Gift Fic For natsunonamae (3/4)
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Aiba Masaki had been the hired caretaker at the Tateyama house for over 8 years. He’d taken over from his grandfather, whom Michiko had hired to look after the place way back in the 1950’s when she purchased it. It was a rather strange job, Aiba was always telling Sho when he visited throughout the year, but it was a lot better than many other jobs.
Though Michiko had never once entered the house since she’d bought it, the entire place was fully furnished. It was an oddity from the 50’s, some construction boom along the shorefront that had specialized in “American-style” beach houses with white clapboard and blue shutters. Though most of the others had been torn down in favor of newer developments for tourists, Michiko-san’s place still looked just as it did in the black and white photos she kept in albums. This was mostly thanks to the diligence of the Aiba family in looking after it. Even after having endured a few small earthquakes over the years, they always knocked it back into shape.
It was set back a ways from the shore, with high fences to keep out prying eyes. The house itself boasted six bedrooms, three baths, and its own private patch of beach. The small caretaker cottage on property was where Aiba lived year-round, even though the luxurious house sat empty. His grandfather had never taken advantage of the absent owner, and his grandson followed in his footsteps.
Aiba was a jack of all trades. He maintained the grounds, cutting the grass and planting flowers. He kept the exterior looking neat and trim, painting it when needed, cleaning out the gutters. He also maintained the interior, dusting the dollhouses and other items Michiko had Sho store there. A few years back the kitchen and bathrooms had all been completely redone under Aiba’s supervision to update the appliances and fixtures, and the photos he’d sent along to Michiko-san (mostly selfie-style shots of Aiba’s happy smiling face with the remodeled rooms in various stages of completion behind him) had endeared the man to her for life. She upped his salary every year, even though she still never set foot inside.
“There’s no reason to quit,” Aiba told Sho. “I’m a security guard. I’m a handyman. I’m an interior designer. And honestly, I spend my entire summer surfing. Why on earth would I quit working for Michiko-san?”
That morning Aiba Masaki had met his employer for the first time. He was a tall, skinny guy, with tanned skin from working outside even in the cooler months, and Michiko had been head over heels for him from the second Aiba escorted her slowly from Sho’s car and into the house. Though Aiba had been given relatively short notice to get the house ready for visitors, he’d stepped up without complaint, installing a ramp so Michiko could be brought in and out in a wheelchair.
Though the largest bedrooms were on the upper floor of the house, Aiba had quickly converted a study on the lower floor into a bedroom for Michiko. The old woman was already settling in nicely, and Aiba had set up a walkie-talkie system so Shihori, who’d be staying upstairs, could be summoned at a moment’s notice.
Sho hadn’t missed the way Aiba had been looking at Michiko’s nurse from the moment they arrived. Though Sho knew Aiba had had girlfriends over the years, something he had no qualms chatting about with Sho, things never seemed to last because of the oddness of his job and his refusal to quit. Shihori’s arrival, coupled with the week the two of them had spent calling each other back and forth with regards to ensuring the house was ready for a very elderly lady, had seemingly gotten the ball rolling in a positive direction there.
Already Shihori had whispered to Sho that her bedroom upstairs was the only one with a fresh bouquet of flowers in it. “He moves fast, huh?” Shihori had said, though Sho could tell she quite liked the attention. After spending so much of her life cooped up in Michiko’s apartment with her, it was nice to see Shihori getting a break too.
With Sho, Shihori, and Michiko settled in at the house, they were only waiting on one more guest. Ninomiya and Kato both had been invited for the week, being the only other people in Michiko’s life she might tolerate seeing in person, but both had declined with work commitments. Although, both of them had told Sho privately, if Sho could get Michiko to move in the direction of getting a will started, they’d come down to Chiba in a heartbeat.
Sho’s phone rang shortly before dinner time. Shihori was bustling around in the kitchen, getting Michiko’s pre-packaged dinner ready, when he answered. “This is Sakurai.”
“Hello, this is Matsumoto.”
“Ah, Matsumoto-san, good to hear from you,” Sho said a bit loudly, if only so Michiko-san seated primly on the living room sofa could hear him. Her face positively lit up in joy with the knowledge that her now beloved croissant maker “Jun-chan” was on his way.
“I’ve just arrived at Tateyama Station, and I’ll be getting into a cab.”
Sho put his hand over the phone, telling Michiko that he was in town. She immediately started waving her hand, demanding he hand the cell phone over. “Jun-chan! Jun-chan, how are you? Ah, I’m doing well. I’m on vacation, aren’t I?”
Sho stood by diligently, hearing Shihori’s movements and cheerful humming in the kitchen, as Michiko talked Matsumoto’s ear off, wanting to know every detail about his journey. Though she’d wanted to pay for his ticket, Matsumoto had refused, taking the bus over the Aqua-Line bridge and down to Tateyama on his own dime.
“No!” she said loudly, startling Sho. “No, you will not!”
Shihori poked her head out of the kitchen at that. “What’s wrong?” she mouthed, and Sho shrugged.
“No, I simply won’t allow that. Sho-chan will come fetch you.”
Sho’s stomach knotted. Of course. Of course, she’d never allow Matsumoto to take a taxi to the house. He should have known. It had been a difficult two weeks for Sho. With Michiko’s new addiction to the Mr. Bake shop, Sho had been to the place every day, spending his mornings fighting through the commuter crowds. He had it so easy before, just taking the Toyoko Line the handful of stops to Michiko’s Jiyugaoka Station. Now he had to go to the end of the line at Shibuya, make his way up to Ikebukuro on the Metro and then come all the way back. It had added almost a full hour more of travel to his day, not counting the minutes he spent in the Mr. Bake shop trying not to get lost in Matsumoto Jun’s frustratingly nice brown eyes.
“Yes, he’ll come right away,” Michiko was saying. “It’s no problem at all. Good. Good then. I look forward to meeting you properly too. Bye bye.”
Michiko held out the phone as she always did, not interested in learning how to actually end the call. Sho took his phone back, shoving it a little roughly in his pocket. Shihori smiled as he grumbled his way into his coat. She had seen the bake shop bags Sho returned with every morning, all the additional purchases that came from Sho’s paycheck and not Michiko’s money. She knew that Sho had a growing “Matsumoto” problem.
“Great birthday, hmm?” Shihori teased him. It was Sho’s birthday today, the 25th, and Michiko had done nothing to spoil him. They’d left from Tokyo in the car that morning around 6:30, and Sho hadn’t had a moment’s rest.
He got in the car, thankful that it never got as cold down here in Tateyama as it could in Tokyo. He made his way to the station, finding Matsumoto Jun waiting with a rolling suitcase and a large blue plastic cake holder. “Hello,” Sho said, popping the trunk and taking Matsumoto’s bag. “More croissants? You always make a big impression with those.”
Matsumoto clutched the cake holder to him. “Ah, no. Not this time.”
They got in the car, and Matsumoto sat with it on his lap. Sho pulled away from the station, and now that they were closed into the car with one another, he could smell it. That smell that had trapped him from day one, that banana cream he’d smelled in the Mr. Bake shop’s back room.
“You made her a cake.”
Matsumoto hesitated, fingers drumming on the plastic. “Sort of.”
Sort of? Sho gripped the steering wheel. “What on earth did you make?”
“You’ll see.”
When they got back to the house, it was Aiba who greeted them, taking the cake holder from Matsumoto’s grip. “Sakurai-kun will show you where your room is,” Aiba said with a smile.
“Follow me then,” Sho said. Matsumoto followed him upstairs to the room between Sho’s own and Shihori’s. The guy seemed incredibly impressed with the house, setting his suitcase down on the bed.
When Sho made to head back downstairs, starving for dinner, Matsumoto grabbed hold of his arm. He looked up, startled, only to find those damned eyes of his looking at him with amusement. “Just…wait a second.”
Sho stood there for a few achingly awkward moments, trying to ignore the man in his dark wool coat and purple scarf. It hadn’t helped that Sho had been forced to play middleman of late, ferrying pictures of Matsumoto Jun to add to Michiko-san’s growing collection, having to sit in the living room and watch her coo over him, saying over and over how “handsome” he was. As if Sho didn’t know already.
“Sho-chan!” came Michiko’s voice a few moments later. “Sho-chan, come here!”
Matsumoto finally let him go, and Sho headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. But what he hadn’t expected was for all the lights downstairs to be turned off. He clung to the bannister, stalling at the bottom of the staircase. “Did we lose power?” he asked.
But then there were voices, singing voices. Michiko-san from somewhere here in the living room, and Aiba too. Then Shihori coming in from the kitchen, and even Matsumoto Jun behind him on the stairs, although his singing was by far the quietest.
They were singing the Happy Birthday song for Sho, and Shihori was coming in from the kitchen with a cake. There were a handful of lit candles stuck in it, and Sho now realized why Matsumoto had been so evasive in the car. Sho stepped forward, embarrassed as Michiko’s rather poor singing voice drowned the other three out. He smiled despite himself as Shihori set the cake down on the living room table. As Aiba turned the lights back on at the song’s conclusion, Shihori wrapped him up in a hug.
“Happy birthday, Sho-kun,” she said, gesturing for him to make a wish.
“Surprise!” Michiko was saying, clapping her hands, giving Sho one of the biggest smiles he’d ever received. He felt horrible in that moment, having being annoyed with Michiko for running him ragged all day. He looked down at the incredibly fancy cake she’d had Matsumoto make for him, could see “Happy Birthday Sho!” written out neatly in English script.
He looked over, saw Matsumoto still standing by the staircase. He inclined his head, a small smile on his face.
“Thirty-three years old,” Aiba said, chuckling. “Getting up there!”
Michiko laughed. “You don’t even know, Masaki-chan! Be quiet!”
Sho crouched down, staring at the candles, wondering how much time Matsumoto had spent making the cake. Getting through this week was going to be incredibly difficult. He wished only for Michiko to make the right decision, blowing out the candles and hearing the kind applause of his friends.
-
Jun was grateful that Michiko-san’s nurse, Shihori, was very insistent that her charge turn in early for the evening after her long day of traveling and trying to settle in a new place. He didn’t think he could spend another minute in her company without his guilt driving him mad.
After they’d all enjoyed the cake for Sho-san, it had been time for Jun and Michiko to be properly acquainted. She was a small woman, almost buried under a mound of blankets. She was dressed simply, her eyes looking large behind her massive glasses. She didn’t hesitate to inform Jun that she had gone to “great lengths” to look nice for him, fishing for a compliment that he found himself giving easily. Despite her age, despite her obvious shyness, once you were granted entry to Shiroyanagi Michiko’s inner circle, you were loved, you were adored. And it felt so warm, so freely given that Jun almost wanted to grab his suitcase and go home.
