Work Text:
“Are you SURE that’s the right recipe?” Himawari asks, and Sarada barely resists the urge to roll her eyes.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Sarada says.
Her sister doesn’t take that answer, and her pout deepens as she folds her arms squarely across her chest. “Uh-huh, and how do you KNOW? We said it was gonna be a surprise! You didn’t ask, right?”
This time, Sarada does roll her eyes, and she flicks Himawari’s forehead. “Stupid,” she says, as Himawari sticks out her tongue. “Last time Mom made cookies, I gave Inojin one. I just told Mom Inojin wanted the recipe, and she believed me ‘cause she knows Auntie Ino and Auntie Sai can’t cook.”
“Ohhhh,” says Himawari, and she nods. “Okay. Then let’s start!”
Sarada tries really really hard not to grit her teeth because she was GOING to do that before you started QUESTIONING her but grinding your teeth is bad for them and she’s supposed to be the Calm Older Sister so she takes a deep breath instead. “Right. First,” she glances at the piece of paper, “We need to preheat the oven to 165 degrees.”
“What does preheat mean?” Himawari asks, looking at the oven.
“It means we turn it on now so when it’s time to bake the cookies, it’s hot. It takes time.”
“Okay,” says Himawari, and she starts pulling over a chair so she can stand on it to mess with the knob. Sarada could reach it without a chair, but she just watches her with one eyebrow raised instead.
“Do you even know what 165 is?” she asks.
Himawari turns so swiftly to glare at her that the chair wobbles under her and she almost falls. “I’m not stupid, ” she says, and she turns the knob abruptly, and then turns the ‘on’ dial. “See?”
Sarada goes over to look. Himawari has the temperature knob about halfway between 150 and 175, which is roughly where it’s supposed to be. Just to be annoying and prove her wrong, Sarada nudges the dial just a little bit. “There,” she says. “Almost had it.”
Himawari flails out like she’s going to punch her and Sarada dodges it, unable to decide whether to laugh because haha, as if she could hit, or glare because excuse me??? Instead, she just pushes her sister lightly - light enough she doesn’t fall off! - and steps back over to the counter. “Okay, next,” she says, looking at the paper.
Sarada gets a whack on her leg from Himawari, who scrambled after her, and when Sarada ignores her, she gets another whack, and Sarada shoots a glare and then keeps reading, “We need to grease the cookie sheets.”
Grease…? Himawari scrunches up her face. “Grease? Gross.”
Sarada shakes her head. “No, I think… I think it’s when Mom puts oil on the pans so stuff doesn’t stick. I’ve seen her do it before.”
“Oh,” says Himawari. They find some sesame oil and pour it all over the pan. “How much?” Himawari asks.
Sarada doesn’t know, but it’s better to have too much than not enough, right? “We gotta cover the whole pan,” she says. They don’t want to put TOO much so that it’s dripping off the edge or anything, so they pour it on and then use some napkins to spread it everywhere and that’s probably fine? It’s probably fine.
It’s just about sticking, so it doesn’t matter a lot.
“Next!” Himawari says, impatient.
“Okay, okay, geeze.” Sarada checks the recipe. “We have to sift flour, baking soda, and salt.”
Himawari frowns. “What’s ‘sift’?”
“It just means mix,” Sarada tells her, even if she doesn’t actually know.
They carefully measure out the flour and the salt, but they can’t find baking soda - they find baking powder, which is probably the same, right? So that goes all in together and Sarada mixes it carefully. At least, she does until Himawari hits her again. “I wanna!”
Himawari almost spills it all over herself and Sarada scowls and takes it back. “It’s done,” she says. It’s hard to tell. Everything is white, but it’s okay.
“Alright, next we gotta…” Sarada frowns at the recipe. Reads it again. “Hang on.” She remembers when Mama bought this for Mom, because she was really excited for it, and Mom had looked at it like it was the weirdest thing ever but still gave Mama a kiss, and tried to use it two days later. She KNOWS what this is.
