The bitter aftertaste of the phone call with my father burns on my tongue. His statement still hurts because I know I’m all he has left. He did a lot to keep me safe and make sure nothing happened. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if I had fallen into Ghetsis’ hands back then.

  Being grateful to my father is the only right thing to do. He gave up everything for me, plagued by fear and nightmares – I’m sure of it. After all, he didn’t give up his memories. One of us had to face it all, and he chose to do it alone.

  But that’s the thing bothering me. I’m not a little girl anymore. I can stand on my own two feet, and I’m ready to face the truth – even if it hurts. And it hurts like hell. My chest feels like someone is constricting it until all my ribs crack. The lump in my throat quivers whenever I breathe in. It’s not as if I can’t understand my father’s feelings, but the way he’s behaving, there’s no room for me. No room for a family that has been through something together.

  I’m just the add-on.

  Excluded and left behind because it’s “the best” in the eyes of others.

  My teeth dig into my lip. What do I have to do to make my father understand I am not a fragile artefact but a girl with desires, dreams and understanding towards this world? I know not everything can always go well. It goes without saying that, as the years go by, I realise that kindness isn’t a priority everywhere. And I am also at an age where it’s bearable for me to know I have lost my mum.

  The only unbelievable thing is my father, who robbed me of the chance to come to terms with said loss. Now I can only mourn a shadow for whom I probably once harboured much deeper feelings. Even now I can feel the stinging in my chest as I remember that I may have loved Mum a lot.

  “Hey, you’re going to bite your lip to pieces.”

  When someone suddenly holds a handkerchief under my nose, I blink a few times, taken aback. Then I look up, straight into Zir’s face, who is looking down at me with raised brows. The walls of the headquarters are surrounding, us and it’s only at this moment that I realise I haven’t noticed anything more than my own thoughts the whole way back.

  “Thank you,” I mumble, barely audible, as I pick up the handkerchief and press it to my lip. The stinging presses a bloodstain into the white tissue. “What are you doing here? On your way to a new mission?”

  Nothing looks unusual about Zir. He’s wearing his uniform and has that hard expression on his face that always disappears when he’s fazed. This is also the case in these seconds, in which he crosses his arms in front of his chest and nods cheerfully.

  “Not a direct mission, but I wanted to gather some information. I got a good tip. And since it’s Amethio’s birthday tomorrow, Conia and I want to make sure he has as little work as possible. We’ve already let Hamber know all requests will be sent to us so that Amethio can relax.”

  “That sounds very nice.” The gesture from both of them wrings a smile from me that only lasts temporarily before collapsing. The sudden emptiness in my head causes an unpleasant ringing in my ears, and I can feel the blood draining from my face.

  Amethio. Birthday. Tomorrow. Eleventh of the month. November.

  In a flash, I pull out my Rotom Phone and check the time. I still have nine hours to organise a halfway decent plan and make him happy, too. I can’t possibly let his birthday pass me by. Not when things have been going so well between us recently, and this is a chance to get closer to him.

  Of course, I half-remember wanting to forget about my affection for him, but the racing heart in my chest jumping out at me completely unannounced demands otherwise. And if I’m completely honest, I don’t care whether I fall for him even more or not. Here and now, I know I want to be closer to him than anyone else.

  However, I can’t just pick a gift out of thin air. I have no clue what I could give him without risking him not liking and not using it. The news comes at far too short notice. I should think about my father and everything else – trumped by the need to forget this awful conversation.

  You don’t turn twenty every day. But a birthday party so soon after Halloween would drive him crazy. So a nice get-together is out of the question, and my options shrink with each passing second.

  “Is there anything ... that Amethio likes?” The desperation in my voice falters as I address Zir. “Anything he would like?”

  Thoughtfully, my counterpart puts a hand to his chin. “There is nothing of interest to him. Amethio doesn’t care much for celebrations or special days like Christmas, Easter, or birthdays.”

  My saliva is dry as dust. To put it mildly, I’m screwed if I can’t come up with a decent idea.

  “But maybe you could bake a cake,” Zir suggests. “He seems to like fruit lately.”

