Beautiful Disasters- Hawks x OC

Chapter 5

The sliding door that led onto the balcony was unlocked, giving the male easy access to her apartment. He knew immediately that Mariko was home. The lights were on and her purse was sitting on the kitchen counter.

Mariko walked into the main room with a basket of laundry in her arms. She was going to take it down to the basement to wash it when a blur of tan and red crashed into her. For a moment, she went rigid. She felt arms wrap around her waist and her feet get lifted off the ground and it had taken every ounce of self-control not to knee her assailant in the groin and run for the gun she had hidden in her bedroom. She knew it was Hawks, she'd experienced this greeting enough times to recognize it now.

"Hawks- "she coughed out, wanting to be put down.

"Did ya miss me?" he asked cheekily.

"How did you get in here?" she asked, pushing herself away from him gently. She knew she had locked all the doors before leaving.

"Through the balcony," he told her.

"The brunette narrowed her eyes at the sliding door and walked towards it. Inspecting it carefully, she saw that the lock was broken.

"That's annoying," she muttered."

"What is?"  he asked, tilting his head to spot what she was looking at.

"Lock's broken," she said, gesturing to the way the door was open despite the switch saying it was locked.

"You think someone broke in or something?" he asked confusedly.

Mariko shook her head, "No it's probably just normal wear and tear. I'll call the landlord tomorrow so he can take care of it. What're you doing here?" she asked turning the attention on him once more.

"I'm here for dinner," he answered.

"I haven't made it yet," she deadpanned.

"Good, 'cus tonight it's on me," he told her.

She raised an eyebrow, "You can cook?"

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"Probably."

"That doesn't sound convincing at all." She told him.

The male chuckled and nudged her slightly with his wing. "Oh come on, it's just putting some ingredients in a pot. Give me some credit; I am the No. 2 Hero after all."

The brunette looked at him skeptically.

"It'll be fine. You've been kind enough to host me for dinner this week, it's time I return the favor right?" he asked.

Mariko sighed, knowing that once the blonde made up his mind, there was no convincing him otherwise. Plus, if all went well and no one died, then she didn't have to make dinner. "Fine. Call me when dinner's done then. I'm gonna go take a shower and change," she told him.

Hawks smiled at her and nodded before turning to the stove. "How hard can it be?"

The answer was hard. Very hard. Impossible even. Things had started going wrong the minute he had taken the ingredients out of the fridge. Having only ever made microwavable chicken nuggets before, Keigo didn't even know where to start. He'd pulled up a recipe on the internet- chicken obviously- but he had no idea what half of the things in the ingredients list even were. Mariko didn't even seem to have some of the things they talked about, so he substituted them with things he guessed were similar. "The sauce... smells like sauce, right?" he asked himself. Then, when it came to the chicken, no one had told him he needed to defrost chicken before actually cooking it. As a result, if he left it in the pot for the time the recipe called for, it would be undercooked. If he let it cook all the way through, the sauce would burn before it was half-way done.