Chapter 1

"SAKUNO, YOU LOOK… great."

"Thanks, Grandma." She'd have to believe otherwise. She slept for the whole trip back home in her uncle's yellow beetle with her mouth open, and her right cheek felt numb and pinched from leaning on the half-open window from the passenger seat. Sakuno wiped the sides of her mouth and ran her strained fingers through her hair, trying to smooth it down… or maybe just tame it. Maybe she shouldn't have let her hair down unbraided.

"Did you try a new style? What is that called, Wavy? Wind-blown? It looks great."

"Grandma, it looks terrible. I look like I haven't had a shower in a week."

Her grandmother frowned, and then placed a plate of bread on the table. "That's not true. Here," she said. "Taste this. I got over your recipe for garlic toast and added Parmesan instead. Tell me if it tastes five stars yet." She walked over to remove a tray of English muffins from the oven and spoke louder as if Sakuno can't hear her well enough. "You should see yourself in the mirror. You're like one of those girls from the magazines Tomoka likes so much. With those Smokey eyes… Sakuno, don't sleep on the table. Eat my bread."

Sakuno propped her head on one hand and munched a mouthful of garlic bread. It doesn't taste like garlic, but then again, garlic bread only smells like garlic. It tastes relatively the same as her garlic bread—without the Parmesan. Sakuno usually used the very abundant Mozzarella from the nearby grocery. She pushed down the chewed bread to her throat, and only then did the Parmesan hit her taste buds. She moaned in ecstasy.

The kitchen smelled like yeast and cinnamon and a faint dose of eggs and something sweet, like honey. Her grandmother always liked to put honey in everything she bakes as much as she can and if the recipe can hold it (but not in the garlic bread). Every time her grandmother cooked something for Sakuno, the whole house would smell like a bakery— or what a bakery would smell like. Sakuno hadn't even been to a bakery that baked their own delicacies here in Tokyo. All of them were delivered and sealed in a clear plastic and obviously factory made. Sometimes, Sakuno would think that people from places except Tokyo can only have real bakeries. Sakuno considered herself lucky to have a grandmother who can give her bakery-like goods.

She felt a tingling sensation pushing through her ribs. When was the last time her grandmother cooked for her?

"Seriously, it's three in the afternoon. Why are you so sleepy? How's the bread? Come on, talk to me. Eat and talk." her grandmother's brows furrowed, as if on purpose, and had both of her oven mitten-covered hands resting on her hips. Sighing, she removed one gloved hand and pushed a toothpick through a muffin and lifted it out. No crumbs sticking to the small piece of wood.

Sakuno nodded, dusting the crumbs on her fingers and snatched another piece of bread from the plate. "It good. The Parmesan—why didn't I think of adding Parmesan?"

Her grandmother sat across her and helped herself with a slice. "We were living off with only two kinds of cheese in the pantry. It's natural not to think of Parmesan. I was restocking the spices while you were away. Which reminds me…," she stood and turned the burner to low heat, adding heavy cream onto the saucepan. She started chopping bits of the chocolate bars, dumping them to a medium-sized mixing bowl. She spoke through the chewing. "How was your visit? How's your uncle?"

Sakuno saw one piece of bread that was soggy. She wondered why it was the only soggy one of the whole batch. What made it so soggy? Like it soaked up spilled water. Sighing, she poured herself some tea. "It was fine. He was fine."

"Whoa. That was very heavy." By that, her grandmother probably meant her sigh. "Does that mean anything? Did the two of you not have a good time?"

Sakuno stared at her grandmother's apron secured with a tight ribbon, a flab of fat peeking though the crumpled shirt. She remembered how her grandmother was pretty thin and obviously youthful back in her old days. She'd seen pictures of her father too when he was still alive and young, and in his too-big prom wear, and him holding a tennis racket wearing a frown on his face, and her mother when she'd said yes to her father's proposal, and all the good stuff Sakuno heard from stories. In those aging photographs, she saw how happy and complete her family was. She could see her mother, and her uncle, and other people she doesn't know. She can't ask her grandmother about them; she sneaked into her grandmother's room and took a peek at the albums while her only close relative was away on a tennis business in another city.

Sakuno bit the inside of her cheek, annoyed with herself. She can't be thinking about something else when her grandmother is talking to her. She isn't usually like this.

"We had a grand time. He showed me pictures and told me more about Mom…" A sharp pain passed just above her eyes. She closed them and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Grandma, I'm tired. Can I go sleep?"