To go right to Masaharu-san and tell him no. No, there was absolutely no way he could do this. Even if Jun was being transparent with his intentions, and even if Michiko-san knew that was the case, he didn’t want to take anything away from her. She’d called him several times since her initial invite, thanking him every time he’d sent along some more photos with Sho-san. In introducing herself, helping him to get to know her, she’d told him of the various ways she spent her money. About her fondness for dolls, for art, for helping children. What right did Jun have to take that money from her, money she so happily spent on the needy and unfortunate, and instead funnel it into Shiroyanagi Management? Or even into his own business venture?
He tossed and turned in bed that night, frustrated with himself for letting Masaharu and his threats get to him. Because that’s what this all was, in the end. A threat. Masaharu hadn’t actually come to Jun with any sort of good intentions, perhaps even feigning or overexaggerating his grief to get Jun to listen. He’d appealed to Jun’s drive to succeed. He’d appealed to Jun’s love for his family. He’d come with a solution that would get at both of those things, and Jun had fallen for it like a complete sucker.
And now that Masaharu had hooked him, had gotten Jun involved and practically pushed him into Michiko’s good graces, he had turned on him. Now Jun was in way too far, and if he didn’t cooperate, if he didn’t push Michiko to go along with things, Masaharu had all but assured him that Mr. Bake would fail, that his livelihood, that his dream (and Ohno’s too) would be at risk.
Here he was, having gotten a reclusive woman to break out of her shell, to leave Tokyo for the first time in a decade, and she was going to give in. She was going to ask him how much he wanted, and given how fond of him she was already, she would probably double it. She’d paid five times what Sho-san’s surprise cake had actually been worth, something that had earned Jun a rather nasty phone call from the woman’s accountant Ninomiya the day before.
He couldn’t sleep so he got up, slowly creeping down the hall and heading downstairs. He was enjoying this woman’s hospitality, so easily offered, and he was starting to hate himself for it. Jun headed for the kitchen, hoping there might be some milk he could warm up to make him drowsy. Instead he found Sakurai Sho, with adorably rumpled bed hair and a tight-fitting gray Keio University t-shirt, sitting at the table eating a massive piece of leftover cake.
Before he could flee back to his room, his foot managed to squeak on a floorboard and Sho looked up.
His already large eyes widened even more, and Jun couldn’t help staring at the tiny cake crumbs that had managed to stick themselves to Sho’s fat bottom lip. “I don’t…” Sho said, setting his fork down in shame. “I don’t usually eat like this in the middle of the night.”
Jun smiled despite himself, hovering in the doorway. For all that his face was rather chubby, the rest of him was not. Jun swallowed at the way the t-shirt clung to Sho’s chest, his muscled arms. This was the last thing Jun needed to see right now when he was trying to properly loathe himself for making poor decisions the last few weeks. Spending time in the diligent, thoughtful (and attractive) Sakurai Sho’s company was not something he deserved.
“No judgment from the person who made the cake. I’ll take it as a compliment that you’ve stolen down here to eat more of it.”
Despite his obvious reservations, Sakurai gestured to the kitchen chair beside him. “Here, if you eat some I won’t feel as disgusting.”
He really had sliced a large chunk of it for himself, and Jun held in a grin as Sakurai got up, grabbing him a fork. He was only wearing a pair of ugly orange boxer shorts with his t-shirt, and Jun instead tried to focus on the cake. Sho seemed to realize at that moment how scantily clad he was, rushing back to the table as quickly as he could.
When his chair scraped along the kitchen floor, Jun put a finger to his lips. “You’re going to wake your boss up, Cake Boy.”
Sakurai scowled at him, holding the other fork out like it physically pained him to have to share the slice with him. Jun took it, helping himself to a bite. It had kept remarkably well on the bus ride, jostling around all the way from Tokyo, but Shihori-san had put the leftovers in the fridge and it was almost better now after having been chilled for a few hours.
“I’m really good at making cake,” Jun bragged, getting a small chunk of banana in his bite.
Sho sighed, taking another large bite and agreeing. He didn’t seem to care if Jun saw him talk with his mouth full, and it just endeared him to Jun all the more. “It’s insanely good.”
They sat quietly for the next several minutes, gobbling up the slice until there was hardly a crumb left on the plate. He almost wished Sakurai would go back to the way he’d behaved on their first meeting, when he’d been borderline rude, properly accusatory. When he’d seen through all the bullshit and understood from the beginning that Jun was just playing nice to get his boss’ millions. It would be much easier for Jun if Sho didn’t think of him in any sort of positive light.
When the cake was gone, he could see the wheels in Sho’s head turning. Did he get more cake, prolong their silence? Did he make small talk? Or did he run away? Jun decided to go for small talk, if only to give the cake time to settle in his belly, to make him properly tired.
“You went to Keio?”
Through these past few weeks, with Sho’s visits to the shop, Sho hadn’t really talked much about himself. Sakurai Sho probably knew everything there was to know about Matsumoto Jun, if only because he had to in order to relay it to his employer. Jun mostly knew that Sho had a red coat, worked his ass off, and liked to eat.
Sho nodded. “Yeah. Economics.”
Jun was impressed. He’d probably come from a well-to-do background. Keio was one of those schools that weren’t a possibility for people like Jun. Arisa had grown up dreaming of going to Waseda or Keio herself, rubbing elbows with people like their cousin Daisuke, but she’d had to settle for a reality check.
“Then how did you end up working for Michiko-san?”
Despite Jun’s usual adherence to a good diet, Sakurai talked him into round two of cake. While he got another slice from the fridge, he opened up, telling Jun how it had all happened, how weird it had been, telling his parents what he was actually doing. Sho set the plate down again, shaking his head.
“They thought I was nuts, at least until I told them what she was going to pay me to take pictures of dolls.”
“How much is that?” Jun reddened in embarrassment almost as soon as he’d blurted out his question. “I’m sorry, that was rude to ask.”
Sho shrugged, not seeming to care. After all, Jun knew he worked for a wealthy woman. And Jun was, of course, here to get his own piece of that fortune. Jun watched as Sho traced a number of zeroes with his finger on the table.
“Seriously?” Jun asked, astonished.
Sho nodded. “Yep. And that’s just, you know, like a base salary. She paid for the car I use to get around, or she pays for my other transportation costs since I have to go ‘round to all her houses, check in throughout the year. She keeps me busy, your aunt.”
It was the first time Sho had really bothered to acknowledge the family relation between his employer and Jun. Until now, she had always been strictly “Shiroyanagi-san.”
“Do you ever think about quitting?”
Sho met his eyes, held his gaze for a few seconds. It was too much, Sho’s look, so Jun busied himself with another unnecessary bite of cake.
“No,” Sho admitted. “I don’t.”
“Why?”
“It takes a lot for Michiko-san to trust someone, to open up to someone new. The thought of leaving her, forcing her to find a replacement for me. It just seems cruel.”
Jun’s respect for Sho grew immensely. No matter how many zeroes he traced on the table, Jun got the impression Sho wasn’t doing it for the money. “Do you ever think about…” Jun shut his eyes, mentally kicked himself. “Never mind.”
“What?”
He took a breath. “Do you ever think about what you’ll do…after?”
Surely it wasn’t so unreasonable a question, given Michiko-san’s age, but Jun knew how it had to sound, given who he was and what he technically wanted. Whatever points he’d earned with Sho that evening had probably just depleted.
To Jun’s surprise, Sho actually laughed. “I can’t even think about it. Her lawyer, Kato-san, he’s asked me this constantly. He’s not afraid to ask the, ah, the tough questions. Your aunt doesn’t have a will, because I think she’s convinced herself that she’ll live forever. So you don’t even want to know how many conversations I’ve had with her where I ask her when she’s going to finally do it, and she just shuts me down. It’s like, how can I even imagine a world without Michiko-san in it? When I can’t even get her to think about it?”
Jun said nothing. He already knew Michiko-san didn’t have a will.
Sho smiled, a genuine smile that made Jun feel even worse. “Maybe you can help me talk her into it. Working on the will, I mean. Since she’ll do anything for one of your croissants.”
He wanted to run, but that would just confuse Sho-san all the more. Instead he stabbed out with his fork, getting the last bite. “If you think it would help.”
-
He shivered as he hurried up the steps, knocking on the front door. Shihori was still in her pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt when she answered, rolling her eyes at him. “I thought this was supposed to be a vacation,” Shihori teased.
Sho shook his head. “Please, you know how she is.”
Shihori let him in, and Sho shrugged out of his shoes and coat, bringing the stack of newspapers he’d hurried out and bought into the kitchen. He could have driven down the road, but he’d used the walk to wake himself up after his strange night. He’d shared cake with Matsumoto Jun and had managed to do it without yelling at him. Or worse, hitting on him. His irritation grew each day, his frustration over Jun’s motives fighting against his undeniable attraction. The stupid, delicious cake had made things even harder.
He found Aiba in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee while Jun was frying something up in a skillet on the stove. Michiko-san’s breakfast was turning methodically in the microwave, but Sho was horrified to smell eggs and sausages. “I thought you just made bread!” he accused, settling in beside Aiba.
Jun looked back over his shoulder, grinning. “I have a specialization, yes, but anyone can fry an egg.”
“Then you don’t know our Sho-kun very well yet,” Shihori joined in, leaning back against the counter and watching Jun cook. “He’s completely hopeless.”
“I am not,” Sho protested.
Aiba set down his coffee mug, beaming. “Is that why you always want to just go out to eat when you come down here? When I always offer to get groceries for you?”
Mortified, he glared at all three of his companions. “What is it, gang up on Sakurai day? It’s my birthday!”
“Yesterday was your birthday,” Shihori teased. “It’s open season again now.”
“Shihori-chan!”
Like a sixth sense, the microwave dinged with Michiko-san’s meal as soon as she called out. “I’ll be right there!” The nurse took the hot meal from the microwave, scooping it out onto a real plate as Michiko preferred.
Jun gave her a tap on the shoulder. “Wait.” He then scooped a bit of oatmeal out of one of his bubbling pots, putting it on the plate Shihori had prepared. “Be sure and tell her that’s from me.”
“Mmm, boring oatmeal,” Aiba said. “When I’m old, is that all it’ll take to win me over?”
While Shihori stayed in Michiko’s room to help her eat, the three men sat around the table, devouring the hearty western-style breakfast Jun had made them. Sho felt like he ought to run for miles, considering all the cake he’d shoved down in the middle of the night. Sitting with Aiba and Jun, who were both trim and fit, made him feel all the worse.
Jun eyed the stack of newspapers Sho had brought in, gesturing to them with his fork. “What’s all that?”
