So What If It Is?
So what if it is?
The jelly cake and the jalapeño sablé weren’t a problem. Both were recipes of a difficulty ordinary people could watch on YouTube and reasonably follow along.
The problem was the cake itself.
The cake I had to make was one thing when it came to the sponge and the cream, but the decorations sat at the absolute peak of extravagance. The kind of cake you could only make if you already possessed a pâtissier’s skills.
“Aaa! Dadda!”
“Yes, baby.”
I was still reeling from the unexpected news when Luca’s call snapped me back to reality. I turned to him. The little one stretched out his tiny hands, so I offered a finger. He grabbed it, gave it a vigorous shake, and beamed.
“Hee…”
“…Luca.”
Of course he was just demanding attention, but for a second it felt like the baby was trying to comfort me, and my chest went warm and tight.
Whip.
Naturally, Luca soon discarded my finger the way he discarded toys and turned his gaze to the window.
Yeah. My soft feelings didn’t go anywhere, though.
I sat up properly in the chair and took a moment to settle my heart.
“…”
At first I’d panicked like someone whose cheat sheet had been discovered, but… it would be fine, wouldn’t it?
How many cakes had I baked by now?
Just give me flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, and butter and a dozen recipes would spring to mind on the spot.
You always learn something just from watching dozens of times, and the breads and desserts I’d produced since last winter were beyond counting.
…Just in case, maybe I could pack my own tools on the day and ask permission to film with them.
But that still felt a little much, so the better plan was to buy baking tools at the mart on the way home today and practice by baking one cake every morning.
Or, wait…
I texted Kelly to ask whether she could tell me which baking tools had been sponsored.
If I only needed to order them with points, I could just bring the exact same products and say I wanted to shoot with those. No problem, right?
“…Ah.”
…Well, nothing I could do about it. I’d just practice by baking one every morning and every night.
No need to fret so hard.
The shoot was this Friday, so including today I still had four days of practice time.
The only catch was that baking morning and night would produce seven whole cakes.
I was counting on my fingers the people I could give them to when we arrived at the church.
“Daddyyy!”
The moment I opened the car door, Reni, who had been watching from far away, came charging over with all his might.
I picked Reni up, stopped by the mart for groceries, and bought baking tools.
The walk home, pushing the stroller.
One shoulder was loaded with the bags that hadn’t fit in the stroller, and every block I endured a fresh barrage of Reni’s questions. By the time we reached the house I was completely drained.
And why did the weather have to be so hot today of all days? September was almost here, yet the heat clearly hadn’t gotten the memo and was still showing off midsummer strength.
Click.
I carefully rolled the stroller inside, closed the front door, and felt every last drop of energy leave my body.
“Haa… we’re home.”
The quiet greeting made the kids stare up at me, then copy it.
“Haa, we’re home!”
“We’we home!”
I’d momentarily forgotten you weren’t supposed to sigh in front of the children.
I laughed it off, lifted them out of the stroller first, and Reni patted my hand as he asked,
“Daddy, are you tired?”
“A little. But we’re going to buy a car soon, so then Daddy won’t be so tired anymore.”
“A car? Vroom-vroom?”
“That’s right. A vroom-vroom.”
“Wow!”
I stripped the clothes off the child who had thrown both arms up in a cheer, then caught Luca, who was half-crawling toward the playroom, and washed both of them first.
Then came lunchtime.
“Aigoo, look at him eat.”
Today’s menu was rice noodles stir-fried with finely chopped spinach and chicken.
I speared a piece of chicken on the baby fork, twirled some noodles around it, and Luca accepted every bite with enthusiastic little chews.
“Mmm.”
The second I got distracted with the spoon for even a moment, Luca grabbed it and steered it toward his own mouth.
“Aigoo, our baby’s eating so well again today.”
They called it the “wonder weeks”—the periods when other people’s babies cried more, fussed more, refused food, or refused sleep while they hit growth spurts.
Our Luca didn’t seem to have any of that. Sometimes he even acted so chill I wondered if he was on his second life.
Of course he still got cranky when things didn’t go his way, and he still had separation anxiety that made it a crisis if Daddy vanished from sight for even a second…
But just the fact that he always ate well and never cried for no reason already felt like a blessing.
If only he would start feeding himself, that would be perfect.
“All right, Luca, want to hold the fork and try eating by yourself?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, here.”
Encouraged by his clean answer, I placed the fork in his little hand.
Clatter!
Not a chance. Today, too, Luca immediately flung the utensil. And he flung it far.
His strength was improving by the day, which was admirable in its own way.
“Seriously, why do you always do that? Why?”
Grumbling, I walked over, picked up the fallen fork, and wiped the floor. The pitiful utensil that had rolled across the ground went into the dish bin; I grabbed a fresh fork and turned back around.
In that brief moment—the tiniest window when my eyes had been elsewhere—I caught Reni’s fork going into Luca’s mouth and coming back out.
Aigoo. I put on a deliberately stern voice and scolded them.
“Reni. Daddy told you not to do that. Reni’s food is for Reni to eat.”
