Beyond Love - Chapter 36: Chapter 36

Xander and I were in the middle of...something.
"W-wait, this is embarrassing," I fidgeted, finding it hard to meet his gaze. "We're, um, facing each other."
My husband laughed, leaning closer to nuzzle my neck. "That's the point, Angel."
Just in case you were wondering, it didn't start out like this. We were lazing around in bed, fresh out of the bath, making plans for the following weekend and Giselle's surprise birthday party when Xander had rolled over and trapped me between his arms. I'd almost squeaked—but he pulled me over with him when he was rolling back and all of a sudden, he was sitting up and I was in his lap, facing him. I-it happened really quickly.
"Wait a minute, we, um, we were talking about the birthday plans!" I protested, shifting backwards. He caught me fast.
"Red velvet cake party with the three of us and some of your sisters at noon, right? And then that Japanese restaurant in the next avenue she likes? And ice cream after?" Xander laid out everything we'd discussed in the past half-an-hour, determined to prove me wrong.
"W-well...I guess we kinda got it figured out, but—" Nuu not the kiss!
As usual, Xander was very good at preventing me from talking or stopping me short, at least. He would make it very difficult for me to think on purpose, guiding my hips to close the distance and using his other hand to reach the back of my neck and deepen the kiss. Naturally, the first thing that came to my mind was turning off the lights because, well. At the rate we were going and knowing Xander...
It was getting all uh-oh with my husband's hands reaching underneath my pyjama top when I heard my ringtone (you're my honeybunch, sugar plum...) begin playing from the bedside table. Someone was calling.
With difficulty, I somehow managed to pull away from the kiss and turned to catch a glimpse of the caller ID. The screen of my phone was lit up and buzzing beside Xander's.
Admin Office (School)
Miffed, he had followed my gaze, probably to add someone to his mental murder list.
"The school's calling at fucking ten-thirty?" My husband proceeded to growl but I was already snailing (moving like a snail!) towards the bedside table and reaching for my phone, breathless from the kiss.
"Hi, um," I had to pause to gather my thoughts. "Good evening."
"Sorry to call you so late at night, Mr. Honeycutt," I heard the school's HR coordinator say very quickly. "But I just received a call from Mrs. Harry and--oh, you know the drill...are you able to come down tomorrow morning? Class 3A has H.E for their first period."
Halfway through, Xander had picked me up and put me bac on his lap, leaning down to get a gist of what the call was about. I let him.
"Don't worry Miss, I'll be there tomorrow morning," I reassured her so that she could breathe.
Upon this, I saw (from the corner of my eye) Xander shaking his head slowly with a sigh. I poked his abs.
"Thank you so much. Again, sorry for all this. I'll text you again in the morning with the class details."
"Okay. Good night!"
"Good night Mr. Honeycutt."
I put down the phone and slid it bit by bit so that it ended up back on the bedside table, beside Xander's, before turning back. "They want me to take Mrs. Harry's class tomorrow. It's for 3A! The cute little kids."
Xander did a double take. "Cute kids? I have to disagree with you on this one, Angel. If anyone's cute in that class, it's you. Also, you probably haven't seen how bad they can get."
"They aren't so bad," I was back to poking his abs because that's just what I did when we disagreed on things. "People magically become nicer when they bake."
My husband raised a brow. "But we've seen Master Chef."
I paused.
"Oh."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
If you were wondering what happened after that—or more specifically, if we continued u-um, whatever we were doing before—just know that I don't want to talk about it /.\ Anyway, we were up and getting ready for school the next morning and I'd just taken a quick shower when I noticed that I was out of disposable contacts. They were mostly kept in the cabinet above the sink.
"Xan?" I popped my head out of the bathroom to see my husband lying on the bed completely naked, playing a game on his phone. "Xaanderrrr."
"Yes Angel?"
"Could you check the first drawer to the left—not that one, the one on top. Um, are there any—"
"Contact lenses?" He read my mind and I could hear him sift through the contents of the drawer. The rest of it was a blur (w-well, at least I wouldn't be able to every part of his body in sharp detail). "All I see are bottles of the thing you rinse them with. Did you run out?"
