Chapter 2: February - Understanding
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
- Albert Einstein
"I don't think this is going to be enough...", Shion mused, studying the ingredients piled on the table doubtingly. "I knew I should have bought more."
"Oh don't worry, it's plenty.", Karan replied, stepping around her son to reach for the table give the products displayed so conveniently an inspection herself. "It's gonna get measured either way and that's more than enough, in regard to weigh, no matter how little it looks."
"Hmm...", Shion replied, who still didn't sound exactly convinced. Sure, from a mathematical point of view he had bought what was needed, but it looked so small on the big table, especially compared to the amount of flour, seasoning and other things that were piled on it when his mother prepared her baked goods for display and selling.
"Now come on, Shion, the other one's are gonna be here soon, you should hurry and dress in something less fancy.", she said, as she ushered him towards the staircase.
"I don't think you can call this outfit fancy, mum...", he complained. After all he was only dressed in a faintly blue jeans, combined with a black sweater he had bought a few days ago.
"But the clothes are barely a week old, it'd be a shame if you were to ruin them.", Karan said in her typical I'm-your-mother-so-it's-useless-to-argue-with-me voice.
And well, she had a point.
So with a sigh Shion gave in. "Okay, I'll be back in a second."
"Great, I'll handle the remaining preparation, so no need to worry about that."
With that she flashed her son a last smile and returned to the kitchen. Shion wasn't quite sure, but he thought he might even have heard her humming to herself happily.
He studied her retreating back for a second, before it was hidden by the curtains that separated the kitchen and the sales room. A smile etched itself onto his features. His mother was quite happy nowadays, with the bakery running as great as it was and with Shion being able to visit unusually often this month.
Perhaps it was due to his new-found resolution that he could finally stop running away and hiding from his memories by burying himself beneath work or perhaps it simply was his co-workers and his boss' impression that he wasn't taking enough time off, and thus his efficiency suffered.
Shion tended to doubt that his efficiency decreased by the least bit, because even if since his time in the privileged course almost eight years had passed already, the taught discipline had been etched into his very being; from when he was four years old on, the eight years of indoctrination had made him pretty much resistant to anything that might reduce his productivity.
Still he wasn't one to complain about free time nowadays, enjoying the company of his mother whenever he got to see her. And no matter how much he loved his own flat, a really sweet, little, cozy one, that he had spent a lot of money and time on interior design for, the one he had collected as many books as possible for to fill the empty shelves with, no matter how much it felt like home there, it lacked some sort of warmth there. It wasn't that he didn't like staying there, or as if the cold was omnipresent in his flat, but whenever he was at his mother's he still noticed the difference.
It was the smell of bread, the gentle light of the sun streaming in through the windows, the little bouquet of flowers on the counter. Surprisingly they weren't even showing any signs of withering yet, although they were ten days old already. They had been a present of Rikiga to his mum, a valentines present. He remembered how she had blushed, only slightly but visible to Shion nonetheless.
And she had smiled, really gently. Her mood had been suspiciously good for the remainder of the day.
After all Inukashi had already warned Shion that he better should watch out that he wouldn't end up with Rikiga as a stepfather.
"Shion? You ready yet? I think they're gonna be here soon.", his mother inquired from the kitchen, pulling him out of his musings.
"Not quite ready, but I'll only need a few more seconds.", he answered and didn't even wait for his mother's potential answer before dashing up to his room.
The one he was staying in while visiting his mother had been a storeroom, and since it wouldn't have been good for the ingredients to be exposed to direct sunlight, there were blinds that Shion kept half-closed most of the time. Thus the light was a little shady as he entered the room, but he didn't exactly complain.
He had taken a liking to rooms that were only lighted by a flickering flame, or a not so flickering one, but a flame nonetheless.
Right now the lantern wasn't lit, for obvious reasons like him not being in the room, it being 10 in the morning and the sun thus shining through the little space the blinds didn't cover, making the light of flames unnecessary.
Shion rushed over to his cupboard. No matter how often he tried to convince his mother that she could use it for storing her own things, she refused, telling him she didn't need it and that he should feel free to keep a few clothes and things of him there. He had stopped his attempts of persuasion by now. Probably his mother felt as if Shion was inclined to come back from time to time if a part of his things was still in this old cupboard.
Shion knew that she knew that he would always come back, no matter if there were some of his belongings here or not, but he guessed it was something emotional, something that couldn't be explained with logic or reason.
Although he had to admit that it was indeed convenient for him to have his stack of clothes tucked in here, because that way he could drop by and spend the night whenever he felt like it, without worrying about next day's fresh clothes.
So now he opened the doors and rustled through the little amount of outfits he had left here.
