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Currently, I’m at the academy testing out the recipes that Saori and I thought up. Our setup is that every girl in class makes each of everything and whoever has a good result will be put in charge of making what they did well… but is that good enough?

「So bitter!?」

The boys seem to be struggling with brewing coffee. Just knowing how it’s done doesn’t make the resulting coffee immediately good. We’ll need more trial and error here too. It might take us more time to be ready on our end.

「Kotone, you’re really good at this.」
「You say so, but you’re quite skillful too, Miyako.」

Seriously. What went as expected was Harumi doing absolutely terrible. Hearing her out, she has never even cooked at her home, so it was really tough to watch her dangerously going about.

「I’ll just go serve at the tables. I’m only going to drag everyone down in the kitchen.」
「Could you at least put a bit more effort in trying?」
「Nope. Rather than making pointless effort, wouldn’t it be better to assign me where I’m immediately useful?」

We haven’t even started the serving practice yet, that’s a lot of confidence there. I’m going to have to coach them with this too, so it’s honestly rough.

「Please exclude me from the taste evaluation.」
「Why?」
「I’m the one who brought the recipes, after all. I’ve already made them previously, so please just use mine as reference for other people’s cooking instead.」

If I make a blunder here, it’d be really embarrassing though. The recipes are perfect thanks to Saori’s cooperation and we have tried making them and retouched some parts of the recipe. Saori actually liked them so much that they’ll be serving them in the cafe after the school festival.

「There’s no testing Kotone’s girl power at this point, yeah. Besides, even if your snacks were to be evaluated, you’ll still be on table duty.」
「And you too, Harumi. I haven’t gotten the chance to confirm yet, but what will we be wearing?」

It seems like they already finished discussing what we’ll be wearing for the cafe while I wasn’t around. But I haven’t been informed about the exact details on the uniform at all. I really hope it’s nothing weird.

「I’m going to wear it too, so there’s no way it’d be something weird, you know.」
「Well that’s true.」
「You can just come in your casual clothes.」
「Wait. What do you mean by that? Are the others going to wear different clothes?」
「Kotone, your tone’s getting mixed up.」

If I’m not wrong, we’re allowed to enter the academy in our costumes and work outfits during the school festival. Though as expected, no one would be commuting to school in a waitress outfit… Someone probably would. There’s some weirdos in this academy, after all.

「Harumi. Please answer me honestly. What do you intend to do with me?」
「Kotone, you’re too close! You’re scaring me!」

Well yeah, I’m pulling her close by her shoulders, after all. I’m not letting go until you answer me. So just spit it out, now. For my mental stability. And so I can take preventive measures if needed.

「It won’t do you good if you don’t answer me soon. Better confess now, it’s for your best interest.」
「Your grip is surprisingly strong! It’s seriously hurting now!」

And as the two of us were fooling around, our pastries got done baking. Mine is sitting finished inside the oven, but I’m not going to fetch it until Harumi answers me.

「Look, Kotone. The oven turned off just now.」
「Spit it out.」
「You’re scaring me, I tell you! Let go of me already!」
「Kotone~, I’ll take yours out of the oven, okay?」
「Thank you, Miyako.」

Even without me doing it, someone will do it for me. Well, I did think about taking my pastries out since leaving it in the oven for too long could affect the taste, but now I’ve lost the chance to let go of Harumi.

「Ah, please don’t eat my pastries. I might need to use it for negotiation purposes.」
「Negotiation?」
「Yes, there’s been some complaints concerning our class, or rather the class that I’m in, getting the cafe permission.」

More precisely, those people probably don’t believe that I could ever serve tables for the cafe. The people that actually know about me are like “What the heck are they even talking about?” though. Still, I’m seriously getting tired of being cast as a suspect at this point.

「That’s why I’m going to persuade them through taste.」
「Where did the complaints come from?」
「From people who don’t look at reality.」

What class was it again? Since an argument might break out if I go, someone from the student council is supposed to pick it up by now, but no one’s arrived yet. I know that the president can’t, so it’ll probably be Kishita.

「I’m here~」
「Please do your job!」

As the president’s head popped up, I smacked it by reflex. Lately, I just can’t help but run out of patience. I feel like ever since I reunited with Isami and the others, I’ve been projecting my past self a bit too much.

「This is also part of my job, isn’t it? Don’t worry, Kaoru is attending to the other things in my stead.」
「Is it by her own will?」
「As long as I get the recipe for the snacks, she said. As well as the snacks in question.」

I do intend to give them a portion later, so I don’t really have any problem with that. But Kishita should know that there’s no way I can bring myself to deny her the recipes if she asks me for it. He definitely forced the paperwork on her.

「Ahh, I’m finally free from Kotone.」

When I smacked the president, I ended up letting go of Harumi, that’s a blunder. She gained distance from me and is taking measures so I don’t catch her, damn. What exactly is she planning on making me wear?

「Well then, please have a taste. The drinks are still not ready, though.」
「Don’t mind if I do.」

I served him cookies and a decorated cupcake. While leaving the sweetness subdued, we’re also using tiny bits of fruits in it. I hope it suits his taste. For the commercial version, a larger quantity of fruits will be used and Saori will add her own twist to it, so it might end up completely different.

「Yup, it’s delicious. This is more than passable. I give it my large stamp of approval.」
「Thank you very much. All that’s left is for the others to practice until we can recreate this taste consistently.」
「Don’t overdo it and pile up your expenses, okay? We’re operating on shift system for this room too, after all.」
「I know.」

The food preparation room is to be used by different classes everyday. As expected, a lot of classes are going to serve food and use this place day and night to test out their menu. Being motivated is a good thing. Though you can occasionally hear screams from here.

「Now then, I’ll be delivering this now. Well, if they still have complaints, I’m going to squash those down, so just take it easy.」
「I’ll leave it to your judgement.」
「Bye then.」

After seeing the president enthusiastically leave, I turned to the others for taste testing and there I saw them stare at me like they just saw a ghost. I wonder why?

「Kotone. I know you responded calmly and all, but is that really alright?」
「There will definitely be people against it no matter what, so it can’t be helped. Besides, the reason our class’ draft got accepted was because that class’ draft had problems with it. If they still won’t accept it, then there’s nothing else that can be done.」