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"Shit, Malachi! You scared me!"

Joanne came running over with a towel in hand and hurriedly tried to pat down every inch of Mal\'s damp body.

"Shit, what were you thinking?? You can\'t just go popping up in the middle of a woman\'s room like that!"

"Sorry." he said with a wry smile.

He figured that seeing someone suddenly show up who looked like him was indeed pretty alarming, and he started to wish that he\'d maybe sent a text first.

Joanne suddenly stopped trying to wipe down Malachi and paused without being able to meet his gaze.

"I... Don\'t want you to think that I was afraid because of the way you look. It\'s just... would using the front door have killed you?"

"Oddly enough, I didn\'t want to put anyone else off but it seems like I\'ve done that to you. I\'m sorry."

Again, Joanne fell silent and it was easy to hear the sound of her heart beating in her chest.

"You... should go get in the shower."

Malachi gave himself two investigative sniffs and realized that he now smelled like chili flavored ramen.

"Don\'t think I can argue with you on that... Don\'t run away before I get back."

"Idiot, these are my quarters..." she said with reddened ears.

She could see Malachi flinch like he was resisting the urge to kiss her before he inevitably turned around and headed back towards the bathroom.

In the meantime, Joanne started to clean up the kitchen while her mind ran amok with a great number of thoughts.

\'Just great, Jo... As if things weren\'t awkward enough you had to throw a pot of noodles at the first guy you\'ve liked in over twenty years.\'

\'This is so pathetic...\'

\'I don\'t even know what I\'m supposed to say to him now after I spent all day practicing.\'

\'This is all that bastard\'s fault... Even as an alien he is still so-\'

\'Gods I miss getting drunk...\'

Joanne was stewing in her thoughts for so long that she completely missed the moment where Mal exited out of the bathroom.

"You burning something?"

"A-Ah... shit!" Malachi\'s interruption had finally made Joanne realize that she had ruined a second pot of instant noodles, and boiled all of the liquid out of the pot by thoroughly cooking the bottom well beyond al dente.

"It... doesn\'t matter I guess. I can just scrape off the top and then throw away the rest."

"...What?"

Looking over her shoulder, Joanne found Malachi shirtless with a tiny bit of water still falling from his hair, along with his usual pair of black sweatpants that hung a little too low on his waist.

A white towel was wrapped around his neck, and all of the serpents that came out of his lower back were rubbing their heads against it in an attempt to dry themselves off.

This incredibly attractive scene would have been burned into her memory for the rest of her life as one she never wanted to forget, were it not for the incredulous look on Malachi\'s face.

"...Why\'re you looking at me like that? Do you want some?"

"Do I- No I don\'t want any burned noodles, Jo! And you shouldn\'t either."

"I\'m just not picky." she said with a shrug.

Feeling a bit nervous, Malachi decided to peek inside of her cupboard to see exactly how she\'d been living all this time.

It was exactly as he feared.

Upon building this place, Luna had stockpiled this place with around twenty years worth of non-perishable food in the event that doomsday was much worse than what they were expecting.

Among that stockpile was a rather sizable supply of packaged noodles.

It seems like Joanne had at least half of that stockpile in her cupboard in her quarters.

"..." Malachi said nothing as his jaw hung open.

"..." Manda, Gwiya, Onini, and Vritra were equally shocked and concerned.

"Jo... we have a thriving garden on the tenth floor that is currently producing more than we know what to do with... Why are you living like this?"

It was worth mentioning that they had recently also started a small farming project with chickens and goats after finding some roaming in the wild on one mission.

"I-I just can\'\'t cook, alright?? I never learned how and I think I\'m too old to start now."

Malachi fought the urge to laugh as he ran his hands though his hair.

Really, Joanne and her daughter were just too damned similar.

Anna also had terrible eating habits, in fact one of Sei\'s biggest gripes about her was that she never asked for anything to eat that did not come with a side of fries.

Or even just a meal that did not consist of fries in itself.

It was a miracle they looked as incredible as they did with such horrible eating habits.

"...Just... wait here for a minute, yea?"

Joanne lost the chance to say anything else when Malachi suddenly sank into the ground and disappeared.

She stared into her empty cupboard with a look of non-understanding on her face.

"...The hell\'s so wrong with my noodles anyway..?"

Malachi came back barely ten minutes later with his arms stuffed with a variety of ingredients.

Joanne ended up getting swept away in his natural rhythm in the kitchen without having any opportunity to say what was really on her mind.

Malachi was standing behind her with his body firmly pressed against her own.

While his intentions were far from sexual in nature, Joanne couldn\'t help but start to feel a bit nervous on the inside.

"Normally, I think breasts are good but for this kind of dish I think the thigh meat makes it much juicer and full of flavor. The stock will only make it even better."

"O-Oh, alright..."

"Here, cut the onions like this. And be careful not to nick yourself, love."

"S-Sure.." (She had conveniently forgotten that she was bulletproof and normal knives posed her no danger.)

"I wish we had some mitsuba here but since we have to work with what we have, I figured green onion was the next best thing. Slice them crosswise until you start getting towards the white bit."

"I-I got it..."

"Since the chicken\'s almost done, we can go ahead and start adding the egg mixture. But don\'t add it all at once since we\'re going to need to use more in a second."

"Why do you know how to make this exactly...?"

"Sei and I trade recipes from time to time when we have little date nights. I gave her one for some candied yams last time that she seemed really excited about."

"I see... that\'s very cute."

"Yea? Maybe we can do something like that when we go on a date too."

Joanne felt her words get caught in her throat all over again as her ears reddened beyond what could be considered healthy.

Eventually, the two of them finished their dish and were able to stare at it in satisfaction.

Two expertly prepared chicken and rice egg bowls were staring right back at the pair like they were just waiting to be eaten.

It wasn\'t long after they actually finished making the dish that Malachi realized he may have made a slight mistake.

"This is... oyakodon, right?" Joanne asked.

Sweat started to form on Mal\'s forehead as he tried to think up some kind of excuse.

"I-I swear I didn\'t mean anything by it, I just picked this dish because it\'s really filling and-"

"Hm?"

Joanne turned around and Malachi could see that she was already eating with seemingly no knowledge of the dish\'s hidden meaning.

Because she looked so cute while eating, Malachi couldn\'t help but laugh as herald his hands through her hair.

"What do you think? A little better than cup noodles, huh?"

Joanne looked down at the bowl she had already had a taste of.

It was a relatively simple dish, but it was the first thing she had ever actively tried to make from scratch.

And it had come out wonderfully no less.

But in her heart of hearts, she knew that she couldn\'t have done it on her own.

In this dish, she felt their whole relationship had been symbolized. (In more ways than she knew)

He was always helping her in whatever way he was able, even when she didn\'t ask for it and she was behaving like a hopeless child.

It made her feel a myriad of things, but there was one that stood at the precipice of all of her other emotions.

And she was tired of denying herself her true feelings.

"I think... I love you."

Though Malachi usually considered himself to be relatively quick with things like this, for the first time he had to pause as his brain did a hard reset.

"I\'m sorry... the chicken or..-"

"You, idiot!" Joanne laughed.

She showed Malachi the most beautiful smile he had ever seen before she grabbed him forcefully by the face and kissed him.