Sugar at Sugar Home

Miteki Bless' train rides home were a vacuous experience. She couldn't take the same route she took from home to school, because the systems didn't have valid return-routes.

Compared to her 15-23 minute morning commute, her return home was around 32-39 minutes. A minor difference that harmed nobody.

The wait time for the train was longer than the schedule she was used to. Overall, the silence and the unknown comforted her the entire way to home.

She stood in front of the five mirrors.

She tested out her expression, front and center.

She tested out a lopsided grin.

She forced her lips to twitch. She realized the left side didn't twitch the same way her right side did, and she struggled to make it do so.

She grimaced.

She suddenly lit up, frowning right after.

The frown turned into a pout, and the pout morphed into a thoughtful look.

Her face seemed fine at home.

She entered her resting face. The emotionless face dulled all her features, accentuating her dragonic eyes.

She sighed and turned away from the mirror.

She was supposed to be relaxing.

She was hesitant to take a nap. She wasn't worried about the time, she had around 4 hours until her mother came home.

A nap between 30 minutes and 60 minutes was enough for her to bake a cake and make a regular-sized seafood boil.

Her worry was the quality of sleep. Two times in a row, this morning and before lunch, waking up felt like resuscitation.

She wasn't as panicked in the morning as she was at lunch… but according to her slowish prep-record that morning, the sluggishness was much more intense.

Miteki Bless was the kind of nightowl and early bird combo, the worm was got both at night and at the mornings.

Today was blunt-bound to be a weird day from that unorthodox start. She felt, in this moment, the start of her day was an achingly chilling omen.

She was disappointed in herself for not noticing. She might've lived in a science only household, but her and her mother were believers in the supernatural anyway.

Thank you for calling the magic department again—they're on standby.

They based their belief in the supernatural on their knowledge of science. Science dictated that magic was real, that things like ghost, spirits, ghouls and brain-snatchers were real somewhere out there. And because they believed in science, they thought, science does not explain everything.

Because science is science, it cannot explain everything.

Because Bless was too scared to sleep, the most logical course of action for optimal relaxation was a bath.

The village had a hot spring, but fearing again, she didn't want to step out of her courtyard's acres. Stepping into the village would likely lead to another outburst. There were too many of those for her tiny, tired little head.

"Uguu…"

She'd bathe in one of her courtyard's lakes.

Behind her paper changing panels, she changed into a onepiece swimsuit.

It exposed her arms and legs, black and shiny. It was flexible enough for swimming and even an out of water workout.

She grabbed her diving goggles and preemptively veiled them over her eyes.

She passed by the dojo in her room, full of swords.

The non-wooden swords had been collected by her over the years, some few attempts at breaking into the appraisal business.

She talked with lawyers, brokers and learned from pawnshop frequenters.

She hired freelancers in the beginning, not expecting much from them. What she wanted from them, wasn't the fruitioning of their sword-attaining promises, but to see them fail and succeed.

They were data to 8, 9, 10 and 11 year old Miteki Bless.

She wanted to see what made someone lay down their sword, to see what made them stop barking and give in.

She let her hired freelancers keep the swords they won, and keep the money they lost. As a single-guardian household, they weren't particularly rich off of Miteki Amafuu. Oppositely, the Mitekis were rich off the work of their ancestral hall.

Miteki Bless had wanted to know what they used to do before, and she could only make guesswork from her mother's constant refusals. They were underground spokespeople based on her assumptions.

And under the impression of using dirty money, Miteki Bless didn't mind being immoral with the yen she consistently used for her constantly fluctuating hobbies and interests.

Miteki Amafuu wasn't stupid either. She had multiple funds for multiple things, including one named "Baby's whims," separate from household funds, bills, spending money, necessities, luxuries and Miteki Bless' funds for abroad colleges. She didn't mind spending excessively, thanks to the money Bless would bring back in from her countless competitions.