Sarada roots around in the cupboard and pulls out an electric mixer and stares at it. “We gotta use this,” she says.
Himawari’s eyes go big and sparkle. “I wanna do it,” she says, trying to grab it from Sarada, but Sarada yanks it out of reach before setting it on the counter.
“First we need to put all the ingredients together,” she says. They have to move the bowl of White Stuff, which almost results in Himawari dumping it everywhere, but they manage to avoid that. Brown sugar, white sugar (what’s the difference, just color??) and butter all go together in one big bowl and then Sarada plugs in the mixer. “I’ll do it,” she says.
Himawari scowls immediately, grabbing at it. “No, I wanna!”
“You’ll make a mess, you can’t handle it! Give it!”
“I can too do it!”
“You can’t!”
“I can!”
“Can’t-”
The tugging back and forth on the mixer sends the whole bowl tipping. Buttery sugar gets all over them.
Sarada and Himawari stare at each other in silence, coated. The door opens.
It’s Mom, genin team behind her, and the girls burst into tears.
They’re tripping over themselves to get her and explain, Himawari yelling that Sarada did this and Sarada yelling that Himawari did this and the genin’s eyes are just getting bigger behind her and Mom’s eyes narrow and then she activates her Byakugan. “Enough,” she says, voice stern, and Sarada and Himawari stop talking.
Mama always yells and gets big and loud, but Mom doesn’t need to.
She deactivates her Byakugan and sighs. “Sarada. What happened here.”
Sarada sniffles, and rubs at her eyes. “We… we wanted to bake cookies for you and Mama. It was gonna be a surprise.” She wasn’t supposed to be back this early…
Mom exhales heavily. “And… this happened.” The girls sniffle a little bit, and Mom looks them over, and then looks at the kitchen. “Right.” She turns to her genin team. “New plan. I’m authorizing a D-rank mission right now. When the kitchen is clean, I’ll give you something to work on for the rest of the day, okay? You’ll get your mission pay tomorrow after I deal with the paperwork. Sound okay?” The Nara looks a bit mulish, but both the Inuzuka and the civilian(?) kid nod. (Sarada hasn’t met them yet, not properly, and she’s mortified that this is how it happened.)
“As for you two…” Mom turns on them, and they both cringe a little bit. “Go take a shower and change your clothes.” They blink. “Now. We’ll talk afterwards.”
Oh man. Okay.
They go.
By the time they’re done getting all the sugar off of themselves and are wearing nice new clothes - and it feels really good to be clean, ugh - the genin are gone and the kitchen is clean. Mom is doing exactly what they had wanted to do, with the electric mixer, and Sarada doesn’t know how she feels about that.
“We’re back,” Himawari mumbles, and Mom turns off the beater and turns to look at them both.
“Do you know what you did wrong today?” Mom asks.
Himawari and Sarada sneak looks at each other. “...Fighting?” Himawari suggests. “Making a big mess?”
“Using the oven without permission,” Sarada mumbles, because she knows she’s not supposed to, she just figured if the cookies came out really well no one would care.
“All of those,” Mom says, and the two girls slump. “I understand you wanted to make it a surprise for us, but you two were supposed to be at the park today with your Uncle Neji. I thought you were big enough to go meet him there by yourself, but now I know you need someone to come pick you up.”
Sarada feels even worse. She forgot they were gonna meet Uncle Neji.
Mom looks at them. “Do you know what you should’ve done instead?”
Himawari hesitates. “Not… did that?” Sarada agrees with a nod.
Mom looks like she’s suppressing a smile, and Sarada relaxes a little bit. They’re not in THAT much trouble if Mom looks like that, she thinks. “You should have told your Uncle Neji. He would’ve helped you, and you could’ve kept it a secret from me and your Mama still.”
That would’ve made sense, but, “We wanted to do it by OURSELVES,” Sarada says. That would’ve ruined it if Uncle Neji had helped!
Mom doesn’t hide her smile now. “Uncle Neji can’t bake,” she says. “He just would’ve supervised. Remember that for next time.” Oh. Well, that was good to know. “That way, you won’t worry us like today.”
