Cake Crumbs
Title: Cake Crumbs
Series: Chobits
Characters: Ueda/Yumi
Rating: G
Summary: The first time that Yumi ever walked into Ueda's bakery, it was in order to get her sister a birthday cake.
Edited as of January 6, 2010, for grammar and spelling.
The sun was shining that day, and Yumi hated being locked in her room, working on her homework. It wasn’t that she had anything against homework. Well, okay, there were certainly much better things she would rather be doing, but as far as homework was concerned, mathematics wasn’t the worse of it. Yumi was pretty good at math, if she did say so herself.
Still, even if she didn’t hate the subject, she hated the fact that she had to stay in her room and finish the homework, when she could be out doing something productive. Even if it was only sitting on the balcony of their apartment, at least she’d be sitting in the sun.
But she would always remember that sunny day, though not because she sat on the balcony.
“Yumi,” her mother said in greeting, poking her head into the bedroom and smiling warmly. Yumi looked up from her math homework, one eyebrow raised. Her mother continued, “Can you do me a favor?”
“What is it?” she looked up at her mother with a small sigh, pillowing her chin in her hand, leaning forward over her desk and glancing longingly out the window.
“Your sister’s birthday is tomorrow,” her mother reminded. “I’ve ordered a cake for her from the bakery down the street. Will you do me a favor and go pick it up for me?”
“Uh…” Yumi paused, glanced down at her homework, and then back up at her mother. She shrugged. Inside, she felt elated at the sudden ticket to freedom, a free-to-procrastinate pardon. “Sure. I need a break from studying, anyway.”
“Great, thank you!” her mother chirped. She smiled brightly down at her daughter.
“Where is the bakery again?” Yumi asked with a sigh, standing and pulling her jacket off the back of her chair.
“You pass it on the bus everyday on the way to school. It’s only a few blocks away,” her mother reminded, giving her daughter some further instructions as they walked together towards the front door. Yumi stepped down into the foyer, pulling on her shoes and pocketing the money her mother handed her. “Thanks again, Yumi. I worried I wouldn’t have enough time to pick it up before it closed and make dinner before your sister comes home from her clubs.”
“It’s no problem, mom,” Yumi dismissed with a wave and the smile. “I was thinking of taking a walk to clear my head, anyway.”
“Great,” her mother said with a smile, and watched her daughter file out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
It was a bright, warm day in spring. School had recently started up again and Yumi released a small sigh, looking vaguely at all the flowers blooming around her. Stuffing her hands into the jacket she hadn’t really needed to put on, she tried to ignore the stares the men she passed in the streets were giving her. The tank top she wore under her jacket did nothing to hide her large breasts, but Yumi had long stopped feeling self-conscious about them. It was her mother’s fault anyway. Genetics, and everything.
She tried to ignore the people walking side by side with persocoms who could have been human if not for the strange ears. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the sun bathe her cheeks and smiled distantly. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend that she was alone. Of course, the logistics of walking with eyes shut isn’t the smartest course to take, and after a few blind steps and clumsy footwork, Yumi opened her eyes again and was forced to face the world as it was.
“I love spring,” she said to herself, one hand curling around the money in her jacket pocket. “I wonder what kind of cake mom bought…”
She didn’t remember where the bakery was exactly, but her mom had given her good enough directions that she had the general idea of where she was going. She wove between couples-human couples, and humans with persocoms-on her way towards the bakery. She hummed to herself, feeling herself cheer up with every passing step, brushing hair from her face when a warm spring breeze pushed against her wavy brown hair. Sure enough, after a few blocks and a few moments where she’d thought she was lost, Yumi found the bakery.
She paused outside the bakery and peeked inside. She couldn’t see anyone at the counter, but it probably meant the worker was in the back, baking or cleaning. She pushed the door open and a little bell rang.
“Welcome!” a male’s voice called from behind the curtain hanging over the door to the kitchen.
“Hello?” Yumi called, walking up to the counter and looking around.
A man’s face appeared from behind the curtain, smiling and baker’s hat knocked askew by the curtain. There was stray flour on his cheek, and Yumi froze in shock at facing such a kind smile unexpectedly.
