Chapter 9: Cookies And Confession
"Um... I want to make cookies by hand for someone who is special to me..."
The silence that followed Yuigahama Yui's hesitant confession was broken only by the faint ticking of the clock.
Narumi tilted his head slightly, his usual lazy smile playing on his lips. "The person you like?"
The pink-haired girl waved her hands frantically, her face turning a shade that perfectly matched her hair. "No, no, that's not true... I mean—! It's not that bad yet!"
Her denial only made it more obvious. Her eyes darted to Hachiman Hikigaya in a not-so-subtle glance. The boy, oblivious or pretending to be looked away, dead-fish eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"I just wanted to express my gratitude," Yui continued weakly, "to the people who helped me... Yes, to express my gratitude!"
Yukino Yukinoshita closed her book with quiet decisiveness. "This commission is simple. We'll take it."
She spoke with the calm confidence of someone who never doubted their ability to solve any problem that came their way.
"Simply put," she continued, "as long as I can teach Yuigahama-san how to make cookies, that should be enough."
"Um—"
Narumi, watching from the side, felt a chill crawl down his spine. Something about this didn't feel right.
He remembered visiting the Yukinoshita residence once during his "Haruno era." Yukino, who had joined her sister in the kitchen that day, had proudly served a dish that sent him running to the bathroom and chained there for the better part of an afternoon.
He could still recall the haunting pain and regret that came with every bite.
Can something that could double as an industrial emetic really be used as a teaching example?
———
——
—
Half an hour later, in the home economics room.
"Shh—time's up."
Narumi blew his whistle dramatically, surveying the battlefield before him. On the table lay a plate of something that could only generously be described as "cookies."
Charred. Deformed. A shade of reddish-black that defied culinary logic.
These, according to Yukino Yukinoshita, were the results of her careful instruction.
Meanwhile, on the other table, Yuigahama's cookies were uneven, slightly overbaked, and oddly shaped but at least recognizable as food.
Narumi stared silently for a long moment, then muttered under his breath, "Since this is just a simulation, could you not simulate the taste of childhood trauma so vividly, Master System?"
No answer. Apparently, the system chose to ignore his suffering.
Is Yukino Yukinoshita's cooking really this bad in reality? Or is this a special punishment coded into the simulation?
"Hm... I didn't perform well this time. It wasn't my true level," Yukino said, eyeing the blackened remains with a confidence that bordered on delusion.
For some reason, her tone sounded exactly like a man defending his record after a failed relationship.
"But it should be enough as a reference for Yuigahama-san."
"No matter how you look at it," Hikigaya said flatly, "they're far from qualified."
His voice was dry, laced with sarcasm and promptly met with a cold stare from Yukino.
"Making judgments without tasting is flawed reasoning, Hikigaya-kun."
"No, no, no," he said, recoiling slightly, "this stuff will kill you if you taste it."
The dead-eyed boy didn't dare say it aloud, but the thought echoed clearly enough in his face. Yuigahama, watching the exchange, nodded timidly in agreement.
Then, as if completely oblivious to the tension, Narumi picked up one of the charcoal-colored "cookies" between his fingers.
And popped it into his mouth.
"Na—Narumi-senpai! Someone, please save Senpai!" Yui shrieked.
Hikigaya nearly leapt to his feet. "Hachiman the Firefighter, on the move! Find the nearest water source!"
"Oh dear," Narumi said with a weak grin, "I was just writing a story about terrible food recently, so this is a good test run, so it's—ugh."
The smile froze on his face. A second later, white foam began to gather at the corners of his lips.
"Stop talking!" Hikigaya barked, already pouring water into his mouth. "Open up, you idiot!"
"I'm fine, I'm perfectly—gurgghh—normal—"
Yuigahama, half-panicking, was already fumbling for her phone, likely about to dial an ambulance.
Thankfully, the crisis ended before she hit the call button. Thanks to Hikigaya's quick thinking (and aggressive hydration tactics), Narumi Toru survived. Barely.
The culprit, meanwhile, simply stared at the scene with a look of mild discomfort and unfamiliar doubt.
"Sometimes," Yukino said softly, "if your cooking skills are truly inadequate, you can just buy something ready-made."
Her voice carried an unusual trace of humility, something even Hikigaya noticed. He wiped nonexistent sweat from his brow and sighed.
"Well, if it's about conveying feelings through something you made yourself, then... that's understandable," he said reluctantly.
