Life had a way of changing faster than you were prepared to deal with it. Then, when you were busy dealing with it, it'd go ahead and change more while you were still catching up with it.

It always felt like a straight walk to where you were when you looked back. It sure as hell didn't feel like that when you were trying to get there in the first place. Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising considering everything you had done of late.

Still. Your new, daily life had only set in this morning.

Your day begins early only because it ended early. If you weren't in bed by 10PM, you would surely start to feel grumpy come morning. After all, you were up and at the world by five in the morning, and out the door in half an hour. If you weren't at your bakery by six, you wouldn't have the time to start putting everything you needed to into the ovens. After your hands were elbow-deep in flour and dough, and the ovens stuffed with buns, you would go through the orders you'd taken in previous days; preparing icing, and filling, and everything else you need to hone and practice your craft.

It never goes any faster because you’ve never lost your passion for baking. You can't make something you enjoy with your whole heart feel like it goes by any faster. It feels like you've barely started your day by the time you remember you have employees to let into the store and customers to serve.

Today it’d taken you longer than it should have before you remembered that you had actual employees again. Even with the pandemic on the decline, you simply couldn't tolerate putting the school-age kids who usually worked your counter at risk. Tired, surprisingly bleary-eyed, and a little out of it, you had made your way to the front door and been hit with the realization that "Oh right, I summoned a Demon to work for me." only when faced with a woman dressed like she was about to run for office instead of coming to work in your dingy old bakery.

Candace wasn't her name. Her actual name had hurt to think. Yet Candace was the first name that had come to mind when a mass of blood shadows with a rotting halo had answered your summons, and so Candace had been the name the Demon accepted without any trouble.

She was a stunning thing of unearthly beauty who had never once given off the airs of being genuinely happy - merely amused or frustrated. Her happiness was closest to another person's neutral nothing, a lack of emotion or feeling, where she looked more like she had grimly accepted that the world would continue existing as-was no matter how much she hated it.

The plain-white mask which she wore only made it harder to read her thoughts. She merely nodded when she saw you leave the kitchens, calmly waiting in the cold without the faintest bit of fidgeting. It had snowed the night before.

"Sorry about that, Candace. I don't think I'm all there today." You'd laughed nervously as you quickly unlocked the door. You hadn't checked the clock, but it had been a fair while that you'd left her out there.

"It's a good thing I brought this, then." She tsked, passing you a cup of steaming-hot coffee. "Drink."

"Yes, Ma'am." You chuckled. Only after gulping down half the cup as quickly as you can, of course. "What would I do without you?" you sigh.

If she thinks you can't see her roll her eyes, she'd be wrong. You respect that she doesn't deign to actually answer you. She was, you'd come to realize, an introverted person - prone to talking a great deal if inclined, but otherwise making a point not to emote or show off the tiniest bit of body language that might show how she was feeling.

You didn't mind. Candace had also been your most dedicated employee to date. She had gone above and beyond, working without complaint, putting on a friendly voice you knew she undoubtedly felt none of herself when she spoke to customers, and making a point of doing little things just to help you out even when she didn't need to.

It was a bit inspiring, really. You thought yourself a good boss. You offered your employees well-above minimum wage. You made sure that, when those desperate kids or young adults looking to buy a car or support their overworked parents worked overtime themselves, they got their pay right away - because you understood they likely needed the money asap. So you had redoubled your efforts to be the best employer you can be in return, and to ease the pain of working a retail job, all to give the biggest middle finger you could to every manager you'd ever had yourself.

Candace simply takes a spot behind the counter, lowering her mask just a bit to take a dainty sip of her own cup of coffee. Her posture is disarmingly casual once she takes a seat, resting her chin atop her coffee cup, letting it rest in between her crossed arms. You can just imagine her swinging her legs back and forth beneath the counter, entirely unaware she was doing it.

She had caught you staring, once, and immediately given you an utterly casual look that was nothing but the closest you'd ever felt to death.

That brought you to the most important thing about Candace. Even her laziness felt dangerous in the way that only a tired lioness could.

That's the concern always in the back of your mind. That no matter how dedicated a worker Candace was, she was dangerous. A Demon you didn't know the actual name of wearing a very pretty woman's skin-

You dismiss the thought with a shake, leaning against the wall to quickly finish your own coffee. You had to be really out of it, for your thoughts to be so unfiltered today. Candace spares you a glance.

"We have some time before customers start rolling in, yes?" she brings up. You nod, curious. "Then it shouldn't take too much of that time for you to try and teach me a bit more about how to bake, no?"

