Shortcake Symphonia

Author: Jade

Chapter 1: Suspicion

Yamagishi Yumi’s death came quietly, unnoticed by anyone, and she vanished from this world.

Although her death was officially ruled a suicide, something about it left an unexplained feeling of unease.

It was an unspoken suspicion that spread through the hearts of those who knew her.

Kitamura Haruo’s suspicions were triggered by a message from Yumi’s best friend, Kobayashi Risa.

Risa’s voice was trembling.

“Yumi… there’s no way that girl would end up like this.”

And.

Her voice was filled with deep sadness and unwavering conviction.

Kitamura sensed a certain unease in her words.

Risa’s account of her life was very different from what Kitamura had imagined.

For the first time, he learned that Yumi, who had given the impression of being cheerful and smiling, had actually endured many years of loneliness and emotional burdens.

In particular, he learned that her mother, Keiko Yamagishi, was the root of her suffering.

“Yumi was always scared of her mother.”

Risa says.

Keiko ran a cake shop and lived to impose her ideals on her daughter.

Her gaze is sharp, constantly watching Yumi’s every move, and coldly dismissing her when she saw that she was not living up to her own expectations, even if only slightly.

Yumi was crushed by the pressure and gradually lost her smile.

Yet, outside, she acted as if nothing had happened.

Even when she was out front helping out at the shop, she never made a whimper in front of customers.

The way she wrapped the cakes was careful and the way she served the customers with a smile made her seem perfect.

However, once the shop door closed and she was alone with her mother, all of that was peeled away.

“This cake, this shop, is everything to me. Yumi, you understand what that means, don’t you?”

The guilt of not being able to live up to her mother’s expectations was deeply rooted in Yumi’s heart, luring her into a hell from which she could not escape.

Yumi continued to seek the proper, honest love of her mother, but she suffered because she could not find salvation in it.

And the only person who could share that pain was Risa.

“Why can’t I live up to my mother’s expectations?”

Yumi asked Risa that question so many times.

Her voice was a mixture of anger at her own helplessness and cries for help.

All Risa could do was give Yumi a gentle hug.

“Yumi, that’s enough. We each have a different way of life. This shop and your mother are not the only things that determine your worth.”

However, Risa’s words did not reach Yumi’s heart.

The hell her mother was leading her to was too deep, too dark.

As Kitamura listened to Risa’s story, he sensed the sadness and helplessness she carried within her.

However, even stronger doubts were beginning to grow in his mind.

Could there be some truth hidden in the fact that Yumi had taken her own life that was being overlooked?

“We need to know more about her death.”

Kitamura said. Risa nodded silently.

“Please. I need to know the truth about what happened to Yumi.”

The detective’s calm eyes begin to explore the darkness of the person he has already seen many times.

When Kitamura first visited the Yamagishi family’s cake shop, the exterior looked like a sunny day.

The outside walls were modestly decorated with flowers, and the glass display cases were lined with beautifully decorated cakes.

However, to his keen eyes, there was a distinct sense of discomfort lurking amidst the perfection.

Keiko emerged from the back of the shop. She was smiling, but there was a certain coldness in her eyes.

“Our cakes are delicious.”

Her voice has the confident ring of someone who has run the shop for many years.

“Excuse me, I’d like to ask you a few questions about Yumi-san.”

When Kitamura began, Keiko’s expression clouded over slightly.

However, she quickly hid it and replied.

“Is this about my daughter? She was a very sensitive girl… but in the end, she made her own choice. It’s what she wanted.”

Her words were more ruthless than loving.

Kitamura intuitively felt that her explanation of Yumi’s death was too plain and concise for a mother.

“The discomfort I felt was not wrong.”

Alarm bells went off inside Kitamura.

Chapter 2: Conflict

The sweet smell of butter and the sound of baking cakes have remained ingrained in Yumi’s memory since her childhood.

The kitchen of the shop was both her playground and the place of her inevitable destiny.

Keiko poured her whole heart and soul into making cakes, and as she demonstrated this to the young Yumi, she kept telling her:

“Yumi, you will definitely follow in my footsteps and protect this shop.”

There was unwavering conviction in her words.

These words soon became deeply embedded in Yumi’s mind, darkening and clouding her vision of her own future.

At first, she didn’t know what her mother was expecting.

She believed that if she worked hard for her mother, if she put in the effort, she would receive her love.

But over time, expectations gradually morphed into pressure.

“Yumi, can’t you even do this little thing?”

“My daughter would do a better job, wouldn’t she?”

These repeated words, unlike the sweet aroma of cake that lingered in her nose, left a dense bitterness in her heart.

By the time Yumi graduated from middle school, she began to feel that she could no longer bear to be the successor of the shop like her mother wanted.

Although she never disliked baking cakes, she did not see it as her future.

