XI


Kenji had never really liked sweet things. He had received quite a fair share of Valentines' chocolates and others of the like, but he ate them out of obligation, if he ever ate them at all. He was not one to get too worked up over Shizuku offering him her cooking, and a part of him hated the fact that he was getting excited over something as simple as a batch of home-made cookies. So he surprised himself at the rate how excited he was feeling at the prospect of seeing her.

When he pulled into the Mizutani household's driveway, he was not astonished to have his senses overpowered by a sweet, delectable scent that was coming from the exhaust fan that was located at the edge of the house which Kenji could only assume where the kitchen was. It was already getting pretty dark outside, and he wondered why Shizuku was still not switching her lights on. If he hadn't called Shizuku beforehand, he would have assumed no one was home.

Kenji hurried over to the front door, making sure he did not slip on a frozen-over puddle on the second landing. He rang the doorbell twice. No one answered. Kenji frowned and knocked on the door loudly. When there was still on response, he tried the knob, which turned in his hand without any resistance. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The smells that were strong enough outside were almost close to unbearable here in the living room and Kenji had to use the collar of his coat to cover his nose and mouth. It smelt like Shizuku had been burning sugar along with other things that were not supposed to be burnt.

He could hear someone rummaging around in the kitchen, and he could only sigh wearily as he made his way through the living room, flipping the light switch on as he passed it, bathing the room with harsh, white light from overhead. The sudden brightness must have alerted Shizuku that someone was inside her house, and Kenji heard something clatter to the floor, followed by soft cursing.

Kenji poked his head into the kitchen and couldn't believe what he was seeing.

There were cookies everywhere. They were sitting in piles on plates scattered on any possible surface. On the microwave oven. On the dining table. On chairs. There were even some on top of the refrigerator. The sink was overflowing with tin bowls and other mixing utensils that Shizuku must have used to lead this cookie invasion.

And Shizuku was there, standing in the middle of the kitchen, donned in a purple apron and armed with a wooden spatula. Her hair was pulled back in a loose pony tail with wisps escaping from the hair tie, framing her face in disarray.

"What are you doing?" Kenji asked slowly as he stepped into the kitchen.

Shizuku turned to face him, and Kenji saw she had quite a bit of batter on her front. "Oh. Kenji. You should wait in the living room. I'll wrap these up in tin foil." She gestured with her spoon at the cookies situated on the table.

Kenji gave the kitchen a once over before hanging his bag on the peg behind the door, followed by his coat. He did not know what was happening here at the moment, but something told him that this was not something Shizuku did out of boredom. "Let me help you clean this up."

She leaned against the dining table and absently shoved a plate of cookies to make room for her spatula. "No. I'm alright. I just need some tin foil."

Kenji watched her as he started rolling up his sleeves up to his elbows. She was a bit disoriented, causing some of those cookies to fall onto the floor. They bounced off the carpet and disappeared under the table. Shizuku had always been level-headed, and the only thing that can affect her thought process was when things happened with people around her. And since she hadn't left the house and the only ones she's probably had contact with were her dad and Takaya, he could only assume that it had something to do with what happened with her mother yesterday.

Had she fought with her father again, he wondered. Shizuku always did the craziest of things after fights. It could either be eating rice crackers in a public stairway. Or baking an insane amount of cookies. Kenji wished she would just deal with her problems like how any other girl would; get angry, or get sad and cry. It would be easier to deal with her if she showed even just a bit of emotion regarding things that she had little control over.

"Shizuku," Kenji said as he approached her from behind, summing up the courage to place his hands on her shoulders gently. She jerked a bit at the contact, but relaxed almost instantly when she looked over her shoulder to meet his eye. "Do you want to sit down for a bit?"

Her eyes were glassy, as if she were thinking of something else. She shook her head after a while. "I need to clean up. I've made a mess of the kitchen."

Kenji did not let go of her, and instead gave her shoulders a brief squeeze. "How long have you been slaving away in here?"

Another pause, then, "I'm not sure. I started when dad and Takaya left for Shouyou."

Kenji's eyebrows rose. It was hard to ignore the whiteboard in the corner where the words '13:00 – Get transcript for transfer' were written in bold with a black marker. He glanced at the wall clock. It was almost five. Shizuku had been baking for four hours straight. Not healthy. Definitely not healthy.

