A Twisted Romance

In Tokyo, Japan there is a small ramen shop in which the chef is a very young, talented boy named Mizuki Akito, who attracts every customer to eat his ramen. Even though the restaurant is small and cramped, you have 2 options of ordering your ramen: here or take away. You can eat ramen here if you are lucky enough to find an empty spot, or if you are in a rush to catch your your train and want to eat something good made fast. During spring break, after he opened the shop, started doing the prep work. While he was doing the prep work, a customer showed up. The early customer was a beautiful, young lady who was passing through the neighbourhood and saw an opened ramen shop. She sat down on a chair, ordered an bowl of ramen. Mizuki started cutting the vegetables at an incredible speed, grilled the pork slices, added the broth in the bowl together with the other ingredients. He finished the order and gave her the bowl of ramen, and after that he continued preparing the ingredients for when the place is going to be full of customers in the afternoon. Besides the fact that he was very talented at what he was doing, he was also good at socializing with the customers. That was another reason why the restaurant was so popular, especially between teenagers and young a.d.u.l.ts. Mizuki was a very polite, cheerful, honest and observant person, but he was also sometimes clumsy, but not during his work time, rather in his free time . Mizuki saw that the young lady was in a depressed state, but she didn't wanted to show in public, but Mizuki was a special type of person. While she was eating her ramen, Mizuki gave her a cup of green tea.

The young lady was confused because she didn't order tea, but Mizuki said to her

"Sometimes is good to drink tea when you are feeling sad because it can cheer you up"

When she Mizuki's words, tears started streaming down her cheeks. She started crying without realizing. Mizuki realised he hit the spot and asked

"What's wrong?"

"N-Nothing is wrong..." the young lady started wiping her tears

"If nothing is wrong, then why are you crying?" Mizuki said with a serious face

"This..." the young lady was speechless

"You know, to exit this depressed state it's okay to free your mind. There's nothing wrong with telling to someone what's pushing you" Mizuki tried to solve her problem, but first she needed to open herself to him

"Well... I have a boyfriend and lately he started to be abusive psychologically and said that if I'm going to break up with him, he's going to ruin my life and because of that I'm scared" said the young lady with terror in her eyes "Every guy I've been with treated me with disgrace. Normally, a girl like me would start hating men, but I want to find a man that treats me like a woman and not like an animal"

"..." Mizuki thought what to do in this kind situation

"You should break up with him, but not now. Wait for the perfect opportunity"

"That's a good idea, but how I'm gonna know when it's the right opportunity?" she asked bluntly

"You're going to know when it's the moment, but until then you can come here and solve your future problems until the spring break is over" Mizuki suggested

"Okay" she smiled to him showing her happy side to him "Oh, by the way I'm Hanami Koharu"

"Mizuki Akito" Mizuki introduced himself "Nice to meet you"

"Akito like in 'Akito de ramen' ?" asked Koharu

"Yup, that's me" said Mizuki with a plain face, but a vague smile

"Woah, by the way how old are you?" asked yet again

"I'm 16. Today is my birthday" said Mizuki with big smile on his face "I'm a first-year in high-school"

"Y-You are only 16 years old and you have your own ramen spot?!" Koharu was dumbstruck

"Well the shop was my father's, but now is mine" his big smile started fading away "My father and mother both passed away in a car accident 3 years ago. Now is only me and my big sister. My father was a good man and treated my mother like a goddess"

"I'm sorry to hear that. And now everything are on your shoulders?"

"Just the ramen shop and the apartment I'm living in. I told my big sister that the shop will earn enough money, but she was stubborn and took a part-time far from here and her college" Mizuki had a pissed face while talking about this