“I’ll be right with you, just one moment,” he said pleasantly before disappearing again. Yumi blinked in surprise, standing a bit flabbergasted at the counter. She’d never been in this bakery before, but how had her mother failed to mention the cute worker that worked here? The thought flittered through her mind before she could stop it, and by the time the man appeared again, Yumi was blushing. He was still smiling kindly, walking over to her and stopping on the other side of the counter. He dusted his hands off on his apron, and asked kindly, “How can I help you?”
Yumi looked at him for a long moment, her mouth dry and the words refusing to surface. He shifted, looking a bit unsure, his smile faltering when Yumi failed to speak.
She managed to shake herself out of it and said, with a rather awkward laugh, “Um, my mom ordered a cake… for my sister’s birthday.”
“Oh,” he said, perking up again and adjusting his baker’s hat with one hand while the other was reaching for the door to the cake display, where some boxes were staked to the side. “Can I get your name?”
“It’s Yumi,” she said quickly, eyes wide.
He paused, face looking a distant shade of pink, before saying, “T-the name for the order, I mean?”
There was a grand total of five seconds when his words sat in her brain before exploding. She reeled back in surprise, biting back a small squeak of humiliation-it’d been obvious he’d wanted the order name, not her own personal name. He was looking up at her, from where he was bent down looking into the cake display, hands hovering over the boxes, waiting to hear her family’s name.
“It’s… It’s Oumura,” she finally managed to say, feeling her cheeks grow hot.
His smile returned and he turned back to the cakes, picking the one with ‘Oumura’ scribbled across the top in a sloppy script. He straightened, closing and locking the door for the cake display behind him, setting the white box with the bakery’s insignia curling along the corner of the box onto the counter next to the cash register. It was with a dim recognition that she realized that he was blushing, too, though she wasn’t sure why.
He told her the total amount of money and with a shaky hand, Yumi put her hand in her jacket pocket, pulling out the money and handing it over. He took it from her with a smile and Yumi was almost disappointed when their fingers didn’t brush. He opened the cash register and there was a long pause, where he stared down at the drawer of money. Yumi waited, hand on the cake’s box, as he counted out the amount of change.
There was a long silence as the color steadily crept up the baker’s neck and to his face. Yumi saw his shaking fingers as he lingered over the coins. And still the color increased in his face. He glanced up at her, flustered, before clearing his throat and returning his attention to the drawer of money sitting expectantly just outside his finger’s reach.
Finally, after what felt like a very long few minutes, he placed the change in her hand. “H-here,” he said sheepishly, “Thank you very much.”
She smiled at him before picking up two coins and placing them in his shaking hand. “You gave me too much,” she said with a small laugh, “do you not have a calculator?”
He laughed, too, his face the color of a tomato. He shifted awkwardly, nervously, his face continuing to redden in color. Yumi almost thought it was cute, if a grown man could be considered cute. She wondered distantly how old he was, then quickly shooed the thought away. She was a high school student and he looked to be in about his mid-twenties. Not that she was even considering such boldness, anyway. She could feel the heat in her cheeks at just the thought of it.
Outside her inner dialogue, the baker was saying, “N-no… I guess I should try buying one, but I’ve always been hopeless with counting.”
“But you’re a baker,” she said in surprise, then eyed the cake warily-what if he’d messed up the proper amount of ingredients to add? She shifted the box in her hands, trying to banish her blushing, before looking up at the baker again. “You didn’t mess up the measurements, did you?”
“Measurements are different,” he insisted, looking increasingly awkward and embarrassed. “It’s easier for me, for some reason. There’s something that I can see and do. Math on its own… I just can’t get my head wrapped around it.”
“Doing math can be really difficult sometimes,” she agreed, smiling in sympathy up at the tall man. “But I’m sure you have someone to help you, right?”
There was a moment when something flashed in his eyes before the smile returned. He shook his head. “I work here alone.”
“Alone?” Yumi asked in surprise. “But that sounds like a lot of work.”
He shook his head. “It’s not bad. I enjoy working here. I used to have someone else working here, but he had to quit for school. I’ve worked hard to open it so…”
So he was the owner. Yumi smiled at him and he smiled back. There was an awkward moment when they made eye contact and both looked away, the baker with a nervous laugh. She shifted, picking up the box of cake after pocketing the change he’d given her.
