~ Chapter 12 ~

It was difficult to pull myself into the mindset of cooking—of preparing to open The Red Bar—after the talk I’d just had with Satsuya concerning the Conscious and their aims. Still, I was ready to shift my thoughts and bring a little levity. Or so I told myself.

We all deserved it after the whirlwind of events that day: meeting me; the villains appearing; Wars making a demand no sane person would make. Hearing that the horrible deaths of the Typpe from fourteen years ago were the work of the same organization after us now...

A part of me wondered if Satsuya knew more about the Conscious than he was verbalizing, but I was already feeling overwhelmed, so I didn’t ask; I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. I didn’t like the thought of secrets, but if he was keeping anything, perhaps it was because he—or Yuuki, for that matter—could sense my mounting anxiety.

Not that they needed to sense it.

I was pretty certain it was clear on my face.

But you’re pushing those thoughts aside for now, Ivy. Remember?

Focus on helping Mr. Alessi prepare food! It will be fun.

I hoped it would be fun. I was honestly looking forward to it now that Mr. Alessi had roped me into volunteering. I just hoped I didn’t burn or explode anything, like some trope-enhanced, culinary-useless love interest in some romance novels (not mine, of course; all the women in mine were masters in the kitchen—precisely because I wasn’t).

“Thank you for your help, Miss Ivy.” Mr. Alessi beamed at me as he pulled leftover pasta from the refrigerator. I made note that he used my given name rather than my surname. “We should eat before we work. Satsu,” he called over his shoulder at the Uni, who had just finished washing our coffee mugs, “you should see if your sister needs help finishing her homework.” Mr. Alessi’s lips curved with an unspoken joke as he placed the leftover pasta in the oven.

I almost snorted a laugh, but managed to keep that indelicate sound in.

I highly doubted Yuuki needed any help with her studies—that girl seemed like she would easily be able to handle the university classes she wished to take—but Satsuya glanced at me before nodding. I had half a mind to ask Mr. Alessi why he was (sort of) covertly sending Satsuya away, but I had an idea.

Satsuya didn’t voice it, but I received the distinct impression he was still pondering about what would come next, what we would do about the Conscious. Given what I knew of his personality, he would probably sit us all down for a democratic discussion at some point, but at the moment we were all too stressed to reach any conclusions. If Mr. Alessi could redirect his focus, too, it would do him good as well.

Once the pasta was done heating, Mr. Alessi dished it up onto four patterned plates. My next-door-Uni took two and headed upstairs while the fedora-wearing owner of The Red Bar sat down at the lace-covered table across from me.

I picked up my fork and dove in, not realizing how hungry I was until the zing of well-cooked red sauce hit my tastebuds. It was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes, it was so good. And though Mr. Alessi wasn’t a fancy chef like the ones my parents hired, I found I actually preferred this meal. It was simple, and yet it tasted like...

Love, maybe? The thought was painfully sweet, yet it seemed to fit.

If what we would be preparing for later tasted this good, I had a feeling I was going to enjoy making it.

Whatever else I had going on in my life could wait.

Don’t think about it, Ivy.

Maybe if I quietly chanted that enough times, my mind would listen. Though that may be too much to ask for. My mind never was the best at containing thoughts, even worse than my spoke-too-much tongue.

After lunch, I helped Mr. Alessi prepare various dishes—nothing overly complicated, but much more than I would expect for a bar, which typically had, what, pretzels? I had no idea, since I didn’t frequent them. Whatever the case, we set to work on a variety of foods, even several deserts. I listened as Mr. Alessi talked, telling me about his life before Satsuya and Yuuki, about his old home and his wife. And then about his new life—his customers, and how much he loved what he was doing now.

I had half a mind to suggest Mr. Alessi change The Red Bar to a restaurant or pub or something since he clearly loved food, but who was I to argue?

Besides, it was clear that soon, The Red Bar would probably need to close or be sold...

There go my thoughts—right back to our predicament.

That chant didn’t work, I guess.

I sighed, resigning myself to the fact that I couldn’t avoid these thoughts entirely. As I shaped bread dough into (less than perfect) knots, I wondered what Mr. Alessi would do once Satsuya made his decision. If he did decide to go after The One, surely Yuuki and Mr. Alessi wouldn’t go with him; it would be far too dangerous. But did that mean they would remain here, or move somewhere else? If they remained here, wouldn’t it be easier for the World Law to find them?

As if they won’t be found anyway.

There’s nowhere to hide.

There’s no way Satsuya could possibly do what the Conscious is demanding, strong or not.

I stopped shaping the dough and looked down to find a mess just as jumbled as my thoughts. Maybe I should feed the strangled mess of dough to the oven and call it ‘Ivy Thought Yarn’, because a tangled ball of yarn is basically what it looked like.

I chewed on my lip, annoyed by my inability to keep my own thoughts at bay.

So I did the next best thing—I thought about something related, but not exactly related.

Fumbling with my mess of yarn bread, I asked the owner of The Red Bar, “Um...this is probably none of my business—I mean, it really is none of my business—but I have a question. About, um, before. Your old eatery, and your...wife.” I licked my lips, looking over at the fedora-clad man uncertainly.

Instead of giving me scoff or cold gaze (like some people I knew would have), the owner of the bar merely smiled that brilliant smile of his. Looking at it, I could see why he’d snatched a wife as amazing as the one he’d had. “Of course you may ask. We are part of one another’s lives now, no? If it is too much, I will say so.” He pulled a round of bread from the oven, working towards the lasagna we would cook a little later. I had never thought pasta and liquor (not wine, but genuine liquor) would compliment one another, but apparently they did...or customers became so tipsy they didn’t care.

