Not long ago, the room was filled with a sweet scent. As expected of Yukino, I knew she was an expert cook. She was also quite skilled at baking cookies. She demonstrated to Yui how to bake cookies, starting with Yukino cracking an egg and beating it. She put a measured amount of flour and mixed it before adding other ingredients such as butter, sugar, and vanilla extract.

"Heh… Not bad." Nino, who was standing beside me, gave Yukino a compliment.

It was just Yui in another level of disaster. After Yukino finished with her demonstration, Yui followed her. The result was an awful cookie had been made. Yui lacked cooking skills. Not those skills were poor or anything. She just had absolutely none. Not only was she clumsy, but she was imprecise, dangerously creative for no reason at all.

"How can you do this many errors at once… I can't comprehend it." Yukino mumbled with a quiet voice, so Yui couldn't hear it.

"Hiks… Even though I told her many times yesterday. How come you still make the same mistake?" Nino was about to cry after seeing what Yui did, also with a quiet voice.

"Wh-why?" She was shocked to see her cookies that looked like charcoal rather than food.

"But… You don't know until you taste it, right?" Yui still had the vigor to say that. Her puppy-dog eyes were staring at us.

"That's true," I replied to her. I took her cookies, it was black. I saw she added too much instant coffee in it and said to Yukino that some guys hate sweet stuff.  Put another batch of sugar.

It was indeed a nightmare.

Well, at least for me, this was not the most awful thing that I ever ate. I just tasted bitter awfulness so intense because of how much coffee she put in. In the end, I ate most of the cookies. I could hear  'Ooh.' Nino's amazed sound.

Until there was one left piece of cookies. While Yui was watching me with glimmering eyes. She looked at me with a happy face and full of hope. But, there was no way I let this girl alone without any consequences.

So for the last piece of cookies, I came at her and tried to feed her.

"Aaa."

"Eh?"

"Aaa," I repeated it while smiling coldly. Yui couldn't evade my feeding and eat the cookies.

"Ugh! These are so bitter! And gross!" Yui wailed tearfully as she ate her own cookies.

"Yup, these cookies are awful," I said in her face. Her eyes were tearing up a bit.

"But, you eat the cookies like it was fine." Yui protested.

Yukino gave me a cup of tea, while Nino gave Yui one too. The two of us washed cookies flavor down with tea.

"Well, these cookies are awful, but I had a meal that was worse than this," I told her while mesmerizing my past. "At least, these are not as bad as poisonous scorpions and poisonous snakes."

"What are you talking about? There is no way people eat something like that." Yukino gave a rebuttal to my remark.

"Ha… Yukino, when humans are on edge, they are capable of doing anything you know. I still remember when I was stranded alone in the desert. I don't have anything other than my equipment and a bottle of water. I ate everything I saw. It was an awful experience."

After our conversation two days ago, I tried my best to tell her my past experience. Of course, not all of them, but some of them.

"Is that so. That sounds like a terrible experience." Yukino said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Eh, you believe that? That sounds like a terrible liar." Nino told Yukino, which meant she was skeptical of my story.

"That sounds horrible." On the other hand, Yui wiped her tears that I didn't know came out because she ate her own cookies or my story that made her cry.

"That's why… You can't waste food, okay." I said to Yui, who nodded after hearing me.

"Okay, enough about Saku. Now let us think about how we might improve this." Yukino told us out.

Hm… It has been a very long time since I watched them as an anime, so I kinda forgot what the protagonist did.

"Yui never cooked again," Nino said with an absurd solution.

"EH! That's so harsh, Nino…" Her shoulder dropped as she felt dejected. "I guess… I've got no talent or whatever it is…" And she sulked.

"Ah, sorry. Yui."

"What you can do is put more effort," Yukino replied to Yui.

"Effort?"

"Yes, you said it earlier that you have no talent, didn't you. That way of thinking needs to fix it. People who don't put any effort have no right to be jealous of people with talent." Yukino said in a sharp way. Yui's face was pale. There was some confusion and fear across her face.

"But… everyone's saying they don't do stuff like this anymore…." Yui tried to cover this while smiling shyly, but her smile could vanish anytime.

"Could you stop that? You try too much to conform to your surroundings. Aren't you ashamed, pointing at others as the root of your own clumsiness, awkwardness, and foolishness?"

Yukino's tone was stern and harsh.

"Isn't that too harsh," Nino said with an angry look. "You didn't know that Yui has been practicing cooking since yesterday and before…."

"And she still failed, that's why she needs to put more effort to succeed." Yukino still stood firm with her statement.

On the other hand, Yui was in silence, her face was downcast, but her hands clenching at her skirt. While Nino and Yukino were still bickering each other.

"You're… so cool." But, Yui said something that never Yukino and Nino expected. They said at the same time.

"What!?"

"You're always so straight like that… cool." Yui gazed at Yukino. I could see admiration on her face.

"No, she is awful and means." Nino said it to Yukino.

"Yes, this girl told the truth. I believe I was being very harsh." Yukino couldn't comprehend what happened or what Yui was thinking.