Narumi, still pale but breathing again, gave a weak chuckle. "After all, if you don't say something in time, it might be too late."
Yuigahama's face turned crimson, and she quickly pressed a finger to her lips, shushing him frantically before glancing guiltily at Hikigaya.
It didn't take a genius to figure out who her "special someone" was.
Narumi hid his amusement behind his water bottle, watching the small, clumsy girl's flustered movements.
Yukino's voice broke the momentary quiet. "Indeed... if you don't act now, you might never have the chance again."
She said it calmly, almost absentmindedly, as if she were merely stating a universal truth. Then, without anyone noticing, she reached into her bag, took out a small white pillbox, and swallowed one with her drink.
To anyone else, it would look like a simple vitamin.
But Narumi noticed.
And he wasn't the only one who caught the strange tone in her words. Hikigaya, ever the observer, frowned slightly. Yui stopped stirring her dough, her earlier energy fading into hesitation.
"What if doing this still doesn't achieve the desired result?" Yukino asked softly. "What if it was meaningless from the start? Even so... will you still persist in conveying your feelings?"
"Ah…"
Her question struck Yui like a quiet gust of wind unexpected, subtle, but heavy enough to make her falter. Hikigaya's gaze flicked toward Yukino, something wary but curious in his expression.
Narumi, however, felt something else.
He turned his head slightly, watching the black-haired girl out of the corner of his eye.
Her porcelain features were calm as ever, her eyes distant, reflecting the faint light of the classroom.
But beneath that composure, something moved something unreadable, tightly caged behind that serene exterior.
Yukino Yukinoshita... what's hidden beneath that calm?
"Oh dear," Narumi said after a pause, his tone lighter, teasing to break the heaviness, "based on my understanding of Yukino, I thought you'd say something like, 'Avoiding problems is useless; facing your own weakness is the beginning of growth.'"
He rolled up his sleeves, standing beside her as he reached for the mixing bowl.
"That's what you'd say originally, isn't it?" he added with a grin.
The Yukino he remembered or perhaps the Yukino this simulation wanted him to remember was never one to avoid confrontation. She was the kind of person who always faced reality, even if it hurt.
If something could shake that kind of will, it would have to be something deeply personal something that went beyond mere pride.
"…I just thought more deeply about the meaning of doing this after that," Yukino said quietly.
Her tone softened, her gaze fixed on the dough she was stirring. But her eyes those usually cold, unflinching eyes seemed focused on something far away.
"Even if you convey your feelings, what then?" Yukino Yukinoshita's calm voice sliced through the quiet like a knife. "What are your plans next? Build a good relationship and then naturally confess? Date? How can you confirm that the other person shares your values and beliefs and that they're willing to face various difficulties and choices with you? If you ultimately disagree and have to break up, how can you convince yourself to accept the sunk costs of the loss? If…"
Her words trailed off into silence. She didn't need to finish.
Narumi could already hear the rest in the space between her sentences.
If one of them wants to leave in the future, how should they face such a separation?
That unspoken thought hung in the air like a ghost neither of them wanted to acknowledge.
He could understand the shift in her thinking—the way she had started to value results more than intentions.
Perhaps, he thought, it's only when people are on the verge of losing something that they begin to fear the uncertainty of what comes next.
For Yukino Yukinoshita, that precious thing was her health perhaps even her life.
For Yuigahama Yui, this was a simple, innocent dilemma of a girl in love. "Should I express my gratitude to the one I admire?"
But for Yukino Yukinoshita, it was something else entirely.
A question that cut to the core of human existence.
Should I dare to form new connections... when I might not be around long enough to see them last?
It was cruel. Terribly cruel.
But also deeply, painfully human.
"I understand, I understand."
Narumi's voice broke the heavy silence as he slid the cookie tray into the oven, his tone light and casual, like flipping a switch to chase away the tension.
"Oh, I've thought about that too," he said with mock seriousness. "For example, you can become a security guard right after university and avoid wasting twenty years of your life detouring."
"Pfft."
Yuigahama Yui couldn't hold it in. The soft laugh escaped before she could stop it.
Narumi grinned, taking that as a small victory. "And since everyone dies eventually, it's better to get reincarnated at twenty. That way, you'll have at least a fifty-year head start on your peers and maybe even secure some prime real estate in the underworld with a nice view of the river."
"Why would anyone still be thinking about property investment after they're dead?" Hikigaya muttered, his dead-fish eyes flickering with reluctant amusement.
