Work Text:
Paulie always wondered silently whether Kaku knew what he looked like when he was talking to you. In the past, he noted the times when Kaku’s attention immediately abandoned whatever task was in front of him the moment you stepped into the vicinity. Paulie stopped blinking at the numerous occasions Kaku gradually floated toward you before getting swept up in conversation for as long as any of the foremen would let him. But this was an amalgam of all the moments he’d been trying to ignore if he’d ever seen one.
Because it was times like these in particular—when Kaku was so leaned over the chest-height fence he was one motion from jumping it altogether—that Paulie thought for sure that Kaku had to have some awareness of the way he looked.
Kaku’s tools lay forgotten to the side as he leaned against the fence, his arms crossed over the top. His boot wedged between a section where the chain-link had deteriorated, and his heel absentmindedly moved back and forth like a wagging tail. A plastic bag with the remains of a wrapper and a container hung from his wrist. A light smear frosting was still smudged on the side of his mouth.
“You’re really not going?” You huffed, swiping the sweet speck off his skin with your thumb.
A light chuckle teased from Kaku’s lips, his head tilted to the side. “They’re just lights,” he hummed, his eyes softening as he watched your tongue poise for argument.
“They are not just lights,” you argued, a deep pout forming on your mouth as you wiped your hand on the sleeve of Kaku’s jacket. He didn’t seem to mind. “Water 7 lights up once a year—”
Kaku couldn’t help himself. “Oh, so you mean it happens every year,” he interjected, his closed-lipped grin spreading.
“Kaku!” you scolded.
He didn’t even flinch as you swatted him on the arm, laughing his hardy boyish laugh at the playful annoyance. Instead, the light smack only melted him more. If he leaned any harder over the fence, he’d break it.
“We live on a beautiful island that lights up once a year. You’ve lived here, how long? Five years?” you debated. Kaku nodded once, the corners of his mouth still slightly upturned. “And you’ve never been to the lights festival.”
“I’ve always been workin’, darlin’,” Kaku hummed.
“That’s because you work into second shift like a workaholic.” You rolled your eyes. Kaku would never tell you he only takes the extra shift because it means he gets to see you on your walk home from work. “But even that’s not an excuse, you know. I know what time the yard closes, and you could make it if you wanted to. You just don’t want to go.”
“Are you inviting me to go with you?” Kaku probed, his heel still waggling back and forth.
Your voice stalled as your lips parted and closed. Kaku pursed his growing grin as you looked away. “Well,” you started with a flavor of nonchalance that should have served as a warning, “I figured I’d tag along with some of the foremen. But since you’re working, I guess I’ll tell the guy who invited me earlier that I’ll go with him.”
Your words swiftly wiped the smile off Kaku’s lips.
“Wait, what?” He blinked.
“Kaku!” Paulie’s voice cut through the yard, booming over the sounds of tools and woodworking. “Stop flirting and give us a hand over here!”
Kaku’s ears just about turned red.
“Well, I’ll tell you what everything was like tomorrow,” you sighed. You bid him goodbye for the day, turning on your heel with a newfound mission.
Kaku had no idea who asked you to attend the festival, but the idea of you tracking him down to say yes haunted him for the rest of the shift. Who was it? Did he know him? And if he did, how unethical would it be to apply his skill set to… remove your date for that night? Kaku was hardly the reckless sort, but the thought crossed his mind. He was certainly skilled enough to pull it off, but he quickly dismissed the idea.
He tried to push the thoughts aside, focusing on the board in front of him. He patted his pocket, then the other one. Kaku continued to stare down at the board as his hands searched his toolbelt, and just when he turned his attention to the ground—
“Behind your ear, Romeo,” Lulu gruffed as he passed by.
Kaku’s hand immediately shot to the pencil behind his ear as Lulu continued, flagging down Paulie, who was headed in the opposite direction. “Help him,” he mumbled. “The kid’s down bad.”
Paulie blinked, his head craning over his shoulder to get more information out of Lulu, but he had already disappeared somewhere into the yard. Paulie glanced warily at where Kaku stood, pencil in hand, as he measured a plank on a sawhorse. Paulie continued to glance him over as he approached, folding his clipboard under his arm.