The money they got from the swords Miteki Bless appraised was relatively smaller in amount compared to Miteki Bless' other antics, but the amount wasn't low at all.

For 6 collected swords, she'd gotten a collective total of ¥14,045,300.

The real amount was potentially higher, if the swords she let her hired workers keep were accounted for.

Miteki Bless didn't care about the sword prices. For her, the journey counted more than the destination.

The thrill of manipulating a person who had the worst interests for her in mind was real nice… The only value she could quench out of appraisals.

As she dipped into the lake, water filling up to her waist line, cattails rubbed against her butt.

"Ah!" She kicked backwards, making contact with… well, air.

Her face blushed expressively. She pouted at the cattails, stomping, "evil, evil, evil!"

"Hmph."

Wasn't this girl quite pathetic…?

Many would agree, few could find it in themselves to disagree.

Miteki Bless trudged further into the rippling lake, tip-toeing on the underwater mud.

She laughed, tickled by a few fish biting at her toes. "Are they that crusty, buddies!"

Arriving at an adequate spot in the lake, Miteki Bless dived. "Coming to see you, fishies!"

Bless spotted a rock catfish near the surface.

She approached the rock catfish and reached out for an underwater scratch.

The catfish swam away.

Miteki nodded the time it takes for 4 seasons to pass by.

The fish in this lake were used to her touch and never ran away.

It wasn't too random for a rock catfish to be near the surface, but in the lake specifically, the catfish enjoyed staying at the lakebed. The ones that would come up the most were the younger ones, empty-headed, less experienced and tenfold curiouser than the older ones.

Miteki Bless wasn't naive though, she didn't rule out that the lake was big enough for it to remain largely unexplored by her. She had a habit of rotating between the eight lakes in her courtyard.

If she had to guess, the lakes were individually, 60-75% explored. If she had to be humbler, she'd lower the number to 1%. That was a huge gap.

It meant she took into consideration that she might be statistically 99% incorrect. It would be an exaggeration to say Miteki Bless was meticulous and so mathematical in regular life, when doing things as cosmically little as this. She mainly went by on estimations, disregarding the mathematical thinking she uses in academia.

Swimming with the minnows distracted her from stress a sufficient moment.

She wasn't in the mood to dive down further and felt replenished.

She walked around the yard waiting patiently to dry.

On one of the tall trees, whose seeds were imported from Malaysia, she saw a gem-faced civet with a face so biteable she wanted to stuff them between her jaws.

She squealed and scared the civet away. She sprayed water everywhere as she ran in place, trying to shake off the cuteness aggression that was currently energizing her.

The cute agression unexpectedly helped her drying predicament.

Waddling like a cat—no, waddling like a dog actually helped.

A brown leaf from the tree drifted down and caught onto her hair. It was a beam light in her hair that was darker thanks to the water that currently soggied it.

Her mother's room had a sauna that could dry her, and that was her next destination.

She changed out of her onepiece and wrapped herself in a throwaway kimono that she always used when drying herself.

Being naked wasn't something she was a fan of, she avoided it as much as possible. In a day, she was naked only when covering herself in foamy soap and pure, extracted honey.

If adding a section to the courtyard didn't mean the exploitation of the working class, Miteki Bless would've added one section to farm bees.

One section… realistically said Miteki Bless would add 500 sections if she could to fit more of her interests.

6 minutes passed in the sauna. 30 seconds more, Miteki Bless decided to head out.

She brushed fingers on her flushed joints and smoothly fursoft skin.

Miteki Bless changed into a pure red yukata. The singular, branded color was a yellow cloud running down her entire backside.

The curvature of her body distorted the image of the silk-threaded swirling yellow cloud.

Miteki's usually quiet phone buzzed with messages.

Bless didn't use her phone much, so she always hazardly threw it in a random corner of her room.

Worried her mom was messaging her at this hour, Miteki Bless scantily hopped around the room.

It took 3 minutes of buzzing and a 5 minute hopping workout to find it. It was on a random, sage green floor cushion.

