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His quarters were a disaster. Actually, 'disaster' would be too weak a word. It was like the chaos theory incarnate. If it weren't for the fact that he'd actually stepped back out and double-checked the name plate to make sure he really was in his quarters, Chekov would have thought that he had stepped into another dimension.
The only thing that made total sense about it was the fact that, at the center of the chaos, was Sulu.
He stepped around a dash of white powder on his carpet, staring wide-eyed at the contraption in the middle of his living area. It looked disturbingly like a stove. Disturbingly like one of the galley stoves, no less.
As if to forestall any explosions, Sulu put down what looked like a gooey blue rope and smiled. "I promise, I'll clean it up... in a few hours, you'll never even know I was here."
Chekov just stared. He had a galley stove in his quarters. He had goo on his table. There was white powder on his floor.
"I would have used my quarters, but it's a lot farther to drag the stove..." Sulu paused, waving a hand towards his friend's face, and was rewarded with a blank look. Then he smiled again. "Don't worry, when I'm done, we'll sneak the stove back--" Chekov thought there that he hoped he wasn't included in the 'we' part of that statement. "--and the end result will be a whole month's worth of salt water taffy."
After another very long moment, Chekov blinked once or twice. "I am going to the rec room. For a few hours."
Sulu went from smiling to positively beaming. "I knew I could count on you to be magnanimous."
Chekov shook his head, slowly, then turned and walked out of his quarters. He could have probably blown up, but it wouldn't have done any good. He had already learned to resign himself to the fact that his best friend would have fifty hobbies at once, and forty-nine of them would be messy.
He only hoped that Sulu realized that the chef would be far less magnanimous than he was.