You can probably blame my busy week working on an application and another kitchen fire for the long upload! (My computer was down on power so I had to get that fixed).
Anyway, here's another chapter for your pleasure! A sirop de grenadine and Pinap berry cocktail will be served to dawnleaf1234 and LEGAL-EAGLE53 to complement this chapter. Enjoy!
This chapter is created as a result of the positive feedback on my characters Sophie and Laurent, with some inspiration from Fire Emblem.
Chapter twenty-seven: Serious Eyes
For Sophie, being a member of the Château Fan Club had its benefits. There were plenty of Pokémon battles included with the club gatherings, which was fun, but what she most enjoyed was participating in heated arguments pertaining to who would emerge victorious in a given round. Almost every time, she and Laurent would get into heated debates over who would win or the odds of winning. At one point, they had completely embarrassed a particular challenger such that he was forced to retire.
They loved the architecture of the château as well, and if they thought it was worthy of Rischissime Stars, they would have given it at least two. As dreamy as it was, many people wouldn't agree with them, as these stars were reserved exclusively for dining, anyway.
So it came down to the following morning, exactly three weeks since the opening of Vue sur la Lune, Laurent and Sophie went to Steven's office. Business probably was impacted due to the ongoing media coverage of the restaurant, and it really wasn't busy.
That was also a good thing too, because whatever happened yesterday – or whatever was told – clearly had an impact on Steven. He showed up to the restaurant looking overwhelmed, and he was trying to cover it up with his tiredness.
But despite what had happened, James had arrived that morning to give the staff good news. The critic from the day before, Marie LeBlanc, had published a review in Lumiose Press with regards to the Stone Open. An excellent review of the dish comprehending aspects of quality and creativity were among its merits.
"…and for this reason, perhaps the Stone Bistro ought to be worthy of a Rischissime Star, if the hotel ever chooses to stop by to award one," James had read out. He put down the paper to face the staff, all with anticipating eyes. "Okay, that might mean that we may be facing a great deal of work tonight, so I want things ready."
"However, le chef expects the day to be busier to be busier tomorrow anyway, when the review sinks in," James added. "For now, we carry on business as usual, and I'm glad to see the media has left us alone a little at last."
Now, Laurent and Sophie were across from their boss, with a desk separating them from him. Steven alone was standing around. His eyes looked tired, but Sophie could detect a sense of relief radiating from him. Well, perhaps the review did its part to lift up his spirits.
The boss eventually sat down, and pulled out what looked like a file detailing construction blueprints. Laurent sat down next, followed by Sophie.
"Is there something you need, vous deux?" Steven asked.
Looking at each other first, Laurent and Sophie looked back, with the latter saying, "Laurent and I have a reeeeeeally important meeting to go to at the Battle Château. We'd like some time off so we can do just that! Can we? Can we?"
Steven didn't look up from the blueprint file.
"I seriously doubt you can, at this point in time," he said. "Haven't you started your shift already? Why is it that you have to go together?"
Sophie eyed Laurent for a moment, whereas Laurent did the answering. "It's just that important, Mr. Stone."
"Besides, you can always go after work. Just how important is it?" Steven asked.
"Really important," Sophie quickly replied, her voice slowing becoming louder. "I'm totally serious! Look into my eyes, Mr. Stone…"
Sighing, Steven put down the file and looked up. He suddenly gulped when Sophie suddenly leaned across the desk to have her nose nearly touching his own. His eyes pretty much had no choice but to look into hers.
"These are the eyes of a serious girl," Sophie said, pointing at both of her eyes. "See it? See it?"
Steven held his breath.
"These are the eyes of a girl showing she can handle working and playing at the same time."
Did her eyes look like they were trying to pierce into his soul? It looked like it, because Sophie was trying really hard to look straight into him. Or was it Steven trying to look into those eyes? They looked happy, angry, and serious.
"These are the eyes of a girl who is passionate of what she knows."
Steven blinked.
