Three Sweet, Fluffy Treats

──And then, the next day.

It was snack time in the courtyard. Anne and I stood there looking utterly battered and worn out.

“…Hey, you two. You look absolutely terrible. Are you all right?”

One of the older maids was concerned enough to call out to us like that.

But running on the manic energy of having not slept a wink, I answered with a bright smile.

“We’re fine! I’m feeling so energetic I could run a hundred laps around the Royal Palace right now! Ahahahaha!”

“O-Okay… If you say so… But if it gets to be too much, don’t force yourself. Go to the infirmary, all right?”

The kind older maid said that out of concern, but that simply wasn’t an option.

After all, today was the day that would decide everything.

Our fate was riding on this.

“…Shirley. We worked hard, didn’t we?”

“Yes, of course we did, Anne. It’ll be fine. I’m sure it will.”

The two of us, dark circles beneath our eyes, encouraged each other.

If today ended in failure, there probably wouldn’t be another chance.

All we could do was summon our courage and move forward.

And before us, the usual scene began to unfold.

The older maids lined up one sacru after another, while the Young Master steadily ate his way through them.

Eventually, it was our turn.

“Shirley, it is your team’s turn. Present your dish.”

“Yes!”

At the Head Maid’s command, I stepped forward carrying a plate.

My heart pounded wildly, and my legs felt unsteady beneath me.

Even so, I somehow made it all the way to the Young Master, steeled myself as though I were about to leap from the stage of Kiyomizu Temple, and presented the plate.

“Here you are, Young Master!”

The instant I held it out, the older maids began murmuring among themselves.

“…What’s that? That isn’t sacru… is it?”

Exactly. The single item sitting on the plate was not sacru.

It was a bread made of three soft, moist, fluffy sections joined together.

And on its surface was the face of a certain character.

“Wait, what is she doing!? Serving something other than sacru… What in the world is she thinking…!?”

I could hear Jacqueline saying that behind me.

But I paid her no mind. Because… the Young Master’s eyes were fixed directly on what I had served him.

“What… is this?”

The Young Master picked up the bread and asked curiously.

So with all the energy I could muster, I proudly announced the name of my creation.

“It is three-flavor bread, Young Master!”

“Three-flavor… bread?”

The Young Master murmured while staring intently at what I had presented.

He had probably never seen such a thing before. No, there was a very good chance that I was the first person in this entire world to make three-flavor bread.

“And this thing… on the surface?”

The Young Master looked puzzled as he examined the face drawn on the bread in something black.

I answered his question simply.

“That is Mick○y.”

Mick○y. You know, that world-famous one everyone knows.

I had used the largest of the three bread sections as the face and the other two as the ears.

I’m counting on you, hero of our world. This is your time to shine.

“Mick○y… What is that?”

“Mick○y is Mick○y.”

“Mick○y…”

“Yes, Mick○y.”

As the Young Master uttered the name as though touching upon some mystery of the universe, I kept chiming in with another “Mick○y.”

As expected of a design that ruled the world. Apparently its irresistible appeal worked just as well in another world.

After enjoying Mick○y for a while, the Young Master finally asked another question.

“How am I supposed to eat this?”

“Yes, Young Master. Please bite into whichever part you like. However, this bread has a little secret.”

Then I grinned and whispered to him.

“Each of the three sections has a different flavor. Please enjoy discovering the differences.”

At that, the Young Master studied the three-flavor bread once more before finally biting into the largest section.

After chewing it thoroughly, his eyes widened, and he stared at the filling inside the bread as he exclaimed.

“Sweet! What is this…? I have never tasted anything like it, but it is incredibly sweet and delicious!”

Yes! Yes, yes, yes!

I couldn’t help cheering inwardly!

He said it was delicious… He said it was delicious!

The Young Master… said it was delicious!

And of course it was sweet!

After all, the part the Young Master had bitten into──was filled with chocolate cream!

Yes, having decided to serve the Young Master something other than sacru, I had chosen my beloved chocolate as the dish upon which our fate would rest.

