Chapter 14: Volume 1, - 14: Valentine’s Day, No Miracle
The aftermath of Valentine’s Day in a neighbourhood retail district was not romantic; it was logistics.
By Sunday, 19 February 2023, five days after the actual holiday, Akiyama Bakery was navigating the awkward tail-end of the seasonal rush. Corporate clients were picking up delayed bulk orders, late-arriving commuters were looking for discounted chocolate brioches, and leftover heart-shaped pastries sat on trays marked down by thirty percent.
Ren arrived at Akiyama Bakery at two in the afternoon, carefully timing his visit to coincide with Suzune’s scheduled fifteen-minute break. The shopfront was still steadily busy, the glass display cases gleaming under warm overhead lamps as Suzune’s father wrapped three boxes of tea biscuits for an elderly customer at the counter.
When Suzune stepped out from behind the prep counter, her pale pink apron was dusted with flour around the pockets, and a few loose strands of chestnut-brown hair clung to the side of her neck. Her face bore the subtle tightness of someone who had been on her feet since five in the morning, but her amber-brown eyes brightened the moment she saw Ren waiting by the door.
"You actually came," she said, wiping her hands on a dry towel as she walked around the display counter.
"I said I’d come," Ren replied, offering a faint smile. "Ignoring the message would have been harder."
"True, but you usually find an excuse when the bakery is busy," Suzune said softly. She reached under the secondary counter shelf and pulled out a small, clear cellophane bag tied with a narrow red ribbon. Inside were five dark chocolate shortbread cookies. None of them were round; two were lopsided ovals, one had a cracked surface, and another was oddly flat on one edge, as if pressed against a hot baking sheet too early.
She held the bag out toward him, her cheeks flushed with a faint pink that owed only half its colour to the heat of the ovens behind her.
"Dad was going to throw these out," Suzune said quickly, her tone shifting into a guarded, brisk formality. "The shape is wrong, so they can’t go on the discount tray. I thought you might want them."
She paused, looking him directly in the eyes with a sudden, serious intensity.
"This is not a confession."
Ren looked at the small bag, then met her gaze. A genuine, light warmth touched his chest. A rare contrast to the heavy financial calculations that usually filled his head.
"That’s fortunate," Ren replied dryly, taking the bag from her hands. "Because one of these cookies looks legally questionable. If this were a confession, I’d have to assume you were trying to warn me about a crime."
Suzune let out a sudden, quiet laugh, her shoulders dropping as the defensive tension melted away. "It’s dark chocolate and sea salt. It tastes right, even if the silhouette is a disaster."
"I’ll judge the flavour after I survive the texture," Ren said, sliding the bag carefully into his coat pocket.
Four days earlier, during a quiet period after the morning rush, Ren had suggested one numbered master list for incoming orders and changes. Looking at the clipboard hanging near the register, he saw that the numbered list was active. Suzune had drawn neat columns for Order Number, Customer Name, Item Count, and Pickup Date.
It had clearly reduced missed pickups, but Ren noticed the system’s flaw almost immediately. Special requests and last-minute time changes were still being written on separate sticky notes attached to the bottom of the board, while phone modifications were scribbled directly onto the day’s receipt spike. Changes were still entering through different channels.
Behind the counter, Suzune’s father called for her to check the cold-storage receipts for a corporate pickup coming at three.
"I have to get back," Suzune said. "Will you wait until four? I finish my shift then."
Ren left before the next pickup queue formed, knowing that remaining inside a busy bakery would only make him an obstruction. With more than an hour remaining, he walked down to his QuickMart branch to check the upcoming schedule.
Yui was working the register near the front, her dark hair tied low behind her apron. She glanced at the ribboned cookie bag in his hand as he walked past, but only noted that Endo had posted Monday’s roster beside the break-room door. Ren confirmed his shift and stepped back out into the chilly afternoon air.
At four o’clock, Ren returned to Akiyama Bakery as Suzune emerged in her civilian clothes. A long cream-coloured wool coat over a navy pleated skirt, her chestnut-brown hair brushed out and falling neatly over her shoulders.
"Let’s walk for a bit," she suggested as they stepped out.
