The Saint stood outside Yuuta's apartment, her hand raised to knock, her heart beating faster than it had in years. It had been so long since she heard his voice, since she felt his presence, since she knew he was safe. She had told herself she would be calm, would be patient, would not let the year of silence make her angry. She had told herself she would knock, and he would open the door, and they would talk, and everything would be as it was before.
She knocked.
Knock. Knock.
Inside, Erza was sprawled on the couch, absentmindedly flipping through TV channels with a bowl of popcorn balanced on her lap. She had been waiting for Yuuta to come back, waiting to continue the conversation he had run from, waiting to find out what secrets he was hiding in that foolish mortal brain of his. The knock made her smile. She tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth and grinned.
"Looks like that idiot mortal has come home," she said to herself.
She rose from the couch, moving quickly, eagerly, the way a lion moves toward prey that has wandered too close. She pulled the door open, her voice already rising, her words already forming.
"How dare you run away from me, you idiot mortal—"
She stopped.
The figure in the doorway was not Yuuta.
It was a woman, beautiful in a way that made Erza pause, made her look twice, made her acknowledge something she rarely acknowledged in anyone. Her hair was gold, falling around her shoulders in waves that caught the light like spun sunlight. She wore a white dress, simple but elegant, with holy symbols embroidered along the edges. A blindfold covered her eyes, hiding what lay beneath, and she held a cane in one hand, her fingers wrapped around it with a grip that spoke of nerves barely contained.
Erza raised an eyebrow. "Yes? What do you want, beautiful human?" Her voice was cold, dismissive, the voice she used when she was not impressed by what she saw.
The Saint blinked behind her blindfold, her head tilting slightly. She seemed caught off guard by the casual tone, the lack of reverence, the absence of the awe she was used to receiving. "Oh my," she said, her voice uncertain. "Did I enter the wrong home? This is Yuuta's residence, is it not?"
Erza's face went blank for a moment. Yuuta. That was his name. She had almost forgotten—she never used it, never thought of him as anything other than "mortal" or "idiot" or the various insults she had collected for him over the weeks. But yes. That was his name.
"Oh yes," she said. "I almost forgot. That bastard's name is Yuuta."
The Saint's brow furrowed. She did not understand this woman, did not understand why she was here, did not understand why she spoke of Yuuta with such casual disdain. "May I know who you are, miss?" she asked, her voice careful, polite. "And why you are in Yuuta's home?"
Erza crossed her arms. "I should be asking you that question. Who are you, human? And how do you know that mortal?"
The Saint hesitated. She had not expected this. She had expected to find Yuuta, to talk to him, to understand why he had stopped calling. She had not expected to find a stranger in his home, a woman who spoke of him like he was nothing, who looked at her like she was nothing.
"I am Yuuta's godmother," she said finally. "I raised him. I am the one who—" She stopped, her voice catching. "I am the one who made him who he is."
Erza stared at her. Godmother. She remembered now—something Yuuta had mentioned, weeks ago, when he was talking about the promise he had made, the person he was trying to become. She had not paid much attention then. She was paying attention now.
"Wait," she said, her voice shifting, becoming something almost curious. "Are you the one he made a promise to? The one who wants to see him graduate?"
The Saint's face went pale. "I do not know how you know about that promise," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "But yes. That promise is between Yuuta and me. How do you—"
Erza's smile widened. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of someone who had just found a weapon, a tool, a way to make the idiot mortal who had run from her pay for his cowardice. She had been waiting for him to come back, waiting to continue their conversation, waiting to find out what secrets he was hiding. But this—this was better. This was revenge.
She prepared her voice, made it sweet, made it warm, made it the voice of someone who had nothing to hide and everything to share. She leaned against the doorframe, casual, comfortable, the picture of a woman who belonged exactly where she was.
"Yes," she said. "This is Yuuta's home. And I am his wife. Is there something you need?"
The words hit the Saint like stones dropped into still water.
"WIFE?" Her voice cracked. Her hand tightened on her cane. "What do you mean, Wife?"
Erza's eyes sparkled with wicked amusement. She had expected fear, anger, confusion. She had not expected the Saint to look like she had been struck. It made it better. It made it perfect.
