A/N: Beta read by Oakleaf. Enjoy!
Cooking?
Ryan Maes Mustang glanced at the clock hanging above his bedroom door. The hour hand was pointed at number eleven while its minute hand was at number three. Eleven fifteen in the morning. His stomach was making noises and felt weird. Those symptoms only meant one thing. He was hungry. He needed something to fill in his stomach and he needed it very fast. The five year old jumped out his bed and made his way to the biggest room in the house. His parents'.
Ryan shoved the door. His father was still sleeping even though the sun was already high up in the sky. Ryan sighed. Daddy must be tired, he thought, but I want to eat. Well, daddy has to wake up whether he likes it or not.
"Daddy," Ryan nudged Roy's ribs several times. Roy barely responded to the call by grunting. Ryan shook him but the Fuhrer of Ametris was in a deep sleep. He called him again, shook him vigorously and Ryan even made the alarm clock go off at its maximum volume near Roy's ear but the Flame Alchemist gave no reaction. Ryan sighed. No wonder mummy always emptied a round of chalk bullets every single morning. His daddy was unbelievably hard to wake up.
"DADDY! MUMMY'S GOING TO SHOOT YOU WITH HER REAL GUN IF YOU DON'T WAKE UP!" It was Ryan's last resort and luckily it worked.
The famous Flame Alchemist quickly jumped to his feet, saying "I'M UP!" at the same time. His onyx eyes scanned the room for the deadly gun that belonged to his wife but he saw none. No wife, no gun, no nothing except for a young boy standing beside his bed. The boy had a lopsided grin on his face. Roy sighed. This kid sure knows how to wake him from his deepest, most wanted sleep.
"What is it Ryan?" Roy sat back on his bed, yawning as he did so. Man, he was still tired from last night's workload. How he wished he could get another few hours of good sleep, but his child had woken him up. Well, he is Ryan's father and it is his responsibilities to take care of the child.
"I want to eat. I'm hungry," Ryan replied without feeling slightly guilty about waking his daddy up. He was hungry right? And he needed to eat or he would feel weird and grumpy all day.
"Go ask your mummy for food then…"
"She's working, remember? And mummy says I cannot go to the kitchen if no adult comes with me," he stated. It was a rule that Riza made to make sure that her child wouldn't endanger himself with all the sharp/fragile things in the kitchen.
Roy almost groaned. Why did his Riza have to go to work on weekend? He was definitely going to change the rules about working on weekends.
"What do you want to eat?" Roy asked as he ransacked his brain for any simple recipe to work on. He wasn't really a cook, even when he was still a bachelor. He either ate at the cafeteria, bought some instant food or asked his, then-Lieutenant, to fix something for him. After all, Riza was his babysitter.
"Pancakes?"
"Pancakes huh? Okay. Let me wash my face first." Pancakes were easy to make, right? You only need to throw in some flour, an egg and mix it with some salt and a cup or so of water. It was a piece of cake. That was what Roy first thought. How wrong he was.
In the spotless kitchen.
"Ryan, can you get me the pancake mixture from the cupboard?"
"Okay~ We're going to have pancakes!" and the kid continued chirping about a breakfast food called 'pancakes.' Kids, especially Ryan's age, love the easy to make breakfast meal due to the yummy golden coloured syrup poured on top of the hot cakes.
Roy smiled at his son's cheerful reaction. The child then walked over to his father and handed Roy a box of pancake flour. Roy took it and thanked Ryan. The adult then took a big bowl and quickly poured the contents without measuring it. He grabbed a couple of eggs, cracked them into the bowl, poured a cup of water into the batter and as dense as person could be, a tablespoon of salt. He then mixed the mixture in the bowl before he took a griddle and put it on the stove.
"Daddy, are you sure the batter should look like this? Mummy's was different," muttered Ryan as he took a ladleful of the mixture and poured it back to the bowl. It was different from mummy's, definitely. The batter was very viscous and it somehow smelled weird.
"I think so. The picture looks the same, right?" Roy compared his mixture of pancakes with the image from the box. They looked almost the same. Ryan just shrugged it off. He didn't really care whether it looked like mummy's or not. He was hungry and that was all he cared about.