“Hey, bud,” Paulie grumbled around the cigar between his lips. His eyes followed Kaku’s markings. “Rough day?”
“Doin’ just peachy,” Kaku muttered back, snapping his measuring tape back into the reel.
Paulie frowned. “Kaku… That plank isn’t six feet. It’s not even five. What the hell are you doing?” His gaze returned to Kaku’s face, watching the scrunched look of shock wash over him.
Kaku glanced at the plank, then his hand shot to his measuring tape, unfurling it slightly before his eyes closed with a sigh. He’d measured from the wrong side.
“I take it that your conversation earlier… You know, when you were at the fence. I take it that it didn’t go well?” Paulie asked slowly. He didn’t like prying into these things. He didn’t want to pry.
“He fumbled, that’s what he did!” one of the workmen shouted over the noise, turning half the yard’s heads.
Kaku didn’t look up from his plank, already halfway through erasing his earlier pencil markings. His ears burned pink.
“Hey, guys—come on, now—” Paulie winced, holding up a hand in the general direction of the workman, but the others had already smelled blood in the water.
“We’ve seen him trippin’ over his own shadow all day,” another builder interjected, wiping his hands on a rag, “Thought you were gonna topple that fence for sure, Kaku.”
A few surrounding workmen chuckled in the way they typically did when they were shooting the shit around the yard, gradually lifting their attention from their tasks to glance mischievously amongst each other.
“Which one of you idiots asked before him?” one of them hollered, putting a boot up on a nearby stack of planks. “Whoever it was, Kaku’s buyin’ him a beer for doin’ his job for ‘em!” he yelled, waving his dirty rag in the air like it was a goddamn yagara race.
A dull roar erupted. Someone whistled. A few vulgar comments were exchanged before Kaku straightened his back, squaring his shoulders in an attempt to look unbothered.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Kaku said sternly, his usual chipper exterior having been lost since he trudged back from the fence. An uncharacteristic exhaustion had gotten to him. That much was clear as he shot the workmen a look that wasn’t quite a glare, just deeply done. And to a lack of surprise, Kaku’s word was enough.
“Hey, man, you know we’re just givin’ ya’ a hard time.”
“Relax, bud.”
The rest of the workmen resumed their activities, moving on rather quickly as the regular bustle of the yard resumed. Kaku turned back to his plank and promptly jotted down the wrong measurement again.
Paulie blinked down at it.
“Yeah, no,” Paulie said, shaking his head. “With all due respect, you’re useless like this. Go home.” Paulie unceremoniously swiped the pencil from Kaku’s hand.
Kaku’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned. “What? I can finish—”
“You couldn’t finish the alphabet right now.” Paulie shook his head. “You don’t need to be on this shift anyway.”
Kaku took a slow, labored breath, refusing to let the tension he held in his shoulders manifest on his face. He set his pencil down softly. A cloud of sawdust flew into the air as Kaku clapped his hands together.
“Yeah,” Kaku said steadily, still somewhat lost in thought as he began to wrap up his things. “I think you’re right.”
Paulie nodded. “Get some rest. Tomorrow will be better.”
Kaku nodded back, offering a slight, close-lipped smile. It was the most normal he’d appeared all afternoon. “I’ll be right as rain in the morning.”
They didn’t exchange another word as Kaku walked out of the yard. The sounds of machinery, tools, and shouting had long since become white noise to him. The sun was just beginning to set, casting a cotton-candy hue over the sky.
Just as he was about to exit the yard, he met Lucci’s eye. Kaku offered him a nod, but received none in return, and continued passing.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Hattori cooed, and Kaku nearly stopped in his tracks right there. But Lucci continued his work, brushing silently past him.
***
When Kaku returned to his apartment, he’d hardly taken his boots off before he realized he didn’t want to be there. His hand paused at the zipper of his jacket, his gaze glazing over the quiet darkness of his living space, which stood in stark contrast to the restlessness that ruminated inside him. And so, he quickly relaced his shoes, placed down his tools, and exited.
Kaku took a running start, jogging from his front door to the street, before taking off down the street. He took his usual route around the city, his long-legged strides eating the pavement in steady, rhythmic measures as he jumped over canals and then rooftops.