"Aw...yeah, I think I did," I slipped on my pants and dropped my pyjamas into the laundry basket. "Wait...how am I going to teach like this?"
I watched a tall blob of human fling a tiny black rectangle onto our bed before opening the closet and retrieving what I assumed were clothes.
"You could wear your glasses and be the cutest thing on the planet," my husband suggested, and I could already hear the smirk in his voice. "It's been ages since I saw you in them 'cuz you're always in contacts even at home."
I huffed, pouting. "W-well! Sorry for being insecure about my appearance," I mumbled sarcastically but Xander was already there to cuddle me better. Ugh, he's always after my weaknesses.
"That's not what I meant, Angel," he leaned down to nuzzle behind my ear. It was another one of my weak spots. "It honestly doesn't matter whether or not you're wearing glasses, and —the only reason I wouldn't like you wearing them outside's only because I'm afraid of other people realizing how adorably sexy you look in everything!"
I turned around to stare at him.
Then proceeded to blush. "W-wha! That's not true. I look weird in those huge glasses...and every time people bumped into me, they'd fall off. I thought you liked me better without them too, remember? When I first wore contacts and—"
"Angel, I was young and stupid," Xander laughed, poking my cheek. "What would a shitty brat like me know about you? And I seriously hope you know I didn't ask you to marry me because of how you look. Husband does not approve."
I had puffed my cheeks up with air but laughed it out upon hearing Xander's tone of voice.
"Yes, yes...I know that."
I was about to drop the matter and get to recalling where I last put my glasses (and hurrying Xander to get into the shower) when he added something that made me rethink that option.
"And, side note: I've always wanted to see how you'd like in bed with glasses on."
My jaw was left hanging while I stared at my victorious-smirking-husband. Sigh.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Ohmygosh, sir!" Elizabeth gushed as soon as she entered the class early and was making her way to her work station. "You're on relief today? And you're wearing glasses!"
I laughed sheepishly, ticking her name off the attendance sheet. "Yes I am! Well, I ran out of disposable contacts, so...I'll be wearing these for the time-being. Where's everyone else?"
"Er, I don't really know," she said in return, still staring at the glasses on my face and smiling strangely. "Nguyen said she'll be a little late. Brendon and the rest might come soon—I saw them hanging out at the lockers 'cuz no one really likes coming to class early and having to...well, um, Mrs. Harry doesn't like us talking. A lot."
"O-oh," I noted, unsure of what to say in return. Regardless, I told her to take her place at her station and start preparing the ingredients needed for today's lesson. "It's cake today! The recipe given by Mrs. Harry is a chocolate sponge cake."
Elizabeth was about to say something when voices from the corridor filtered into the classroom and several other students from 3A began to arrive. Among them were Nguyen and Shin—who weren't exactly late at all.
"Mr. Honeycutt? He looks...different."
"Wait, Honeycutt's on relief?"
"Thank god, I thought I was going to get another C today."
Everyone sort of waved or quickly went to their stations while reading the instructions on the blackboard behind me. While Nguyen and Shin were looking at me in quiet anticipation (o-or at least that was what I'd assumed), Evans was being very vocal about my additional accessory.
"Sir, what happened? Why'd you get glasses all of a sudden? Did Jaxon get them too? Like, you look good in them though. When did you start wearing them? What are they like?"
While Evans was openly enthusiastic about discussing this in the middle of class, his partner, Finn, appeared contrary to this and went as far as placing his hand on the former's face and moving him further behind.
"U-um, how about I answer your questions after class, Evans?" I offered instead, then remembered that I was supposed to get them starting on the ingredients. "Oh, and flip your textbooks to page thirty-five by the way. Mrs. Harry's recipe can be found there, if the instructions on the board are too tiny for you to see."
At once, everyone started splitting up the work and shuffling around, gathering ingredients and baking tools. I noticed, however, that Shin and Nguyen had remained at their work station for some time and were looking fairly troubled, so I popped by to ask what was wrong.
