Chapter Text
Mikhael Baker was never much of a morning person, to be honest. Ironic, considering the fact his destined profession—which was conveniently his last name—was one that required him to wake up early.
Baking was a laborious and time-consuming trade, a fact he was painfully aware of, which often meant that he would wake up the same time as his parents just to prepare the dough before the school bus arrived. On weekends, he’d set his alarm even earlier than usual, helping out with the bakery at Othermart as practice for what it would be like when he’d inherit it.
It was a bleak future, baking bread for all eternity while his siblings went off and had cool artsy careers, but it was the one he resigned himself to. His parents spent nearly a decade training him in the art of baking—Daphne and Bowen swore off bread when he said only 6, and his parents had long given up hope of them coming back around—it felt wrong to not follow in their footsteps after everything they did for him.
For their sake, he’d continue being their dutiful son. Their darling Mikhael, sent down to them from above so the family business could live on. He just wished that he had more days where he could sleep in and relax.
So naturally, when one of those days finally came, Mikhael, of course, did not sleep in and relax, but got up at the same time as usual instead; before dawn, when everything outside was still pitch-black. Why, you ask? One. Simple. Reason.
It was Basil’s 16th birthday.
And he needed to bake banana bread.
Despite how early it was, Mr. and Mrs. Baker were long gone by the time Mikhael woke up; they left earlier on his free days as a result of not needing to wait for him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes at the sound of his alarm, turning on the lights and uttering a prayer. He made his bed afterwards and got dressed in his usual white dress shirt and brown pants, hand-me-downs from Bowen.
As soon as the twins left for college, his parents gave him their old room and converted his into a guest room for visiting relatives. It was a nice upgrade, all things considered. Especially the windows, which were impossible to look through at the moment thanks to the darkness.
Mikhael stared at himself in the mirror as he combed his dark hair, neatly styling it to curl at the end. The reflection reminded him of his older siblings when they were younger, Resting Bakers Face (more commonly known as RBF) and all—he missed them with all of his heart.
Oh well, he groggily thought to himself, I’ll see them when summer rolls around, at least.
His cat was asleep in a corner of the room, blissfully undisturbed by the alarm. Mikhael rubbed its ears before leaving his room and stumbling to the kitchen, the familiar smell of fresh bread hit him as soon as he reached the bottom floor.
The birthday present may have been wrapped the previous night, but it was of the upmost importance that the bread was as fresh as possible; He didn’t rank 1st place in the National Baking Competition for nothing. A dish as simple as banana bread should be a cinch.
~~~~~~~~~~
[BANANA BREAD FOR BASIL]
Don’t mess this up, Mikhael!
INGREDIENTS:
1 Stick Butter
3 Large Ripe Bananas
2 Large Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
½ Teaspoon Salt
½ Teaspoon Cinnamon
(Before starting, splash water on face to fully wake up. Baking while half-asleep never ends well.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Back when they were still kids, when he still hung out with his old friend group and kept his natural blond hair, Basil’s favorite food in the world was strawberry cake. He could never resist buying a slice or two whenever he and his grandmother went shopping at Othermart, Mikhael observed. It was one of the first things he tried to learn when his parents started training him. Mostly in the hope of seeing Basil eat his very own work.
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STEP 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray or grease with butter and set aside.
(Remember not to use too much. Wastefulness is a sin.)
~~~~~~~~~~
And although it still remained as one of Basil’s favorite foods, these days, there was always something... subdued, in his eyes, whenever he had some. A mournful aura: one that Mikhael was all too familiar with.
He and Sunny never interacted with each other much despite living on the same street, something that Mikhael would come to constantly regret, but Basil would talk about him from time to time. Always with that wistful, pained voice of his and those glistening eyes that he tried to hide, Mikhael would always be there to wipe his tears and calm him down.
~~~~~~~~~~
STEP 2: Add the stick of butter to a large bowl and microwave for 1 minute, or until melted.
(Mother always warned you to stay away from the microwave when it was on or else you’d get sick. It’s definitely nonsense... Probably.)
