake, only his back and long scarlet hair.

"You'll see," she heard his quiet reply from in front of her.

When he turned, she opened her mouth to make some rude comment about not being able to help, when he looked down at the cake. Her mouth opened into an "O".

Written on the cake so very neatly in cursive were the words "Happy Birthday Ink," and she gasped, then laughed.

"Kurama, why would you keep this a secret from me?" she inquired.

"Because I wanted it to be a secret," he said simply.

"Oh. Thank you so much!" She moved forward to hug him trying to be careful not to touch the dessert.

Though his face was now pressed into her hair, she still heard the soft "I know."

Please, take the time to review! I write really long reviews, and that doesn't take much time! I like to read short ones too. Thank you.