A soft knock vibrated through the surface of the wooden door.
Yukinoshita Yukino shifted her gaze away from her book toward the threshold. "Come in."
The sliding door slowly parted.
"Um... is this really where the Service Club is?" A girl with bright orange hair styled into a mini side-bun stepped inside with visible hesitation. Her eyes suddenly went wide the moment she recognized the people in the room. "Eh? Akira-kun and... the gloomy guy?"
Akira raised his hand, offering a casual greeting. "Hey there, Yuigahama-san."
Hachiman, sitting in the corner, immediately stared at her with his usual dead-fish eyes. "Hey... what's with the 'gloomy guy' label?"
"Hehe~ Sorry, sorry." Yuigahama Yui flashed a sheepish smile, scratching her cheek in an adorable, clumsy manner.
Yukinoshita cleared her throat softly, steering the conversation back to its core purpose. "Yuigahama-san, is there a particular issue that brings you to our club for assistance?"
"Ah, yes! I came here because Hiratsuka-sensei told me that the Service Club helps solve students' problems." Yuigahama took a sharp breath before bringing both palms together in front of her chest. "I want to ask for your help in teaching me how to bake cookies!"
Yukinoshita interlaced her fingers on the desk. "The Service Club is not a magical place that grants wishes instantly. We will only guide you to the best of our ability, but whether you succeed or fail ultimately depends entirely on your own effort."
Yukinoshita stood up from her chair, smoothing out a small wrinkle on her uniform skirt. "But if it is simply teaching you the basics of baking cookies, I suppose that is well within our capabilities. We accept this commission."
***
The small group soon arrived in front of the school's home economics classroom. Yukinoshita reached into her skirt pocket, pulled out the key borrowed from the faculty office, and unlocked the heavy wooden door. They filed into the room and quickly fastened their respective aprons.
Akira stood next to the counter space, giving a sweeping hand gesture. "Would you care to set a proper example for our new club member, Captain Yukinoshita?"
Yukinoshita shot a chilling glance toward Akira before tying her long black hair back into twin tails. "Watch closely, you pervert. Let me demonstrate the massive genetic gap between the working process of a normal human being and a mere ape."
Yukinoshita began demonstrating the cookie-making process right in front of Yuigahama, controlling every single ingredient measurement, timing, and baking temperature with absolute precision. "Yuigahama-san, ensure the oven temperature stays around 160 degrees Celsius. Do not handle the dough for too long or its core temperature will warp."
Yuigahama nodded repeatedly, her face masked in absolute seriousness.
It didn't take long for the very first tray—combining Yukinoshita's flawless guidance and Yuigahama's hard work—to finish baking inside the oven.
"Waaah... how did it turn out like this? Where did it go wrong..." Yuigahama stared at the cluster of solid, pitch-black charcoal lumps sitting on the baking sheet, her eyes welling up with tears, on the verge of crying.
Hachiman stepped closer, picking up one of the blackened lumps with deep hesitation before popping it into his mouth. In an instant, his entire face twisted in pure agony, and he quickly spat the debris into the trash can. "Puhh! My mouth feels like I just chewed on a direct chunk of raw coal..."
Akira picked up a perfectly baked cookie from Yukinoshita's sample batch, holding it up right in front of Yuigahama's eyes. "Even though you followed the exact same steps, the creative results are truly remarkable. Promise me, Yuigahama, you will never attempt a career switch into becoming a professional alchemist in the future, okay?"
Yuigahama puffed out her cheeks, glaring at Akira with a pout. "Ugh... Akira-kun is so mean!"
Akira clapped his palms together to dust off the remaining crumbs, throwing a confident smile her way. "Since the guidance from Yukinoshita proved to be a total failure due to an excessively high difficulty ceiling, let me try teaching you this time."
As a transmigrator fortunate enough to live in this world, moments like this were the absolute best opportunity to display true survival capabilities!
Twenty minutes later...
"Ah... no way... I give up..."
Akira slumped limply into a plastic chair. On the counter space before him, several dark brownish-red solid masses sat miserably across the tray, emitting a fairly pungent burnt odor that stung the nose.
Yuigahama lowered her head, staring at Akira's disaster with a deep sense of mutual failure.
Yukinoshita stepped over to the girl, gently patting her shoulder to offer a small bit of comfort. "Do not be discouraged. At the very least, your original creation still holds a much better physical shape compared to Kitahara's anomalous pile here, right?"
In an instant, the gloom on Yuigahama's face vanished entirely. She spun around and locked her arms tightly around Yukinoshita’s left arm. "Waaah! Yukinon really is the best!"
Feeling the sudden soft contact pressing heavily against her left arm, Yukinoshita’s forehead was immediately painted with several black veins, her entire body freezing stiff because she was completely unaccustomed to such intimate physical contact.