Sho did his best to explain his daily tasks, summarizing the news and then going over any business from Kato or Ninomiya. Aiba munched on a sausage link, amused. “What if you’re out of town, Sho-chan? She does give you days off.”
“I still do it, but I just email it to Shihori-chan, and then if Michiko-san has questions, she calls me.”
Aiba and Jun exchanged an incredulous look.
“It’s not that weird,” Sho mumbled, digging into his oatmeal. Like everything else Jun had made, it was perfect.
As Sho had suspected, Michiko had absolutely wanted Sho to keep up his duties despite her “vacation” status. He had emails from Kato - the dollhouse from Germany was finally underway, and Michiko could expect it come April. Ninomiya had sent out several donations to animal charities Michiko had requested, forwarding along the receipts and thank you letters from the various organizations.
While he was here at the house, Sho informed her, he was happy to do his usual inventory and photography runs, but Michiko had other ideas. She wanted Sho to bring several of them to the ground floor and out of the extra bedrooms where Aiba had put them. She wanted a grand show with her dolls. “Jun-chan can help you. Let’s make him work for it, hmm?”
The twinkle in her eye reminded Sho that she’d already made her mind up. Any minute now, she’d probably be asking to speak privately with Jun, and then the headaches would begin. Sho had already given Ninomiya a heads up, and he was just as wary about it as Sho was. “Why can’t she donate to my retirement fund instead?” the accountant had whined jokingly on the phone the other day.
So once his business with Michiko was concluded for the day, Sho had the uncomfortable task of recruiting Jun to help with the dolls. Somehow or other, Aiba had managed to talk Shihori into going into town with him, ostensibly to buy bulbs and gardening supplies for the spring season ahead. Sho suspected that it had been Shihori’s idea entirely. She had always been a little creeped out by Michiko’s doll collection, happy that she only had to see photos most of the time back in the apartment.
That left him and Jun to rummage through the spare bedrooms. For the first few minutes, Jun had stood in the doorway, astonished by the massive plastic tubs stacked high. In each of them were dolls wrapped in tissue paper, sets of clothing, and their accessories - miniature handbags, jewelry, shoes. All custom ordered and made to Michiko’s exact specifications. After ten years of doing it, Sho had simply grown used to stripping the doll clothes off, putting on a different dress that Michiko had wanted to see in photographs.
He was on the floor, cross-legged, halfway through buttoning up a princess’ gown when he caught Jun staring at him. He narrowed his eyes. “She wanted to see the Korean dolls in the ceremonial outfits.” He gestured to a tub to Jun’s left. “Can you get me the one marked ‘Joseon Wonsam - Green’ out of there please?”
Jun gaped at him. “Huh?”
Sho sighed, setting the doll back on the floor. His Korean wasn’t that horrific, but still. He headed to the tub, prying off the top. He saw Jun really look for the first time. Sho had labeled every single thing in every single tub in every single house, whether it was a tag he’d tied around a doll’s ankle or something he’d scrawled on the tissue paper in Sharpie. He’d come up with the filing system within the first six months of working for Michiko-san. Before, everything had just been tossed haphazardly around by the lazy people who’d worked for her before. Instead of spending hours digging through piles of clothes, now he could find things in minutes. It gave him more time to take pictures and to check her houses and apartments for things that needed maintenance.
“See,” he said, tapping on one of the tissue paper clumps. It was labeled with the tub’s number and an individual item number. “Joseon Wonsam - Green. It’s a topcoat, goes over her little dress. Princesses wore green ones and…”
When he looked up, Jun’s face had gone blank. He’d completely lost him now, sighing as he unwrapped it.
“Why don’t you just…there’s the Korean temple set in the next room. It’s in a tub with a 5 on it. Bring the tub downstairs and we’ll set the dolls up in the living room for her.”
Jun looked embarrassed, stopping him with a hand to his shoulder. “Sho-san, I’m…I’m sorry. I just hadn’t realized…you really do put in a lot of work for her, don’t you?”
“Well,” he admitted, wishing Jun hadn’t taken his hand away already. “I do know a hell of a lot more about royal clothes from around the world than I wish I did.”
He moved, retrieving the doll. He held it up, wiggling it in Jun’s face. “Let’s have you put the wonsam on her. Michiko-san will be really happy if you do.”
Once they had the dolls dressed, they got the temple set up in the living room. Sho wasn’t used to having an audience, and Michiko watched them from the couch with tears in her eyes. How long had it been since she’d even played with one of her dollhouses? She gave firm directions, holding tight to her blankets, telling Sho to pose her precious dolls at various places so she could admire them. And then she’d direct Jun, having him take pictures with Sho’s camera so she could add them to her albums and look again at a later date.
“Sho-san, you’re in the shot,” Jun said, waving at him.
“No,” Michiko said. “No, he’s never in any of my pictures.” Sho looked up, his heart aching a bit to see the way Michiko was watching him. “If he’s in the shot, I don’t mind.”
Sho had never even thought of it. He saw Michiko-san almost every day, why would she even want a picture of him?
Once the dolls had been posed the way she liked, Sho picked up the little princess doll in her green topcoat. Michiko took the doll with such care, holding it almost like a baby. Sho was fairly certain that Michiko had never even seen this doll save for the pictures Sho had taken. She stroked the fabric of the topcoat, slipped her fingers through the strands of the doll’s hair. “So darling,” Michiko-san whispered. “What a little darling.”
Sho couldn’t help smiling. This vacation, maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing after all. When he heard the shutter, he looked over, startled. Jun lowered the camera, brushing a tear from his eye and grinning.
“That’s a keeper,” he said quietly, and in that moment he looked so sad that Sho could only look away.
-
Though Shihori had already put her to bed, Michiko-san had insisted that Jun come to her on the fourth evening of their “vacation.” Shihori brought in a chair for him, setting it on the left side because Michiko was hard of hearing on the other side. He was nervous, sitting there while Shihori arranged her pillows so she could sit up comfortably.
“I’ll be just upstairs,” Shihori said quietly, giving Jun the briefest of smiles before departing the room.
Masaharu had emailed Jun each morning since he’d arrived. “Any progress?”
Jun hadn’t answered, turning his phone off and leaving it in his room. He’d spent most of the last few days playing at dolls once again with Sho. As odd a hobby as it was, seeing Michiko-san with her dolls, seeing the pure, innocent joy in her face…it made Jun feel like the worst person in the universe. He’d just written his way into her life with his pathetic letter. She was perfectly content with things the way they were, a life where she’d simply said “no, thank you” to her brother’s excesses. He just wanted to leave her alone, to let her put her money into her charities, into the things that actually meant something to her.
“I wonder if you could make another cake,” she said, smiling at him with her cheerful, wrinkled old face. “If you need anything, Masaki-chan could go to the store and pick it up.”
“I’ll leave him a list. I’d be happy to make you anything you like. What about croissants?”
“Oh, but Sho-chan likes cake more than bread, wouldn’t you say?”
Jun wondered if the old woman could see his face flush. “If…if that’s what you want, sure, I can make another cake. What kind?”
She pondered this for a moment. “I did like your shortcake, although it’s a little sweet for my teeth. But Sho-chan adored it. I’ve never seen a boy eat so much whipped cream!”
Jun smiled weakly. “Am I making this cake for you or for him, Michiko-san?”
She waved her hand. “You’d better make it how he likes it. Shihori-chan can just scrape the extra whipped cream off of mine, that’s just fine.”
“I’m happy to make it to anyone’s taste…”
She was quiet for a few moments, watching him with her astonishingly sharp eyes. “Jun-chan, do you think Masaharu will use the money wisely?”
It was the first time in four days, in fact, the first time in their entire acquaintance that she’d gotten straight to the point about the money. “Michiko-san…”
“Oh, I don’t want you to defend him. That man has no qualms about thinking I owe him. He’s from a long line of men obsessed with money, there’s no point in denying it.” She let out a little sigh. “I’m not terribly concerned with his motivations, but seeing as you’ll be the one most affected in the future by what he decides to do, I thought it best to ask you directly. Now tell me plainly, do you think Masaharu will invest my money in the best interests of his company? For the benefit of you or little Yosuke?”
Jun thought of the messages on his phone, the rather dark turn his last meeting with Masaharu had taken. He found himself reaching his hand out, linking his fingers with Michiko’s. He thought she’d pull away, but her grip was surprisingly strong.
“I don’t think it’s the company he cares about. Not in the long run. It’s his comfort.” Jun looked down, thinking of Mr. Bake, its uncertain future. “I agreed to his plan because I thought it would make my life easier. I thought if I had the Shiroyanagi money that I could reach my dreams. But all of my dreams, Michiko-san, they’re about my business, my bakery. Not the future of Shiroyanagi Management. I’m as selfish as Masaharu-san, in the end.”
She squeezed his hand tighter. “Don’t apologize. Don’t apologize for wanting to be successful. I’ve lived my entire life with ease, thanks to the money I received from my father. I don’t know what it’s like to struggle or to have to work to earn my keep.”
“But you give so much to help others…”
“…and I use the rest to buy dolls. I indulge my whims like anyone else,” she reminded him. “Jun-chan, I’m going to call my little pup and I’m going to call my lawyer and tomorrow…tomorrow we’re going to hammer something out.”
Jun almost wished he was telepathic, that he could send out a warning alarm to Sho and get him to hurry downstairs to hear this. “What do you mean?”
“They’ve been pestering me about this will business, and I suppose I’ve troubled them enough about it. If I write you a check today, I just know you’ll put it straight into Masaharu’s hands, regardless of what I tell you to do, because you’re an honest, sweet soul. And that’s simply unfeasible. No, no, what I’ll do is I’ll have that money set aside for you. It’ll go to Shiroyanagi Management, sure enough, but only in the event that you are in charge…”
“But I don’t…” He could feel tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “I don’t really think I have what it takes to run the company. I don’t even want to…”
“Then you do what I did. You find yourself in charge of that company and you let someone buy it out from you. And then you’ll have your bakeries. You’ll have money to set aside for little Yosuke’s future too. Masaharu can’t bother you or me again if the money’s willed to his company, and if it’s in your name, he has to respect whatever decisions you make.”
“This seems like more of a bother than anything,” he said. “An awful lot of trouble to go to…”
“Well you certainly aren’t getting all of it,” she snapped back with a quickness that made him smile again. “Jun-chan, relax. Everything will work out just fine.”
She asked for his help in getting her under the covers, to adjust her pillows again, so she wouldn’t have to wake Shihori. With a heavy heart, Jun closed Michiko-san’s door behind him. He trudged up the stairs, angry. Just as predicted, she’d decided he was worthy of her money when he felt like the opposite was true. And now tomorrow she’d put it in writing. A woman who thought herself invincible, writing her last will after putting it off for years.
