This episode picks up with Ichigo walking through the doorway and hoping she’s in the all correct room, and she soon finds the princes waiting for her. As Ichigo begins to celebrate with the princes a group of older boys push their way through pushing Ichigo to the ground then they tell the princes that they’re going down.

        Soon, the Chairman takes the stage and congratulates the sixteen passing teams (ten- 3rd years, five- 2nd years, and one- 1st year). The Chairman then explains the first task, each group will have each member bake a different pound cake with the theme of family, and each group will be judged as a whole on good their cakes are, and how well they fit with the theme of family. The chairman then draws the pairings, and Team Ichigo (the boys’ name choice) gets paired against the team of rude third year boys. When Ichigo sets forward and goes to shake the hand of the other captain he makes rude comments and tries to crush our sweetheart’s hand, pissing off the princes, game on.

        The boys have done some research on the other team by locating samples of their cakes, and all four of them taste pretty good. They decide that Ichigo will make a (shock) strawberry cake, Andou will make a green tea cake, Kashino will make a chocolate cake (no kidding), and Hanabusa will make a rose flavored cake.

The bad guys’ cake.

Team Ichigo’s cake.

        Once they get down to practicing, Ichigo, Andou, and Kashino’s cakes turn out just fine but Hanabusa can’t get his idea of a rose cake to work. The others try to ask Hanabusa why he’s so obsessed with roses, but he doesn’t say anything. The group has another encounter with the rude team of third years where they insult to other boys, and Ichigo shows a little flash of that infamous redheaded temper (it does exist, my sister is a redhead) by almost cracking the leader upside the head with a pan.

 

        After this incident, Hanabusa needs some alone time so he heads off to think. Later, Café comes back to the group and says that Hanabusa even sent him away. Well, Ichigo tells the boys she’s going to talk with him because they’re friends. Andou and Kashino talk, and say they never bothered to ask Hanabusa even though they’ve know him longer than Ichigo and they’re supposed to be friends, so they start to follow Ichigo.

        Ichigo and Hanabusa have a nice talk about how his father was a rose grower, and his mother was a flowerer arranger who also loved to bake sweets. Hanabusa grew up surrounded by love, roses, and sweets and he vowed to someday become a great maker of sweets and someday create a rose cake. Then a few years ago his father when returning from a job in Paris he booked an earlier flight, and on his way to the airport he got into an accident and was killed. So, all Hanabusa has left of his father is the bottle of natural damask rose water, and he also tells Ichigo that’s when he became nicer to girls and women. So, you’re not just a plain old narcissist. Well, Andou and Kashino were also listening and they come out of hiding, and all three of them vow to help Hanabusa create his rose cake.

        When they head back to the practice kitchen all their attempts at a rose cake end in utter failure, and Hanabusa again walks out to be alone. Then Ichigo and the princes spot Hanabusa standing by the lake. Hanabusa thinks to himself that he’s never had a good memory of the rose water, and that maybe even his father might be alive if not for the water. Hanabusa reaches back and throws the bottle towards the lake, Ichigo screams Noooooooooooooo, and makes a flying leap to reach the bottle before it goes into the lake, and……? Cliffhanger time, that’s all for this episode.

After the episode finishes we get a little live action skit featuring two little girls showing us how to make some simple homemade Valentine’s Day treats.

       Well, after watching several episodes featuring the back stories of Ichigo, Andou, and Kashino it was only a matter of time before we had to get Hanabusa’s back story. By far, Hanabusa’s back story is the most emotional and the saddest, while his youth was wrapped in love, sweets, and roses those memories of roses seems to bring him pain (maybe he needs to remember love more than the sadness), and Ichigo just the girl to help him remember the love.

        Hanabusa needs to understand that a child’s dream in many ways becomes the dream of their parents; a parent wants their child to be happy and smile. So, I’m sure that Hanabusa’s father would want him to achieve his dream and smile. I don’t know how Ichigo is going to help Hanabusa remember the love, maybe his mother will help, or maybe his friends will help, but remember he will because that’s Ichigo’s real magical power.