Message Received (Bakugou Katsuki x OC)

Chapter Seventeen

Japanese grocery stores were different.

The concept was the same yes, but the products were all different. There was produce she didn't recognize and snacks that she hadn't seen before. The shelves covered in things she had never seen before. Bakugou told her to grab whatever she wanted. She had been shy about it at first not wanting to be rude but Bakugou caught on quick and demanded she start picking out things. It wasn't hard to find stuff she wanted to try, everything looked so interesting.

She looked over at Bakugou, who was wearing a black cap and face mask. He told her it was something he did to keep himself from being noticed. After the morning news, he wanted to avoid any more pictures of them getting out lest she have to go and beat someone up over it, he teased. She had laughed at his joke but he wasn't far off.

There was something so domestic about going to the grocery store with someone. It was a task she did alone but having someone else there made it feel different. It stirred up something in her that scared her but also excited her. Her mind was a little too quick to jump into the idea of doing this together all the time. It wasn't long before she was imagining other daily chores with Bakugou at her side. She shook her head, that was dangerous. The last thing she needed was to get ahead of herself.

"Are you going to tell me what we're making or it is a surprise again?" She asked as she walked along his side as he pushed the shopping cart.

"Tonkatsu, it's fried pork." He replied, his gaze focused on the task at hand.

"Oh, I've had that before. It's really good. I bet yours will be better than what I've had." She said. She liked the expression on his face when she complimented him. His cheeks would get barely pink and he'd look away trying to play it cool. She watched him do just that with a small smirk on her face.

"Well, your helping so there's always room for it to go wrong." He teased.

"Hey!" She said playfully smacking his arm. "You haven't even seen the extent of my culinary incompetence in person yet."

"I don't get scared but your cooking might change that." He said with a smirk.

"I can't even defend myself." She said throwing her arms up. "What else do we need?"

"It's not that complicated, I already got the pork. I just need the panko breading and then we're done." He said.

It didn't take them long to finish up shopping and the walk home was pretty short. Harper may have been pouting a little because he wouldn't let her hold any of the bags from the story. He insisted that he could carry them all by himself. There weren't a whole lot of bags and clearly he was overqualified to carry the relatively small weight but she felt rude not helping.

"No, stop hitting it like it's whack-a-mole." Bakugou scolded confiscating the mallet from Harper. She looked up at him with a pout.

"I was doing just fine." She defended.

"Like this," He said. The first step in Tonkatsu was to tenderize the pork and get it flat, according to Bakugou. "Gentle, you don't want it too thin." He said as he hit the pork with the mallet, firmly but far softer than Harper had just been doing.

"That's basically what I was just doing." She said, she knew it wasn't true but she was sure it'd get a good reaction from him. He gave her a dirty look and she smiled satisfied. He made quick work of the pork and was done in a few moments.

"Now we just need to get the breading ready." He said. "Crack one egg in that bowl and whisk it."

"Easy enough." She said. Famous last words. As she cracked the egg on the edge of the bowl she managed to send to bowl rolling along the counter as well as break the egg open onto the counter.