Chapter 14: It's just bread.
The crown prince who rented the whole restaurant of the family of the Whitlocks, was now smiling after getting to have Analissa Blanchet, the heroine- service him for the whole day.
"So Lady Analissa, would you like to hear about my hobbies?"
"Mm..."
"The weather is wonderful isn't it?"
"Certainly wonderful weather indeed."
"Lady Analissa, please do tell me something about yourself."
"I like holding knives."
"I... see."
Mostly he was trying to talk to the girl but Analissa made sure her responses was strictly polite and won't be seen as 'advancing' on the prince.
Crown Prince Dereck Louvcrat, once the night settled it was when he decided to leave. Although he was rather sad that he needed to leave, the other girl couldn't have it any other way.
Besides, Analissa still has to take turns with Lady Evelyn taking watch over their egg!
"Milady... Would you like for me to wait for your shift and escort you back to your dorms? My carriage ride has another space for you." (Crown Prince Dereck) stops by the door of his carriage.
Lord Ein was by his side guarding him, performing his duty.
He was certainly hoping for Analissa to say yes despite all that she said before if avoiding him.
"I refuse politely your highness. A commoner like me should not taint such an expensive wonderful carriage. We will meet again another time in the academy, goodnight." (Analissa) was trying so hard on giving that customer service smile to the crown price.
Crown Prince Dereck's shoulder slumped but immediately recovered after seeing that cute smile on the girl's face. "Well then, it was a lovely dinner with you. I will come again sometime... perhaps it will only be the two of us alone- of course as friends first!"
As friends first?
What would happen after-
Upon realizing be must be planning to have her to befriend him before advancing to the next level she immediately went-
Nope! Nope! Nope! Please no!
Analissa muttered in her mind several times feeling like dying. "Perhaps. It is turning night, Lord Ein and your highness please have a safe journey back home."
The Heroine does a slight clumsy curtsy before closing the door on them.
"Ugh..." she groaned, she couldn't feel her knees after all those hours of sitting trying to start some small talk with the prince. "I always knew communication was draining but that one asshole rich douchebag really didn't see how uncomfortable I was. Subtle hints won't work- kuhhh! I can't be rude to him or else I'm afraid he'll do something to the restaurant."
She takes off the scarf that Farrah gave her because it was becoming too hot.
"Whew..." (Analissa) fans herself a little before hearing and seeing the said girl walk over her with a towel at hand.
"You... Are you okay?" (Farrah) asks, offering her a clean white towel. Once she was looking closer her shadow completely overtook the light of the restaurant.
Analissa, not wanting to worry the girl, just giggled standing up with a smile. "Oh yes~ the crown prince was really easy to deal with. Everything is fine."
She takes the towel out of Farrah's hand and uses it to dry herself by patting down her skin gently. From the sweat of her neck, face, forehead and a pair of small glistening mountains.
"!!!" (Farrah) didn't realize she was rudely staring and looked away with a slight blush on her face.
"You... did good." the giant girl compliments the blonde one who felt happy with the sudden praise.
"Aw thank you Farrah. It seems that the crown prince enjoyed your cooking. He said he might come back some more after this but if I'm being honest... I hope not." (Analissa) gives back the clean towel and stretches her upper body by doing some exercises.
"He might rent out the whole store again geez. I'm sure many people has seen him come in and out of the restaurant. I just hope the rumors won't be nasty at least."
Who was she kidding?
The game will definitely give her some nasty rumors about how the crown prince visited the so ever sweet and innocent Analissa Blanchet to woo her and such.
She can already hear the slut calling and whore nicknames on the way.
"I see... I will prepare a coat for you. You should get changed back to your uniform before leaving." (Farrah) reminded her of the blonde girl who was still in the restaurant uniform.
"Ah right! I will change now then!" (Analissa) runs out to the bathroom taking off the uniform and putting it in the wash basket. While she was changing, her mind kept thinking as to why the crown prince came since this was never in the original game.
Analissa needed to keep her guard up, since the story seems to be changing. She needs to stop doing things that could affect the flow and just follow the original story for now.
"That's right... now that I think about it. In the original game I should've been paired with Lord Ein at the egg project." She mutters to herself in realization, putting her hand under her chin processing the thoughts in her thinking mode, cursing at herself for being too excited and forgetting one important plot in the game.
