Time crept toward midnight.
Inside the restaurant, it was still just Kamisaka Yuto and Kasumigaoka Utaha, who was still sound asleep.
It seemed this child had no intention of waking up.
Kamisaka Yuto sat leaning against the doorframe between the back kitchen and the front counter.
He carefully tallied up the past two months since the restaurant had opened.
Although there weren't many customers, some of them were fortunately very generous.
Take Senzaemon, for example.
To date, the man had eaten here fourteen times, giving Yuto nearly 700,000 yen in total.
The funds contributed by Senzaemon alone were enough to cover the small restaurant's daily expenses for several months.
To be able to live such a quiet and peaceful life was once Yuto's deepest, most cherished wish.
He was just like Saitama and Suzuki, they were all people from other worlds.
The world he once lived in was somewhat similar to Suzuki Satoru's, except in his world, a global nuclear war had actually broken out.
Everything was turned to scorched earth under the brilliant and scorching flames of death.
The human population plummeted, with only tens of millions surviving.
Everything seemed to have reverted to a primitive society.
The social order completely collapsed, and the irradiated natural environment became a hell for the surviving humans.
Creatures also mutated due to the radiation, and most humans lived underground, seeking stability.
Back then, Yuto was just an ordinary underground chef.
It had been no more than two years from the time they found stability in their underground life to the final rebellion in the shelter, which shattered their hard-won peace once again.
On the verge of death, he made a final wish.
"If there is a next life, please give me a simple, quiet, and peaceful one."
When he closed his eyes and opened them again, he had arrived in this world.
He then became the owner of this mysterious little restaurant and had been running it for two months.
Having experienced a nuclear apocalypse and rebirth, he wasn't too surprised that his customers were from other worlds.
His own experiences were already fantastical enough.
Other worlds? Whatever.
He had originally worried that someone might notice something amiss.
After all, the way customers from other worlds appeared and disappeared was quite shocking.
But to his surprise, it seemed that anyone who came to this small restaurant would subconsciously accept the situation.
Kasumigaoka had personally witnessed Saitama disappear, but she seemed to take it in stride, even finding it perfectly reasonable.
She didn't ask any difficult questions.
The other customers were the same.
Yuto could only attribute this strange phenomenon to the magical function of the small restaurant itself.
Having been through so much, he didn't want to overthink things.
Since he now had such a peaceful and tranquil life, he should just focus on the present.
The things he couldn't figure out now would probably have answers in the future.
Clatter—
The restaurant door was finally pushed open.
Kamisaka Yuto stood up. "Welcome. Will it be the flower cake again today?"
The newcomer was a regular of his, but while he called her a regular, he still didn't know her name.
She was a very, very beautiful girl.
Her short green hair was like a translucent gem.
Her indifferent face had an ethereal quality, like a fairy.
She wore a red dress over a white blouse.
The girl didn't speak, merely giving a calm nod.
Yuto knew she had a cold personality, so he didn't mind.
He had met the girl a month and a half ago.
It was just before sunrise, and she had walked in draped in the first rays of sunlight.
At that time, Yuto had been making a flower cake.
When he saw the girl, he couldn't help but be stunned by her beauty.
If he had to describe his first impression of her, it was as if he had seen the most beautiful flower in the world—arriving with the dawn's glow, silent and soundless.
And what the girl had wanted back then was the very flower cake he was making.
From then on, the girl came here often.
Sometimes she would come every day, sometimes after a few days' interval, but her visits were frequent.
"Use this."
A brilliant, lush sunflower materialized in the girl's hand from out of nowhere.
The flower was so beautiful that even Yuto hesitated for a moment.
"Are you sure?"
Making a flower cake required crushing the petals, which meant this beautiful sunflower would be gone forever.
The girl nodded.
Seeing her firm resolve, Yuto said nothing more.
He took the sunflower, turned, and walked into the back kitchen.
...
Making flower cakes was a very time-consuming task.
This was mainly because the first step—simmering a mixture of white sugar, glutinous rice flour, and japonica rice—took several hours.
The subsequent steps were relatively simple.
Once you had the basic cake base, all that was left was to add your desired fillings, such as red bean paste, mung bean paste, and walnut meat.
Originally, when Yuto made them, he also added rose petals.
This would add a floral fragrance to the soft and chewy cake.
For girls, such pastries were often a favorite.
