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“Welcome to Charbucks,” Chiharu cheerfully cried even as her former fiancé stared at her as though she had invited him to join her within a most lewd act of sexual congress. “May I please take your order?”
“No,” Prince Jeord Stuart – for who else would be willing to travel so far just to bedevil her? – snapped, even as he continued gazing at her as though she had just grown an extra head on her shoulder. “You may not. What you should do, however, is explain why on earth you ended up in the southern-most seaside port of Sorcier peddling overpriced drinks to the gentry.”
“Excuse me,” Chiharu said, genuinely offended. “But the drinks that Charbucks creates are made from the finest of ingredients for the finest of customers using secret, hand-crafted recipes. Not only do we have an actual fire mage in charge of roasting our coffee beans –”
“Hey!” Sora cried from his perch nearby where he used his fire magic to roast said beans, even as the customers ooh’d and swooned over his handsomeness and use of magic which was so rare to them. “How do you do, your Highness? Your next drink’s on me!”
“We also,” Chiharu cheerfully went on to explain, “have a rotating menu of seasonal recipes that are a big hit with our customer base! This month, our specials include Mocha Chokya Cookie Crumble Rumble that features a dozen chocolate chip cookies blended in with three cups of mocha drizzle!”
“My God,” Jeord said, eyes widening even more. “Isn’t that enough sugar to kill eventually?”
“Well, that’s not our problem here at Charbucks,” Chiharu brightly responded. “And we’re sure our customers know how to order responsibly. Though of course, we always suggest they pair their drinks with our delightful dessert menu. After all, how can you order a Mocha Chokya Cookie Crumble Rumble without ordering our bag of a dozen extra chocolate chip cookies?”
“Dear Lord,” Jeord muttered. “How can anyone stand such a vile amount of sugar? Are you trying to make the citizens of our fair nation so unhealthy that they collapse in a few years? Is that your ultimate revenge on Sorcier for me rejecting you as my queen?”
“Oh no,” Chiharu said, waving his concerns away even as she continued fixing a line of drinks for expectant customers by shoving as much sugar, syrup, and crushed desserts as she could manage into each cup. (It almost made up for the terrible job that Sora did in roasting beans – as he was there more to dazzle the customers with the spectacle of a handsome fire mage working on their food than for any culinary abilities). “I’ve gotten over that already. It’s ancient history to me.”
“How,” Jeord demanded, even as he grimaced at the sheer amount of sugar she was camming into every cup, “is that ancient history?! You went mad during your first year at the Academy because I refused to give into your obsessive passion! To the point where you decided to expel yourself out of the Academy because you swore that having to see me every day while knowing I did not love you was making you go insane! And then you forced your parents to send you to this seaside port because you swore you could not share even the same corner of Sorcier as me, lest you throw yourself out of your own balcony!”
“Oh yes,” Chiharu said, only half-listening to Jeord as she continued fixing orders and then handing them to one handsome waiter after another so that they could bring the drinks over to their appreciative and largely female customers. “Yes, I suffered so much and then had to leave you and blah blah blah, wasn’t that sad. But as you can see, our engagement was broken off due to my broken heart, and even my family was forced to abandon me after they saw how terribly insane I was – to the point where there was no way to keep me as their daughter to marry me off.”
With narrowed eyes, Jeord coldly said: “You certainly don’t look very mad right now. In fact, you seem very… calculating.”
“That’s right!” Chiharu happily agreed. “I am very calculating… when it comes to keeping Charbucks customers happy! For though we’ve only been open for a few months, we already have two branches on both sides of town. Our drinks and desserts are so popular, we just had to open a second location. And who knows… maybe we’ll be all over Sorcier eventually. People are already clamoring to be our franchisees!”
“Your franchi—what?” Jeord said, looking badly surprised.
“Oh, never you mind,” Chiharu said in response. “Sorcier hasn’t reached that stage of capitalism just yet.”
Then she smiled a most wicked little smile.
“But trust me, Your Highness. It certainly will.”
And even as a chill seemed to run down Prince Jeord’s spine at his former fiancée – who was proving to be both more interesting yet also more terrifying than he could have ever imagined before – she smiled sunnily at him and passed him a frothing mug.
“Go on,” she said, her face as pure and sweet as a devil offering the first taste of temptation. “Do have a Strawberry Sugar Bomb Explosion on the house. To commemorate the end of our engagement, tragic though it may be.”
As though hypnotized, Jeord ended up putting said drink – a giant monstrosity that looked less like a cup of coffee than a cauldron of scalding pink froth – to his lips.
It was, his face clearly admitted even if his mouth did not… ridiculously delicious.
Granted, it would probably shave off years from his life if he continued quaffing it.
And yet…
“How did you come up with the idea for this entire… business?” he asked, mind clearly still whirling as he continued to take sip after sip of the delicious abomination that Chiharu had given to him. “You never cared for anything related to commerce before! You were meant to be a high born lady!”
“Life sometimes has other plans,” Chiharu replied brightly. “And so does death. But capitalism waits for no woman – even when she goes from one world to another entirely.”
And even as Jeord gaped at her, she smiled and waved him away.
“It was good to see you, Your Highness,” she said. “May you have a very happy life far away from the mad woman that you were once engaged to. After all, you never did like me very much, even if you pretended to do so before. So shouldn’t you be happy you are free of me?”
Then, with joy searing through her heart even as Sora’s flames ran through her coffee beans, Chiharu looked over Jeord’s shoulder and smiled.
“Next customer please!”