“Well… I need to get home,” she said at last, holding up the cake. “Have to get this home for my sister.”
“Happy birthday to her,” he said cheerfully, still smiling.
Yumi’s heart was beating fast but she nodded, leaving the bakery, the little bell sounding behind her. She walked a few feet, wondering to herself why her face was so red, why her heart was beating, and why she was sad that she didn’t know his name.
She paused at the crosswalk, biting her lower lip and looking back over her shoulder towards the store. She inhaled slowly and turned around on her heel, marching towards the bakery with her head held high. She burst into the door, bell clanging loudly. The baker was still at the counter, face still red, and he looked up in surprise as Yumi marched towards him with a new sense of purpose.
“I’m really good at math,” she declared.
“Y-yeah?” he asked in surprise, looking rather bemused.
“Are you hiring?” Yumi asked, clutching the cake to her chest. “Because I don’t have a job, and if you’re working by yourself it could take away from your baking-it’s important that you focus on what you’re good at. I promise I’ll work hard.”
“Yumi-chan…” he began hesitantly. So he had been listening when she’d said her name earlier. Somehow, that gave her more courage to continue. He looked like he was about to protest further.
But Yumi was on a mission. “You can say no if you want, but I think it’d be a good idea.”
He shifted from foot to foot, looking at her with a bright red face. He swallowed, wringing his hands and gripping his apron tightly. “Um…” he began, and then gave her a hesitant smile. “Well, I am pretty hopeless when it comes to math.”
Yumi positively beamed. “You won’t be sorry!”
He laughed. “That’s good to know, Yumi-chan.”
“… Since you know my name, can I know yours? Since we’ll be working together,” she said slyly, smiling. She wished she looked and sounded more confident as than she actually felt. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, she felt her embarrassment creeping back up to her ears. She wondered why she wanted to work here as much as she seemed to want to, why she’d allowed this impulse to overtake her.
He looked mildly awkward again. He laughed. “It’s Hiroyasu Ueda.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Yumi said, and meant it, tucking his name away to remember always.
Series: Chobits
Characters: Ueda/Yumi
Rating: G
Summary: The first time that Yumi ever walked into Ueda's bakery, it was in order to get her sister a birthday cake.
Edited as of January 6, 2010, for grammar and spelling.
The sun was shining that day, and Yumi hated being locked in her room, working on her homework. It wasn’t that she had anything against homework. Well, okay, there were certainly much better things she would rather be doing, but as far as homework was concerned, mathematics wasn’t the worse of it. Yumi was pretty good at math, if she did say so herself.
Still, even if she didn’t hate the subject, she hated the fact that she had to stay in her room and finish the homework, when she could be out doing something productive. Even if it was only sitting on the balcony of their apartment, at least she’d be sitting in the sun.
But she would always remember that sunny day, though not because she sat on the balcony.
“Yumi,” her mother said in greeting, poking her head into the bedroom and smiling warmly. Yumi looked up from her math homework, one eyebrow raised. Her mother continued, “Can you do me a favor?”
“What is it?” she looked up at her mother with a small sigh, pillowing her chin in her hand, leaning forward over her desk and glancing longingly out the window.
“Your sister’s birthday is tomorrow,” her mother reminded. “I’ve ordered a cake for her from the bakery down the street. Will you do me a favor and go pick it up for me?”
“Uh…” Yumi paused, glanced down at her homework, and then back up at her mother. She shrugged. Inside, she felt elated at the sudden ticket to freedom, a free-to-procrastinate pardon. “Sure. I need a break from studying, anyway.”
“Great, thank you!” her mother chirped. She smiled brightly down at her daughter.
“Where is the bakery again?” Yumi asked with a sigh, standing and pulling her jacket off the back of her chair.
“You pass it on the bus everyday on the way to school. It’s only a few blocks away,” her mother reminded, giving her daughter some further instructions as they walked together towards the front door. Yumi stepped down into the foyer, pulling on her shoes and pocketing the money her mother handed her. “Thanks again, Yumi. I worried I wouldn’t have enough time to pick it up before it closed and make dinner before your sister comes home from her clubs.”
