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ghosthunthq · 5 years

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Icing on the Cake

For: @books-tea-ghosts

From: @samantha-girlscout

Hello lovely, Lily! I’m sorry that you were the one ghosted this year. I thought about continuing Quality Ingredients (I swear I will some day), but nothing was coming out for that and instead this did. In a way it’s kind of a spiritual successor to that and A Small Reprieve (where the OC in this came from), But it’s also it’s own thing. It mostly came from your comment about how Naru deserves to be happy. I agree whole-heartedly. I hope you like this!

Naru knew something was up the moment he opened the front door.

It was just him and Ellen this Month. Mai had some business back in Japan and they’d decided it was better for the two of them to stay behind. It was the start of Ellen’s ninth grade year and Naru had work he still had to attend to at the main SPR office. It only made sense for the two of them to stick it out until she came home.

Currently, they were almost three weeks in, and they’d established a system. Unless Ellen wanted to hang out at a friend’s house, she would come home and work on homework until Naru came home with dinner. Occasionally, his mother and father came over to cook, but that was only about once a week. Otherwise, it’s easy, familiar, and routine.

Until today.

It had been a rough day at the office. One of their investors wasn’t happy with the results of one of the most recent cases coming out of the Japan office. It had taken far too much of his day calming the man down so that he wouldn’t pull his funding. Between the amount of time it took and just how demanding the man was, Naru was ready to call it a day.

But, as he entered the house, he gave pause. It smelled as though something were burning. Thinking the worst, he immediately dropped everything and ran into the kitchen. As he crossed the threshold he found Ellen, in tears, looking dejectedly into a baking dish.

“What’s wrong?”

His daughter started and looked at him with fearful eyes. She couldn’t hold his gaze for long, though, and cast them to the ground, her lip quivering terribly.

“I’m sorry, D-Dad,” She hiccupped. “I wanted to bake you something, but now—”

“Are you hurt?”

“No… But the cake is ruined.”

That gave Naru pause. “Why were you baking a cake?

Naru gestured to the kitchen table and Ellen sat without much fuss. He then took stock of the kitchen. Ellen had cleaned up most of her mess, though it looked like there were dishes soaking in the sink. The ‘cake’ though was burnt to a crisp.

He turned on the fan above the stove and went about opening the kitchen windows as he waited for his daughter to answer.

"It's… It’s your birthday.” He turned and saw her fiddling with the table cloth, a habit she picked up from her mother. “I know you don’t like gifts. But I… I still wanted to do something for you.”

A pain went through him at the realization. He looked to the wall calendar and, yes, it was September 19th. How had he lost track of time so much so that he’d forgotten what day it was?

No matter how much time had passed, his grief was always strongest on his and Gene’s birthday. His brother had always enjoyed celebrating. Whether it was just the two of them, or then the four of them, or a whole slew of people, Gene thrived on the excitement and theatrics that came with it. Naru wasn’t all that keen on most of it, but he still usually found himself enjoying the time with his brother, regardless.

Knowing what day it was, Naru wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep the rest of the day away. He was so exhausted already that he didn’t even have the energy to process his grief how he normally would, through self-reflection and writing a letter that he would never send and that his brother would never read.

But he couldn’t do either of those things.

“Now I’ve just ruined it,” Ellen said bitterly. It looked as though she was going to nearly tear the table cloth in her upset state.

Naru took a look at the cake. Now that he wasn’t fearful of his daughter’s well-being, he could see that the cake didn’t look nearly as bad as Ellen was making it out to be. It looked a little dry, and the sides were most certainly a little hard. But memories of his brother’s poor attempts at baking told Naru that the chocolate cake was by no means unsalvageable.

“Did you plan to frost the cake?" Naru asked as he walked over to retrieve a bread knife.

Ellen shook her head. "I forgot to buy any.”

“Fortunately, your mother keeps us well stocked. Go get powdered sugar, vanilla, and butter from the pantry and milk from the refrigerator.”

