With a skeptical frown on his face, Jerome spent quite a lot of seconds standing in the doorframe of the kitchen and eyeing the thing that had presumably suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It wasn't as much a problem of there being a cake, it was the fact that last day, it definitely hadn't been there, and Jerome, like usual, had left the kitchen pretty late after preparing a key lime pie for Oliver and the rest of the residents. He had finished baking, finished drinking from the wine bottle which had become a quite worrisome habit since his arrival in Zenith, had put the pie in the fridge, had put a post-it on the fridge door to let people know that the pie was for everyone, and had left pretty late. And there hadn't been a cake other than the leftovers of his tarte au chocolat and his key lime pie, which technically wasn't even a cake.
With every day that had passed, Jerome, reluctantly, got a more intense feeling of getting used to the nonsense the sadistic assholes running this place would just throw at them like it was nothing, like they were rats in a labyrinth, being watched for amusement, and nonetheless, every day managed to surprise him on a new level. The mere knowledge that They loved to do the most random stuff without being seen by anyone wasn't enough to really let it sink, at least not after the couple of days he only had been in Zenith, and thus, even after having been ill for a day or getting moved to a fucking other place within a whole other season, Jerome was baffled at the sudden arrival of this festive-looking cake, slightly musing about the fact that he also didn't want to get used to these kind of stupid things.
And for Jerome, not having caught on to the fact that this was a carnival setting, as 'carnival' in Germany had quite another, not nearly as fancy connotation, the sudden arrival of this cake was something he couldn't wrap his head around, asking himself if this was some kind of trap and just the beginning of something darker, as every day had been until now, in a way.
Feeling slightly on edge, Jerome was finally able to loosen his eyes from the bakery product he absolutely wasn't about to touch, partially because he didn't trust the thing, but mostly because he definitely wasn't willing to comply to Their facade of creating a pleasant surrounding before they would proceed to put them through something more sinister again. By putting the cake there, they presumably wanted them to eat it, and as long as Jerome wasn't endangering anyone else, he absolutely wasn't willing to play Their little games and to do what they expected him to do. At least not when it seemed optional.
For a heartbeat, his eyes coated themselves in anger, as being confronted with anything They did always stirred inside the pit of rage inside his heart, eagerly wanting to release it into the world, but Jerome restrained himself after a few heavy in- and exhales, not wanting to lose it because of a fucking cake, even though the cake was merely a catalyst. Also, even though he was far from feeling good, he felt definitely better than at any of the mornings he had experienced thus far in Zenith, which helped tremendously with containing his anger and leaving himself with a clear head. The lunch with Oliver, despite little hiccups, had left him in rather good spirits, as this man had managed to lift the sense of loneliness he had been innately used to for so many years just enough to really feel a difference, providing some sort of consolation and the feeling of not going through this shit on his own, and thus, even though he had felt the need to drink the evening before, like every evening, he felt somewhat stable. As stable as he was able to feel.
After the successful repression of the urge to punch something, Jerome began moving to the coffee maker, yawning in the process which only reassured him that coffee would be a great addition to the leftover cake from yesterday which, in addition to his key lime pie, still was inside the fridge, waiting to be devoured. As the coffee was running through the machine, he leaned against the kitchen counter and couldn't help but eye the cake again. It looked colourful.