Extra Story: The Bear Makes Bear Bread with Mil — Part Two

Extra Story:
The Bear Makes Bear Bread with Mils
Part Two

 

IT WAS A DAY OFF at the Bear’s Lounge, and this particular bear (I mean, Yuna) was feeling a little peckish. Chalk that up to the smell of bread wafting from the back. Someone was baking, and I had to at least ask if I could have some. Just in case.

When I headed into the kitchen from the back entrance, Karin was baking bread. Sometimes she’d practice baking on days off, asking orphans for their opinions, and use their input to improve her stuff.

“Morning, Karin. Can I have some bread?”

“Yuna? Take as much as you’d like.”

I reached out for the bread Karin had baked and ate some. Yup, scrumptious. What else could I expect from Morin’s daughter?

“Just you today, Karin?”

“My mom is out, so yup. Oh, Mil is here too though.”

“Mil?”

“Yeah, she said she wanted to make something and headed to the main floor.”

That piqued my curiosity, so I headed over to check out what was up. Then I heard Mil saying stuff like, “I can’t do it,” and, “This is hard.”

“Mil, what are you doing?”

When I asked her that, she told me she was making bread. Under her hands was a loaf that looked like some kind of animal shape. Apparently, she’d been trying to use the Nendoroid-esque bear decorations on the table as a model to make bread.

When I asked her why, she told me the orphans wanted “bear bread.” That was why Mil was trying to copy the bears I’d made. The face was apparently too difficult, and she was in a tight spot.

I wanted to help her out, but, uh, she was making bread in the shape of a bear. I could have asked why, but it was pretty obvious: It was all because of me, as usual.

“You’re not making this for the shop, are you?” I asked.

“No, I wanted to make it for the other kids to eat.”

“You really mean that?”

She said she was bringing it to the orphanage. She wasn’t making it to sell at the shop, so…you know what? Sure, why not. I got multiple colors of dough from Mil and started making a bear face. Making a whole body would be difficult, but a face was easy enough. I’d seen a lot of bread of just bear faces in my old world.

Aaaaand there it was. It looked about right. Mil sure seemed to think so, from her expression. The face was a little off-center, but it was my first try, so that was just how it be. It looked bearish enough.

“You’re amazing, Yuna! It’s a bear face.”

That it was. Good job, kid. And hey, she wanted to copy it too! She used her small hands to make her own while consulting my bread as a model.

“I’m done.”

It looked like a perfectly good bear face to me. “Let’s fire these up, eh?”

Mil and I headed back to the kitchen, borrowed the stone oven from Karin, and baked the doughy little dudes. Mil wouldn’t budge from in front of the oven.

“Yuna, what did you make?”

I looked to Mil—she seemed pretty psyched about it, so I shook my head and said to Karin in my most serious adult voice: “It’s a secret until it’s done.”

“Looks like it’s baked through,” said Karin, and Mil brought over the finished bear bread with a smile on her face. They looked way better than I’d thought—the bear heads were even the right color.

Karin peeked at them from the side. “Looks like bear bread. You did a great job. I think the right one is a little better though.”

“Yuna made the right one. I made the left one,” Mil answered, seeming embarrassed.

“No worries, Mil. Once you practice, you’ll get better at it. Everyone starts as a beginner,” said Karin.

After we tasted the bread, Karin started helping us make more bear bread. We made all different kinds for the orphans, and Mil took them back to the orphanage with her. She kept bubbling over about how happy she was to give them the bread she had baked. You know, I was pretty happy too.

The next day, when I asked Mil how the kids reacted, she looked like she wasn’t sure about something? Weird. Had something gone wrong?

Then, after a while, the shop started selling bear bread.

I wonder why?