The following week, and then the week after that, too, Azusa met Nayuta at Tenderness on Tuesday, and together they ate cake. The springtime strawberry series disappeared from the display case, only to be replaced by early summer specialties—sour-orange parfait and fresh loquat fruit jellies. Nayuta appeared less and less often at school, her features always veiled with tiredness. But when she saw Azusa she would smile, however faintly, and together they would eat their treats.
“Higaki, you really like sweets, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
Today they were sampling the new “Feather-Light Cream Puffs.” In addition to the two of them, the dine-in space was also hosting a bearded man in heavy work clothes. He was plowing through a bento dinner with gusto. Azusa had her back to the man, and she herself had a mouthful of cream puff.
“Do you go to other sweet shops?” Nayuta asked her. “Or cafés?” Mojikō was a popular tourist destination and featured a variety of bakeries and candy stores. Azusa shook her head no. She frowned briefly and then laughed.
“My mum says I can’t go there alone until I’m in high school,” Azusa explained. She’d been told it was okay to go places together with Mizuki, but now that snacks had been banned, that was an impossibility. There were mountains of things she wanted to try—fruit parfaits, pancakes of all sorts, and so on—but for now, at least, she had to give them all up.
“Convenience store sweets are delicious, though, so I don’t really mind. Also, I especially love the sweets here at Tenderness.”
The Tenderness sweets were delicious—both the regular ones that they carried all year long, and the seasonal specials. Azusa thought that the seasonal fruit series, in particular, was a collection of masterpieces. And to be able to eat things of that quality at a convenience store! It was so, well…convenient. It was more than enough, so how could she complain?
“Besides…” Azusa looked down and silenced herself. After some hesitation, she said, as if confessing, “Actually, when I grow up, I’d like to work at Tenderness.”
“You want to work at a convenience store?” Nayuta asked, in a tone of some disbelief.
“Well, not exactly. I want to do—what do they call it?—‘product development’ for Tenderness. I want to work in the dessert department there, or something like that. I want to make the best cakes.”
Ever since kindergarten, Azusa had dreamed of becoming a pastry chef. The first thing she remembered writing was an essay about building a shop that looked like a gingerbread house. Her dream was well known both to her parents and to Mizuki as well. But now Azusa was beginning to think she might not even need her own shop.
“That’s good.” At those simple words, Azusa looked over at Nayuta, who was nodding in admiration, a little cream stuck to the corner of her mouth. “It’s very good, I think. That means all the Tenderness stores throughout Kyūshū will be yours, won’t they, Higaki?”
Azusa said, “That’s right!” Her face brightened. She never thought anyone would understand her plan so readily. Without thinking about it, she leaned forward.
“It would be good to put a lot of work into building a single store that was my own, but, you know, convenience stores would also be good. I really look forward to tasting the treats here every week the way we do. I want to make sweets that people—people like me—like and can’t wait to try.”
This was the first time Azusa had shared her dream—the outlines of which were just starting to become clear to her—with anyone. She couldn’t help but be happy to receive such a positive response. Seeing her so pleased, Nayuta smiled.
“It’s good that you have a dream, Higaki.”
There was something lonely about that smile. “How about you, Nayuta? Don’t you have a dream?” Azusa asked.
Nayuta frowned and said, “For now, I can’t think of one. I’m pushing myself to the limit right now, just trying to deal with what’s right in front of me, so I can’t think at all about what comes next.”
Hands rubbing her cheeks and speaking tentatively, Nayuta didn’t seem at all her regular self. Azusa thought now might be the time to ask her what had been going on. She waited a moment, and then when it seemed right she asked.
“Nayuta? It seems like you’re working awfully hard on something now. What’s going on?”
Nayuta’s expression clouded.
“Oh hey, I’m sorry,” Azusa added quickly. Apparently it had been a bad time to ask after all. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.” But Nayuta shook her head.
“It’s okay, Higaki,” Nayuta said in a weak voice. “You’re easy to talk to, so I can tell you. Actually, to be honest, I’ve been thinking I really want to tell someone about it.”
She sighed, then continued.
“Actually, I am pretty wiped out. Even though it was my decision in the first place, I’m not really any good at it. The truth is—”
“What are you doing?”
Azusa and Nayuta trembled in shock at the sound of the icy voice. Standing in the doorway was Mizuki. She strode over to Azusa and roughly struck the half-eaten cream puff from her hand. Then she slapped her on the cheek. The noise echoed through the small room.
“Sneaking around behind my back?” Mizuki hissed. “That’s as low as it gets!”
Azusa was simply dumbfounded. Now Mizuki turned to Nayuta and lowered her voice. “And you, Taguchi.” She addressed her by her last name. “You skip school day after day, and then you have the nerve to come here with Azusa and just sit around eating cake? Well, you can do what you want, I don’t care, but do me a favor and don’t go dragging other people into it. It’s a real pain.”
Azusa stared at Mizuki’s angry profile, hand pressed to her cheek where she had been slapped. How, why was Mizuki here? She had a strange feeling she knew, and let her gaze stray past Mizuki through the window to the answer. She bit her lip. There, standing in the corner of the car park, was Kanako.
“Kanako told you…?” Azusa said, half to herself. Mizuki shot her a look.
“Yes, Kanako told me. That you were sneaking off to meet Taguchi. And that you were having all sorts of fun gossiping about us.”
“We were just eating cakes together. Is that against the rules?” Nayuta didn’t mince her words, but Mizuki just laughed at her scornfully.
“Obviously. You’re not even coming to school! And when you do show up, you disrupt the atmosphere and then act like you don’t even care. A person like that has no excuse to be hanging out in a place like this. It’s strange you think you can dodge all your responsibilities and then claim all the privileges anyway.”
Mizuki didn’t stop there, but instead continued speaking at a breakneck pace.
“And on top of that, you’re a bad influence on Azusa. She’s not the sort of coward who would slip away from me and her parents to go off and eat cake somewhere, so the fact that she’s doing it is evidence enough of that. As far as the gossip is concerned, I’m sure it was a one-way street from your mouth to Azusa’s ears. So I’m sorry, but please leave her alone”