Cake (Chapter Four)

[healielle]

Title: Cake
Author: healielle
Pairing: Onodera Ritsu X Takano Masamune
Theme: 30Kisses#25: fence
Disclaimer: Sekai Ichi Hatsuki belongs to Nakamura Shungiku and her affiliates.
Rating: Older Teens
Summary: He would eat a Pepper Cake, even if it was the last thing he ever did!


At this point, he was unbearably confused.
Cakes? All he knew was how to eat them. This assignment was not going to be easy. He felt his head spin. He looked as the lead female reached for the pepper and proceeded to add that to the mix. So she was making this cake to prove a point? So maybe… Wait. What kind of cake had pepper in it? He studied the picture in the manuscript. It didn’t look that bad, not that he could really judge from a drawn picture. It looked like a simple cake. The female lead in the story had baked it for the cocky tennis team captain; she had spent the whole day in the Home Ec room making it. She had to show him that she could do it! How dare he insult her long time dream of opening a Bakery Club in high school?

“But why the pepper?” Ritsu sighed and placed his head on top of the page, burying his face into it. Was it supposed to taste good? He couldn’t possibly imagine how. Cakes were supposed to be sweet and creamy. And if you’re going to make one for that jerk in your class who thinks the entire concept of a ‘Bakery Club’ sucks for reasons completely unknown to Ritsu, the least you could do was make one that wasn’t quite so unconventional.

“Hah! If you want to sleep you should go home.”

Ritsu felt his fingers clench into a fist as he raised his head from the table, “I’m not sleeping Takano-san.” He said while glaring hard at the phone in front of him. Should he call the author and ask? Pepper cake? Really?

“Onodera?” Ritsu felt someone breathing down his neck and snapped his head to the left, “Takano-san”

The older man smirked at him, “What is it?” He pointed the folded paper in his hand towards Ritsu’s manuscript, “Problem?”

Ritsu looked at the manuscript Takano was pointing towards and quickly jumped on top it, covering it from the man’s sight completely. This was his job. He was going to do it! He had promised himself that he wouldn’t ask for Takano’s help this time! And on top of that, the issue was too trivial to bring to the editor-in-chief’s notice anyway.

“I can do it by myself.” Said Ritsu, staring defiantly at his boss.

“Oh.” Said Takano before turning around and walking to his desk, “Just ask me if you ne…”

“I don’t.” glared Ritsu from where he half-lay on his work table.

“…need anything.”

Ritsu stared at all the cakes in the display case before him.

Every single cake he’d ever heard of in his whole life was right there. Mont-Blancs, shortcakes in flavors he didn’t know existed, castellas, souffles, pastries, cheesecakes, fruitcakes, parfaits… He could go on, but he doubted he could name them all at once. It was one of the best Pastry shops in this part of the city. But there was no pepper cake.

“We don’t have that.” Said the girl behind the counter with one eyebrow cocked, “Pepper cake?”

Ritsu nodded, “Do you have anything close to it?” Inside, he was fuming. This irritated him far too much for his liking. What was this pepper cake? Should he leave it in the script? Or should he ask the mangaka to change it? Gah! Why didn’t these people store it?

Just because it sounded abnormal didn’t mean it had to taste bad too! He had to know! He had to know whether he could leave it in the script or not.

A part of him screamed that it was a small issue and that he should just leave it as it is. It was the author’s discretion after all. But another part screamed bloody murder. Like hell he was going to let something this small get in the way of understanding what the lead female was thinking! He would make the perfect book and Takano would have to take back his cocky words. Who exactly was bad at feeling the depth of a character’s emotions?

One week ago.

Ritsu furrowed his brows, “I really don’t think this is necessary.” Said Ritsu, pointing to the left corner of the manuscript, “It’s already been established that she loves the transfer student, I think using three extra panels to emphasize that is excessive.”

“Are you serious?!” The harsh voice Takano used made him flinch, “This isn’t just for filling in the panels. You need to show the readers just how far she’ll go to have him. You need these panels to prove that.”