He was just at the top of the stairs when he stopped, seeing Aiba-san and Shihori laughing quietly by her bedroom door. They both turned, seeing him there. It was certainly a productive “vacation” for everyone. Aiba straightened up, stepping back and heading Jun’s way. “Ah, good night, Matsumoto-kun,” he said, chuckling nervously as he hopped down the stairs and off to his cottage.
Jun looked back, seeing Shihori looking at him. “Bad timing,” she chided him, the short and spunky little nurse who had looked after his aunt’s health without complaint for so many years. “Bad timing, Jun-kun!”
He held up a hand in apology, slipping past her door, entering his own. When he turned his phone on, there was yet another message from Masaharu-san. But this time it wasn’t any inquiries about his progress. Instead it was an email Masaharu had blind-copied him on. A discussion of real estate pricing and opportunities in the Ikebukuro area.
“Yes, I’m happy to meet soon to discuss options,” Masaharu had written to the prospective client.
A threat, plain and simple. Jun was apparently taking too long. He wanted to open his window and fling the phone out into the grass. Instead he sunk to the floor, remembering how plainly Michiko had spoken to him, how she wanted to help him when Jun had only known her for so short a time. How she knew and had seen through Masaharu’s ploy from the very beginning and still didn’t mind.
He should have never written that letter. And now it was too late.
-
It shouldn’t have surprised Sho that Kato and Ninomiya made it down to Tateyama in record time, allowing for Sho to fetch them from the train station by midday. Though Sho had met with them dozens of times over the years, this was actually their first meeting with their employer. They spoke with Michiko-san on the phone constantly, but this was certainly turning into quite the social week for her.
Aiba had leapt to action, getting Michiko’s dolls and the storage tubs moved from the spare rooms, consolidating them all into one with Jun’s help. Though Kato and Ninomiya both hinted that they had no desire to spend the night, Michiko and her forceful personality managed to change their minds. Or, more like, she had greeted them and said she’d sign no will unless they both enjoyed her hospitality for the evening.
And so there was a larger crowd gathered around the table in the kitchen that evening, and Sho had to admit that he felt slightly sorry for Jun. Aiba, a friendly person, was keeping the conversation going, having immediately found a friend in Ninomiya, who was just as obsessed with baseball as he was. But when there was a lull in the talking, Sho could sense the suspicion raiding off of Michiko-san’s lawyer and accountant. It was Jun’s arrival that had gotten Michiko to move on the will, and they were as paranoid as Sho had been at the start.
But over these last few days in Matsumoto Jun’s company, Sho had come around on him in the same way Michiko-san had. And no, not just because of his cooking or his baking or his cool, handsome face. Sho had seen how gentle Jun was with Michiko, how in such a short amount of time the old woman opened up to him where the mere concept of meeting someone new had terrified her only a month or two earlier. He was the only person in her family that she’d met face to face in nearly eighty years.
Michiko-san didn’t want to “talk business” at all that first night, so they’d all gathered around her in the living room, the small circle of thirty-somethings and almost thirty-somethings she’d managed to wrangle together over the years. They could have been her grandchildren, maybe even her great-grandchildren. The stiff, inflexible Kato was “Shige-chan” by the end of the night, much to his chagrin. And then Michiko had let a “pup” slip out and Ninomiya discovered that for all these years, Michiko had been thinking of him as her loyal canine.
“I’d be insulted,” Ninomiya said, the small man curled up contentedly in one of the living room chairs and sipping hot chocolate, “but if that’s what Micchan wants, it’s okay.”
At the casual “Micchan,” Michiko squealed almost like a young girl, clapping her hands. “Nothing but flirts and flatterers, that’s what I’ve hired, hmm?” the old woman cheered, smiling from ear to ear. She was the princess from one of her dollhouses come to life, surrounded by her adoring subjects.
Shihori eventually announced that it was time for bed, and Michiko made a big fuss about wanting to stay up all night. It didn’t last and Sho couldn’t help noticing that the old woman was slower in getting up than she had been in a while. Shihori noticed too, meeting Sho’s eyes briefly as she helped Michiko walk to her bedroom. It was a lot she was enduring, a lot of excitement, so Sho hoped things would calm down again once Kato and Ninomiya had concluded their business the next day. Perhaps it was best for Michiko-san’s health if they stayed a little longer in the Tateyama house instead of moving her back to Tokyo so abruptly again.
Sho left Kato and Ninomiya in the kitchen with leftovers from a perfect strawberry shortcake Jun had made, the two men who had kept the old woman afloat for so long. They were both poring over various drafts they planned to present to Michiko the following day. Kato typing and typing on his laptop with Ninomiya leaning over his shoulder, making suggestions. Sho didn’t know the first thing about it, so he left them to it.
After putting Michiko to bed, Sho hadn’t missed Shihori slipping out the back door, heading in the direction of Aiba’s caretaker cottage. “We’re just chatting,” Aiba had assured Sho that morning when he’d pulled Aiba aside, feeling rather protective of Shihori, who’d become as close as a sister over the years. “Honestly, Sho-chan, it just feels good to talk to someone who understands.”
That left him to head upstairs alone, stretching. He needed a good night’s sleep, especially with the arguments and headaches he was anticipating come morning as Michiko started listing her requests and Ninomiya started bitching about the money. He heard a little noise coming from one of the far bedrooms, the one that had been left without an occupant and that now held all of Michiko’s things.
Sho tapped his fingers on the door, pushing it open to find Jun sitting in the middle of the floor all alone, going through one of the storage tubs. He looked up, nodding his head. “Sho-san.”
Sho looked around, the room nearly overflowing with things. Jun, seated where he was, looked almost tiny there, surrounded by Michiko’s things. “What are you doing?”
Jun picked up one of the wrapped bundles of tissue paper. “Aiba-san and I had to consolidate some of the loose items into these tubs when we moved them, just so we didn’t have to make a hundred trips back and forth. But I didn’t want to mess up your system, so I’m taking them back out.”
Sho felt warm, even though he was just in a t-shirt and jeans, shuffling through the house in a pair of slippers. “Oh, you didn’t have to go through so much trouble. I’ll be back here in a few months, sorting it out again anyhow…”
“I wanted to,” Jun said earnestly, setting the tissue paper bundle aside.
Sho couldn’t help walking in, closing the door so they didn’t wake Michiko downstairs. With most of the floor covered, his only option was to sit down beside Jun. He regretted it as soon as he did it though, realizing that there wasn’t as much room as he anticipated. He could smell Jun beside him, the light scent of whatever cologne he was wearing. He only seemed to wear it here. Maybe working with food all day, he didn’t dare wear anything with a scent.
Jun seemed to realize that Sho was close too, trying to scoot over a little, but failing when he collided softly with yet another tub. “She has a lot of stuff,” Jun said, shifting as best he could.
Sho peered into the tub Jun was already going through. “Have you figured out my system yet?”
Jun sounded rather proud of himself, nodding. “You’ve got a year on them, I mean, that’s what I assume these numbers are. And then here’s a second number, and based on what I’ve found, this second number designates a group of like items.”
“Very good,” Sho said, feeling pleased. “The year is the year she bought them, and then the second number is the order in which she acquired them that year. So here,” he said, lifting a bundle labeled with 2010 and group 5. Inside was a small tin full of miniature soccer cleats. “These are from 2010 when she was having a bit of Dutch mania. World Cup.”
“The Netherlands didn’t win…I thought…wasn’t it…Spain?”
Sho nodded, grinning. “She liked their orange uniforms better than Spain’s colors so…” He pulled another 2010, group 5 bundle out. He handed it to Jun, letting him unwrap it. Jun’s laugh was enough to make Sho’s heart pound. “She doesn’t know how soccer works at all, but she wanted a little Dutch soccer player.”
Jun lifted the doll from the paper, poking at its orange uniform with a smile. “She’s an amazing person.”
“She’d actually ordered them through Ninomiya first, but he didn’t know much about soccer, so she hadn’t ordered the right shoes for them and he hadn’t thought about it. So those custom cleats were all my doing, once I showed her some pictures.”
Jun held up the little soccer player, bopping him gently against Sho’s head. “Thanks very much for making me game ready, Sho-san!” he said in a high pitched doll-esque voice.
Sho snorted, if only to keep himself from letting out a noisy laugh. He’d never forgive himself if he woke her.
Jun hit him lightly with the doll again. “Don’t laugh at me. I’m a very important international sports superstar,” he said once more in that silly voice, and before he realized what he was doing, Sho clapped his hand over Jun’s mouth.
“Stop,” he said weakly before snatching his hand back.
At Sho’s touch, though, he’d seen Jun’s eyes darken, his whole body tense. Way to go, Sakurai, Sho thought. The guy is now completely freaked out that you’re hitting on him. He’s clearly not into men, or at least not into men like you and…
Jun was already leaning forward, the doll dropping to his lap as he brought his hand to the back of Sho’s head, pulling him close. There was a split-second of hesitation, that sensation like the moment before the roller coaster goes down the hill, and then Jun was kissing him. Sho’s body for once reacted ahead of his brain, and he leaned into it, tilting his head a little to get to a better angle.
He was kissing Jun, and oh god, Jun was kissing him. And it was so much better than he could have even imagined, mostly because of how spontaneous it was. Sho had wanted him ever since he’d set foot in the man’s bakery that day, had let his eyes linger for a beat too long. Jun was everything Sho shouldn’t have wanted, someone who’d come in and shaken up Michiko’s life.
But she was happy, happier than she’d been in years, and it was all thanks to Jun.
Jun’s kiss was dizzying, unrelenting, and Sho couldn’t help but try to hold on, one hand squeezing Jun’s thigh hard if only to ground himself in the fact that this was really happening. That maybe Jun wanted him just as badly, despite everything.
They only stopped when they heard footsteps in the hallway, clearly Kato or Ninomiya heading to their rooms for the night. Sho used one of the storage tubs for support, pulling himself up and away from Jun before things got any more serious.
“I’m…I’m…”
Jun was toying with the soccer doll, raising its arm up and down in a nervous gesture. “Sho-san, I shouldn’t have…”
“No,” Sho said immediately, gingerly walking through the room and putting distance between them even though he very much didn’t want to. “No, don’t apologize at all.” He’d found something he liked even more than what Jun baked.
“We still shouldn’t,” Jun said, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry for adding more complication.”
Sho was already missing it, how easily he’d given in. How badly he’d wanted it. “Let’s just get through this week, okay?”
“Of course.”
“Right,” Sho mumbled. He turned the doorknob. “Well, don’t stay up too late. You really can just leave it. I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay,” Jun replied. Their eyes met for a few brief moments before Sho went into the hall and pulled the door closed behind him.