“It’s no problem, mom,” Yumi dismissed with a wave and the smile. “I was thinking of taking a walk to clear my head, anyway.”
“Great,” her mother said with a smile, and watched her daughter file out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
It was a bright, warm day in spring. School had recently started up again and Yumi released a small sigh, looking vaguely at all the flowers blooming around her. Stuffing her hands into the jacket she hadn’t really needed to put on, she tried to ignore the stares the men she passed in the streets were giving her. The tank top she wore under her jacket did nothing to hide her large breasts, but Yumi had long stopped feeling self-conscious about them. It was her mother’s fault anyway. Genetics, and everything.
She tried to ignore the people walking side by side with persocoms who could have been human if not for the strange ears. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the sun bathe her cheeks and smiled distantly. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend that she was alone. Of course, the logistics of walking with eyes shut isn’t the smartest course to take, and after a few blind steps and clumsy footwork, Yumi opened her eyes again and was forced to face the world as it was.
“I love spring,” she said to herself, one hand curling around the money in her jacket pocket. “I wonder what kind of cake mom bought…”
She didn’t remember where the bakery was exactly, but her mom had given her good enough directions that she had the general idea of where she was going. She wove between couples-human couples, and humans with persocoms-on her way towards the bakery. She hummed to herself, feeling herself cheer up with every passing step, brushing hair from her face when a warm spring breeze pushed against her wavy brown hair. Sure enough, after a few blocks and a few moments where she’d thought she was lost, Yumi found the bakery.
She paused outside the bakery and peeked inside. She couldn’t see anyone at the counter, but it probably meant the worker was in the back, baking or cleaning. She pushed the door open and a little bell rang.
“Welcome!” a male’s voice called from behind the curtain hanging over the door to the kitchen.
“Hello?” Yumi called, walking up to the counter and looking around.
A man’s face appeared from behind the curtain, smiling and baker’s hat knocked askew by the curtain. There was stray flour on his cheek, and Yumi froze in shock at facing such a kind smile unexpectedly.
“I’ll be right with you, just one moment,” he said pleasantly before disappearing again. Yumi blinked in surprise, standing a bit flabbergasted at the counter. She’d never been in this bakery before, but how had her mother failed to mention the cute worker that worked here? The thought flittered through her mind before she could stop it, and by the time the man appeared again, Yumi was blushing. He was still smiling kindly, walking over to her and stopping on the other side of the counter. He dusted his hands off on his apron, and asked kindly, “How can I help you?”
Yumi looked at him for a long moment, her mouth dry and the words refusing to surface. He shifted, looking a bit unsure, his smile faltering when Yumi failed to speak.
She managed to shake herself out of it and said, with a rather awkward laugh, “Um, my mom ordered a cake… for my sister’s birthday.”
“Oh,” he said, perking up again and adjusting his baker’s hat with one hand while the other was reaching for the door to the cake display, where some boxes were staked to the side. “Can I get your name?”
“It’s Yumi,” she said quickly, eyes wide.
He paused, face looking a distant shade of pink, before saying, “T-the name for the order, I mean?”
There was a grand total of five seconds when his words sat in her brain before exploding. She reeled back in surprise, biting back a small squeak of humiliation-it’d been obvious he’d wanted the order name, not her own personal name. He was looking up at her, from where he was bent down looking into the cake display, hands hovering over the boxes, waiting to hear her family’s name.
“It’s… It’s Oumura,” she finally managed to say, feeling her cheeks grow hot.
His smile returned and he turned back to the cakes, picking the one with ‘Oumura’ scribbled across the top in a sloppy script. He straightened, closing and locking the door for the cake display behind him, setting the white box with the bakery’s insignia curling along the corner of the box onto the counter next to the cash register. It was with a dim recognition that she realized that he was blushing, too, though she wasn’t sure why.
He told her the total amount of money and with a shaky hand, Yumi put her hand in her jacket pocket, pulling out the money and handing it over. He took it from her with a smile and Yumi was almost disappointed when their fingers didn’t brush. He opened the cash register and there was a long pause, where he stared down at the drawer of money. Yumi waited, hand on the cake’s box, as he counted out the amount of change.