Ritsu wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t feeling entirely agreeable with what Takano had to say, “I understand that, but…” He pointed to the top-left panel in the page he was holding, “Isn’t that already established here? Why does there have to be so many panels hinting at the same thing?”

“This panel alone is insufficient.” Takano placed his hand on the three panels in question, “Without these, her feelings won’t come through so well. Look at this one.” He pointed at the one next to the top-left panel, it was that of the girl clenching her heart tightly, her love interest’s picture held in one hand, “This shows that she’s no longer willing to give up…”

Ritsu continued to listen, but his mind wasn’t entirely in it. He firmly believed that one did not need four panels simply to decide that they were in love. Either you were, or you weren’t in love. Make up your mind. Who’d want to sit down and read a whole page dedicated to a love sermon anyway?

He read the first line on the page, the one Takano had just been talking about. It read ‘I can’t forget you, I can’t forget our moments together, I won’t let you forget me.’ Ritsu couldn’t understand what was wrong with this girl. Hadn’t this guy just miserably ditched her to go and become a rock star? What was she doing still pining over him? She should be thinking of kicking his sorry…

“Onodera!”

“Huh?” Ritsu blinked before focusing his eyes on Takano. Crap. He’d lost focus.

Takano sighed, an irritated frown on his face, “It’s like you don’t even understand what this character is going through.”

“Eh? No I…”

“You can’t get this right until you do. Try to empathize with her!”

“I am…” Ritsu was beginning to feel angry. Everyone had different ideas when it came to these sorts of things. Did Takano expect everyone to believe in the same things he did?

Takano sighed, and handed the script back to the younger man, “This is fine. But don’t cancel those panels.”

“I still think I need to…” But the look Takano gave him made him stop. Was he really wrong? It wasn’t like Takano to be so adamant about changes, at least not to him. However, Ritsu still couldn’t bring himself to agree with Takano. But he supposed he would leave it to the man’s judgment, this time. It wasn’t as if he had a choice.

What had irked him the most was when Takano had claimed Ritsu couldn’t understand what the character was going through. This was the first time he’d heard someone say that to him. He’d worked on plenty of manuscripts before, this was the first time a situation as conflicting as this had come up. Was Takano suggesting that he couldn’t decide for himself? What else would undermining the most important change he’d made in the manuscript mean?

He suppressed a growl and made his way to his desk. He’d show that man.

Present Day

The bag was heavy. Apparently they had quite a few cakes ‘close’ to the one he was looking for. He groaned as he leaned against the door to his apartment, had he just been tricked? He hoped not. Either way, he had enough cake now to last him for a few days.

He made his way to the nearest table he could find and placed the bag with the pastries on it, and he flipped open his phone. He thought he’d felt it vibrate a few times since he’d left work, but he’d been too preoccupied to pay any attention to it.

There were five missed calls from his mother and one unread message. The message was from Takano, and it read, ‘Where are you?’

He jumped slightly when he felt the phone vibrate in his hands. It was Takano this time. He stared at the phone and wondered what he should do, and it wasn’t until he heard the doorbell ring that he decided.

“Hello Takano-san.” He tried to make his voice sound as cold as possible.

“Open the door.” The reply was short, but he was sure he could hear the man chuckle on the other end.

Ritsu opened the door just enough to poke his head out, the cell phone was still pressed to the side of his head, “Yes?”

Takano pointed to the packet he was carrying, it was filled with beer cans and convenience store food.

Ritsu looked from the packet and back to the man, “No thank you.” He said before trying to close the door, “I’m busy today!” He said as he tried to push the door close. He wondered whether Takano was actually getting accustomed to him shutting the door on him, his reflexes had improved a lot since the first time he’d tried to barge in.

He groaned and tried to push the door shut, the bag filled with cakes on the nearest table giving him further motivation for closing it. The pepper cake! Wait…

He moved away from the door and watched as Takano almost stumbled into the room. Obviously, he had thought that the fight would be a little more prolonged.

Ritsu leaned against the wall, panting, “Pepper cake.”

Takano looked slightly confused, “Pepper cake?”