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Aiba Masaki had been the hired caretaker at the Tateyama house for over 8 years. He’d taken over from his grandfather, whom Michiko had hired to look after the place way back in the 1950’s when she purchased it. It was a rather strange job, Aiba was always telling Sho when he visited throughout the year, but it was a lot better than many other jobs.
Though Michiko had never once entered the house since she’d bought it, the entire place was fully furnished. It was an oddity from the 50’s, some construction boom along the shorefront that had specialized in “American-style” beach houses with white clapboard and blue shutters. Though most of the others had been torn down in favor of newer developments for tourists, Michiko-san’s place still looked just as it did in the black and white photos she kept in albums. This was mostly thanks to the diligence of the Aiba family in looking after it. Even after having endured a few small earthquakes over the years, they always knocked it back into shape.
It was set back a ways from the shore, with high fences to keep out prying eyes. The house itself boasted six bedrooms, three baths, and its own private patch of beach. The small caretaker cottage on property was where Aiba lived year-round, even though the luxurious house sat empty. His grandfather had never taken advantage of the absent owner, and his grandson followed in his footsteps.
Aiba was a jack of all trades. He maintained the grounds, cutting the grass and planting flowers. He kept the exterior looking neat and trim, painting it when needed, cleaning out the gutters. He also maintained the interior, dusting the dollhouses and other items Michiko had Sho store there. A few years back the kitchen and bathrooms had all been completely redone under Aiba’s supervision to update the appliances and fixtures, and the photos he’d sent along to Michiko-san (mostly selfie-style shots of Aiba’s happy smiling face with the remodeled rooms in various stages of completion behind him) had endeared the man to her for life. She upped his salary every year, even though she still never set foot inside.
“There’s no reason to quit,” Aiba told Sho. “I’m a security guard. I’m a handyman. I’m an interior designer. And honestly, I spend my entire summer surfing. Why on earth would I quit working for Michiko-san?”
That morning Aiba Masaki had met his employer for the first time. He was a tall, skinny guy, with tanned skin from working outside even in the cooler months, and Michiko had been head over heels for him from the second Aiba escorted her slowly from Sho’s car and into the house. Though Aiba had been given relatively short notice to get the house ready for visitors, he’d stepped up without complaint, installing a ramp so Michiko could be brought in and out in a wheelchair.
Though the largest bedrooms were on the upper floor of the house, Aiba had quickly converted a study on the lower floor into a bedroom for Michiko. The old woman was already settling in nicely, and Aiba had set up a walkie-talkie system so Shihori, who’d be staying upstairs, could be summoned at a moment’s notice.
Sho hadn’t missed the way Aiba had been looking at Michiko’s nurse from the moment they arrived. Though Sho knew Aiba had had girlfriends over the years, something he had no qualms chatting about with Sho, things never seemed to last because of the oddness of his job and his refusal to quit. Shihori’s arrival, coupled with the week the two of them had spent calling each other back and forth with regards to ensuring the house was ready for a very elderly lady, had seemingly gotten the ball rolling in a positive direction there.
Already Shihori had whispered to Sho that her bedroom upstairs was the only one with a fresh bouquet of flowers in it. “He moves fast, huh?” Shihori had said, though Sho could tell she quite liked the attention. After spending so much of her life cooped up in Michiko’s apartment with her, it was nice to see Shihori getting a break too.
With Sho, Shihori, and Michiko settled in at the house, they were only waiting on one more guest. Ninomiya and Kato both had been invited for the week, being the only other people in Michiko’s life she might tolerate seeing in person, but both had declined with work commitments. Although, both of them had told Sho privately, if Sho could get Michiko to move in the direction of getting a will started, they’d come down to Chiba in a heartbeat.
Sho’s phone rang shortly before dinner time. Shihori was bustling around in the kitchen, getting Michiko’s pre-packaged dinner ready, when he answered. “This is Sakurai.”
“Hello, this is Matsumoto.”
“Ah, Matsumoto-san, good to hear from you,” Sho said a bit loudly, if only so Michiko-san seated primly on the living room sofa could hear him. Her face positively lit up in joy with the knowledge that her now beloved croissant maker “Jun-chan” was on his way.
“I’ve just arrived at Tateyama Station, and I’ll be getting into a cab.”
Sho put his hand over the phone, telling Michiko that he was in town. She immediately started waving her hand, demanding he hand the cell phone over. “Jun-chan! Jun-chan, how are you? Ah, I’m doing well. I’m on vacation, aren’t I?”
Sho stood by diligently, hearing Shihori’s movements and cheerful humming in the kitchen, as Michiko talked Matsumoto’s ear off, wanting to know every detail about his journey. Though she’d wanted to pay for his ticket, Matsumoto had refused, taking the bus over the Aqua-Line bridge and down to Tateyama on his own dime.
“No!” she said loudly, startling Sho. “No, you will not!”
Shihori poked her head out of the kitchen at that. “What’s wrong?” she mouthed, and Sho shrugged.
“No, I simply won’t allow that. Sho-chan will come fetch you.”
Sho’s stomach knotted. Of course. Of course, she’d never allow Matsumoto to take a taxi to the house. He should have known. It had been a difficult two weeks for Sho. With Michiko’s new addiction to the Mr. Bake shop, Sho had been to the place every day, spending his mornings fighting through the commuter crowds. He had it so easy before, just taking the Toyoko Line the handful of stops to Michiko’s Jiyugaoka Station. Now he had to go to the end of the line at Shibuya, make his way up to Ikebukuro on the Metro and then come all the way back. It had added almost a full hour more of travel to his day, not counting the minutes he spent in the Mr. Bake shop trying not to get lost in Matsumoto Jun’s frustratingly nice brown eyes.
“Yes, he’ll come right away,” Michiko was saying. “It’s no problem at all. Good. Good then. I look forward to meeting you properly too. Bye bye.”
Michiko held out the phone as she always did, not interested in learning how to actually end the call. Sho took his phone back, shoving it a little roughly in his pocket. Shihori smiled as he grumbled his way into his coat. She had seen the bake shop bags Sho returned with every morning, all the additional purchases that came from Sho’s paycheck and not Michiko’s money. She knew that Sho had a growing “Matsumoto” problem.
“Great birthday, hmm?” Shihori teased him. It was Sho’s birthday today, the 25th, and Michiko had done nothing to spoil him. They’d left from Tokyo in the car that morning around 6:30, and Sho hadn’t had a moment’s rest.
He got in the car, thankful that it never got as cold down here in Tateyama as it could in Tokyo. He made his way to the station, finding Matsumoto Jun waiting with a rolling suitcase and a large blue plastic cake holder. “Hello,” Sho said, popping the trunk and taking Matsumoto’s bag. “More croissants? You always make a big impression with those.”
Matsumoto clutched the cake holder to him. “Ah, no. Not this time.”
They got in the car, and Matsumoto sat with it on his lap. Sho pulled away from the station, and now that they were closed into the car with one another, he could smell it. That smell that had trapped him from day one, that banana cream he’d smelled in the Mr. Bake shop’s back room.
“You made her a cake.”
Matsumoto hesitated, fingers drumming on the plastic. “Sort of.”
Sort of? Sho gripped the steering wheel. “What on earth did you make?”
“You’ll see.”
When they got back to the house, it was Aiba who greeted them, taking the cake holder from Matsumoto’s grip. “Sakurai-kun will show you where your room is,” Aiba said with a smile.
“Follow me then,” Sho said. Matsumoto followed him upstairs to the room between Sho’s own and Shihori’s. The guy seemed incredibly impressed with the house, setting his suitcase down on the bed.
When Sho made to head back downstairs, starving for dinner, Matsumoto grabbed hold of his arm. He looked up, startled, only to find those damned eyes of his looking at him with amusement. “Just…wait a second.”
Sho stood there for a few achingly awkward moments, trying to ignore the man in his dark wool coat and purple scarf. It hadn’t helped that Sho had been forced to play middleman of late, ferrying pictures of Matsumoto Jun to add to Michiko-san’s growing collection, having to sit in the living room and watch her coo over him, saying over and over how “handsome” he was. As if Sho didn’t know already.
“Sho-chan!” came Michiko’s voice a few moments later. “Sho-chan, come here!”
Matsumoto finally let him go, and Sho headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. But what he hadn’t expected was for all the lights downstairs to be turned off. He clung to the bannister, stalling at the bottom of the staircase. “Did we lose power?” he asked.
But then there were voices, singing voices. Michiko-san from somewhere here in the living room, and Aiba too. Then Shihori coming in from the kitchen, and even Matsumoto Jun behind him on the stairs, although his singing was by far the quietest.
They were singing the Happy Birthday song for Sho, and Shihori was coming in from the kitchen with a cake. There were a handful of lit candles stuck in it, and Sho now realized why Matsumoto had been so evasive in the car. Sho stepped forward, embarrassed as Michiko’s rather poor singing voice drowned the other three out. He smiled despite himself as Shihori set the cake down on the living room table. As Aiba turned the lights back on at the song’s conclusion, Shihori wrapped him up in a hug.
“Happy birthday, Sho-kun,” she said, gesturing for him to make a wish.
“Surprise!” Michiko was saying, clapping her hands, giving Sho one of the biggest smiles he’d ever received. He felt horrible in that moment, having being annoyed with Michiko for running him ragged all day. He looked down at the incredibly fancy cake she’d had Matsumoto make for him, could see “Happy Birthday Sho!” written out neatly in English script.
He looked over, saw Matsumoto still standing by the staircase. He inclined his head, a small smile on his face.
“Thirty-three years old,” Aiba said, chuckling. “Getting up there!”
Michiko laughed. “You don’t even know, Masaki-chan! Be quiet!”
Sho crouched down, staring at the candles, wondering how much time Matsumoto had spent making the cake. Getting through this week was going to be incredibly difficult. He wished only for Michiko to make the right decision, blowing out the candles and hearing the kind applause of his friends.
-
Jun was grateful that Michiko-san’s nurse, Shihori, was very insistent that her charge turn in early for the evening after her long day of traveling and trying to settle in a new place. He didn’t think he could spend another minute in her company without his guilt driving him mad.
After they’d all enjoyed the cake for Sho-san, it had been time for Jun and Michiko to be properly acquainted. She was a small woman, almost buried under a mound of blankets. She was dressed simply, her eyes looking large behind her massive glasses. She didn’t hesitate to inform Jun that she had gone to “great lengths” to look nice for him, fishing for a compliment that he found himself giving easily. Despite her age, despite her obvious shyness, once you were granted entry to Shiroyanagi Michiko’s inner circle, you were loved, you were adored. And it felt so warm, so freely given that Jun almost wanted to grab his suitcase and go home.