There was a long silence as the color steadily crept up the baker’s neck and to his face. Yumi saw his shaking fingers as he lingered over the coins. And still the color increased in his face. He glanced up at her, flustered, before clearing his throat and returning his attention to the drawer of money sitting expectantly just outside his finger’s reach.
Finally, after what felt like a very long few minutes, he placed the change in her hand. “H-here,” he said sheepishly, “Thank you very much.”
She smiled at him before picking up two coins and placing them in his shaking hand. “You gave me too much,” she said with a small laugh, “do you not have a calculator?”
He laughed, too, his face the color of a tomato. He shifted awkwardly, nervously, his face continuing to redden in color. Yumi almost thought it was cute, if a grown man could be considered cute. She wondered distantly how old he was, then quickly shooed the thought away. She was a high school student and he looked to be in about his mid-twenties. Not that she was even considering such boldness, anyway. She could feel the heat in her cheeks at just the thought of it.
Outside her inner dialogue, the baker was saying, “N-no… I guess I should try buying one, but I’ve always been hopeless with counting.”
“But you’re a baker,” she said in surprise, then eyed the cake warily-what if he’d messed up the proper amount of ingredients to add? She shifted the box in her hands, trying to banish her blushing, before looking up at the baker again. “You didn’t mess up the measurements, did you?”
“Measurements are different,” he insisted, looking increasingly awkward and embarrassed. “It’s easier for me, for some reason. There’s something that I can see and do. Math on its own… I just can’t get my head wrapped around it.”
“Doing math can be really difficult sometimes,” she agreed, smiling in sympathy up at the tall man. “But I’m sure you have someone to help you, right?”
There was a moment when something flashed in his eyes before the smile returned. He shook his head. “I work here alone.”
“Alone?” Yumi asked in surprise. “But that sounds like a lot of work.”
He shook his head. “It’s not bad. I enjoy working here. I used to have someone else working here, but he had to quit for school. I’ve worked hard to open it so…”
So he was the owner. Yumi smiled at him and he smiled back. There was an awkward moment when they made eye contact and both looked away, the baker with a nervous laugh. She shifted, picking up the box of cake after pocketing the change he’d given her.
“Well… I need to get home,” she said at last, holding up the cake. “Have to get this home for my sister.”
“Happy birthday to her,” he said cheerfully, still smiling.
Yumi’s heart was beating fast but she nodded, leaving the bakery, the little bell sounding behind her. She walked a few feet, wondering to herself why her face was so red, why her heart was beating, and why she was sad that she didn’t know his name.
She paused at the crosswalk, biting her lower lip and looking back over her shoulder towards the store. She inhaled slowly and turned around on her heel, marching towards the bakery with her head held high. She burst into the door, bell clanging loudly. The baker was still at the counter, face still red, and he looked up in surprise as Yumi marched towards him with a new sense of purpose.
“I’m really good at math,” she declared.
“Y-yeah?” he asked in surprise, looking rather bemused.
“Are you hiring?” Yumi asked, clutching the cake to her chest. “Because I don’t have a job, and if you’re working by yourself it could take away from your baking-it’s important that you focus on what you’re good at. I promise I’ll work hard.”
“Yumi-chan…” he began hesitantly. So he had been listening when she’d said her name earlier. Somehow, that gave her more courage to continue. He looked like he was about to protest further.
But Yumi was on a mission. “You can say no if you want, but I think it’d be a good idea.”
He shifted from foot to foot, looking at her with a bright red face. He swallowed, wringing his hands and gripping his apron tightly. “Um…” he began, and then gave her a hesitant smile. “Well, I am pretty hopeless when it comes to math.”
Yumi positively beamed. “You won’t be sorry!”
He laughed. “That’s good to know, Yumi-chan.”
“… Since you know my name, can I know yours? Since we’ll be working together,” she said slyly, smiling. She wished she looked and sounded more confident as than she actually felt. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, she felt her embarrassment creeping back up to her ears. She wondered why she wanted to work here as much as she seemed to want to, why she’d allowed this impulse to overtake her.
He looked mildly awkward again. He laughed. “It’s Hiroyasu Ueda.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Yumi said, and meant it, tucking his name away to remember always.