"Oh, did he not tell you?" Erza's lips curled into a grin. "Yuuta is my husband. We have been living together for a while now. I thought he would have mentioned it."
The Saint staggered back a step. Her face, which had been calm, was anything but. Her lips trembled. Her hands shook. The cane she had been holding so steady was now the only thing keeping her upright.
Behind Erza, a small figure appeared. Elena had been woken by the voices, had come to see who was at the door, had found her mother standing in the doorway and a strange woman in the hallway. She pressed herself against Erza's leg, peeking out with wide, uncertain eyes.
"Mama," she whispered. "Who is this lady?"
The Saint's head turned toward the sound. Her voice, when she spoke, was barely a whisper. "Mama? Who is this child?"
Erza looked down at Elena, then back at the Saint, then back at Elena again. She did not hesitate. She did not pause. She delivered the words like a blade, sharp and final.
"She is our daughter."
The Saint's legs gave out. She caught herself on the doorframe, her face white, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Her lips moved, forming words that did not come out, and when they finally did, they were broken, fragile, the words of someone who had just had her world pulled out from under her.
"Daughter," she whispered. "Yuuta has a daughter?"
Location: Velvet Crumb Bakery – Luna City
Velvet Crumb Bakery sat at the corner of a quiet street in Luna City, its windows fogged with warmth, its sign painted in soft gold letters that had faded over the years. It was not a fancy bakery, not the kind that appeared in magazines or food blogs. It was the kind of place where the bread was made by hand, where the recipes had been written on paper that was yellow with age, where the owner knew her regulars by name and kept their favorite pastries aside without being asked.
Yuuta had been coming here for years. He had come when he was hungry, when he was lonely, when he needed somewhere to go that was not his empty apartment. He had come when he had no money and Clara had pretended not to notice him slipping bread into his pockets. He had come when he had money and bought enough to pay back what he had taken. He had come so often that the bell above the door knew his step, that Clara knew his voice, that he had become part of the rhythm of this place.
But he had not come for weeks. Not since Erza appeared. Not since he started making breakfast at home, cooking for his daughter, becoming someone who did not need to buy bread from a shop because he had people to make it for.
Now he stood outside the bakery, the morning light warm on his face, his hands still bandaged, his legs still weak. He had run from Erza. He had fled down the stairs, out the door, into the street, without thinking, without planning, without knowing where he was going. He had ended up here. He always ended up here when he did not know where else to go.
He took a breath and pushed open the door.
The bell rang, soft and familiar, and the smell of fresh bread wrapped around him like a welcome. The bakery was empty at this hour, the shelves still being stocked, the ovens still warm from the morning's work. The light came through the windows in golden bars, falling across the wooden floor, across the counter where Clara kept her accounts, across the photograph on the wall.
He looked at the photograph. A man in uniform, young, smiling, his arm around a woman who was laughing at something out of frame. Clara's husband. The man who had dreamed of this bakery, who had died in a war that had taken so much from so many, who had left behind a woman who had not believed in his dreams until it was too late.
Yuuta had heard the story a hundred times. Clara told it when she was sad, when she was tired, when the bread did not rise the way it should. She told it like a prayer, like a penance, like something she needed to say out loud so she would not forget.
He looked away. "Miss Clara? Are you there? It is me, Yuuta."
The bakery was silent. He frowned. She was always here at this hour, always in the back, always kneading dough or checking the ovens or muttering to herself about the price of flour.
"Miss Clara?"
He took a step forward. A step toward the counter, toward the back room, toward the photograph on the wall. He did not see her coming.
She hit him like a wave. Her arms wrapped around him, pulled him close, pressed his face into her shoulder. She was not a small woman, and her embrace was not gentle. She held him like she was afraid he would disappear, like she had been waiting for him for weeks and was not going to let him go now that he was here.
Yuuta gasped, struggled, freed his face just enough to breathe. "Miss Clara—please—you are choking me—"
She released him, stepped back, held him at arm's length. Her face was red, her eyes bright, her voice a mix of joy and accusation. "Oh, how cute you are, Yuuta! It has been so long! I thought you hated me. I thought you hated my cooking. I thought you had found some fancy bakery with fancy bread and forgotten about us."
