Leave Me Be

Chapter 124: S2 Episode 23 - Leave Me Be

We made it to the cooking lab and changed into our aprons. After everything that happened so far today, I was tired from everything and just wanted to bake.

Baking is a stress reliever for me, even though I get stressed from it as well. Because I like doing it, it helps calm my mind in a way.

We'd prepared the ingredients we were going to use, basing it off of the final rough draft I drew of the "Angel's Dream Cake." According to the details of each element I drew, we'd gathered everything we needed in order to make it.

As I looked at the final draft of the cake on paper, it was obvious that there were complex elements on it that would take time, but the main focal point was what I was worried about—the chocolate angel sculpture.

This would be one of the most daunting and time-consuming things on this cake, and all of it would be left down to Kashino, our chocolatier. He would have to sculpt the large wings of this female angel and carve out her figure to display the true theme of this cake.

Honestly, I don't even know if it's possible for him, let alone anyone to do that in this competition. I was starting to backtrack my idea.

I'd stared at the drawing for an awfully long time without even realizing it until someone snatched the sketch from my hands.

"What are you staring at for so long? You'll burn holes through it," Kashino interjected, trying to see what I was looking at by rotating the picture all around.

'Is he not worried?' I asked myself, observing how calm and unaffected he was.

As we made eye contact with each other, Kashino raised his eyebrows at me as if to ask: "What are you looking at?"

"If you have something to say to me, just spit it out already!" Kashino coldly said. He put the picture down and looked at me once again.

"Will you be fine?" I asked him worriedly.

His face contorted in several different ways, but what I could mainly see was confusion.

"What do you mean?" He asked further, eyeing me down.

"I mean, will you be able to handle the Angel? It'll take a while to make. I-I don't even know if it's even possible to make it within the time limit! Maybe we should just scrap my idea and come up with something simpler for us to make!"

All of my teammates looked at me in disbelief, as if I was spouting nonsense.

"Geez, what are you saying, Michiko?" Andou asked, rubbing his forehead as if he was used to it.

"Is that what you think?" Hanabusa asked while I hesitantly nodded.

I wasn't quite sure how to respond, but Kashino also inserted himself into the mix.

"What's the time limit for the final round, Michiko?" Kashino asked me, continuing to eye me down with his brown eyes.

"10 hours. Why?" I responded shortly, a bit confused by this question.

"Then we have 10 hours to make this cake. If we don't risk it all, then we'll never be able to win against Team Tennouji. If you're really worried about me, worry about yourself and get those negative thoughts out of your head already so we can start practicing!"

I was perplexed. Was he trying to scold or comfort me? Well, despite all that, I felt a bit more encouraged by his words regardless of how harsh he was.

'That's right, we have ten hours to make this cake. If we don't risk everything, then we'll never be able to surpass Team Tennouji.'

Some of my confidence returned and I was ready to get started.

"Okay, let's do this!"

And so, we began our creation of our Angel's Dream Cake.

* * *

"Done!" We exclaimed after placing the final element of our cake down.

Kashino tapped the stopwatch on his wristwatch.

"It took us 9:58:58 hours for the dry run of the finals," Kashino claimed and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"All right! We somehow made it within the time limit with barely an extra minute left!" Andou enthusiastically added.

I was also relieved because we managed to make it, but not only that, Kashino managed to perfectly replicate the look of the Angel on the drawing onto the cake.

I stood before the large beautiful cake we'd made and observed each element on it. It had a story to follow and, truthfully, it was the cake I envisioned.

I gazed at the chocolate sculpture Kashino made that was centered in the middle. It was about 2 feet (61 cm) tall, meaning that it was quite big. As I looked at the female angel in the middle, I saw that Kashino got her facial features and hair exactly as I remembered it.

'This cake is for you…'

A bittersweet smile formed on my face and I saw Fraise looking up at the chocolate sculpture that was much MUCH larger than her.

"So this is what you were going for…" Fraise quietly murmured to me who was the only one who could hear.

It seemed that she could also see the resemblance, so I nodded.

"Yeah, I guess…" I replied, continuing to gaze at the beautiful angel with large chocolate wings. "But it was Kashino who did it, not me."

We both glanced over at Kashino who was calmly sipping some tea from afar.

I didn't think he could actually do it within 10 hours, but he actually managed to make it in time and do it perfectly. Since the Angel was the centerpiece of our cake, he strictly needed to focus on it while Hanabusa was in charge of making the candy sculptures, and Andou and I focused on the other elements of the cake.