He’d known you about just as long as he’d been living on Water 7. After his initial grocery run to stock his newly acquired apartment, he must’ve sat in your bakery for hours. He’d placed his bag of groceries on the table, leaning in his chair with a plate of the best castella he’d ever tasted in his hand.
Kaku would never forget the way you smiled at him from behind the counter, the conversation flowing between you from the moment you asked, “Oh, you’re not from around here, are you?”
Yes, he sat there at the table right next to the case for hours, watching as you took orders and interacted with customers, and in between, you still found time to continue speaking to him as if the conversation had never been paused.
To boot, the bakery wasn’t too far from the yard. More of Kaku’s paycheck disappeared into your bakery than he’d comfortably acknowledge. You probably acknowledged something similar, because it wasn’t too long before you were dropping by the only section where the walls around the shipyard were low enough to have a conversation over, a package of sweets in hand. And, boy, did you make a mean banana foster.
He was selling the role of Kaku, and if someone as stunning as you decided to gift him a little treat now and then, Kaku wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Or at least, that was how he justified it.
But it was moments like these—when he saw you standing alone on one of the bridges near the outskirts of the city, dressed up and alone—that it took a little more effort to convince himself.
Kaku, the Galley-La foreman, sweet on the owner of a nearby bakery. It rounded the disguise out nicely. A convenient fiction. Too convenient.
He was already leaping over the canal before he could think. The sound of his feet landing on the stone road caused you to turn instinctively. You blinked, your expression morphing in the time it took you to lay eyes on him and before he spoke. Your gaze widened slightly in surprise, then you glanced away with a flicker of sheepishness before you returned to him with a soft relief that washed over your face.
“Evenin’,” Kaku said, tipping the tip of his hat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He glanced subtly around. “Just… saw a familiar face.”
That was it. That was the excuse he’d settled on. It definitely wasn’t because he had simply seen you, and his body moved on its own.
“You didn’t,” you sighed, absentmindedly checking the road behind you from over your shoulder as if you still half-expected someone else. “Turns out my date wasn’t much of one.” You blinked for a moment before turning your attention back to Kaku. “You’re out early.”
Kaku rubbed the back of his neck. “Paulie let me off not too long ago.”
You let out an amused huff, your lips finally forming a slight smile. “And you just let that happen?”
Kaku shrugged, stepping toward you, unable to help the way in which he matched your grin. “I had a feeling.”
You raised a brow. “You had a feeling my date was going to stand me up?” you quipped, shaking your head. “Don’t tell me you killed him!”
Kaku’s breath hitched a beat. Killed him? Only in the abstract sense that Kaku, the foreman, would think about rearranging someone’s teeth after they disrespected someone as kind and beautiful as you. But he wasn’t supposed to think that way. Not as this version of Kaku. Not out loud. Not the way he had already thought about it earlier.
And then you laughed, and the very sound dispelled any tension in the atmosphere like a warm pan melting butter.
Kaku snapped himself out of it, huffing a slow, easy chuckle to harmonize with yours.
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head, “Didn’t lay a hand on the guy. Tempting, though.”
An ember of pride flared in his chest upon hearing you laugh.
“Now, as long as you don’t mind walking with a guy who’s covered in sawdust still—” Kaku offered you a crooked half-smile, patting his shoulder in emphasis as a small cloud of sawdust erupted from the fabric. — “I’ve never seen the lights before.”
Your face lit up as you breathed in a light gasp. You immediately grabbed Kaku by the hand, whisking him off into the city.
***
The two of you didn’t get too far before you slowed your pace. The city didn’t transform as much as it softened under the lights. The streets were the same. Familiar water flowed through the canals, and citizens and tourists alike filled the streets that ran along the stone buildings Kaku walked past every day. But tonight, everything was illuminated in warm, golden lights from string lights that hung between rooftops.
“Did they really put light under the curb this year?” You knelt, glancing over the edge of the walkway into the illuminated water. Sure enough, there were lines of waterproof lights that ran along the under-lip of the walkable streets, casting a magical glow into the water. “That’s so cool!”
“It’s…” Kaku started. The lights, if he were to be honest, were very pretty. But… he wasn’t paying attention to the light. In your excitement, you didn’t seem to notice the way he stared at the glowing spark in your dark pupils; he could hardly see anything else. Part of him felt guilty. He was hardly listening to you. “It’s very pretty.”
