Lying is a Sin, A Sin Hanagaki Takemichi Commits Too Often

Love Me Back

June 10th, 2017

Takemichi had spent the end of the previous week mostly keeping to himself. He exchanged messages and calls with Draken and Emma frequently as they were worried about him, even more so than the Tachibana's had been at the beginning. Mikey would always swing by constantly whenever he was in town and yet he didn't visit or even text 50 times a day with memes that were very obviously a flirting tactic that he would play oblivious to. He could understand why, he knew Mikey was in love with him. Usually knowing someone was in love with you would be an ego booster, but rather it depressed him because he knew he couldn't make Mikey happy. He wanted to, he wanted to make Mikey happy more than anything, way more than his own happiness.

But fate was a cunt.

And so were shitty customers because of course something he wants to see on a Monday morning is the Haitani brothers seconds away from beating the shit out of an annoying customer.

"We've told you, we don't sell entire cakes, only slices," Ran seethed.

"Well then just give me a cake and pretend it had been sliced eight times or something!"

"That's not how it works," Rindou snapped.

"I want to speak to your manager! This is unbelievable."

"What's unbelievable is your atti-"

"Ran-kun, I believe I've told you how to speak with customers," Takemichi gently butted in, swinging the rag over his shoulder before walking over to the situation.

"Ah, I'm sorry Takemichi but this guy just won't listen to us."

Takemichi sighed, exhausted before turning to the annoying customer and forcing a tight smile, "Hello sir, I'm the owner, what seems to be the problem?"

The customer's eye twitched as he took in Takemichi's appearance, he was used to it though, he did have more of a baby face for a 25 year old. Although he's sure that's changed with how sunken in his features have become over the months. As well as the fact that Ran and Rindou obviously looked older than him.

"You're the owner?"

"Yes sir, I am."

"Whatever, I just want a full cake but these idiots tell me you don't do that? How could a bakery not sell cakes?"

"We do sell cakes sir," Takemichi started, the customer sent a smug look to the Haitani's but it was quickly shut down, "however, you must preorder them, at least a week in advance. Otherwise, you can buy slices."

.

Takemichi was sad. In the midst of dealing with the customer he was overcome with a flood of exhaustion and overall just sadness. He ended up walking away, leaving the brothers to deal with it. It was a bad idea but he just didn't care. He sat with his head hung, the only sound within his office was his shallow breaths and the occasionally creak of his old chair.

At first he questioned why he felt as such, but then internally scolded himself for being so stupid. Why wouldn't he feel sad? He now had two more people fawning over him and making sure he was okay and yet he felt more alone than he ever had before. He failed Mikey, he hurt Mikey, he broke his promise to Shinichiro. He scoffed, as if it wasn't the first of many promises he had made that would be inevitably broken.

He thought back to his conversation with Draken the previous week, he couldn't believe he actually admitted aloud that he loved liked Mikey. It was something he refused to even admit within his own mind, and now that it was out in the open, he was consumed by it. Now all he could think about was how much he loved liked Mikey and it was driving him crazy and making him depressed all at once. Not only had he admitted it to Draken, but he had admitted it to himself, something he never thought he'd allow himself to do.