"It shows you have affinity with your cards!"

"Ohhkay." Time to ignore Kero again, it would seem.

He yawns again, and checks his watch. It's not even particularly late, but apparently capturing Glow tired him out...?

Oh well. It's time for Theo to sleep, it would also seem.

And the following day, after school:

ding dong.

Ooh, who could that possibly be.

Theo goes to the door, opens it, and greets Sadde with a kiss. "Hey! How was your day?"

"Kinda boring! How was yours?"

"Also kinda boring! Buuut I have a fun thing planned. Pick a flavour! Chocolate, coffee, mocha, cheesecake, Victoria sponge... I am totally drawing a blank on any more types of cake..."

"What's Victoria sponge?"

"... Are you serious? What are you, foreign? Regular sponge-cake with jam between two layers and also usually cream."

She shrugs. "I'm not super into sweets. That sounds tasty, though."

"Like... seriously. Okay, well, I guess we're doing a Victoria sponge!"

Into the kitchen they go. His dad is still at work. Theo sets the oven to 180 (Celsius). "Right, well, since it's your first time doing it, I guess I'll just have to make it seem more exciting than it already is. ... I'm not really sure how."

He pulls out some butter, caster sugar, and a mixing bowl. The other ingredients will be retrieved eventually.

"I'm sure you'll manage."

Realising it would probably be easier if she could see a recipe, he fetches a small cookbook that mentions something about a sponge, and directs her to weigh out the correct quantities of the sugar and butter. Look, here are some weighing scales. So exciting, woo!

Terribly! She'll be over here, following instructions.

And now you have to cream the butter and the sugar together, with this whisk.

... Yep, you still have to do it.

... Yep, even more. It needs to be "white and fluffy".

(Theo gets out some eggs, breaks them into a bowl, and starts beating them.)

And she continues following instructions!

"Is the part where this becomes exciting soon?"

"Iiiiif you want to eat some of the mixture, yes, it absolutely is!"

Is it white and fluffy yet? ... No, apparently not, because it takes ages to become white and fluffy. It's close, though! Theo tells her as such.

She continues trying to make the thing white and fluffy. "I am going to eat some of the mixture, then!"

"Okay then!"

He fetches a couple of teaspoons, and oh look, good timing, it's basically white and fluffy. He can't be bothered to wait any longer. They can have a taste and then gradually add the egg, woo!

Woo! She has no idea what she's doing but now it's tasty and therefore interesting!

It's fine, Theo can do the eggs. "How about you weigh out some flour? It's in that cupboard," he suggests, and then he points out said cupboard.

Then mixing in the eggs, and not letting it curdle.

"Sure." She goes weigh out some flour, and...

She's definitely not super good with her hands. Now there's a non-negligible quantity of flour all over her.

Oops. He really should've thought about aprons.

Laughing at the mess, he stops mixing the mixture, gets two cloths from by the sink, then hands one to her and starts to wipe down the work-surface.

"Sorry," she giggles, and boops him on the nose with a flour-covered fingertip.

Theo blows some air out his nose, shaking his head a bit, then uses his hand to brush it off. "Having fun there?" he asks, smiling.

"You could say that."