CHAPTER 10
At one thirty in the afternoon, Kyouya-san comes through the kitchen door to replenish the supplies of cakes out in the shop displays. Haruhi is washing her hands after finishing her first round of baking and will be leaving for classes, returning only at seven tonight.
She whips out a Tupperware, collects three slices of cakes, snaps the lid shut and puts it into her bag.
"See you later," she calls, fiddling with the strings of her apron and hanging it up neatly.
Kaoru waves.
"I seem to be paying you in cake," Kyouya-san comments before she can make her getaway, "although I distinctly recall ¥7,560,784 in arrears."
Both twins press their lips together to suppress their snickers.
"This is a crucial part of the whole learning process," Haruhi has the gall to say because she too has begun to distinguish Kyouya-san's poker-faced brand of humour.
"Is that so?" Kyouya-san asks tonelessly as he arranges their masterpieces attractively on the gleaming silver platter. "Far be it from me to hinder your studies."
"Yeah, it is," Hikaru chirps, coming to Haruhi's aid. "Anyway, it's not like Kyouya-san's gonna eat them, are you?"
He punctuates his rhetorical by stuffing a piece of cake into his own mouth.
"It is strange," Haruhi concurs. "Why open a cake shop if you have an aversion to cakes?"
And Kaoru makes three. "They're right. I've wondered, too. What's your story?"
Kyouya-san doesn't betray discomfort at being ganged up upon. "If I am to own a business, I'd prefer one that possess an inherent artistry."
A tinkling chime saves him from inventing more falsehoods.
"A minute!" Kyouya-san responds to the customer's entrance in a hospitable, honeyed voice – one of the integral elements of his 'host mode', a term that Haruhi and the twins have designated to this version of him behind his back.
Skeptically, the three of them exchange glances.
Carefree Haruhi stands down first, always the least likely to pry into other people's affairs. She hoists her loot onto her shoulder and grasps the handle of the door –
On second thought, it'd be such a pity not to take that watermelon-and-rhubarb meringue tart.
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11/04/2012