"Oh," Shin appeared slightly startled, and he glanced to Nguyen for help but Nguyen looked equally lost herself. "Um. It's nothing...we were trying to come up with a way to tweak the recipe because both of us didn't like chocolate cake. Sorry..."
Surprised, I told Shin that there was no need for him to apologize at all.
"There's nothing wrong with not liking chocolate sponge cake! Everyone has different preferences," I considered the remaining options. "Actually—go ahead and do whatever you like. I'll tell the rest the same."
"YoulooksuperdupercuteinglassesMr. HoneycuttdidMr. Jaxonevertellyouthat?" Nguyen blurted out in a second and I couldn't catch a single word that she'd said. When I asked her to repeat it, she blushed and hid behind Shin, saying that it was nothing.
"Wait, sir," I was about to announce to everyone else that they were free to make any cake they liked when Shin stopped me midway. "Actually...we were thinking of making a strawberry shortcake."
Nguyen peered out from behind his shoulder. "We were?"
"Um," it was Shin's turn to blush. "I was. I guess. I mean, I've heard that—well, I didn't get to try them, but I heard that you made really good strawberry shortcakes at your bakery, sir. I wanted to get some advice from youbutthat'sonlyifyoudon'tmind because now that I think about it, it's like sharing a secret recipe and itwasrudeofmetoaskbutimsorry."
I blinked, having to spend a couple of seconds processing every word. "Advice? Me...? But I—I'm not a professional or anything but as your teacher, of course I wouldn't mind! Have you ever tried making a strawberry shortcake before?"
"Me? Um, something similar, yes, but the style is very specific, like the French style fraisier cake...? It didn't turn out very nice or maybe I just don't really like the style? I don't know," Shin rambled on, unsure.
"Okay then, why don't I write the recipe that I always use on the board so that you can try it out? I'm bad at giving specific advice so, maybe this will help you better," I offered instead, watching the Japanese boy's eyes widen.
"Y-you mean, the exact recipe? But!" He protested in disbelief. "But wouldn't that be revealing the secret to your famous strawberry shortcake? Are you sure about that, sir?"
Shin seemed strangely stunned by my willingness to share the recipe of our strawberry shortcake, and though Nguyen did not know, exactly, what was going on, she shared his surprise.
Aw.
"Shin," I began with a laugh, reaching over to pat his head because they were such cute kids. "Food has no secrets. It is the hands that make them that will make all the difference in the world."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
[Nguyen]
"Good goddess of tears, that was some quality life lesson," I sniffed, running the strawberries under water after Mr. Honeycutt had returned to his work station at the front of the class. "How much of an angel must one be to willingly share a famous recipe? Who does that?"
"My father would never do something like that," I heard Shin say as he got out the mixing bowls and wiped them clean. "Writing cook books, sure. But sharing the exact same recipe that made your own name? That's a risk that only the most confident chefs take and—Mr. Honeycutt's actually right...all that matters is the person who's making it. Not the recipe."
My heart exploded with feels and all at once I was more inspired than I ever was in my dull, tumblr-filled life. I felt like I could go out and conquer the world and make it look easy, or write the most emotional fanfic (yeah, that's actually my definition of conquering the world but writing good fanfics is nOT easy, okay) and amass a hundred thousand reads or something like that.
I watched Mr. Honeycutt write his entire recipe on the blackboard on his tippy-toes, with every step explained. He also apologized that some of the ingredients lacked exact measurements because he mostly added them to taste.
Then, he proceeded to seize my heart with the most adorable ingredient written at the bottom of the list: 'Dedication'. And beside it, a tiny heart.
I turned to Shin and Shin turned to me and we both knew that inside, we were sobbing with feels but outside, we looked plain and dead. I had stayed up listening to Shin talk about how his dad had apparently met Mr. Honeycutt at some important bake-thingy and tried out his amazing strawberry shortcake. Then I'd crafted some plot that involved Shin's single dad going to Mr. Honeycutt's bakery and meeting some other single dad who was buying cake for his little girl and BOOM, romance. Shin had listened to every detail without comment.