Ellen looked up at her father, confused. “Why?”

“To make frosting.” Naru took out a cooling rack and placed it atop the baking dish. “And get milk and butter from the fridge as well.”

Ellen did as she was told, albeit with very visible confusion on her face. While she was scavenging for the necessary ingredients, Naru went about the task of cutting off the worst bits of the cake. It wouldn’t be a very pretty one, but he supposed that it would be fine for the two of them.

By the time that she returned, Naru had disposed of the worst of the cake and leveled it off as best he could. In that same time, Ellen had composed herself as well she could. Which he was grateful for. Because while his ability to comfort others had improved over the years, he still didn’t know what to do when someone was crying.

Ellen placed the ingredients on the counter. “What else do we need?”

“That’s it. Unless you’d prefer something besides vanilla. I’d have to consult a recipe for that, though.”

“Vanilla is fine…” Ellen watched attentively as he began mixing the ingredients with the mixer. “How do you know how to make frosting?”

“Your grandmother taught your uncle Gene and I when we were younger. Though, he always forgot to set a timer so he always burned whatever he was trying to bake.”

Ellen giggled.

Good. He hated when either of his girls were sad.

“Your grandmother and I always tried reminding him, but he’d always forget.” He sighed. “That left me to salvage whatever I could.”

“Do you miss him?”

Naru paused, staring at the frosting. He sighed and then nodded as he retrieved a frosting knife and went about the task of adding it to the cake. It was still a bit warm for his liking, it would most likely melt the frosting some, but hopefully that would help moisten the cake some as well.

A silence of sorts fell between them. He could tell that his daughter was trying to piece something together. She was just as easy to read as Mai was, though there were times when she adopted his mask. He was grateful that she didn’t do that too often, though, as it always worried him when she did.

“Did you want any toppings?”

Her look of concentration broke as she considered his question. “Do we have anything?”

Naru hummed as he went to the fridge. There was a package of cut strawberries from his mother. On top was a note reminding the two of them to not eat out so much. He retrieved it and handed it to Ellen.

“Put these on top however you like. I have to go get something.”

“Okay!”

Naru went to the entrance way and picked up the carry out that he’d dropped on the ground when he’d first entered the house. He shook his head at his own carelessness. Thankfully, after a quick inspection, he found the food to be alright. He locked the door and returned to the kitchen, food in hand.

Ellen raised an eyebrow at him.

“I left it at the front door.”

She laughed.

“It smelled like the house was burning down,” Naru grumbled as he set the plastic bag on the kitchen table.

“What’d you get?”

“Curry.”

Ellen’s face brightened. “Yay! Thanks, dad!”

“Of course.” He walked over to the cake and inspected it. The strawberries were a little unevenly placed around the top, but still looked carefully placed. “Looks nice. Let’s eat dinner first then we can see how it turned out.”

“Thanks.”

Dinner was mostly uneventful. They chatted a little bit about their days, but otherwise there was a comfortable silence that Naru welcomed with open arms. Before Ellen was born he’d have only found solace in silence with a book in his hands, but he’d begun to appreciate these small moments more and more as the years went by.

Once they were finished, Ellen pushed their disposable dishes aside and went to retrieve the cake from the counter. The frosting had held up surprisingly well. After setting it down he expected her to go and retrieve a candle or sing, but instead she just stood there, contemplative.

Over the years, most everyone gave him space on Gene and his birthday. Beside the gifts that everyone still felt obligated to give him, they didn’t ever plan any celebrations for him. They allowed him to retreat into himself and grieve the loss of his brother.

Except for Ellen.

No matter what either of them did to deter Ellen, she always attempted to force a small celebration, such as today’s, on him. When she was younger she would toddle behind him singing happy birthday. As she got older she mellowed out her attempts, but every year, without fail, she’d attempt to force him to celebrate.

It usually hurt some, despite how adorable her sincere attempts to cheer her father up were. Normally, Mai would catch her halfway through and shush her or distract her with something else. Without her mother around to curtail her excitement, Naru was fully prepared to take the brunt of her excitement.

