Infinite Possibilities of Ice Cream 3
“It’s really delicious!”
This content is taken from freёwebnovel.com.
She started eating the cake again, radiating a happy smile.
Just by watching her, Soma’s heart felt full.
“Ah…”
After eating about half of the cake, the girl’s fork stopped.
Her gaze was fixed on the bride and groom on the stage.
The two of them were still enjoying their first bite filled with happiness.
The girl had been silently observing the couple’s behavior, but for some reason, she stabbed the unfinished cake with her fork and offered it to Soma.
“Here, try it.”
“Huh? No, but…”
“You haven’t eaten any, have you? Just try a bite.”
“It’s fine. I gave it to you.”
He couldn’t help but feel that receiving something he had given away was somehow wrong.
Soma shook his head in refusal, but the girl persistently pushed the cake toward him.
“It’s fine-it’s fine, just eat it?”
“I don’t want it. You should eat it.”
When he kept trying to refuse, the girl gave him a slightly different smile than before.
“Are you embarrassed? You, it’s kind of cute.”
” ….. “
He didn’t find it amusing to be told that by a younger girl.
“Alright, if you insist, I’ll eat it.”
“Here you go.”
As Soma opened his mouth wide, the girl fed him the cake, and thus, the sweetness of the cream spread inside his mouth.
“How is it? This cake is really delicious, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, you’re right…”
It was undoubtedly one of the most delicious cakes he had tasted in his seven years of life.
However, Soma’s heart felt restless.
The girl had shown him her smile right now, but it wasn’t the same as when she was eating the cake, and that somehow made him feel frustrated.
In essence, Soma was jealous of the cake.
“Hey, if I make a cake later, will you eat it?”
That’s why he ended up asking such a question.
“Eh? Can you make a cake? That’s amazing!”
“I… I can’t do it yet. But someday, I’ll become able to make an amazing one, even better than this cake.”
“Better than this cake!? Wow, that’s incredible! Promise me you’ll let me eat it!”
“Of course. I promise.”
“Really? Hehe, I’m looking forward to it!”
Watching the girl’s excitement and her swaying feet, Soma made a vow to do his best.
The next day, Soma tried making a cake for the first time in his life.
The result was terrible. The batter didn’t rise at all, and the taste was awful.
“Cakes are difficult…”
He couldn’t possibly serve something like this to that girl.
After this painful failure, Soma thought it might be better to step up from easier sweets and started with simpler desserts like hotcakes, jellies, and pound cakes.
However, none of them turned out as he hoped.
It wasn’t enough to just make them; they had to be delicious enough to bring out that girl’s beautiful smile.
He asked his mother, consulted his home economics teacher, searched the internet, and gradually accumulated knowledge through trial and error.
After a few failures, he realized failure was the quickest way to learn.
Months, half a year, one year, two years passed as he continued practicing and studying.
During this process, he forgot about his original purpose.
The girl he met at the wedding and the promise they made faded into the corner of his memory.
The means had replaced the purpose, and Soma’s dream shifted toward becoming a pastry chef.
——Beep beep beep beep beep
An inorganic sound tore through Soma’s mind, abruptly interrupting the dream he was having.
“Ughhh!!”
While emitting meaningless beast-like growls, Soma stretches widely and raises his upper body with a groan.
In his half-asleep vision, he sees his familiar bedroom.
“…I had a really weird dream.”
He remembers that he had a dream, but he can’t recall its content.
Like drawings in the sand blown away by the wind, the more awake he becomes, the more the dream fades away.
It felt like a nostalgic dream, but he can’t quite remember it even as he tries to recall it while lying on his bed.
“Sōma, are you awake?”
His mother’s worried voice comes flying from beyond the door as he takes his time waking up.
“I’m awake!”
He shouts back and hurries to get ready for the morning.
The usual hectic morning begins, and even the fact that he had a dream is forgotten amid the routines of everyday life.
However, this dream is engraved in Soma’s soul. Though he may forget, it will never truly disappear.
Soma’s mother doesn’t bother making him a lunchbox, so his lunch options are limited to the school cafeteria, the bread at the school store, or the convenience store bento he buys before heading to school.
However, both the cafeteria and the school store are major problems. To put it bluntly, the food there is horribly bad.
The ramen has soggy noodles with no firmness, and the soup is too weak that it might as well be saltwater.
The set meals like fried horse mackerel or croquettes have a lingering smell of reused frying oil, resembling a gas station that has been around for years.
The bread is also incredibly dry and spongy, giving the impression that they might as well be biting on a dishwashing sponge, according to the student’s opinions.
The price being cheap is the only consolation, but today’s high school students are not patient enough to endure it just for that.
It seems that the students have repeatedly requested something to be done about it, but there is no sign of improvement whatsoever.
Whether the school lacks motivation or there are insurmountable circumstances, either way, it doesn’t seem likely that the quality of the school cafeteria and the school store will improve while Sōma is still a student here.