“So, what are we making?” Flaminia asks curiously. I stare at the storage room, pondering the best gift I could leave Happy Bakery in case I were to die during the training montage. It’s a damn good question, you know? I know lots of recipes, but which one would be perfect for a moment like this? It has to be something small but extremely tasty. What could that be…

An idea suddenly comes to my mind, but I feel hesitant about sharing these particular recipes.

…

15 years ago

"How was school today?" Aurora Luciani asked, her gentle voice filled with love.

She was wearing a white silk shirt and a long black skirt, her dark wavy hair neatly tied back. Her deep brown eyes radiated warmth, while her lips were adorned with bold red lipstick.

Joey shrugged his tiny shoulders as he climbed into the car, scrunching up his nose at her. "Still bored? Haven't they moved you up a class, Joey? Your physics teacher won't stop singing your praises, my little treasure," his mother caressed his cheek, but he remained silent in response. He simply crossed his arms and sulked in the car.

It had been a dull day, academically speaking. It always was. The lessons were easy, and instead of being treated like a young adult pursuing his education, he was regarded as a little kid capable of performing miracles.

"Oh, Joey, sulking again? Do you know what mom has brought you?" Aurora asked, her voice softening.

Joey's ears perked up at that. His mother never made empty promises. "What?" He cleared his throat, attempting to maintain composure. His mother didn't appreciate when he grew overly excited about food—sometimes, she'd make him wait until they returned home if he became too hyper.

Aurora didn't answer right away, teasing him as she prepared to start the car. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses, winking at her son.

Joey could be quite whiny at times, and she believed this was the perfect opportunity for training. So, she gazed at him from behind her darkened lenses. Her son's deep blue eyes seemed to glow even with the filter in front of her. Like any Southern Italian mother, she adored her boy more than words could express. And although her husband disapproved, she loved spoiling him whenever possible.

"Well, I have two delightful surprises for you. We've made a fresh batch of desserts for the restaurant," she revealed, a smile gracing her lips.

Retrieving a small plate from the large bag in the back of the car, she presented it to him. "Would you like to eat it now or wait?"

"Now, now!" He couldn't contain his enthusiasm.

"Alright," Aurora playfully pinched his face and placed her hands on the steering wheel, starting the engine.

She had prepared his two favorite treats: a Sicilian cannolo and a cassatina.

...

Still, 15 years ago, a few days later

Sometimes, especially after talking to his teachers, Joey's mother would allow him to bring sweets to school for himself. She was very worried that they would fill his mouth with cavities, but he was also the best student in his entire school. They had even chosen to hold him back one more year so that he could get a better shot at a social life, which, sadly, wasn't going great.

Joey was writing down some thoughts in a notebook in the cafeteria, and Bryan stretched his neck to look at what the little boy was doing.

"Are you doing match analysis again?" Bryan snorted. "Still listening to the radio?"

"Shush," Joey raised a small hand. He rested the pen on his notebook and took a small bite from the Sicilian cannolo his mother had made.

"Joey, you are not going to sit at the football team table just because you know about football. And aren't those matches boring?"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"I'm helping Noah with his homework," Joey explained, "and he loves to talk about this." The ten-year-old pointed at his notebook, where he recorded some of his thoughts and translated them into the most basic form possible.

"Joey, Noah is twice your size. If he didn't see you resting on a couch and sat on you, he would kill you."

"If that gets me out of Mr. Tchaikovsky's class, I'll take it."

"My mom says you can't joke about death," Bryan winced. "You know how she is."

"Tough luck," Joey said, immersing himself again in the notes, not noticing the strikingly beautiful blonde girl suddenly walking over to their table.

"Hi!" She said, but the little kid was so entrenched in his thoughts he didn't hear her.

"Yo," Bryan kicked him under the table. "Wake up, idiot."

"Ouch," Joey felt at his thin knee and scoffed at the idiot friend of his before noticing a blonde lock suddenly entering his vision field at barely one inch from his nose. "Oh, football? Is this that game you boys play with made-up teams?"

"They won't let him play fantasy football because they think he'll use his gigantic brain to win and rob them blind," Bryan replied.