They walked toward the Kawaguchi riverside. The winter sun was low in the sky, casting long, sharp shadows across the concrete embankment. The wind blowing off the Arakawa River carried a bitter chill.
Near the riverside path, Ren stopped at a vending machine and bought two cans of hot cocoa. He handed one warm blue-and-gold can to Suzune.
She looked at the metal in her gloved hands, then looked up at him with her amber-brown eyes. "Is this payment for listening to me complain before I’ve even started?"
"It’s just hot cocoa," Ren said, cracking the tab on his own can. "Consider it interest on the lopsided cookies."
Suzune smiled faintly, wrapping both hands around the warm can. "Thank you, Kisaragi-san."
They climbed the short slope to the top of the river embankment, walking side by side along the paved path for about ten minutes as the dark river reflected the pale orange gradient of the late afternoon sky.
"I like your messages," Suzune said softly after a few minutes of quiet walking.
Ren turned his head slightly to look at her. "My LINE messages?"
"Yes," she said, watching her own breath plume white in the cold air. "You don’t send endless small talk, and you never sound like you’re demanding an immediate reply. It feels like... you write when you actually have something to say, and you leave space for me to answer when I’m ready. It’s comfortable."
Ren looked down at his cocoa can. His phone sat in his coat pocket, heavy with unpaid debt reminders, System notifications, and estate correspondence. Yet among all those alerts, her name was the only one that didn’t trigger a spike of anxiety.
"I check for yours more often than I should," Ren admitted, his voice quiet against the cold river wind.
Suzune stopped walking. Ren paused a step ahead and turned back to face her.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke. Her gaze stayed on his, and Ren’s pulse quickened. He could not know exactly what she intended, but the saved cookies, the warm drink between her hands, and the fact that she had asked him to wait all made the moment feel more personal than their earlier conversations.
She knew he worked nights and had once studied economics. She also knew that whenever the conversation approached what happened afterward, he found a careful way around it.
The cold air pooled between them, their breath rising together in faint, intertwining clouds of white mist. Yet beneath her warm expression lay that faint, lingering question about what he kept hidden.
A pale blue Interface block materialised in the air beside Suzune’s shoulder, visible only to Ren’s eyes:
[Optional honesty objective.]
[Before requesting a date, disclose one true fact you are ashamed of.]
[Deadline: none.]
[Refusal penalty: none.]
[Another person’s response is not a success condition.]
[Task label: Correction of an avoidant choice.]
The phrase felt less like a System category than a note from someone who knew exactly how Ren pushed people away. He had spent months hiding his collapse behind silence, cutting off friends and keeping everyone at a distance to protect his pride.
"Kisaragi-san?" Suzune asked softly, noticing his sudden silence. "Is something wrong?"
Ren pulled his gaze away from the empty air where the prompt had faded. He took a sip of his cocoa, forcing his expression to remain steady.
"No," he said, offering a small smile. "Nothing’s wrong. Just thinking about these cookies."
Suzune let out a soft huff, a playful smile returning to her lips. "If you make fun of their shape one more time, I’m taking them back."
"You wouldn’t dare," Ren replied. "That would be a breach of the non-confession contract."
They turned and began walking back toward the station slope, the light banter restoring their easy rhythm.
They separated near the east entrance around four twenty-five. Suzune offered a warm wave before heading through the station concourse toward the ticket gates, while Ren remained outside beneath the station lights as the evening crowd began to swell.
Ren walked back to his apartment building, unlocked his cold room, and placed the bag of lopsided chocolate cookies in the center of his low wooden table. He pulled his phone from his coat pocket, where a new encrypted email notification was lit up on the dark screen.
He opened the message:
Kisaragi-san,
The preliminary review of the dormant estate account connected to Genichiro Kisaragi’s trust is complete. The holding institution has confirmed that the account is eligible for in-person verification.
Please attend the Mizuho Bank branch in Kawaguchi tomorrow, Monday, 20 February, at 9:00 a.m. I will meet you at the entrance.
Bring the identification and personal-seal documentation listed in the attached checklist. Seiwa will provide the certified estate records.
If verification proceeds without objection, the bank will be authorised to release the confirmed dormant balance after applicable fees and holds.
Aoi Tachibana