In the end he simply decided on one pair of his old beige trousers, one that he probably hadn't worn in about two years, so not even his mother could possibly declare them as 'to fancy'.
Sure, they were a pale color, closer to white than to brown, but he reasoned that when dealing with dough, darker colors were probably at a greater risk than pale ones.
The choice of a fitting shirt proved to be rather difficult. He pulled out one after another, but all that he came up with were business shirts, ones that didn't seem appropriate for baking.
But just as he was about to stop caring and simply take one of the less official collared shirts, he discovered something that he had almost forgotten was there.
Buried underneath all the other clothes, tucked into the last corner of the cupboard lay one shirt he hadn't once worn, and which was well-worn nonetheless.
Carefully, as if it was actually going to break if he touched it to roughly, he took it out and hold it in front of him so that he could study it. It was a simple longsleeve, two-colored, the sleeves and the collar being a dark blue, almost bordering into black while the torso itself was an even paler beige than the one of his trousers.
Nezumi's shirt...
Such a long time had passed since Shion had collected it from the basement chamber that he had forgotten it was there. He wasn't even sure as to why he had taken it with him when he had gone to collect a few of the books he intended to keep or still had to read from the chamber, back then, shortly after Nezumi had left. He had only discovered the shirt when he had unpacked his bag at home that day and figured he must have taken it subconsciously.
Afterwards it had been squashed into the deepest corner of his cupboard, the memories it conjured up being to distracting and painful at that time.
But now he simply stared at it, and felt a sort of happiness rising that he hadn't felt in a while. He was close to the edge of giddiness, and he felt stupid for it, but the mere sight of Nezumi's shirt made him feel as if some of his presence was here in the room.
Without a second thought he changed into the beige trousers and pulled the shirt over his head.
It had long since lost it's smell—which was to be expected after being packed away for almost three years—and it was still a little too large for Shion, but it was a if something had been etched into that shirt, something that made Shion suddenly feel more confident, as if some of its previous owners attitude had rubbed off.
The chime of the doorbell brought him out his musings and made him jump up.
He'd been much to absorbed in his find and now the first guests had already arrived. He simply hoped he hadn't shoved too much of his preparation work onto his mother only because he'd been lost in his musings.
He certainly needed to stop getting lost in thoughts all the time. It was a bad habit he had found himself indulge in much to often nowadays.
"Anyone in?", a voice wafted up from the sales room, a voice he instantly recognized, although it was one he hadn't expected.
"Oh darling, it's great to see the invitation reached you and you actually came. It's been much too long since I've seen you for longer than a few minutes.", his mother happily greeted the newcomer and the muffled noises of complaint told him that his mother had pulled her characteristic hugging move, feared by pretty much every West-Block resident it had ever been performed on.
And when Shion emerged from his room, he saw that he indeed hadn't mistaken the voice: Right there at the foot of the stairs his mother had Inukashi in a dead tight grip.
"Inukashi. It's really nice to see you here.", he said as he moved down to greet her as well.
"What's with you and your polite speech. Have you been trained that good by the officials in the reconstruction committee? You sound like an old lady who's greeting the guests for her evening party.", Inukashi snorted.
"Just the greeting I expected.", Shion answered with a laugh. "But seriously, I'm happy to see you, though I didn't expect you here."
"Well, since she said she always liked my pies, rolls and muffins, I thought she might be in for the teaching as well so I sent her an invitation.", Karan explained, after she finally let go of the now thoroughly ruffled looking Inukashi. Her eyes widened slightly with surprise as she studied Shion.
"I didn't remember you having a shirt like that.", she noticed. "Have you been shopping lately? It's a little too big for you."
"Oh, this.", Shion pointed to his chest. "It's not new, I've simply never worn it since I got it."
His mother looked as if she was about to say something else, but another chime prevented her from doing so as the door opened once again. So she decided to drop the matter in favour of rushing to greet her next guest instead.
Shion was about to follow her, when he noticed Inukashi's gaze. She had recognized the shirt, no doubt. And perhaps it had come with age, but in the whole three years Inukashi had been surprisingly considerate, hardly ever mentioning Nezumi for she knew how Shion had always flinched inwardly at the sound of the name alone.
But she was not exactly a good actress, and her expression instantly gave away when she was refraining herself from saying anything about Nezumi, because then her face held a certain sad compassion which she probably wouldn't ever admit to, if Shion were to sound her out about it.
"I know it's his.", he said, and the way her expression changed from compassion to a sort of disbelieve instantly was almost comical.
"You know? But then why are you wearing it?" Inukashi asked incredulously, before turning into full-teasing mode, as if all of her concerns of hurting him had simply dissolved. "Do you expect him to hurry back here simply because you're wearing his things?"
