"Cookie? Eh?"
Shishio helped to tie Yukinoshita's apron before patting her back gently. "It's done."
"Thanks."
Wearing an apron, Yukinoshita tied her hair with her red bows into a lazy ponytail that she draped over her chest.
Shishio was fascinated by Yukinoshita's appearance for a moment and said, "Somehow, I want to go to the ward office now."
"Huh? Why should you go there?" Yukinoshita asked with some confusion.
"Well, maybe, I want to change your family name to Oga there."
Yukinoshita snorted with some blushes and said, "Who will change my surname?! Stop saying something stupid! Are you going to help or not?" She knew how amazing his cooking ability was, so she wondered whether he was also going to help.
"I am going to watch you first. You can bake a simple cookie, right?"
"Well, that's true. Leave this to me."
"....."
Yui and Hikigaya, who watched their interaction, wondered whether they weren't dating.
"Alright, Yuigama, come here. I'll help you with the apron," Yukinoshita said as she helped Yui to wear her apron.
"Th-Thanks, Yukinoshita-san." Yui smiled happily.
"So you want to make cookies? That's all?" Shishio, who sat next to Hikigaya, asked naturally.
"Yeah." Yukinoshita nodded as she prepared the ingredients for the cookies. "She wants someone to eat her handmade cookies, apparently."
Yui looked away, feeling embarrassed.
"Since she doesn't have much confidence in her skills, she'd like us to give her a hand. That is her request."
Hikigiya let out a troubled sigh. "Why don't you just ask your friends?"
"Well, that's..." Yui showed a troubled expression as she fidgeted her fingers. "Y'know, I don't want people to find out. 'Sides, my friends are, like, not down with serious business."
"Oh, really?" Hikigaya looked at Shishio, wondering whether he wasn't going to say anything since whenever this guy opened his mouth, he must have something beautiful to say.
'What?' Shishio noticed Hikigaya's gaze.
'You won't say anything?' Hikigaya asked.
Shishio looked at Yukinoshita and said, 'It's not my place to talk.'
Hikigaya looked at Shishio for a moment, then Yukinoshita, feeling that this guy was really a casanova, which made him wonder whether he could ask him to be taught. 'Is that so?'
"Yeah. I heard back from Ms. Hiratsuka. You guys grant students' wishes, right?" Yui asked.
"Wrong." Yukinoshita, who had been observing the ingredients for the cookie, said, "The Service Club will only help. We do not give people a fish. Instead, we teach them how to fish."
"That sounds cool..." Yui was amazed, even though she didn't really understand.
"Yukino-senpai, we're only the tasters, right?" Shishio asked.
"Yeah, just wait for the cookie to be ready, and you can tell us your opinion," Yukinoshita said.
"Okay." 2x
Shishio and Hikigaya didn't have any complaints since their jobs were easy enough.
"By the way, Yui-senpai, can I ask something?"
"Yes?" Yui looked at Shishio curiously.
"You said you have someone that you want to give a cookie to, right? So what kind of purpose are you going to give this cookie to this person for?"
"Purpose?" Yui was confused.
"Well, the most common thing is confession. Are you going to confess to this person?" Shishio asked curiously.
Yukinoshita and Hikigaya also looked at Yui at the same time.
Yui blushed and furiously shook her head. "No, no, it isn't like that!"
"Then?"
"It's... It's..."
"If you don't want to talk, you don't have to force yourself."
"No, no, it's okay..." Yui kept fidgeting her fingers, and she gave a forced smile. "I... I just want to thank this person."
"Thanks, huh?" Shishio nodded and said, "Then you should give this person the best cookie, so that person will understand how grateful you are."
"Ye-Yes!" Yui clenched her fists and raised them high to the sky. "I-I'll do my best!"
Yukinoshita showed a rare smile and said, "Then, if you're ready, I'll guide you now."
"Yes, please guide me, Yukinoshita-san!" Yui nodded furiously.
Shishio looked at the two girls and whispered to Hikigaya. "Watching beautiful girls working hard toward the goal, isn't it beautiful?"