But, instead, she just stood there, looking at him.

It was obvious that she had something that she wanted to say, but was unsure of how to. A younger Naru might have lost his patience minutes ago, but he allowed his impatience to dissipate. Instead, he sat there, expectantly and waited for her to speak.

Eventually she took a deep breath and spoke.

“Do you hate celebrating your birthday because Uncle Gene isn’t around?”

Naru closed his eyes. He’d never said as such to anyone, but, considering her mother’s intuition, it didn’t exactly surprise him that she’d picked up on why the day upset him so much.

“Yes,” he said after quite a bit of time passed. He was sure that his face was pained, but he decided not to mask it. He was too tired for that right now. “It wasn’t supposed to ever be just my birthday.”

He opened his eyes and found Ellen looking at him, contemplative. After a few moments, she nodded and went to retrieve utensils and plates for the two of them. As she went about the task, Naru stood and made tea for the two of them.

As he waited for the kettle, he watched as she approached him. She was somewhat hesitant, but he could recognize Mai’s determination a mile away.

“I don’t really know what it’s like to lose a brother. Or anyone really…” She trailed off for a moment and then continued on. “And, I never met him… But wouldn’t Uncle Gene want you to be happy?”

That gave Naru pause.

There was a part of him that wanted to immediately shoot her down. That, because she didn’t know anything about his pain, obviously she was wrong. That, because of his failures, what he deserved was to suffer.

That he didn’t deserve to be happy.

But there was another part of him, a quieter part, that said she was right. That, he could grieve, but he shouldn’t torture himself in the process.

That of course Gene would want him to be happy.

Naru felt torn on which side to listen to. But as he stared at his daughter’s quickly deteriorating face, there was only really once choice to make. If not for his own sake, but then for the sake of others.

He stepped forward and pulled his daughter into his arms and hugged her. It was awkward, as he was not nearly as well-versed in them as Mai was, but Ellen immediately returned the gesture.

“You’re right,” he said as he pulled away. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

He went about finishing the tea as Ellen retrieved a candle and lighter from another drawer. They bantered a bit about making sure that she didn’t actually burn down the house this time. But, otherwise the kitchen was mostly silent.

Once the tea was finally done, and Naru was seated at the table, Ellen lit the candle.

“Happy Birthday, Dad.”

She didn’t sing, but he took the invitation to blow the candle out all the same.

“What’d you wish for?”

Naru stared for a moment.

“Don’t tell me you forgot to make a wish!” She sighed and lit the candle once again. “You have to make a wish when you blow it out!”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, though he didn’t work too hard to cover up the small smirk that was worming its way onto his face. Of course she’d insist on such a superstitious act.

“Alright. Fine.”

He watched the flame on the candle dance for a few moments. He had most of what he could wish for, aside from Mai being away from home. But perhaps…

He blew out the candle and wished for the strength to accept the happy days that may come.

“What’d you wish for?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it tradition to not say the wish aloud for fear that it won’t come true?”

A bright smile broke across Ellen’s face. “So you do know what you’re supposed to do. You were just being silly!”

He crossed his arms. “Of course I know about it. Gene always made me make wishes. I just thought that I’d be able to get away without this time.”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Well, if I have my way you’ll never get out of it.”

“And there’s your Mother’s stubbornness.”

“You’re stubborn, too! And don’t make fun of Mom when she’s not around to defend herself.”

He sighed. “Fine. But just wait until the moment your Mother is back."

Ellen giggled as she cut out two pieces of cake. She set one in front of him and took her seat as well. Naru paused before taking a bite. It was a pretty good. A little dry still, but nothing a little tea couldn’t help.

"I love you, Ellen.”

His daughter paused to smile at him.

“I love you, too, Dad.”

#Ghost Hunt #GHW2019 #oliver davis #books-tea-ghosts #Samantha-GirlScout #submission

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