Something Sweet

Ch. 19: Something Bitter, Something Tasteless

"Oh, no, no, no." My mother catches my wrist as I turn away. "Now that we're here let's have a little chat." I'm forced to sit at a table with her.

Hopefully father wasn't here, maybe Rina was here. She always liked going to things like this. "Is anyone else-"

"Just me. Now let me tell you the deal, you're firstborn and there is no going around it and we can't have you as a baker. Your father is willing to make you the next Matriarch if you come back." She says making my eyes widen.

"B-but Shinji is suppose to be the next Patriarch-"

"He isn't first born and women being leaders are a tending thing now. Your father has accepted this and wants you." She insists making me look away.

"But-"

"And there is the fact that our company is being circled by stock buyers to take the company and we need someone to pull us out, like you." She adds making me tense, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

"Mother, I don't want to become the Matriarch. I can't. I'm not ready. I'm still in school-"

"We've taken care of that, darling. That test you took to qualify to take higher level courses was really a test to test out of school. You passed with a perfect score, you could graduate at the end of this year!" She squeals excitedly making me pale.

"B-but, how? Why? I wanted to stay in school, not to test out. I have another year-"

"None of that nonsense. You have responsibilities now, no more fooling around." She wags a finger but I stand up again.

"Mother, you can't just force me to take over the business. I don't want to. I want to stay here and..." I'm silent and still. The slice of cake that was at our table, that I hadn't notice, was smears across my mouth and past it.

I slowly looked up to see my mother smirking deviously at my, cleaning her hands off as if she just hadn't shoved cake in my face. "You're just a mess, darling. Go clean up before someone sees you." She waves a hand at me as tears filled my eyes. It was true we hadn't caused a big scene but I know a few noticed.

I dash the opposite direction, not caring who I ran into. I just needed to get out of here.

I managed to stumble in some unused storage area and angrily wiped the frosting and remnants of the white cake from my face as tears fell from my eyes. Tasteless, nothing had changed. No matter how much time goes by, I'll never-

"Yuuto?" I hear and look up in surprise to see a worried looking Hikaru.

"H-Hikaru?" I ask in surprise as I tried to hide my tears but it was too late. He saw. He wrapped his arms around me and I held on to him, not caring how weak I looked or sounded as I cried. He guided me to sit with him as he continued to hold me.

"I saw..." He whispers and I can't bring myself to look at him. "Yuuto, I'm sorry." He says and I look up at him in confusion. "I should've intervened but momma and Karou said not to and just leave you two be. I'm-"

"It's okay, I'm glad you listened to them." I say and he pulls back, confused. "If you intervened my mother would've talked our ears off." I say jokingly to lighten the mood as he chuckled.

"Yuuto..." He says after a while. We had both stayed together in each other's arms wordlessly.

"Oh, um, it's getting pretty late and I've taken up so much of your time-"

"N-no! Not that, uh, I..." It was like at my house again. I sit up straight.

"Hikaru, what's wrong? You can tell me anything." I assure tentatively, pulling my arms away from him.

"W-wait, no, not that!" He pulls my arms back around him but he takes my whole body. Our lips smash into each other and our eyes widen, looking into each other. I pull back slowly. "Yuuto I didn't mean to do-"

I press my lips to his more gently, looking into his eyes to see if it was alright. He blushes but confirms by pulling me closer as I held on to his blazer.

It was slow and sweet and we pulled back with shy smiles. Something seems to click for him and he grabs my shoulders suddenly, pulling us apart. "Yuuto I love you!" He shouts at me nervously with obvious nerves. I give him a soft smile.

"I love you too, Hikaru." I say and the relief in his eyes are obvious as he pulls me into a tight sweet hug against him making me giggle as he warmed me up.

"I think this kiss was the sweetest thing I've ever tasted in a long time." I whisper and he holds me close, gently kissing me again.