The soothing voice of Misora Hibari was tickling our ears as Yuko worked with complete concentration at the task in her hands. With quick motions, she clipped around a milky white ball of mizuame sugar, the soft, pliable mass at her will to make whatever she wanted of it. Anything could come out of that ball, twisted and pulled by her expert fingers and her snipping and grabbing clippers. It sat on a stick, and as I watched, she pulled a head from it and clipped small, pointed ears on it. She pinched, and a snout formed. 

With my mouth open dumbly, I watched her coax long limbs from the lower part of the ball, clipping paws into the ends. She stretched it out further, making a torso. 

"Is it a cat?" I asked, still watching like an awestruck child. 

She winked at me in response, the secret inside of her until the end when all would be revealed.

One of my favorite things was to sit with her. Watching her, this ninety-seven year old master of amezaiku, an art where a candy artist creates intricate creatures and objects out of a mass of sugar. When it hardens and cools, you're left with a tiny sculpture not unlike one you'd find in a curio shop or a Swarovski store. Sometimes, much too beautiful to eat. In particular, I was a fan of her goldfish creatures, often admiring them as I passed by her shop's window. 

She also made other kinds of wagashi, traditional Japanese candies and sweets. However, her amezaiku is what made tourists stop and stare. It made the locals come back again and again, wanting to support her. It was no secret that her shop was hurting. I wanted to do everything I could to keep her in business. How devastating it would be to lose this precious art. For it to be gone like a leaf traveling down a fast moving river? Forgotten, like it had never been there? Too delicate, too breakable. Too easily lost.

I'd brought her some glazed croissants around 3AM. I'd have to go to French Cup to start baking around 4AM, so we didn't have a lot of time together. However, I wanted to ask her if she needed me to go to the grocery store for her, or if she needed a ride somewhere later. She assured me she was fine, quietly telling me so kindly. Now, I was watching her small form, her lowered white head with her familiar tight bun, her skin like tissue paper that someone had balled up and tried to unsuccessfully smooth out. As I watched, she pulled a tail full of a sneaky personality out of the creature on her stick, and her tongue made an appearance as she twisted the tail into place. 

"It is a cat, I knew it," I grinned, wiggling on my stool in front of her raw wood table.

"A-ra, not yet," she gave a little growl, excited to show me, too.

As she moved the creature this way and that, her quick hands setting it into place, it reminded me of the stray cats I'd often see around. Almost every shop had some kind of dish outside for them. As a result, we had a lot of them. There was a fat black cat who was my favorite, affectionately and plainly called Kuro by the locals. He had a clipped ear, so he'd been caught and freed before. It was obvious that he was the master of the neighborhood, strutting around like he owned the place. 

As I thought about these cats, Yuko tapped the creature with her clippers, and the sculpture made a glass-like sound. She was checking the consistency, seeing if it was ready for the next step. Hearing the right sounds, she put it in front of an automatic fan, and immediately pinched up another ball from the waiting mizuame in her wooden box on the table in front of her. 

This part always got to me. That candy must have been about a million degrees, and yet she didn't even flinch. I worked with melted sugar also, and I couldn't imagine putting my hands in it. And yet, she did it repeatedly. It was a skill long learned by her, to endure that heat. It was just another thing that I admired about her, among countless things.

"Can I have the cat when you're done?" 

Her lips puckered, all those lines on her face deepening. She didn't look up from the new creature she was making. Having seen her make them before, I saw she was creating a turtle. I couldn't wait to see it. 

"What color do you want it?" She asked, flattening the ball with her bare hand to prepare to make the turtle's shell.

"Black," I said with delight, squeezing the sides of my stool in excitement. I wanted my mini Kuro, to enjoy while thinking of him. 

"Black. Such a thing. You wouldn't rather it be a calico?" She gave a grumble from her concentration, having difficulty making the impressions of the turtle's shell, such intricate work. I knew her edible paint would catch in these lines, darker colors gathering there to make a multi-dimensional effect. How pretty.

I shook my head, closing my eyes to show her how much I wanted the color. 

"Okay. I'll make another one, then. It will be a calico. The color is better, more inviting."