Only when Kaku spoke did you turn your glittering gaze to him, an innocent, captivating look in your eyes as if he’d just told you the very secrets of the universe.
“Well, we definitely need to see the city square,” you exclaimed as you stood.
Kaku continued to stare only at you—only at that growing star of pure joy that blazed in your eye as you grabbed his hand to lead him down the way. And perhaps for a moment, it was just the two of you occupying that walkway on the outskirts of town. All the festivities were farther inland, and even as music played in the distance and the water rushed by you, Kaku could only hear the quiet.
For just a moment, as you pointed at the simple lights along your path and held your hand in his, it seemed like you and Kaku were the only people in the entirety of Water 7. If you had told him such a thing, Kaku would have believed the fallacy in an instant.
The corners of his mouth turned upward, pushing his face to crease dimples into his cheeks.
“I can hardly wait,” Kaku breathed, and he meant every word.
He followed next to you as you led the way. Hell, he probably would have followed you to the ends of the earth if you asked. But for now, the “ends of the earth” would have to settle for being the illuminated city square on the island of Water 7.
Lights covered every building in the city, from churches to schools to restaurants. The types of lights varied by district, and there was certainly every type of light currently available to humanity. Lanterns, fairy lights, bulbs, electric and gas lamps of all kinds, and sometimes a combination.
The elementary school was lit with fairy lights and paper lanterns along the entrance. Ships made from popsicle sticks were displayed in the windows. The school doors were open. Parents and children alike carted in and out. What appeared to be an art show of children’s artwork was taking place in the lobby. Carts giving out candied fruits and sweets were parked just outside.
“Wow, color me impressed,” Kaku mused, looking up at the little boats in the windows. “These look a lot better than the ones I used to make when I was a kid.” He nodded a few times, seeming to glance over the tiny armada as if they were actual ships.
“Of course, you made tiny boats as a kid,” you hummed, bumping his shoulder playfully against yours.
Kaku hadn’t thought about it before. There wasn’t much time to be a kid on Guanhao, but the little he remembered outside of training was those tiny boats. He’d make boats out of nearly anything.
“Newspaper, popsicle sticks, anything I could get my hands on,” Kaku said, twisting his story just enough to sound normal. “I used to go to the sea every day to see how long my design would float before going under.” He nodded almost nostalgically, breathing out a tiny huff from his nose.
“So, the whole shipwright thing was fate, huh?”
When he looked at you, you already had your attention on him. The glint of the fairy lights reflected like stars in your dark pupils.
Part of him always wondered the same thing. He was still somewhat young for an agent, and this was his longest undercover assignment thus far. So, when Kaku received word that he was going to be assigned to this island and work as a shipwright, his heart nearly beat out of his chest.
Because his one interest outside training—the one thing he needed to put to the side for the sake of his training—was going to be his profession for the foreseeable future.
A spark of that giddiness flashed across his eyes as he nodded. “Yeah, now that you say it, I suppose it was.”
“I think that’s really lucky,” you said, watching the golden glow of the school cast out onto the pathway. “I don’t think everyone gets to do what they wanted to do when they were kids… but you did. That’s a real hero story, right there. From popsicle sticks to… oh, whatever it is you use in the yard.” You held your palms outward in emphasis as if you were imagining the title of a new comic.
“I don’t know, we might still have some uses for popsicle sticks on some of our ships.” He shrugged teasingly. “Might have to be the new innovation.”
“I’ll alert the media.” You winked at him, and he nearly turned as red as the lanterns around you.
Children continued to flit around you, sparklers in hand. The rush of the canals in the background had long become white noise to you both.
“Did you always want to be a baker?” Kaku asked, his hands clasped behind his back as the two of you floated toward one of the food stalls.
“I think so,” you considered, crossing an arm over your chest and touching the knuckle of your index finger to your lips. “I really liked baking when I was younger, but, uh—okay, you have to promise not to laugh.” You turned to him suddenly, clapping your hands once.
Kaku immediately blinked in apparent shock.
“Promise not to laugh?” Kaku wondered aloud, his dimples still ever-present.
