Yumeiro Patissiere

Chapter 25 Goodbye Koshiro

It was now time for the chocolate cake challenge to start. Makato still couldn't believe that Miya had been tutored of chocolate tempering by Monsieur Leon, but he was still confident that his chocolate skills would beat Miya's skill. As soon as the challenge started, Miya showed Team Ichigo her design for the cake. It, of course, was really Ichigo's design that Youko Ayukawa took a photo of the other day. Team Ichigo stared at it. "Very nice design," Ichigo said, calmly. It was clear to her and the others that Team Koshiro did decide to cheat to win. Miya was surprised by Team Ichigo's reaction. 'Hang on, why aren't they surprised?' she thought 'this was Amano's design'. Youko saw Team Ichigo's reaction too and was surprised that Team Ichigo didn't say anything about it being Ichigo's design. 'Could Amano know what I did?' she thought. Miya didn't ask questions and just told her team to get to work.

Team Ichigo started to work on their cake too. "I wonder if Team Koshiro suspects anything," said Caramel. "I don't know," said Vanilla "but wait till they see what Team Ichigo has come up with". "I can't wait to see the heiress' face when she sees Team Ichigo's new design," said Chocolat "it will serve her right for trying to cheat". This was true; Ichigo had thought of a new design for the challenge. Sennosuke and Satsuki were working with marzipan, hard candy, and powder food coloring, and Ichigo and Makato were working on the Sachertorte cake; Ichigo worked on the chocolate base and Makato worked on the chocolate coating.

Team Koshiro was working on their cake too and it looked like they were working as a team, which seemed unusual to the audience because Miya had never worked with actual teamwork before; she had always taken credit for herself. Youko was working the hardest. 'I will become a patisserie,' she thought 'and I will do whatever it takes to become one'. The truth is Youko was determined to be a top-class patisserie. The sad news was that she didn't believe that emotions or having fun when making sweets mattered and she did her sweets making serious. And another sad thing was is that she would do anything to accomplish her goal, even if it meant doing bad and unfair things like copying someone else's design or sweets. What Youko didn't know was that Ichigo had discovered what she had done the other day.

Team Ichigo was doing very well on their cake and nothing was going wrong. Kashino had just melted the chocolate, at the right temperature, and was about to set to work on tempering it. But he still felt uncomfortable with the fact that Monsieur Leon had taught Miya on how to temper chocolate. Ichigo could see that Makato was feeling uneasy and she held his hand. "Listen Kashino," she said "this is your chance to show Monsieur Leon your skills of making chocolate. I've seen you practice tempering chocolate like there is no tomorrow, a lot of times, and you love making chocolate more than anyone else in this school". "Amano-san is right," said Sennosuke "besides you have been practicing tempering chocolate way more than Koshiro-san has; you've practiced for years and Koshiro-san has only practiced for a few months. No one in this school can beat your skill". "That's right chocolate prince" said Satsuki. Makato stared at the others and knew that he did have friends that would always support him in any way they could. He got to work on the chocolate coating at once. 'Because of my skill in making chocolate, I got conceited because I have always made chocolate alone,' he thought 'but I know that I can accomplish anything because I have friends on my side. I won't give up".

Now it was time for Team Ichigo to decorate their cake. They huddled in front of the cake together so that Team Koshiro wouldn't see what they were doing. Team Koshiro was decorating their cake too and when they were done it was exactly the same way that Ichigo designed it, with pink colored frosting and different ingredients like cream and things in the shape of hearts. Then Team Ichigo revealed their cake. Their new design was a design of Benzaiten, the Japanese goddess of love. The model of Benzaiten was made out of marzipan by Satsuki and Sennosuke had helped him color her with powdered food colorings, and she was standing on some marzipan that covered the top of the sachertorte cake. Satsuki also made four big hard candies, in the shape of hearts that were on each side of the cake. One hard candy was pink, another green, another brown and the fourth one red.