  In my entire memory, I’ve never been acquainted with kitchen utensils for cooking. Baking, as part of all this, is at least as unfamiliar to me, and I don’t know if it’s wise to put myself in the kitchen and bet everything on something I’m not familiar with. Then again, I know Amethio appreciates tasty things, and just the thought that he might like my cake turns my stomach into a flutter of joy.

  “But if you’re baking for Amethio, you should avoid doing the same for Spinel.”

  “Spinel?” My brows lift. It almost seems as if everything Zir says flies over my head. “What does Spinel have to do with this?”

  “You ... don’t know his birthday is on the twenty-fifth?”

  All the people I like and care about seem to have lives I don’t know about. I’ve spent days with Spinel and only know the bare minimum about him – which doesn’t include his birthday any more than it does Amethio’s. I don’t even dare to ask when Zir and Conia are due.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about that,” Zir interjects somewhere in between. “None of us bother with days like this. You know we wouldn’t even have spent Halloween together, and I’m sure Christmas won’t be any different. They’re just days that come and go.” Finally, he puts a heavy hand on my shoulder before nodding at me. “It’s fine if you just forget about it.”

  The next moment, he pushes his way out and leaves me alone. Zir probably knows full well that I can’t forget his words. After all, too much has already been taken from me in recent years for me to sit back and relax. When Amethio turns twenty tomorrow, I’ll do everything I can to give him something to snack on. And when Christmas comes, I want to at least try to ensure that we all spend a few hours together. Because we’re a team and because we belong together. This group is probably the closest thing to family I can have.

  So I turn on my heel and dash outside to make my way to the grocery shop. Simultaneously, I look at the internet for cakes, all of which look great but are about as easy to make as a friendship between Amethio and Spinel.

  I don’t feel I’m up to the task with any of the suggestions. But that’s probably just a quirk of baking. Everything sounds terribly complicated but is actually easy to achieve. So I settle on one of them, and when I enter the shop, I put everything I need in my shopping basket.

  However, shopping and deciding on the right gelatine takes more time than I assumed, so I don’t get my chance to bake until after dinner.

  By the time everyone is fed and I have the feeling no one will get in my way, it’s ten o’clock in the evening. The silence of the headquarters is now ringing in my ears, and, while I’m still spreading out my purchases on the counter, I look at the entrance. There are no footsteps within range, no one is strolling along the corridors and my Rotom is set to full volume so I can hear if anyone wants anything from me.

  I take a deep breath. Then I put on an apron with a cute Slowpoke printed on it and put my hands on my hips. I have fruit, chocolate, step-by-step instructions and the certainty that my team is dozing off in my room. If anything happens there, Ying will take care of the problem.

  I can start with a clear conscience.

  My eyes slowly glide over the instructions I have found on the net. A few of the ingredients end up in a bowl and are blended by the mixer until a thick mass remains, looking less than appetising. The slight lemon flavour is nearly trumped by vanilla, and when I sift in the flour, I seem to create more dust than I add to the mixture.

  Mixing all of this makes the dough sticky, and I’m not sure if I want the base to look like this. Still, I pour it into a baking tin and put it in the preheated oven, hoping it won’t burn or turn into something that doesn’t look as described.

  In the meantime, I whip cream, and I can’t stop myself from tasting it at least once. The rich, light and slightly sweet flavour arouses gentle anticipation. So far, everything is going halfway as planned, and I can’t deny I’m doing better than I feared.

  Having put the cream in the fridge, I turn my attention to the next stage. This is where the fruit finally comes into play – in this case, mandarins, which sell particularly well at this time of year alongside sour Poké Berries. I squeeze the juice out of some of them until I can fill a glass with them before warming them in a pan with a little sugar and enough heat. I then throw a few sheets of gelatine into the liquid and watch them dissolve agonisingly slowly.

  To my amazement, it takes longer than expected, and the gelatine refuses to disappear for several minutes. It takes half an hour before the stuff is completely gone, and I can finally move to the next steps in my instructions.

  Fortunately, the lukewarm mixture can be blended quickly and easily with all the quark I’ve bought, so it becomes a light-coloured, slightly runny mixture, into which I can add some whipped cream before adding loads of mandarins.

