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Everyone always said Nanami Yachiyo had an endless appetite for sweets. This quality of hers was pretty cute when put in conjunction with her mature demeanor.
She liked all kinds of desserts, with macaroons, donuts, and such being among the items she bought the most frequently. Of course, in the past, she always got discounted goods due to various reasons. But even now, after becoming a more well-known model in Kamihama, she still bought cheaper options in order to get the most value out of them.
However, while it had been her custom to eat a box of confectionaries while drinking black tea, recently she had become unable to buy sweets on a whim.
The reason was a certain someone she lived with, namely Tamaki Iroha.
“Yachiyo-san, you shouldn’t eat too many sweets.” Her voice was soft every time she said that.
But Yachiyo felt a subtle pressure coming through in her words.
To better explain why Yachiyo liked eating sweets, it would be best to start with a story that happened some years ago.
Yachiyo was in junior high school at the time and had just become a magical girl. Although she gained an additional “job” as a magical girl, she was working her way up as a model and things were going well for her.
But as luck would have it, she met someone around that time. Junior high was precisely the time for adolescent infatuations to take root. She would spend all day thinking about them and was even caught daydreaming in class. The girls in her class eagerly discussed the incident after school.
“Is Nanami dating someone?”
“I really want to know who it is!”
…But she chose to remain silent. Although her love letter had been sitting on her desk for ages, she never gave it to that person.
Because she was a magical girl. Who knew when she would disappear without a trace on some lonely night? With those sorts of concerns, her feelings would never bear fruit no matter how much they took root in her.
Many nights, she would lie in bed and think of a couple of things. She would think of her classmates discussing what love felt like while they were doing chores in the twilit classrooms. She would think of the stories that the older girl who lived at the boarding house told her about her own experiences with love, while the nighttime news quietly played on TV. She would also think of sunny weekends when her grandmother told her about the romantic deeds her grandfather did, while wiping down the items on the shelves.
“Wow, so when other people talk about love, it’s always something sweet...” Thinking that, she would fall asleep. After being promptly woken up by her alarm the next day, she would blearily think of her own astringent, hidden feelings and feel down again.
She soon discovered one thing matched up well with that feeling, as she was eating a small slice of strawberry cake.
When she took the first bite of the fluffy cake layered with cream, she experienced a sweetness she never had before. “Love is like a desert. When you dig in, it’s definitely a sweet feeling!” Her classmate’s words suddenly sounded in her head. She took a second bite and then a third… Before long, the tiny slice was decimated and all that remained was the strawberry she purposefully left for last. Just as she was regretting not taking the time to savor the cake, the delicious taste suddenly turned a bit sour in her mouth.
Ah… So no matter how sweet something once was, it would sour once it was over. Comprehending that line of thinking for the first time, she carefully speared the strawberry dabbed with a bit of cream and took a bite.
Actually, that final, lingering sourness wasn’t bad either. From then on, she suddenly came to love sweets and unconsciously took the feeling eating sweets gave her as a manifestation of the feeling of love.
Of course, there was absolutely no way she would explain something that embarrassing. So when Iroha asked her, “Yachiyo-san, why are you so much like a kid with an insatiable sweet tooth?”, she smiled faintly and did not answer.
It was unclear if the pressure from Iroha got to her or if there were other reasons, but either way the amount of times she ate sweets dropped dramatically.
“It sort of feels like you haven’t been eating any sweet things recently.” Iroha had quietly opened the door to Yachiyo’s room. It was nighttime and Yachiyo was busying herself with her coursework.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really,” Iroha said and handed her a cup of warm milk.
“Thanks.” Yachiyo carefully took it, gently blew on it, and took a sip.
“Um… Yachiyo-san!”
“What?”
“Ui told me that this weekend, Tsuruno’s planning on taking her, Felicia, and Sana out somewhere… So, can we go shopping that day?”
Recently, Nanami Yachiyo had been feeling unsettled. After tearing her hair out over it for some time, she decided to verify that one possibility. And so, she enlisted the help of her agent to acquire amusement park tickets and gave them to Tsuruno.