“Promise not to laugh,” you repeated, turning to extend your index finger with emphasis.
Kaku held a hand over his heart, slowly blinking as he leaned slightly forward. “I solemnly swear.” He bowed, ever the gentleman.
You seemed satisfied with that answer as both of you moved up in line. You squared your shoulders, hands clasped together. “When I was really young—” You tilted your head to the side. — “I got it in my head that I desperately wanted to be a government spy,” you admitted, shaking your head a few times.
If Kaku had been drinking something, he might’ve spat it out. The look that flashed across his gaze was more evident than any semblance of emotion Kaku had ever let slip before. In all five years of living undercover in Water 7, he’d neveraccidentally let his thoughts show on his face. That was a fundamental skill that was drilled into him during his time on Guanhao. A core, absentminded tool he never had to check twice.
And yet, there he stood. A whole lifetime of training, undone by one simple sentence.
But it wasn’t enough that your words had pierced the blink spot in his training. No, the worst had to be the way you noticed his expression flicker, cocking your head to the side again.
God, he watched you notice.
His lips parted to recover.
“I just… didn’t expect that,” he laughed softly. A signature Kaku laugh. Friendly. Light. Definitely not a government agent laugh.
“I know I don’t really look the government spy part,” you continued, looking absentmindedly at the lights around you. “I mean, what would I do? Smuggle secret messages in pastries?”
Kaku’s composure fluctuated as you moved up in line. The fact that he could list at least ten bakery-based dead-drop methods in that moment was beside the point. He had to nod. He had to agree. Say something. And that something was not—
Hollow buns with messages inside.
Messages printing on the bottom of cupcake wrappers.
“You… might be surprised what counts as spy work,” he forced out another breathy laugh, trying not to make it sound too obvious he was speaking from experience.
Messages disguised as decorative writing.
Burnaway pastry paper.
“Oh, so I could be a spy?” you snickered with a disbelieving roll of your eyes. You lightly knocked Kaku’s shoulder with your own.
Menu codes.
Flavor codes.
“Can’t let down that inner child of yours now, can you?” Kaku offered, just as the two of you reached the counter. “Do you happen to be hungry?”
Recipe ciphers.
Order phrases.
“I’ve been waiting for festival food all day,” you confessed, and that was all you needed to say.
Kaku leaned an elbow on the counter, facing you with a sweetly mischievous expression as he told the vendor, “One of everything, please.”
You gaped at him a moment, somewhere between shocked and impressed. But just as you were fishing out the proper amount of berries, Kaku paid the entire cost in full.
You pouted slightly. “Okay, you have to let me pay you back for that.”
Kaku pretended not to hear you as he received the first of your snacks—a very ornate bouquet of candied fruits. “Hold this for a sec, why don’t ‘cha?”
You playfully shook your head, receiving the fruits in concession. “I’m going to pay you back next time,” you declared as Kaku handed another festival snack to you.
“Right, right, sure thing,” he teased, having no intention of ever letting you do such a thing.
Messages written under eggs in a carton.
Ciphers decorated into bread crust.
***
By the time the two of you had received your snacks, Kaku wished he had brought his toolbelt along. It turns out that one of everything was a lot of food. And so, you trekked down the street to find a good spot to camp out and eat some of your cargo.
You found a set of stairs to sit on, which overlooked a few intersecting canals. Your strategy appeared to be to make the rounds of all the snacks, trying to keep things somewhat even as your favorite dwindled slightly faster. Kaku, however, was trying to hide just how much candied citrus he’d inhaled.
Yagara bulls swam through the water, carting their little boats. Their reins were decked with colored lights, and many of them wore different costumes. You spied a few wearing pirate caps and a handful more wore masks, horns, and animal ears. You saw some in the distance that appeared to have been dressed up as Galley-La foremen.
You stood back up, touching Kaku’s arm lightly as you pointed. “Hey, uh, do you think that one’s supposed to be you?”
Kaku absentmindedly leaned toward you to follow your line of sight. The yagara bull wore a white Galley-La hat and a lopsided orange-and-blue shawl around its long neck. The reins were decorated with fake tools like a belt. But the real striking detail was the long, papier-mache nose that sat on its snout. You looked toward him with an almost tentative smile.