The buzzing wasn't from her mother.

It had been from Lydie Heung's checkmarked and verified account.

It wasn't a scam…

Miteki Bless had sweat trickle down to her chin. "Stupid sauna…"

Her room was cold, the effects of the sauna had long been combatted against.

She had forgotten to give Lydie Heung her SleepyTalk earlier, yet here Lydie was, spamming her inbox.

Miteki opened SleepyTalk, wondering how Lydie had found her… The chatting app opened on her profile.

Bless Miteki. 30K followers.

Hm, maybe she wasn't so difficult to find afterall.

"Thank you, Lydie-chan." Lydie Heung being able to freely message her was a caution vulnerability. She changed her settings, changing direct messages from red to green on Friends Only.

Before changing her message settings, she could freely message Lydie Heung. However, she had to accept her message request and it automatically cleared 15 notifications for her.

The rest of her messages were cleared as well. She didn't see a message somehow from 4 days in the future.

Tuesday 24th, 7:58 AM, a freshly made account.

BlueCapLife: Hello. Are you alive?

LydieHeung: Did you get home safely?

LydieHeung: Answer me or I'll inflate like a ballon.

LydieHeung: Look at the cat I saw during my walk home.

LydieHeung: Sent an Attachment

The photo was carefully arranged, the cat brushing their face against a giant low-hanging leaf, peaking through a chain-fence.

Lydie Heung's shadow stretched out long in the distance, consuming the cat's shadow, leaving the tail to peek through. She carefully placed her body behind the camera to give off the illusion that the cat tail belonged to her.

LydieHeung: Sent a Post

LydieHeung: This is where the concert will be at. Read it, tell me when you can come. It starts at 7:58 AM. Be there at 5, latest we can stick you to death.

LydieHeung: style you to death* you'll look pretty

(That was definitely on purpose.)

LydieHeung: Sent a Sticker

A fox grinning while stuffing their face with carrots.

BlessMiteki: ???

Bless clicked the link to the post and read it over carefully a few times to be thorough.

She sent a text summarizing what she understood over to Lydie.

BlessMiteki: A science fair is sponsoring the concert? I need to be aware that the venue is connected to the stadium? You have a meet and greet with fans that signed up to join the science fairs' demonstrations? The actual performance is an hour and the meet and greet is two? Your latest album will be played? Unexpected guest to be expected last minute?

LydieHeung: yeah

LydieHeung: guest is you

She was less active with Bless here.

The silent-yap, yap-silent ratio was true even in texting mode.

BlessMiteki: Are you busy?

LydieHeung: rehearsing.

Bless stopped chatting there.

It was hard to tell emotion over text and she felt awkward trying to determine what Lydie was portraying to her, not knowing that Lydie was typing less because she was worried earlier and was trying to grab Miteki's attention.

She didn't call because that would be too overbearing. She sent multiple texts to be lowkey about her worry.

With Miteki Bless, or Bless Miteki actively, in live motion, texting her back she became reclusive and self-conscious.

Her not wanting to scare Miteki Bless off is unironically what scared her off.

BlessMiteki: Bye. I'm going to bake castellas and meringue for mama.

At home, posted up at her vanity, Lydie groaned loudly.

"Quiet down! Hey!" Skyla Heung yelled outside her door.

Because Lydie didn't reply, Skyla screamed again. "Hey! Did you hear me!"

"Yes! Yes! Whatever you say mom!"

On the other side of the door, her sister, Skyla Heung clutched her neck, her entire lower face wrinkling as she vacuumed in copious amounts of air. She looked left and right, making sure her parents weren't home to hear Lydie.

Death, death, death………….

She shrieked, losing hairs, and rushed for her room. "Mother? Do I sound old enough for her to mistake me as mother?!"

As if it was in their blood, both sisters were exclaiming and questioning their lives.