They sat facing each other in the living room. Takano was sipping from his third can of beer, and Ritsu was absentmindedly poking the Mont Blanc on his plate with a fork.

“Pepper Cake?” Takano smirked.

Ritsu felt a growing sense of irritation well up inside him. Why did he have to look so smug? “I don’t know all the cakes…”

“And you need to know because of the manuscript?”

Ritsu nodded. He stopped and started staring at his fork when he heard Takano laugh. What was so funny? Wasn’t he the one who’d suggested he ought to try to understand the characters better?

“You took me really seriously.” Takano leaned back and balanced himself on his hands, the feel of the cool floor beneath him made him feel comfortable, “But that isn’t a bad thing, I like that about you.”

“Oh.” Ritsu could feel his face contorting into a small frown.

“So, did you find the Pepper Cake?”

“No…” He sounded disappointed now, and slightly embarrassed.

“Then, shall we make some?” Takano smirked, and winked at the younger man.

“Hah? Ma-make?” Ritsu was astonished, that had come right out of the blue. They were going to bake a cake now? “Maybe tomorrow? You need to go home now and…”

Takano snorted. It was enough to make Ritsu stop talking and start fuming. He quickly kept the dessert fork he was holding on the plate, lest he accidentally stab the man with it. Not that the idea didn’t entice him ever so slightly.

“Are you serious about this or not?” Takano sounded like was challenging him! How dare…

Ritsu glared back, a sudden burst of energy taking all his drowsiness away, “Of course I’m serious!”

“Then what is it? You think you can’t do it?”

Ritsu slapped his hands down on the table in front of him, “Of course I can! Pepper Cake, Eggplant Cake, I can ever bake you a Coffee Cake right here right now!”

“Coffee Cake? That doesn’t sound too bad.” Takano smiled at him, amused by his reaction.

“Takano-san!” Ritsu glared back, “What do I need in order to make a Pepper Cake?”

“Yokozawa.” The answer was short and simple, but that single word sent chills down Ritsu’s spine. Takano saw was the man sit down on his side of the table, and stare at him with eyes filled with despair. Takano thought this was taking things a little too far. It was only Yokozawa after all, and knowing how he’d been acting recently, it was a safe bet to say he wouldn’t even pick up Takano’s call.

“Yokozawa-san?” Ritsu whispered, “Why do we need him?”

“He can cook.” Finished Takano, “And he bakes good cakes.”

Takano reached for his phone and started flipping through his address book. Upon seeing this, the younger man snapped out of his trance and almost jumped on top of the table, “Takano-san! We can call him tomorrow! Or tell him at work tomorrow! It’s past twelve tonight, we’d just be bothering him.” With any luck, Ritsu hoped that all of this would be forgotten by the next day.

“Tch. Wait.” Takano motioned for him to sit down, “Ah? You picked up? Listen do you know how to bake a Pepper Cake?”

Ritsu groaned and shoved his fork into his Mont Blanc. Damn everything, he was going to eat cake.

The Next Day

Ritsu dreaded the idea of waking up, maybe he could call in sick? But Takano already knew what was bothering him. And Yokozawa had said that he wouldn’t mind helping… If only Takano had mentioned that they would be working in Ritsu’s house.

He breathed in deeply, trying to calm his nerves. Yokozawa had been nothing but cordial to him the last few times they had met at Marukawa, but he still felt bothered by the man. It was mostly because he was angry with himself, for not standing up to the man when he could. But then again, what was he supposed to do? Get into a public fight? Either way, those memories hadn’t been pleasant.

He dragged his feet and walked towards the elevator, a cheerful Takano in tow.

“Do you really want to eat Yokozawa-san’s Pepper Cake this bad?” Ritsu turned around to ask him.

“His cake? No, he said he’d make you bake one.”

“Oh.” Ritsu turned around with a nonchalant look on his face. As soon as he was sure Takano couldn’t see him anymore, the nonchalant expression faded and was replaced by one of panic, make him bake one? As in he would teach him? Ritsu felt the sudden need to bash his head against something. He looked at the door to the elevator with adoring eyes and quickly walked over to it. He placed his hands on the door, and stared at the elevator, waiting for it to come down.