So it began. Roy flicked on the stove (he was desperately wanted just to snap using his alchemy, but somehow, his gut told him not to). He poured some oil on the griddle and when it was hot enough, Roy carefully poured a ladleful of mixture on it. Then, they waited. Waited, a considerably long time for a pancake to cook.
"I think it's burnt already," Ryan stated when he smelled the burning odour in the air.
"But it's not cooked, yet. See, there are still some bubbles on it," Roy pointed out.
"Don't you have to flip it? Mummy always flips the cakes when the bubbles appear."
Roy, sceptical about his son's statement, took a spatula and quickly turned the cake over. Sure enough, the other side was charcoal black already.
"It's burnt. You have to make another one," Ryan said.
Roy sighed. He put the burnt pancake on a plate before returning to the griddle and poured another ladleful of mixture. This time, he only waited around a minute before flipping it. He didn't want to burn another pancake and he was also hungry .
"One pancake's ready to be served!" Roy announced. Ryan quickly snatched a plate and handed it to his father. After his father had placed the hot cake on the plate, Ryan took a bottle of maple syrup from the fridge and poured a great amount of it on the hot cake. He grabbed a fork and quickly took a bite.
Roy looked intently at his son. This was his first time cooking for someone else and he did wonder whether he did okay or not. Unfortunately, not. Ryan suddenly formed a frown, as he, with difficulty, chewed on the pancake.
"What's wrong?"
"It tastes…weird."
Roy arched an eyebrow. Taste weird. A pancake couldn't taste weird right? At least not if you used a premix pancake mixture. Roy took the fork from his son, cut a bite size of the hot cake before he stuffed it into his mouth. It tasted normal. Sweet and yummy, but as soon as Roy chewed, the hidden taste of his cooking burst out. Salty. Pancakes surely did not taste this salty! It tasted like he had mixed the batter with sea water! Roy spat out the salty pancake.
"It's salty," Roy said. The kid nodded his head. Roy looked over his shoulder to the mixture.
"I guess that lot cannot be used anymore," Roy continued.
"Can we make another lot?"
"No. We ran out of the mixture already…"
"But I'm hungry! Can we have the noodles in cups?" Ryan eyes lit up, almost pleading for his father to nod. But Roy knew the consequences that he will face if he gave Ryan instant noodles for breakfast. The wrath of Riza Mustang. The thought alone sent shivers down Roy's spine. He shook his head to answer his son's question.
"You know what will happen if I give those noodles to you."
"But mummy doesn't have to know," Ryan pleaded. Roy shook his head.
"Your mummy always knows Ryan. I don't think it's healthy either. C'mon, let's find something else," and the father and son marched to the fridge.
They searched the fridge for something to eat. They would settle for any kind of food that Roy could reheat back for their breakfast, or at least to disperse their hunger until Riza came back later this evening. But there was none. Their fridge was filled with raw food which required cooking to make them edible. However, like you have read above, our beloved Colonel, I mean Fuhrer, had no talent in cooking at all.
"What are we going to eat? My tummy is already making weird noises daddy," Ryan whined. Roy was lost in thought. He couldn't cook, he couldn't give his son the instant food, and there was not a piece of single bread in the house. They also had used their last eggs for making the 'salty' pancakes. Looking around the kitchen, Roy saw nothing to cook or at least reheat for their breakfast. He heaved a sigh. Well, they had to eat something.
"I think we can grab some noodles. But you must never ever tell your mum about this!" Roy finally gave in.
The child's amber eyes lit up when Roy mentioned the instant food. A smile grew on his face as he nodded. Ryan quickly went to the cupboard to find the food he loved so much while Roy boiled some water.
"Daddy, I think we have a problem…"
"What is it?"
"We don't have instant noodles anymore…"
"Have your search the cupboard thoroughly?"
"Yes, but there is none. Mummy must have hidden it… What are we going to eat?"
Roy was completely lost. They didn't even have any instant food. 'We are going to die because of hunger!' Roy mentally slapped himself for that thought. No one can die of starvation in a day, especially not the Fuhrer of Ametris.
"I guess we have to fill our stomach with drink only. We have to wait for mummy to come home honey. I'm sorry!" said Roy. He felt USELESS.
So our beloved Fuhrer mixed up some heavy chocolate drink (which he knew that would, at least, make the hunger disappear for a moment or so). They drank their 'breakfast' before retreating to the living room to waste their time until mummy came back.