"It'd surely be a nice side-effect.", he half-joked, although somewhere in the depth of his mind he noted how much he actually wished for that 'side-effect' to happen.
Wait, not to indulge in thoughts for the rest of the day, that's the plan.
He shook his head slightly to chase the dark thoughts away. It was a lovely Wednesday afternoon, the sun was finally shining once again, reflecting from the snow so that Shion was almost willed to go out with sunglasses because the white was that bright, and his mother had taken a day off to teach them some of her recipes.
'Them' being Shion himself, apparently Inukashi, and one of the new arrivals, Lili.
"Shion! It's been so long since I've last seen you.", she greeted him happily. "You look good."
Shion laughed lightly at the compliment and smiled back at her. "You do as well. But I don't think it's been such a long time. I saw you on valentine's day, after all. And I wanted to thank you again for the chocolate, it was really delicious."
Lili blushed slightly and started fiddling with her hands, as the door opened once again and the last expected guest entered.
"Sorry we're a little late, Rico didn't find his scarf so we had to turn the whole flat upside down since my mother didn't want to let him go without it.", Karan apologized breathlessly, as if she had run half of the way.
"Oh no problem, we've got all day. I'm just happy you could make it.", Karan greeted them with a wide smile.
"Oh, Shion, you're here too?", Karan noted as her gaze wandered over the bunch of people they were developing into.
"Yeah, I'm off work for the rest of the week.", Shion explained. "And thanks a lot for your chocolate on valentine's day, they were great."
"No problem, I'm glad you liked them, after Rico had done his... well experiments as to what ingredient might be the special something.", Karan shrugged it off. She had grown into a quite tough fourteen-year-old. "But will you read to us someday, if you haven't got to work?"
"Of course.", Shion promised. Their reading times had gotten considerably less, but Shion tried his hardest to invite the children over at least once a month. By now Karan had learned how to read herself, but she said she still preferred him reading aloud to her reading by herself, or her reading for Rico, who wasn't fluent enough yet to read on his own.
"I want you to read to me, too.", Lili complained.
"No problem, you can simply join us. I'll tell you three when I've got time, but now shouldn't we be concentrating on the task at hand?"
"Damn right you airhead, we haven't got all day.", Inukashi interjected from where she was leaned against the counter, getting impatient already.
"Yes, I think we should seriously get started. After all it'd be a real shame if my two cute little assistants would have taken the long way down here and wouldn't even learn the new recipe I intended to teach them.", Shion's mother said and blinked at Karan and Lili.
Both nodded fiercely and dutifully headed for the kitchen, Rico following right after Karan, and Inukashi gesturing for Shion to go first.
In the little kitchen all of the baking utensils were already prepared, lined neatly on each side of the table, and some more on the counter. It was a well practised layout, as this wasn't the first teaching session Karan held, although it was the first one with the impressive attendants-number of five.
A few month after the wall had come downKaran's bakery was no longer only an insider's tip for the people from Lost Town. Due to the publicity of delivering free catering to the workers who were trying to rebuild the destroyed houses in the West Block or cleaned up the debris, her baked goods were literally on everyone's lips and not much later she was getting difficulties to handle all the baking herself.
Back then Shion had tried to help her out, but with him having to participate in meetings on a regular basis he wasn't exactly that reliable as a continuous assistant.
So one day, when he met Karan and her brother again on an inspection round through the West Block, checking how the conditions there were and what the reconstruction committee should tend to first, he was overjoyed to know they'd survived. And spontaneously he had asked the little girl if she was interested in a job as an assistant in a bakery. Sure, she was young but she certainly needed the money and Shion knew how very mature she could act. And Nezumi himself had called her bright, so Shion had no doubt she would dutifully tend to any task she might be given.
And his mother loved children, so she surely wouldn't mind it if they were the ones who helped her out.
About one year later Lili had joined them as well. She didn't get paid much and only worked on the days she didn't have to go to school, and even then only for two hours at most, since his mother in no way wanted to take her free time from her, the time to play with her friends outside, but she saw how much fun Lili had so she allowed the few hours nonetheless.
At first both girls had only been doing little tasks, like arranging the cakes and muffins in the display, or preheating the oven. But as Karan became more confident that she could rely on them she had started her teaching sessions, starting with easy recipes, little by little teaching them enough so that they were able to take the work of preparing a dough or baking a whole tray of muffins from her.
Shion had joined whenever he was free, as the sessions where usually set during the week, because he had developed a real liking to baking.
And yeah, by now it was more or less an open event, with Inukashi stopping by occasionally, Karan taking Rico with her or Rikiga dropping in to try and prove to Shion's mother that he had changed from being a drunkard into a potential house-man.
