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Arthur often had many questions. Why was he born? Why was he surrounded by lunatics? What was the purpose of war? Did his inability to age show that he would live for millennia or or was it for a more marketable purpose? Why was he never allowed full control of a kitchen other than his own? Indeed, he had many unresolved mysteries floating around his mind, and rarely did he ever ask any of those aloud, almost never did he discuss his theories with anyone else other than Francis.
He had another to add to his checklist of questions.
Why was Matthew boiling maple syrup at seven in the morning?
Of course, he didn’t say that out loud. But the image of Matthew — bedheaded, hunched over a small pot, contemplating the sticky, syruppy wooden spoon in his hand, completely ignoring the delicious stack of pancakes next to him — made him freeze at the entrance of the room. Arthur was often the first one up, and if it wasn’t him, then it was Francis. Both Alfred and Matthew liked sleeping in. Seven was not an acceptable hour for them to wake up and start moving. His comfy-looking hoodie and plaid-patterned pants weren’t far off from what he would wear at, say, 10 am, but today he carried an even drowsier air. It was probably the eyebags, darker than they usually were.
Matthew was boiling maple syrup at what was practically the ass-crack of dawn in the winter. Boiling and syrup ? Shouldn’t he be boiling eggs instead? Or maybe even milk? Surely he wasn’t that drowsy to make such a mistake in the fine art of cooking.
Was it syrup, though? Maybe he had gotten it wrong. Maybe it’s, oh, I don’t know, marmite? Really diluted marmite? Does Matthew even use marmite?
But no, Arthur looked again, that couldn’t be a trick of the light. The amber shade of the bubbling liquid and the maple syrup bottle next to it meant that it had to have been the Canadian’s precious maple syrup. It had to be!
From the doorway, Arthur could emote nothing other than, “What? Syrup? Matthew, why.”
Matthew shrieked, flinging his wooden spoon high up into the air. He almost upended the pot, too, which would have been a disaster considering that it would have been a boiling-hot, sticky mess. Stupidly, the spoon lands in Matthew’s hair as if they were in some sort of cartoon comedy. Arthur winced at the sluggish drop of syrup running down his former protege’s head.
It takes longer than it should for Matthew to recognize who was in front of him. His eyes fluttered a few times, and he absentmindedly wiped at the trickling maple syrup.
“Oh! Oh… Good morning, Arthur,” Matthew said belatedly. “Heheh, you startled me.”
“I’d have to say the same,” Arthur replied, replaying the image of the spoon flying in the air and Matthew’s deadpan expression when it oh-so easily lodged itself into his hair. Priceless!
He shook himself out of his sadistic thoughts. “And a good morning to you, too. Now, what are you doing? You’re almost never up this early.”
“‘M boiling maple syrup,” he said, plain as day.
“...Why?” Arthur couldn’t keep the incredulousness out of his voice.
Matthew seemed to realize that wiping at his face with his shirt and consequently spreading all the stickiness around wasn’t a good idea. He answered, “For taffy,” before turning the stove off, heading out the door and grumbling that he was going to take a shower, again. Then, before he reached the washroom, he called out, “Help yourself to some pancakes! And don’t you dare start cooking anything!”
Arthur chuckled uncomfortably. He totally hadn’t planned on making a mess experimenting with the Canadian’s kitchen before he had made that announcement. With nothing else to do, he grabbed a plate and collected some pancakes.
It was currently a more reasonable 11 o’clock. Everyone in the house had woken up and were enjoying the sunshine. It was snowing, just a little bit, just snowflakes drifting calmly in the sky. Outside of the house in the countryside of Quebec, Alfred was looking for his brother while Arthur and Francis were off doing… something. The American hoped he wouldn’t walk in on them again.
Aha! There! Next to the benches outside!
“Sup, Mattie,” Alfred said, walking up to his brother crouched in the snow. He had what looked to be a smoking hot pot in his hands and a bunch of popsicle sticks on the ground. “What’s up?”
Matthew, it seemed, still had not fully awakened from his morning stupor. He simply said, “Making taffy,” and then summarily upended the contents of the pot over the snow.
“NO WHAT THE F--”
Alfred grabbed at the pot’s handle, trying to right up, trying to make the things stop falling in the goddamn snow, but Matthew would not let go. He was struggling, trying to tug the pot back to him.
“No, Alfred, let go! I know what I’m doing!”
“No you don’t! Who the fuck just pours an entire pot of soup on snow?”
“It’s not soup, now let go !”
With a tremendous tug, Matthew yanked the pot out of his brother’s hand, spilling all the contents of the pot onto himself. He hissed, looking at the amber (amber?) liquid now flowing down his clothes. “Shit.”
“Bro, you okay? I didn’t mean to--”
“It’s fine, Al,” Matthew sighed, standing up. “Well, looks like I’m taking another shower again.”
Only now did Alfred look closely at the pot and its contents. It was translucent, gelatinous… And it seemed to be sticky, from how Matthew was handling his clothes as he hobbled back in the rented cabin to take a shower. Alfred stuck a finger in the mess all over the snow and stuck it in his mouth, and only then did he realize that no, he shouldn’t be sticking random substances off the snow and into his mouth?
But then the sweetness kicked in.
It was so sweet, and it wasn’t runny, either. It had the texture of taffy and he chewed on the small bit, prying the small glob off of his finger.
Matthew said he was making taffy, wasn’t he? But Alfred thought, Making taffy by pouring a bunch of stuff on the snow is--
Fwap .