Chocolate cream, as the name implied, was chocolate combined with cream to create a smooth filling.

However, even though one could simply call it chocolate cream, making it entirely from scratch involved an unbelievable amount of work.

Everyone surely knew that chocolate was made from cacao.

Cacao, which grew on cacao trees, was extremely nutritious, and apparently in the old days of my previous world, important people had eaten it in things like salads.

It seemed to be treated similarly in this world, and apparently no one had yet developed it into chocolate.

And so Anne and I decided to try making chocolate ourselves from cacao… only to discover that hardships beyond anything we could have imagined awaited us.

First came the preparation: we roasted the large, seed-like cacao beans in their shells, and once the shells became brittle enough to crack easily, we peeled them away and removed the insides.

The contents were dark and looked exactly like chocolate. Well, considering that this was the part chocolate came from, that was only natural.

Then we put them into a mortar and ground them again and again and again and again until they became completely smooth. Yes, again and again and again!

This step was the real problem, because cacao beans absolutely refused to become smooth and silky without a fight.

But if we left lumps behind, the texture would be unpleasant, and that was even more unacceptable if we intended to use it for chocolate cream.

Anne and I spent hours upon hours grinding away at the mortar throughout the night until we felt like slaves being whipped while forced to turn some endless wheel. Yes, we had become chocolate slaves.

Once we somehow managed to make it smooth, we heated it over a hot-water bath until it melted, then poured in a huge quantity of sugar.

We added so much that I found myself thinking, Wait, chocolate has this much sugar in it!? Eventually, the cacao and sugar blended together and began giving off that unmistakably chocolatey aroma.

Once we reached that point, all that remained was to pour it into a container, chill it in the refrigerator, and our chocolate was complete.

However, by the time we finished, morning had already arrived.

At that point, Anne and I felt none of the joy of accomplishment and merely stared ahead with the lifeless eyes of dead fish.

Thankfully, I had once made chocolate from cacao beans in my previous life, though my impression afterward had been, “I am never making chocolate from cacao beans again.”

And yet, after being reborn in another world, I had ended up doing it all over again… Life truly was unpredictable.

For this batch of chocolate cream, we chopped that chocolate, melted it over a hot-water bath, then combined it with a substitute cream we had made from milk and butter.

But of course, we still had to pair it with the bread and adjust the flavor, so the work was far from finished.

I hadn’t kept track of the time, but we had worked almost nonstop from yesterday’s snack time until now.

And now the Young Master was happily taking bite after bite of the chocolate-cream bread born from all our hard work. Ah, I was overwhelmed with emotion!

Incidentally, the Mick○y on the surface had also been drawn with that chocolate.

Though by now the Young Master had already bitten away most of its face.

“This moist bread goes very well with the filling. Truly delicious… Now, you said the other sections had different fillings?”

The Young Master spoke while looking at the ear sections of the three-flavor bread.

I smiled brightly and answered him.

“Yes, Young Master. Each section has a different flavor for you to enjoy. What is inside is a surprise, so please try them!”

Even as I said it, I wondered whether speaking to him that casually might count as disrespectful, but the Head Maid said nothing.

The Young Master studied the bread’s right ear for a moment before taking a large bite.

After chewing thoroughly, he looked surprised once again.

“This one is delicious too!”

YES! The right ear contained custard cream.

Made from ingredients such as milk and egg yolks, it was far, far easier to prepare than chocolate while still being delicious──that wonderfully convenient little rascal.

Of course, making truly good custard still required some technique, but this was my specialty. I was well accustomed to it.

And with that momentum, the Young Master moved on to the left ear. Inside was my special strawberry jam.

“This is delicious too!”

The Young Master exclaimed, his eyes shining.

This jam was something I had made at home and brought with me.

It had turned out especially well, and I had boldly opened one of the jars I was most proud of.

Indeed, I had arrived at the Royal Palace with a large bag packed full of jars containing my homemade seasonings and preserves. I had practically felt as though I were moving in as a bride.

And today, at long last, I had finally been able to reveal their contents.

The three-flavor bread consisted of chocolate bread, cream bread, and jam bread.