"Of course not!" You perk up. You'd taught her a little, of course, the basics of the basics - but she'd not been passionate about it, not felt like applying herself. "If you're actually eager to learn more...!" You march past her and into the kitchen.

"I'm glad to hear it. Shall we - oh, you're already in the kitchen." Candace blinked, watched you march past her.

"We only have so much time!" You cheered. This was doing more for you than the coffee ever had it.

The best of kitchens were those that became sweltering without boiling you alive in your own sweat. They were those that smell sickly-sweet only to those who worked in them, the pounding in their head and the sweat of their brow consuming them as they filled wherever it was they filled with the scent of baked bread and chocolate.

You felt a little biased thinking that your kitchen was undoubtedly the best there ever was. Familiarity had yet to breed contempt, after all, and instead merely instilled in you an instinctive knowledge of where everything was located. Flour, rolling pins, and more ends up clutched close to your chest as you try to lay things out on the counter.

"So. I don't like wasting food, and we've taught you the basics of how to use most of my tools - so we're just going to make some plain bread rolls." You explain, ear twitching as you hear Candace's footsteps behind you. "Does that sound good?" You turn.

Candace was stretching, letting out tiny grunts as she arched herself backwards as she slid her jacket off. In that same long and languid stretch, her breasts looked as though they were straining against the plain white button-up she wore beneath her suit. They did not bounce nor sag as she stretched, instead pulling her shirt with her as she did. It threatened to tug the bottom of her neatly-tucked shirt out of her suit pants. She had tucked her mask away at some point.

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"You are the expert, as far as these things are concerned." She smiled, hiding her mouth behind her hand as she yawned. She only just seems to realize you're staring at her when you let the thing's you'd been carrying clatter onto the counter. "Is something wrong?" she tilts her head.

"Nothing. Here's a new apron." You reach beneath the counter to pluck one of your trusty aprons at her. It already had a few stains on it. You haven't looked away yet. "Oh - you might want to roll your sleeves up, actually. " You add.

"Prevention is a pound of cure." She nods, taking your cue to roll up her sleeves. With her gaze looking downwards, it's as though a spell over you is broken, and you're free to continue setting up what you need.

"Using rolling pins to knead dough is effective, but it lacks a certain... charm. It's better for things like making cookies, really. When it comes to making bread rolls, you want to feel the soft, squishy dough in your hands and make sure it stays that way." You eagerly explain.

"Oh?" Candace hums, listening raptly.

"When you're kneading dough - especially a big glob of it like this - you want to make sure you're using both hands. If your hands sink too far into it while you're kneading it, so much so that they begin to squeeze past your fingers, then you know you're squeezing them just right." You demonstrate, grabbing a big, flour-covered ball of dough and kneading it till it was soft and easy partitioned. "Properly applying flour is important too - if you can't get a good grip on the dough, it'll never feel just right, and it'll come out wrong when you take it out of the oven."

"This has to be intentional. How is it not intentional?" Candace mutters to herself. You tilt your head, running over everything you'd said in your head. You hadn't skipped something important, had you?

"Am I being unclear? Here." You grab the dough with two hands, quickly stretching it out as you bring your hands further apart. "This is the movement you want to use. Good kneading is as much about softening up the dough as it is the strength you put into beating it." You explain as you run through the entire process of kneading and beating the dough till all the stress is gone.

Pinching her brow, Cadence just nods, following along until a bell rang in the front. You brushed aside her concerns about looking a bit disheveled and undressed, quickly adding what she'd made to the oven while leaving her to deal with the customers.

There's only a few differences when it comes to making the basic foods you sell by the dozens, and more often than not that you simply pass off to the Italian restaurant a few stores down by the basketload. Candace proves her dedication to learning the fine art of baking by spending every moment of her downtime hanging on to your every word, quickly cutting down your workload with startling efficiency as she insists on helping out.

"Are these balls supposed to be so salty?" she questions while helping you make cookies one day. You look over just in time to see her nibbling on a small ball of dough covered in powder, lightly fondling it between a few fingers as she made it a perfect ball.

"I, ah, don't believe so? I think you filled a bowl with ginger instead of sugar, actually." You blush, imagining the ball as something else for a very brief moment. She must never know.

"Hm. I admit, my palate isn't terribly refined." She shrugged.

It soon becomes evident to you that, whatever it was Candace had been lacking in your initial attempts at teaching her to bake, she had it in spades now. Sooner rather than later the only thing that separates your skill from hers is going to be simple experience and very little else.