Akira, having slightly recovered from his emotional shock, straightened his posture. "Ah... if you don't mind me asking, Yuigahama-san, who exactly are you learning to bake these cookies for?"
"Eh... no... this... this is just a regular gift!" Yuigahama's face instantly flushed a vivid crimson. While nervously squeezing the hem of her apron, her eyes reflexively darted for a split second toward Hachiman standing in the corner before she quickly looked away. "He helped me out a lot in the past, so I just wanted to give him some homemade cookies as a small token of gratitude..."
Akira narrowed his eyes, a thin smile playing on his lips as he successfully read the entire hidden scenario with perfect clarity. "If the objective is giving a gift to a guy, as long as it is made with pure sincerity, guys generally don't care all that much about the taste."
Akira nudged Hachiman's arm with his elbow. "You agree with me, right, Hachiman?"
Hachiman, who had been minding his own business, was caught completely off guard by his name being dragged into the conversation. "Hah...? Oh... yeah, the intention behind it is what matters most."
Akira immediately gave a firm thumbs-up toward Hachiman. "See! Now it’s your turn to step up and teach her. Best of luck, Hachiman! The heavy burden of restoring the glorious name of the Service Club now rests solely upon your shoulders!"
Hachiman’s lips twitched, staring at Akira with a gaze that looked as though he wanted to chew the boy alive. "Fine... I'll give it a shot..."
***
"Yukinoshita, can you step outside with me for a second?" Akira gave an eye signal toward the exit, interrupting the baking session that had just restarted.
Yukinoshita knitted her brows in doubt, but ultimately chose to follow behind Akira into the deserted, quiet corridor outside.
The moment the sliding door shut, Yukinoshita immediately took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest in full vigilance. "What is the meaning of calling me out here, you pervert? Are you deliberately taking advantage of Hikigaya-kun and Yuigahama-san's busy schedule inside to unleash your wicked desires on me?"
Akira let out a weary sigh, leaning his back against the corridor wall. "Don't think about such bizarre things. I called you out here purely to provide some private space for the two individuals inside."
Yukinoshita tilted her head, failing to comprehend. "Private space? What do you mean by that?"
"Just so you know, the guy Yuigahama mentioned—the one who saved her dog on the very first day of school... that was Hikigaya."
Yukinoshita’s eyes widened slightly upon hearing the fact. "How do you happen to know about such a detail?"
Akira flashed a mysterious smile while staring up at the corridor ceiling. "As a hero tasked with maintaining world peace during the night, isn't it only natural that I possess a vast network of shadow informants providing this sort of intelligence?"
Yukinoshita stared at Akira with a gaze full of profound pity. "I never imagined the scale of your illness could be this severe. Aside from being a pervert, it turns out you also suffer from an acute case of delusional syndrome?"
Akira could only offer a wry smile, choosing not to debate the girl's words.
A few minutes later, the home economics door slid open once more. Hachiman stepped out with a slightly awkward facial expression, clutching a small plastic bag containing baked cookies against his chest.
Yuigahama followed right behind, walking toward Akira and Yukinoshita with a bright, cheerful grin. Her hands extended forward, offering two small, neatly packaged bags of cookies. "Yukinon, Akira-kun, thank you so much for keeping me company and teaching me today. This is for you guys!"
Akira accepted the package, looking back and forth between the bundle in his hand and Hachiman's awkward posture standing near the counter. 'It looks like the conversation inside went smoothly.'
Akira untied the ribbon knot, took out an irregularly shaped cookie from the inside, and popped it into his mouth. 'Hmm... at least this one is perfectly safe to swallow without needing to call an ambulance.'
***
After all club activities had officially wrapped up, Akira didn't head home right away. He spent some time taking a casual stroll around the rapidly thinning school grounds before finally walking out past the main gates just before the night curfew took effect.
"Meow..."
*Meow~*
As his footsteps passed by a shifting, dimly lit public park, Akira’s ears suddenly caught two distinct parau sounds characteristic of a cat—one of which sounded remarkably familiar to his ears. He halted his steps, turning his body toward the source of the sound behind the bushes.
A plump orange cat was sitting comfortably on the grassy ground. Right in front of the animal, Yukinoshita was crouching low, her slender fingers moving gently to stroke the soft fur on the cat's head with a facial expression that looked incredibly relaxed.
Akira stepped closer, deliberately stepping on a dry twig to announce his presence. "I never knew you possessed such a gentle side, Yukinoshita. Considering how freezing your attitude usually is at school, to the point where barely anyone dares to approach you."
Yukinoshita immediately retracted her hand, standing up straight while smoothing out the folds of her uniform skirt with rapid movements. "As long as the people who are precious to me can comprehend it, I don't care in the slightest about the evaluation of strangers outside."
Akira walked side-by-side with the girl as they began stepping out of the park area. "No wonder you don't have a single friend your own age until now."