"But it felt like you were being honest. When you talk to Saku and the way you're talking to me… that's straightforward and honest. I like it. Sorry. I'll do it right next time,"

This time Yukino was the one left speechless. Maybe she never encountered someone with Yui's response, and her brain was stopped. So I pushed her a little.

"Just teach her again."

Yukino looked at me before she moved to Yui, "I'll show you how to do it first, so try doing it exactly as I do." So Yukino once again demonstrated to Yui to make cookies. She also gave Yui the most essential piece to cook, "All you did was stay true to the recipe."

Yui went through the same process and the exact steps that Yukino had… but what happened next was a tragedy.

The way Yui makes cookies was so clumsy, awkward, and of course, her dangerously creative ways. This was so bad that Yukino was exhausted from handling Yui alone. She was sitting in the chair while Nino gave her a cup of tea.

"Good job," Nino said to Yukino, who just nodded at drinking tea in peace. "Thanks."

When Yui opened the oven, the cookies she made were different from Yukino's, but the cookies were good enough to be called food.

"Still failed…" Yui's shoulders drooped in sadness.

"Hm... Is this still not good enough?" I asked Yui, who nodded to answer my question. I looked at how Yukino teaches Yui, and also I asked Nino how she teaches Yui. I hoped I could find a way to teach her.

"Well, I want good cookies as a gift."

Yui's face quickly reddened when I asked her. Her behavior was kinda cute and girlish with an apron and cookies in her hand. I ate her new cookies much better than her cookies before, but still not good enough as good cookies.

"So you want to give someone homemade cookies, huh."

"Yes…"

"Hum… If that's the case, it would be bad if the cookies are awful." I said while tasting her new cookies.

"I knew it." Once again, Yui dropped her shoulder as she felt disappointed when hearing my opinion about her new cookies.

"Yeah, it would be bad if the person you gifted thought that you tried to poison or kill them." I teased her. She pouted and threw several weak punches at me.

"What! That's terrible to say!"

"Ahahaha… It was just a joke. But, If I get homemade cookies from a cute girl like Yui, I would be happy… as long not this bad cookie." I told her.

"Really?" Yui's face blushed and timidly looked up at me in a cute way. She really likes cute animals.

"Yeah… but you want to give delicious cookies, right?" I asked Yui once more to make sure what she wanted.

"Yes." Yui nodded her head weakly, maybe because she didn't feel confident

"If that's the case, how about we make the cookies together?".I gave her my suggestion.

"Eh, together?"

"Yup, I think if we make it together, at least we could minimize your mistakes."

"Together, huh… It was kinda romantic." In a very low voice, Yui said she may have whispered to herself, but I could hear that thanks to my excellent hearing. So I also could listen to two people talking at my back.

"Not only did he bite his venomous teeth to my sisters… He also tried to catch my friend too. He is dangerous! He is not a delinquent but a playboy. I can't let him roam around and catch any girl he likes." Nino's voice was low but full of determination.

"This guy was too much. He was brave enough to flirt with another girl around me again. Unbelievable." Yukino said in a cold tone that my body shivered a little.

For a moment, Yui looked in her own mind, thinking about something, before she gave me a nod.

So we started to make cookies together, but I never thought about that. I took a backseat and let Yui make cookies with my instruction. First, I told her to take out some eggs when she failed. I corrected her, I took her hand, and I taught her how to do it right. After that, I prepared the flour measured with the wrong amount and asked her to correct it. As natural as I could to teach her in disguise, make cookies together.

Once again, the oven was opened, and this time, her cookies looked like normal cookies.

"It's done. This time, it really looked good." A big smile rose to Yui's face.

"Oh… This looked very good. Well done, Yui." I said to her, to which she replied by saying, "Yeah," as she gave me a ridiculously happy nod with a big smile on her face.

"Heee~ Not bad." Nino came over to me pat my shoulder as she praised my effort.

"To think there is a way." Yukino looked at me with an impressed face.

The two of them didn't look like before. They were more relaxed and impressed with my way of teaching Yui.

"Yui, are you confident to recreate this?" I asked her once again.

Her eyes locked on me. I could feel some admiration and gratitude there. She showed me a big smile while giving me a V sign in her hand.

"Of course."

Yui felt gratitude, and her throbbing can't be stopped

Affection +20

 

You successfully completed 'Yui and Cookies I.'

 +10 P

 

***

Ritsuko Akizuki held her head with her hand because several scandalous events sprung up without any warning. Yesterday's event confused her really hard.

Because of that, it took the credibility of the entertainment industry.

"What to do… I just worked for about one week. How could this happen? I don't have any idol to work with..."

Ritsuko felt she was in bad luck before her phone was ringing.

There was a message from someone she didn't know. It was saying that he knew her number from Sae-sensei, and he hoped they could meet to talk about her becoming manager of someone.

"I forgot."

Sae-sensei told her that someone under her guardians wants to talk. Since she trusted Sae-sensei and she had been under her care when she was in high school, she didn't mind helping.

"It's just a meeting. I didn't need to take him… or anything. Also, it's not like I have any work…."

Ritsuko replied with the promised time they would meet. At that time, she didn't know this meeting would change her life and make a storm in Japan's entertainment industry.