Although Shion had to admit that right now the kitchen looked as crowded as it never had before. The five of them plus Karan barely had enough space in it, but somehow they all managed to find a place in front of the needed tools, with exception of Rico who was working with his sister either way.
"Okay." Karan intoned in her typical teacher voice she always took on for those lessons. "Since we're finally all settled, I guess it's about time to start."
She moved to the head of the table, where she had prepared her own working space, so that everyone would be able to watch her.
"The pastry we're going for today is muffin-cake. It's pretty easy compared to last time's pie, but that doesn't make it any less delicious. For a whole tray you need: The cake mould...", She held up a rectangular shaped metal springform pan that was only barely smaller than the tray it was placed beside, "...a whisk, a mixer...", She pointed to the white mixer she already used for six years now, but that somehow didn't seem to stop working and the metal whisk sitting beside it, "... and most importantly the ingredients." With that she pointed to the pile of flour, milk, butter and all the other things Shion had bought just that morning.
"The amount needed to make one standard sized cake is: 440g flour, 200g sugar, 240g sugar, 250 milliliter mild, four eggs, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder and finally...", She concluded showing off the ingredients in general by pulling a bar of chocolate out, laying it down on the cutting board in front of her. "...we need 350g of chocolate. Actually it would be most convenient if you already had chocolate drops, but since those are hard to find and disproportionally more expensive, a normal chocolate bar is okay as well.
The first thing we need to do is chop the chocolate into little pieces, so that they'll be able to partially melt in the oven. If you take the whole 350g and aren't that experienced it takes a little while, because you have to do it carefully as not to hurt yourself.
That's why we start with preparing the chocolate, so that we won't have to stop in the middle of mixing the ingredients for the dough."
She glanced into the round as if to check whether all of pupils were able to cope with her tempo. As everyone faced back at her with eager eyes, she continued. "Okay, so that's basically what we're gonna do today. Now I guess it'd be best if you measured the ingredients you'll need. Since you've got smaller trays I noted down a fourth of the ingredients needed for a standard-sized cake for you."
Her words made the kitchen break into a lively bustle as all of them scurried around, measuring either with the help of a scale for the solid components or a measuring cup for the milk.
Inukashi almost made a mess by toppling over the flour after she had missed the 110g for the fifth time, barely able to contain her anger and only Lili's fast intervention of taking the flour herself stopped the kitchen from ending up looking as white as the scenery Shion could see outside the window.
And while Lili had saved the room from being buried in white, she had her own problems with pouring the milk into the cup without splashing too much. As she looked as if she was going to get really frustrated, Shion came over to help her by showing her how she should do it correctly.
"There you go. You see, when you pour milk in, the milk flows out of the beverage carton, but if you tilt it too much the liquid will block the way so that no air can stream back in to replace the volume of the milk, thus creating low pressure inside the package. That's why after a certain amount of milk has flown out, there's this little hiccup-like thing, when the milk spills out uncontrollably. That's because the low-pressure inside is trying to compensate the missing volume by sucking in air. So you simply have to take care that while pouring, you always let enough air stream back and then you won't risk spilling milk."
Lili eyed him with awe, and although Shion wasn't quite sure whether she really cared or understood what he had tried to teach her, she nodded happily as if she indeed had.
"So, now that everyone seems to be ready I guess we should get started.", Karan exclaimed, stopping the lively bustle and providing some sort of silence.
"As I already said, it's best to start with chopping the chocolate. Since that's a rather difficult task, please be careful. And you, Rico, let your big sister handle this one. You'll be able to try once you're older, okay?", Karan warned them, before she slowly demonstrated how to hold the knife and how to chop the chocolate correctly into the right size.
Shion imitated her movements, just as the rest did, but since he'd already been helping his mother with chocolate muffins for a while, he was finished earlier than most of the others. Noticing how Lili seemed to struggle a little, he turned to help her once again. After all she was the second youngest of the participants, and being two years older than Rico didn't mean all of her clumsiness with handling a knife had dissipated.
But she was grateful for Shion's help, so Shion reasoned she didn't see it as an insult to her abilities.
Inukashi however stood out with her expert handling of the knife. The years of having to defend herself in the West Block had been a harsh teacher, and it seemed almost out of place that she was now using the knife to do something as harmless as preparing ingredients for a cake.
In some part of his being Shion felt proud to see this. He felt proud because it meant that the reconstruction committee's—and thus his work as well—had made it possible for this scene to happen, for Inukashi no longer having to use her knife for defending but instead for baking.
And that in itself was one of the many little achievements, that made him believe what he did had a deeper meaning.
"What're you starin' at?", Inukashi asked him suspiciously as she caught his gaze.
