Chapter XXIV: Race against Time! Haruka's Third Baking Attempt!
The journey back to Touka City by bus took two hours. During that time, the brunette girl thought about the possible things she could make for Satoshi that was easy to make and not time-consuming at all. Recently declaring to her friends about her refusal to make another scarf, she began thinking of other possibilities. She didn't want to give Satoshi a plain old Christmas card since, according to her; it was not much to look forward to. Anything in relation to knitting was already out of the question. Heck, everything she thought of was already out of the question.
She had no choice but to turn to her greatest weakness—baking.
"Haruka, you can just buy cookies at the bakery." Kanata firmly suggested. "Don't take this the wrong way but anything made with your hands is sure to be a total disaster."
"As much as it tempts me, I don't want to." Haruka refused to take the easy road to success. "I want to make Satoshi's gift with my own hands."
"Come on, it's not that bad to buy stuff. I buy stuff for my friends all the time—"
The brunette girl abruptly cut her friend off. "I don't want that! I want Satoshi to know how much I feel for him!"
"Haruka…"
"I may not be the best in everything…but I still want to try."
Kanata was left speechless. For the record, she hasn't seen her friend very determined to do something she doesn't want to do. She just looked at Haruka helplessly.
"I'll do it…even if it may cost his impression on me." Haruka added. "This is something that I have to do."
"Well if you really can't be stopped…" Kanata placed her free hand on top of Haruka's shoulder. "…then count Hikari and me in."
"Kanata…you would really do that?"
"Listen, I may be oftentimes a pain in the neck to you. But you're still my friend…and nothing will ever change that."
"Kanata…"
"Now let's get moving. We only have six hours left."
---0---0---0---0---0---
That night, the Kumano family was busy preparing food for their annual Christmas feast. This year, they have guests coming over—particularly Haruka and Masato's friends. Some of the early people were mostly the ones working in the kitchen right now—Takeshi himself and Satoshi and Haruka's mothers. The fact that Satoshi's mother is present means that Satoshi himself will be attending the party 100 percent. Haruka, Kanata, and Hikari have their own business—making a batch of cookies for the trainer. But they wanted to keep it a secret to everyone else and surprise them at midnight. So they went to the bakery, which was closed for the holidays, where the store owner willingly let them use the kitchen…as long as they don't break any stuff inside.
"It was nice of the store owner to let us use the kitchen." Hikari said happily. "They have everything in here."
"Just remember to touch nothing except the ones you need." Haruka replied.
"Come on, I'm not THAT clumsy." Ironically, Hikari accidentally shoved off an empty glass jar off the countertop. The glass jar shattered in sharp shards all over the floor.
"Ah! That's coming out of my paycheck, Hikari!"
"Waaaaaah…! I'm sorry!"
After cleaning up the small and edgy mess, they continued with the cookie-baking. It took them some time to prepare the dough and cut the cookies into shapes but two hours later they've done it. All they needed to do was to place the cookies in the oven and wait for a couple of minutes—with enough time to make it back home and celebrate Christmas with friends and family.
"Three hours left. It looks like Haruka's right after all." Kanata said.
"See? I told you we would make it in time, kamo." Haruka smiled.
But when the baking time expired and the cookies were subjected to a taste test, their tongues rejected the "Blagh!" flavor of the pastry—not "Ugh!" but "Blagh!"
"Blagh…! Why is this cookie salty?" Kanata complained.
"I don't understand. We followed the recipe correctly." Haruka said. "This is even straight out of a cooking book, kamo."
"Could this be the consequence of making cookies rather than buying them?" Hikari said; freaking out.
"You're not helping, Hikari. Shut up."
The brunette girl took a jar full of the sugar she used in her dough mix. She took a teaspoonful and swallowed the white stuff.
"Blagh…!" Haruka rejected the saltiness. "Here's your problem. This isn't sugar; it's salt. We have to try again."
"EH?" Hikari said. "But can we even make it in time?"
"Three hours is still fine." Kanata replied. "We can make the next batch faster since we made one already."
With the three all in agreement, they started over from scratch and discarded the salty cookies. Three hours was still a pretty long time however it forced the brunette girl to worry as much as a person trying to meet a deadline by working overtime. Back home, some people were beginning to worry.
"I wonder what Haruka and the others are taking so long." Takeshi said; looking out the kitchen window. "Dinner's almost ready."