He laughed, gentle, breathless. "No. I could never hate you. I have been busy. That is all."
She looked at him. Her face changed. The joy faded. The brightness dimmed. She was a woman who had lost too much, who had learned to see the things people did not say, who knew when someone was lying.
"Busy," she repeated. "What could you possibly be busy with? It is not like you are married or something." She laughed, a small laugh, a testing laugh, the laugh of someone who was joking but watching to see if the joke landed.
Yuuta's face went red. He turned away, pretended to look at the bread on the shelves, pretended to be interested in the way the light fell across the crust.
"Well," he said. "It is not like that. Not exactly."
She looked at his face, when she saw the way his cheeks had gone red, the way his eyes had dropped, the way he was suddenly very interested in the floor.
Her laugh died.
Her face, which had been bright with joy, went still. She looked at him the way she had looked at him years ago, when he was a boy with hollow cheeks and hungry eyes, when he had stolen a loaf of bread from her counter and she had caught him with it under his jacket, when he had looked at her with the same red face, the same dropped eyes, and said, "It is not like I ate it."
She grabbed his ear.
He yelped. "Miss Clara—"
"Do not lie to me," she said. Her voice was sharp, motherly, the voice she used when she was about to get the truth out of someone whether they wanted to give it or not. "What happened to you? Who did you marry? When did this happen? You do not just become married without telling me."
He tried to pull away. Her grip did not loosen. "It hurts, Miss Clara. Please. It hurts."
She let go. He rubbed his ear, stepped back, looked at her. She was standing with her arms crossed, her face set, her eyes fixed on him with the particular intensity of someone who was not going to let him leave until she had answers.
"Tell me," she said. "What is going on?"
Yuuta took a breath. He thought about Erza. About Elena. About the night Erza appeared in his apartment, about the morning Elena called him Papa, about the weeks that had passed since then, weeks of dancing and cooking and learning to be a family. He thought about the ring on his finger, the one that had changed, the one that was a dragon now, black and coiled and holding a red stone that pulsed with light.
He did not know where to start. He did not know how to explain any of it. But Miss Clara was standing in front of him with her arms crossed and her face set, and she had been the first person in this city to be kind to him, and she had fed him when he was hungry, and she had never asked for anything in return.
"Well," he said, and his voice was small, and his face was red, and he was not sure he believed the words coming out of his mouth. "I am married. Somehow. It happened. I have a wife. And a daughter."
Miss Clara stared at him. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"What do you mean, 'somehow'?" she said. "What do you mean, 'it happened'? You do not just become married by accident, Yuuta. You do not just wake up one morning and find yourself with a wife and a child."
He looked at the floor. He thought about the night Erza appeared. About the way she had looked at him, cold and furious, holding their daughter, telling him he had one year to live. About the weeks that had followed, weeks of fear and hope and something he was still trying to name.
"It is a long story," he said.
She pulled him toward a chair, pushed him into it, sat down across from him. The bakery was quiet. The oven hummed. The clock ticked. Outside, the city was waking up, but inside, there was only the two of them, and the photograph on the wall, and the weight of a story he had never told anyone.
"Tell me," she said.
He told her.
He sat down. She sat across from him. The bakery was quiet. The oven hummed. The clock ticked.
He told her the story he had never told anyone. The story that was not true for him, but the story that Erza had told the judges, the story that had saved them. He told it because it was the only story that made sense to ordinary people.
"It happened when I was in high school," he said. "There was a camping trip. A school thing. I went because I had to, because the orphanage said it would be good for me, because I did not have anywhere else to go."
Miss Clara nodded slowly. She remembered that time. He had come back from that trip different. Quieter. More afraid. She had asked him what happened, and he had said nothing, and she had let it go because that was what you did for people you loved.
"There was a woman," Yuuta said. "She was drunk. Lost. Alone. I found her near the campsite. She was beautiful, even then, and she was crying, and I could not leave her there. So I helped her. I walked her back to her apartment. I made sure she got inside safe."