"Oh it's nothing, I was just impressed by how fast you're at preparing the chocolate. You never occurred to me as a particularly experienced in cooking or baking.", Shion answered and scratched his head sheepishly.
"Now, don't underestimate me!", Inukashi simply replied, puffing herself up.
"Are you all done?", Karan's inquiring voice prevented Shion from replying.
With a glance around she assured that indeed everyone had produced a respectable pile of chopped chocolate.
"Okay, then we're all set to finally get to the real dough preparations!
First step: Stirring the butter until it's creamy. This one's quite tricky since if you keep you butter in the fridge it's much to hard to be stirred and you don't stand a chance to get it anywhere near creamy.
In summer you can simply take the butter out of the fridge a few hours before you want to prepare the dough if it's hot enough, but since that's rarely the case I've got two tricks. As you've probably already noticed your butter's soft enough.
I placed it on the heater so that it would melt a little, but you have to be careful with that since too much heat isn't good for the butter. If you haven't got that much time you can also put half of the butter into the microwave until it's almost completely melted. Then you simply pour it back into the bowl. The heat and the liquid state of the melted butter will make it easier to stir the other half into the desired creamy state as well.", Karan explained while already busily whirling her whisk around in her bowl.
The battle with the butter proved to be a tougher one than Shion had expected. Somehow there always seemed to get too many pieces stuck in the little spaces in between the metal strings of the whisk, and once his butter was finally in a state that at least in some sort of way resembled the one of his mother's butter, his arms hurt as if he was back from a long day of washing dogs.
He surely hadn't thought that whisking butter could be such a difficult task. His mother had granted Karan and Lili the help of melting half of the butter, since they hardly had enough strength in their arms. Karan had protested a little, but after she had tried for another minute without any result she had given in nonetheless.
Inukashi of course had fought her way through the whole thing almost effortlessly and Shion seriously wondered if she might not want to trade her hotel hosting business for a career as a cook, with her abilities to handle knifes and whisks and all other kinds of cooking devices seemingly without any problem. Or she might open up a little restaurant inside her hotel. Shion might even get the reconstruction committee to come across with a little money for a little renovation of the hotel if Inukashi promised to host a few homeless people for free for a little while until the reconstruction committee would be able to build more houses.
"You're watching me with that weird gaze again, Shion, like you're having one of those airheaded, crazy ideas of yours. Stop it, would you? It's seriously creeping me out, got it?", Inukashi told him with an irritated huff, and drew her arms up in front of her chest, as if to put as much distance between herself and Shion's stare.
"Oh, sorry, I was simply spacing out.", Shion apologized and concentrated back on the task at hand. Yeah, there might be a way to convince the committee members to give a little money but there was no way to make Inukashi give away free stays. She hadn't changed that much.
After they all had produced a buttery creamy substance, they added the sugar, just like his mother instructed them to, and after stirring the substance until the sugar and the butter had mingled the egg came to join them.
Breaking the egg without producing a slimy mess was more a challenge of caution instead of strength as the whirling had been, so this time almost everyone succeeded with the exception of Rico and Inukashi.
Rico was too tentative with his initial hit to form one big crack in the shell. So in the end he broke it open by almost completely smashing it into little pieces. Inukashi's try ended pretty much the same, but for the opposite reason as her initial hit was that strong it crashed the egg to pieces.
A string of hardly restrained cursing had followed, but as she caught the gaze of Shion's mother she quickly silenced and instead thanked Lili for helping her clean up the mess.
The second egg had successfully made it into the dough without further complications for both parties, and so they had continued with mixing the flour and the baking powder in a separate bowl.
Then they finally needed the mixer.
"Good, now comes another difficult part, since now we're gonna make one dough by alternately adding the flour-mix and the milk to the butter-cream. For this purpose we'll use the mixer, but you'll have to be careful not to give it too much power, since then the milk or the butter would splutter. So please go easy on the dough at the beginning. Once all ingredients have properly mingled you can turn it up a little before adding the chocolate.", Karan explained.
Surprisingly this time no one produced a complete mess, and even the task of adding milk and flour alternately in little bits without making it splatter everywhere was easier than expected. Adding the chocolate was literally a piece of the cake afterwards and mere minutes later all of them proudly glanced down at the finished dough.
Now there only was the task of rubbing butter into the cake mould left, so that the they would be able to detach the cake easier from it afterwards. Then they poured the dough into the mould and one after another carried their product to the big oven, where Karan took them and arranged them in a way everyone's cake would fit.
"Great, we're done! All that's left now is to wait. The oven should be heated to approximately 180°C, but I can't tell you an exact time it needs to remain in there, since every dough's different and thus needs a different time to bake properly. The right timing is one that comes with experience, but for the beginning you should simply start checking on it after about 15 or 20 minutes, when you've got a whole tray, or once you can smell the cake. Since you've used much less dough, we should keep an eye on those. After all less dough means it'll be ready sooner."
