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Daki did not have lots of opportunities for cakes, before.
She was Ume , then. They still lived in the old, dilapidated apartment block by the entrance of the slum, hidden away, concealed by the glaring neon banners and signs of the redlight district - an extravaganza of pseudo- European classical buildings and fake antique castles. What pays they received were meager- her brother's from collecting protection fees for the local gang; hers partly from pouring drinks for the clients and primarily from acting the sweet, young, tempting eye candy. Most of the time, it was shy of enough to cover their basic needs. The only chances they got to indulge were when some big-shots hired her to serve in their banquets and she brought home leftovers. Cakes, sweets and desserts weren't something she paid any thoughts: they aren't as hearty as other types of edibles and quick to spoil.
The Incident happened, though.
Daki separates the yolks from the egg whites. She adds the yolks to the thick, buttery cream in the mixing bowl and beats the mixture until it smoothly blends together. In a separated bowl, the pastry dough has been prepared and ready to use. Spreading the flour thinly on the broad wooden slab, she puts the dough down the flat surface and kneads, attentive to the dough's feel and elasticity. She rolls it flat and with careful, experienced hands, lifts it to line the fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. After trimming away the excess, Daki places the tart pan in the fridge to chill for a few minutes while she pre-heats the oven.
The sound of footsteps alerts her to a presence approaching the kitchen. Presumably, it's her boss coming back home from driving Rui to school. Muzan has been more than happy to babysit the boy for a few days so his father can focus on his “part-time assignment”. Little Rui was beyond ecstatic when he heard the news, unsurprising, as Muzan is his favorite person. And the reverse can be said for her boss as well.
Her guess is correct. As Daki puts the baking tray - on which the freshly chilled tart shell lays, into the oven, from the kitchen’s entryway is Muzan heading toward her, ambling along the kitchen counter until Daki can feel the warm, solid body mass of her boss leaning against her side.
Muzan is wearing the deep red blouse with embroidery around the collar that Daki gifted. The perfume her boss has chosen today is mellow but lingering- floral with a fruity aftertaste. She chirps:
- Good morning, boss! Is it Ma'am today?
Muzan hums an affirmation. She presses a fleeting kiss on Daki's cheek, blowing an amused huff at the giggles she gets in return. There's definitely a lipstick mark on Daki's face.
Muzan's rumbling baritone sends a tingle down her spine, as always:
- Good morning, Daki. Isn't it a bit late to bake the batches right now?
It would be, if the cakes were actually goods for their coffee shop. Sekido and Urogi of the quadruplet came to deliver the batches of cakes for the café hours ago, bickering and complaining all the way. This is just a recipe she found on the internet and intended to give it a go.
- No, I'm trying something new… It's French, Tarte au Chocolat.
The name curls somewhat awkward, pretentious and foreign in her mouth. Muzan doesn't seem to notice.
- French chocolate tart… Akaza will be so happy.
Muzan chuckles as if a funny thought just crossed by. Likely, the memory of Akaza chasing Douma around the Fortress because the man had eaten his last chocolate bar- it was what came to Daki's mind when she read the recipe.
- It sounds delicious. I can't wait to get a taste.
Daki nuzzles her ears in answer, the short, wavy strands of hairs brushing softly across her nose. The alarm on the oven beeps, signaling the shortcrust pastry is done. Daki, not without reluctance, leaves the comfortable temperature of her boss's body, takes out the tray for it to cool off and begins to make the filling.
The Incident is Douma's delicate, euphemistic term for “that time some assholes burnt Daki alive because she grievously injured her would-be rapist”. The word tastes bitter down her throat. That neat, polite moniker is not meant to convey her debilitating terror when she was bound, helpless and alone, looking up at the sadistic, vengeful eyes of the men surrounding her. Nor the pungent, nauseating smell of gasoline before her world lit up bright hot. The fire cut deep in muscles and tendons, like her own fat was sizzling and the skin bubbling, tearing apart, an eternity of excruciating pain until consciousness blessedly fled her-
But what else can she call it, really?
She remembers, in fragments and unreal, disconnected recollections, the aftermath too. She had woken up just out of the ER, head foggy and disoriented before the anesthesia once again put her back to sleep. White lights. Her brother's cries amid the murmurs. Body alternating between deadened numbness and distant hurts. Everything was like a faraway dream.
From the second time on, Ume - Daki wasn't her name yet, but soon - woke up to unflinching reality.
The tart filling is a rich chocolate custard, which is relatively simple to make, albeit temperature and time-sensitive. Methodically, Daki measures and prepares the chocolate, the cream, the eggs. The click-clacks of baking tools and kitchen utensils fill the otherwise silent house- all its occupants, save for Kokushibou and Daki herself, are not early birds. It’s no wonder most of them enjoy their “side job” more than operating the coffee shop they own.
Muzan has moved to sit by the dining table, content to watch the second-youngest member of her motley crew in her element. Her gaze, interested but patient and unintrusive, weights in Daki’s chest. It’s a grounding heaviness, tethers her to this mundane, domestic joy that the young woman still can’t quite believe she is allowed to have. The love inside her aches to burst out, and she lets it, gives it tangibility in the form of silly jokes and lighthearted stories, offers it to her companion for laughter and affections to illuminate her eyes. Muzan joins in the meaningless stream of small-talk, interjecting with witty comments and biting remarks that never fail to get Daki cackling.
