Bakery Girl
Once again, he got stuck in this situation. His sister's birthday was approaching and he was the one in charge of getting the cake for the party… Again… It wasn't that he didn't like buying things for her, but did it really have to be every year? Also, he wasn't really fond of the idea of going to the centre of the city to get a cake. Ever since puberty hit him, walking on crowded streets was not his favourite thing to do. He got easily annoyed at the girls making comments about his looks, about his white hair, about his arms, his eyes, and he could go on and on about their ramblings and squeaking.
"I swear to god, next year I'm not doing shit…" he mumbled to himself as he passed by another group of whispering girls.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he reached her sister's favourite bakery. The sign read '5th Division', the name decorated with pastel coloured stars and hearts. "Of course she'd like this place," he thought to himself as he walked through the door.
The place seemed to be very clean, and everything was neatly organised. People were looking at the counters and display shelves piled with cakes, cookies, and other baked goods. He went straight for the rotating cake display, a man in an apron stood next to it, his arms folded over his chest, and an annoyed expression painted on his face.
"Good morning. Is this the only cake display you've got?" Toshiro said, barely looking at the man, more focused on the cakes than him.
"Yeah," replied simply the man.
Toshiro examined the cakes that were spinning in the display. He noticed the variety of flavours. Most of them seemed to be chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla; some even looked to be a mix of those three flavours. But there were some with crazy colours and shapes he couldn't even tell what were they supposed to taste like. He decided that the safest choice was to go with chocolate, everyone loved chocolate, right? At least his sister did, and that was all that mattered anyway.
The boy started to speak, he hadn't really looked but he supposed the annoyed attendant was still next to him. "I'll take that one at the bott-," he choked that last bit as soon as he lifted his gaze. The male attendant wasn't there anymore, instead, a girl stood were the annoyed man was supposed to be. She had dark hair, fair skin, and chocolate-coloured eyes.
"Ah, I'm sorry about my co-worker. He is not used to be at the front of the store, so I replaced him since you look like you could need some help," the girl said, her smile was warm and welcoming, her eyes glowed like stars.
"I… Uhm… Ah…" was all that came out of Toshiro's mouth, eyes wide in surprise.
"Did you see one you liked?" the girl spoke once again, leaning closer to the cake display.
"I… Yes! That chocolate one at the bottom… Please," he said, clearing his throat after he was done talking.
"Alright, then. Do you want me to write a name on it?" the girl said.
"Ah, yes. Write 'Happy Birthday Rangiku', or just 'Rangiku' with some hearts and stars around it or something like that… Is that okay?"
"Yes, that's fine," she smiled once again and his heart did a double jump. "Could you please wait by the register? Thank you very much," the girl said, opening the display to grab the cake.
Toshiro did as he was told; he stood by the register with his arms crossed over his chest. As he waited he took his time to watch the girl. She worked around the bakery as if she were a fish swimming in the ocean. She pulled together the box for the cake in now time, all while she was humming to herself some random song he couldn't place. He wasn't really sure why but he couldn't take his eyes off of her, this wasn't his usual behaviour, it was as if some force drew him to her.
"Okay, sir. Do you want anything else?" the girl spoke behind the counter.
"Uhm… No, thank you. That'll be all," he cleared his voice once again, his hands were sweating.
The girl told him the price of everything and he just handed her the money with an almost trembling hand. He was losing his cool really fast. 'As soon as the exchange finished all would be over,' he thought.
"Thank you so much for buying here, I hope you like our product! Have a nice day!" the girl said happily, a smile appearing over her face again.
"Ah, yes, thank you, goodbye," his words stumbled out of his lips and he took his way as fast as he could.
As he was halfway through the store, he started to question himself. 'What are you doing, you idiot. Go back, go back, go back,' he thought. Blood rushed to his brain and something snapped in it. "Oh, fuck it," he mumbled out loud to himself and turned back, walking fast towards the register, where the girl still stood writing something on a piece of paper.
"Actually, yes. I do want something else," he started to tell her, "Would you give me your phone number?"
The girl blinked, her eyes were wide with surprise. 'Oh, shit. I fucked up. I fucked up badly,' Toshiro thought to himself. The girl blinked twice again, her mouth opening to answer him. 'This is it, this is when you get rejected you dumbass,' his consciousness told him.
"Well… Yeah, okay," The girl said, ripping a piece of the paper she was writing on, and writing her number along with her name.
She handed the paper to him, a faint smile on her lips. "My name's Momo, Hinamori Momo. What's yours?"
"Hitsugaya Toshiro," he took the piece of paper, "nice to meet you, Momo".
"Nice to meet you too, Toshiro," she said, her smile growing bigger. "I'm looking forward to receiving a message from you".
"You can count on it," he said, a smile appearing on his lips as well.
Toshiro gave her one last look and, putting the piece of paper in his back pocket, he took his way out of the store once again. He hated to do things outside of the area he lived in, but this once, just this once, he was glad he had to buy the cake for Rangiku's birthday. He couldn't wait until he was home and could finally text and get to know this sweet girl from the bakery, this sweet Momo.