Yumi wanted to find her own life. She wanted to find her value in something else.

That’s what she wanted.

However, her mother would not allow it.

After graduating from high school, Yumi decided to leave home and get a different job.

However, Keiko’s reaction was cold and harsh.

“What are you thinking? Do you think it’s acceptable not to take over the cake shop? You’re the daughter of this family! What did I give birth to you for?”

It was a shock.

A thorn had dug itself so deep into Yumi’s heart that it could not be removed.

She began to doubt her decision.

She feared that going against her mother’s expectations would be a denial of her status as a daughter.

Again and again, alone in her room, crying, she tried to understand her mother’s words, defending herself, repeating the process.

She wanted to live the life she chose to live, not be a tool for her mother.

She reminds herself again.

The more intense the conflict with her mother became, the more alone she felt.

Yumi’s refusal to help out in the family business was met with daily anger from her mother, creating a constantly tense atmosphere in the house.

Her mother’s sharp eyes and the pressure of her ambitions weighed on her heart.

There was no escape.

She constantly disappointed her

Every job she took up, every path she chose, was seen as a failure in her mother’s eyes.

And each time, Yumi’s heart was greatly chipped away.

“You can’t do it, Yumi. In the end, no matter what you do, you’ll never succeed. If you don’t work as hard as I do, you’ll never amount to anything. That’s just the way it is.”

How much of a burden did her mother’s repeated words put on Yumi’s heart?

Yumi no longer knew whether that was true or if her mother was just saying it.

However, she could feel the sound of something ending in her heart.

At some point, she didn’t even know what she wanted anymore.

The figure of her mother was always behind her, and she gradually became unable to bear or resist it.

Every time she tried to carry out her own will, her efforts were thwarted by her mother.

She realized that all she could do was live with that burden on her shoulders from then on, and into the future.

She began to believe that.

On the other hand, only Takuya Sato, a pastry chef who works at her mother’s shop, sensed her change of heart.

Even though Yumi didn’t say anything, only he understood what her silence meant.

Takuya secretly had special feelings for her, but even his kindness couldn’t save her heart.

There was no way to repair Yumi’s isolation, and the conflict with her mother became decisive.

And so, she made the most tragic choice to escape her mother’s control.

Chapter 3: Shortcakes

When Kitamura Haruo stepped into the Yamagishi family’s cake shop again,

The sweet scent of vanilla and sugar wafting in the air, and the sweet and sour scent of the fruit instantly enveloped him.

On the counter, a shortcake topped with red strawberries on top caught his attention.

The seemingly charming scene inside the shop had a somewhat gloomy atmosphere to Kitamura’s keen eye.

The way the employees worked seamlessly in a professional manner.

Kitamura sensed tension in their movements.

They said very little and didn’t even glance at each other in between tasks.

It was as if they were being watched by something they feared.

Was this silence bound by the long-standing rules of the shop, or by something more personal?

Haruo couldn’t tell right away.

Sato, who was behind the counter, met Kitamura’s gaze for a moment before quickly looking away.

His expression was calm, but there seemed to be something hidden behind it that he couldn’t put into words.

“Sato-san, may I speak with you for a moment?”

When Kitamura spoke up, Sato tensed up for a moment before nodding quietly.

“Let’s go outside for a bit.”

Leaving the hustle and bustle of the cake shop behind, they sat down on a small bench at the back of the shop.

A cold wind blew between them, rustling Sato’s white chef’s coat.

“I’d like you to tell me anything you know about Yumi. What was she like at the shop?”

At Kitamura’s words, Sato remained silent for a while.

He looked up at the sky, and the breath he exhaled clouded over with white. He inhaled again before opening his mouth.

“She was… clumsy. She was earnest and sincere, but more than that, I think she was… lonely.”

Sato’s voice was sad and tinged with tenderness.

It was clear in his voice, even to Kitamura, that he had special feelings for Yumi.

“And her relationship with her mother was… quite strict, wasn’t it?”

At Kitamura’s question, Sato lowered his eyes.

There was a hint of agitation on his face, and he seemed hesitant to open his mouth.

“Yes, I think she had a strong rebellious spirit against her mother. Her mother was so passionate about the shop that at times it seemed to oppress those around her. I think Yumi has suffered from that pressure for many years.”

His words were quiet, but carried weight.

As Kitamura listened to these words, he imagined the immeasurable loneliness and conflict that Yumi must have suffered.

“You had special feelings for her, didn’t you?”

Kitamura asked a question that went to the heart of the matte.

Sato looked up in surprise, his eyes wandering for a moment as if searching for words.

「… Yes. Yumi was special to me. But I could never tell her how I felt. She was always tied to her mother. Her mother controlled every aspect of her life.”

Takuya’s voice was trembling.