"Come sit with me for a while," again, he urged gently. "I'll help you clean up after you rest."

"I don't need to rest. I just need to get things cleaned up. Does your mother like cookies? I think I've baked too much."

That was the understatement of the decade. Cookies were practically taking over her kitchen. "She'd love to have some." He should probably ask his mother to take most of them to one of her tea parties. And maybe ask her to invite twenty of her friends.

She still didn't budge from her place and once again took her spatula in hand. It seemed to finally sink in that Kenji was holding her too familiarly and she looked over to him with narrowed eyes.

Kenji took that as a sign to let go. He raised his hands in front of him, feigning innocence, and just in case took a step back. "Can we at least turn the lights on?" he asked nervously. Being in the dark alone with Shizuku was making him fidgety. And now that she had armed herself with a batter-coated spatula, he wanted to make sure he saw what she was about to do in the safety of brightness.

For a brief moment, a look of irritation passed Shizuku's face, but she complied and walked over to the switch on the east wall, dodging fallen baking utensils that had found themselves on the floor for some reason. The room exploded in blinding light the moment Shizuku flicked the switch, and Kenji had to wince, blinking several times before his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness.

Shizuku looked like she was having the same problem, and when she finally recovered, her jaw dropped at the sight of what she had done to her kitchen.

The extent of damage was worse than Kenji thought. Now with everything bathed in light, he could see that aside from the tremendous amount of cookies that looked good enough to eat, there were also some that did not turn out well and were all discarded in a dust bin by the foot of the dining table. He also discovered where the scent of burnt glucose was coming from. There was a very sorry-looking frying pan which Kenji could only assume was something Shizuku used to caramelize a significant amount of sugar, most of which had stuck to the bottom of the pan in a lump of black residue.

Kenji decided not to comment on what was before him, because he thought it prudent to stay silent. But when Shizuku sagged against the wall in shock, Kenji felt his feet move and he was beside Shizuku in a heartbeat, holding her by the elbow while his other hand tried to take the spatula from her, mainly for his own safety.

"What happened?" Kenji asked earnestly as he succeeded in taking her weapon from her and uncaringly placing it on top of a batch of her cookies on the pantry, knocking a few of them to the floor. He couldn't care any less. He took Shizuku by the waist with his now free hand and let her lean against him.

Her face contorted into an ugly scowl, something that did not suit her. "You know what? Screw business. I should just study culinary arts. Which I personally don't get why they call it culinary arts when cooking is practically a freaking science." She pushed a few strands of her hair from her face and groaned when she accidentally smeared a bit of batter onto her forehead

Kenji instantly wiped it away with his palm. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Come on. Let's just sit out in the living room." He had never really witnessed anyone have a mental breakdown before, but he was pretty sure this was what it was. Not that he could blame her. He tried to stir her towards the living room. She pushed away from him and leaned against the table with her palms planted on whatever space she found on it.

"Stop telling me what to do," she snapped, which was very, very un-Shizuku-like, thus making Kenji worry even more. This girl seldom got mad at anything. This was, however, not the first time he had seen her say words that could cut through someone's feelings like a knife. Natsume had been a victim of her sharp tongue before. And that had been the time when Natsume had tried very hard to make Shizuku open up to her.

Kenji hadn't meant to pry. The last thing he wanted was to make Shizuku feel like he was cornering her. But he knew that he had to do something. He wanted her to know that he was there, and that he was going to do anything he could possibly do, if it meant making her happy.

Shizuku hurried over to the sink and started rummaging for something in the top cabinets. "First my dad, and then my mom. And then there's you. You keep on telling me what I have to do. Sit down. Turn on the lights. Go to law school," she mumbled as she procured a large Tupperware from the cabinets and whirled around to face him, her eyes flashing angrily. "I'm not going to law school!"

Kenji calmly stood in his place, pushing his hands into his pockets. There it was. It was finally coming out.

Shizuku started to furiously pour the cookies she had made into the Tupperware, starting from those on the plates on the messy table. "I just dropped out of one of the most prestigious universities in the country after planning half of my life to get in it. I thought it would be enough to get a steady, good-paying job to make me happy. It was all I ever thought when I was young. Success. Money. A job. My mom had all that, but she was never happy." She paused a bit when she ran out of cookies on the table. She started to pluck at the ones sitting on top of the microwave oven. "My dad's insisting I get back at it, but I don't see the point in it. My mom's going on and on about how I'm making the biggest mistake of my life, and a part of me wanted to tell her that the only mistake I've made was wanting to become like her. But I could never tell her that. Not really. And that makes me furious."