“Just one bite. Luca was hungry so I only gave him one bite, Daddy. Babies are always hungry.”
Having delivered his not-really-an-excuse excuse, the child promptly twirled more rice noodles onto his own fork and popped them into his mouth.
I turned to Luca next.
“Luca, you can’t take big brother’s food.”
“Hee…”
He couldn’t possibly understand me, but he seemed to know he’d done something wrong; he gave a sly little smile.
“You’ve already eaten a lot today, Luca. Okay, last one. Aaah.”
“Aaah!”
I slipped the fork into the adorably opened mouth.
“All gone.”
I showed him the empty bowl, lifted Luca out of the chair, and looked over at Reni.
“Reni’s almost finished too, huh? Good job. Let’s finish the rest without leaving any, okay?”
“Yeees.”
He was smiling, but the way he dragged the word out told me today’s menu hadn’t quite hit the spot.
Even so, he no longer set his utensils down and declared the meal over the way he used to; he was making a real effort to finish. Reni had changed a lot too. In a good way, of course.
After the meal came playtime.
All the worries I’d had when I first brought Reni home now felt almost silly—the brothers got along remarkably well. Even without me intervening, the two of them played just fine together.
I set them both on the play mat, closed the fence, and they immediately understood it was playtime. Whatever toys suited their mood that day kept them happily occupied for a solid hour.
I still couldn’t leave their side, but I could lean against the wall and rest without getting in their way.
I was sitting with my back against the wide cushion propped against the wall, filming the kids at play, when a message came in from Rachel about the car lease.
Rachel was still working at the company. Given her position, she clearly couldn’t just quit overnight the way I had.
Originally I hadn’t meant to ask her for anything until after she left, but it was an expense-processing matter, so I’d had no choice but to ask on the way home after picking Reni up today.
Rachel only asked a few questions and then handled everything herself in no time.
It was a little moving. No—honestly, it was just too convenient.
Of course, that was exactly why I was going to be paying her a salary going forward.
I’d already decided on the same model as Cassandra’s car—the one I’d ridden in several times and found comfortable. Full options, and I’d even added a sunroof for the kids.
We exchanged a few messages about how many years I’d drive it and the fixed monthly amount for that period.
If I paid a little extra they would even deliver the car right to my door. It truly couldn’t get more convenient than this.
All that remained was choosing the color.
“…”
I pressed down the corners of my mouth that kept trying to lift and sat up from my half-reclined position.
It wasn’t anything all that grand, but… thinking about picking out a car of my own for the first time in my life still made me a little excited.
Okay, so it was a lease rather than a purchase—but if my family and I were going to ride around in it, it was our car. End of story.
The safest choices would be white or silver. A navy with a bit of pearl in it didn’t sound bad either…
Any of the three would have been fine, so I decided to ask Reni’s opinion. Luca wouldn’t care one way or the other.
“Baby.”
When I called, both Luca and Reni looked up at me at the same time.
“Ah, sorry. Reni, can you come here for a second?”
Reni crawled over on all fours, stuck himself right against my side, and peered at the phone.
How had he known Daddy wanted to ask him something? I stroked his hair and asked,
“Daddy’s picking out a vroom-vroom for our family. What color do you think would be good?”
“Vroom-vroom! Vrooom! Vroom!”
The child was so excited he flapped his arms and legs and snatched the smartphone out of my hand.
“Yes, a vroom-vroom. Now, these three here…”
I was about to tell Reni to choose among the three colors when Luca, who had been watching, crawled over with great determination, hauled himself up using me for support, and stared at the phone screen.
“Aigoo, does our Luca want to pick too?”
“Uh-huh.”
But it clearly wasn’t his area of interest; he soon lifted his head, looked at me, and mashed my face with both hands.
The silent protest was unmistakable: stop calling only big brother for everything.
“Okay, okay. Daddy’s sorry.”
“Auu-ah.”
While I patted Luca’s back, Reni had already found his favorite color. He grinned and pointed at the smartphone screen.
“Daddy, it has to be this one!”
“…Yellow?”
“Yes! Our family’s vroom-vroom should be the same color as the stars!”
…We had a problem. Yellow hadn’t even been among the candidates I’d considered.
No, yellow was a bit much. We weren’t picking a toy car…
I should have shown him only those three colors from the start and made him choose among them.
I scrambled for a way to persuade the child who had already clearly fallen for yellow, then landed on a reasonably plausible excuse.
“Reni, but the stars in the night sky are actually white, you know.”
“Uuuh…?”
The child tilted his head. Seizing the moment, I took the smartphone back and showed him the white car.
“See? Clean and nice, right? Real stars in the night sky are white, so wouldn’t it be good if our car was white too?”
In truth, real stars came in every color imaginable. But stars beyond the solar system were still outside Reni’s consideration.
A little underhanded, maybe, but white was still better than yellow.
Reni listened, thought for a moment, then made a thoroughly troubled face. He pressed his little hands into my arm and said,
“But, Daddy… the star inside my heart is yellow…”
“I-is that so…?”
“Auu-ung-ah.”
Luca muttered something, then crawled rapidly back toward the toys.