Then... hypothetically Lord Ein was supposed to be the Heroine's seatmate!
Such horrible writing-! They never mentioned this in the game!
"And I should've been more alert. I can't believe I forgot such an important plot. I was mostly skipping Lord Ein's route anyways." she sighs regretting skipping some of his scenes.
She puts on her blouse that had the crest of the prestigious academy that nobles can only enter and the skirt that came along with it. Now that she was done changing she opened the bathroom door with another heavy sigh and noticed a tall slightly tanned figure waiting for her.
"You are done...?" (Farrah) asks in a worry since it took the girl a while before she got done changing. She worried that she broke down inside of the bathroom and was about to check up on her.
Analissa felt like dying- of all the things! All those shitty psycho male leads, except for Lord Ein now I guess- are so horrible at being love interests that she wishes for Farrah to be one of them for the nth time.
Noticing the worried bear look and uneasy posture she must've been worrying about her too much. "Yeah! Don't worry about me, I'll be going home now that my shift is over. See you tomorrow!" (Analissa) smiled widely that it brought ease to the other girl who looked away awkwardly.
"I... escort you out to your dorm...? It's not safe... at night." (Farrah) shyly offers because it was night, and she remembered how much of a man magnet this small petite girl was. She imagined a little hamster version of her being cornered by so many people by no means of escape.
Analissa thought for a bit, there's nothing wrong with Farrah escorting her out right?
"Hehe! Sure! Besides I know Farrah will be able to protect me. You can even visit me in my dorm if you like. I think we take visits there." (Analissa) explains imagining Farrah the bear visiting her little room. "Ah although I don't think you'll fit in my door-"
Analissa looks up at Farrah's figure, comparing her to the small sized door in her dorm. Speaking of which, no one should be able to get in because she changed the locks recently.
"Its alright.. I will only escort you to the gates..." (Farrah) walks over to the kitchen wall where some keys were displayed. "Give me a moment to lock the place." she requests and the blonde girl nodded in understanding, deciding to head out first by going out the kitchen door.
"Alrighty. I'll wait for you here." (Analissa) she opens the kitchen door leading outside and decides to wait for the giant figure who came back in a matter of a few minutes.
Farrah could be seen holding a brown paper bag that seemed to have bread pastries inside of them. The tall giant has been saving these for her since this morning- but with the whole crown prince guest coming unannounced she didn't really have a perfect time to give these to her.
Analissa was still deep in thought and she didn't realize the girl came back in a rush.
"I... um... I am done." (Farrah) calls out to the girl who was slumping her back at the kitchen door.
Analissa was a little surprised since she thought Farrah was going to take a while before she was done. "Oh!" she exclaims looking over to see that she was carrying something, the smell of bread wafted through her nose.
"J-Just curious, what are you carrying over there?" she points at the brown paper bag that was a little wrinkled but still-
Farrah reaches out inside to present some croissant looking pastries and that made Analissa's mouth water just by looking at them. "C-Croissants!" she leans over looking excited and hungry.
Her stomach grumbled looking at food, Analissa stopped and looked down at her stomach.
"I didn't get to eat... because I was serving that crown prince all day... he didn't even ask if I ate yet." (Analissa) muttered weakly, realizing another mistake. Not taking care of her body.
Farrah bites her lip in worry, she was right bringing this over because she was watching the blonde girl in the kitchen. Couldn't help but steal some glances and every time she saw Analissa she would often glance at the food while keeping a polite smile talking to the crown prince.
"I... thought you might want this. I... um... this is from this morning but... it's still good. It's komalpa bread. I didn't have time to heat it... sorry." She offers her the bread, a little hesitant.
Analissa's eyes wandered through hers and smiled. "Wanna eat while we walk?" she says, giving a little toothy grin, taking the bread from Farrah's hands and splitting it in half. Inside the tasty pastry seemed to have some dry chocolate sauce and it smelled wonderful.
"?" (Farrah) looks over curiously at the blonde girl who gives her the other half.
"Nom... nom..." The heroine herself couldn't help herself from eating a little messily. She stops slumping back on the door and walks a little ahead from Farrah who stares at her in shock.
The blonde girl had to finish eating the treat before giving a little squeal of approval. "Mm! Hey Farrah come on! Let's walk while we eat. This is delicious!"