Kenji believed her. She looked very furious as she tore at the baking paper stuck on the plate she was holding, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it into an already overflowing waste basket by her feet. He could never really know what she was feeling deep down, and it would be a lie if he told her he understood. But he knew this girl since high school. She was the kind of person who liked having a plan. It was necessary for her to have a list of things she had to do, and a schedule to follow to make sure she didn't miss on anything. She had planned her life as a lawyer. And because of someone else's plans, she had to change her own.

Or was it because of other people's plans? Not one of her parents had said that she should quit Uni. All of this was coming from her fear of becoming someone she thought she wanted to be.

But first, Business, now culinary arts?

Kenji was starting to have doubts about what Shizuku really wanted to do with herself. Well, he could assume that she was having a hard time thinking about herself what with everything going on, but sooner or later she had to start somewhere.

She flew around the room until all her edible cookies were tucked in safely in a container, while those that were not good enough to eat were tossed into the dust bin along with others she thought needed throwing away. She did this muttering under her breath about people who kept on butting into her business, or about the snow outside, or anything she thought worth complaining about. And Kenji listened to her patiently as she worked. Kenji contemplated on helping her out, but the way she was moving made him think twice. She was obviously on her own rhythm, and he did not want to get his hand bitten off if Shizuku thought him trying to get in her way, and so he settled with leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and eyes following Shizuku around.

But that was until he noticed her face was red, and her eyes were a bit glassy. He had seen this face before. And that was when she was about to cry. Kenji frowned, and the moment Shizuku breezed past him for the thirteenth time while she was cleaning up, he caught her elbow, stopping her from her rampage around the kitchen.

The contact must have surprised her because she jumped a bit, a small gasp escaping her lips as she looked over at him, those eyes of hers red-rimmed and watery. At the moment, she had a huge garbage bag in one hand, which Kenji took from her and dropped it onto the floor.

"W-what?" she finally asked when Kenji did not say anything.

Kenji reached out and took her hand in his. At first she tried to resist, but it must have been the serious look he had on his face that made her to allow him to take her other hand as well. Kenji rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. Powdered sugar peppered her sleeves and there was dried up batter under her nails. She was looking down at their intertwined hands, and Kenji could see her face was coloring a bit. It felt good to have her react like this. Since she had always found a good enough excuse to wiggle away from his touches ever since he confessed to her, it was a welcome sight to see her flustered. So maybe she wasn't as unaffected by him as he thought.

"Listen to me," Kenji started. "Stop for a moment, take a deep breath, hold it in and count to ten."

"I don't – "

"Take a deep breath and count to ten, Shizuku."

After a few seconds of hesitating, she finally did so. Her shoulders rose as she inhaled, closing her eyes in the process. Kenji counted to ten silently along with her, and she let her breath out slowly after. And for what seemed like eternity, she just stood there, her eyes closed, her breathing evening out as she finally started to relax. Kenji gave her hands an affectionate squeeze. "Are you alright?"

She nodded then opened her eyes though she kept glued to their hands. "I'm fine. Thank you. I mean I'm sorry. I'm just having a very bad day."

"Is there anything I can do to help you to make it better?"

"Unless you can write up my future for me?" she laughed a bit. "Too many things are happening, and I don't know what to prioritize. Takaya's going away, and that's what probably threw me off my momentum. And then my dad started nagging at me again this morning about law school, that I should go back to Tokyo so that I could still be close to Takaya. But then he'd be alone, and I don't want that. Then he started to say things like, 'I've been a bad father so it's normal that I have my kids taken away from me,' or something really depressing, and I didn't want that."

Kenji could understand that. He had hoped Takashi would be a bit more responsible when it came to words he said around his children, but he guessed the man was trying his best, given the circumstances. Takashi was not an insensitive father, though Kenji sometimes questioned his methods in parenting.

