Wedding Cake

Shoulders slouched and eyes searching the intricate, unfathomable face of the hive, Mitsu stood before the bees, and Amber watched as the man she loved fell apart.

Even though she couldn’t hear the timbre of his voice, she could see how his lips quivered as he spoke. He breezed through some sentences smoothly; others, he squeezed his eyes shut tight and pushed through.

Trembling fingers reached for the black cloth wrapped around the hive and gripped it tightly. Mitsu's brows furrowed, and his jaw flexed as if he were fighting back the tears with sheer force alone.

Somehow, he found the strength to keep going. Amber was proud.

Eventually, on a word left undeciphered, Mitsu paused. He stopped speaking for as little or as long as a lifetime, and Amber waited with bated breath to see if he would continue.

He did.

The damage of saying it was probably significant, irreversible, and almost too much—but if there was ever a chance of healing, he first needed to suffer the wound.

And a terrible one it was.

He was confronting the embodiment of his grief, meeting it personally and grasping it with needy hands—and yet, when the words stopped coming, and his face was ashen and exhausted, he let the strip of cloth slip from his fingers and fall away.

It was easy how he slid to his knees then—like gravity was gentle, like it wasn’t law. Amber could tell Mitsu had long since stopped fighting such meaningless battles. Instead, he did the only thing someone with a defeated heart could muster—he wrapped his arms around himself for the smallest of comforts, hung his head low enough that his bangs shielded his eyes—and cried.

His shoulders shook with sobs that were surely only silent underneath a spell, and for the first time, Amber finally understood the desperate confession that came pouring from his lips.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you so much!

I love you!

Amber closed her eyes.

In reality, what everyone wanted to say to the people they loved and lost was nothing more, nothing less, than that.

The only beings who understood that better than Amber, as someone who had witnessed many a person tell tales of the people they’d lost, were the bees.

It was amidst Mitsu’s snot and tears that a little bee flew out of the entrance of the hive. While Mitsu hadn’t yet noticed it, it took a moment to observe him before landing on one of the hands he’d wrapped around his shoulders, right next to his ear.

When the bees spoke to you, it tickled; it was an impossible sensation to ignore. Mitsu was no exception, and the tears were gradually replaced by a sense of confusion. Eventually, his expression shifted again, hopeful realization dawning on his face once he knew the bee was speaking to him—and it had a message.

Amber hadn’t reacted too differently herself the last time the bees had given her a message from the beyond, caught up in anguished tears as she told them her chances of being the Royal Beekeeper had been totally and completely destroyed.

Amber only wanted a few things in life: to be a beekeeper above all others, for her friends to be happy, and to find love.

Somewhere along the string of failed relationships over the years, maybe even before her last boyfriend, she’d given up on the love. But it was fine, she'd thought, because her career and her friendships in life were just as fulfilling.

It wasn’t until the lack of love in her life started to interfere with her dream, when a marriage of convenience seemed like the only option, that she confronted the bees and begged the gods to tell her what she should do.

And maybe the gods truly did know better than mere mortals at times, because for Amber, meeting Mitsu was a gift from the greatest beyond.

It was for her just as much as it was for him, their meeting.

She’d suspected after so many failed relationships that it had been her fault. She must just be irredeemably flawed if no one wanted her. Right?

She knew it wasn’t true, that the reality was likely far more complex than she was giving credit for, but it was much easier to accept the black and white than it was the gray.

Yet somehow, as she continued to spend time with Mitsu, as he laughed with her, danced to the tune of her lies, and let her hold him close, she’d realized that all those negative perceptions she had about herself and about love, were nothing but glass in the menagerie.

Despite the sometimes-unpredictable path of the bees, they really always managed to set people straight.

And for Mitsu, she knew they'd do the same.

Sure enough, as the bee took flight once more and returned to its hive under Mitsu’s watchful gaze, he was finally able to stand again.

There were tear stains on his cheeks as he looked back at her, his eyes shimmering magenta under the light, and Amber finally broke the spell of silence she’d cast over herself.

In the end, it was Mitsu who reached out his hand first; Amber accepted.

“How did it go?” she asked.

Mitsu struggled on a laugh. “You know, I don’t know what I was thinking, wanting something like this so badly.”

Amber frowned. “What do you mean?”

Mitsu brushed his hands down her arms, his touch feather and light. He leaned his head on her shoulder and took a shuddering breath. “I thought that if I just said one last thing to her, I’d finally find some peace. Some kind of…closer. But now I get it.”

Amber placed her arms around him, feeling his muscles relax under her touch, and waited for him to continue. “You know Amber, I…don’t know how I ever thought that just one more chance to tell her I love her would ever be enough.”

“You can always come back,” Amber said. “You can always do this again. As many times as you want.”

Mitsu lifted his head from her shoulder. “It wouldn’t make a difference,” he said. “There’s never going to be a day where I stop grieving. I need to accept that and find ways to live my life knowing that…this is just how it’s going to be.”

Mitsu swept Amber’s blonde fringe from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You said that there’s nothing wrong with the way we love each other,” Mitsu said quietly, brushing his thumb across her cheek with a gentleness that was almost unbearable. “But I still don’t know if I have the right to ask for my life to include you.”

Amber reached up and cupped his beautiful face in her hands. “Mistu, sweetheart,” she said fondly, “I asked you to be my fake boyfriend and marry me so I could get promoted. If anything, I don’t have a right to ask you to be in my life.”

He nuzzled his face in her hand, and his silver-pink bangs tickled her knuckles. “So you’ll have me?” Mitsu asked softly, his voice a touch unsure.

Amber’s heart fluttered. “Of course. For as long as you’ll let me.”

Mitsu smiled at her then, his expression warm and radiant. “Then next time we come back here, let’s not use the black cloth,” Mitsu said, taking one of her hands and kissing the inside of her palm. “Let’s give the bees a piece of our wedding cake instead.”

Amber’s eyes filled with tears. “You really…you really want to marry me? For real? Not just for…the Royal Beekeeper thing?”

Mitsu leaned down so close that their lips brushed against each other as he spoke. “For real,” he said. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

“Then…yes. Yes, yes! I’ll marry you, bees above, every single part of you!”

Mitsu smoothed his fingers through the hair on the back of her neck and chuckled under his breath. “Good.”

Amber didn’t know who kissed who first. She didn’t much care where she ended, and he began—but as the kiss deepened, and she tasted the spicy balm on his lips, she thought their wedding cake ought to taste just the same—like cinnamon.