Her grandmother ignored the question. "Aw, honey, at least you got to know more about your mother. You know, I can give you some info about how much of a limp your father was. Can't even last a single match. If he's here now, I'd be happier to teach you how to tease him till his ears are beet red. He's a lot like you." Her voice was softer now. "If he's here now…, he'll be the one doing all the baking— not us. He was also a great cook. Like me... And you. He's a lot like you."

Sakuno didn't know what to say. She's happy to be like her father in many ways, but being the combination of her clumsy mother and flushed father doesn't help her much at all. She wished she inherited something more than just being good at cooking and stitching and other household-tied work. Because if not, she'll be a housewife for the rest of her life. She wished she inherited her grandmother's ability to play good at tennis. Make me a natural, she wished to something; anything. Like Ryoma.

Sakuno wished it was that easy. Just inheriting things. She knew she had to take the training more seriously if she wanted to be good. Like Ryoma, damn it.

It took Sakuno a few seconds to say something. She opened her eyes and rubbed her wrists. She removed her watch and saw small gray things from where the watch was. She scrunched her nose and brushed it away. "You're unusually talkative today."

Her grandmother snorted and poured the hot heavy cream into the mixing bowl and submerged all the chopped chocolate into the white liquid. "You're unusually tired. That makes me normal like always." She turned and carried the bowl to the table, holding a moon whisk with her other hand. She set those aside and retrieved the English muffins, carrying them all to the table.

"Right. I'm tired. So I guess that means you're going to let me sleep?" Sakuno pushed away some of the plates on the table to give the English muffins some space.

Her grandmother frowned. "Haven't you had enough sleeping today? If you sleep now, you'll have trouble sleeping tonight. And you have school tomorrow. We can't have that. You're helping me with these." She handed Sakuno silicon-fitted tongs.

She grunted. Sakuno stood and started removing the muffins from the tray to a cooling rack. Her grandmother grabbed her arm and stared at it. "What's this? You have very deep marks. Where'd you get these?"

"I got it from the beetle."

"The what? You were bitten by a beetle? But how can that be, it should be bite marks here instead of… marks."

"It's a car. It's very ancient, but it runs well."

Her grandmother's brows furrowed and let go of Sakuno's hand. "A car is named after an insect?"

"Adolf Hitler conceptualized it. While he was in prison— can you believe that he actually thought of that? He was in prison, and he tried to solve Germany's unemployment problem." Sakuno resumed to her work warily.

"Hitler? The bad guy?"

"Yes. But he wasn't really a bad guy. He did initiate World War II, but he had great political moves. He created the beetle... What am I saying, he really is a bad guy." She pulled the last muffin from the tray and placed it gently over the cooling rack. She carried the warm tray to the sink, feeling tired all of a sudden. "If it weren't for him, I would have thought that the car was named after the old rock band The Beatles."

"I don't think anyone would want to hear songs by a band named after an insect." said her grandmother.

"They would. People love them. They're a worldwide sensation. They're very rich and very dead—but still very popular. I would think that they were also very good looking, if I had lived in their time. They were that good." It was hopeless trying to explain it to her. She doesn't even care about anything else than tennis.

"Why didn't I know about them? What was I doing?"

"You were busy playing tennis."

"What did you say?"

"Tennis. You were so busy playing tennis to even listen to overseas music."

"Oh." Her grandmother said. "Oh yeah." She picked up the whisk and started incorporating the melted chocolate and the heavy cream. "Go get a spoon and drizzle the ganache over the muffins. You're not going to sleep as long as the sun is still up."

SAKUNO NEVER THOUGHT that her very first visit to her uncle's home would include helping a guy her age have the best real date he'll have. Not that Sakuno was the date, even though Sakuno wanted so badly to have at least one real date like the guy. Never did she expect to hand him a quarter of her allowance.

"Oh, hi. Do you happen to play any sport? Your hair's too long, but is it tennis, by any chance?" the guy said, holding her hand and giving it a quick peck. He looked up, making it impossible for Sakuno to not look at his eyes directly. His hair was in a royal mess- like his comb only made his cow-licked hair look even worse- and his green polo shirt had a blob of bubble that could go unnoticed if you weren't paying any attention. She would have swooned if it weren't for the toothpaste, and the fact that he's not Ryoma who would look good even if he's in this state. And how did he know that she played tennis?

"You have a, um, toothpaste on your shirt." she gestured on her shirt.