Yuto tore off the sunflower petals, using only the petals and discarding the center.
He mixed these bright yellow flower fragments into the red bean paste and mung bean paste.
He picked up a cake base; it was rectangular, no more than three or four millimeters thick and a finger's length long.
Placing it on the cutting board, he spread some red bean paste on it.
Then, he took another cake base and placed it on top, spreading some mung bean paste over that.
Finally, he covered it with one last layer of cake base.
Three layers of cake base sandwiched the red bean and mung bean pastes, which were beautifully mixed with sunflower petals.
Finally, Yuto placed the assembled flower cake into a small steamer.
All that was left was to wait for twenty-five minutes.
Yuto sat down in the back kitchen, his attention fixed on the steamer.
After waiting patiently for nearly half an hour, a faint fragrance began to drift out from it.
The aroma of beans and glutinous rice transformed into white steam, spreading out from the gaps in the bamboo. In the air, this white steam dissipated like a gentle breeze.
Hidden within these two scents was an unforgettable floral fragrance, lurking quietly.
It was like a young maiden behind a veil, deliberately hiding her face.
This faint floral scent was just like that.
Even the intoxicated Kasumigaoka's nose twitched slightly.
This aroma was enough to wake a sleeping person!~
"It smells so good..." Kasumigaoka murmured in her sleep, a hint of drool appearing at the corner of her mouth.
It seemed she was dreaming of some delicious food.
When the green-haired girl sitting in the center smelled this fragrance, her fair brow twitched slightly.
A hint of an inexplicable emotion surfaced in her calm eyes.
It seemed to be joy, yet also nostalgia.
"It's ready!" Yuto lifted the steamer lid.
The rich aroma could no longer be contained.
If the subtle scent from before was just a small stream, the current aroma was like a vast, surging river.
It was a powerful assault on the senses!
Yuto put on heat-resistant gloves and brought out the small plate of flower cake.
Even stacked three layers high, it was only three or four centimeters tall and no longer than a finger.
"Please, enjoy." Yuto placed the flower cake in front of the girl.
Despite the high temperature, the girl picked it up directly with her bare hand.
She was completely unlike Yuto, who needed to wear gloves, which made him a little envious.
Her fingers gently held the two ends of the flower cake, her expression shifting several times before she took a light bite.
Her beautiful eyes closed. It was as if she were reminiscing about something.
Yuto watched the girl with a look of anticipation. This was his first time making a flower cake with a sunflower, and he was eager to hear her opinion.
When the girl opened her eyes, a crystalline glint flashed and vanished.
Her expression had become somewhat complex.
Amidst the nostalgia was a hint of excitement and joy, as well as an indescribable sense of world-weariness.
She was clearly a young girl, yet strangely, she possessed a feeling of an adult.
"How is it?" Yuto looked at her, curious and expectant.
"It's delicious." The girl's voice was like a gentle breeze in nature—soft and refreshingly clear.
"That's good to hear." Yuto smiled.
As a chef, his greatest wish was for his customers to be satisfied with the food he made.
The simple words it's delicious were the highest praise for a chef.
"How much is it?"
"You brought the sunflower, so 500 yen will be fine."
A coin appeared between the girl's crystalline fingers.
However, it wasn't just a coin that appeared, but also a tiny bit of green light.
"Here's the money. This is for you, too."
Yuto didn't understand what that speck of green light was.
As he reached out to take the coin and the light, the green light suddenly merged into his finger.
"Huh???" Yuto stared at the girl in astonishment.
"My name is Kazami Yuuka. I will come every day from now on. The sunflowers will be delivered to you in advance. Remember to make me a flower cake every day."
Before he could ask any questions, Kazami Yuuka's figure had already vanished.
He finally knew her name, but the words she left behind were rather unreasonable.
She gave him absolutely no chance to refuse.
"So domineering," Yuto muttered under his breath, looking at his finger.
The speck of green light had disappeared right there, and his heart began to pound.
'It couldn't be something like a curse, could it...' Yuto was still a little panicked.
"Ah! It hurts!" Kasumigaoka finally woke up.
Yuto turned his head.
A deep teeth mark had appeared on the girl's tender lips and traces of blood were visible.
"It hurts!" Kasumigaoka looked at him with a pained expression.
"Are you an idiot?" Yuto helplessly covered his face, not knowing what else to say.