Aubergine and Momoko #1: Cake

Aubergine was excited. For the past few weeks he’d been working on making cake from scratch and now he was sure he’d gotten it just right. Baking may be an art and not a science, but science was replicable and art wasn’t. You could put whatever you want on a canvas, but Aubergine was still working on the canvas.

That’s how Momoko understood it. Their roommate was a baker. An artisan doomed to remain underappreciated in their time. That was why Momoko kept a vigilant watch over Aubergine’s works every few nights. Why they helped Aubergine through the stress that made each cake pulled out of the oven feel like delivering a baby.

At least in the case of cakes, the ‘failures’ were tasty.

Even if Aubergine managed to burn the cake to ash, Momoko could always something positive. Like how the ash was crunchy; they’d never thought ash could be crunchy. But that was just the optimistic, eternally hungry mindset of Momoko.

That wasn’t to say they didn’t have taste. They knew when something was better than good, even if they were willing to eat leftover hamburger they threw out the day before that was now at the bottom of the trash.

Where Aubergine was a perfectionist baker, Momoko was a forgiving connoisseur.

So, when Aubergine pulled tonight’s masterpiece, he knew not to get his hopes up. Momoko’s taste test was the true battle. He took a deep breath in to prepare himself for it.

Momoko prepared themself too. From just a glance, they knew it was perfect. They couldn’t let him know that, obviously, but it was going to be a tough battle to not let that slip.

Aubergine watched as Momoko’s usually cute, soft face hardened into judgemental expressionlessness. It remained that way as he cut the cake and put it on Momoko’s plate.

Trouble started the second the cake touched Momoko’s tongue.

“Momo?” Aubergine asked softly. “Is it really that bad?”

“Huh?”

“You’re tearing up.”

With their free hand, they reached to their cheeks and felt the wetness.

“Sorry,” Momoko said, voice choking between the tears and another bit of cake being stuffed in their mouth. “Back to the drawing board, I guess.”

And then came the crushing blow. That damned sigh.

Aubergine tried to smile, to not let the ruling affect him. He simply sighed in defeat, but it broke across his face like an earthquake cracking the ground. Momoko looked on in horror as her roommate frowned.

“No no no!” Momoko shouted. “Wait! Sorry! I lied! It’s good! It’s great! It’s the best cake I ever had! I just didn’t want you to stop making me them!”

Aubergine sighed again with only mild disappointment. He should have expected this from them. “I’d still make you them, you know.”

That got Momoko to stop panicking. Well, that and the smile on Aubergine’s face.