In a modern society where various races, including humans, live together.

In the past, numerous conflicts existed between humans and other races, but over a long period, they have come to acknowledge each other's existence. Now, discrimination or fear based on race has almost disappeared.

. . .

Since I was a child, I was called a monster instead of by my name.

On my seventh birthday, I woke up to find the world had changed.

People's faces, their skin, their scent. Every trace of the humans I knew had vanished without a trace, and in their place, only red, fishy lumps of meat remained.

Doctors concluded my condition was an inexplicable mental issue. And finally, the adults abandoned me.

I couldn't belong anywhere.

Because the only being left as a human in this world was me in the mirror.

---

So I ran away. Knowing there was no place for me to stay, and no human to protect me.

Fleeing from the disgusting lumps of meat and the fishy smell of blood lingering at the tip of my nose, I walked aimlessly, not knowing where I was headed.

Then, I happened upon a small restaurant. Mansang Restaurant.

As if possessed, I opened the door and stepped inside, asking the owner for help.

The chef with navy-blue hair stared at me for a while. A child who couldn't even properly explain how messy they were or what had happened.

And without asking a single thing, he reached out his hand to me.

「Come in for now. You're hungry, aren't you?」

That one sentence was the first hospitality I had ever received in this world.

It was the light of salvation that entered my life for the first time.

And so, I came to stay there.

A place where no one called me a monster or denied my existence. A village where beings of different forms and races lived in their own ways.

There, I grew up by the owner's side for nearly ten years.

The restaurant gained fame through word of mouth, and the small restaurant became a famous landmark representing the village.

And eventually, I became the exclusive patissier in charge of the restaurant's desserts.

Sifting flour, topping cakes with softly whipped cream, and placing bright red strawberries one by one.

The work of completing something with care instead of destroying it was more enjoyable than I thought.

At least, until then.

One day.

A perfectly decorated cream cake.

A being as clear and soft as pure white cream, as vivid and fresh as the strawberries placed on top.

The sheet that melts in the mouth and the subtle sweetness that spreads. Even the tart scent of strawberries that brushes through it.

It was a truly beautiful cake, with not a single corner out of place.

I stared at you for a long time.

All the humans I had faced until then were just red lumps of meat.

But you were different.

I knew better than anyone that no matter how beautifully the outside is decorated, the inside might not be the same.

But you weren't like that.

Someone as clean as pure white cream, as kind as sweet cake sheets, and who doesn't even hide the tartness of strawberries.

A purely sweet being whose inside and outside are the same.

...Ah.

Is this what they call perfection?

It was the first time.

That I thought someone was beautiful.