"My father described how Mr. Honeycutt's cake looked like. I want to try and recreate it," said Chef Yamazaki. Me, an unimportant assistant: "help i try."
*
Thanks to Shin, we ended up making the most holy-looking strawberry shortcake I've ever laid my dirty, corrupted eyes upon. He taught me how to slice the strawberries thin-as-paper and line them along the sides of the cake so that it mimicked the French fraisier but had the taste of Mr. Honeycutt's amazing balance-is-key strawberry shortcake. Or so I hoped it would.
He left the piping to me, which was kind of the only thing I could do decently, while he cleared the rest of the utensils.
"My father said that there were thinly-sliced strawberries. Mine aren't perfect but I don't really know where they were placed either. Do you think we should make a rose with the sliced strawberries and put it in the middle? Is it too plain?"
"Oh my god, Shin. This isn't a competition," I attempted to calm his inner-perfectionist. "It's beautiful. Maybe we should taste it before adding stuff, 'cuz like, wasn't the point of Mr. Honeycutt's cake the balance between sponge, icing, and strawberries? If you add too much of one element..."
Shin's lips shaped into a tiny 'o'.
"Right...I forgot. Sorry. I just...I don't know—this is so hard. It's like a paradigm, you know? And Mr. Honeycutt is breaking out of it. No baker would ever dare to leave a cake so bare, but it is precisely because of this that they could never master it. Do you see the irony?" Honeybun Shin sandwiched his cheeks between his hands. "Ohmygod Nguyen."
I gave him a look.
"What's a 'paradigm'? You know, I've always wondered why your English was so good," I raised a brow. "Were you the one who got an A+ for the test last week?"
Awkward, Shin nodded quietly. I gasped, a-frightened.
"And the essay? And the—were you the one who scored 96% on last year's final paper?" My jaw dropped, and my entire disposition was one of outrage. Shin smiled sheepishly, which in Japanese meant: yes, that's me, thanks for your compliment but I'm too shy to actually accept said compliment. "I hate you!" I declared as a joke, hurling the icing bag at him.
He caught it. "It was luck! I'm sure you didn't do that badly either, Nguyen..."
"Luck my ass," I sighed. "You do your god-like level of English. I'm good with my fanfiction-level-mediocrity."
*
Apparently, mediocrity was not the word one would use to describe Shin's (okay, our) cake. By the time I'd finished piping a simple, decent shell border around the top of it and Shin had perfectly stuck on every slice of strawberry, half the class had left their stations to gather around ours—obviously eyeing a slice or two.
"It looks like something out of an expensive bakery," Layla had commented, nudging me in the side. "Didn't know you had a knack for baking."
"Lol no. I suck. It's Shin who did all the work," I made sure to clarify, but Shin was all bashful and giving me more credit than I deserved. Liz wanted an entire quarter of the cake and Brendon practically had his mouth wide open. I mean...figures. What with all that weird-ass cupcakes his sister's been feeding him and all that creepy taste-testing...*shivers*.
Anyway, Mr. Honeycutt had just left the previous work station with a huge smile on his face (despite the fact that their chocolate cake was lopsided and stripped bare of ganache or icing) and was walking toward Shin and I when everyone else dispersed to leave him to do the grading.
Needless to be said, we were shakin' in our boots. I'd like to think it was Shin's fault; for claiming that we should 'recreate' Mr. Honeycutt's legendary strawberry shortcake in the first place, so I mean. Expectations were high. Living up to them? Hard.
"W-wow...this is—"
He glanced at the cake and then returned to his clipboard, then glanced at it again, speechless. Shin scrambled to hand him the cake cutter, a plate, and a fork. I stood by like a totem.
"Sir, I followed your recipe but I also decided to recalculate the balance after adding the thin slices of strawberries on the sides of the cake instead of the top and I don't know if you use the same strawberries because they'd make a difference...and if they were the same size and all...shit I just noticed that they were a little big...oh god," my partner rambled on and on before he had his head in his hands and looked as though he'd just found out the world was going to end.
And it was the first time I heard him curse.