I couldn't argue with that. Her colorwork did catch the eye. She often came up with intriguing combinations, a rainbow of colors to entice the potential buyer. Children went crazy, seeing these dazzling colors in her displays, their imaginations right there in real life. 

I ended up watching her for the better part of an hour, just like usual. At the end of it, she'd painted my cat and presented it to me. I held it, admiring it. It looked like it could jump away, walking away on her table to find a mouse. 

"You should eat it," she told me. 

It was too cute to eat, but I knew this was her favorite part. Seeing people enjoy her creations, seeing those smiles. She especially enjoyed delighting children of all ages, and to her, I was just a big kid at thirty-one years old. So, to please her, I destroyed my sculpture. My teeth found the tail and broke it off, the sweet sugar immediately softening in my mouth. I chewed it more, savoring it as the precious thing it is. 

"Good, right?" She asked, putting her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her hands. 

"The best," I sighed, my grin so wide, feeling like the kid she thought I was.

With five creatures in a cellophaned bundle with ribbons on them, I walked slowly back to French Cup in the dark. I'd ensured to Yuko that we'd sell them in our shop today, as more like advertisements for her shop. Get people to go back for more, show them where to go. She was appreciative as always. She'd waved to me, and I knew that right now she was making other wagashi wonders. There was no telling what she'd make, her wares changing every day at her whim. That was the best part of her shop, you never knew what you'd find. I wished more people knew that.

My boots made small noises on the sidewalk as the absolute silence overtook me. This neighborhood was always pin drop quiet at night, something I appreciated. I'd often be in the back of French Cup baking, and there'd never be a disturbance. Just like Yuko, I could work on my pastries and cakes without any breaks in concentration. Today, my plan was to make a lot of tarts, romanced with the idea of glazed fruits. They were shiny like glass, just like the clear colors of the goldfish that Yuko liked to make. I'd make the usual macarons and sandwich cakes, too, but the tarts were special. 

As I was thinking about the choux pastry mixture needed to make profiteroles, the impact on my shoulder almost made me fall off my feet. The candy creatures in my hand fell in my surprise, and I gasped hugely, my hand going wildly for them in the dark, trying to gain my balance at the same time. I fell anyway, landing hard on my butt. Behind me, there was groaning, and sorry sounding noises.

"Sorry, sorry," came an accented voice. "Let me help you up. I didn't see you. Are you hurt?"

My mouth was hanging open, though, because the sugar creatures beside me were shattered. In the barely there light between the too far apart street lights, I could already see it. Their delicate limbs, the wings of the bird, the tiny whiskers of the calico. I gathered them up, needing to see the damage. Yuko... She'd worked so hard on them. And now...

I shot up to my feet. The stranger behind me said something in a foreign language in surprise. 

"You- do you know what you just did?!" I yelled. The creatures on their sticks made glass-like sounds in their cellophanes, so many pieces broken off. There was no saving them. All that advertising for Yuko, ruined like that. All because of this careless person. "You careless-!" I lost my voice instantly as I whipped around. My mouth hung open instead.

The most handsome man I'd ever seen had his hands up like I was a cop. In the darkness, I saw large, almond shaped eyes. A strong nose that filled out his face beautifully. Full, scandalous lips. A square jaw, now moving as he spoke a foreign language in his sorry gestures. He made praying hands with long fingers, and he leaned over with a body that no doubt had seen a gym more than once per week, tellable even in his smart, expensive looking suit. Even leaned over, he was tall. His wavy, short black hair, the longer bangs hung over in his desperate plead for forgiveness, breezed with the chilly wind. 

"Please forgive me. I'm so sorry," he repeated.

"Uh..." I managed to get out, dumbfounded. 

"I'm sorry."

"Okay." Deep blush was forming on my cheeks. I was glad it was so dark. 

He turned then, rushing away, just like he probably had been when he'd bumped into me. Not looking where he was going, obviously in a rush somewhere even though it was just past 4AM. As I stood there, my ruined candies in my hand, I could only think one thing:

What the heck was such a handsome salary man doing in our quiet neighborhood so late at night?!

I gathered myself, and walked the rest of the way to French Cup with my eyebrows practically in my hair, imagining his face, daydreaming just like Nikki always told me to stop.