"But how do we know if they're finished if we check on them?", Lili asked, slightly nervous that her cake might burn inside the oven. She had spent so much effort on it that it would be a real shame. "I mean, I can see if it looks good on the outside, but I already messed up your cheese muffins at home by taking them out to early..."
"Oh, I didn't show you the trick yet?", Karan wondered aloud. "Then I'll have to catch up on that. Once the cake looks like it might be ready, that is. First of all we should use the time to get this place a little cleaned up."
With that she pointedly shoot a glance around the messy table, let her eyes ghost over the remnants of egg-shell, over the white mass of flour mixed with milk, the occasional brown stains where the chocolate chopping had been a little too rough or simply at the remaining bowls, plastered with whatever dough hadn't wanted to let go of the comfortable white plastic it was sticking to.
All in all the kitchen had already seen worse days, like that one time when Shion had attempted to bake his mother a birthday cake as a thirteen-year-old... But that was another story and—with Shion's luck—would be told another time.
It only took seven minutes, then the entrancing smell of cake started to fill the kitchen, making Shion's mouth water. It was insane how something could smell this good.
He only hoped the taste wouldn't fall short of the smell that much.
And while all of her pupils were still busy trying to restore the original state of the kitchen, Karan checked on the cakes. They weren't anywhere brown yet, but the expanding of the dough had already started, which meant they were well on their way.
Another seven minutes passed and while the surfaces of the kitchentable and working counters finally were almost visible once again, the cake finally took on its golden outer appearance.
"So everyone, I guess it's time now to show you how to check the cake without having to cut it open.", Karan summoned them. "For doing that we only need a skewer. A metal one's the best, but a wooden one would do as well."
Then she opened the oven and carefully pulled the tray out far enough so that she could stab into the cake with the skewer. As she pulled it back out, it was coated by a little bit of dough and melted chocolate.
"This one isn't completely ready yet, since the dough's still sticking to the skewer. Once you can stab into the cake without getting dough stuck on it, your cake's ready."
She put the cake back into the oven and let everyone check on their cakes themselves.
Karan's and Rico's cake was ready to be taken out, just like Shion's. His mother's cake was ready after one minute, Inukashi's needed about two more minutes, Lili's another four.
But then finally all cakes were out on the counter to cool down, and the smell made all of them want to sink their teeth into them instantly. But they refrained from doing to, since it would have probably been the fastest way to burnt mouths and that wouldn't do the taste any good for sure.
So they patiently waited, and continued with their task of cleaning up the kitchen, while Karan prepared a pot of Earl Grey, so that they'd be able to have a nice little afternoon tea, after they'd worked so hard.
As Shion faced outside he noticed that the sun had passed meridiem by now. Without him realising, they had spent almost three hours with their baking session and now the clock was nearing 2pm already.
Shion's stomach already started to complain about the lack of food as well, so he was more than happy when the tea was ready, the table laid and the cake cooled down.
His mother cut one piece out of each cake—so that everyone would be able to taste their own make—and placed them in front of their baker.
"Now then, thanks for listening to my lesson so obediently today. I hope you had a little fun and from the smell and look of it, the result isn't too bad as well. Seems like I'll be able to incorporate that recipe to the ones you'll be able to perform pretty much by yourself, if you'll practice it for a few more times." She announced after she had settled down at the table herself, her last words specially directed towards Karan and Lili, who shied a little away from the compliment that was indicated by the way Shion's mother blinked at them.
"But now enough of learning and practice. You all did a really good job, so let's enjoy the cake!"
The rest of the afternoon passed almost faster than the baking session in the morning had, with laughter and a lot of tea and cake, leaving all of them happy and stuffed by the time their little society dissipated.
Karan and Rico were the first ones to leave, since their mother was awaiting them home and Karan had promised to help her with making dinner. The leftover cake was tucked in one of the packaging used for sale, so that they could take it home with them easily.
Lili left only mere minutes later, since the sun was almost setting and her father had forbidden her to go out alone in the dark.
Shion offered to accompany her home, but Lili declined, saying she was big enough to go the way herself. After all she lived only a few streets away and although you could sense the dark coming, it wasn't dark yet, the streets only painted in a faint red light.
So Shion heeded her wishes and only saw her off, waving after her as she hurried the way uphill, the cake securely pressed to her chest. It would be a present to her little brother—she had promised him—who was going to turn two in a few weeks.