"Relax, Shin," Cute, angelic Mr. Honeycutt (praise all the cupcakes in the skies) patted him on the back and handed the cake cutter back to him. "Why don't you try it first! Or, let's try it together. What better way to improve than to know your own mistakes and correct yourself immediately?"
Shin took his advice without question and nervously cut into our cake, pulling out a slice and placing it on the plate before bending down to look at the cross-section. He heaved a sigh of relief. "It looks okay."
"It looks perfect, you two!" Mr. Honeycutt corrected, doing what Shin did and I'm just o.o? What are they doing? "The cross-section of the cake is the first step to knowing whether or not you have a balanced cake. And I see that your layers are very delicate! Wow, you both followed every word on the board..."
He took the fork and tasted the icing, then the sponge, then both, together, with a bit of the sliced strawberry. He finished the rest of the thin slice in the next couple of forks while Shin and I cut one for each of ourselves and tasted it too.
HOly motheR of StrAWberriEs—it was good.
Shin looked at me and I looked at Mr. Honeycutt and Mr. Honeycutt looked at Shin and we were like: ohmygod is this an A+? Just kidding, I mean, there's no A+ in heaven, is there? Yeah, anyway uh.
"This is a very, very good first attempt," he said to the both of us before gesturing to the cross-section of the cake. "One thing to note is the thickness of the icing on the sides of the cake. Because you have decided to put the strawberries on the sides, it...well, it might be a better choice to thicken it by just—very, very little, actually. The balance here is tough. Otherwise, the sponge was perfect and the layering was almost...professionally done! I! I really don't know what to say!"
Mr. Honeycutt looked like he was about to cry like he was all ;v; and I was having the feels and I could tell Shin was also having the feels. By accident, I'd followed our teacher's gaze and saw that he'd given the previous pair an A+ (the lopsided chocolate cake with no icing). Naturally, he had to be facing an inner dilemma.
"W-what's better than an A+?" He whispered to himself and I burst out laughing.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
For the first time ever, our entire class was proud to take our creations back home to share—A+ or not. Shin and I, along with Liz and Brendon, were cleaning up real slow because of the number of tools we'd used (overused) and while Mr. Honeycutt waited for us to finish, we ended up asking where he was headed to after school and if we could tag along back to his bakery.
"My father wanted me to bring home more shortcake from your place," Shin explained after class, flashing the name card that he'd told me about over the phone. "He's, um. I don't know if you remember him, but my last name is Yamazaki, so..."
At once, I saw his eyes light up and a look of awe cross his features.
"Mr. Yamazaki? The amazing pastry chef who's won a ton of awards a-and is humble and polite and so very nice?"
Shin laughed sheepishly. "He's okay."
"I didn't know he was being so serious when he said he would send his son to buy shortcake—I-I, this is such a huge coincidence! And huge coincidences aren't exactly good for the heart," Mr. Honeycutt held a hand over his chest and appeared to be anxiously searching for some ground.
"It's not exactly a coincidence that my father liked your shortcake though," Shin put forth rather bluntly. "For that, you have your own skills to thank, sir."
Our teacher 'aw'ed and patted Shin on the shoulder, thanking him for the compliment and also adding that it was completely alright for us to tag along. From the corner of my eye, I could tell that Liz and Brendon were eavesdropping.
"Well, that's if you guys don't mind Mr. Jaxon's presence," Mr. Honeycutt went on sheepishly. "We're heading to the bakery together. After school."
"Of course no—" I reached behind Shin's back to pinch his arm.
He jumped and stopped midsentence, turning to me with an expression of shock and indignance.
"We can't possibly interrupt your time together with Mr. Jaxon, sir," I said instead, with obvious motives. "He'd give us extra rounds tomorrow for doing that."
"I-it's just walking home," reasoned Mr. Honeycutt. "I'm sure he wouldn't. I'll make sure of it! Don't you worry."