"You know as well as I do that there's nothing we could do about Takaya leaving. And I'm not going to tell you to stop worrying about things that are out of your control, because that's not going to help you one bit. Though I'd suggest, don't try to shoulder everything all at once. You'll get crushed under the pressure, and the last thing I want is to have you getting sick over everything."

"I try not to think about it. But he nags, and nags… and…"

"Come home with me tonight," Kenji said, and instantly felt his face grow warm at the double meaning that could possibly be hidden behind the words he had just uttered. To rectify the situation, he added hurriedly, "It's seafood curry night, and I have something I want to show to you. And Iyo wants her room back, but your chicken's taken over so I think it would be best if you drop by sooner than later." He realized he was babbling, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably, looking away.

Shizuku, after a moment, shifted her hold on his hands, lacing her fingers through his. He could feel the crusty batter from under her nails as she gave his hands a long, gentle squeeze. "Then I guess I better go back with you, since Nagoya is being a bother…"

Kenji raised his eyes to meet hers, and he saw that she was still watching their hands. "Just for tonight. Just one night to adjust you to the transition. Takaya leaves on Christmas, and I'd assume you would want to spend time with him as much as possible, right? But tonight, let's eat curry, and you take a look at this thing I have ready for you, and you take that chicken out of Iyo's room. Okay?"

She nodded, and Kenji did not understand what it was that made him do what he did after that, but he had pulled her to him into an embrace, loose enough for her to pull away if she didn't like it. He didn't know what surprised him the most: him suddenly getting ahead of himself and taking advantage of the situation, or Shizuku not even showing any signs of resistance.

Nonetheless, it was something Kenji could consider a peaceful moment. The hug they had shared the night before when Shizuku had broken down crying was one thing. This hug was definitely another. Her arms were wrapped around his torso, her thumbs somehow finding themselves hooked onto the indention his belt made against his shirt. And though Kenji knew there was nothing really sensual about thumbs and belts, he could not help but feel really giddy. Shizuku smelling of artificial sweeteners and cookie dough as he pressed his face against her neck and inhaled was not helping. Especially not when Shizuku was standing so very close to him. When had she stepped towards him? He couldn't remember. Actually, it didn't really matter.

Because at that moment, she wasn't thinking about Takaya. She wasn't thinking about her father or mother and their failed marriage. And she wasn't thinking about some other guy that was not him. Because that moment right there, in that messy kitchen, in the midst of cookies and things-that-didn't-quite-become-cookies, she was here, and he was here, and they were together.

And everything was good.

Well, not really everything.

Cleaning the kitchen was a pain, and by the time they had gotten it spic and span, it was already around six in the evening. Ten minutes later, Takaya arrived, and the only evidence that their kitchen had been a cookie battlefield was the slight smell of burnt sugar, and the spoils of war were sealed in three large, plastic containers stacked one on top of the other on the kitchen counter. Kenji was tiredly slouched on the sofa, checking his emails on his mobile phone and Shizuku was taking a shower when Takaya arrived.

"We got take-out," Takaya announced as he dropped his bag on the floor. He gave Kenji a sorry smile. "You're here. We didn't know you'd be coming over, Yamaken-kun, so we didn't buy your share."

Kenji straightened in his seat and shook his head, tucking his phone in his breast pocket. "That's okay. Sorry for dropping by without any notice."

"Do you want my McFries?" Takaya offered.

"Ah, no. Actually, I came here for Shizuku."

Takaya brightened. "Are you going out on a date? Can I have Shizuku's McDouble then?"

Kenji blinked at the boy as he set the paper bag on the center table and started digging into it. "Maybe you should ask her personally. She's in the shower." Kanji was not sure what Shizuku's relationship with McDoubles were, so he thought it better for Takaya to wait for his sister before claiming her dinner.

The timing was perfect because Shizuku emerged from the bathroom, already dressed in a yellow cardigan and one of her tasteless flowery skirts. She had blow dried her hair, but Kenji could still make out her tips to be a bit damp. "Welcome home, Takaya. Wash your hands first before eating."

Takaya obediently got up. "Hey, Shizuku? Since Yamaken-kun is taking you on a date, can I have your share of take out? And why does our kitchen smell funky?" he asked as he passed her on his way to the kitchen.

Shizuku seemed to color a bit, ignoring the latter question altogether. "It's not a date. Mrs. Yamaguchi just invited me over to eat at their place."