Regardless, it turned out exactly how we wanted it to.

As I looked at the Angel once again, I drooped my head down at the floor, masking my emotions from showing. The last thing I wanted was to cry again.

"Somehow Kashino managed to finish the chocolate Angel," Hanabusa said, also looking closely at the cake. I could see that Hanabusa had several bandages and burn marks just from today.

'After working with the sugar, his fingers got burned so much…'

"As expected of Maa-kun!" Andou said as he prepared us milk tea. While he was getting ready to serve us a tray of tea, we heard a—

—Crack!

"Ow!" Andou explained in pain, rubbing his wrist to try and ease it.

"Are you hurt, Andou?" I asked him worriedly but he put an easy smile on his face.

"It's not a big deal, I just twisted it oddly just now," Andou chuckled awkwardly, but I could see Caramel look at him with concern as if she was about to cry.

"Just don't overexert yourself. We wouldn't want any of us going to the hospital," Kashino said. "Hanabusa and I will take care of the sugar and chocolate sculptures. So you will have to work together with Michiko to make the gateau and entremets."

Andou nodded his head to Kashino's words, but he was also caught off guard with the chocolate sculpture of the Angel.

"Now that I'm really looking at it, doesn't she look kinda familiar?" Andou said, pointing at the Angel.

"I thought so as well," Hanabusa added.

"Well, Michiko drew it out, I just followed what she had," Kashino briefly explained, also taking a closer look at his creation.

"Ah! I think I know who it looks like!"

Andou snapped his fingers as if he figured it out.

"Who?" Hanabusa and Kashino inquired.

"Of course—Our very own Michiko Keiko!" Andou said, standing right behind me.

"W-what?" I looked at him, puzzled at his idea.

"Now it makes sense! I thought she looked familiar!" Hanabusa interjected.

"Yes, our very own Michiko Keiko is the Angel of our Dream Cake! I think it fits pretty well if I do say so myself, don't you think Michiko?" Andou asked me who couldn't find a coherent way to respond without wanting to slap myself in the face.

"Ha, whatever you say." Giving in, I breathed out a deep sigh.

"Huh, I guess it does look like Michiko," Kashino could also somehow see the resemblance.

I didn't even want to correct them at this point so I let their minds think what they wanted to.

'I don't think they'll ever get it.'

Disregarding their sheepish ideas, I got my phone out and took a picture of our cake.

"Why are you taking a picture?" Kashino asked me.

"So I know what we need to work on to perfect it even more," I casually explained.

"Doesn't it look good right now, though?" Hanabusa questioned, but I shook my head.

"It looks fine, but did you really think that only doing it once meant that it's perfect? It's only our first day and we still have to practice even more to speed up," I said to them, eyeing each of them down.

I didn't want them to get cozy after finishing just one cake on our first real practice day. If they take things lightly right now, I'm afraid they'll find the final round too easy, especially with all of Japan's eyes and ears on us now.

"Well, if you guys are done looking at it, let's store our practice cake in the Sweets Kingdom so it won't be stolen," Kashino suggested and the sweets spirits got their golden staffs out on cue.

"Sweets Magic!" They said together as a ball of light captivated our cake, which disappeared into a cloud of sparkles. And just like that, our cake was gone.

We didn't want the same fiasco of our cake being stolen like before with Ringo's birthday cake or any pictures of our final cake being leaked, so we made sure to take extra security measures.

"It's getting late now. Should we retire for the day?" Andou suggested, looking outside the window to realize that it was already past midnight.

"*YAWN* Yeah, I'm beat," Hanabusa yawned and took off his apron and chef's jacket.

"Same," said Kashino.

The boys all took off their chef's jackets and aprons and threw them into the laundry bin for them to be washed. As they were about to leave, I sat on a stool at Group A's kitchen.

"What about you, Michiko? Aren't you going to sleep after this long day?" Hanabusa looked back at me but I shook my head.

"No, not yet at least. I have few things I need to do before going to bed," I responded shortly as I began writing on my notepad.

"Are you sure? You've been up all day," Andou proclaimed with worry, yet I continued to refuse.

"Like I said, I'm busy. Get a good night's rest and come back energized tomorrow. We can meet up at 1 in the afternoon and practice again," I instructed.

After noticing that I was setting up a boundary, they didn't insist again. Hanabusa and Andou left, but as Kashino was about to follow, he paused.

"Make sure you sleep too, Michiko," Kashino said before following the other two out of the cooking lab.

Finally, they were gone.