He looked at the bull for a moment, and then the corners of his lips flickered upward. A wide grin broke out over his mouth, and then he barked out a sharp, sudden laugh. Another broke loose, even louder this time, and before he could stop himself, Kaku doubled over, his hands blacked on his knees. His shoulders shook as an ugly, shrill sound halfway between disbelief and pure delight tore from him, loud enough to startle a passing dog.
“Oh—oh, come on,” he gasped, gesturing a whole hand toward the bull. “Look at it! Look at that!”
You laughed with him, yours far softer than Kaku’s. You were far more invested in Kaku’s complete collapse over the yagara bull. He was always rather chipper but mostly work-oriented. But now, as Kaku struggled to straighten out, still choking on his own laughter, you found yourself laughing harder at him than at the bull.
This wasn’t the polite, sunny Kaku you knew from the yard. In fact, you didn’t think you had ever seen him this undone. Perhaps he came close when he visited your bakery, but never like this. He was already young as it was, but something about his laughter almost made him look younger, lighter, and boyish.
“You know—” You grinned, taking your chances as Kaku was just beginning to regain his composure. — “I think you need to go over and say hi.”
The expression of realization took over Kaku’s face in an instant. His eyes widened, and he gaped slightly.
“C’mon.”
You grabbed his sleeve again, making for the nearest bridge. Kaku followed like he had no control over his own legs, grinning like an idiot the whole time as you weaved through the crowd. You waved your free hand to flag down the riders.
The riders seemed to understand, waving back to you as they pulled over to the edge of the canal. As you grew closer, it became clear that Kaku wasn’t the only one who’d had his likeness stolen by a yagara bull.
Yagara Lucci sported a top hat, a goatee, and angry eyebrows. Yagara Paulie wore goggles on its forehead. A fake cigar was strapped to the cheekpiece of the reins. Tilestone and Lulu were also there, cheekily donning their respective facial hair and work belts.
“Oh, now that’s just mean,” Kaku mused, beaming through every word. He caught more details up close: the little tools shoved into the toolbelt, the way the hat was cut to accommodate the bull’s crest, and the excessive length the creators gave the nose.
A group of kids no older than ten sat in the boats, each driving their own bull, which were now stopped in a loose line. The one in the boat pulled by the Kaku bull stared with wide eyes at Kaku (the man), hitting his friend on the arm without looking.
“Dude, dude, it’s the guy! It’s the real guy!”
“Do you like ‘em?” A girl missing front teeth waved enthusiastically as she stood. She gestured to the entire ensemble of bulls. “We made ‘em ourselves!”
Kaku stepped forward, hands on his hips and grinning widely. “Heh, that’s me. That—that’s me as a yagara bull,” he wheezed.
You pressed a hand to your mouth, hardly stifling a snort. “They… got them all. That one looks just like Lucci.” You pointed to the very angled eyebrows that resembled mirrored sevens more than facial hair.
Kaku squatted down so he was eye level with the kids. “You all made these?” he asked, his voice light but undeniably impressed.
“Yeah!” the group chorused, their boats rocking on the illuminated water.
“What? No way!” he teased, turning toward the Kaku horse. He glanced it over, evaluating it as if it were a real ship. “That’s some craftsmanship.”
“It’s true!” A boy in a Galley-La hat exclaimed. “I painted the hammers and the hats and—and the name tags!”
“I made the eyebrows!” A little girl with dried paint still on her hands shouted.
“I also made the eyebrows!”
“And the beards!”
“No kidding!” Kaku bellowed, gaping with exaggeration. “Did you paint the eyebrows on the Lucci’s bull? That thing looks meaner than the real one.” He gestured toward it, and the yagara bull flashed a sinister-looking grin.
The girl who’d done it giggled. “I made the beard too!”
“Well, you got it spot on.” Kaku offered her a high five, and she gleefully accepted. “Excellent work. We might need all of you down at the shipyard to help us.” He went down the line, stretching whichever way he needed to give each kid their well-deserved high five.
“Okay, I have to get a picture,” you said, pulling out a photography snail.
Kaku sat at the edge of the canal, the bull bearing his likeness right behind him. It rested its muzzle on Kaku’s shoulder as the kids gathered around as safely as they could with paper lanterns in their hands.