"'Mama'? Did she write that with a straight face or… the mythic lively face seen only in folklore?"

Miteki Bless had typed it out with her tongue sticking out.

She typed slowly and made many typos that she worked hard to fix.

Had she not concentrated so hard, maybe she'd match the image in Lydie's head.

"Wait, she has to stay!" Lydie texted her a couple times to no avail.

Miteki Bless was M.I.A. She bit on her nail… "I hope she makes it tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Bless was impervious to her plight.

Her mind went blank as she baked, on auto-pilot control.

Her body moved precisely, every decision efficient.

She prepared the castella and meringue at the same time, hoping they'd finish baking at the same time.

The ingredients weren't difficult to whisk and fetch, everything was at home.

Including multiple smart ovens that looked out of place with the traditional decor.

Two pelicans were painted on bamboo scrolls that hung high on the ceiling.

Neither Miteki Amafuu nor Miteki Bless knew what time period those paintings came from.

Calligraphied on them, in big dried blue, "demon disguised as fake bird"?

The cakes finished baking quicker than expected.

"I've outdone myself." She climbed up on the oven, and did a little jig. She snapped her fingers without stopping. "Obey me cakes, heed my warnings, feast your eyes on my refined waltz! Posh! Exquisite! FeelsGooooooooood!"

She front flipped off the smart ovens, landing on douce tatami.

"Ah… Home is truly freedom."

Miteki Bless froze in her tracks.

"Is that it?"

The closest room with a mirror was the sauna.

She ran to it, flapping her arms as she arced into the air.

She forgot to slow down. In order to stop her momentum, she jumped and crashed into a wall.

She didn't mind and gazed into the condensed mirror.

She saw her flushed cheeks, her rumpled up and frizzy hair framing her heart-shaped face.

Her eyes were a kaleidoscope full of colors hiding in plain sight.

She looked tired from her physical activity.

The tiredness was different from dreary tiredness. In fact, the tiredness was the kind people tended to enjoy. The tiredness that came from fun nobody wanted to end.

Miteki Bless slapped her cheeks, making sure the mirror wasn't projecting an illusion.

She watched as her face reacted to physics.

React to physics…

"Then, that's it."

Miteki Bless solved it.

"Hey, I'm a quick problem solver."

It took her entire life.

Self-awareness is a petty thing.

It came when you least expected it.

The Bless in the mirror, Miteki wanted desperately to shake hands with.

It was thanks to this Bless, that she could conclude the most depraved mystery of today.

'Why does Miteki Bless not show emotion, when she feels so much?'

The question felt like an open wound before.

In the sauna, where heat was dissipating, the question felt like a closing wound endured for weeks.

The wood floor sipped on exactly one marine droplet, the dew dripping from Miteki Bless' eyelashes.

The answer wasn't complex. No, not at all.

The answer was always in front of Miteki Bless, no matter which mood emerged out of her.

Home was freedom.

The world wasn't.

"… What a stupid question. What a stupid answer."

The Miteki Bless in the mirror laughed.

This was the last favorable version of Miteki Bless she would see in the mirror.

The top of cakes flowed down and hardened, their states perfected. Miteki Bless took them out of the smart ovens.

She made more than her and her mother could eat.

The frayed edges of her velvet yukata swaying, she started packing the ones they couldn't eat.

She decided, I'm going to bring some of these for the lucky fans.

"Some of them… are quite irrational. Will I get beaten, because of her senseless fans?"

Miteki Bless hardened her resolve, acting as if she was braving against the world.

And could anyone blame her?

It was her against the world.

It was her and her mother against the world.*

"Hah! I'm so dramatic!"

"Giveaways… there's more losers than winners in them. The law of nature!"

"Now, where should I hide in wait for ma?"

The paleness of Bless' cheeks were slashed open with her blushing excitement.

The Miteki household all of a sudden, had a cherry running around, looking for a hiding spot.

Mother's room.

The unfilial child hid inside her mother's bedroom!