"...Yeah." Hikigaya had to agree this time since he also thought this scene was wonderful.
However...
"....."
Shishio, Yukinoshita, and Hikigaya were in silence, watching the aftermath of the battle. No, it should be the finished cookies.
Unlike the brown, sweet-smelling, and nice shape of cookies, Yui's cookies couldn't be called a cookie.
Instead, it would be fitting to call it coal because of how black it was.
"How can you even make that many mistakes at once?" Yukinoshita let out a long sigh.
Shishio took one of the cookies and knocked it on the table, creating a loud sound like a rock that was knocked against a hard object.
"...Is this a new type of biohazard weapon?"
"How cruel!!"
Shishio let out a long sigh and ignored Yui, and said, "I can't believe that we, as humans, have developed so much."
"Yeah, it's really amazing..." Hikigaya had to nod at his words. "It might even be poisonous."
"What're you calling poisonous!?" Yui couldn't accept it and took one of the cookies to observe it. She stared at it for a moment before her confidence started to falter. "Okay, you might be right."
"Any chance of her dropping dead?" Yukinoshita looked at Shishio helplessly.
Shishio could only rub her shoulders gently and say, "Work hard. I'll support you."
Yukinoshita let out a helpless sigh. "It's easy for you to say that." However, she didn't intend to give up since she would do her best to help someone as long as it was possible for her. "Anyway, let's think about how we can do this better."
"With Yuigahama never stepping foot in the kitchen again," Hikigaya said without hesitation.
"Is that how you solve things?!" Yui retorted before she let out a depressed sigh as she lowered her head. "Maybe cooking just isn't me. Y'know, "talent" or whatever? I, like, don't get it."
"The only way we can solve things is through hard work. Yuigahama. You just said you didn't have any talent, didn't you?"
"Huh? Yeah."
"Fix that mentality of yours. Those who don't even try don't have the right to envy those with talent. Those who fail to do so because they can't imagine the kind of effort put in by those who succeed."
"Bu-But you know, everybody says they don't want to cook these days. I'm just not cut out for this stuff."
Yukinoshita stopped what she was doing and looked at Yui with an uncomfortable gaze. "Could you please stop trying desperately to fit in? I don't like it at all. Doesn't it embarrass you to blame others for your own stupidness and clumsiness?"
Hikigaya was speechless and looked at Shishio.
Shishio didn't say anything and just looked at Yui, wondering what she was going to say.
"So..." Yui held the hem of her skirt tightly as she said, "So cool."
"What?"
"You don't sugarcoat things at all. That's, like, so totally cool."
Yukinoshita was speechless and even backed down for a moment. "Did you even listen to what I have said? I believe I was quite harsh."
"You did say some pretty horrible things. It felt to me like they came from the heart. I can tell because I have always been trying to fit in with people." Yui bowed her head and apologized. "I'm sorry. I'll do my best this time!"
Yukinoshita looked at Shishio helplessly.
"Just help her for now," Shishio said.
Yukinoshita let out a sigh and said, "If it isn't good, I'll ask for your help."
"Okay."
Yukinoshita then looked at Yui and said, "I'll show you how it's done, so try following along."
"Yeah!" Yui nodded excitedly like a dog.
After a while, the cookie was ready, but while the result was better than before, it wasn't something that could be given to someone, considering how horrible it seemed.
"They're totally different." Yui sighed when she compared her cookies with Yukinoshita's.
Yukinoshita only lay on the table weakly, seemingly giving up since Yui's cookies were horrible no matter what she did. "I wonder what I should do to make her bake a delicious cookie."
Shishio and Hikigaya ate Yui's cookies. While it wasn't bad, it wasn't something good either.
"Hey, why are you two trying to make a delicious cookie?" Hikigaya suddenly asked.
"What?" 2x
Hikigaya smiled and said, "Come back in ten minutes. I'll show you what real homemade cookies are like."
"Me too?" Shishio asked.
"Stay here, then," Hikigaya said.
"Okay."