Just as Daki entered the Fortress, scarcely out of her first surgical operation and covered head to toe with fresh bandages, Muzan- Douma’s employer, now also hers and her brother’s, introduced them to Nakime. She was the caretaker of the place and would take on the duty of nursing Daki to recovery. She had resented that order, a little. She didn’t want a nanny- a stranger as her nanny. It chafed her.
( It unnerved her. )
Her impression had soon been revised to a tentative trust, though. Nakime was always calm, professional and followed the schedule to a tee. She gave Daki space. When caring for her charge, the woman kept herself in her vision, movements gentle and clearly telegraphed. Daki was kind of glad that it was Nakime who found her crumbled next to the still burning stove, heaving for breaths, trapped inside her own memories.
In retrospect, Daki should have realized there was no way she would get over the Incident with no real consequences. Had Lady Fortune ever smiled at her brother and her, even once?
The realization stung nonetheless.
She had been restless from laying immobile for too long. The scars were healing as predicted, which was nice- there had been concerns that her immune system would reject the skin grafts. On the downside, her whole body itched .
If only she could get up and do a task or two, anything to take her mind off the maddening sensation.
Not to mention… Her brother had started to go on “jobs”, which for the most part consisted of grunt work and shadowing Douma. Gyutarou assured her: He was safe. Douma was watching his back. It was nothing too different from what he'd been doing. Like somehow that would ease her anxieties. Daki knew, she knew , that her brother needed to do this. Daki, to put things bluntly, was useless right now. Gyutarou had to earn his keep for both of them. She laid on an unfamiliar bed, stared at an unfamiliar ceiling and wished reciting the explanations in her brain let them feel less like empty rhetoric.
Gyutarou did his damnedest to stay by her side whenever possible, and wasn’t it awful that she thought it wasn’t enough?
She was supposed to recover from the latest round of surgeries, but the constant, persistent buzz of worries that, despite her effort, tailspinned into catastrophic fears, it infused a jittering sort of energy in her body, leaving her fidgety, unmoored, unsafe .
Therefore, Daki found her way into the common kitchen, intending to cook a meal for her brother and her housemates at the Fortress, except she turned the stove dial and the flicker of fire pushed her straight into a full-blown-flashback-induced panic attack.
When Daki came back to herself, she found Nakime sitting next to her. The woman had been patiently, little by little, guiding her back into reality. Nakime had stayed, as Daki started to sob her heart out, for only at this moment did she realize that what happened had scarred her, in an invisible, irreversible way. That maybe she would have to live with its messy fallout for the rest of her life.
The following morning, Nakime was the one who took Daki back to the kitchen, teaching her to bake her very first piece of confectionery, a classic vanilla cake.
It’s crazy- up until the present, Daki still can’t quite find the adequate words to express how monumental that gesture was for her. Something along the line of: it had been a sliver of hope. She could work around her trigger and make something. The traumatic event hadn’t crippled her.
A day later, Muzan replaced the gas stove in the kitchen for one running with electricity. Daki began her first session with her therapist.
The chocolate tart has been filled, baked and left to chill appropriately. Daki sets the finished product on the kitchen counter and divides it into equal slices. She transfers one of the parts to a small plate and offers it to Muzan, who accepts with a pleased “thank-you”. Muzan slices off a small portion from the piece of cake with her fork, puts it in her mouth, hemming and hawing in apparently profound deliberation, all the while perfectly aware that Daki’s expectant look is getting increasingly exasperated. Then, at the younger woman’s playful pout, she smirks teasingly and croons:
- Don’t be so grumpy, my pretty flower~ A delicacy this scrumptious demands to be savored at length.
Snickering, she takes another piece from her cake slice and holds it up to Daki’s mouth:
- It’s delicious. Here, try it for yourself.
Despite grumbling and flushing from the ostentatious flattery, Daki obligingly eats the piece of tart. The deep flavor explodes in her mouth: creamy and intensely chocolaty; the crisp shell mixes well with the taste of velvety-smooth custard filling… It would go well with some sort of light, tart fruits- raspberries, perhaps.
She and Muzan share the slice in a comfortable quiet. Once the dish is empty, her lover gives a considering look to the rest of the cake Daki’s just made:
- I should bring a slice to Kokushibou’s room- that dunce has probably forgone his breakfast to do the paperwork again.
The words are biting, but her tone is helplessly fond. There’s a quirk in her lips, forming a crooked, almost secretive curve that only appears when Muzan thinks of her beloveds. It draws Daki in for a kiss, this time sensual and unhurried. In a moment, distilled into infinity, Daki loses herself in the hot, plush inside of her love’s mouth, her soft, breathy noises.
When their lips finally part, her mouth is tingling and red from both the smear of lipstick and the kissing. She proposes:
- Let me take the cake with you.
Daki is looking forward to the rare sight of Senior Koku’s face beaming up when he sees the two of them.
Had Gyutaro not been nearby, she would have been burnt charred to the organs and bones. Had Douma not been with her brother and promptly called an ambulance, she would have died soon after from hypovolemic shock. Were her new adoptive family not so affluent and well-connected, able to find her the best doctors and get her the best, most cutting-edge treatments, Daki would have been handicapped and disfigured.
She had escaped death by a hair’s breadth.
It physically ails her brother to think she has been lucky. For Daki… well, she could be better. But she could be worse.
There’s no use thinking about what-ifs and could-have-beens, she looks at the mismatched patches of her skin, so faded they could only be seen if one pays attention, and concludes.
In spite of everything, she’s where she's supposed to be.