...
The four horse girls ate with great relish for a while.
Not long after, Lucian, who had been tinkering in the kitchen for quite some time, came out carrying the pastries. "Want to try some more?"
Mejiro McQueen was the first to take a piece and put it in her mouth.
"Hm!?" She let out a soft whimper, her eyes suddenly widening, and her horse ears flapped like wings twice. "This... this is the feeling."
She had originally thought that no matter how much it was improved, there wouldn't be too big a difference, but at this moment, she was struck directly in the heart by the sweetness, slapping her own face with a resounding smack.
Grass Wonder, Taiki Shuttle, and Meishou Doto watched Mejiro McQueen.
"It's just eating a piece of pastry, why is McQueen's face so red?" Grass Wonder looked doubtfully at the pastries on the plate. "Is the difference that big? Could it be that Trainer Lucian added something in it?"
"N-No, sorry, I lost my composure." Mejiro McQueen held her burning cheeks, seemingly still savoring the sweet flavor rampaging in her mouth, ravaging her tongue and palate. "But the difference is really obvious, it's a kind of feeling... you'll know once you try it."
Hearing this, the three horse girls took a piece of pastry with half-belief and half-doubt.
"Mmm~~~~" Taiki Shuttle showed a blissful expression, letting out a prolonged "mmm" sound.
"So delicious——it feels... it feels so good to eat!" The cat mouth had a similar reaction; she seemed to want to imitate Grass Wonder and say some metaphors, but her little head was completely empty.
Grass Wonder, who was the best at describing things, fell silent instead, immersing herself in a world surrounded by the fragrance of flower nectar.
One second ago, she was still talking about Mejiro McQueen, and the next second, she was lost in her own indulgence.
"There's still a lot of room for improvement." Lucian smiled with satisfaction. It hadn't reached the "glowing" level, which meant it hadn't hit the limit yet.
However, this limit wasn't something he could reach with just a slight adjustment.
"Oh, right, how can we eat pastries without milk or coffee? What do you all want to drink? I'll go get it."
Meishou Doto: "Trainer, I want milk, and little dango wants it too."
Lucian: "Doto, how dare you make requests now?"
"It feels like it would taste great together." Meishou Doto swallowed her saliva. The trainer had promised earlier not to bully her, so it should be fine to be a little bold.
And just now, the trainer had eaten her cake... Thinking of this, Meishou Doto, who was still maintaining her ladylike sitting posture, clenched her fists and placed them on her tightly pressed thighs.
The impact of the food didn't seem to make her cheeks burn this much.
"Got it, what about you three? What to drink?"
Taiki Shuttle: "coffee~ Arigato!"
Grass Wonder: "Give me a cup of 'Jue Juice'."
"Hm?"
"Ah?"
Lucian and Taiki Shuttle were dumbfounded.
There was no training camp this year, so Me hang McQueen and Meishou Doto were still pondering what "Jue Juice" was.
"McQueen, do you know what kind of drink 'Jue Juice' is?" Meishou Doto asked in a low voice.
"It should be some kind of drink too, based on the name..." Mejiro McQueen's thoughts gradually wandered. "It might have something to do with the trainer."
As the name suggests...1
"Oh, it's probably a drink invented by the trainer, so it's named that." Meishou Doto said thoughtfully. She looked doubtfully at Mejiro McQueen, whose expression was becoming increasingly strange. "McQueen, why is your face so red again? （o´・ェ・｀o）"
If this pastry really had some aftereffect, why couldn't she taste it?
"N-Nothing, Doto, what you said is probably right." Mejiro McQueen dry-coughed twice to ease her embarrassed expression.
...
On the other side.
Taiki Shuttle, who had been deeply traumatized by "Jue Juice," looked at Grass Wonder in disbelief. "Little Grass, crazy!! Don't you want your esophagus anymore?"
Lucian, on the other hand, raised a teasing smile. "Little Grass, you don't think I don't have the ingredients to make 'Jue Juice' at home, do you?"
"I-Is that so?" Grass Wonder suddenly lost her confidence. She had dared to be so bold precisely because she thought Lucian didn't have "Jue Juice" at home.
Lucian smiled without speaking and turned to Mejiro McQueen. "McQueen, what do you want to drink?"
"I won't drink anything. I've already eaten a lot of pastries tonight."
Gluttony comes at a price. Mejiro McQueen coming over tonight had already gone against her weight control plan.
She was still very troubled by her hard-to-control weight...
If only she could be as slim as Suzuka.
"Not drinking? McQueen, you're not on a diet, are you?"
"No... I just feel really full already."
"Oh, I see. Actually, I was thinking that milk paired with pastries should have a nice chemical reaction, at least the taste could reach another level~"
Lucian had seen the physical examination data; Mejiro McQueen's current weight was actually fine, and eating one meal occasionally was no big deal.
She was just too anxious.
"Another level?" In Mejiro McQueen's mind, an image emerged of delicious pastries soaked in rich milk.
Gulp——
The sound of swallowing saliva was loud. She couldn't remember how many times she had lost her composure in front of Lucian.
"Yeah, some foods are meant to be paired to taste good, like pouring prepared sauce over white rice." With just a few words, Lucian made Mejiro McQueen swallow again. "If McQueen isn't drinking, then I won't get it."
He turned around after speaking, counting silently in his mind: 1, 2, 3.
"W-Wait..." Mejiro McQueen called out to Lucian.
"What is it?"
Mejiro McQueen said in a small, embarrassed voice: "I think I can still eat a little bit more, so... please prepare a bottle of milk for me too, Trainer."
"OK~"
Lucian turned around again, but the voice calling him back came once more.
"Trainer Lucian, I've thought about it, and I won't drink Jue Juice either. I'll have milk too... because I feel it's too much trouble for you."
Just thinking about eating pastries with "Jue Juice" made her feel like a beautiful and charming girl was being dragged into a bridal chamber by an utterly hideous bandit and forcibly violated.
"It's fine, not troublesome at all." Lucian didn't look back, walking firmly toward the kitchen.
Only then did Grass Wonder realize she had played herself.
Trainer Lucian seemed even more devious than her.
"Trainer Lucian..."
Grass Wonder couldn't sit still at all and followed him into the kitchen.
...