"Friends? That all depends on how you choose to define the true essence of a friendship. I myself—"
"Save it, defensive sentences like that are usually only uttered by lonely people who genuinely don't have friends." Akira cut off her explanation with a thin smile.
Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes sharply at Akira for several seconds before letting out a soft snort and accelerating her pace toward the path home.
***
The footsteps of the two teenagers kept moving in unison across the sidewalk of the cooling night.
Yukinoshita suddenly halted her steps, turning her body to face Akira with an threatening stare. "Please, you pervert, stop stalking me! Otherwise, I am going to directly dial the police emergency number right now."
Akira stopped his own steps, staring in confusion at the girl. "Stalking? The path toward my apartment happens to be this exact way, am I forbidden from walking to my own home?"
To avoid a long, endless argument, Akira deliberately accelerated his walking rhythm, stepping right past Yukinoshita's position to prove his words.
Twelve minutes later, Akira’s steps came to a halt right at the foot of a luxurious apartment building standing tall in an elite district of Chiba.
Near the pillar of the electronic access gate, a middle-aged man was crouching low while smoking a cigarette, letting the smoke billow into the night air. Akira knitted his brows, recognizing the highly familiar silhouette. "Uncle Nagano...?"
The man named Hirokazu Nagano paused for a split second upon hearing his nephew's voice. The moment his eyes recognized Akira standing beneath the glow of the streetlamp, Nagano immediately crushed the embers of his cigarette against the asphalt, then tossed the butt into a nearby trash bin.
"Uncle Nagano, why are you crouching out here? Didn't I give you a spare key a long time ago?" Akira stepped closer, staring at his uncle in bewilderment.
Hirokazu Nagano scratched the back of his neck, flashing an awkward, sheepish smile. "Ah... I left the key at the office, and I completely forgot the intercom PIN. So, I had no choice but to wait here until you got back."
Nagano's gaze then shifted toward the corridor, noticing the girl walking a few steps behind his nephew. "By the way, who is the beautiful young lady behind you, Akira?"
Yukinoshita stepped forward, bowing slightly with a highly polite and elegant motion. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nagano. My name is Yukinoshita Yukino, the club president at Kitahara-kun's school."
"Yukinoshita?" Nagano looked visibly surprised for a split second upon hearing the surname before quickly patting Akira's shoulder with pride. "Ah, I've heard quite a bit about your achievements. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to guide my nephew at school."
Yukinoshita cast a brief glance at Akira, a thin smile playing on her lips, packed with a hidden meaning. "No, I haven't done anything special. Most of the changes that have happened recently are purely due to Kitahara-kun's own efforts and his rather unique characteristics."
The small group then stepped inside the lobby together and took the elevator up to the residential area. Since Yukinoshita's apartment unit was on a lower floor than Akira's, she stepped out of the elevator first after giving a polite parting nod.
The moment the elevator arrived at their destination floor, Akira walked down the corridor and prepared to press the digital PIN pad in front of his unit door.
*CLICK!*
The door to the unit right on their right side suddenly swung open first.
Rikka stepped out of the house, clutching a large plastic bag filled with domestic trash.
Akira raised his hand, greeting his neighbor. "Hey, Rikka."
Rikka halted her steps, instantly narrowing her eyes with a dramatic flair behind her eyepatch. "Hmm?! The Shadow Monarch himself! And who is the foreign entity standing next to you? Is he perhaps a new *familiar* you summoned from the gates of darkness?"
*PAKK!*
A metal soup spoon suddenly flew out from inside the house and landed squarely on top of Rikka's head, producing a remarkably sharp, metallic ring.
Takanashi Touka stepped out from behind the doorway with her hands on her hips, throwing a sharp glare at her younger sister before shifting her gaze toward the two guests in the corridor. "Rikka, watch your mouth in front of your elders. I apologize for my sister's incredibly rude behavior. If I may ask, you are..."
Akira quickly stepped in to defuse the situation before Rikka could cause another scene. "Touka-nee, this is my uncle, Hirokazu Nagano."
Akira then turned toward his uncle to offer an explanation. "Uncle, this is Touka-nee, and the one wearing the eyepatch is my classmate, Takanashi Rikka. Whenever I'm too lazy to cook at my apartment, I usually drop by their place to hitch a free dinner."
Nagano flashed a warm, friendly smile, extending his hand forward. "I see. Miss Takanashi, thank you so much for being willing to go through the trouble of handling my nephew's dinner portions all this time."
Touka accepted the handshake with warmth. "You're very welcome, Mr. Nagano. If anything, it's my highly clumsy sister who has received far more help and protection from Kitahara-kun at school."
The two adults exchanged friendly smiles, chatting amiably right in front of the apartment corridor door.
Author’s Note:
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— Author