#subcage

Johnny knew what he was about to do was veering into embarrassing dad territory, but hell, what was the point of being a dad if you couldn’t embarrass your daughter with your adoration for her?

A month ago, freshly 18 year old Cassie had acquired her first adult job, and Johnny couldn’t be prouder of her! After struggling for a while, being a fresh high school grad who was taking a gap year before college, not many places were willing to take a chance on her. She’d applied to Lin Kuei Bakery with the suspicion it’d be yet another rejection. She was surprised when she got the interview, and even more so when she got the offer only hours after it.

Johnny promised Sonya that he’d stay away for the first month. Let Cassie settle down and get into the swing of working. He’d been counting down the days though, and now that month had passed, he could go see his little girl in action.

Stepping in he was immediately hit by the smell of freshly baked bread. Cassie had told him that they did everything in store. She’d been so excited to learn how to do it, especially learning the secrets of good sourdough.

Cassie was at the counter, wiping it down when she looked up and saw her old man in the shop. She gave a wry smirk as he approached her.

“So, I guess the month-long restraining order’s over, huh?” She asked with a laugh, shaking her head.

“Hey, the agreed upon amount of time was a month, and I stuck to that,” he argued, holding his hands up in defeat. “Sorry for being interested in my daughter’s life.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cassie said, waving her hand dismissively. “So, what d’you think? It’s a nice place, right?”

“Yeah, it looks lovely.” He lent over to look at the goods behind a glass cabinet. All sorts of cakes and pastry desserts. They looked mouthwateringly good. “I’m gonna have to start getting you to bring stuff home so I can have a try.” He glanced up and gave her a cheeky grin. “Y’know, just to taste test your work and everything.”

“Well, most of our left-overs are donated to a homeless charity, but I’m sure my boss wouldn’t mind me pinching a few every now and then.” Cassie had briefly mentioned that in passing, and Johnny hated to admit he hadn’t really registered it initially. He was used to stories of big chain stores doing various actions to ruin their scraps to stop homeless people from taking them in the bins. It felt like a nice breath of fresh air for a business owner to care about their community.

“So, where is the boss anyway?” Johnny asked, kind of anxious to meet the person his daughter was working for.

“I think he’s in the back doing paper work,” Cassie claimed, moving to go towards the back doors. “I’m sure he’d be happy to have a distraction from that though.” She opened it, poking her head through. “Hey, Kuai Liang? Can you come here for a moment?”

It took a couple of seconds, but eventually a man stepped through the door and Johnny felt his mouth go dry. If he were a cartoon there would be hearts in his eyes. He knew he shouldn’t judge on looks, or even feel this way about his daughter’s boss, but the man in front of him was one of the most gorgeous men he’d ever seen. Short black hair slicked back aside from a few strands, a trim beard to match, a rather large scar over one eye and a pair of black glasses all accompanied a face carved by angels. He wore a blue shirt that practically clung to his physique and left very little to the imagination.

“Is something wrong, Cassandra?” Kuai Liang asked, and god even his voice was attractive. Deep yet soft and gentle. Sonya always joked that Johnny got crushes on people over the smallest things, but damn if this situation wasn’t proving that true.

“Nothing wrong, my Dad just wanted to meet you,” Cassie claimed, gesturing towards Johnny, who waved at the other man.

“Oh!” Kuai Liang’s eyes widened at Johnny and he stepped forward to shake his hand. “I’m Kuai Liang. It’s nice to meet you, Cassandra’s told me a lot about you.”

“Johnny, and I hope she’s said nice things about me.” He really didn’t want to think this man knew about some of his more embarrassing moments in life. Or even worse, some of his bad decisions in terms of parenting and romance.

“Of course,” Kuai laughed, while smiling brightly. “You’ve raised a very lovely young lady. Cassandra has been a delight to have under my wing.”

“Aw noooo, you can’t be embarrassing as well,” Cassie complained, covering her face with one hand and lightly hitting Kuai Liang’s bicep with the other. “That’s his job!”

“Hey, he’s complimenting my parenting, he can embarrass you as much as he likes.” Johnny knew he’d made mistakes when Cassie was growing up. He hadn’t always handled things the best, knew there were times he’d hurt his daughter without meaning to, especially during the divorce with Sonya. But he’d always done his best for her, he’d been there to fight for her when she was having trouble at school, comforted her after her first high school girlfriend broke up with her, taught her right from wrong and how to work for the things she wanted.

It was a relief that maybe those efforts had won out in the end.

“Ugh,” Cassie complained, reaching for a box on the side. “I’m gonna go check on the cupcakes, you two can be embarrassing Dads on your own.”

As Cassie walked off, Kuai Liang began to chuckle and shake his head.

“I do mean it though, Cassandra is a credit to you,” Kuai told him, leaning across the counter. “She’s really been a joy to have as an employee. I couldn’t ask for someone more hard working and eager to learn.”

“That’s my girl,” Johnny wistfully said, not able to stop the massive grin on his face. “Honestly, makes me so happy to hear you say that. I am so damn proud of her.” He needed to stop before he began bawling and made a scene. Cassie would definitely be mad at him for that. “What about you? Do you have any kids?”

“Ah.” Kuai Liang seemed taken aback by the question. “No. I wanted them but…” He gave a big sigh. “Sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that,” Johnny commiserated, biting his tongue slightly so the offer to give this man the kids he wanted didn’t slip out accidentally. “I mean, if things worked out the way I wanted, me and Cassie’s Mom wouldn’t have had such a bitter divorce.”