  Overall, it looks decent, and I can’t wait to see what the cake will taste like when I get the chance to try the result.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The only unpleasant thing about baking is what is left behind. There are bowls everywhere. Spoons are scattered around, flour has spread like fine dust on the kitchen surface, and it is foreseeable that cleaning up alone will take about half an hour. The only good thing is that it’s time for my finished cake base to cool.

  Shortly after, water bubbles in the basin just as vividly as my thoughts in my head. Every spoon I wash up as if in a trance gives me the chance to think of all the possible scenarios the finished cake could conjure up. Perhaps Amethio will thank me and leave a compliment. Or he’ll taste it, and we’ll talk to each other – get closer, like at Halloween. Who knows? If I show courage, maybe we’ll share the kiss I’ve been longing for.

  His lips on mine, a delicate touch that stands in stark contrast to my mess and his rigid behaviour, because for a moment we both know what we want. It would be perfect.

  Pressing my lips together, I grab one of the mixing bowls, which empties my head with its stubborn stains. I shouldn’t be thinking about things like this. Kissing Amethio, wanting to be close to him – for all that I hold sacred, I don’t even know what exactly I want with him. Surely, the easiest answer would be to want to have a relationship with him. But I don’t know if I even know how to manage it. And what then? A kiss. Maybe we hold hands. But what defines a relationship? What would change for us?

  In a flash, I shake my head and rinse the bubble out of the bowl. Thinking about a relationship is beyond my current competence. I’d much rather focus on this moment. On my preparations, the cake, Amethio’s birthday. In fact, I’d rather deal with my father, his words, Alder’s information and the Rising Volt Tacklers than let a non-existent romance go to my head.

  Finally, I put the clean dishes to one side and take a deep breath. The cake base is still lukewarm, and I think that’s cold enough to spread the cream, which is a bit runny. So I divide the cake. Fenced in with a cake ring, I pour the quark-cream-tangerine mixture onto the bottom half before putting the top on and putting everything in the fridge. By now it’s half-past twelve. I’ll probably wait an hour or two before I take the ring off.

  With a sigh, I step away from the fridge and let my eyes wander over the mess, staring back at me as if I have committed a crime. The fine flour dust is still collecting on every surface, and I can’t help but run both hands over my face. Then I grab a cloth and start wiping down the tops.

  The slightly too-bright kitchen light casts short shadows over the counters and the floor, making me feel a little less alone. It’s strangely quiet without my team, and although I would probably be grateful for it in any other situation, this time it invites me to think. Thoughts I don’t want to lean on because I know what would happen if I do. I would just get lost. Carrying an empty head around is much more pleasant.

  The sink water, which this time runs cold over my skin, keeps me focussed. This way, I can just stare holes in the air while I mop up the dough and use a small sponge brush to give the worktop a clean shine.

  Still, I keep catching my thoughts clinging to Alder’s words. Sentences and information I have to swallow before they gain the upper hand. It’s pathetic, but today I don’t want to remember anything that makes the tightness in my chest even heavier. I don’t want to notice more emptiness under my skin that I don’t know where to push or how to fill.

  But more than once, I feel like I’ve been motionless in one spot for far too long, doing nothing while my senses argue over what the best decision would be. Should I really swallow what I know now? Should I perhaps talk to someone? Maybe it’s not a bad idea if I write to Lillie, who I haven’t heard from in far too long. She’s seen the Halloween pictures, and she’s even sent some back of herself and her Vulpix, but that’s all we’ve managed.

  I bite my tongue cautiously. I don’t want to burden her with my worries. Lillie has her own problems and enough chaos to deal with. Her mum needs someone to breathe new life into her, and while Guzma seems unable to do so and Gladion has left, Lillie is doing everything she can to achieve a better future.

  Of course, I could still turn to others, as I imagined before. But whenever I linger on Conia and Amethio, there’s something deep inside me that would much rather keep quiet. Juniper and Fennel are just acquaintances, and Alder can probably imagine how I feel but can’t find the right words to change these emotions. Probably no one can. Nobody except my father, who refuses to give me a single chance.