Tsuruno had confidently taken the tickets and put her hand over her chest while exclaiming, “Can do. Just leave it to me!”
It appeared the chance to verify things had come.
She actually thought there might not be a need for it anymore. She fretted over what to wear the night before. All the clothes she tried on just did not seem to fit. When it came time to sleep, she still had not found an outfit that was just right.
In the very end, she ended up choosing to wear her normal outfit. She remembered seeing somewhere that “the ordinary is the best”. After pumping herself up for a bit, she steeled herself and left the house with Iroha.
They were not doing anything special, just going out together, but even that made her happy.
They did frequently go out together, but this was the first time it was just the two of them, which made it special.
“Well, guess that ‘possibility’ actually was a ‘certainty’,” Yachiyo thought to herself in the mall. When she turned to look at Iroha, the other girl was also beaming.
Maybe in the future, she wouldn’t need sweets to experience that flavor.
Nanami Yachiyo thought of many things from the past. She thought of the love letter she never sent and of the gossip her classmates swapped. She thought of the stories her grandmother told her, of the older girl at the boarding house, and of the worries written in the letters she exchanged with Mifuyu. She thought of that particular sweetness and the slightly sour aftertaste. All of those were now long past. She also thought of how lively Mikazuki Villa was now and the cups of warm milk Iroha gave her on numerous nights after moving in. Then, she thought of the confession she gave when they barely knew each other: “You’re frighteningly direct”. And then she thought of the vow Iroha swore to her in that other place, which cut right through the fog in her heart.
She stood alone in the river of these events, the current rushing against her. She never thought that one day, she would be holding onto a shining gem.
She dearly wanted to say those three words to Iroha but was also afraid springing these feelings on her would make her confused. As the older person, she should be more composed.
Which was why…
While she was thinking all that, Yachiyo completely did not realize she was grinning. She only snapped back to reality when Iroha called her.
“Yachiyo-san!”
Tamaki Iroha had never felt this nervous before. She had gone out with Yachiyo many times before, but this time was just different.
It was rare for her, someone behind on the times, to be interested in something popular. Of course, there was a reason as to why.
She had something she wanted to tell Yachiyo.
“How unexpected… You’re always saying I should eat fewer sweets.” Sitting at a dessert place that was currently popular among students, Yachiyo broke the silence first.
“I heard Sana say this store has been getting really good reviews. Since you like sweet things, I wanted to invite you here… As a way to thank you for everything you do for us!”
“I see. Then, I’ll gladly accept this kind offer. Thank you very much,” she spoke casually, though inside she was nervous beyond belief. “I wouldn’t have thought the store logo would be of a simple strawberry cake…”
Silently readying herself to eat, Yachiyo carefully placed the strawberry on the rim of the plate. She cut off a corner of the cake and was prepared to bring it up to her mouth, when she paused. Iroha had taken off the strawberry on top of her own slice and placed it next to Yachiyo’s. She gave that smile that was so typical of her and said, “I also don’t like eating the strawberry first.”
The atmosphere around them was tense, unlike the other tables where people were talking and eating their desserts. An unnatural silence lay over them, until Iroha called Yachiyo’s name.
“Yachiyo-san, please look at this!” Iroha pushed her plate with the cake on it towards Yachiyo.
What was written on there in swirls of cream was what Iroha wanted to say to Yachiyo.
Suki.
In that moment, Yachiyo’s face was as red as the strawberries on her plate.
Everyone always said Nanami Yachiyo had an endless appetite for sweets. This quality of hers was pretty cute when put in conjunction with her mature demeanor. For Tamaki Iroha especially, it was charming how her girlfriend had this unexpected side to her.
One slice of cake.
One piece of cake.
A piece of cake.
Love was… a piece of cake.
To Nanami Yachiyo, love truly was like a dessert, always flowing with sweetness, and it was also like a piece of cake, easily obtainable the moment their feelings got through to each other.
In their life afterwards, she imagined that there would be many more days that were just like this piece of sweet strawberry cake.