The girls look at each other again. “Worry?”
“How do you think Uncle Neji felt when you didn’t come to the park?” Mom asks, gently. “That’s why I came home early. He kept looking for you. Don’t worry - I sent him a message.”
Oh… they hang their heads. “Sorry, Mom,” they mumble.
“You’ll apologize to him later, and you don’t get to go anywhere on your own for awhile,” Mom says. “Now, let’s finish this.”
She taps on the bowl, and Himawari lights up, Sarada a moment behind her but a little more cautious. “We get to finish the cookies?” Himawari asks.
Mom smiles. “Well, I’m finished now, and you already got one bowl finished. We might as well, so we can give them to Uncle Neji and to Mama.”
It works a lot better with Mom there, Sarada has to admit. Both of them get to use the beater, but Mom holds it with them the whole time and helps them guide it. They both get to crack eggs into the mix, and they both get to make little balls of dough and put them on the pan. Mom quietly laughs at a few things, but she just helps them, and lets them do it.
She puts them in the oven herself, though, and both Himawari and Sarada have to wash aaaaaaall of the dishes. Mom even checks them to make sure they’re REALLY clean, and they have to wash stuff a few times. The beaters are really hard to clean and Sarada decides she doesn’t like them all that much.
The cookies smell so so good, but Himawari and Sarada aren’t allowed to eat one. Not yet. Mom smiles at them. “Weren’t you making them for us?” she asks. “We’ll take them to Mama and we can all eat them together.”
They make sure to set some aside for Uncle Neji as an apology, and then head out with their container of cookies. Himawari gets to hold it, because she really wants to for some reason and Sarada guesses it’s fine, and they walk all the way there.
When it’s just Sarada and Mama, they often take the roofs - Sarada asks and begs and wheedles and pleads and Mama usually says yes. Or most of her Uncles will, too. Sarada doesn’t think she’s ever seen Uncle Naruto walk. Mom won’t take them up there, though, and just smiles and says no so Sarada and Himawari don’t even bother asking.
They just walk. At least it’s not THAT far.
Shikadai’s dad is leaving when they enter, yawning and giving them a wave while both Himawari and Sarada give a quick bow before they all head in. Mama looks ready for them, looking up with zero surprise, so Mom must have messaged her.
Well - almost zero surprise. She looks at the container in Himawari’s hands and smiles. “What’s this?” she asks, and Sarada doesn’t THINK she’s acting. “I already have a lunch, so what could this be…?”
“COOKIES!” yells Himawari, and she’s racing around the desk to scramble up onto Mama’s lap. “We made cookies, and Mom helped!”
“Did she?” Mama asks, glancing at Mom, and she happily pops the lid so that she can take a cookie.
“We tried to make them by ourselves,” Sarada says, because if Mama doesn’t already know, it’s better to find out from them, “But it didn’t, um, work. So Mom helped.”
Mama’s lips twitch and she takes a bite of the cookie instead of saying anything. “Well, they turned out delicious!” she says, and she gives Himawari a big kiss on the cheek. “You’re all so talented.”
“Not like Mama,” Himawari says, which is playing with fire. Mama’s eyes flash a little, though Himawari giggles, and Mom chuckles.
Mom chuckles for a different reason, though. “Hm, I don’t know,” she says. “Lady Hokage, I have a request to make.”
“Oh?” Mama asks, leaning forward. “ Do tell, Hinata-sensei.”
“I hate it when you do this,” Sarada mutters, but they ignore her.
“I had to authorize a D-Rank for Team 9, today, in order to clean after Haruno Sarada and Haruno Himawari,” Mom says. “Does Lady Hokage approve of it?”
Mama pretends to consider it for a moment. “Perhaps. How bad would you consider it?”
Mom ALSO pretends to consider because they are both the worst. “Hm… actually, maybe it should be a C-Rank instead.”
“I hate you both,” Sarada says as her moms lean in for a kiss, and she ignores them and takes a cookie.
It’s pretty good, but she’ll do better next time.