“Smile!” you said.
“What are you talkin’ about? I haven’t stopped smiling since we got here!” Kaku grinned, and you snapped the picture.
Kaku laughed again, finally standing to his full height, and once both of you bid farewell to the children, you continued to see the rest of the lights. And for the briefest moment, as the night darkened around you and the lanterns only glowed brighter, Kaku forgot entirely that he was supposed to be undercover at all.
***
The two of you stayed out far later than either of you had anticipated. You continued to walk the city even as vendors began packing up their stalls before taking a water taxi across the canals, even though Kaku could have leaped the two of you over them with less than a step of a running start. And at the end of the night, you ended up back at your bakery.
It was the first building Kaku had seen in a while that was dark inside, save for one running security light around your cash register. You fished out the key, unlocking the door to an establishment Kaku had stepped foot in a million times before.
“Still have some room for some castella?” you asked, smiling at him gently as you held the door open.
Kaku could have eaten all the candied fruit in the city, and he’d still have room for your baked goods.
“Always,” he said, and you entered the bakery together.
“I don’t have much left out front,” you admitted, your head tilting to the side with a somewhat sheepish expression. “I didn’t think I’d sell out on a festival day, but it seems like people really had a taste for sweets today.”
The air inside still carried the warm scent of flour and butter, clean and sweet. Most of the display cases were wiped clean, the trays stacked neatly behind the glass. It wasn’t an all too unfamiliar sight to Kaku. Sometimes, if he made it too late, you’d already be sold out. But…
You walked toward the counter, circumventing the cases. Kaku stood in the middle of the shop, breathing in the space. He’d never been here after dark—you always closed before then—and in the hush of a world winding down, the bakery felt strangely ethereal, like a place suspended outside ordinary time.
“Stay right there. I set something aside earlier,” you said with a lifted finger before disappearing into the kitchen.
“You set something aside for me?” Kaku mused with barely restrained joy.
“I thought I’d give it to you tomorrow!” you called, your voice muffled as the swinging door flapped back and forth in the doorway.
He heard the faint clicking of a door and the rustling of parchment. Kaku glanced around the bakery, which suddenly felt a lot smaller than it usually did. He wiped his clammy palms on the sides of his pants, internally blaming his proximity to ovens as the reason his collar suddenly felt so warm.
When you returned, you were balancing a warm loaf of castells on a small wooden board. The thick pieces were fresh and steaming, already filling the air with a delicious fragrance. You set down two plates on his usual table along with utensils.
“Tea?” you asked softly.
Kaku hardly trusted himself to answer you. He nodded far too many times before he did. “Yes, yes, please.” His voice cracked.
If you noticed, you didn’t say anything.
“Tea it is,” you said, returning to the kitchen.
Kaku sat down, running his hands over his knees. He was a goddamn agent for heaven’s sake, and he needed to start acting like one. He looked up, suddenly infatuated with the elegant patterns on your ceiling tile.
“Anything interesting up there?”
Kaku’s heart jumped. When he snapped out of his trance, you were standing across from him, eyes also on the ceiling. You’d already set two teacups on the table. A warm teapot was braced in your hands. Hell, maybe you could be an agent after all.
“No, uh…” Kaku tried to shake himself out of it. “Nice tiles,” he opted.
You laughed, though not at him. “I always thought so,” you said, sitting down. “I think the last tenant was married to a tilemaker. Or maybe it was the last landlord?”
You served Kaku a slice of cake on a delicate plate, then poured him a cup of tea.
“That’ll… That’ll do it,” he said, and having officially run out of things today, he took a bite.
Kaku nearly groaned at the flavor. No matter how many times he had your baking, he’d never get used to how amazing your pastries were.
“This is…” He needed a second to regain himself. After two goddamn words. “This is unfairly good. As usual.” Kaku took another bite, somehow having already made it halfway through his already generous slice.
You laughed gently, lifting your teacup to your lips.
The bakery felt very small. It felt smaller with you sitting so close. The two of you alone. And for a moment, you ate together in silence like the world around you had fallen away. Perhaps Kaku would have liked that version of reality.
“Can I ask you something?” you asked carefully, glancing off to the side.