To go right to Masaharu-san and tell him no. No, there was absolutely no way he could do this. Even if Jun was being transparent with his intentions, and even if Michiko-san knew that was the case, he didn’t want to take anything away from her. She’d called him several times since her initial invite, thanking him every time he’d sent along some more photos with Sho-san. In introducing herself, helping him to get to know her, she’d told him of the various ways she spent her money. About her fondness for dolls, for art, for helping children. What right did Jun have to take that money from her, money she so happily spent on the needy and unfortunate, and instead funnel it into Shiroyanagi Management? Or even into his own business venture?
He tossed and turned in bed that night, frustrated with himself for letting Masaharu and his threats get to him. Because that’s what this all was, in the end. A threat. Masaharu hadn’t actually come to Jun with any sort of good intentions, perhaps even feigning or overexaggerating his grief to get Jun to listen. He’d appealed to Jun’s drive to succeed. He’d appealed to Jun’s love for his family. He’d come with a solution that would get at both of those things, and Jun had fallen for it like a complete sucker.
And now that Masaharu had hooked him, had gotten Jun involved and practically pushed him into Michiko’s good graces, he had turned on him. Now Jun was in way too far, and if he didn’t cooperate, if he didn’t push Michiko to go along with things, Masaharu had all but assured him that Mr. Bake would fail, that his livelihood, that his dream (and Ohno’s too) would be at risk.
Here he was, having gotten a reclusive woman to break out of her shell, to leave Tokyo for the first time in a decade, and she was going to give in. She was going to ask him how much he wanted, and given how fond of him she was already, she would probably double it. She’d paid five times what Sho-san’s surprise cake had actually been worth, something that had earned Jun a rather nasty phone call from the woman’s accountant Ninomiya the day before.
He couldn’t sleep so he got up, slowly creeping down the hall and heading downstairs. He was enjoying this woman’s hospitality, so easily offered, and he was starting to hate himself for it. Jun headed for the kitchen, hoping there might be some milk he could warm up to make him drowsy. Instead he found Sakurai Sho, with adorably rumpled bed hair and a tight-fitting gray Keio University t-shirt, sitting at the table eating a massive piece of leftover cake.
Before he could flee back to his room, his foot managed to squeak on a floorboard and Sho looked up.
His already large eyes widened even more, and Jun couldn’t help staring at the tiny cake crumbs that had managed to stick themselves to Sho’s fat bottom lip. “I don’t…” Sho said, setting his fork down in shame. “I don’t usually eat like this in the middle of the night.”
Jun smiled despite himself, hovering in the doorway. For all that his face was rather chubby, the rest of him was not. Jun swallowed at the way the t-shirt clung to Sho’s chest, his muscled arms. This was the last thing Jun needed to see right now when he was trying to properly loathe himself for making poor decisions the last few weeks. Spending time in the diligent, thoughtful (and attractive) Sakurai Sho’s company was not something he deserved.
“No judgment from the person who made the cake. I’ll take it as a compliment that you’ve stolen down here to eat more of it.”
Despite his obvious reservations, Sakurai gestured to the kitchen chair beside him. “Here, if you eat some I won’t feel as disgusting.”
He really had sliced a large chunk of it for himself, and Jun held in a grin as Sakurai got up, grabbing him a fork. He was only wearing a pair of ugly orange boxer shorts with his t-shirt, and Jun instead tried to focus on the cake. Sho seemed to realize at that moment how scantily clad he was, rushing back to the table as quickly as he could.
When his chair scraped along the kitchen floor, Jun put a finger to his lips. “You’re going to wake your boss up, Cake Boy.”
Sakurai scowled at him, holding the other fork out like it physically pained him to have to share the slice with him. Jun took it, helping himself to a bite. It had kept remarkably well on the bus ride, jostling around all the way from Tokyo, but Shihori-san had put the leftovers in the fridge and it was almost better now after having been chilled for a few hours.
“I’m really good at making cake,” Jun bragged, getting a small chunk of banana in his bite.
Sho sighed, taking another large bite and agreeing. He didn’t seem to care if Jun saw him talk with his mouth full, and it just endeared him to Jun all the more. “It’s insanely good.”
They sat quietly for the next several minutes, gobbling up the slice until there was hardly a crumb left on the plate. He almost wished Sakurai would go back to the way he’d behaved on their first meeting, when he’d been borderline rude, properly accusatory. When he’d seen through all the bullshit and understood from the beginning that Jun was just playing nice to get his boss’ millions. It would be much easier for Jun if Sho didn’t think of him in any sort of positive light.
When the cake was gone, he could see the wheels in Sho’s head turning. Did he get more cake, prolong their silence? Did he make small talk? Or did he run away? Jun decided to go for small talk, if only to give the cake time to settle in his belly, to make him properly tired.
“You went to Keio?”
Through these past few weeks, with Sho’s visits to the shop, Sho hadn’t really talked much about himself. Sakurai Sho probably knew everything there was to know about Matsumoto Jun, if only because he had to in order to relay it to his employer. Jun mostly knew that Sho had a red coat, worked his ass off, and liked to eat.
Sho nodded. “Yeah. Economics.”
Jun was impressed. He’d probably come from a well-to-do background. Keio was one of those schools that weren’t a possibility for people like Jun. Arisa had grown up dreaming of going to Waseda or Keio herself, rubbing elbows with people like their cousin Daisuke, but she’d had to settle for a reality check.
“Then how did you end up working for Michiko-san?”
Despite Jun’s usual adherence to a good diet, Sakurai talked him into round two of cake. While he got another slice from the fridge, he opened up, telling Jun how it had all happened, how weird it had been, telling his parents what he was actually doing. Sho set the plate down again, shaking his head.
“They thought I was nuts, at least until I told them what she was going to pay me to take pictures of dolls.”
“How much is that?” Jun reddened in embarrassment almost as soon as he’d blurted out his question. “I’m sorry, that was rude to ask.”
Sho shrugged, not seeming to care. After all, Jun knew he worked for a wealthy woman. And Jun was, of course, here to get his own piece of that fortune. Jun watched as Sho traced a number of zeroes with his finger on the table.
“Seriously?” Jun asked, astonished.
Sho nodded. “Yep. And that’s just, you know, like a base salary. She paid for the car I use to get around, or she pays for my other transportation costs since I have to go ‘round to all her houses, check in throughout the year. She keeps me busy, your aunt.”
It was the first time Sho had really bothered to acknowledge the family relation between his employer and Jun. Until now, she had always been strictly “Shiroyanagi-san.”
“Do you ever think about quitting?”
Sho met his eyes, held his gaze for a few seconds. It was too much, Sho’s look, so Jun busied himself with another unnecessary bite of cake.
“No,” Sho admitted. “I don’t.”
“Why?”
“It takes a lot for Michiko-san to trust someone, to open up to someone new. The thought of leaving her, forcing her to find a replacement for me. It just seems cruel.”
Jun’s respect for Sho grew immensely. No matter how many zeroes he traced on the table, Jun got the impression Sho wasn’t doing it for the money. “Do you ever think about…” Jun shut his eyes, mentally kicked himself. “Never mind.”
“What?”
He took a breath. “Do you ever think about what you’ll do…after?”
Surely it wasn’t so unreasonable a question, given Michiko-san’s age, but Jun knew how it had to sound, given who he was and what he technically wanted. Whatever points he’d earned with Sho that evening had probably just depleted.
To Jun’s surprise, Sho actually laughed. “I can’t even think about it. Her lawyer, Kato-san, he’s asked me this constantly. He’s not afraid to ask the, ah, the tough questions. Your aunt doesn’t have a will, because I think she’s convinced herself that she’ll live forever. So you don’t even want to know how many conversations I’ve had with her where I ask her when she’s going to finally do it, and she just shuts me down. It’s like, how can I even imagine a world without Michiko-san in it? When I can’t even get her to think about it?”
Jun said nothing. He already knew Michiko-san didn’t have a will.
Sho smiled, a genuine smile that made Jun feel even worse. “Maybe you can help me talk her into it. Working on the will, I mean. Since she’ll do anything for one of your croissants.”
He wanted to run, but that would just confuse Sho-san all the more. Instead he stabbed out with his fork, getting the last bite. “If you think it would help.”
-
He shivered as he hurried up the steps, knocking on the front door. Shihori was still in her pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt when she answered, rolling her eyes at him. “I thought this was supposed to be a vacation,” Shihori teased.
Sho shook his head. “Please, you know how she is.”
Shihori let him in, and Sho shrugged out of his shoes and coat, bringing the stack of newspapers he’d hurried out and bought into the kitchen. He could have driven down the road, but he’d used the walk to wake himself up after his strange night. He’d shared cake with Matsumoto Jun and had managed to do it without yelling at him. Or worse, hitting on him. His irritation grew each day, his frustration over Jun’s motives fighting against his undeniable attraction. The stupid, delicious cake had made things even harder.
He found Aiba in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee while Jun was frying something up in a skillet on the stove. Michiko-san’s breakfast was turning methodically in the microwave, but Sho was horrified to smell eggs and sausages. “I thought you just made bread!” he accused, settling in beside Aiba.
Jun looked back over his shoulder, grinning. “I have a specialization, yes, but anyone can fry an egg.”
“Then you don’t know our Sho-kun very well yet,” Shihori joined in, leaning back against the counter and watching Jun cook. “He’s completely hopeless.”
“I am not,” Sho protested.
Aiba set down his coffee mug, beaming. “Is that why you always want to just go out to eat when you come down here? When I always offer to get groceries for you?”
Mortified, he glared at all three of his companions. “What is it, gang up on Sakurai day? It’s my birthday!”
“Yesterday was your birthday,” Shihori teased. “It’s open season again now.”
“Shihori-chan!”
Like a sixth sense, the microwave dinged with Michiko-san’s meal as soon as she called out. “I’ll be right there!” The nurse took the hot meal from the microwave, scooping it out onto a real plate as Michiko preferred.
Jun gave her a tap on the shoulder. “Wait.” He then scooped a bit of oatmeal out of one of his bubbling pots, putting it on the plate Shihori had prepared. “Be sure and tell her that’s from me.”
“Mmm, boring oatmeal,” Aiba said. “When I’m old, is that all it’ll take to win me over?”
While Shihori stayed in Michiko’s room to help her eat, the three men sat around the table, devouring the hearty western-style breakfast Jun had made them. Sho felt like he ought to run for miles, considering all the cake he’d shoved down in the middle of the night. Sitting with Aiba and Jun, who were both trim and fit, made him feel all the worse.
Jun eyed the stack of newspapers Sho had brought in, gesturing to them with his fork. “What’s all that?”