Kitamura couldn’t tell whether the trembling was due to the powerlessness he felt, or to his unresolved feelings for Yumi.

However, it was clear that there was a deep emotion behind it.

When Kitamura finished his talk and returned to the shop, he was met by the shop’s regular customers and local residents.

On the surface, they seemed to adore Keiko.

She had impeccable cake-making skills, and the shop was always thriving.

Behind the scenes, however, Kitamura heard different rumors.

“Keiko is certainly a skilled cakemaker. But she was too strict with her daughter and her employees. You could really feel it.”

“On the surface, she was kind, but inside the shop, she was a completely different person. Her words, actions, and gaze were especially scary when it came to her daughter, and there were times when I wondered if she was going too far.”

The neighbors began to speak in unison.

The “perfect mother” they spoke of had two sides to her personality, being both strict and controlling.

At some point, her mother’s expectations of Yumi went beyond the realm of affection and became an imposition.

How much of that burden had Yumi endured, how much of a wound had it carved in her heart?

Gradually, this idea emerged in Kitamura’s mind.

As they get closer to the truth behind Yumi’s death,

A question swells in Kitamura’s mind.

“Did she take her own life, or…”

Chapter 4: Not yet

Kitamura got the permission of the mother, Keiko.

He headed to the room where Yumi lived when she was alive.

The moment he stepped into the room, he was momentarily sucked in by the tranquility that permeated the place.

On the desk were unused envelopes for letters and half-opened notebooks, but they existed in the room as if time had stopped.

Everything she left behind, all of it, told the story of her last moments.

Opening her desk drawer, Kitamura found a diary.

On the pages that opened to the heavy cover, Yumi’s inner thoughts were quietly written in neat script.

It described her suffering towards her mother, Keiko, with feelings that seemed to be crushing her.

Excessive expectations and dominance drove her psyche to the edge,

It is clear that she endured it quietly, alone, in the darkness with no escape.

But that wasn’t all.

In the latter half of the diary, Yumi’s fluctuating emotions came out more clearly and vividly.

Her hatred and love for Keiko were intricately intertwined, constantly tormenting her insides.

She loved her, but it was bondage,

It was something self-destructive.

She was tormented by an inescapable contradiction.

What caught Kitamura’s eye was the unsent e-mail left on Yumi’s computer.

The content could be interpreted as either a confession to her mother or a heartbreaking plea.

She candidly conveyed the weight and pain of the emotions she was carrying.

However, the e-mail was never sent, it just floated around in this space.

She expressed her feelings in her diary.

Judging from the unsent email, it was clear that she was planning to consult someone else.

[Let’s meet at Mizumori’s café.]

Yumi frequented the café, a record of which was in part of the diary.

She must have met someone there and secretly confided in them.

That person’s presence must have had a major impact on her final moments.

Who she met at the café may provide a clue that will get to the heart of the case.

Kitamura had a hunch that the other party was the one Yumi had trusted the most, and the one she feared the most.

While she sought emotional support, she may have had deep insecurities about that person.

As if drawn to a sweet poison.

The feelings that Yumi had were not simply those of a mother-daughter conflict.

A complex web of emotions was quietly but surely driving her into a corner.

The key to unraveling this mystery lies in the clues she left behind and the existence of a person she met in secret.

While approaching the truth, Kitamura envisioned the scene that Yumi saw in her final days.

There was indeed beauty there, a mixture of despair and hope.

Chapter 5: Loss

Kitamura returned to his home, and based on the few clues left in Yumi’s room, he touched on the despair and loneliness that lurked inside her.

Little by little, he was getting closer to the truth.

The room was dimly lit and looked completely ordinary.

In the silence, Yumi’s cry oozes and spreads.

The unsent e-mail left on that desk, the faded pages of the diary,

Her deepest anxieties were also recorded.

Yumi’s writing and letters are beautiful and neat, but the hesitation and doubt that peek out from them reveal the turmoil in her mind.

-Mother keeps me tied down. Does she love me or hate me? I don’t know which it is anymore

Kitamura gently strokes the line with his index finger, painfully feeling the conflict she carried.

Then, the existence of the person whom Yumi secretly met at the café comes to light.

His name was Takagi, a pastry chef who worked at the shop and an acquaintance of Sato.

He was the regular customer who had told Kitamura about the hidden side of the mother, Keiko, at the cake shop at that time.

Kitamura is determined to see the man again.

He arranged a meeting and set up an opportunity to talk at a nearby park.

In the rain, his steps were heavy as he made my way to Takagi.

The question that swirled in his mind was what this meeting would really bring.

“Kitamura-san, it’s been a while.”

“As I thought, this is a complicated matter, so how about we talk at a nearby café.”

Takagi said with a smile on his face.

Together, they went to Mizumori’s café.

After about five minutes, they arrived and took a seat in the back corner of the shop.