Yuikinoshita and Yui were in doubt, but since Shishio was there, they somehow reluctantly believed Hikigaya.
While Hikigaya couldn't read their minds, he knew they were thinking something rude.
The girls waited for a while before they entered again as they tasted the cookies made by Hikigaya. They ate them reluctantly before they frowned.
"Is this the real "homemade" cookies?"
"It's not that good!"
Hikigaya sighed and said, "I see... Sorry, I'll throw them away."
"Wa-Wait!" Yui quickly stopped Hikigaya and said, "You don't have to throw them away." She ate the rest of the cookie in her hand and said with a forceful smile. "It's not that bad."
"These are the cookies you baked, though."
"Eh?" Yui was dumbfounded.
"What do you mean?" Yukinoshita asked.
Hikigaya seemed to be proud and said, "It's a story that comes from a friend of mine."
"Senpai, do you have a friend?" Shishio asked.
"Shut up!" Hikigaya was embarrassed, but he quickly told the story of his painful past. No, it was a story of his friend's friend. He told them that there was a girl who often talked to him and he thought that this girl had fallen for him, so without hesitation, he asked whether she liked him, but...
"What the hell? That's sick. Please don't ever say that again."
"..." Yui, Shishio, and Yukinoshita.
"Senpai, please don't tell us about your trauma here." Shishio let out a sigh.
"Shu-Shut up! You, a scumbag who is dating several girls at the same time, won't understand my feelings?!" Hikigaya shouted with all of his emotion. After he shouted those words, he felt relieved somehow, and he was also glad that Shishio didn't seem to show any reactions and only smiled at him, which somehow made him even more annoyed!
"So, in the end, what do you want to say?" Yukinoshita asked with a sigh.
"Well, what I want to say is that men are simple creatures. They get all hot and bothered when all a girl does is talk to them. Just getting handmade cookies will send them flying up to cloud nine. It doesn't really matter if they taste terrible."
"Terrible?" Yui seemed unable to accept the cruel fact and retorted. "Shut up!"
"Anyway, as long as they know you did your best, they'll be moved."
Yukinoshita looked at Shishio and asked, "Shishio-kun, what do you think?"
"Well, I won't deny what Hikigaya-senpai has said since it is definitely something happy to have a clumsy girl who doesn't have an experience in baking does her best to present our cookies with all of her feelings."
"Is-Is that so?" Yui somehow gained some confidence in Shishio's words.
"However, the problem is, are you okay with that?" Shishio asked.
"...What do you mean?" Yui was confused.
"While it might seem cold, we, people, often see the result instead of the process. The person you want to give cookies to might or might not understand how hard you're baking these cookies. While I won't deny that they'll be happy as long as you give them truthfully, is your feeling, gratitude, or other types of emotions are alright with this? Are you alright with these results? If you're okay with it, I won't say much. However..." Shishio looked at Yui and said, "If you want to work a little harder, then we'll help you."
Hikigaya wasn't wrong since any guys would be happy as long as they received something from a pretty girl like Yui, especially when they knew how hard she had worked hard to bake cookies that she had never tried before.
However, Shishio's advice was more emphasized Yui's feelings.
Was she okay with this?
Was she feeling okay with this half-baked result when she could have made something even better?
In other words, did she want to work harder so she could convey the feelings that she had toward this person?
Or just stop since she was told so?
Hikigaya was in silence since he realized that he only emphasized the guy's feelings, not toward Yui's feelings, what kind of feelings she held for the person she wanted to give her cookies.
Hikigaya looked at Shishio, and somehow he understood why this guy could have a harem.
Yui looked at her cookies for a moment and said, "I-I want to work a little harder, so please help me!" Then, she bowed her head, showing how sincere she was.
Shishio looked at Yui, then looked at Yukinoshita.
"Help her, Shishio-kun," Yukinoshita said without hesitation.
"Okay." Shishio nodded and said, "How about we make something fancy?"
"Something fancy?" 3x
"Yes." Shishio nodded and said, "Let's make a tiramisu."
Somehow this had gotten so big.