Sho did his best to explain his daily tasks, summarizing the news and then going over any business from Kato or Ninomiya. Aiba munched on a sausage link, amused. “What if you’re out of town, Sho-chan? She does give you days off.”
“I still do it, but I just email it to Shihori-chan, and then if Michiko-san has questions, she calls me.”
Aiba and Jun exchanged an incredulous look.
“It’s not that weird,” Sho mumbled, digging into his oatmeal. Like everything else Jun had made, it was perfect.
As Sho had suspected, Michiko had absolutely wanted Sho to keep up his duties despite her “vacation” status. He had emails from Kato - the dollhouse from Germany was finally underway, and Michiko could expect it come April. Ninomiya had sent out several donations to animal charities Michiko had requested, forwarding along the receipts and thank you letters from the various organizations.
While he was here at the house, Sho informed her, he was happy to do his usual inventory and photography runs, but Michiko had other ideas. She wanted Sho to bring several of them to the ground floor and out of the extra bedrooms where Aiba had put them. She wanted a grand show with her dolls. “Jun-chan can help you. Let’s make him work for it, hmm?”
The twinkle in her eye reminded Sho that she’d already made her mind up. Any minute now, she’d probably be asking to speak privately with Jun, and then the headaches would begin. Sho had already given Ninomiya a heads up, and he was just as wary about it as Sho was. “Why can’t she donate to my retirement fund instead?” the accountant had whined jokingly on the phone the other day.
So once his business with Michiko was concluded for the day, Sho had the uncomfortable task of recruiting Jun to help with the dolls. Somehow or other, Aiba had managed to talk Shihori into going into town with him, ostensibly to buy bulbs and gardening supplies for the spring season ahead. Sho suspected that it had been Shihori’s idea entirely. She had always been a little creeped out by Michiko’s doll collection, happy that she only had to see photos most of the time back in the apartment.
That left him and Jun to rummage through the spare bedrooms. For the first few minutes, Jun had stood in the doorway, astonished by the massive plastic tubs stacked high. In each of them were dolls wrapped in tissue paper, sets of clothing, and their accessories - miniature handbags, jewelry, shoes. All custom ordered and made to Michiko’s exact specifications. After ten years of doing it, Sho had simply grown used to stripping the doll clothes off, putting on a different dress that Michiko had wanted to see in photographs.
He was on the floor, cross-legged, halfway through buttoning up a princess’ gown when he caught Jun staring at him. He narrowed his eyes. “She wanted to see the Korean dolls in the ceremonial outfits.” He gestured to a tub to Jun’s left. “Can you get me the one marked ‘Joseon Wonsam - Green’ out of there please?”
Jun gaped at him. “Huh?”
Sho sighed, setting the doll back on the floor. His Korean wasn’t that horrific, but still. He headed to the tub, prying off the top. He saw Jun really look for the first time. Sho had labeled every single thing in every single tub in every single house, whether it was a tag he’d tied around a doll’s ankle or something he’d scrawled on the tissue paper in Sharpie. He’d come up with the filing system within the first six months of working for Michiko-san. Before, everything had just been tossed haphazardly around by the lazy people who’d worked for her before. Instead of spending hours digging through piles of clothes, now he could find things in minutes. It gave him more time to take pictures and to check her houses and apartments for things that needed maintenance.
“See,” he said, tapping on one of the tissue paper clumps. It was labeled with the tub’s number and an individual item number. “Joseon Wonsam - Green. It’s a topcoat, goes over her little dress. Princesses wore green ones and…”
When he looked up, Jun’s face had gone blank. He’d completely lost him now, sighing as he unwrapped it.
“Why don’t you just…there’s the Korean temple set in the next room. It’s in a tub with a 5 on it. Bring the tub downstairs and we’ll set the dolls up in the living room for her.”
Jun looked embarrassed, stopping him with a hand to his shoulder. “Sho-san, I’m…I’m sorry. I just hadn’t realized…you really do put in a lot of work for her, don’t you?”
“Well,” he admitted, wishing Jun hadn’t taken his hand away already. “I do know a hell of a lot more about royal clothes from around the world than I wish I did.”
He moved, retrieving the doll. He held it up, wiggling it in Jun’s face. “Let’s have you put the wonsam on her. Michiko-san will be really happy if you do.”
Once they had the dolls dressed, they got the temple set up in the living room. Sho wasn’t used to having an audience, and Michiko watched them from the couch with tears in her eyes. How long had it been since she’d even played with one of her dollhouses? She gave firm directions, holding tight to her blankets, telling Sho to pose her precious dolls at various places so she could admire them. And then she’d direct Jun, having him take pictures with Sho’s camera so she could add them to her albums and look again at a later date.
“Sho-san, you’re in the shot,” Jun said, waving at him.
“No,” Michiko said. “No, he’s never in any of my pictures.” Sho looked up, his heart aching a bit to see the way Michiko was watching him. “If he’s in the shot, I don’t mind.”
Sho had never even thought of it. He saw Michiko-san almost every day, why would she even want a picture of him?
Once the dolls had been posed the way she liked, Sho picked up the little princess doll in her green topcoat. Michiko took the doll with such care, holding it almost like a baby. Sho was fairly certain that Michiko had never even seen this doll save for the pictures Sho had taken. She stroked the fabric of the topcoat, slipped her fingers through the strands of the doll’s hair. “So darling,” Michiko-san whispered. “What a little darling.”
Sho couldn’t help smiling. This vacation, maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing after all. When he heard the shutter, he looked over, startled. Jun lowered the camera, brushing a tear from his eye and grinning.
“That’s a keeper,” he said quietly, and in that moment he looked so sad that Sho could only look away.
-
Though Shihori had already put her to bed, Michiko-san had insisted that Jun come to her on the fourth evening of their “vacation.” Shihori brought in a chair for him, setting it on the left side because Michiko was hard of hearing on the other side. He was nervous, sitting there while Shihori arranged her pillows so she could sit up comfortably.
“I’ll be just upstairs,” Shihori said quietly, giving Jun the briefest of smiles before departing the room.
Masaharu had emailed Jun each morning since he’d arrived. “Any progress?”
Jun hadn’t answered, turning his phone off and leaving it in his room. He’d spent most of the last few days playing at dolls once again with Sho. As odd a hobby as it was, seeing Michiko-san with her dolls, seeing the pure, innocent joy in her face…it made Jun feel like the worst person in the universe. He’d just written his way into her life with his pathetic letter. She was perfectly content with things the way they were, a life where she’d simply said “no, thank you” to her brother’s excesses. He just wanted to leave her alone, to let her put her money into her charities, into the things that actually meant something to her.
“I wonder if you could make another cake,” she said, smiling at him with her cheerful, wrinkled old face. “If you need anything, Masaki-chan could go to the store and pick it up.”
“I’ll leave him a list. I’d be happy to make you anything you like. What about croissants?”
“Oh, but Sho-chan likes cake more than bread, wouldn’t you say?”
Jun wondered if the old woman could see his face flush. “If…if that’s what you want, sure, I can make another cake. What kind?”
She pondered this for a moment. “I did like your shortcake, although it’s a little sweet for my teeth. But Sho-chan adored it. I’ve never seen a boy eat so much whipped cream!”
Jun smiled weakly. “Am I making this cake for you or for him, Michiko-san?”
She waved her hand. “You’d better make it how he likes it. Shihori-chan can just scrape the extra whipped cream off of mine, that’s just fine.”
“I’m happy to make it to anyone’s taste…”
She was quiet for a few moments, watching him with her astonishingly sharp eyes. “Jun-chan, do you think Masaharu will use the money wisely?”
It was the first time in four days, in fact, the first time in their entire acquaintance that she’d gotten straight to the point about the money. “Michiko-san…”
“Oh, I don’t want you to defend him. That man has no qualms about thinking I owe him. He’s from a long line of men obsessed with money, there’s no point in denying it.” She let out a little sigh. “I’m not terribly concerned with his motivations, but seeing as you’ll be the one most affected in the future by what he decides to do, I thought it best to ask you directly. Now tell me plainly, do you think Masaharu will invest my money in the best interests of his company? For the benefit of you or little Yosuke?”
Jun thought of the messages on his phone, the rather dark turn his last meeting with Masaharu had taken. He found himself reaching his hand out, linking his fingers with Michiko’s. He thought she’d pull away, but her grip was surprisingly strong.
“I don’t think it’s the company he cares about. Not in the long run. It’s his comfort.” Jun looked down, thinking of Mr. Bake, its uncertain future. “I agreed to his plan because I thought it would make my life easier. I thought if I had the Shiroyanagi money that I could reach my dreams. But all of my dreams, Michiko-san, they’re about my business, my bakery. Not the future of Shiroyanagi Management. I’m as selfish as Masaharu-san, in the end.”
She squeezed his hand tighter. “Don’t apologize. Don’t apologize for wanting to be successful. I’ve lived my entire life with ease, thanks to the money I received from my father. I don’t know what it’s like to struggle or to have to work to earn my keep.”
“But you give so much to help others…”
“…and I use the rest to buy dolls. I indulge my whims like anyone else,” she reminded him. “Jun-chan, I’m going to call my little pup and I’m going to call my lawyer and tomorrow…tomorrow we’re going to hammer something out.”
Jun almost wished he was telepathic, that he could send out a warning alarm to Sho and get him to hurry downstairs to hear this. “What do you mean?”
“They’ve been pestering me about this will business, and I suppose I’ve troubled them enough about it. If I write you a check today, I just know you’ll put it straight into Masaharu’s hands, regardless of what I tell you to do, because you’re an honest, sweet soul. And that’s simply unfeasible. No, no, what I’ll do is I’ll have that money set aside for you. It’ll go to Shiroyanagi Management, sure enough, but only in the event that you are in charge…”
“But I don’t…” He could feel tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “I don’t really think I have what it takes to run the company. I don’t even want to…”
“Then you do what I did. You find yourself in charge of that company and you let someone buy it out from you. And then you’ll have your bakeries. You’ll have money to set aside for little Yosuke’s future too. Masaharu can’t bother you or me again if the money’s willed to his company, and if it’s in your name, he has to respect whatever decisions you make.”
“This seems like more of a bother than anything,” he said. “An awful lot of trouble to go to…”
“Well you certainly aren’t getting all of it,” she snapped back with a quickness that made him smile again. “Jun-chan, relax. Everything will work out just fine.”
She asked for his help in getting her under the covers, to adjust her pillows again, so she wouldn’t have to wake Shihori. With a heavy heart, Jun closed Michiko-san’s door behind him. He trudged up the stairs, angry. Just as predicted, she’d decided he was worthy of her money when he felt like the opposite was true. And now tomorrow she’d put it in writing. A woman who thought herself invincible, writing her last will after putting it off for years.