“She’s mentioned things here and there about that. I try not to pry though.” Kuai began to gently rub his wrist. “How are things between you now? Did they ever get better?”

“They did. Me and Sons are in a much better place these days.” Johnny reached to rub the back of his neck. “At some point we both had this coming to Jesus moment where we realised our actions were hurting our girl. We put in the work in counselling and we’ve been pretty kick ass co-parents since.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” He glanced down, and while he smiled, there was a strange air of sadness to the action. “It’s nice to know some people really can change for the better.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking a little from experience there.” Internally, he debated if it was appropriate for him to reach over and stroke the man’s hand to offer him some comfort for something that sounded painful for him.

“Hm. Maybe in hindsight, it is a good job that I never had children with my ex-husband.” Jesus, he sounds so sad. To hell with it, Johnny placed his hand on top of Kuai’s, feeling relieved when the action wasn’t rejected. “He wasn’t exactly a good man towards me, I doubt he’d have been any better with our hypothetical child.” Closing his eyes, Kuai continued “and after our divorce, I did not have much of a support network. I was homeless for quite some time. At least I didn’t subject an innocent life to that.”

Johnny swallowed in sympathy. His heart hurt for the man, but he was also really glad he hadn’t said that shit about giving Kuai a kid.

“Cass said you give a lot of your leftovers to a homeless charity,” he began, realising that Kuai’s confession brought new context to that particular detail.

“Yes, they are the charity that really helped me while I was struggling. I probably wouldn’t be here without them.” That made Johnny squeeze the other man’s hand in support. “I thought this would be a good way to give back to them.”

“That’s a really noble thing to do.” Even without the backstory, Johnny was impressed with it. Knowing it came from personal experiences only made it more so in his opinion. “I hope that things are better now.”

“They are much better, thank you,” Kuai assured him. “It wasn’t an easy road, but it has for now become a stable one.”

“That’s good to hear.” Honestly from everything Cassie had said, and even from this short interaction, Kuai Liang seemed like a sweetheart. It seemed unfair that life had been cruel to him, but at least he was in a good place now. “For what it’s worth, seeing how you are with Cassie, I reckon you would have made a fantastic father.”

Kuai Liang’s cheeks went a shade of red, as he replied in a shy tone “that means a lot to me.”

“Do you have my number?” Johnny asked, and when Kuai gave him a confused look, he realised how weird that sounded. “Sorry, I assume I’m down as Cassie’s emergency contact right?”

“Oh. Oh of course, yes, that’s right.” Kuai finally moved his hand and brushed it through his hair. “It might do well for you to have mine though.” He suddenly spluttered, holding up his hands and saying “in case you need to contact her and can’t get hold of her, of course.”

“Obviously,” Johnny agreed, watching as Kuai nodded and grabbed a pen and paper, quickly writing his number down on it and passing it to Johnny. At the same time, Cassie reappeared from the back with a tray of frankly delicious looking cupcakes. “Thank you. It was nice to meet you, I hope we see each other again soon.”

“Likewise,” Kuai replied, gently patting Cassie on the back. “I do apologise, I think I’ve probably put off my paper work for long enough.”

“No worries, have a good one.” He waved the man off, as he disappeared into the back room. Johnny turned to Cassie, a little startled to see a very smug and satisfied grin on her face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Looks like you got on well with him,” she cheerfully teased. “I knew you would~”

Johnny raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, did you now?”

“Uh huh.” She giggled, starting to put the cupcakes out on display. “I just think you’d both get along really well, y’know?”

Johnny chuckled under his breath, nodding in defeat. He knew what that really meant. It meant she thought they’d make a good couple and was subtly trying to get them together. To be fair to her, she knew her father’s type well, because dang if Johnny didn’t want to make that man her new step-father.

“Yeah, I think we would too.”

They’d have to see how things went, he supposed. Cassie’s birthday was coming up soon. Depending on what she wanted to do for it, if they had a party of some kind, maybe they could extend an invite to Kuai Liang.

“Anyway, I should probably let you get back to work,” Johnny claimed, brushing himself down. “Remember, I wanna try some of these at some point.”

“I know,” Cassie said in a whiny tone.

“I’ll see you later. Love you Punkin.”

“Love you too Dad.”

“You see, it’s genius,” Johnny rambled. He’d been on this for about 15 minutes now and while Kuai didn’t mind, he also wasn’t entirely sure he understood. “Everyone makes Christmas movies! When was the last time you heard anyone making a New Years one?”

“Um…” Kuai really wasn’t sure what the answer was. Johnny seemed to take his hesitation as an answer however.

“Exactly!” Johnny snapped his fingers. “Oh, I need to call my agent, he’s going to love this.”

“I’m surprised you like this stuff,” Johnny said while taking another bite of his hot wing.

Kuai raised an eyebrow and questioned “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, y’know,” Johnny drawled with a noncommittal shrug. “It’s hot, I didn’t expect you to handle spice.”

“What?” Kuai asked, looking at Johnny with a look of pure bewilderment. “This is fine. Do others really struggle?”

“Yep.” Johnny was the one now dumbfounded. “I mean, as long as you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” Kuai confirmed with a grin and yet another bite.