"Y-Yes..." (Farrah) followed the blonde girl who was walking towards her dorm. The night in the capital city seemed so busy but these two were in their own world. Farrah tried so hard making sure no bad people were going to bump and hurt the hamster in front of her.
"Farrah, did you make these um... komalpa bread by yourself?" (Analissa) asks, gaining Farrah's attention.
"Yes... I did." (Farrah) enjoys baking and cooking. Every skill she knew was taught by her grandfather, the grumpy owner of the restaurant who was also an ex-military commander back in his war times.
Analissa takes another bread and bites the top part of it. She laughs at the sudden thought of Farrah being the best wife material out of all the male leads.
"You know you'll make a great wife someday because look at these!" she points at the bread happily and gives another bite.
"Mm! These are just so good I just can't stop eating them!" (Analissa) gives another lovely compliment and Farrah takes a huge breath in looking away, a little speechless.
She doesn't know what to say in her bold remarks at the compliment. Especially... the thing about being a good wife. "I-I don't know... it's just... bread." (Farrah) was putting herself down.
The reason for that is because everyone knew in the military academy that she can cook but not bake. She would volunteer to cook because it made her happy, it wasn't the first time she heard those words.
'You'll make a good wife.'
However... the reason she felt insecure was because of the way she looked scary, tall, and full of scars. They would add after that sentence- 'It's just a shame that you look like that you know...'
Analissa not knowing what Farrah has been through decided to push in more on the compliments.
"Aw it's not just bread! I can tell you put a lot of work on these. You told me you've been meaning to give me these since this morning. See? That's amazing wife material right there." The blonde girl was truly honest. Anyone who was willing to wake up early to make the person something to eat was...
"Huh- Farrah?!" (Analissa) freaked out after seeing the other tall figure covering her face crying a little. The emotions of the gentle giant was overflowing.
"Sniff... sniff... Umm... I-I... D-Don't mind me." (Farrah) shakes her head seeing that the girl was adamant on knowing what was wrong- why did she cry?
She double checked all the things she said if there was even something she said that would offend her but pretty sure Analissa was only giving her compliments the whole time- ah!
"You're not used to compliments. Are you?" (Analissa) asks, reaching out, holding her arm. "Sorry! Ah... don't cry! I'll try to lessen them! Promise!"
She felt really bad- it was her first time making someone cry like this- who cries at being complimented?!
"S-Something got into my... eye. I am... okay now." (Farrah) excused and clearly Analissa didn't believe it but for now it looks like the gentle giant was smiling widely while she was crying a little.
"Alright... but if I say something out of line do tell me." (Analissa) crosses her arms looking so adamant on not doing that again.
"Ah, I see the academy." She and Farrah stopped by the gate. Analissa tries to find any handkerchief in her bag as she turns to the girl.
"Ah!" Finally she finds one and holds it out.
"Here it's not good for cute girls like you to get poked by dust and end up crying." (Analissa) slowly offers it out to Farrah who looks at her a little red at her teasing, feeling like she saw through her lie.
It was one of the many rare moments that someone saw Farrah... as another girl.
"I-Is it okay?" (Farrah) asks, looking at the white handkerchief with flowery design, hesitating to pick it up.
"Yeah! Think of it as thanks for the pastries." She offers it again and this time Farrah accepts it thankfully.
"I'll be going now. Thank you for accompanying me." (Analissa) holds the strap of her bag and waves goodbye to Farrah waving with her hand.
.-.-.-.-.
A small bird who was watching everything reported back to her master who was sitting on her chair reading a book while having the mysterious egg beside her on a small pillow.
"Tweet! Tweet!"
"Losimer." she called as soon as she heard of the sounds of her little familiar calling out. The little bird has been tailing the little blonde girl on her way to work. Everything in detail, including seeing the crown prince's carriage.
Hearing that part was not good news, that idiot crown prince visited her in a public area where so many commoners would've seen it. That man clearly has no idea what he's putting the blonde girl in danger for.
"Tweet... Tweet!" The little bird warned her master that the girl would be coming.
"I see... Thank you, Losimer. You may rest." she orders the little bird who decided that it would be best if he returns to the familiar realm.
Lady Evelyn Alarie stands up in her nightgown snapping her finger to her servants, "I need to get ready. I want you to fetch me Miss Analissa Blanchet. I do not trust the night, accompany her will you?"
Her maids turned to her in curtsy, "Certainly milady."
Thank you to my patreun!
Platymage