Kaku stopped mid-bite, almost as if he were a school kid who’d just gotten in trouble. He blinked once. “Of course,” he replied, already sorting through possible scenarios in his head like a Rolodex.
You sighed, setting your fork down as you leaned both elbows on the table in front of you. You looked him straight in the eye. “I always thought you weren’t interested,” you said with all the nonchalance in the world. “At least, not in me, anyway.”
Kaku nearly short-circuited.
Never in a million years did he expect…
Your chest deflated as you glanced off to the side again, this time settling your cheek in your palm. “You’d come in all the time, sure, but I never knew if you were just being… nice? Friendly? Everyone’s always talking about how friendly you are. Or I never knew if it was just that you liked sweets, so I just started bringing you some in case I was—oh… You know.” You removed your face from your hand, waving your fingers in a circular motion as you tried to put your thoughts into words. “Imaginging things,” you settled on.
“Imagining things?” Kaku repeated, his gaze dropping to his half-eaten castella. He scoffed out a slight, bitter laugh. Here you were in front of him, talking about imagining things when you’ve read him better than anyone had in a long time.
“Trust me… If there was any imagining going on… it was on my end.” He let out another sharp laugh, one that dulled and faded in the sweet air. “I wanted to be clearer. I—” He looked up at you, his hands gingerly cupped around his plate. — “I just… had to be careful.”
He had to suppress the way his chest twinged. Not because he was an agent. Not because he was supposed to be able to hold back his emotions. No, it was because you were sitting across from him, and when you stared over the table, you saw Kaku, the cheerful foreman who worked at the Galley-La Company.
You saw the shell he’d been telling himself for years he’d crafted to perfection. You brought that version of him his favorite food and kept that version of Kaku talking at the fence, and God, you wanted him, too, and you had no idea what was going on just beneath the surface of this city.
“Careful of what?” you teased. “Scarring me off?”
Those words marked the umpteenth time Kaku let the silence invade the space that should’ve been taken up by his clever words. His entire lifetime had built him up to be able to control any conversation, but tonight, silence was getting the better of him.
Tonight, you insisted on pulling things out of him that he wanted to keep tamped down.
Because for a second—just a split second—Kaku wondered what the world would look like if he told you everything then and there. He wondered in which ways the universe would contort if you ran away together that night and hid away on some faraway island where not even Rob Lucci could find you. But the thought was fleeting. Just as fleeting as those newspaper boats in the sea.
“Yes,” he answered truthfully. His lips parted, then closed.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to let it happen. It wasn’t supposed to get this involved.
A moment passed, and Kaku just thought.
You didn’t say a word.
The lie he’d been telling himself crumbled like the strawman it was, because Kaku should have known that having a well-known crush on the local baker wasn’t something he could ever keep that way. And it had never seemed clearer that everyone else knew it too. Lucci. The guys at the yard. Perhaps even you did to a certain degree.
But there was a time he’d have to leave and never come back. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when he might have to do irrevocable damage to this island and disappear. Maybe it was a cruel fate that your date stood you up that night and left you with him, a man who was about to overstep a line that shouldn’t be crossed.
“I don’t want to mess this up,” he blurted, knowing very well the decision he was making.
Perhaps tonight—perhaps for this job—he could bend the rules.
He could let Kaku the shipwright win.
And the consequences? Well…
“I am…” His eyes flickered from the table, back to your eyes. Kaku leaned forward, his forearms braced on the table. Serious. Vulnerable. “I am interested. Very interested,” he breathed.
You couldn’t help the bashful grin that widened your lips. Your fingers brushed the edge of his plate, close enough to touch his. A small brush. A small allowance.
“Then… don’t stop being interested,” you said softly, never taking his eyes off you for a second.
Kaku’s chest tightened. He knew better. He knew this wasn’t something he’d be able to walk away from… But he was tired of walking away from things that felt good. He was tired of scrounging for scraps to make boats, only to hide them beneath the ocean waves. He was tired of waiting for an assignment where he could fudge the line between work and joy.
He was tired of pretending he couldn’t have this.
In the warm quiet of the empty bakery, surrounded by the scent of tea and his favorite cake, he let himself fall just a little.
Just enough for tonight.
Just enough to reignite the lie that he was allowed to have this.
Allowed to have you.