"I'm sure they're making their last-minute shopping." Haruka's mother assured the breeder. "Don't worry."
"Well, if you say so. After all, moms know best."
All of a sudden, the lights went off and so did every electrical appliance in the Kumano household.
"That's odd." Takeshi said; switching his pocket flashlight on. "A power outage in the middle of the yuletide season…? I'll go look for candles."
---0---0---0---0---0---
Soon, Touka City's lights faded one after another. The bakery is no different from the other establishments affected by the sudden blackout.
"Huh? A blackout…?" Hikari said.
"No, please not now!" Haruka cried. "Why did it have to be right now of all times?"
"Well, we can't use the oven in this situation." Kanata said.
"What do we do now? It's already 10:30."
"There must be something here that we can use—wait, of course!"
The brunette girl caught the sight of a gas stove on top of the oven. Unlike the other appliances that operate by electricity; the gas stove requires, obviously, gas to generate flames. She also remembered something the store owner taught her on her first day on the job—if electricity fails, then use petroleum.
"We can use that gas stove to bake the cookies." Haruka said.
"I'm sorry; I think I got something in my ear." Hikari replied; cleaning her ears with a clean bud. "Did you just say 'baking cookies on a live fire'?"
"You don't believe me? Well, who's been working part-time in this bakery for several months now?"
"I just think that the idea's kind of absurd."
"Who the heck asked your opinion anyway?" Haruka raised her voice.
"You're baking—not frying!" Hikari raised her voice as well.
"We haven't even tried it yet. Maybe it will work."
Hikari turned to Kanata to side with her. "Kanata, don't just stand there baking cookies in a frying pan. Help me out here."
It took at least five seconds for the blue-haired girl to realize that a live demonstration of Haruka's idea was taking place. She came crashing down to the ground.
"Well, what do you know?" Kanata said. "She's right again."
"Why honesty, why…?" Hikari muttered.
"Don't just stand there, you guys. Get to frying—I mean, baking!"
The three girls grabbed as many cookies the frying pan can accommodate in one go and placed it on top of the stove fire. Slowly but surely, the soft dough cut into various shapes were beginning to harden. They were a little bit burnt on the bottom but with only less than an hour left (thanks to the sudden blackout), anything was okay as long as Haruka has something to give to her beloved this yuletide and glorious season of snow.
"We did it!" The brunette girl cried out in joy. "Now let's go back to my place!"
---0---0---0---0---0---
Several minutes later, power has been restored to the city. The city lights were up and running and so did every electrical appliance in every household. The candles inside the Kumano household were put off. It was already ten past eleven and everybody was already in the long table set up inside the Touka City gym (the dining room in the house was relatively too small to accommodate so many people). Everybody gathered inside the gym for the celebration…except one.
"Satoshi, what are you doing outside?" Kasumi said. "The party is about to start."
"Oh, sorry I must've spaced out." The trainer replied. "I was just getting a breath of fresh air."
"Come to think of it, Haruka and the others aren't here yet. They should've arrived from Kanazumi City several hours ago."
"Maybe they got caught in a bit of a traffic jam."
"Whoever heard of a traffic jam at this late hour? Come on, let's go inside. It's getting chilly here."
"You go on ahead. I think I'll stay outside a bit longer."
But Kasumi didn't take Satoshi's word; not even for once. She grabbed the trainer's ear and dragged him back inside. "No! You are going inside, young man!"
"Owowowowow…! Kasumi, since when did you become my mom?"
Meanwhile, Haruka and the others were still miles away from home. They picked up the pace as fast as they can as the minutes trickle away like water from a punctured pipe. They were running along a shortcut which would save them time but with a deadly catch—the shortcut was situated along the forest trail; and as long as there's a forest there are bound to be wild Pokemon.
"Haruka, I have a bad feeling about this shortcut." Hikari said; trying to keep up with the other two.
"I have one too, kamo." Haruka replied. "But we're running out of time."
"Do we even need to be in time just to give Satoshi his present?"
"Just hurry!"
Several miles later, they could see the Touka City gym with several minutes to spare. They all let out a sigh of relief after knowing the fact that they actually made it despite the odds fate placed on them from the very beginning.
"I can see my house from here. We're almost there!" The brunette girl cried happily.
Then, just as they thought that they were going to celebrate Christmas with the rest of their friends and family, they suddenly stopped in their tracks as something black impeded their way.
TO BE CONCLUDED