He was just at the top of the stairs when he stopped, seeing Aiba-san and Shihori laughing quietly by her bedroom door. They both turned, seeing him there. It was certainly a productive “vacation” for everyone. Aiba straightened up, stepping back and heading Jun’s way. “Ah, good night, Matsumoto-kun,” he said, chuckling nervously as he hopped down the stairs and off to his cottage.
Jun looked back, seeing Shihori looking at him. “Bad timing,” she chided him, the short and spunky little nurse who had looked after his aunt’s health without complaint for so many years. “Bad timing, Jun-kun!”
He held up a hand in apology, slipping past her door, entering his own. When he turned his phone on, there was yet another message from Masaharu-san. But this time it wasn’t any inquiries about his progress. Instead it was an email Masaharu had blind-copied him on. A discussion of real estate pricing and opportunities in the Ikebukuro area.
“Yes, I’m happy to meet soon to discuss options,” Masaharu had written to the prospective client.
A threat, plain and simple. Jun was apparently taking too long. He wanted to open his window and fling the phone out into the grass. Instead he sunk to the floor, remembering how plainly Michiko had spoken to him, how she wanted to help him when Jun had only known her for so short a time. How she knew and had seen through Masaharu’s ploy from the very beginning and still didn’t mind.
He should have never written that letter. And now it was too late.
-
It shouldn’t have surprised Sho that Kato and Ninomiya made it down to Tateyama in record time, allowing for Sho to fetch them from the train station by midday. Though Sho had met with them dozens of times over the years, this was actually their first meeting with their employer. They spoke with Michiko-san on the phone constantly, but this was certainly turning into quite the social week for her.
Aiba had leapt to action, getting Michiko’s dolls and the storage tubs moved from the spare rooms, consolidating them all into one with Jun’s help. Though Kato and Ninomiya both hinted that they had no desire to spend the night, Michiko and her forceful personality managed to change their minds. Or, more like, she had greeted them and said she’d sign no will unless they both enjoyed her hospitality for the evening.
And so there was a larger crowd gathered around the table in the kitchen that evening, and Sho had to admit that he felt slightly sorry for Jun. Aiba, a friendly person, was keeping the conversation going, having immediately found a friend in Ninomiya, who was just as obsessed with baseball as he was. But when there was a lull in the talking, Sho could sense the suspicion raiding off of Michiko-san’s lawyer and accountant. It was Jun’s arrival that had gotten Michiko to move on the will, and they were as paranoid as Sho had been at the start.
But over these last few days in Matsumoto Jun’s company, Sho had come around on him in the same way Michiko-san had. And no, not just because of his cooking or his baking or his cool, handsome face. Sho had seen how gentle Jun was with Michiko, how in such a short amount of time the old woman opened up to him where the mere concept of meeting someone new had terrified her only a month or two earlier. He was the only person in her family that she’d met face to face in nearly eighty years.
Michiko-san didn’t want to “talk business” at all that first night, so they’d all gathered around her in the living room, the small circle of thirty-somethings and almost thirty-somethings she’d managed to wrangle together over the years. They could have been her grandchildren, maybe even her great-grandchildren. The stiff, inflexible Kato was “Shige-chan” by the end of the night, much to his chagrin. And then Michiko had let a “pup” slip out and Ninomiya discovered that for all these years, Michiko had been thinking of him as her loyal canine.
“I’d be insulted,” Ninomiya said, the small man curled up contentedly in one of the living room chairs and sipping hot chocolate, “but if that’s what Micchan wants, it’s okay.”
At the casual “Micchan,” Michiko squealed almost like a young girl, clapping her hands. “Nothing but flirts and flatterers, that’s what I’ve hired, hmm?” the old woman cheered, smiling from ear to ear. She was the princess from one of her dollhouses come to life, surrounded by her adoring subjects.
Shihori eventually announced that it was time for bed, and Michiko made a big fuss about wanting to stay up all night. It didn’t last and Sho couldn’t help noticing that the old woman was slower in getting up than she had been in a while. Shihori noticed too, meeting Sho’s eyes briefly as she helped Michiko walk to her bedroom. It was a lot she was enduring, a lot of excitement, so Sho hoped things would calm down again once Kato and Ninomiya had concluded their business the next day. Perhaps it was best for Michiko-san’s health if they stayed a little longer in the Tateyama house instead of moving her back to Tokyo so abruptly again.
Sho left Kato and Ninomiya in the kitchen with leftovers from a perfect strawberry shortcake Jun had made, the two men who had kept the old woman afloat for so long. They were both poring over various drafts they planned to present to Michiko the following day. Kato typing and typing on his laptop with Ninomiya leaning over his shoulder, making suggestions. Sho didn’t know the first thing about it, so he left them to it.
After putting Michiko to bed, Sho hadn’t missed Shihori slipping out the back door, heading in the direction of Aiba’s caretaker cottage. “We’re just chatting,” Aiba had assured Sho that morning when he’d pulled Aiba aside, feeling rather protective of Shihori, who’d become as close as a sister over the years. “Honestly, Sho-chan, it just feels good to talk to someone who understands.”
That left him to head upstairs alone, stretching. He needed a good night’s sleep, especially with the arguments and headaches he was anticipating come morning as Michiko started listing her requests and Ninomiya started bitching about the money. He heard a little noise coming from one of the far bedrooms, the one that had been left without an occupant and that now held all of Michiko’s things.
Sho tapped his fingers on the door, pushing it open to find Jun sitting in the middle of the floor all alone, going through one of the storage tubs. He looked up, nodding his head. “Sho-san.”
Sho looked around, the room nearly overflowing with things. Jun, seated where he was, looked almost tiny there, surrounded by Michiko’s things. “What are you doing?”
Jun picked up one of the wrapped bundles of tissue paper. “Aiba-san and I had to consolidate some of the loose items into these tubs when we moved them, just so we didn’t have to make a hundred trips back and forth. But I didn’t want to mess up your system, so I’m taking them back out.”
Sho felt warm, even though he was just in a t-shirt and jeans, shuffling through the house in a pair of slippers. “Oh, you didn’t have to go through so much trouble. I’ll be back here in a few months, sorting it out again anyhow…”
“I wanted to,” Jun said earnestly, setting the tissue paper bundle aside.
Sho couldn’t help walking in, closing the door so they didn’t wake Michiko downstairs. With most of the floor covered, his only option was to sit down beside Jun. He regretted it as soon as he did it though, realizing that there wasn’t as much room as he anticipated. He could smell Jun beside him, the light scent of whatever cologne he was wearing. He only seemed to wear it here. Maybe working with food all day, he didn’t dare wear anything with a scent.
Jun seemed to realize that Sho was close too, trying to scoot over a little, but failing when he collided softly with yet another tub. “She has a lot of stuff,” Jun said, shifting as best he could.
Sho peered into the tub Jun was already going through. “Have you figured out my system yet?”
Jun sounded rather proud of himself, nodding. “You’ve got a year on them, I mean, that’s what I assume these numbers are. And then here’s a second number, and based on what I’ve found, this second number designates a group of like items.”
“Very good,” Sho said, feeling pleased. “The year is the year she bought them, and then the second number is the order in which she acquired them that year. So here,” he said, lifting a bundle labeled with 2010 and group 5. Inside was a small tin full of miniature soccer cleats. “These are from 2010 when she was having a bit of Dutch mania. World Cup.”
“The Netherlands didn’t win…I thought…wasn’t it…Spain?”
Sho nodded, grinning. “She liked their orange uniforms better than Spain’s colors so…” He pulled another 2010, group 5 bundle out. He handed it to Jun, letting him unwrap it. Jun’s laugh was enough to make Sho’s heart pound. “She doesn’t know how soccer works at all, but she wanted a little Dutch soccer player.”
Jun lifted the doll from the paper, poking at its orange uniform with a smile. “She’s an amazing person.”
“She’d actually ordered them through Ninomiya first, but he didn’t know much about soccer, so she hadn’t ordered the right shoes for them and he hadn’t thought about it. So those custom cleats were all my doing, once I showed her some pictures.”
Jun held up the little soccer player, bopping him gently against Sho’s head. “Thanks very much for making me game ready, Sho-san!” he said in a high pitched doll-esque voice.
Sho snorted, if only to keep himself from letting out a noisy laugh. He’d never forgive himself if he woke her.
Jun hit him lightly with the doll again. “Don’t laugh at me. I’m a very important international sports superstar,” he said once more in that silly voice, and before he realized what he was doing, Sho clapped his hand over Jun’s mouth.
“Stop,” he said weakly before snatching his hand back.
At Sho’s touch, though, he’d seen Jun’s eyes darken, his whole body tense. Way to go, Sakurai, Sho thought. The guy is now completely freaked out that you’re hitting on him. He’s clearly not into men, or at least not into men like you and…
Jun was already leaning forward, the doll dropping to his lap as he brought his hand to the back of Sho’s head, pulling him close. There was a split-second of hesitation, that sensation like the moment before the roller coaster goes down the hill, and then Jun was kissing him. Sho’s body for once reacted ahead of his brain, and he leaned into it, tilting his head a little to get to a better angle.
He was kissing Jun, and oh god, Jun was kissing him. And it was so much better than he could have even imagined, mostly because of how spontaneous it was. Sho had wanted him ever since he’d set foot in the man’s bakery that day, had let his eyes linger for a beat too long. Jun was everything Sho shouldn’t have wanted, someone who’d come in and shaken up Michiko’s life.
But she was happy, happier than she’d been in years, and it was all thanks to Jun.
Jun’s kiss was dizzying, unrelenting, and Sho couldn’t help but try to hold on, one hand squeezing Jun’s thigh hard if only to ground himself in the fact that this was really happening. That maybe Jun wanted him just as badly, despite everything.
They only stopped when they heard footsteps in the hallway, clearly Kato or Ninomiya heading to their rooms for the night. Sho used one of the storage tubs for support, pulling himself up and away from Jun before things got any more serious.
“I’m…I’m…”
Jun was toying with the soccer doll, raising its arm up and down in a nervous gesture. “Sho-san, I shouldn’t have…”
“No,” Sho said immediately, gingerly walking through the room and putting distance between them even though he very much didn’t want to. “No, don’t apologize at all.” He’d found something he liked even more than what Jun baked.
“We still shouldn’t,” Jun said, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry for adding more complication.”
Sho was already missing it, how easily he’d given in. How badly he’d wanted it. “Let’s just get through this week, okay?”
“Of course.”
“Right,” Sho mumbled. He turned the doorknob. “Well, don’t stay up too late. You really can just leave it. I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay,” Jun replied. Their eyes met for a few brief moments before Sho went into the hall and pulled the door closed behind him.
Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4