"Huh," Takaya mused as he returned to the living room and back to his place by the table, where he started taking out a couple of fries and some burgers in big boxes. "Are you sleeping over at Yamaken-kun's house again?"

Shizuku's eyes met Kenji's.

Kenji answered for her. "Just for this one night. She's going to pack her stuff and move back in here tomorrow."

That made Takaya grin. "That would be nice. We could spend a little more time together before I leave."

The way the kid naturally said it made Kenji's insides churn. Takaya had always been very accepting when it came to things that happened around him. It looked like he had already surrendered to the fact that major things were happening in his life, and that he could do nothing to stop them.

"Where's dad?" Shizuku asked.

Takaya shrugged. "He said he wanted to stop by the shop. He said something about cleaning up a bit."

Shizuku scowled, muttering something under her breath as she snatched her coat from the rack by the stairs. "He's trying to avoid me. I just know it."

"Where are you going?" Kenji and Takaya asked at the same time.

Shizuku turned to them. "To the shop. Dad and I need to talk." Her eyes landed on Kenji and she smiled apologetically. "It will only take a moment."

"I'll drive you," Kenji offered, poised to stand.

"It's a three-minute walk."

"It's cold."

"I'll be fine." And before Kenji could protest, Shizuku had already donned her coat and was out of the door in a second. Her hair was barely even dry. Kenji hoped she wouldn't catch a cold.

He returned his gaze back to Takaya, who was now taking a big bite of his burger.

"You shouldn't worry too much. They're always like that," Takaya said knowingly in between chews. "Dad always makes these tiny mistakes, and he would know about a second after he's done it, and he'd hide away from Shizuku, hoping the problem would just go away. Most of the time, it does, but lately Shizuku's kind of fed up with all the chasing."

Kenji regarded the younger boy silently for a few seconds before asking, "And where does that put you?"

Takaya looked up at him owlishly. "Me? Oh, I'd really rather not get in between them. Though I do feel for Shizuku a lot. I've always thought Shizuku to be the responsible adult between them, but that doesn't mean my dad isn't trying. He has his good points."

Kenji could only raise his eyebrows at how mature this kid's perspective in life was. Shizuku had raised him well. "You seem to be taking everything in stride here, as opposed to last night." He had practically chosen freezing to death over seeing his mother yesterday. And now here he was, peacefully eating a burger.

Takaya shrugged. "It's not as if it's the end of the world. I'm going to miss my friends here, but I can make more new friends there as well. And…" He paused before giving Kenji one of those smiles that reminded him so much of Shizuku's. "And maybe now, Shizuku would be able to think more of herself without me around, you know. Sometimes, I feel like the reason why she's taking everything so hard is because of me."

Kenji was taken aback by this remark. "Shizuku's never thought of you that way. Ever."

"I know. But sometimes I think that she does. Did you know that the reason why Shizuku chose Shouyou as her high school was because she wanted to make sure she could make me lunches in the mornings? She could have chosen a better school because she's smart, but Shouyou was the nearest." He finished his burger and licked his fingers in satisfaction. "Anyway, when I get to Tokyo, I get to spend time with my mom, which is something I never got to do since I was little. She seems to like to work too much, but I guess that's where Shizuku got her bad habits."

Kenji tilted his head to the side, curious. "Funny. When we met in the hospital after you hit your head, I was lightly informed that you were being rebellious. And last night you didn't even want to see your mom."

Another shrug from Takaya as he started with his fries. "Well, at the time I knew what was going to happen. The only reason why I didn't want to leave was because of Shizuku, actually."

"And what made you change your mind?" Kenji asked.

Takaya gave him a pointed look. "You."

His answer surprised Kenji. He had never really considered how Takaya saw him. All he knew about the kid was that he looked very much like his sister and resembled several defining traits with her. "Me? What about me?"

Takaya picked on his fries, arranging the according to their length on top of a paper napkin. "My sister, she's had bad taste in men." His wrinkled his nose, as if remembering a not so good memory. "When she was dating Yoshida Haru-san, she was a mess. It was like she was always confused. There were times when I had seen her beating the hell out of her futon while airing it out in the garden. He always came through the window. And he didn't really talk much with me at the time. Personally, I didn't like him."

Kenji was starting to like the kid more and more.