His eyes widened. He looked down his shirt and stretched it out forward, letting go of her hand. "No way. Where?" he looked at her in panic, then looked down again and finally saw it. He tried to run his fingers through it but it only made a bigger mess. Sakuno grabbed a tissue from her bag and lightly dampened it with alcohol.

"Here, let me." She pried away his hand and dabbed the smudged part of the cloth. "It will leave a stain." When she was satisfied that it would be no problem anymore when dried, she straightened her back and frowned at him. "So..." she hesitated, but thought better of it. "Who are you?"

The guy stared at her and cracked into a short laugh. "Don't you think that you should have asked that sooner?" he shook his head and released a breath. "I'm Kudou Shinichi and I'm harmless. I live next door. See that Victorian house there." He pointed to the window. "Look at it."

Sakuno did.

"And you are?"

Sakuno's eyes shot back to Shinichi. He was grinning, and it made her cringe inside. This guy is acting too familiar with her. And he's undeniably too close. Sakuno would have tolerated him because he was good looking, but he's really close to her. She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "I'm Ryuzaki Sakuno…" she struggled to keep herself from asking practical things: What was he doing here? Did he just waltz in to somebody's house and expect that people would just ignore what he had done?

"Okay... Do you play tennis?"

Sakuno wanted to just ignore him. "Yes."

Shinichi walked around and sat at the sofa. He's acting too comfortable inside her uncle's house. Sakuno doesn't like him already. "I knew it. Where's Professor Agasa?"

"In the bathroom." Sakuno didn't know why she told him that. She could have told him to get out of private property. She could have told him that he shouldn't feel so much at home in somebody else's house. When her uncle got out, he saw Shinichi and he glowed.

"Ahh, Shinichi. Isn't this the big day? You're supposed to be with Ran-kun now." He said it like he was supposed to be in a wedding, not in a house all of a sudden. Professor Agasa was drying his hands with a towel.

"Professor Agasa!" Shinichi ran to her uncle and wiped his palms on his loose jeans. Sakuno was aware that she was watching his every move. "I need a favor. I can only count on you, you are my last resort."

"Sure, anything." Her uncle was walking towards her and got a saucer. "Want some pie? My neice, Sakuno—Sakuno! Here, this boy is Shinichi. He's been under my care. If you have visited here more often, the two of you and another girl named Ran, his girlfriend, could have been close friends. You're the same age as them. You're only sixteen, right?"

Sakuno only nodded. It had been the third time her uncle made sure of her age. She wondered if he would actually remember it tomorrow. She saw Shinichi's ears turning pink.

"Ran's not my girlfriend." Shinichi proclaimed. Sakuno could almost hear him say yet. She could have swooned and melt to the ground by Shinichi's shyness. But Sakuno hates him already.

"Ah, yes. Shinichi, this is Sakuno, my favorite niece." Professor Agasa slowly heaved himself to his seat next to her.

"I'm your only niece." She corrected.

"Right. My only niece. You were talking about a favor?" Agasa spooned a big chunk of her homemade apple pie and shoved it into his mouth.

"Yes." Shinichi slumped into a chair beside Professor Agasa, who unknowingly separated him from Sakuno. She's very grateful for his choice of distance, although not admirable. "I'm going broke. I did tell you that I'm going on a…date with Ran." He released a deep sigh.

"You did, and that's a good thing, right? You like her very much. Why aren't you happy?"

"God, I am. I am. Why are we even discussing this? Someone else is here. No offence, Ryuzaki-san."

Sakuno could have pointed out that it was offensive. She could have pointed out that he started the whole conversation. She could also have pointed out that she hated him, even if she knew better than to judge quickly. She could have pointed out that it was his problem if he's short of allowance for the month. And that maybe he could find a part-time job to cover his expenses today at the amusement park. She could have pointed all that, and get away with it. He's so afraid to make the first move. Why can't he be cool like Ryoma and not care about giving the best date to his girlfriend? ("She's not my girlfriend!" Shinichi kept reminding them both. Yet.)

She knew that Shinichi's better than Ryoma. Because Shinichi thinks and worries about giving the girl he likes something great. Why can't Ryoma be like Shinichi and worry about every single detail? Maybe that's why Sakuno gave a quarter of her own allowance—along with a couple of reminders— to Shinichi, even if she hates him because she's jealous.

She's jealous. Or maybe envious.

Sakuno could only hope that the money she gave was worth it. She's going broke now, too.