"These are… SERIOUS EYES!"
Steven hung his head and clapped a hand over his eyes. Afterwards he looked up, and stood up. It wasn't before long that he had walked over to the door to show his receptionists out.
"Alright, you two have the day off," Steven said tiredly, and the response he got was a pair of delighted faces. "You'll have to come back to check on your replacement later, though. If you two slack off and don't come back here to check, I'm afraid I'll have to threaten you both with overtime."
Laurent and Sophie pinched their thumbs and index fingers together, and with very, very, wide smiles. "Okay!" they said together and soon afterwards had left the office and were on their way outside. On the way out, they approached the entrance doors and stopped at the same time, as if they were being courteous to each other.
Laurent opened the door and bowed to Sophie.
"Tu as la dame," he said gently. Sophie giggled and took the offer to head out first.
Steven, on the other hand, made an internal phone call to the floor above.
"Martine," he said. "You're needed at the foyer."
It wasn't before long that Martine Grenadine arrived ten minutes later with… Metagross. Steven shook his head upon seeing his Pokémon joining in.
"Metagross, you're needed to help the customers," Steven ordered. "Martine can take care of what's going on here herself."
"What's going on here?" Martine repeated playfully, and Steven shot Martine a glare – as usual as it may be to the redhead.
"You're taking over receptionist duty until Laurent and Sophie come back," Steven instructed. "They have business to attend to."
Steven had well expected Martine to either comply or complain (most likely the latter) but instead, he got a grin from the 19-year old.
"They're going on a date, no doubt about it," she said. "You should learn something from them, boss! You see, these are how relationships develop. You know, you start with a certain someone –"
He turned away so as to not hear any more of it, because he had other things to attend to like that blueprint he was reading… Unfortunately, he could hear the evident giggling from Martine and the metallic laugh from Metagross. Even though he had gotten a good review from a critic, the impact was minimal compared to what everyone else making of him and Cynthia at this point.
With Winona supplying him the most unbelievable information ever, Steven still found it hard to believe it. Cynthia using one of his wines in a fondue? Just how was it possible? But still, perhaps this had something to do with… to do with… what happened in the wine cellar…
I'm probably overthinking it, Steven thought. I better focus on more important things.
With that, Steven went back to his office to retrieve the blueprint file. Construction outside the ground floor, on the restaurant side facing the ocean, was progressive and being done faster than anticipated. While James was leading the cooks in the kitchens, Steven saw this as an opportunity to get things done.
But as it happened as he walked to the first floor where the construction project was still ongoing, Martine was simply bored and ended up making a phone call to Lisia. Well, this was the result of putting Martine on receptionist duty! Just how could Steven trust her to do it? He should have left it to James. Oh right, James was in the kitchens.
Under the clear blue skies and a majestic lake, the Battle Château stood proudly on Route 7. Given its relatively close location to Cyllage City, it served as an excellent attraction for tourists passing the route in addition to Cyllage City serving the best cuisine in the west of Kalos. For Cyllage City locals, it was conveniently close, and the grand Lumiose City was just a mere stroll away.
A Hawlucha and a Clauncher were sparring with each other a short distance away from the front of the stone building. The weather, cloudless, set the backdrop of perfect conditions.
A torrent of water shot and nearly missed Hawlucha had the wrestling Pokémon not sidestepped to avoid it. Clauncher, seeing the dodge, then went for a close range attack via smashing against Hawlucha head-on. Alas, the smash was resisted by Hawlucha holding back with equal force.
"Okay, that's enough!" the supervisor said. "There'll be plenty more battles to come round! The club comes first!"
Immediately, Hawlucha and Clauncher were recalled into their respective Poké Balls by their respective trainers. Specifically and respectively, Laurent and Sophie. Afterwards, Laurent went to Sophie to kneel in front of her, whilst taking her hand to kiss it. No doubt it was a mock play.
"That was a good battle, my duchess," Laurent said.
"You can rise, my duke," Sophie replied, and rolling her eyes.