  In the end, I swing myself onto the cleanly wiped work surface and remain seated. For a few breaths, the artificial light feels hot on my skin, and as I bury my face in my hands, the blackness behind my closed eyelids is almost comforting. I can imagine a flickering in it, like the ones you see on old television sets. A jumble of black and white dots rushing by and reminding me that some things have to be straightened out first in order to get a picture again.

  I probably also have to straighten something in order to continue. Perhaps it helps if I consciously take these thoughts I have and carry them off. Over to an imaginary box where I can stow them away. Together with the unknown voice that hasn’t spoken for a while. The only thing I want to leave outside are my feelings for Amethio. I want to explore this tingling sensation; I want to get closer to him; I want to kiss him and know that it’s okay – assuming he’s even the slightest bit interested in me.

  Only the idea brings a small smile to my lips in the middle of my worries. The dreams I’ve had about him are a blur, but I remember a few of them. And I can say that I started thinking about them at some point. About what it would be like to hold his hand or be hugged by him. Sometimes I woke up and wished I could look him in the eyes right away. Now I think about what it would be like to kiss him. And all I clearly take away from it is that at some point I started to want him.

  I woke up and wanted Amethio.

  Surely that’s one of my silliest thoughts. All because I spent a little too much time with Spinel. Still, it was these trips that gave me a nudge in an otherwise completely unconsidered direction.

  Sighing, I grab my Rotom and look at the clock. Only an hour has passed. That’s probably not enough time for the cake to cool through, but I can’t stop myself from sliding off the worktop and taking a peek in the fridge.

  When I gently tap on the top, nothing gives way. Wiggling the ring a little doesn’t hint at the mixture still bobbing around in liquid form either. So I muster up a little courage and lift the ring a bit. Just enough to pull it down again quickly enough if something happens. But even in this case, nothing moves. Everything stays in place.

  So I take the cake out and put it on the counter, then take a deep breath and undo the hooks of the ring so I can pull the metal off and look at my masterpiece. My heart beats a little faster at the thought of presenting Amethio with my first attempt at baking. Not much longer and my fantasy becomes reality.

  But just as I open the ring completely, ready to lift it, the top sinks. Like a flood, the inside of my cake slips out, over the edge, to splash onto the floor. My body acts on reflex, grabs one of the rinsed bowls within reach, and catches what I can. Part of it spreads out on the worktop, the cream on the floor is lost, and the cake itself now looks like a flattened sandwich.

  Dry swallowing is all that remains. For a blink, I don’t know what to do. My eyes hurt and sting, but I hold back from shedding unnecessary tears. Instead, my heart sinks two levels lower.

  Sure, I could try again, but I haven’t bought enough ingredients to allow myself to make that kind of mistake. If the cake base had burnt, I could have tried again. But the cream?

  “Shit...” I can barely hear the whisper on my lips myself. The bowl in my hand weighs heavily. What do you do in situations like these? Throwing all this away is out of the question, but if I’m honest, I want nothing more than to take all this and put it in the bin.

  “Damn it!” Louder than before, I slam the bowl down on the kitchen surface and bury my hands in my hair to grab individual strands and tug at them, hoping the pain won’t make me completely despair.

  But to make matters worse, this damn cream turns into the least of my problems when I turn around and catch sight of Amethio in the kitchen frame. With a cup in his hand, he looks at me impassively, as if he’s just waiting for me to calm down. Instead, my stomach turns and I avert my eyes. My voice, worn and exhausted from everything that won’t work, hisses dismissively over my tongue. “What do you want?”

  Lowering my head, I cross my arms tightly in front of my chest. At best, he puts his cup down and disappears. To my dismay, however, his steps sound so slow that I have to stifle a tense snort.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his legs – how he walks past me and how his cup clatters in the sink. Then there’s the clink of a plate. Silverware. Enough noise to get my heart racing, so I whirl around and lift my head to look at him.

  He’s shaken some of my disaster cream onto a plate where it looks like a simple dessert. The spoon in his hand is ready to taste, and before he can get any further, I open my mouth to stop him. However, I can’t make a sound. All I can do is bridge the distance and grab him by the arm before he poisons himself.

