Yuuta sees Shun for the first time in years at a small, hole in the wall cake shop. It was all really quite spontaneous, and Yuuta is sure that some sort of destiny must have been at work, because had he showed up at a different time, for a different reason, he would have never encountered the red head.

It was a coworker's birthday at the high school he worked at, and being one of the newer teachers, he had been given the duty of running over to the cake shop to order the cake. He had a few hours to kill, and decided to waste some time reading for a bit in the park across from the shop. Before he even realized it, however, the sun began setting and upon looking at his cell phone for the time, he realized he only had less than an hour to retrieve the cake and head back over to the school.

As he swiftly headed over to the cake shop, he cringed, noticing that the store was due to close quite early today, and he called out in a voice that was abnormally urgent,

"Hello? Is anyone still here? I need to purchase a birthday cake." He nearly flinched as he heard a clatter come from behind the door leading to the kitchen, and a familiar, light voice answered back,

"Ah, yes Sir! I'll be right with you! Sorry!" Yuuta was usually incredibly patient, he truly was, but this was one of his first jobs, and he's not usually one who slacks. However, something about the voice on the other side of the door somehow soothed him enough from actually feeling annoyed at the situation.

Minutes went and passed and various other banging noises were heard. Just as Yuuta was about to cop out and head to a convenience store a few blocks down, someone came bursting through the door, their back turned to him as they set what looked to be a freshly made strawberry cream cake on the table.

"Is there anything that you'd like written on it?" The person said, placing some plastic gloves on their hands and tying their sort of long, sort of fluffy, sort of red hair into a sort of ponytail. Everything about this person was so ambiguous that it left Yuuta yearning to see their face. He hadn't known this person for even a day, and yet they already seemed sort of familiar, sort of boyish, but also sort of girlish. Were they a friend from college? Perhaps they were his classmate in high school?

Everything from Yuuta's academic years were lost to him. Once he realized that all his friends were going to impossibly far places, he came to terms with the idea of putting the past behind him and looking forward. As a teenager he enjoyed looking back at his younger years with friends who endured those years with him, but now, having to go through it all alone, with even Yuuki, his twin, away from him and pursuing his own goals, he thought it best to just ignore anything and everything that didn't involve the present or the future.

It was painful, and it was lonely, but it was a surefire way of avoiding the sad, needless pining that lead to absolutely nowhere, and Yuuta's had enough pining to last him a lifetime.

"Sir?" the person asked once again, slowly turning to face Yuuta while tucking a stray hair behind their ear, "Do you have anything written down that you'd want placed on th-"

And all of a sudden, all of these 'sort of's' made sense. The sweet, familiar, soothing voice, it all came back rushing back to Yuuta as he lowered his gaze slightly to meet Shun's stunned gaze.

"Yuuta" Shun whispered, "You're…"

Before Shun could finish what he was saying, Yuuta shuffled into his pocket and pulled out an unreasonably large amount of money before quickly asking for the cake. If Shun's shocked face was comforting, the hurt look he have Yuuta now was physically painful to gaze at.

"I'll be back", Yuuta said quickly, "I just- my coworkers, they asked me to-" he tried forming a complete sentence and not acting like a fucking idiot in front of his old childhood friend, but the defeat reflecting in Shun's large brown eyes seemed to have a negative effect on his speech, or something.

"If I could meet you after you close, I know you're supposed to close in half an hour" he gestured to the sign at the front of the door, "I'll be there exactly at that time and we can grab something to drink-" he paused again, wondering if Shun even drank, or if he preferred tea, or coffee, and holy shit his mind was just racing with thousands upon thousands of questions but he knew he didn't have anymore time to spend here, at least for now.

He was given the cake, and though he feared to look up and see any sort of negative emotions on Shun's face, he managed, and almost sighed in relief when he saw Shun's small, but incredibly bright smile.

"I'll hold you to that promise, you know" he replied sweetly, placing the now boxed cake in a bag and throwing in some complimentary candles. Just as Yuuta began to turn around, he felt a delicate, gloved hand grab at the cuff of his dress shirt and he turned around, willing himself not to blush as he gazed at a nervous, but hopeful Shun.

"You…" the red head began before biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut. After a second of collecting himself, he looked up at Yuuta again, his eyes filled with an almost childlike sense of fear and determination, "You will come back, right?"

Yuuta was what one might consider a ladies man. He was pretty great at smooth talking anyone into anything, but looking at Shun's reddened face and hearing that delicately worded question full of so much doubt, he willed himself to do more than just nod in affirmation.

"Absolutely. Half an hour, okay? I'll be right here Shun." He gently removed himself from Shun's weak grip, "So please don't worry".