He was one of the children who had been born to the new world, to a world without any walls. Form him it would be normal for everyone to be the same, since that was the only way he would know it. He wouldn't put the persons into categories, like inside or outside the wall. Not that anyone inside the wall ever had thought in those categories anyway. For them they had been the only people.
But those born in the last three years, for them even the faint idea of such a categorization would probably seem illogical. Shion wanted them to be free to think above boundaries, he wanted to give them the possibility to doubt, to question, to change. To do all the things he himself hadn't been allowed by No.6.
If you would've been born in this time, Nezumi, would you be able to understand my point? Would you be able to see that in the essence, every human is the same?, Shion quietly wondered as he watched the ruins of the once proud building that had separated their two worlds, all possible shades of red and orange ghosting over them, painted by the setting sun. Or perhaps you already understand, somewhere deep inside you, that the world never was died in black and white to begin with. Because nothing is completely black, neither is anything completely white. And aren't it all the different shades of grey that make life so interesting and difficult to navigate through?
Yeah, even this 'new world' wasn't completely black or white, it wasn't perfect. But that wasn't what Shion was aiming for in the first place.
No matter how much it pained him, the little group of people founding No.6—his mother included—had aimed for perfection, for utopia and ended up creating a dystopia.
In the last years Shion had read a lot of books—some of them being dystopian novels—and he had started wondering if utopia was only an illusion, a state that couldn't ever be reached.
So he wasn't aiming for perfect. He wasn't as deluded as to seriously think he and the reconstruction committee would be able to reach perfection. What he was going for was a world that wasn't perfect but better than the last one. A free world, where as many people as possible could live the way they wanted.
He wanted an optimal world, not a perfect one. Three years ago he probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between those two terms, were they both expressing the longing for the 'best', but from different starting points.
"Now, you airhead, got hypnotized by the sun again?" Inukashi's snarly remark brought him back to reality. "Made you waste a lot of hours you could have spent washing dogs back then."
She had stepped behind him now and her coat and the package in her hands told him that she was ready for leaving as well.
"Kind of." Shion admitted. "I guess this is goodbye then for now. Say hello to little Shion from me."
"Your mother already instructed me to. If you're so fond of him I'd gladly bring him over again some time soon. He's getting into his defiant phase and is hard like hell to handle sometimes. But I guess your mom's cake will be a good persuasion for him to behave.", Inukashi sniggered and raised the brown bag. "Glad I'll be able to assure supply myself now."
"Nice to hear that today was helpful. I admittedly already wondered what you were doing here, but I guess that makes sense. And sure, we'd gladly watch after little Shion. He's always behaving around my mom."
"Yeah, cake magic, as I said." Inukashi reasoned. "But I really should get going or Rikiga might resort to alcohol to get little Shion to sleep. It wouldn't be the first but surely his last time if he would do so. But since he's probably the best West-Block-Babysitter at hand I'd be kinda sorry for disabling him."
"Then I'd better not keep you any longer.", Shion replied and he was only 97 percent sure that Inukashi was joking, about the booze and disabling Rikiga. So instead he rather stepped forward to hug her goodbye.
Inukashi instantly stiffened and after about three seconds—Shion was proud of her for having lasted that long this time—she decidedly pushed him away.
"Stop that. Your mother's rubbing off. And not in a good way. It's creepy to go and hug people, ya know?", Inukashi huffed, and half-turned to head off. "Anyways, see you."
"See you. Perhaps I'll even come over and help you with washing the dogs sometime soon."
"Oh, you think someone as high and mighty as you can make time for something as trivial as my business? I'm feeling honored.", Inukashi mocked.
"I'll be sure to take time off for it." Shion only replied and after another dubious glance Inukashi only shrugged and turned around.
Without facing back she raised her hand in a last silent goodbye.
Shion waved after her until she was gone, even though he knew she wouldn't see it.
The way she retreated, the way she waved goodbye, the way she shied away from embraces and human contact.
I bet you'd hate to hear it, but actually you two are quite similar, Nezumi. At least you were three years ago.
She changed. Not only outwardly but inwardly as well.
So what about you? Did you change as well?
Shion wanted to know and at the same time he didn't.
A breeze caught his shirt, tugged at it and made him shudder. It was only February after all, and standing outside in nothing but his trousers and a long-sleeve probably wasn't such a good idea if the ground was still covered in snow.
So he stepped back into the welcoming warmth of the bakery.
He helped his mother with cleaning up the leftovers, washing the dishes. Then he laid the table for their dinner, consisting of a pork-stew and buns, and after he'd finished he excused himself for the rest of the night.
The whole day of shopping and baking had left him a little exhausted, but he didn't went to sleep.
Instead he took a piece of his cake with him, pulled over a jacket and sat down in his room in front of his opened window. He had started with opening it once again a little while ago, but had refrained from doing so almost all winter, since it was much to cold. It had become a ritual for him, one that he indulged in whenever he had time to. Sitting in front of the window, waiting.
