November Sun 2
“Hey, isn’t a sudden punch to the stomach a bit much!?”
“It’s only natural for someone who looks at a person’s head and says it looks tasty! Ichinose, do you have sugar instead of brains in your head!?”
“No seriously, your head looks just like pudding, Wakui. Look in the mirror yourself.”
“Still saying that!? You jerk! Take this! And this!”
She kept trying to deliver body blows, which Sōma desperately guarded against.
“Come on, just let me take the picture. In exchange, I’ll let you eat the pudding I make.”
“Wait, you’ll let me eat pudding made by you, Ichinose?”
The flurry of fists comes to an abrupt halt.
“Well, if that’s the case, maybe it’s okay…”
Then she hurriedly began to tidy her hair with her fingers.
“Really? I appreciate it! Just stay still there, then.”
“Don’t take a weird picture, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t take your face.”
“…That’s actually really annoying in its own way.”
As Wakui blushed but agreed to have her photo taken, Sōma snapped away, and the other girls in the circle laughed uproariously, finding the whole scene extremely funny.
***
“――So, what was Ichinose doing at school until this late?”
After the photo session, Wakui asked while nibbling on a matcha-flavored cookie.
Sōma reached for a cookie as well and answered.
“Just stopped by the career guidance office.”
“The career guidance office?”
Wakui raised her voice in surprise, her eyes widening.
“Wait a minute. We’re only first-years, right? And you’re already thinking about your career path?”
“You thought I wasn’t thinking about it?”
“Ah… right, it’s Ichinose after all.”
It was well-known that Sōma aspires to be a patissier.
“Even so, isn’t the career guidance office a bit too early?”
“Well, I guess so. Honestly, I thought the same until recently.”
Sōma shrugged lightly, agreeing with his classmate’s opinion.
“But last month, I got a lecture from some people. They said I need to update my dreams to a career path.”
“There are people who say that to a first-year? That’s harsh.”
“But it was a good opportunity to start thinking more seriously about my career.”
The advice given by Chika’s parents had struck him as forcefully as a hammer blow.
Realizing that he couldn’t become a great patissier just by diligently honing his confectionery skills, Sōma recently spent more time researching than making sweets.
He was looking into which confectionery schools would be the best if he decided to go to one and what procedures and preparations were necessary if he decided to study abroad.
He was still feeling his way through, without a clear direction, but he felt more certain that he was steadily moving toward the future he wanted than when he was just making sweets blindly.
“Hmm…”
Wakui looked at him intently after hearing the explanation.
“What? Are you thinking I’m too eager or just a sweets idiot?”
Sōma chuckled self-deprecatingly, but Wakui suddenly stood up and loudly denied it.
“I would never think like that!”
“Huh…?”
“Ichinose, I really think it’s amazing that you’re so straightforward and dedicated to your future! How incredible it is to keep working hard without caring about what others say――”
And just as she said that in one breath, she realized that all eyes in the room were on her.
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Her face turned beet red in an instant.
“…”
Wakui sat back down in silence, and an awkward stillness filled the air.
“Um… thank you. It really means a lot to me to hear you say that.”
“…Yeah.”
Wakui nodded, making her small frame even smaller.
“Lucky you, Ichinose. You’ve got someone who supports you. Treasure that, okay~?”
Another girl teased while grinning the whole time.
“Yeah, well, I guess so.”
Wakui usually hung out with the lively girls’ group and wasn’t particularly close to Sōma.
They had only interacted during orientation at the beginning of the term when they were in the same group touring the school.
Since then, their interactions were limited to brief exchanges when sharing sweets, but knowing she supported him felt genuinely nice.
This might be the first time someone other than Chika had shown such support for Sōma’s goals.
As he gazed at her profile, contemplating this, Wakui’s face turned red again.
“What are you looking at me like that for…”
She muttered in a voice that was almost a whisper.
Usually, it was Chika who would tease him about his blushing face, so observing someone else blush this deeply was a rare occurrence for him.
It was a fresh feeling. However, that didn’t mean that a sadistic pleasure like Chika’s surged within him.
Only a simple thought came to mind.
“You kind of look like a strawberry parfait topped with pudding.”
“Do you want to get punched again!?”
Wakui clenched her fist, and the surrounding girls burst into laughter.
“Ichinose, don’t tease her too much. She acts all cool usually, but she’s actually really shy and blushes easily. Isn’t she cute?”
“Oh, is that so?”
Sōma’s image of Wakui had always been that of a flashy, cool girl.
The shy aspect was a surprising side to her.
Upon closer inspection, Wakui, who had retracted her fist, sulked like a child.
“What? If you want to laugh, go ahead.”
“I’m not going to laugh. Actually, someone recently told me that my blushing is cute, which makes no sense to me, and they’ve been teasing me about it nonstop. So I totally get how you feels, Wakui. It’s not like you can control your face turning red, right? It can’t be helped.”
It’s been a month and a half since Sōma and Chika formed their cooperative relationship, but she continues to tease Sōma without getting tired of it.
“Ichinose, you get red in the face too? Huh, I see.”
Hearing Sōma’s words, Wakui smiled a bit happily and then added,
“I’d like to see you being embarrassed sometime too, Ichinose.”
“Hey, stop it. It’s no joke having two hidden sadists in the same classroom.”
The mere thought of being targeted by Chika and Wakui, both eager to embarrass him, sent shivers down his spine.
Sōma shuddered, and Wakui narrowed her eyes.