A few hours after that…
Riza twisted the knob and let herself in. It was almost three pm and she had just finished her weekend work. The so called work was actually tutoring a group of new cadets in shooting targets. Some were quite good while the others…well, Ryan could shoot better than them.
"Riiiizaaaaa~ We arrreee huunnngggrryyyy~ Maaaakkeee something pleeeaassee." The whining of Roy Mustang almost made Riza jumped out of her skin.
Riza moved her gaze to the living room. Sure enough, Roy and Ryan were lying on the carpeted floor and they looked pale. Hungry, actually. Very hungry.
"Didn't you guys grab some breakfast?" she asked them.
"Daddy only made chocolate drink for breakfast. He cannot cook. He's useless and I'm huunngggrryyy~" Ryan also whined. Like father like son.
Riza managed a chuckle for them. "Useless huh?" the word seemed to be the first word to explain who Roy was. A useless.
She took off her heavy military jacket and brought a bag of fresh groceries that she just managed to buy to the kitchen. She was thinking about resting her tired body first when she came to the drive way, but seeing the pathetic state her family was in, she knew she had to fix something for them, pronto. She took out some more ingredients from the fridge. A moment later, you could see and hear General Riza Mustang showing off her expertise in the field of cooking.
Fifteen minutes later,
"Guys, your food is ready!" Upon hearing those words, both father and son scrambled to the kitchen.
On the table, were three plates filled with food. Edible and tasty food. The two males didn't waste a second. They quickly sat on their chairs, grabbed the nearest spoon and fork, and then attacked their food. Riza was quite amused by their speed of eating. If both father and son entered an eating competition, they were surely going to win it. Well, they were very hungry. After half the food on their respective plates was gone into their empty stomachs, they finally began eating properly.
"Aren't you hungry?" Roy eventually noticed that his beloved wife wasn't eating. She was observing them eating, with her food untouched.
Riza laughed lightly. "I'm already full seeing you and Ryan eating. You're very hungry, aren't you?"
"Yes! We only had some chocolate drink…" Ryan intervened before he took another spoonful of his food.
Riza turned her full attention to her husband.
"Why didn't you make some pancakes? I think we still have the mixture in the cupboard."
"I… Well, I kinda put too much salt in it." Roy smiled sheepishly at his wife.
"Yeah, daddy's pancakes tasted weird. He also burnt one of them! I wanted to eat the instant noodles but first daddy said no. But when he said yes, there were no more noodles," Ryan said which caused the Flame Alchemist to pale a bit. Riza surely going to kill him for letting their child eat instant food for breakfast, albeit he didn't give any since there was none.
Instead of showing her anger, Riza was actually laughed at her son's statement. "He burnt the pancake?" Ryan nodded. "And he wanted to give you instant noodles?" Ryan nodded again.
"Well, I want to, but you hid the noodles right?" Roy tried to defend himself.
"I didn't. You finished them off last week when you got hungry one night," Riza replied nonchalantly.
"You ate them? All of them?" Ryan's eyes widened, unbelievably that his father had the power to eat all three cups of instant noodles in one night.
"I did? I forgot…" Roy scratched the back of his head, feeling embarrassed that he just accused his wife for hiding food that he already ate.
Riza sighed. Roy could be so forgetful sometime. No matter how frustrated she was, this was still her family. Her beloved family, with a loving, sweet, sometime childish husband and a son by the name of Ryan Maes Mustang. She loved them from the bottom of her heart.
"I'm sorry," Roy muttered, making innocent puppy eyes at his wifeHe knew that Riza sometimes felt disheartened with his silly actions.
"It's alright. I forgive you. Now eat your food," Riza managed a laugh for him. Gosh, those puppy's eyes of him, he just knew how to melt her heart.
Roy grinned before he kissed his wife on her lips.
"Daddy! I'm eating!" Ryan wailed.
"Sorry buddy, but mummy was angry just now and you know how to make her calm down, right?" Roy was still grinning.
Ryan ignored his father as he continued gobbling down his food. Roy also did the same after he gave her another peck on the cheek.
"I'm definitely not going to leave both of you at home without any meals in the fridge," Riza muttered as she continued observing the ones she loved, wolfing down food like a person who hadn't seen food for almost a week.A/N:
A/N: How was it? Thanks for reading! And don't forget to drop a review. :D