~~~~~~~~~~
The thought of Basil’s 13th birthday party popped into his mind while he waited, the last time he ever baked a strawberry cake. It was still as crisp and vivid as the day it happened; the warmth of the oven as he took the baking tin out, the mess he made while trying to pipe icing on the cake—his first time attempting to do such a thing without help—and the scent of strawberries coating his hand as he cut into them.
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STEP 3: Add the bananas to the same bowl and mash with a fork.
(They reminded you of that embarrassing phase you had as a child. Back when you called yourself Mikal and refused to take off that comfy monkey hoodie of yours; you still regret throwing it away.)
~~~~~~~~~~
At that point, he hadn’t seen Basil at the bakery—or anywhere else, as a matter of fact—ever since the start of winter break, and so he wanted to bake him his favorite cake on his birthday to cheer him up.
The finished result was the greatest cake—the greatest thing that 12-year-old Mikhael had baked in his life. His ancestors must have been watching over him with pride. He carefully packaged the cake into a spare Othermart Bakery box that was lying around and put on his winter clothes. It was going to be a long, cold walk to Basil’s house, but as he thought about the smile on Basil’s face he’d make once he saw the cake, he knew that it would have been all worth the effort.
~~~~~~~~~~
STEP 4: Add the vanilla extract and egg to the bowl and use the same fork to mash and stir until no yellow streaks of egg remain.
(Make sure no eggshells get in the batter. Choking hazard aside, they’re terrible for texture.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Contrary to what many people might think of him at first sight, 12-year-old Mikhael did in fact have friends. Comprising of the kids at the very bottom of the school’s social standing—they called themselves the Outcasts with pride. Way back then, when the group was just starting to form, its only members were Mikhael, Kim and Vance. The weird quiet kid, the weird rude kid, and her older brother who got held back. His parents always considered them to be bad influences, but he knew that they were good people at heart.
Angel and Charlie only joined a year after the Outcasts initial creation, when they skipped a grade and joined their class, either getting ignored or made fun of for being younger and nerdier than the others. One day, Kim invited the two to sit with them at lunch, and the rest was history. Ever since that fateful invitation, the five of them would stick together like glue, always there to each other from the bullies and popular kids who thought they could push them around.
~~~~~~~~~~
STEP 5: In a second large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
(Don’t whisk too hard, or it’ll go flying everywhere.)
~~~~~~~~~~
After he walked out of his house and let the cool winter air settle on his face, he carefully made his way around town to gather his friends; Mikhael couldn’t risk moving too quickly and slipping on the icy pavement, he cradled the box in his arms like a child. The other Outcasts already knew about the plan, even wrapping gifts for Basil and making a card. And once they all got together and ready, they marched straight towards Basil’s house. Mikhael remembered how nervous he was when he knocked on his door, only to swallow it down once the doorknob started to turn.
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STEP 6: Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together with a spatula just until combined.
(The spatula was a birthday gift from Kim. The smell of taffy was impossible to wash off, you liked it that way.)
~~~~~~~~~~
It was actually Basil’s grandmother who answered the door; her eyes lit up when she recognized Mikhael as the nice boy who helped run the bakery. He managed to find his voice and explained that he and his friends wanted to wish Basil a happy birthday, showing her the cake and presents that everyone got for him. She looked down at the mention of Basil’s birthday, and when they asked what was wrong, she revealed that he had been refusing to leave his room ever since the day started.
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STEP 7: Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake.
(In the meantime, you should try to clean up and put everything back where it was. But let’s be honest, you were just going reminisce again, weren’t you?)
~~~~~~~~~~
“Do any of you think you could convince him to get out? I’m starting to worry for him...” his grandmother looked back inside the house with an anxious look on her face. She walked back in but left the door open, a silent invitation for the group to come inside and away from the cold.
The Outcasts looked at each other with uncertainty, unsure of what to do. The warmth coming from inside was tempting, but it was as if they were replaced with stone replicas of themselves, unable to move.
Eventually, though, Mikhael willed himself to step through the entrance; his legs felt stiff and his heart beat irregularly, but the plants and comfortable atmosphere soothed him tremendously. It reminded him of a garden he visited once with his family, compressed into a small, cozy home.