Her drive even ends up moving you further and further from the kitchen. While you're still busy making all the things that Candace quite can't manage herself yet, she's very insistent on proving herself and her skills any time you receive a new order or she notices you've started to make something she herself knows how to make. Sometimes, however, you have to stop her from trying to make something that she outright doesn't know how to.

"Baking a cake is the simple part, yes? It's nothing more than filling something up with batter." She crosses her arms and glares at you from besides a messy counter full of mixing machines and more. The gesture feels empty, especially because she's definitely doing it more to give off a feeling of annoyance than actually feeling it.

An important lesson for dealing with Candace had always been remembering that how she physically expressed herself was an intentional show, and therefore an unintentional distraction from something else.

"Well, simple cakes are, yes. But even with cakes where you don't pound layers on top of one another, and where all you have to worry about is smoothing out the icing, you're right about everything worth worrying about comes after you put the batter into the oven." You easily agree, joining her by the counter. Step by step the two of you go through the process of making a very, very simple cake as you do your best to explain the intricacies of the art.

You walk Candace through the entire process, at one point going on a long rant about the history of cake-making while the two of you wait for her cake to finish baking.

"Once you pull that baby out it's all about decoration. The simplest ones are the nice, round, and swollen ones - it's actually the square cakes that are closer to brownies you'll find yourself having the most trouble keeping in one piece. Multi-layer cakes are more elaborate, but they're not deceptively simple." You give a chocolate cake a nice pat on its curve as you pull it out of the oven.

"Ah. You mean wedding cakes. I suppose marriage does complicate matters where children don't..." Candace nodded. You hum in affirmation while you carry the cake over to where you had put all the icing and frosting. Candace is eager to begin.

"Like I said, things get messy even when you're decorating a two-layered cake for someone's birthday. It's really a bit like certain styles of painting. So here." You take Candace's hand, helping her to carefully lather the cake in vanilla icing. "Let's make something worthy of putting in the oven together."

Shortly afterwards, while the two of you are eating cake, you agree that it could've been better.

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You're working the register, many weeks later, and waving goodbye to Mister McNamara when Candace comes out from the kitchen with a frown on her face. It's hidden behind a mask, obviously, but it's much more obvious in how she carries her shoulders - confidently, despite the furrowing of her brows.

"I don't think you've been in the kitchen since you left me in this morning." She questions. It's much more a statement than anything else. You hum, thinking about what you'd done today after opening up the shop.

"Would you look at that, you're right!" You realize.

You'd started giving her a bonus the first day she showed an actual interest in baking. Maybe it was time to just give her an outright pay raise, going out of her way to learn job-relevant skills like this. Especially if she was essentially doing your job for you out of nothing but her own insistence.

"That doesn't bother you?" She raises her voice. You blink, looking at her closely. It was a genuine question, albeit one you had been in the process of asking yourself.

"Not really." You decide. "Certainly, you've taken it upon yourself to boot me out of the kitchen out of your determination to learn how to bake. But that's not a bad thing." You reach beneath the counter to pluck a lukewarm cookie from a display tray. It's just warm enough that only that center of its chocolate chips are gooey, and you let out an appreciative moan as you swallow.

"Take this cookie for an example. It's excellent, just like everything else you've been making. You more than meet my standards, and I find everything you make delightful - maybe because I don't eat what I make all too often. And now that you've pointed out that I've been letting you run me out of my kitchen, I'll be sure to keep you from just outright taking my job from me, at the rate you're moving." You chuckle.

"But... this is your job. Your passion. Is it not?" she stares. There were no more tiny gestures for you to read. This must be... actual, abject confusion? Confusion so overwhelming she's forgotten to emote like a human?

Cute.

"So? You've made it clear it's yours, too, and two chefs isn't too much for one kitchen. I think it's sweet how much time you've freed up in my day." You soothe her. "It just means I have more time to focus on big, elaborate things. I did some outreach and got a commission for a massive wedding cake, actually, just because I had that much time on my hands. So thanks, Candy!" You smile, leaning back in your chair.

"What did you call me?" she looks straight into your eyes and you want to crawl into a hole and die. Still you meet the gaze.

"Do you not like it? I just called you sweet, and it's... well, I'm sorry if you don't like it. I get why you wouldn't." You cough.

"It doesn't matter." Candace looks away first. "I will be helping you with this big, elaborate, massive cake, yes?" she pinches her nose.

"Of course!" You nod. Working in the kitchen without Candace - Candy - in there. The nickname is as odd on your tongue as the thought of her not being around to help you bake anymore.

"Good. I'll be... in the kitchen. " She sighs, vanishing so quickly you'd almost accuse her of running.