He wouldn’t look away from the door until he felt large hands entwine their fingers in his hair, “Does he still bother you?”

“Ah! No.” Ritsu jumped headfirst into the elevator as soon as it reached its destination.

“Uff!”

Ritsu was sure he wasn’t supposed to land on anything soft. Floors were supposed to be hard weren’t they? So what was this… He stared up to see a very disgruntled Yokozawa looking at him as if he had just grown thirty heads, and maybe a few tails or two for added effect.

Was this normal? That the moment you think about someone and they just appear… No. If that was the case, life would have been much easier for him.

“Onodera!” Ritsu yelped as he felt strong arms pulling him back into what appeared to be another person’s body.

“Masamune.” Yokozawa had gathered himself, but he still kept sending Ritsu slightly strange expressions, “About the call last night.”

“You’ll help Onodera bake that cake, right?”

“No…” Ritsu felt as if he could breathe, “I have something to do…”

“Eh? But last night you said you were free.” Takano frowned.

Yokozawa stared from Ritsu to Takano and back to the younger man, he wasn’t sure what to say, “Last minute plans.” He finished.

Takano gave him a weird look, “Oh?”

Yokozawa moved past the pair and out into the hallway. Ritsu was sure that he had, just for a split second seen something in Yokozawa’s eyes that made him feel sad. What was it?

“I’ll meet you here after work. Don’t leave first.” Takano called after him, and finally removed his finger from the button to keep the elevator door open.

“Hah!” Came the retort from Yokozawa as he disappeared behind the slowly closing doors.

Ritsu stared after the man. Hadn’t Takano seen that? He was sure Yokozawa looked… strange. For that split second, Ritsu felt that he did not really know why the man did what he did.

Ritsu spent the day trying to finish his work as quickly as possible. He was wary, extremely wary. The way Takano casually went about his work and thought nothing of how Yokozawa had said that he wouldn’t be able to make it convinced Ritsu that Takano was a hundred percent certain that things would go the way he wanted them to.

All Ritsu could do now was finish his work as quickly as possible and find some place to sleep over. He was sure that if he decided to go home, Takano would find some way of coming in, and this time he would come with Yokozawa in tow.

Everything would have been fine, he felt, had Takano not caught on to his plan and kept an extremely close eye on him all day.

“Takano-san, do you have to follow me?” Ritsu turned his head to face the man, a tired and exasperated look in his eyes.

“I’m not following you, we’re both supposed to meet Yokozawa now.” He slung his bag over one shoulder and started keeping pace with Ritsu. The younger man had a bad habit of sprinting away if the situation called for it.

“He said he couldn’t come.” Said Ritsu while eyeing the floor with special interest. He prayed he was right.

“He’ll come.” Takano smirked.

“Why are you so sure of that?”

“Because that’s the sort of person he is.”

Ritsu wasn’t entirely sure what that was supposed to mean. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he knew very little of the relationship between Takano and Yokozawa beyond what they had told him.

“You’re late.” A deep voice drew his attention to the door leading out of the building, and just like Takano had said, there stood Yokozawa, calmly waiting for them.

“Yeah?” asked Takano as he pulled a disturbed Ritsu towards the man. The time had finally come to make that Pepper Cake!

What did Yokozawa like? Tea? Coffee? Juice? Beer? Ritsu wasn’t sure what to serve the man, and the silence in the room was unbearable. Takano had left to answer an urgent phone call leaving Ritsu and Yokozawa in an uncomfortable silence in the younger man’s apartment. Ritsu felt strange, Yokozawa was a guest - so he should be acting like a host, shouldn’t he? But his mind had gone blank, and Yokozawa’s obviously uncomfortable posture was doing nothing to help, “Do you want a cushion?”

Yokozawa blinked, he wasn’t sure where that had come from, “A cushion?”

Ritsu waved his arms frantically, “I mean, you look uncomfortable and I was wondering if you had problems with sitting on the floor, I know my floor’s a little too hard! I do it all the time, so sitting on the couch feels strange when I’m at home. But you can sit on the couch if you want to, and if you want to sit on the floor but feel uncomfortable about it, then I can give you a cushion.” He inhaled deeply, “That’s why I was asking if you needed a cushion.”