"Well, Joey, hi," the girl said. "I heard that Noah is taking lessons from you?" She extended a hand in front of the small kid, "I'm Monica."

Joey looked up and down at the girl that ought to be the future prom queen of the school and swallowed a few times.

"H-hi!" He said, shaking her hand. "You need lessons, too?"

"Actually, yes. We share Mr. Tchaikovsky's class, and I need to brush up on Physics and Math if I want to get into Columbia. I can pay you for your lessons, too. Are you free to teach me? Pretty please?"

Joey didn't know when he had started appreciating female beauty exactly. For all he knew, he had always been interested in the fairer sex. So, how could he let this opportunity go?

"Private lessons at my house," Joey cleared his voice to sound professional. "Twenty bucks an hour and one kiss per lesson."

Monica actually bent over in laughter.

"Oh my gosh, you are adorable," she said, rustling his hair.

"He's not kidding," Bryan said with a grimace.

"Oh, come on," Monica waved away Bryan's words. "And by the way, what do you have there?"

Both Bryan and Joey looked at where Monica was pointing at. Her finger drew a trajectory that ended up on Joey's cannoli. The prodigy's friend suddenly crossed his arms and smiled widely, waiting for the disaster to ensue.

"Er, my mother makes those for me when she talks to the teacher, or they hand out a report card. Er, when I win competitions, too. It's my favorite dessert."

"Oh my, oh my," Monica said, giggling, "can I have a bite? It looks delicious!"

But when Monica extended her hand to grab one, Joey suddenly took away the plate. "Sorry, can't do," he said with a frown.

"He doesn't share his mother's sweets. He's a mama's boy," Bryan laughed.

"Oh my," Monica looked stunned by the fact that a little kid didn't want to share his food with her. It didn't happen every day that someone refused her something. "It's okay," she smiled at him. He was just a kid in the end. Sure, a kid with a massive brain, but still a kid. "Are we still on for the lessons?"

Joey nodded slowly and ended up giving her his house phone number.

"I'll see you around, Joey!"

…

The Present

Kids are terrible.

There's this extremely common misconception that kids are the purest things in the world: like, sure, pure evil, maybe. If your toddler could push a button that gave you electroshock and rewarded him with candy, you'd get the full-Omnium-Compendium-experience all day, every day.

Kids aren't good. They are selfish. They are, look at that, childish. Sure, many adults suffer from the same symptoms, but we should assume that an adult is trying to get better.

A child needs to learn to share, to be kind, and to laugh with others instead of at others.

They have to learn everything and anything they can.

"So, what's it going to be?" Flaminia asks curiously.

Right, I told them that I was going to teach them something great.

I mean, there are many dishes I can teach them; it doesn't have to be…

But as I try to conjure excuses in my head, I think of two people.

First, I think of my own mother and all the sweets she used to buy for me. Even when we had a bakery, she still insisted on taking Sicilian cannoli and cassatine from our own place and bringing them home to me.

You are so thin!

That's what she always said.

If there's something that reminds me of her, Aurora Luciani, the most important woman I've ever had in my life, it's those two desserts. Neither of which is actually that easy to make properly.

Do I want to teach these people something so important?

It is a great question.

Do I?

I look around, still thinking about what to do.

I cherish every single moment I've spent with my mother.

Every single one of them.

I would risk death by a thousand cuts if that could somehow bring her back. I'd plunge myself into hell and crawl my way up to heaven if that is what it takes.

But then, there's a second person that all of this is making me think of.

Magister Mulligan.

The man-made me quite literally puke on the ground to take out some words that had been buried deep into me--and not just words.

I refused to embark on a journey as a doctor. If I look back, that might have been a huge mistake. If I had only tried experiencing that kind of life… who knows.

Anyway, the point of all these ramblings is that I love all I did and had with my mother, but perhaps, it's time to let go. It's time to grow, to fight. Maybe I'll die against Appius, or more likely, with whatever training Magister Mulligan came up with.

But it is high time I step away from being the person who never tried saving anyone.

I look around the mostly-empty bakery and then share a nod with my team.

"How much do you know about nipples?"