The Classmate Who Is Adored by Everyone Smiles Teasingly Only at Me-Chapter 5Volume 2 .1 - Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

As soon as the sixth period ended, Sōma tried to leave the classroom but was blocked by a tall female student standing in front of the door.

“It’s been boring lately.”

“What’s with that all of a sudden?”

Miki glared at him with a sullen expression. Her natural sharp gaze seemed even more piercing now and was quite intimidating.

“I haven’t seen you and Chika together at all these past few days. What’s going on?”

“We both have things to do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? There’s nothing strange going on, is there?”

“Hasn’t Chika told you anything? There was a tea party at her house. During that—”

Sōma briefly explained what had happened recently at the Satomi residence.

After hearing the explanation, Miki expressed a slight surprise with an ‘Oh?’

“A Halloween party, huh? Chika’s neighborhood association had one, but we didn’t have anything like that in my area.”

“Neither did mine.”

As Chika’s father had mentioned, events cost money, and it’s tough for the committee members who prepare them.

It’s the genuine sentiment of the parents serving on the children’s association committee to skip events that aren’t necessary.

“But Chika wants to throw a party for the kids. I also think it’s a good experience to make Halloween sweets and have the kids enjoy them, so I’m going to do my best.”

Looking around the classroom, Sōma noticed that Chika was nowhere to be found.

“Even so, having a tea party with her parents is quite something, Ichinose. You’re practically approved by the parents now.”

“That’s absolutely not the case.”

Miki started to get excited again despite Sōma’s frown.

“According to manga, the next event is going to be a trip to a hot spring with proper permission from the parents, huh?”

“What are you talking about? Who goes on a trip after getting their parents’ permission? What a hassle.”

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“You don’t know? It’s a common thing in recent romantic comedies. ‘We’re in a healthy and platonic relationship, so please let us go on a trip!’ But then, his reason and desire clash after seeing his girlfriend in a yukata looking alluring after a bath and he thinks, ‘Oh, what should I do…’ That sort of thing.”

Her explanation with many gestures only earned her a blank stare from Sōma. It was too silly and too implausible for him.

“That’s ridiculous.”

That was the only thought that came to his mind.

“It’s not impossible. Seriously, I’ve seen that kind of development in manga at least five times.”

“Don’t lump manga scenarios with us. Besides, I’d just go if I simply wanted to go on a trip. I wouldn’t bother getting my parents’ permission.”

“So that means you’re not platonic, and you’re going to do ‘that’!? Ichinose, you’re so bold!”

“Idiot.”

Leaving the excited Miki behind, Sōma decided to head home.

There wouldn’t be enough hours in the day if he kept indulging her newfound amusement with him and Chika.

It was a huge shock to him when Chika’s father called him a ‘pathetic patissier’, but somewhere inside, Sōma felt relieved.

In any form, he had received assurance that he could become a ‘patissier’. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t happy.

If he could become a patissier, wasn’t that enough? A part of him asked.

Becoming a patissier would mean fulfilling his childhood dream. He could already be proud of that.

Yet, another part of him asked, could he really be satisfied with being a ‘pathetic patissier’?

‘Being labeled as a ‘pathetic patissier’ despite all the effort I’ve put in so far?’

It’s too embarrassing and uncool. I can’t accept such a result, he thought.

Both thoughts were true to his heart.

Inside Sōma, there wasn’t a concrete vision of what kind of patissier he wanted to become. However, he did want to become a patissier he could be proud of. He had no intention of treating his dream lightly as if it were something that could be settled for.

If the path wasn’t clear, he resolved to work hard in whatever way he could.

Otherwise, it’s for that girl—

“…That girl?”

Pondering up to that point, he tilted his head in confusion.

Who was that girl, exactly?

He thought about it on the way home from school but couldn’t quite figure out who he was referring to.

It nagged at the back of his head strangely, but as soon as he got home and put on an apron over his school uniform, his mind was filled with the upcoming Halloween, and he quickly forgot about “that girl.”

“It’s got to be pumpkin when it comes to Halloween, right?”

He took a pumpkin out of the refrigerator and tapped it lightly.

Determined not to become a ‘pathetic patissier’, Sōma set a challenge for himself in making sweets for the Halloween party.

He decided to make proper Halloween-themed sweets.

Sweets that children would enjoy, with flavors, appearances, and ingredients fitting for Halloween. A patissier should naturally be able to make such sweets. So, he thought, and that’s what he should aim for.

The first thing that came to Sōma’s mind was a dessert using pumpkin.

He could make any number of sweets that children would love, and as long as they resembled ghosts, bats, or jack-o’-lanterns in appearance, they would be sufficiently Halloween-like.

The problem was the taste.

When asked, ‘What comes to mind for Halloween?’ there wasn’t an immediate answer like there was for Christmas with strawberry shortcake or bûche de Noël, or chocolate for Valentine’s Day.

For Halloween, cookies, pudding, chocolate, candy, cake—it could be anything. There was no universally acknowledged number one Halloween sweet.

In such a situation, the only thing that came to mind was a sweet using pumpkin. Jack-o’-lanterns are synonymous with Halloween, and sweets using pumpkins are overwhelmingly more common during the Halloween period.

However, the category of ‘sweets using pumpkin’ was far too broad.

“I guess I’ll have to make a variety and choose the one that seems most pleasing.”

First, he decided to make the classic pumpkin pudding.

He mixed the familiar pudding mixture with mashed pumpkin and poured it into pudding molds.

Then he baked them in a bain-marie in an oven preheated to 150 degrees Celsius.

“And finally, I’ll make the face with the skin.”

He cut the leftover skin into triangles and jagged shapes, arranging them to look like a face, and voila—a very Halloween-esque pudding was ready.

He decided to taste test one once it had cooled down a bit.

“Hmm, yeah, this should do.”

The result was quite good. The pumpkin flavor was well-balanced with the sweetness, and it passed as both a pudding and a Halloween sweet.

But this was just the creator’s opinion.

There’s always a bias when it comes to one’s own creations. At this point, he really wanted to hear the opinion of a third party, someone with a discerning palate.

Looking out the window, he saw that the sky had already turned pitch black.

The sunsets had become much earlier with October’s arrival.