"Alright, alright, there will be plenty of cozy time later! Club! Now!" the supervisor barked.
The Château Fan Club had assembled outside the facility. There were tables and tents set up as well as refreshments to be prepared after the club had assembled. The club had secured top-class Richissime-starred desserts for a slightly reduced price which was beneficial, but the chef had insisted it was a promotion. Plus, the chef said she would personally serve the refreshments herself.
As fans of the Battle Château, it was their obligation to know just about everything about it including who were the day's competitors. The club had assembled beside the tent, with the supervisor ensuring everyone was accounted for.
"Assemblement! S'il vous plait!" she shouted as everyone stood where they needed to. "Okay, so let's begin our meeting with a pop quiz! How long has the Château been around for?"
"Quinze ans," someone said.
"Tu as raison," the supervisor replied. "Okay, so let's move onto the next thing on the agenda. Does everyone have a canvas?"
Laurent turned his head to see the organisers set up canvases against the lake, with a set of palettes and paintbrushes at each one. Not needing any further instruction, the fan club moved towards getting each of their hands on a canvas. Sophie and Laurent were lucky enough to get a pair of canvases side-by-side.
"Okay, now I want all of you to paint a painting of the Battle Château with the lake included, and the best painting will get points," the supervisor instructed. "By the end of this session, whoever has the most points will be named 'Fan Château du Mois' and as a reward gets to keep the club trophy for a week. Okay? Vous avez vingt minutes. Allez!"
Sophie picked up her palette and brush first.
Steven had just received word from Martine that at least ten customers had dropped by, not a party, to test out the Stone Open. Pleased with this news, Steven forwarded the message to James to have the dishes prepared. As Steven was busy managing construction of the terrace, he had to get his priorities straight. The customer was important, but Steven decided his restaurant would have a bad appeal if the project was left unattended.
Metagross wasn't impressed leaving the customers either, but it had to be done. In support of construction activities, Aggron was sent to do the heavy lifting. As his Pokémon were supporting, in addition to the construction company's Pangoro, there was no need for heavy equipment. For the record, the frames were in place, and Steven predicted that at the pace they were going at – in addition to installing the material – the terrace would be nearly complete by the end of the day.
Like the restaurant itself before it, Steven had been through the legal and financial processes of construction before. It was a small gamble, but Steven predicted customers would be very happy if they could sit against the Kalos seaside. Plus, Steven might as well charge the tables there just slightly more. With the project approved by Cyllage City, the project went ahead as planned.
The flooring was just starting to take place, whereas the terrace would have a wood-framed cover to act as shade for the terrace itself, or protection from sunlight.
You've done quite a bit already, James, Steven thought. James clearly had been busy, and now all Steven had to do was complete the remaining half of the terrace. Overall, the terrace was flourishing, and what Steven hoped was that the rewards would come to fruition eventually.
Meanwhile, Martine came to realise the number of customers had slowed down a lot within the past hour. It was scary at first to have a rush of ten customers come in at once, and all at separate tables no less, but the storm was over. All the work now was left to the servers and cooks. Martine also hadn't had a phone call come in for a while either. She supposed it just wasn't that busy today.
She sometimes wondered how Laurent and Sophie managed to pass the time so efficiently doing a desk job. Perhaps this was how their relationship began! Oh, it was so obvious! Or, even better, they knew about it before their relationship started! They were going on a date, after all!
Perhaps the boss and her ought to get a desk job together, Martine thought. Now that's wishful thinking.
Overall, she was bored. But Martine's thoughts were interrupted by the approaching footsteps of… none other than Lisia.
"Hi, friend!" Lisia greeted happily, while slapping a hand on the counter. Martine looked up, and grinned.
"Winona and Wallace not with you aujourd'hui?" Martine asked.
"That's right. They went over to Vue sur la Lune for lunch," Lisia said. "Say, have you heard anything from your boss lately?"
Martine's eyes glinted. Finally. Something to talk about.