A snowball had hit him in the face? Alfred winced. It hurt a bit. Was there ice in this thing or--
“Even after all these years, your aim still sucks, Angleterre!”
“Shut up, Francis! We all know who can’t dodge for shit!”
“No, don’t you dare , go apologize to your baby brother before hurling that thing at m-- AUGH--”
“Ha! Who’s winning now, you petulant frog?”
Huh , Alfred thought, grinning widely. Must be an interesting snowball fight. Iceball fight more like, from whatever ol Arthur is using…
Maybe he should check out on Matthew before he gets caught in the middle of that, whether it became an all-out war or an all-out makeout session that he didn’t want to watch...
It wasn’t until evening that Matthew had decided to try his luck on making some taffy again. Two accidents in a row wasn’t the greatest motivation for the beginning of the day.
It was quite late, and the sky had long since darkened. Matthew’s guests were all in the living room, watching some soap opera on TV, snuggled under comforters and each with a mug of hot chocolate in hand. No doubt Alfred and Arthur were bickering about something, and Francis was supporting Alfred’s opinion purely to annoy Arthur, or maybe Arthur had fallen asleep against Francis, or perhaps Kuma was trying to steal all of their blankets, though that last one was unlikely but not impossible. Matthew came into the room, picked up his trusty polar bear, and then carried him to the kitchen. He wanted a companion, and hopefully Kuma was less likely to mess up his third maple taffy attempt of the day.
“Sounds like a great time to make some taffy, don’t you think?” Matthew asked Kumajirou. The bear responded with, “I’m hungry,” which the Canadian took as a positive answer.
Matthew started with boiling a pot of maple syrup, and making sure the snow on the benches outside wasn’t too dry or too crunchy, and then--
“Mathieu? What are you doing, cooking at this time of night? It’s dark out.”
This time, he didn’t jump like he did in the morning, thankfully. He turned around and faced Francis, his hair tied up and wearing a fashionably cozy sweater.
“If you’re cooking again, I can do it instead, I know you’re tired--”
“No,” Matthew said suddenly, cutting Francis off. “No, no, thanks, but…”
He didn’t want to be interrupted again.
“Actually, can you bring Alfred and Arthur outside? I’ve got a surprise,” Matthew said, turning back to his maple syrup so that it didn’t boil over. Francis nodded, and had turned back to the living room to undoubtedly dramatically reveal that the two of them needed to be outside, pronto.
Now at peace, Matthew could finally, finally, make his taffy in peace!
Bringing the boiling pot of syrup outside, he headed towards the bench with four little popsicle sticks set up, each about fifteen centimetres away from the next. Working quickly but not hastily, he evenly poured the boiling syrup onto the snow and onto the popsicle sticks, creating small strips of coagulating maple syrup.
“What’s all this about?” Matthew heard Arthur’s voice ring out from behind him.
Matthew smiled and gestured at the popsicle sticks on the snow. “If you want a treat, I highly suggest you take a popsicle stick and start rolling up the syrup I just dumped on the snow after a day’s hard work.”
“You were only at the stove for about ten minutes, mon petit,” Francis commented, but approached the bench anyway.
Alfred was the most eager of them, quickly picking a stick and rolling the syrup on there. Surprised, he waved the stick around, seeing the taffy actually stick on and not fall off! Arthur and Francis examined their sticks with equal amounts of confusion, while Matthew had already picked his up and started licking at the taffy. FOllowing his example, Alfred did as well. His eyes lit up.
“This tastes good, Mattie! What is this, maple syrup snow?” Alfred asked between chews.
“It’s called, ‘Tire sur la neige,’ and in English I usually call it maple taffy,” he responded. “Yes, it’s actually made out of boiled maple syrup. That’s just how it works.” Upon seeing Arthur and Francis’ unimpressed faces as they connected the dots from their separate encounters, Matthew backtracked. “I mean… you don’t need to eat it. I just thought it would be cool, since you guys don’t usually have maple syrup or snow or the thought of boiling it all…?”
“Nonsense,” Arthur said, as if licking a popsicle stick’s worth of sugar this late a night wasn’t ridiculous. “It would be rude of us to not even try this, especially since you’ve had to make it twice.”
“Thrice,” Matthew corrected, and Alfred winced.
“Yeah… Sorry for knocking the pot all over you, bro,” Alfred said.
Arthur turned to Alfred, his grumpy face overshadowed by the taffy he was eating. “You knocked the pot over on him? The syrup was boiling, Alfred, boiling!”
“I didn’t know that, I just saw him trying to pour it on the snow like a weirdo!”
“Calm down, now… Let’s just enjoy Mathieu’s taffy.”
And so they did. They probably made a funny scene, if anyone were to venture all the way to their cabin -- four grown men, crouched down in the snow together, each holding a popsicle stick and staring at the sky. Matthew kept batting a hungry Kuma away, saying, “No, this is my taffy! Mine!” Apparently, they all enjoyed the taffy quite a bit (despite Arthur’s predisposition against sugar, and Francis’ typical gourmet taste), none of them giving up their goods to the polar bear. Matthew simply patted the bear on the head, and told them that they would get their fix of maple syrup later.
The three sat there, watching the sky. And for a while, that’s all they did.
OMAKE:
“We should go cross-country skiing. Right now.”
“Is this the sugar speaking or do you actually want to ski in the dark…?”
“You will never know the thrill of running headfirst into a tree in the dark and then being unable to climb a hill if you don’t try!”
A rustle as someone gets up.
“Mattie NO--”