Takagi’s eyes shone with an unnatural light that was reflected by the lights of the café.

“You know what happened to Yumi-san, don’t you?”

Kitamura asked.

Takagi was silent for a moment, then smiled softly.

His smile was cold and creepy.

“Sato-san was behind it all, you know. He loved Yumi. But at the same time, he was very jealous. He couldn’t forgive her for wanting to be free of her mother.”

The man began to speak calmly.

“If you are depressed, it would be best to have a proper talk with your mother and mend the relationship.”

“You haven’t talked to her today? You need your mother to survive.”

“That was all he said to Yumi. Every single day. Every single time they met.”

So that’s how it was.

It finally became clear.

On the surface, Sato is a gentle and kind craftsman.

But in his heart, there was too much love, too much uncontrollable jealousy and desire for control.

Every time Yumi tried to break free from her mother’s spell, even if only a little,

Sato always tried to take away Yumi’s freedom.

Sato talked while pretending to help Yumi, who suffered from her mother’s excessive interference.

In reality, he was pushing her further into a corner and controlling her mind so that she would turn her feelings towards him.

He felt a chill deep in his chest.

Yumi’s death was no accident, but a carefully planned tragedy.

The loneliness and anguish created by her mother,

Amplified by Sato,

Ultimately, he drove her to her death.

However, no matter what truth is revealed, Yumi’s life will not return.

Kitamura stood up quietly, keenly aware of the gravity of the situation.

The scenery in his eyes was endlessly gray.

－

“That is the sequence of events that led to Yumi’s suicide.”

Kitamura tells Keiko.

Her mother, Keiko, after learning this fact, bowed her head and said nothing.

Until now, she had tried to control her daughter because she loved her.

The moment she realized that it was her actions that had brought her daughter to this point,

Keiko looked back on her past deeds in a daze.

The extreme grief and the excessive interference she imposed on her daughter took a toll on Yumi’s heart, and eventually cost her her life.

Love can be poisonous at times. The bitter truth stabbed Keiko in the heart again and again.

“Parents and children are the closest and the farthest things from each other. It all comes down to how you maintain the right distance to build a deep relationship. Perhaps Keiko-san was a little unskilled in how to maintain that distance.”

With those words, Kitamura left the cake shop.

Final Chapter: In the Silence

After the case was solved, Kitamura Haruo was enveloped in a deep silence.

Even though he had uncovered the complicated truth behind Yumi’s death, it left him feeling melancholy.

Justice had been served by uncovering the truth.

But in the process, Kitamura found himself disturbed by the fragility of familial love and the poisonous effects it can have.

Kitamura sat alone at the Mizumori’s Cafe, at the same table where Yumi had last seen Takagi.

The view outside was peaceful, the sunlight was filtering in, and the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind was pleasant.

But inside he felt a bit cold.

Staring at his reflection in the blended coffee, he pondered his role as a detective.

-Knowing the truth does not necessarily save everyone

That thought had lingered in his mind for a long time.

Despite the sense of accomplishment he felt for having achieved justice for Yumi’s death,

The mother-daughter relationship had been irreparably broken.

He felt an indescribable sense of helplessness.

In particular, Keiko’s sense of loss and regret was something she felt while Yumi was still alive.

If she had confronted her mother sooner, would the outcome have been different?

Kitamura thought about it but couldn’t find an answer to this question.

As a detective, he thought it was his job to seek the truth.

However, he was well aware that he could not heal the emotional wounds that people felt beyond that.

A few weeks passed, and after Yumi’s death, the rumor of the not-so-good cake shop faded from the streets.

Keiko then closed the shop and quietly left town.

No one knows where she went or what she is doing.

Risa, who had heard the truth from Kitamura, also seemed to have trouble accepting Yumi’s death.

She tried to move forward.

Kitamura felt a little relieved to see her like that,

He felt as if his heart had been left behind.

Kitamura will continue to pursue the truth as a detective.

However, what he learned through Yumi’s case was the weight of truth and the complexity of people’s emotions that it brings.

Sometimes there may be truths that are better left unknown.

And Kitamura realized that even knowing the truth does not solve everything.

Then, he suddenly remembered Yumi’s diary.

The words written on the last page of the diary she left behind stayed with him.

-Her love is sweet, and sometimes regretfully bitter. But I couldn’t let go of that love-

Thinking back to those words filled with her anguish and loneliness,

Kitamura decided to face his own life.

The pursuit of the truth is his mission, and he has a role to play, however painful it may be.

But at the same time, he must not forget the subtleties of people’s innermost feelings.

He vows to live his life as a more humane detective.

After leaving the café, Kitamura walked quietly.

On his back, was a new determination that had never been seen before and a determination for the path that would continue in the future.

As long as there are many thoughts in this world, his quest will never end.