Chapter 28: Volume 1, - 28: Was That a Date?
Friday, 3 March 2023 — evening
The small brass bell above the door chimed as Ren stepped inside Akiyama Bakery.
Heat and the comforting, heavy scent of toasted butter, warm sugar, and freshly baked dough immediately wrapped around him. The shop was still alive with late Hinamatsuri trade. Two office workers in dark overcoats were picking through the remaining boxes of peach-blossom sweets, while a mother near the register held her small daughter up so she could point at the last tray of pink-and-white steamed cakes.
Behind the counter, Suzune’s parents moved with practiced efficiency. Her father picked up a heavy tray from the back display, while her mother wiped down the glass case with steady, practiced motions. Their quiet presence provided a grounding, rhythmic background to the evening rush, entirely absorbed in the tail end of their busiest workday of the season.
Ren stayed near the edge of the display shelf, carefully holding the wrapped package in both hands. In business meetings, he had learned how to keep his shoulders set and his voice steady, projecting a calm competence he didn’t always feel. Now, standing between a display of hina-arare and a basket of French bread, his pulse was beating entirely too fast in his throat.
He waited awkwardly near the corner of the shelf while Suzune finished with the mother and daughter. Her face showed the faint, quiet weariness of someone whose shift had begun long before dawn. She wrapped the steamed cakes, accepted the payment, and offered the child a small, polite smile as they turned toward the exit.
As the glass door clicked shut, her gaze shifted across the room.
She froze.
Her eyes dropped instantly to the slender, cream-wrapped package held in his hands, then snapped back up to his face. For a second, her usual calm composure slipped completely, replaced by open shock.
"Kisaragi-san?" she said softly, stepping closer to the main register counter. "I thought you’d be... well, I didn’t expect you to drop by tonight."
"I didn’t want to get in the way during peak hours," Ren said. He moved toward the counter, feeling intensely clumsy as he shifted the package from one hand to the other before setting it down on the smooth wood between them. "And... I brought this."
The dark-red band around the cream paper caught the warm light of the shop lamps.
"It’s Hinamatsuri," she said, looking down at the neat folds of the paper. "You really didn’t need to—"
"It’s not for Hinamatsuri," Ren interrupted, his voice dropping a register as he caught himself. "It’s for your birthday."
Suzune looked up at him, her lips parting slightly in quiet surprise. She reached out slowly, her fingers hovering above the red band for a brief moment before she slid the ribbon off and carefully began unthreading the tape.
Ren watched her hands, his stomach tightening into a sudden, nervous knot. As the wrapping fell away, revealing the dark reddish-brown leather cover of the PLOTTER binder, Suzune went very still.
She lifted the cover gently. Her thumb moved slowly over the heavier paper insert inside, testing the texture between two fingers before returning to rest on the leather edge. Something softened around her eyes, but Ren also caught the smallest, unmistakable pause in her expression. A quiet, subtle stillness.
His throat felt dry. Had he remembered too much? Had picking the exact shade she had once put back, combined with the specific paper weight she had casually complained about before, crossed some unspoken line from being thoughtful into something uncomfortably intense?
"You... remembered the paper," she said quietly, her eyes remaining fixed on the binder. "And the cover."
"You complained about thin ink bleeding through once," Ren said, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly acutely conscious of how rigid his posture must look.
He let the sentence rest between them, the raw honesty of it hanging in the warm, scented air.
Suzune didn’t answer right away. She turned the notebook over in her hands, testing the flexibility of the leather spine. She opened the brass ring mechanism with a small, crisp click, examining the layout of the refill section before snapping it closed again. Every movement was deliberate, full of a quiet, layered focus. The sheer specificity of the gift had clearly registered, leaving her both visibly touched and momentarily startled by the degree of attention he had paid to her.
Her gaze drifted past his shoulder for half a second, lingering on the elaborate display of hina dolls sitting on the raised shelf near the window.
Ren noticed the pause. The bakery had not gone silent, but for a moment he became strangely aware of every small sound around them. The scrape of a metal tray in the back, paper rustling near the register, the low hum from the kitchen, and the distant hum of traffic outside.
Then she looked back at him. A faint, soft flush had touched her cheeks, taking the edge off her usual crisp demeanor.
"Kisaragi-san," she said gently, her voice clear despite the lowered volume. "About Kamakura."
Ren held his breath, his hands coming to rest flat against the edge of the wooden counter.
"I really enjoyed the date," she said plainly.
The directness of the words settled into the warm air of the shop. There was no playfulness or teasing in her voice, only a straightforward, slightly shy truth.
"I wanted you to know that," she added, her fingers resting lightly on the dark leather of her new notebook. "Before the day ended."
Ren looked at her, the tight tension in his chest releasing enough for him to take a full, steady breath. The relief was immediate, washing over the lingering awkwardness of the last ten minutes.
"I’m glad," he said simply. "Happy birthday, Akiyama-san."
She offered him a small, genuine smile, the tired lines around her eyes easing. "Thank you, Kisaragi-san."
Knowing her family was waiting to close up the shop and begin their own private evening meal, Ren didn’t linger. He bade her a quiet goodnight, offered a polite, respectful bow toward her parents near the back ovens, and stepped back out into the cool March air.
The walk home toward his apartment felt entirely different from the journey he had taken earlier that afternoon. The cold night air was crisp and refreshing against his warm face as he navigated the evening foot traffic near the station.
As he walked, his mind kept looping back to the bakery counter. Replaying the moment she opened the paper, the way her fingers had tested the leather, and especially that single, quiet half-second where her eyes had drifted toward the hina dolls before she spoke.
He didn’t know what had passed through her mind during that half-second. By the time he reached the station, he had replayed it often enough to know he would probably keep wondering about it for days to come.
But underneath that lingering uncertainty was something far simpler and much more solid.
Kamakura had been a date she enjoyed.
Suzune had meant it.
Ren walked the rest of the way home with his hands tucked deep into his coat pockets and a smile he was glad nobody on the street was close enough to notice.