Narumi's ridiculous logic somehow worked. The tension in the room dissolved like sugar in tea.
The curly-haired youth put on his oven gloves, carefully pulled out the baking tray, and theatrically blew the small whistle hanging around his neck.
"Time's up," he said, smiling faintly as he placed the warm tray in front of them.
"Just like people who love cooking not only enjoy the food but also the process of making it," he said softly. "The pursuit of meaning... is itself the meaning of taking action."
Both Yui and Hikigaya leaned in, drawn by the smell.
The cookies were golden-brown, the faint scent of butter and sugar filling the air.
For a moment, the classroom no longer felt like a place where they discussed hypotheticals about death, love, and meaning it felt simply alive.
"…"
Yukino Yukinoshita picked up a cat-shaped cookie and took a small bite.
She glanced up at Narumi. The young man's smile bright but calm, as if he'd already accepted everything dark about life met her eyes.
It was warm. Disarmingly so.
Although it was still hot, the texture was perfect crispy at the edges, tender inside, and faintly sweet with a hint of milk. The simple taste made her eyebrows soften.
She didn't dislike it. In fact, she almost... liked it.
Narumi leaned back with a grin. "Since we're all going to die someday anyway, why don't we just share Yukino's cookies, and when we're buried, we'll gather underground to sing one unforgettable song together?"
"Cough—"
The timing was impeccable. Both Hikigaya and Yui choked simultaneously, sputtering as crumbs flew from their mouths.
"Don't joke about that while I'm eating!" Hikigaya barked.
Cookies, as it turned out, were completely incapable of creating a romantic atmosphere.
Absolutely none.
To win someone's heart, you must first win their stomach or so the saying goes.
Narumi wasn't entirely convinced, but he had to admit: cooking had served him well once before.
Back when he was dating Yukinoshita Haruno.
Love, he had learned, wasn't about the grand gestures. It was a long-term war of attrition.
Even if you survived the awkward phase and finally entered a relationship, that was never the end.
If you couldn't keep discovering something new in the other person if you stopped being curious the affection would dry up, and boredom would set in like rot.
Yukinoshita Haruno understood that perfectly.
Even after they started dating, she preserved a sense of distance and mystery. She remembered anniversaries, planned surprises, picked up new hobbies anything to keep things interesting.
In short, she was a competent girlfriend.
But for Narumi, who had always been emotionally detached, it sometimes felt like too much.
Driven by obligation and, admittedly, a strange sense of competitiveness he began playing the role of the perfect boyfriend.
It became a quiet, unspoken contest between them.
And the first skill he mastered in that war was cooking.
A skill that, to this day, still served him.
"Putting my sister's lectures aside," Yukino said at last, her tone soft but carrying a faint trace of genuine admiration, "I'm starting to understand why she dated you in the first place."
After completing Yuigahama's request (though it was mostly Narumi's handiwork), the room had grown quiet again.
Yukino stood across from him, her usual sharp gaze softened by something almost like respect.
"Although you seem frivolous and unreliable," she said, "you always come to my rescue in crucial moments. I'll... reluctantly accept you as a trustworthy assistant."
Narumi blinked, caught off guard by the rare sincerity.
And then, of course, his conscience lasted all of five seconds.
He sighed. "No, that's not it. I just wanted to leave a good impression on Yuigahama-san."
"…?"
Yukino's eyes narrowed, her expression immediately reverting to deadpan frost.
"Yukino, your cooking is terrible," Narumi added with a straight face. "This was the perfect opportunity for me to show off. It's never a bad thing to look competent in front of cute girls, right?"
"…Yuigahama-san is still a minor, you beastly senpai."
"I know," Narumi replied smoothly, "but she's cute. I can wait two years."
Yukino inhaled sharply. "Let me take back what I said earlier, senpai—you are the worst."
The atmosphere lightened once again.
After the "cookie incident" officially concluded, Hachiman and Yuigahama went to throw out the trash, leaving only Narumi and Yukino in the home economics room.
He stayed behind to help clean up the mess.
As he gathered the charred remains of what Yukino had made, he couldn't help but smirk to himself.
In his mind, he mentally tagged her as:
"This character cannot cook."
And, as a safety precaution, he resolved to keep her at least five meters away from any kitchen.
When the last plate was washed, Narumi turned to her with a faint, teasing smile.
"Shall I take you home again today?"
End of chapter 9