"One and a half sticks of butter, melted," Bunta adds to Yukimura's wet ingredient instructions. Having finished the dry ingredients, he gets the vanilla extract and eyeballs out a drizzle into the milk and eggs.

Keita by now actually has been starting to wind down-- until his sister grouches at him and he, in all the glory the logic of a four-year-old can muster, fires back the wittiest comeback he can think of in defense through a pitiful screech.

"You stop...!"

"Hey, hey," Bunta warns from a few feet away. "Both of you, stop and take a breath."