His friends found the courage to follow him after a few seconds, they placed the presents on the dining table and warmed up from the snowy hellscape outside. While they were busy, Mikhael walked further into the house and into the hallway, noticing Basil’s grandmother at the right end of the hall, knocking on her grandson’s bedroom door.
“Basil, please!” she was surprisingly loud when she needed to be, “Your friends are here, don’t you want to celebrate your birthday with them?” The Outcasts and Basil’s friend group rarely interacted, but it was nice of her to think that they were close.
She beckoned Mikhael to come closer, which he did. The cake in his hands was still warm, surprisingly. He was just surprised that he hadn’t managed to drop it yet.
“Leave me alone!” Basil’s voice was hoarse and pained when he yelled back, it triggered something deep within him that made Mikhael want to comfort the other boy. “It’s their f-fault that Sunny is g-gone. And if he c-can’t be here with me, then I- I don’t want to h-have a birthday at all—!”
He trailed off and broke down into unintelligible sobbing. His grandmother looked at Mikhael pleadingly, silently begging for help. At that point, the others had also joined the two in the hall, watching with bated breath. Listening to Basil’s frenzied shrieks pushed him over the edge, and after muttering a short prayer to himself, asking for guidance, he knocked on the door.
“Basil, is that you? It’s me, Mikhael.” He tried his best to sound tranquil and soothing, a skill he originally learned from his parents to pacify angry customers at the bakery. “I came here with my friends, are you feeling alright?” Mikhael braced himself to get yelled at, but it never came.
Instead, the other boy gradually stopped crying over the course of a couple of minutes. He sniffled miserably, confused.
“...M... Mikhael...?” His chest tightened when Basil responded, shaky and weak from crying his throat out. “Why are y-you here?”
“My friends and I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.” He briefly wondered where Basil’s friends were. Shouldn’t they have also been here to support him?
“I know that these past couple of months were tough, ever since...the...” He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, “...ever since last Autumn, but me and my friends brought you a bunch of presents and I made a cake and we... we wanted to cheer you up.”
...
(Silence filled the air.)
...
(Nobody dared to talk, or to move.)
...
(They all just... waited for something to happen.)
...
(The door unlocked.)
It opened slightly, allowing Basil to peek through a small gap. There was a certain type of emptiness in his face when he looked closer, streaked not only with tears, but with the grief of losing someone close to him and the pain of his friends abandoning him when he needed them.
It broke Mikhael’s heart.
Basil stared at the box in his hands with those sky-blue eyes of his, now bloodshot and reddened. Fresh tears start to form once he realized what was inside, falling down his cheeks like the dewdrops on a leaf.
“...St-strawberry cake...”
Mikhael extended a hand out towards him, holding the box with his other.
“I know that it’s your favorite, so I baked one just for you,” There was nothing but sincerity in his words. Nothing but warmth in his eyes. “You’ve been eating the cakes my parents made whenever you bought them at Othermart, so I wanted to see whether you liked my version better than theirs.”
The gap widened.
“And I don’t know about your other friends, but we’re here for you, Basil,” He motioned to his grandmother and the rest of the Outcasts, “All of us. So please, don’t just shut yourself in and push everyone away.”
...
The door fully opened, and he took his hand.
~~~~~~~~~~
(And for a fleeting moment, when he saw the smile on Basil’s face as he and the others dug into the cake, Mikhael felt like the happiest kid in the whole wide world.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Mikhael was brought back to the present by the sound of dinging, telling him to check on the oven. He put on his oven mitts (embroidered with different kinds of bread, of course) and took the loaf pan out of the oven, watching the steam rise from the loaf and waft through the air, taking over with the scent of bananas, fragrant and nostalgic.
He walked to the kitchen counter and placed it down, grabbing a toothpick and sticking it in the center; and when Mikhael pulled it out and saw that it was clean, he knew that the banana bread was finally ready.
Outside, the sun was just beginning to rise, reflecting off the thick snow that had fallen at night. It was going to be another cold, long walk to Basil’s house.
But it would be worth it.
He closed his eyes and smiled, hands over his heart.
It always was.
