Chapter 71: Volume 1, - 71: She Told Her Father Herself
By six o’clock on Saturday evening, the front shutters of Akiyama Bakery were drawn half-down, filtering the orange sunset into low stripes across the floorboards.
Suzune set her small leather shoulder bag on the office desk and placed a small, neatly wrapped purple box from Kameya Main Store beside the cash register. The scent of sweet bean paste and baked flour hung pleasantly in the quiet shop.
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and went straight to work on the evening closing routine. She wiped down the glass pastry case with a damp cloth, counted the day’s cash receipts into organised paper bands, and moved three unsold loaves of rye to the discount shelf for tomorrow morning.
In the back kitchen, Hiroshi was scraping down the large wooden worktable with a steel bench scraper, sending fine white flour dust floating into the warm air. Keiko sat at the small corner table, verifying the invoice lists for Sunday’s early-morning delivery to the local community centre.
"I brought back sweet-potato sweets from Kameya," Suzune said, walking into the kitchen and setting the purple box on the table.
Hiroshi looked up, setting his bench scraper aside. He wiped his hands on his apron and smiled, his tired eyes crinkling at the corners. "Thanks, Suzune. Did you have a good day in Kawagoe with Kisaragi-san?"
Suzune pulled off her light cardigan, hung it on her hook, and took a fresh apron from the shelf. She looked her father directly in the eye, her voice warm, calm, and deliberate.
"With my boyfriend."
The heavy scrape of the metal bowl Hiroshi was reaching for stopped abruptly. He froze for a second, his hand resting on the stainless-steel rim. Keiko didn’t look up from her clipboard, though a small, knowing smile touched the edge of her mouth.
Hiroshi slowly turned around, pulling a clean cloth from his belt to wipe the table again, though it was already clean. He had never asked, but Suzune knew he had noticed the frequent morning drop-offs, the long phone calls in the hallway and the quiet shift in her expression over the last few weeks. But suspicion was one thing; hearing it spoken plainly as fact was another.
"Your boyfriend," Hiroshi repeated softly, testing the word as if checking the weight of a loaf. He looked across at Keiko, then back at Suzune. "Since when?"
"Less than a month," Suzune answered simply, taking a bowl of yeast mixture from the counter to check its temperature. "We started dating properly around the time KBS finished the preliminary advisory assessment."
Hiroshi leaned his hips against the wooden worktable, folding his arms across his chest. Concern, surprise, and a quiet, protective curiosity competed in his expression. "Why wait until now to say anything to us?"
"Because I wanted to understand what we were building first," Suzune said smoothly. She stirred the yeast mixture with a wooden spoon, her movement steady and practiced. "I didn’t want it to feel like a sudden distraction while we were sorting out the bakery’s financial support."
Keiko finally set her pen down on the clipboard, looking at her husband. "She only told me this morning, Hiroshi, right before she left for the station. I didn’t know before then either."
Hiroshi nodded slowly, taking that in. Suzune could see the conflict in the way her father pressed his lips together. He had praised Ren’s work more than once, but respecting a consultant was different from accepting him as his daughter’s partner.
"Has he been honest with you about all of that? How much do you actually see him outside business hours?" Hiroshi asked, his brow furrowed with thoughtful care. "He’s managing a lot of money now. He’s running an advisory firm, dealing with estate assets, and talking to corporate clients."
"We see each other three or four times a week," Suzune said, looking up from the counter. "Sometimes it’s just twenty minutes in the morning over coffee, or a walk after he finishes at the gym. He doesn’t pretend to be less busy than he is."
"And the bakery arrangement?" Hiroshi asked, his voice careful. "Does having him as our business advisor make things complicated between you two?"
"It hasn’t," Suzune said firmly. "Ren knows where the company boundaries are. When he’s here discussing KBS support with you, he treats this as your bakery. He has never tried to tell you how to bake or run your kitchen."
Hiroshi fell silent for a moment, listening to the quiet hum of the refrigeration unit. "You speak highly of him," Hiroshi said quietly. "Is he really that perfect?"
Suzune let out a short, genuine chuckle, shaking her head. "No. He definitely isn’t."
She walked over to the dry-ingredients storage bin, pulling out a sack of unbleached flour to check the inventory level.
"He overworks," Suzune admitted. "He tries to carry every problem by himself until his shoulders are completely stiff, and he still decides too quickly what other people need to know. I don’t always like that. But when I call him out on it, he listens. He respects my work, he respects you, and he’s learning to be more open instead of carrying everything alone."
Hiroshi watched her carefully. Suzune held his gaze without softening her answer or pretending that Ren had no faults. After several seconds, some of the tension left her father’s shoulders.
Keiko tapped her clipboard gently against the table. "He’s a good boy, Hiroshi. You’ve seen how hard he works. And Suzune isn’t a child."
"I know she isn’t," Hiroshi said softly. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with a flour-dusted hand, his posture visibly relaxing. "I just want to make sure she’s looked after."
"I am looking after myself, Dad," Suzune said warmly, stepping over to give his arm an affectionate squeeze. "And Ren looks after me, too."
Hiroshi smiled faintly, his shoulders finally easing. "Alright. Alright."
He turned back towards the oven and took a slip of paper from his apron pocket. "Speaking of looking after things. The dairy supplier called while you were in Kawagoe. They’re raising the butter price by four percent starting next month."
Suzune adjusted her apron strap, immediately shifting into her operational role. "Four percent? Did they give a reason?"
"Import costs again," Hiroshi said, shaking his head. "We’ll need to figure out whether we absorb it or adjust the pastry pricing after Golden Week."
"I’ll run the numbers on the register software tomorrow," Suzune noted, writing it down on her pad. "What about the Sunday order for the community centre?"
"Forty melon pan and thirty vegetable rolls," Keiko supplied from the corner table. "Fumiko said she’d come in at six tomorrow morning to help pack them, but she’s only staying for the first hour."
"Good," Suzune said. "Aya mentioned she’s closing her salon early tomorrow afternoon, so she and Haruka are meeting us around three."
"Are you taking Ren with you?" Keiko asked with a light twinkle in her eye.
"Yes," Suzune smiled, her cheeks dimpling slightly. "Aya promised to be normal, which means she’ll probably interrogate him for an hour."
Hiroshi finished wiping down the final counter surface and hung his steel scraper on the rack. He looked at the purple box from Kameya sitting on the front table, then looked at Suzune with a calm, settled expression.
"Tell him to come to dinner again next week," Hiroshi said, his tone casual, without any lingering edge or formal stiffness.
Suzune’s smile widened, bright and affectionate. "I’ll tell him, Dad. He’d like that."
Hiroshi nodded, taking the purple box and carefully opening the lid to inspect the sweets. "Good. Now let’s finish the dough preparation so we can go home."