Chapter Text
“Boys! This year I'm gonna do it!” Tsubaki slams her hands down on the table, startling Hiragi out of the text he's been drafting for the past twenty minutes. Momose and Mizuki, who are drawing and reading respectively, are unfazed. The Four Kings are gathered on the roof on a crisp, early spring morning for breakfast to celebrate the start of a new garden and Umemiya is, of course, late. Probably buying extra seedlings, or getting caught up at the bakery.
“You say that every year,” Hiragi grumbles, turning back to his phone. Beside him, the other two nod without looking up. What little faith they have in her.
“But I mean it this time!”
Mizuki adjusts his glasses and closes the book he has open in front of him. “Have you considered making a reasonable, step-by-step plan to achieve your goal?”
Tsubaki crosses her arms and pouts. “Don't you think that would suck out all of the passion? The spontaneous thrill? The artistry?”
“We're still talking about cake here, right?” Momose looks up from his drawing with a cock of his head. “From a magazine?”
If there's ever been a way to suck out the passion, spontaneous thrill, and artistry out of baking, this right here is it. “Not just any magazine! It's from Cosmopolitan! They guarantee that this recipe will enchant any man into falling in love with you!”
Momose blinks once. “I thought it was just a regular strawberry cream cake?”
Tsubaki gasps and throws her hand over her mouth. “Oh no, this won't do!”
“Look what you started,” Hiragi grumbles, the draft on his phone getting longer and longer. From the looks of it, and if Hiragi's Gas-kun 10 consumption is anything to go by, he and Sako are exchanging unpleasant essays back and forth again. For this, Tsubaki will give him a pass. A lover's quarrel is bound to put anyone in a sour mood, and she's feeling particularly pitiful towards him today.
She pulls out an old magazine from her bag, the first one that she purchased on her own when she was in middle school, and flips it open to a well-loved page and holds it up for the table to see. "Feast your eyes!"
On it is a stunning photo of a slice of strawberry cream cake in the foreground with the rest of the cake blurred in the background. The sponge looks like a cloud and the cream can only be described as angelic. But the real stars here are the strawberries - bright red and ripe with romantic passion. There are even spreads of homemade strawberry preserves in between each layer, symbolic of how love can be found both in obvious grand gestures and in the hard to see places. Tsubaki has told herself year after year that she would learn to bake it for Umemiya, but every year she's chickened out.
But not this year. This year, she's going to do it, even if she has to spend every day baking and re-baking until she gets it right.
“Looks like an ordinary cake to me,” Mizuki says before returning his focus to his strategy book. She can't blame him for not appreciating her cake's layered meanings - he doesn't like sweets.
The door to the roof kicks open and suddenly the sun shines just a little brighter.
“Sorry we're late!”
Umemiya and Sugishita walk across the rooftop carrying bags of pastries and seeds for the new garden. Now that winter is officially over, they don't have to worry about frost - Ume says that's something to celebrate and Tsubaki loves that about him. It's the way that he's always looking for the absolute best in every situation, and finds reasons to celebrate even in the most mundane of circumstances, that makes her want to see passionate love in something as small as strawberries. He makes her want to love more than just the things she likes, but to love life itself and everything in it.
“No need to apologize,” she says, rushing over to help him carry some bags over, which he - ever the gentleman - declines. “We were just chatting.”
“Oh? What’d I miss?” He looks at her with eyes as blue and as vast as the sky, and she can tell that she has his undivided attention. That he cares about what she has to say. If only him looking at her like that didn't get her heart racing! She can feel her whole face getting hot.
“Oh, well, umm… you see…” She twirls a strand of her hair around one finger and cups her face with her other hand. He waits patiently, smiling at her like he has all the time in the world. “Gee, I can't seem to remember!”
“Actually,” Momose says with a smirk. “Tsubaki was just telling us about how she wants to bake a cake, but she needs fresh strawberries to do it.”
“Wait a minute! Hold on!” Tsubaki starts, but Umemiya’s face lights up when he turns back to her and she's stunned into silence once more.
“Really? I can plant you some! I've never grown strawberries before, but I can learn!”
Tsubaki stands there, face flushed and heart trying to pound its way out of her chest, while Umemiya goes on and on about where he's going to plant her strawberries.
“I- You'll really do that for me, Ume?”
He stops his babbling with a curious look in his eyes and leans in just a little, almost unnoticeable, not that the others are paying attention. But when it comes to Umemiya, Tsubaki notices everything.
“Tsubaki,” he says, and something in his voice shifts from boy to man. “I would do anything you asked me to.”
“B-but Ume,” she stutters, wringing her hands into her chest. “I didn’t ask!”
He smiles at her, warm and gentle as the morning sun. “You didn't have to.”
Tsubaki's soul leaves her body at that exact moment, and she doesn't come to until minutes later when Sugishita is waving a chocolate croissant in her face like it's a bag of smelling salts. Ume is nowhere in sight.
“Huh?” She says, sitting up from the couch that she doesn't remember lying down on. She takes the croissant and joins the others. “Where's Ume?”
Hiragi, looking over his thesis-length text to Sako and finding several areas of correction, responds absentmindedly. “Went to the store. Something about strawberry seeds.”
“Yeah, he practically ran out after he took you to the couch.” Momose has started a new drawing in his sketchbook - a replica of the cake from Tsubaki's magazine, which is propped up for reference in front of him. “Are you feeling better, by the way?”
She's feeling more than better - like she's just been smothered by the strawberry preserves between the cake layers. She loves Ume more than anything, but more than that, she loves the way he loves.
Looks like this really will be her year. She will bake that cake for him again and again. As long as he is growing her strawberries, she will return that love tenfold.