"On Shizuku's sixteenth birthday, he caught me by the ankles, hung me upside-down and called me a Zashiki Warashi." His hands paused from their little project of arranging the fries around. He frowned. "At that time, mom couldn't make it to her birthday. And as usual, Shizuku was putting up a brave front. And then Yoshida Haru-san came, and it was all good. At that time, I was really glad that he came. But that was the problem with him. He came and he went, all in his own time. He'd jump into a fishing boat to hunt for tuna as if it were nothing, and come back expecting nothing would change. And Shizuku's world always stopped when she was waiting for him. It was painful to watch. I'm glad they broke up."

Kenji wondered if Shizuku knew that her brother thought of Haru that way. In all honesty, Kenji couldn't have phrased it any better. But then that was probably because he had always loved Shizuku, and he knew deep down that he wouldn't have made her suffer, if she had just given him a chance.

But she was finally giving him that chance. He hoped that he would be able to lighten her burden, even if just a little.

Takaya resumed with his fries. "But now she has you. And last night, when mom left, it was the first time I saw her finally not putting up a brave face in front of me. She was crying, Yamaken-kun. Shizuku never cries. But she was crying while you held her."

Kenji scratched his cheek, a bit embarrassed. "You saw that?"

Takaya grinned. "I was watching from the stairs before I went to see dad. I'm glad I did. It kind of reminded me that Shizuku's still human after all." He lowered his eyes to the table. "She depends on you. So even if I'm not here, I know she'll be fine."

Kenji was speechless. The little brother had practically given him his blessings. It left one of the weirdest feelings he had ever experienced in his life, but along with it came the pressing expectations of him not messing things up. If he had done better back in high school, perhaps he could have saved Shizuku all the heartbreak. If he had just accepted his feelings sooner, then maybe things would have turned out differently. But he had just taken too much time, and he guessed Shizuku deserved better than an indecisive guy whose pride was more important than his feelings for her.

"That means a lot to me, Takaya," Kenji said. "I'll take care of her while you're away. And we can hang out when you come home for the holidays."

Takaya seemed to like that. "That sounds like fun. But only if you're paying."

Kenji almost forgot that this was a Mizutani he was talking to. He smiled stiffly. "Of course…"

"Cool." And Takaya hurriedly stuffed several fries into his mouth wiping his hands onto his pants. "I'm gonna get changed and do my homework before Shizuku comes home and tells me to get cracking." He raced to the stairs.

"What, so you're leaving me here all alone?" Kenji called out to him.

Takaya looked back at him, stopping at the foot of the stairs. "Are you going to be lonely?"

It sounded like he was making fun of him. And to think Kenji actually thought he liked the kid.

Kenji sniffed before slouching once again onto the sofa. "Fine. Go do your homework."

"Okay. See you, Yamaken-kun." And he clambered up the stairs noisily. From the second floor, Kenji heard a door opening then closing as Takaya entered his room, leaving Kenji to his own thoughts.

Shizuku returned home a few minutes later with her nose and ears red from the cold outside. She was alone, Takashi nowhere to be seen, which implied that things didn't turn out well with the talk she had planned to have with him. Kenji stood up and walked over to her to meet her halfway. He did a double take when Shizuku breezed past him, fuming. He winced when she started beating up the unsuspecting throw pillow sitting on the couch while uttering profanities that made even Kenji's own ears red. He didn't know what had actually happened between father and daughter, but he could only assume that it had not been good.

"That annoying, selfish, poor-excuse-for-a-father..." she went on, punctuating every other word with a punch to the pillow.

Kenji did not think it wise to get in the way of her wrath so made the decision to wait until she calmed down, which she eventually did after two or so minutes or ranting. After spending most of her remaining energy, she flopped down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands.

"You're angry." Definite understatement, but Kenji said it anyway, if warily.

Shizuku started rubbing her eyes with her palms. "Why do I even bother?"

"Did something happen?"

She shook her head, raising her head to meet his gaze. Good. She was not crying. "I forgot how a waste of time talking to my dad was."

Kenji really wouldn't know. He had never talked with Mizutani Takashi about anything that concerned the shop and whatever happened within it, though based on what he had heard from Shizuku about how it had gone under many times before, he could understand her frustration about the subject. Today must be one of those days that they ended up talking about what to do with the shop.