He shared the cake with Tsukiyo who had been sleeping and staying in Shion's room for most of the day. The old mouse wasn't as active anymore, but its adoration for cake hadn't changed since the first day it had tried some of his mother's baking. And Shion's abilities didn't seem to be that bad as well, since the black mouse munched happily on the crumbs.
It was now hidden below the jacket, but Shion still wore Nezumi's shirt. It brought memories back, ones that two month ago he would have feared. But now he accepted them, welcomed them in.
He had tried writing letters to Nezumi, ones he knew the other would never read but he had thought they might be a good chance to get all of his thoughts straight. However his attempts had failed miserably. He wasn't able to put properly into words what he wanted to say and whatever he produced fell short of what he felt.
Only one letter hadn't been torn and thrown in away in frustration shortly afterwards. It hadn't even been as much a letter as it was only a piece of paper he had started to scribble questions on. It were stupid ones, like 'Are you eating properly?' or 'Do you still work as an actor?' and ones he'd been wondering about for a while like 'When is your birthday?' , 'Do you ever miss your parents?'. Even 'Do you miss me?' had found its way onto the paper but he had scratched that one right away. He didn't want to think about that Nezumi might not miss him.
But after all those stupid ones, after the ones which were a little more meaningful, after ones he wanted to ask simply out of curiosity, there was one question that was the one that bothered him the most. It stood there, at the end of the paper Shion had buried in the lowest drawer of his desk, below a dozen of books so that it would stay there, unnoticed.
That question read: 'Why did you have to leave?'
It was a stupid, childish question, just like the feeling of betrayal was childish and stupid.
"I always find it impossible to understand you. Even if we spent our whole lives together, I probably still wouldn't understand you. You're right in front of me, but at the same time, it's like you're far away."*
Those were the words Nezumi had told him once. It hadn't been the only time Nezumi had told him he didn't understand him, but right now Shion remembered those exact words. He always remembered them when the questions that started with 'why' crawled into his head, because the only way to answer them was understanding a person.
And yeah, right now their position was reversed, Nezumi was far away, or not so far, Shion had no way to actually tell, but at the same time whenever he closed his eyes he saw Nezumi right in front of him, summoned his features, his hair, his eyes in front of his inner eye so that he wouldn't forget. And with Nezumi's shirt against his skin he felt as if Nezumi was right there with him, as if he might leap through the window every second. But he didn't. Only the cold winter air blew in, carrying the scent of the snow with it.
Yeah, Nezumi wasn't here with him, and Shion tried to understand why, tried hard, like he had so many times before.
He could come up with a lot of logical reasons for his leave, like how Nezumi had hated the city, how all his life and energy had been directed to corrupt it, to destroy it. It represented everything he abhorred in life and it had been his main focus for so long, it was somehow obvious he wouldn't be able to overthrow four or more years of hatred just like that, completely change his living style and practically do a 180.
Yeah, all those were completely logical reasons and all of them were legit and Shion understood every single one of them... on a rational, logical level.
But deeper down, everytime his mind came up with this reasoning he noticed that as much as he hated it, there was an emotional level underlying.
And on that emotional level, no matter how much sense it made, no matter how much he tried, no matter how much he wished he could understand Nezumi because then perhaps waiting would be easier, he didn't.
So please, Nezumi, come back soon and explain it to me. Make me understand why you had to leave and I'll make you understand why living her isn't that bad at all.
I mean, if Tsukiyo can't resist my baking I'd be surprised if you could.
And as if the black mouse had heard and understood what Shion thought, he gave an affirmative squeak.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
*: Novel Vol.2 Chap.3, Translation from 9ave
Okay, so I seriously don't know what wrote me to produce almost 9k words! It's by far the longest chapter I've ever written, and I'm really insecure about this one, since I feel like I got at least one character really wrong and as if the whole thing was too long/boring...
So please I desperately need your opinions on whether this was okay or horrible, since I'm having difficulties to tell myself.
Oh, and a few side notes: First of all, the recipe Karan taught them is actually one my sister and me developed, so feel free to try it, at least I think it tastes great.
And secondly: Did anyone catch the reference? In my opinion there's this one line in the text that obviously stands out, even if you don't know what I'm referring to.
Sooo... anyone who catches the reference gets... a one-shot? Well, okay, probably not really a good price, since I don't think anyone would want to wait four month or something like that for a one-shot written by me.
Still, I'm seriously wondering if anyone recognizes it.
The next chapter's gonna be a really tough one, since it's a topic I haven't ever seen any else author venture into, so yeah, wish me luck.