  “You ... shouldn’t eat that,” I force out. “It probably tastes ... awful.” The wavering of my voice almost drives me mad, but I have no choice but to use that same voice to make him realise his idea isn’t the best.

  “You wanted to bake something?” He doesn’t heed my warning. Amethio’s eyes are glued to me, while the rest of his body holds as still as if he wouldn’t even give in to a storm.

  “I ... wanted to make you a cake ... for your birthday,” I confess. “But the cream failed to get firm.” I lower my head again. “Maybe I was just too impatient and it should have stayed in the fridge.”

  “Probably not,” he replies, and my gaze lifts. “It has no support.”

  “But I used gelatine...”

  “You soaked it beforehand?”

  “Hah?” He becomes more incomprehensible by the second. “Soaked it?”

  “You didn’t read the packaging.” Amethio’s statement is about as dry as my mouth, so my fingers detach from him, and I drag myself to the bin to fish out the packaging.

  He’s not wrong; I didn’t read the description. I just trusted the recipe, which said to add the gelatine to the mixture. Nowhere did it say that I had to soak it first. Except for the packet, which is literally spitting in my face right now. If I hadn’t made that little mistake, my cake would have turned out fine, and I wouldn’t be standing here looking like an idiot.

  “It turned out well.” Amethio speaks up in the background, so I hastily look over my shoulder and realise there’s nothing left on the spoon.

  Immediately, I throw the package back in the bin, wash my hands and stumble back to him, kitchen towel in hand. Directly afterwards, I grab the plate in his hand, and he lets go. For a moment I want to believe that I’ve won and can sweep all this under the carpet without being seen, but Amethio won’t let me leave. He takes more of the cream with his spoon far too quickly, and I can only express my horror with a sharp sound of despair.

  It takes two or three breaths, during which my brows draw together in indecision. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it. I-”

  “I know that,” he interrupts me. “And I wouldn’t do that.”

  It’s hard to believe him. Then again, I have no clue how what’s on the plate tastes. So I dare to take a bit and taste it to make sure Amethio isn’t just nicer than he wants to admit.

  Contrary to all my fears, the flavour is pleasant. Light and a little fruity. Somewhere behind that, pleasant sweetness is hiding, and my shoulders slump. The result could have been great if I had read the packaging.

  “You can still eat the cream as a dessert,” he throws into the room. “Just like the cake itself. Conia might help.”

  He probably also knows about gelatine from Conia. After all, she’s the one who cooked for us mostly when we were still on the airship or in the submarine. She might save a thing or two, although that also means my surprise for Amethio goes completely down the drain.

  “Sorry.” The sigh weighs at least as heavily as the defeat. “I shouldn’t have been so mean.” I can barely look him in the eye. “Still ... I wish you a happy birthday.”

  It’s hard to focus on him because I don’t know what’s going on inside his head. His expression is hard to interpret at times like this. Even in these seconds, there doesn’t seem to be any transparency. No matter how deeply I look into these impenetrable violet eyes, they don’t give any answers. Instead, it causes him to avert his gaze and mumble a half-loud “thank you”.

  I grimace briefly and put the plate to one side. In the end, all of this must be at least as unpleasant for him as it is for me, and just as I’m about to step away to get a bucket and a mop, he grabs me by the wrist. He doesn’t pull, doesn’t let me stumble towards him, rather holds me in one place as if he wants to prevent me from simply running away.

  He still holds the spoon with his “dessert” firmly in the other hand. It’s as if he wants to give me this little bite – I would accept; I certainly would. But the silence between us drags on, and it takes Amethio half an eternity before he lets go of me, this time staring stubbornly at me until he finds his voice again.

  “I mean it. Thank you.”

  I don’t know why, but the fact he’s struggling to look at me when something inside him probably wants to run away as much as I do makes my throat tighten. The sudden smile on my features shouldn’t exist, but it appears, and the pounding in my chest makes my ribs ache a bit.

  But that’s all right.

  Here and now, I want to believe him.