They were all sweet breads I had loved in my previous world. Combining those three varieties into one dreamlike bread──that was three-flavor bread.

The Young Master happily continued eating, rotating the three-flavor bread around and around as he went.

Honestly, it might not have been the best table manners, but neither the Head Maid nor anyone else interrupted him.

Snack time belonged to the Young Master. If he enjoyed himself, then that alone made it right.

Eventually, after polishing off every last bite of the three-flavor bread, the Young Master looked toward me with a wistful expression.

“I have already finished it. Is there only one?”

“…! Of course there are more! Anne, please bring him another serving!”

“Yes, right away!”

Beaming with delight──that was probably the best way to describe my expression as I called out, while Anne, wearing an equally enormous smile, hurried over carrying plates.

Including the first one, there were ten plates in total. Ten three-flavor breads.

That was everything we had.

“Here you are, Young Master!”

The two of us stood side by side and bowed deeply, and the Young Master, looking as though he could no longer contain himself, immediately reached for the next three-flavor bread.

“Mmm, it truly is delicious. I especially like the filling in this largest section!”

The Young Master said that with a smile as he stuffed his cheeks with three-flavor bread.

The older maids could only stare in astonishment at how completely different he looked from his usual calm, detached way of eating.

And seeing him eat so heartily made my chest unexpectedly tighten with emotion.

(He’s eating the bread I worked so hard to make… and he looks so happy… Ahh, how… how absolutely adorable…!)

It was a feeling I had never experienced before.

To me, food had always been something for myself. I had cooked for others before, but feeding them had never been my main purpose.

Yet day after day I had cooked for the Young Master only to have him refuse my food, leaving me discouraged, and now, today, finally, like this…

I felt tears threatening to spill and had no choice but to force them back.

And there was the Young Master, happily biting into the bread.

He did not look like royalty or a child prodigy, but simply like a hungry little boy.

Yes, everyone around him viewed him through those grand labels, but the Young Master was still only a young boy.

And if that was the case… there was no way soft, fluffy, sweet bread wouldn’t taste wonderful to him.

In the blink of an eye, the Young Master finished all ten three-flavor breads, then leaned back in his chair and spoke with a satisfied expression.

“Ahh, that was delicious.”

At that moment, an almost overwhelming sense of accomplishment surged through my entire body.

I could feel Anne’s shoulder trembling slightly beside me.

She must have felt the same way.

“Young Master. Would you care for anything else?”

“No. This will be enough for today.”

When the Head Maid asked, the Young Master answered clearly.

The Head Maid gave a small nod, then looked toward me.

“Shirley. You made a rather unusual snack today. Why did you decide to serve it?”

“What!? W-Well, that is…”

I hadn’t expected her to ask me something like that, so I hesitated for a moment.

But after thinking for a little while, I gave her a clear answer.

“The bread I served just now is something very special to me. I truly wanted the Young Master to experience its flavors as well. And so…”

“And so?”

“And so… I wanted the Young Master to have an enjoyable snack time. If possible, one filled with all sorts of different flavors. That is why Anne and I made it together with all our hearts.”

Then I lowered my head.

The Head Maid gave a small nod and looked around at all the maids.

“I believe that is an excellent idea. For our ever-busy Young Master, let us provide a wonderful snack time filled with color and variety. All of you should follow her example.”

It was, most likely, an order.

Enough sacru. From now on, they were to serve a variety of different snacks.

The maids immediately erupted into murmurs.

Amid all that, the Young Master looked toward me and spoke.

“You. Your name was, um…”

“Yes. I am Shirley, Team Head of Team Five, Young Master!”

The Young Master seemed unable to remember my name, so I told him clearly.

I had already suspected that he barely recognized me at all.

That was why now was the perfect time to properly introduce myself.

I am Shirley. Shirley, Young Master.

I puffed out my chest and introduced myself proudly.

But then, in the very next instant.

“I see. Then, Shirley. Will you serve me this bread again tomorrow?”

Those words from the Young Master made me freeze stiff on the spot.