"Didn't you say yesterday we could try forcing him to speak?" she said, grinning. "Unfortunately, mon amie, he is very, very, busy and has no time today. Plus, I can't do anything while I'm behind this desk."
"That's why I thought we could try making the woman speak," Lisia suggested. "When you have time, let's go over there and force her to speak! Plus, my uncle is there, so we have all the backup we need, oui?"
Martine smiled. Evilly. "Oui."
"Okay, we're done," the supervisor said. "Brushes down, now!"
Sophie and Laurent finished their paintings almost simultaneously, but when they had a good look at each other's' work, they were silenced. Apart from Sophie using a midnight blue background with stars and Laurent using a sunset orange with darkened clouds, the angles they painted of the château were near identical.
Even their fellow club members, who were skimming over everyone's work, could notice the similarities.
"Did the two of you work on these together?" someone asked. "Because they certainly look the same!"
It had taken not a long time for the club organisers went around to evaluate each painting. Walking along with clipboards in hand, they took about three minutes per painting to determine scores. However, the lone exception was when they got to Sophie and Laurent's paintings.
"Can you explain, you two, why these paintings look exactly the same?" the supervisor questioned.
Laurent shrugged, but Sophie answered, "That's what happens when you're the most devoted fans of the Battle Château. Our paintings are so perfect that we made identical ones, right?"
The supervisor looked at Sophie questionably, but Sophie leaned closer to her face, saying, "I'm totally serious! See that? See that? These are the eyes of a serious painter."
Laurent was speechless, and so was the supervisor.
"These are the eyes of a fan showing her passion for the château."
The supervisor drew a flat smile.
"These are… SERIOUS EYES!"
It looked like there was a staring contest going on, at least to Sophie.
"Grrrr…" Sophie's eyes began to turn red. "I'm not – gonna – blink –!"
"The only thing serious here is you're getting in the way of the evaluation, Sophie," she replied. "Stand aside, s'il vous plait."
Laurent hung his head with a grin, and although Sophie shot Laurent a hurt face, the evaluation was done in minutes. Seconds later, Sophie shook Laurent's shoulder.
"Tu n'es pas m'aider, Laurent," she said, frustrated and pulling a bit of hair behind her ear.
"Je m'excuse," Laurent replied. "Let's just go to the next event. What was it again? Ah yes, the matches are going to start. We need to go in now, Sophie."
The entire club seemed in agreement, but the supervisor and the organisers weren't letting them off that easily. Before anyone could make a move, they had the paintings evaluated and over with. Scores were taped on the side of each painting.
"They're marked out of ten," Sophie remarked. "We… have the same scores, my friend."
Laurent wasn't surprised. For two paintings that coincidentally happened to be near identical, save for a different colour of sky and water, it seemed appropriate to award the same score of huit. Instead, he drew his attention to the Battle Château itself. Perhaps there would be more points to gather once the matches began.
Speaking of which, their points, compared to the others, meant that the two of them were tied for the lead with about a few others. However, that wasn't the only thing that caught their attention. Everyone was having a good look at the near identical paintings.
"One would think they were made for each other," someone whispered.
"Oh, be quiet," Sophie snapped.
"Be quiet is right!" the supervisor barked. "Consider our next event for points! Head to the tables, now! I want everyone to draw a map of the entire château's interior, and we'll give points for the best one!"
Pencils, erasers, and rulers had been generously supplied by the fan club as they were laid out in piles on the tables. Quickly, everyone got to work, as they had a limited amount of time on the clock. Something like twenty minutes. Whilst Sophie started preliminary sketching, Laurent stared at the paper as if visualising what he was going to do.
Don't you just love how intense Sophie's eyes are? With all the construction going on and a kitchen fire to clean up, I'm afraid there will be nothing much served this chapter. However, I'm sure you've had your fill from previous chapters! Have a cup of tea as you wait for the next one. Favourite, follow, or review. They are much appreciated!