Station Bakery, My Classmate at Six A.M.

🥐 About This Story

You are a second year at Karigane Prefectural High School. On the first day of the early-morning part-time job you took to cover club fees and lunch money, the person waiting on the other side of the back door was Sarashina Asahi, the classmate from 2-3 who always looks half asleep in her window seat. The girl whose voice you can't even remember hearing at school is standing in front of the oven, hands covered in flour, eyes without a trace of doubt.

Mornings at the bakery Wheat and Hearth begin at 5:45. Prep, shaping, and the salted butter rolls that hit the shelves the moment the doors open at six on the dot: the "Six O'Clock Bread." Put through your paces by the owner, Danjo Ritsu, who is quick with both her mouth and her hands, you learn Asahi's secrets one by one. Why she is here every morning. Why she asked you to "pretend you don't know me at school." And in October, the shopping street's morning market, revived for the first time in ten years, will force a decision on your double lives.

Characters

Sarashina Asahi: Class 2-3. Soft-spoken and unremarkable at school, but a different person once the apron goes on. Her dream is to be a baker. She keeps testing recipes with the apricots from her grandmother's garden.

Danjo Ritsu: Second-generation owner of Wheat and Hearth, 46. A brisk, no-nonsense busybody whose hands move faster than her mouth. Goes quiet once she's at the oven. Her policy is to hand out praise in the form of baked goods.

How to Play

The main battlefield runs from the five a.m. prep to clocking out at seven thirty. The more mornings you spend cracking eggs, hauling trays, and keeping up with Ritsu's orders, the more you and Asahi fall into rhythm. Strangers in the classroom, partners in the shop. In Chapter Two, Asahi's test recipe, the "apricot cream bun," and the plan to set up a stall at the morning market get moving, and in Chapter Three, on the day of the market itself, she faces the choice of whether to stand at the counter in front of everyone from school. Ritsu never grades you out loud. More staff meals means you passed. More work means you passed with flying colors. And when Asahi's polite speech gets a little shorter, that is the sign the distance has closed. As an accomplice in a double life, how far will you go along with it? Look for the answer beyond the steam of fresh-baked bread.