Yumeiro Patissiere

Chapter 12 The seven-year Merry Christmas

It was nearly Christmas, and the students of St Marie were very busy in the cooking rooms. They were making Christmas cakes for a children's charity. The spirits weren't with Ichigo and the sweets princes; they were back at the kingdom of the sweets because the kingdom of the sweets was holding a Christmas party. Ichigo did miss having Vanilla around, but she knew that the spirits will come back soon. Right now she had to concentrate on her Christmas cakes.

Ichigo was making the normal sponge cake Christmas cakes that had strawberries and cream in the middle, and she was making different decorations for them. She made gold and silver stars, Christmas angels, robins with holly and berries, snowmen, Father Christmas with presents, Christmas trees with children and she also made polar bears and penguins, wearing scarves. She carefully placed them on her cakes, making sure they don't break. "Hey Amano, why have you made different decorations?" asked Makato. "Because people like having different decorations on their Christmas cakes," said Ichigo "some like angels, some like snowmen and some like Father Christmas, etc". Makato saw the point. He had made chocolate Christmas cakes. Sennosuke and Satsuki liked Ichigo's ideas; they had made a yule log Christmas cakes, Satsuki's were made with walnut and Sennosuke's were made with green tea.

Meanwhile Chinatsu and Ikue were looking at jealousy at Ichigo again. Ikue had thought of another idea to bully Ichigo. She borrowed a banana skin from Chinatsu; her plan was to make Ichigo slip onto the floor from the banana skin. Ichigo had just turned round to get something and Ikue used this chance to make Ichigo slip. But Ikue underestimated Ichigo; Ichigo saw the banana skin heading towards her way, and quickly kicked it back to Ikue. The banana skin landed in her face. "People don't eat banana skins" Ichigo joked. The other students saw the commotion and laughed at Ikue. Ikue was embarrassed and cross that her trick had been foiled again.

Soon it was time for the students to sell their cakes. Ichigo's cakes started to disappear as much as the sweets prince's cakes did. One couple liked the angels, a mother with children liked the Father Christmas, and a woman liked the robin with holly and berries and so on. By the end of the day, all of the cakes were sold and there was a lot of money to go to charity. "Your cakes sold out quick Amano-san" said Sennosuke. "They seemed to like your cake designs" said Makato. "Well Kashino, I did say that people liked different cake designs" said Ichigo. Makato saw that he had been defeated. Group B said nothing as they had seen that Ichigo's cakes had been popular. Besides Ikue felt she had been humiliated enough for one day.

As the gang was walking around the area, Ichigo told the boys about one of the customers she had. "He bought one of the cakes with Christmas angels, but he looked like he was about to cry". "Really? What was wrong?" asked Sennosuke. "I don't know," said Ichigo "he left before I could ask him". Just then she stopped in her tracks; she saw the customer from earlier in the park. The customer was a man, wearing glasses and he looked upset. "That's the man I told you about" she said. She and the boys went over to see if the man was okay.

Just then Makato gasped and then he said that he was Yousuke Sakaguchi, a member of the Miles Jarrett Quintet band. The Miles Jarrett Quintet band was a very famous jazz band in New York City.

Yousuke explained to Ichigo and the boys about his misery. Seven years ago the Miles Jarret band were having a tour in Japan. One day Yosuke got the chance of playing with the band on stage with his trumpet. The band was so impressed with his playing that they invited him to come to New York with them. Yosuke was delighted that he was going to be a member of the band because it was his dream to join the band and he accepted the offer. The sad news was that only did Yousuke left Japan, he also left his girlfriend Mariko behind. "Even though I was in New York, I never forgot about Mariko. After being in New York with the band for seven years, I finally had the chance to come back here because we're having a tour here in Japan. And I wish to look for Mariko and apologize to her, but I don't have the courage and I'm pretty sure she hates me now".

Ichigo felt sorry for Yousuke. She was about to speak, but Makato spoke instead. "You should go and apologize," he said, "even if Mariko is married or how badly you treated her in the past, only you can make things right between you and her". "Kashino's right," said Ichigo "I may not know about Mariko, but I'm sure she never forgot about you either. Besides you said yourself that you never forgot about her while you were in New York, and if an amazing person was brave enough to be part of a famous jazz band, would surely be brave enough to face the woman he loves". Yousuke looked at Makato and Ichigo and decided that he would apologize to Mariko.

Group A agreed to help Yousuke, but the trouble was that they didn't know where Mariko lived. Yousuke told them where Mariko used to live and work, but the restaurant where she worked at closed and she had moved away from the place she used to live. Yousuke found it hopeless and decided to give up now. To thank the students for trying to help him, he played some music on his trumpet for them.

But while Yousuke was playing music, a woman came up to him; it was Mariko. Mariko ran into Yousuke's arms and cried. "I waited and waited for you to come back," she sobbed "I always believed that you would return again". "I'm sorry Mariko" said Yousuke, holding her tight. Group A was delighted that Yousuke and Mariko had reunited with each other at last. Yousuke and Mariko thanked the students at once for their help. Ichigo asked Mariko for their address. She and the boys decided to make a special Christmas cake just for the two of them. Yousuke didn't have the cake he bought from Ichigo anymore, because he gave it to another family earlier.

Ichigo and the boys went back to St Marie Academy and got to work at once. The cake they made was a croquembouche cake. A croquembouche cake was a french cake made from a pile of choux pastry balls, with threads of caramel as a decoration, and modeled into a cone shape. Before Ichigo worked on her Christmas cakes this morning, she explained to the boys about the croquembouche cakes that her grandma used to make for her and her family at Christmas time. Of course Ichigo knew that these cakes were mostly used for weddings and baptisms, but her grandma made these for all sorts of happy occasions. So since this was for a happy reunion between Yousuke and Mariko, Ichigo had decided on this cake and the boys agreed with her plan. "It's obvious that you had inherited the same love and kind heart from your grandma Ichigo-chan," said Satsuki. "Well they say that love is the very special ingredient in cooking" smiled Ichigo.

Yousuke and Mariko were delighted with the croquembouche cake that the students brought for them. The cake was decorated with chocolate flowers and ribbons and there were marzipan figures of Yousuke and Mariko on top. It was like a Christmas tree Yousuke and Mariko invited the group to eat the cake with them, but the group had to go back to St Marie Academy for their school Christmas party.

So this Christmas turned out to be a real Happy Christmas.

The end
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