CHAPTER THREE (1,530 words)

Samejima wishes someone cared about her opinion. Suzume settles in and tries to listen to her thoughtful son. Meanwhile, Shishio thinks.


Samejima sighed into her mug and watched as her breath blew the steam upwards and away. It was a cute thing, delicately curved and decorated in pastel hues. Yukichi had gifted it to her last Christmas. He had given Shishio a neck tie—an unintentional reminder of the man's practical obsession with his niece (she couldn't help but notice that Shishio never put them in the same place). The thought brought her back to her friends current conundrum, and by extension, Samejima's opportunity to share some romantic shoujo-manga-infused wisdom.

There was little advice one could give to a man hoping to rekindle a romance with a woman who no longer had feelings for him but Samejima had tried her best. Of course, Shishio being Shishio, he still hadn't replied to her text.

(11:02)

So…

Yukichi mentioned that his niece is now in Nakahaba.

i think you should talk to her

Just straightforwardly communicate with her

not even necessarily romantically but….

i mean it could go romantically

But anyway, you should talk to her.

Also, Yukichi might visit her soon so probably talk to her before then

okay i should sleep

Make sure you stop moping and good luck

(Delivered)

In the manga she read, the second lead rarely ever got the opportunity to prove himself and when he did, it almost always failed miserably. Although, she thought, shoujo manga were hardly exemplar depictions of realistic relationships. Samejima took a sip of her tea, savouring the warmth on her tongue. It would work out for Shishio, just as it had for Yukichi (who was finally going to have a child of his own to buy pyjama's for) and—her phone vibrated with a notification, Suzu was waiting outside: let me in, the groceries are heavy—just as it was for her.

She smiled into her cup, her happy ending was waiting outside— their arms full of toilet paper and meat.


"Hey, mum!" Suzume looked up from the local newspaper, red pencil dangling between her fingertips. In the doorway of her kitchen was her son, looking confused and tired in his school uniform.

"What?" She asked simply, searching for the cause of his supposed distress.

"Do you know where my tie is?" Daichi was leaned up against the doorway, his hands posed by his sides as if he were hanging by their grace alone, his body seemingly sapped of all energy. With a fond look on her face, Suzume rose from her seat and made her way towards her preteen son. He watched warily as she came closer and closer towards him, until she was right in front of him and gently freed his tie from his left hand.

Upon realising what had happened, Daichi lightly blushed and averted his eyes from his mother's grinning face.

Suzume chuckled and pat her son's head. "What a cute son I have…" She mused aloud.

Daichi, feeling awfully shy, rolled his eyes and pushed his way past his mum. The push was gentle, so much so that Suzume found herself trying hard to ignore the similarities between her boy and his lovably awkward father. The thought made her wince and cynically she thought, not such a loveable quality when it stopped us from effectively communicating…

She shook her head as if to banish the thought and instead focussed on her son. "I should go about now, be careful on the bus and I'll see you later today." She wrapped her arms around the preteen and bent her head to press a kiss to the top of his head before giving him one last look over. "Mother loves you Daichi, very, very, very much."

Daichi shook himself free of his mothers grasp, pretending to be disgusted by the sign of affection, "Ugh mu-um."

As soon as his mother left, he laughed into his food, feeling comforted and confident that everything would be okay.

When he made to leave, he stopped to look at the newspaper on the table (his mum was the type to forget things) and briefly inspected the litany of red circles. She was looking for a job, he realised. He frowned, wondering what his mum had planned to do, there wasn't a seafood restaurant hiring in the area. Daichi flipped through the pages. Huh, he thought, a bakery and a yogurt store. He couldn't imagine his mother doing either. She disliked working with machines and was generally too impatient to wait for most things. With a smile at the thought of her working any type of machinery, he fixed the pages of the paper and made his way to the door.

Daichi knew that his mother could do anything and would ultimately adjust well... He just hoped he could be enough in her life, that he could be strong enough to make it work.


Shishio looked at his phone with trepidation. Yosano Suzume (did she go by that now?) was in the same town as him. He could find her within thirty minutes, walk up to her and admit that he still thought about her far too often… That he had more than once thought of her as 'the one that got away'.

So why hadn't he?

Why was he waiting?

When he thought about it, there were too many explanations for him to count. She was different, he was different. He knew that neither of them could love each other the way they had before. He couldn't go back to hating himself like that and he would never have to because she was different, older, wiser… Possibly too wise to ever even consider him romantically again.

If Shishio thought hard on that period of his life, it was very easy to see why he then hated himself so much. Even when he disregarded his mistakes with Suzume, he couldn't ignore his mistakes with his students, with Yukichi…

And if Shishio was being honest, wholly and completely honest. Part of him didn't want to go back to that. To hating himself for caring so much about something that it changed him, that it made him irrational and try to win someone. And yet, at the same time, he desperately wanted that to happen. He desperately wanted to feel something again, to feel what Suzume provoked from him again. It was unhealthy, that he thought she could bring something back to him, because that wasn't her job and he knew that it was wrong to expect anything from her.

But in the fallout of their relationship, she had been the one thing to keep him going. Her holding Mamura's hand had hurt, but it kept him going—he could see her happy, he knew that she didn't need him. Not the way he had needed her. And in a strange masochistic way that had been a motivator for him. She would live on without him and he would have to learn to do the same.

So what would he do now?

He was bound to run into her eventually, Nakahaba was a small town after all. What would she think, seeing him? After all these years… He hoped she wouldn't find him strange, or be wary of him. Shishio sighed, slouching in his chair. This was exhausting.

In an attempt to calm his nerves, he worked on his breathing. In, out. In, out. The aim was to sound like the ocean, right? In, out. In, out. In, out. The chirps outside were too distracting... too ironic for his moment of calm. With a murmured curse, Shishio jumped to his feet and slammed the window shut, leaving him alone with his precious silence.


Upon seeing the bakery, Suzume immediately found herself in love with the place. The help sign posted out front was a stylish thing and Suzume could see that whoever had designed it had spent time adding cute embellishments and picking fonts. In a similar fashion to the sign, the store front was outfitted with little lace like embellishments. Yes, this was somewhere she could see herself happily working.

Suzume's cooking course had covered many things, and though she was no pastry chef, she knew that she knew enough to be able to handle baking the simple things. And also, having come from a smaller town herself, she knew that her status as a a graduate of a cooking academy presented her with a potential advantage.

Although, that depended on how she sold herself. From her dialect to her clothing, it all needed to be just right so that she wouldn't come off as one of those arrogant city slickers. Huh, perhaps Yuyuka was rubbing off on her.

With that thought, she exhaled, picked the visible lint from her cardigan and opened the door to the bakery.


tbc (of course)


so anyway this chapter TOOK AGES (AND ITS SO SHORT!), IM SORRY BUT THE NEXT ONE WILL TOO PROBABLY. UNI IS GREAT, tiring BUT GREAT.

NOTES:

1) Yukichi isn't straight lol sorry not sorry, the 'finally' is there because he and his partner were on the waiting list for adoption

2) Suzu is Samejima's new partner, why? so no one thinks she's alone, although i originally wanted to write her alone and happy to be, i thought this might let people rest—i really didn't like that latest chapter i mean its been too long and shishio honestly looked way too different just… nah. lfdchvsdlxzh it felt sloppy like the author knew she had jilted Shishio and tried to make up for his ending here but after what she did to his characterisation it just felt like a kick to the gut.