As I had been listening (and narrowly avoiding cutting myself more than once), Mr. Alessi had told me The Red Bar wasn’t the only food establishment he’d owned. He and his wife had lived in a sector far from this one, where they’d run a flourishing restaurant that served only the best pasta dishes. It was small but quaint, every inch of it lined by fine linens his wife Mira had embroidered, decorated with tapestries she created and china she loved. Hearing about it made me wish I could go back in time and venture there, to see their smiling faces. But, even if that place still existed, the life they’d had there no longer did.

When Mira had died, Mr. Alessi grew ill. With a tear in his eye, he had recounted his efforts to keep their restaurant flourishing, but it wasn’t the same. That chapter in his life had closed, whether he wanted it to or not.

So he had moved on. Yet it was obvious that a part of him remained in the past, because he was still cooking.

I wondered if maybe Mr. Alessi didn’t want to turn The Red Bar into an official eatery because he missed the restaurant he had owned with Mira—but I also wondered if he was afraid of losing what he had built with his new family, too.

Surely he was. Surely that thought was always on his mind—even before the Conscious showed up to make their demand.

I found it difficult to relate, yet a part of me understood what he might be feeling. I couldn’t say my family and I had built anything—more like I had spent all my time trying not to destroy what they already had—but I had lost the life I’d tried to build for myself.

How did you move on after that?

Finally ready to pose my question, I met Mr. Alessi’s smiling eyes and asked, “How did you find the strength to keep going after Mira passed? How did you...” my tongue felt like lead, “...how can you be happy building a new life, when the one you wanted is gone?”

Guilt struck almost immediately, and the tangled knot of bread I was still shaping ripped in half, but Mr. Alessi’s smile remained—though it saddened around the edges. “Ah, I see. You are feeling lost, aren’t you, Miss Ivy? Admittance of that fact is the first step towards healing.”

He reached out and gingerly took the mangled globs of dough from my hands. With perfect kindness, he started to work them back into shape. “When things are broken, it feels as if they will never mend. Sometimes, you remember what wholeness feels like, and sometimes, you forget what it felt like to feel whole. You wonder if your memory of happiness was nothing but a wish.”

He pulled and twisted the lump of dough, none of the actions appearing as harsh as when I performed them. “When I lost Mira, I saw her everywhere, and yet she was nowhere. I remembered our happiness, and I felt the sting of its loss. I cried myself to sleep many nights, and I feared of opening myself to new possibilities and new people. I may lose them, too, yes? I didn’t even cook for a while.” Mr. Alessi chuckled at that, the curve in his lips still sorrowful.

I watched as he tugged the bread dough into a strange shape. Was he still making a knot?

He cast me a knowing glance and returned to forming, shaking his head in a gesture that could only mean ‘be patient’.

“After a while, I began to miss living.” Mr. Alessi continued, tone softer than before. “I raged at myself for this at first. ‘How can I enjoy anything without Mira?’, I said, but life refuses to be ignored. The world turns. People eat. Children grow. Even in the midst of my sorrow, it was as if Mira was there, telling me to continue.” His words slowed, and he swallowed back what could only be tears before he looked me straight in the eye. “That is when I realized what I had lost was not gone. She was still here. She is. In every moment.”

I bit at my lip, my eyes just as watery as his. And when I looked down, I realized the dough he’d finished shaping had taken on new life—not a knot, but a blossom of hearts all intertwined.

“...what you lost is still here...” I swallowed the words, not quite sure if I could believe them.

That may have worked for him, but what about me? Losing a loved one was painful—I knew, I had lost my grandmother not long ago. I would readily admit I had never really moved on; it was part of why I had asked Mr. Alessi this question. But the pain I was experiencing now was a different kind of loss, wasn’t it? Not really the loss of something tangible, more like...the loss of respect for myself?

I could learn to live with my new surroundings. I could learn to trust the people I had decided to take a chance on. I could learn to aid them whatever way possible. I could even learn (I hoped) to accept the fact that I was in danger. But learning to like myself again after failing so spectacularly felt impossible.

I felt like the life I had lost wasn’t still here, and neither was the respect.

But was that true?

If it was gone entirely, would I still desire it? Would I have any hope of regaining it at all?

Maybe Satsuya was right. Maybe I had come here for a reason.

Maybe there was more to my loss than just a lack of confidence in myself.

“All is not gone, Miss Ivy.” Mr. Alessi beamed a true smile as he placed our knotted bread into the oven. “There is still something you wish to do, isn’t there? And that means what you have lost is not vanished. Whether you fight to keep it—or change it—is up to you. Life can begin anew if you let it. It is less courage, and more...a willingness to experience loss again. A willingness to let new things begin, yes?” He tiled his head to indicate the bag my computer was in, which I had left near the bottom of the stairs.

Thoughts of my laptop brought thoughts of the scene I had been writing earlier—before the Conscious appeared, before I discovered who Satsuya was; it seemed like so long ago now. I had been enjoying those words, writing feeling like a pleasure for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long. But was now really the time to be putting fingers to keys? Just so I could feel better about myself?

For some reason, I couldn’t keep a grin from my lips.

I stared at the vibrant print of my bag. It was as if, for the first time in a while, I could hear a story calling.

And, somewhere beneath the call of a story, I fancied I could hear my grandmother, too, whispering that it was time to begin—

Time to return.