The way Yokozawa was staring at him made him uncomfortable, “I’m fine.” The man finally replied. He was Japanese after all, sitting on the floor wasn’t really a problem for him. Though, he looked around the room, he wondered how Onodera survived in this place. The room looked unkempt, and it was obvious that Onodera had done a last minute quick brush over off the room before he had finally allowed Yokozawa and Takano to come inside. He could sympathize with the man though, what with their hectic schedules, even he would choose an extra hour of sleep over cleaning his room. If only his personality allowed it.

Ritsu wanted to hide under the blankets on his bed. He couldn’t wait for this to be over.

“Why do you want to know what a Pepper Cake is?”

The younger man started, he hadn’t expected Yokozawa to actually attempt to have a conversation with him, “Ah... Manga.” He finished.

He sat up straight and placed his hands on his knees, his mouth changed into a serious look, “I need to know what it is so I can better understand a character. If you can, “He lowered his head, “please help.”

“A character?” Yokozawa blinked slowly, “Well… I can’t say I’m unimpressed.”

“Really?” Ritsu’s head shot up. The older man was sitting there with a contemplative frown on his face. Maybe he wasn’t so hard to get along with?

“But I don’t know what a Pepper Cake is myself. Do you have the manuscript?” he asked.

Ritsu nodded before standing up to go and fetch the manuscript. Since he wasn’t sure how he should act, he felt that no harm could come out of letting Yokozawa follow through at his own pace.

After three hours, Onodera Ritsu had come to the conclusion that Yokozawa Takafumi was a meticulous worker. He had spent a little over an hour coming up with different combinations for the cake based on what was given in the manuscript, and Ritsu was beginning to feel that making the cake wasn’t going to be impossible after all.

“Have you asked the author?” Yokozawa had asked at one point of time.

Ritsu had shook his head, would he have to? He didn’t want to disturb her unless he absolutely needed to. That, and he wasn’t sure if the plot point was important enough to talk to her about.

But Yokozawa had agreed with Ritsu that the choice of cake was slightly unconventional. Upon calling up the author, they came to find out that it was a family recipe used for generations, and a childhood favorite of hers. She was a bit unsure about using it in the manuscript, but her gut had told her to go with it and she had decided to trust it.

Would they like the recipe? Or should she change the part about the cake after all?

“Ah, no. That’s okay. The recipe would be fine.”

As Ritsu started to write the recipe for Pepper Cake, he started matching the ingredients with what Yokozawa had come up with. To his surprise, most of the ingredients save a few were the same. When Takano had mentioned that Yokozawa was a good cook, Ritsu had assumed that that was in comparison to himself, but now he saw that Takano hadn’t been joking.

Yokozawa smirked when he saw Ritsu comparing the lists, but he didn’t say anything. The embarrassed blush on Ritsu’s face when he saw the man watching his every move was more than amusing to Yokozawa.

Within the next hour, all the materials were gathered and Ritsu stood in front of a baking bowl, staring at the contents he would now have to mix together.

The younger man fidgeted with his apron, when was Takano going to come back? Was he stuck looking through something at the last minute? He tugged at the edge of his apron, and ignored the cocky snort Yokozawa sent his way, “You have strange taste in aprons.”

“It wasn’t me. Someone packed it in.” Ritsu snapped his head towards the man standing next to him and glared, he stopped glaring just as soon as he had started. He had almost thought for a second that the comment had come from Takano. In some ways, Ritsu felt, the two of them were quite alike.

An Hour Later

When Takano Masamune finally returned to the apartment, what he saw made him smile.

Ritsu was kneeling down in front of the oven, an excited smile on his face, and Yokozawa was sitting on the floor next to him, a worried expression on his face.

“Uwaa! It looks good.” Ritsu smiled and turned to Yokozawa, the man smiled faintly back at him. He wasn’t sure how the cake would turn out, and he was interested enough to try again and again till he got it right. That, and it was getting late. He hoped Kirishima wouldn’t mind - he had called earlier in the evening and Kirishima had said it was fine. He had also asked Yokozawa to bring a bit of the cake back home.