He paused. His hands were clenched on the table. His face was pale.
"And then she kissed me."
Miss Clara's breath caught.
"I was sixteen. I did not know what to do. I had never been kissed. I had never been touched. I had never been looked at like I was someone worth looking at." His voice dropped. "I did not know how to stop her. I did not want to stop her. And in the morning, when I woke up, she was still sleeping, and I was terrified."
He looked up at Miss Clara. "I ran away. I did not leave a note. I did not tell her my name. I did not tell anyone. I was afraid of what would happen to me, to my scholarship, to everything I had worked for. I was sixteen, and I was a coward, and I ran."
Miss Clara reached across the table and took his hands. Her hands were warm, steady, the hands of someone who had held people through grief and loss and the long, slow work of healing.
"I thought about her," he said. "It must be Dream, and I told myself that what happened was a mistake in Dream."
He touched the ring on his finger. "Five years passed. I thought she had forgotten me. I thought I had forgotten her. And then, a few weeks ago, she came to my apartment."
Miss Clara's eyes went wide. "She found you?"
"Yes, She found me. She came to my apartment with our daughter. She told me everything. And now—" He touched the ring. "Now we are trying to be a family."
The silence stretched. Miss Clara did not move. Her hands were still on the table. Her face was still.
Then she stood up.
"Then… hello, 911—"
"W-Wait!" Yuuta panicked, nearly dropping his phone. "Miss Clara, what are you doing?!"
Clara's eyes narrowed sharply, her voice rising in outrage. "You bastard, you perverted idiot! How could you sleep with someone like that?!"
Yuuta froze. His brain short-circuited for a second before he flailed his hands. "No, no—don't say it like that! I… I repent my sins, okay?! And she—she still loves me!"
Clara blinked.
"…Wait. She loves you?"
Yuuta scratched his cheek awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. "Y-Yeah… I think so."
A pause.
Then suddenly—
Clara smiled.
A bright, relieved smile.
"Well, if that's the case," she said, placing a hand on her chest, "my tension is gone now."
Yuuta stared at her, completely confused.
"…What do you mean 'tension'?" he asked.
"All these years," she said, her voice rising,
"all these years I thought you were alone. I thought you had no one. I worried about you. I prayed for you. I made you bread and asked about your life and tried to be the mother you did not have."
She grabbed his shoulders, shook him. "And all this time, you had a wife? A child? A family? And you did not tell me?"
"Miss Clara, it was complicated—as i said before"
"Do you know what I thought?" she demanded.
"I thought you were gay. I thought you had no interest in women. I thought you would be alone forever, and I would have to take care of you, and I was preparing myself for that, because that is what you do for people you love." She shook him again.
"And now you tell me you have a wife and a child? That you have been in love this whole time? That you have a daughter I have never met?"
"I did not know how to tell you—"
"You did not know how to tell me?" She released him, stepped back, pressed her hands to her face. Her voice cracked.
"You did not know how to tell the woman who has been praying for you to find someone? Who has been praying for you to be happy? Who has been praying for you to have the family you never had?"
Yuuta stood, reached for her. "Miss Clara—"
She pulled away.
She stood in the middle of the bakery, breathing hard, her hands still pressed to her face. The photograph of her husband looked down at her from the wall, and she thought about him, about the dreams he had, about the bakery they were supposed to build together.
She lowered her hands.
She looked at Yuuta.
"You are going to bring them here," she said.
It was not a question.
He blinked. "What?"
"Your wife. Your daughter. You are going to bring them here. You are going to introduce them to me. You are going to let me meet the woman who made you look at her like that."
She pointed at his face, at the expression he had been wearing without knowing it, the expression Miss Clara had seen on her husband's face a thousand times.
"You are going to let me meet your daughter."
He stared at her.
Then he smiled.
It was a real smile,
the kind he had not worn in weeks, the kind that made Miss Clara's heart ache.
"Yes," he said. "I will bring them."
She nodded. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She straightened her apron. She was Miss Clara again, the woman who ran the bakery, the woman who had been through war and loss and grief and had kept going.
"Good," she said. "Now. What are you going to buy for breakfast?"
To be Continue....