He went on to reassure Shin and I that it was okay to tag along since it wouldn't make sense not to (we were heading to the same destination) and I was filled with this holy sense of welcome and belonging. Either way, we ended up agreeing to the plan and meeting at the school's back gate after the bell, which sort of made things awkward because Mr. Jaxon was early and his cute angelic husband was not there to calm Shin or my inner awkward.
"Hi Mr. Jaxon," I squeaked and our coach looked up from his phone before taking a couple of seconds to remember our names (or at least that was what I assumed).
"Oh. Heading home?"
"Er, not exactly, sir," I paused, wondering how I should phrase this. "We're waiting for Mr. Honeycutt."
I watched Mr. Jaxon tense with a frown before seemingly recalling what his husband told him over lunch. "Oh. Yeah. He did say you two wanted to get something from the bakery."
Omg talking to him was like dealing with the devil, I swear. Mr. Honeycutt, please descend upon us as swiftly as you can.
Thankfully, our coach went back to looking at his phone, so Shin and I exchanged looks of absolute relief while we waited anxiously for Mr. Honeycutt to arrive. When he finally did—came hurrying down the stairs like a jumpy kitten and breathing hard—the air lifted like clouds after the rain and I saw Mr. Jaxon smile for like, the first time in what seemed like a century.
"Sorry I'm late!"
"No one's in a rush, Angel. Take your time."
I turned to Japanese boi and Japanese boi turned to me. ANgEL?? i diE
I most probably blanked out most of the way to the bakery but thank goodness Shin was there to guide me along and make sure I don't trip and fall over air. It was like watching my favourite fanfic come alive and my best ship becoming canon, otherwise known as my dream come true.
We arrived at the bakery about half an hour later, slightly hesitant to enter until Mr. Honeycutt repeatedly invited us inside for pastries and juice. He gave us each a glass of lemonade before popping his head into the kitchen and asking if there were any cakes to spare.
Someone from the kitchen came through the door with a generous spread, which included the slices of strawberry shortcake that Shin said his father requested.
"I can bake another one of these fresh if you'd like. Six inches, if you want it quick," she said to us and we were a hundred percent embarrassed from being pampered. Her nametag said 'Penny'. I could tell Shin was about to decline politely and say that he'd be happy buying the remaining slices but someone else popped by with a tray of savoury cupcakes, wearing one of the staff aprons.
"Oh, kids?" She laughed. "You guys were the ones who tried the savoury cupcakes the last time. Want some more?" I looked at her nametag. Shea.
Wow, everyone's way too nice and friendly, like. I literally felt as though I was in heaven, save Mr. Jaxon standing in the corner of the store with a bag of what looked like hot-cross buns.
"Shin," an apologetic-looking-Mr. Honeycutt tapped my friend on the shoulder. "I'm sorry but we only have three slices of shortcake left. Is that enough for you and your family?"
Shin nodded vigorously. "Yes it's more than enough sir, don't worry. And you don't have to apologize, sir—it's a good thing to be sold out."
Our teacher laughed adorably and thanked him for the compliment. "I'll pack these for you, then."
We were offered more treats while waiting for the slices of cake to be packed, so much that our tummies were already full before dinner. I nudged my friend in the side and he turned to me.
"Is this real? How is everyone so nice."
"I don't know," he responded, dazed. "I was only ever in Japan when I was young, but people were nice to me too, back then. Maybe it's because I was a kid. Honestly, I can't be sure."
Shin bit into the savoury cupcake that one of the bakers offered him and made private comments to me about them being even better than before. "I can't tell what's in there. It's like green onions but also...I can't tell. It's a very good combination."
"Shin? Here are your cakes," Mr. Honeycutt reached over the counter to hand him a dusty pink paper bag that contained the box of three slices. "Hope you like it."
"Thanks, sir, I definitely will," Shin nodded, turning around to fish out his wallet. "Maybe it'll give me a better understanding of what I can do to improve the cake we made this..."
Then, he paused and stared into space. I waved a hand before his eyes, concerned. "Uh...Shin?"
All of a sudden, as though overcome by some unknown force from the above or having achieved enlightenment, the Japanese boi, without hesitation, blurted out a request to work for Mr. Honeycutt at the bakery.