It didn't have to take a genius to know that it was basically Takashi's fault that such had happened in the past, and maybe deep down – deep, deep down – a part of him really loathed the man for making Shizuku grow up too fast because he just wouldn't man up the right way. And seeing Shizuku at her wits end from thinking about resuscitating an already dead business while having to think about the remains of the failed marriage of her parents was not doing any good to Takashi's image in Kenji's mind.

Kenji slowly made his way to her, and without a word, grabbed her wrist and pulling her up to stand. She gasped at the sudden contact.

"What?" she asked uncertainly when Kenji gave her a side-long glance.

"We're having dinner with my family, because that's the reason why I picked you up in the first place," Kenji said as he started towards the kitchen, dragging Shizuku along with him. "We're taking your cookies with you. Mom would love them. Go grab them. Go."

Shizuku shook his hand off her wrist and stopped in her tracks. "Well, you don't have to be so rough about it," she said reproachfully.

Kenji crossed his arms over his chest. "You can't stay here. You're over-thinking things. You always do. You're exactly how you were back in high school. You nitpick at every single detail and make a big deal out of things that shouldn't matter, and you work yourself up over shit that should be other people's problems. Look at you. You're practically losing it already."

She didn't like that. She scowled. "I am not losing it. I'm perfectly fine."

"You baked cookies enough to feed a small army," Kenji pointed out, gesturing his head towards the stacks of Tupperware on the kitchen counter.

Shizuku blushed. "Cooking relaxes me," she reasoned.

"Then what do those cookies tell about your stress level right now?" Kenji demanded. And to think things had been going well earlier…

She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't seem to find the right words to counter him. She grabbed at the hem of her coat and looked down at her feet. "There are just too many things that need fixing at such a small amount of time."

Kenji sighed in frustration. "That's exactly what I'm telling you. You try to fix things that aren't your concern. You try to fix your dad, your dad's business. What else? You shouldn't even be bothered by this! You quit law school for something as petty as – "

"Don't you start with me about that, too, Kenji," Shizuku snapped, her eyes suddenly flashing as they met his. "I've made a decision, and I'm sticking to it. You stay out of this, because this has nothing to do with you."

She tried to walk away from him. Kenji felt the anger bubble up from his gut and he let out a snarl when he slammed a hand against the wall to block her path. "Of course it has something to do with me!"

Shizuku narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh, yeah? What? What does it have to do with you?" she asked loudly.

"I love you!" Kenji yelled in her face, making her jump. And while he would normally have cursed at himself for blurting out something that he usually wouldn't say, he just kept going. "I can't just stand around and wait for you to snap at some point, and I have a feeling that if you don't try to balance everything out, that would come very, very soon. I'm getting you out of here, and I'm going to make you forget about this fucked up mess, even if it's just for a moment, because like hell I'm gonna stand back and do nothing while you waste away thinking about things your dad should be taking care of!"

It took a while for Shizuku to recover from his outburst, but it seemed like Kenji had finally gotten through her, because it was as if the fire inside her died down and she slumped against the wall, her ear brushing at the hand Kenji had planted against the same wall she was leaning on. "I can't help but think about it. It's the only thing that's left to think about…"

"Then think of something else," Kenji muttered, suddenly feeling courageous when she finally showed a bit of weakness on her part.

Shizuku averted her eyes away from him. "What else is there to think about?" she asked quietly.

And that was when Kenji knew that it was 'The Moment'. He didn't know why, but for some reason, with the smell of burnt sugar in the air and the remains of a baking battle surrounding them, he just knew it was perfect.

He leaned down, and the sudden movement made Shizuku look at him. The tip of her nose brushed against his. She was so close, close enough for Kenji to see his reflection in her eyes.

"Think of me," Kenji whispered and he felt that courage fill him, from his gut, to his throat, right to the top of his head.

And he kissed her. Right on the mouth. They were as soft as he had imagined they would be, and maybe a bit sweet from the hint of some sugar residue on her bottom lip. She stiffened almost instantly.

In the static noise that was filling up his brain, he could hear Sasayan's voice cheering him on.

And the static noise, as well as Sasayan's cheering voice all vanished when he realized that not only was Shizuku not pulling away, but she was actually kissing him back.


A/N: Late. Update. Don't. Kill. Me. XD