And here lay Yokozawa’s main problem. He wanted to make something that both Kirishima and Hiyo would love, and he felt unsure about the cake till it turned out fine. Onodera had turned out to be much better in the kitchen than he had expected the man to be.

Upon being asked, Onodera had explained that he had learned watching his mother cook. It had taken everything Yokozawa had to not smile at that. He still felt slightly uncomfortable around the young man, but the evening hadn’t been altogether unpleasant.

Between the two of them, they had felt as if they were overcoming something between themselves. The end result was something they would still have to strive for, should they want to reach it. But for now, this was fine.

“Ah, Takano-san!” Ritsu’s eyes caught the man standing near the doorway, and he waved. He was just in time, to eat the cake that is.

“Masamune, you’re late.” Yokozawa snapped his head towards him and glared.

Takano simply smiled at both of them.

“Please take your time returning it.” Said Ritsu as he escorted Yokozawa towards the elevator. The author had been right, the cake had tasted good. It had an unfamiliar texture to it, but the pepper hadn’t affected the taste of the cake.

When Yokozawa had asked if he could take a little home with him, Ritsu had been happy to oblige. The older man had even told him that there wasn’t any particular reason to escort him to the elevator, since he had been in the building plenty of times before and knew his way around. Ritsu had however, insisted. He felt it was his duty to escort his guest as far as he could.

By the time he returned, Takano was poking the last of the cake with a fork. Upon seeing Ritsu, he smirked, “How did you like the Pepper Cake?”

“It was good.” Ritsu coughed at how obviously drunk Takano was. Now that all that was over, he realized that he hadn’t hated the evening as much as he had thought he would. Yokozawa was a good teacher, and he had taken his job seriously. The fact that Ritsu had been eager to learn had only fuelled them further towards making the cake.

As far as Takano was concerned, he knew he was being selfish. He was aware that Ritsu and Yokozawa couldn’t get along for obvious reasons, but he still felt that he couldn’t do without either of them. Ritsu was the person he loved the most, and Yokozawa was his best friend. It would be a lie to say that he hadn’t ever hoped that the two of them would get along, but he had always known that there was little he, or they could do about it.

But seeing the two of them getting along, even for a few hours had made him happy. But he wouldn’t ask either of them about the other. He wasn’t sure if Yokozawa would even pick up his phone anytime soon, but it had felt good to spend the evening with the two people he cared about the most.

And there was nothing that could change that feeling.

“Takano-san, why would you carve the cake into the shape of a mouth?” Ritsu cocked his head to one side and eyed the piece of cake sitting harmlessly on the table in front of him warily. Takano, had as usual decided to stay over at Ritsu’s place for the day.

Not that Ritsu minded, he was used to it by now, and even though he probably wouldn’t admit it aloud for a long time to come, he enjoyed spending time with the man.

“Lips.” Said Takano, pointing the fork towards Ritsu’s lips.

“Eh?”

“I carved it into the shape of your lips.” Takano smirked again.

“That doesn’t look anything like my…” Now that Takano had mentioned that the piece looked like his lips, Ritsu suddenly felt self-conscious. If he thought about it carefully, that piece could even be a fish. Did his mouth really look like that? And what was Takano doing bring that thing near his mouth?

Ritsu stared in despair as Takano pushed the piece of cake on top of Ritsu’s mouth, “Now that is you, kissing yourself.” Takano chuckled a little and placed his head on the table.

Ritsu brought the hand down to the table and sighed, “Takano-san, you’ve drunk a litle too much.”

But Takano didn’t answer, and Ritsu didn’t expect him to. He had seen how the man had been smiling while the three of them sat together and ate the cake. And he was sure he knew what was going through the Takano’s head. He gently placed a hand on top of Takano’s hair, and leaned down to place a soft kiss on his forehead. He then looked at the crush remnants of his ‘lips’ and sighed, seeing Takano so drunk was actually quite amusing.