3rd Round (6)

Chapter 90: Episode 37 - 3rd Round (6)

Once we finished service early for the day, the sweets princes and their spirits came back from behind the shop and to the front where I stood.

"Wow! I never expected that we'd gather that many people!" Andou said in amazement.

"You're telling me. I thought we wouldn't be able to keep up with the orders," Kashino said, crossing his arms.

"It's a good thing that Hanabusa, Cafe, and Fraise went to the back to help us out," Caramel said thankfully.

"If not, we'd definitely be backed up and unable to serve our cakes fast," Chocolat added in.

"Well, if I think about it, Michiko did a lot of work today as well," Hanabusa responded and I raised my eyebrows in confusion.

"Me? I didn't really do much today besides selling our dessert," I said, tilting my head to the side.

"And that's exactly how you did a lot of work today! If it weren't for you, I don't think we'd be getting that many customers or have been able to quickly sell off our cakes at that rate," Hanabusa explained.

"I agree. Keiko helped out a lot, especially by assigning Miss Fraise to help us in our time of need," Chocolat said.

"Hehehe, it's almost as if Keiko has a fan club," Fraise chuckled to herself.

"Honestly, I was surprised as well. I didn't think that a lot of people would be coming to our shop, but somehow, it seems as if we'd gained a lot of popularity through our past rounds which made people interested," I subtly explained.

'I never thought that we'd actually be popular…'

"It was just under 35 minutes but we managed to sell out in no time," Hanabusa brought up and we all nodded in unison.

"We're not the only ones. Team Tennouji sold out just at about the same time as we did," I said and the boys and their spirits widened their eyes at this news.

"Well, it's not as if I'm surprised," Kashino responded nonchalantly.

"As expected of Team Tennouji," Hanabusa said, shrugging his shoulders.

"She only has her popularity from Salon de Marie but her pudding is also famous," Andou said.

Once Team Tennouji and our team had sold out, I could see people carrying around their plate of Team Tennouji's tart and happily eating it.

I could see that it was an egg tart with a golden crust and a honey spider web design placed on top of it. It looked delicious that I even wanted to try it.

I glanced over at Koshiro Miya's Mont Blanc shop and I saw her two henchmen trying to sell off their dish. I could tell that the explanation of their ingredients was gathering the interest of the crowd.

"How about some Mont Blanc made with the finest Japanese and Western chestnuts?" One henchman said.

"One bite and you'll feel like you're in Versailles, tres bien~," The other said. Children were interested in their extravagance and so were the adults. I had to admit that even their Mont Blanc looked appealing to the eye where it appeared high-class at a cheap price. If anything, Koshiro Miya's line was gathering a lot of people too, but somehow, we managed to sell out before them.

Locking eyes with one another, I could sense Koshiro Miya's nasty glare from afar after realizing that we'd sold out before her. Turning my head away, I took a gander at the other 6 shops to see that they also had a decent following, but not as large as our team's, Team Tennouji, or even Koshiro Miya's.

"Grand Prix 3rd round! Here are the current rankings! Right now, 1st place goes to Team Tennouji and Team Michiko - 500 sold!" The announcer said on the intercom.

"We're tied for first place?!" Andou said in surprise, covering his gaping mouth with his hand.

"Well, it's to be expected since we'd both sold out around the same time," I explained.

"2nd place Team Koshiro, 3rd place Team Sugino, 4th place…" The list continued to go on until they'd reached 9th place.

"4th place will advance to the semi-finals but I guess we have no reason to worry about it," Kashino said coolly.

'Regardless, if the places remain like this, we'll have no choice but to go against Tennouji Mari's team, Koshiro Miya's team, or Team Sugino. Meaning, that we have a tough road ahead of us if we were to advance to the next round.'

*sigh*

I couldn't help but sigh at this thought. I knew that competitions were hard but going against one of the toughest teams made me worried. Although it felt nice to be selling our dessert, there would always be some unfamiliar emotion that would flood through me whether it be fear, guilt, happiness, uncertainty—and the list goes on and on. But I knew that deep down within me, there was one thing I feared the most and that was "failure". I'd always known that in order to do well to succeed, I had to work hard for it, push myself, and earn it… but when will I get to that point where I can no longer push myself? I know that failure is just a part of life but it was just something that I couldn't wrap my head around.

What if I failed my team? What if I push myself so hard to the point where I cost my team this competition? Will they hate me, or will I just end up hating myself?

Only time will tell how I deal with my problems. This will be the deciding factor in all of this.