Chapter 5: White butler Sakura: A very special dinner for a very special guest
"We have no need for our past. We only need our present and future" - Ciel Phantomhive, last survivor of the Phantomhive family.
In a large and showy white mansion on the quitter and less densely populated outskirts of Tokyo 3, a sweet smell of close to a thousand expensive and exquisite cuisine ingredients wafted through the kitchens as a young smiling butler rushed here and there checking and rechecking every last oven and every pot in the room.
Not one single dish could be even slightly overcooked or undercooked on this fine evening if she and her master were to make a good impression upon the special guest of honour who they planned to invite here today and who she knew would be coming very soon.
Every last detail of every last dish had to be perfect so that every mouthful would feel like nothing less than the forbidden fruit that grew only on the most mighty tree of the highest cloud in heaven.
Upon finally finishing her detailed observation of the food that would soon be ready, she moved forward to the pile of shiny china which she had carefully arranged by a large sink in the corner of the finely scented smoked room and begun to scrub.
The fancy set of surfaces that were used to serve food for guests and residents alike in the mansion were usually kept squeaky clean but the butler took things to a new level this time applying an extra thick layer of the strongest soaps and disinfectants available from the chemicals cupboard.
"Kills 99.9 percent of bacteria" ordinary dishwashing fluid would simply not do for the dishes and cups that the very important man's very special dinner would be served in. She worried whether even one that killed one hundred percent would be good enough.
His clean and healthy habits which made him unusually attractive and which he and he alone bothered to keep up even in these harsh times of global conflict meant that even the smallest trace of pathogens would not go unnoticed by his incredibly sensitive taste buds.
And the last thing their tired guest needed after a long day of very difficult yet very professional work in which several people nay several countries depended on his life-changing decisions was the slightest sense of discomfort.
Every single piece of cutlery, crockery, and every plate and cup were vigorously scrubbed from every conceivable angle so that by the end of the cleaning session they shone like diamonds.
The same had been done earlier with every floor, wall, furniture piece and just about every other surface in the big house whether it be as conspicuous as the gemstone encrusted chandelier in the dining room or as invisible as the floors beneath every bed of every bedroom and the inside of every toilet as unpleasant a job as the young butler found this.
Walking through the house would have felt like walking through a gemstone cavern where the walls themselves were crafted of bespoken materials for which a single chunk would have broken the bank.
The floors were so sanitary one could have eaten off them.
A pure and calming fragrance filled the air of the completely tidied and sanitised vast halls of the sizeable abode that she was lucky enough to be head servant and the only servant for.
It was no small job taking care of the many rooms in a standard day to day setting and her work that had persisted throughout the day and till now in the late afternoon had strained every last one of her muscles everywhere.
And with how she had been forced to spend most of the morning resting away the last vestiges of a nasty fever which had taken her off work and how even now her hot head still stung a little, she had really outdone even herself today.
Being a kind and understanding woman unlike most of the greedy cheapskates in this rotten city, her master had offered to let her rest peacefully until she recovered her strength.
The compassionate employer had even gone through the trouble of personally making her meals and administering her medicine and relaxation therapies of massages and bedtime stories during the previous few days which an unexpected fever caused by her frail young body and an unusually cold autumn had raged within her, depriving her of the strength needed to optimally perform her daily chores.
And to top it all off, she'd even gotten paid for those days on account of her exceptionally brilliant performance she'd rendered her master's household when in health. What a good woman.
To have done anything but ring her master the instant the clock struck ten and she felt she could move her legs and arms just a little better and tell her that her number one butler was capable of working well today after all and that everything would be completely prepared in time for the VIP guest that had been mentioned earlier that day, would have been completely unladylike of her.
She still didn't feel the best, but she could completely guarantee that what she had left of her sickness was a hundred percent not contagious and that any further attempt to lengthen her paid convalescence would simply be pure laziness and ingratitude at this point.
Such was how the loyalty she had to the woman she served compelled her to act.
The dishes had finally all been finished. A four-course grand banquet featuring a basted twenty ounce turkey complete with roasted potatoes, stuffing and a collection of freshly produced and treated vegetables as the main course and a cherry flavoured ice cream garnished with a luscious set of fine chocolates imported de bruxelles, the chocolatine capital of the world.
And if that previous treat failed to tickle the VIP diner's fancy, she had also readied a backup treat which she was sure he had heard about many times but never been blessed enough to yet taste.
It was eine Schwartzwalder Gateau, a ground-breaking German delicacy whose production had ceased in all but the most prosperous cities in its home nation with a secret formula jealousy kept secret.
She had been forced therefore to create the recipe herself using only minor titbits' from a few websites scattered messily around the internet each containing only vague clues on what such an edible treat might have looked like were it more readily available as guidance.
The creation process had hurt her eyes as much as it had hurt her muscles.
But all this work would more than pay off when the dinner guest who'd soon be arriving graced her and her master with one of his rare smiles.
Being aged but 10 years of age did not qualify as an excuse for that. Not when she had been offered such a prestigious job for an equally prestigious abode.
It was not in the nature of Sakura Suzuhara, butler and royal guard of the Illustrious household to let her master down when it came to matters as vital as seeing to the comfort of a guest whose opinion could make or break the reputation of the good name of the Illustrious lineage of which her master was the sole survivor of.
While her older brother Toji had his stand offs on the bloody battlefields of EVA's against Angels, her battlefield was the dining table on which smart negotiations were held over delicious dinners.
Not the most conventional kind of battlefield if one was seeking to earn recognition she understood, but it was a no less difficult task nonetheless.
Every guest's whims had to be catered to at the snap of a finger and if so much as a hair was out of place, the entire experience was ruined and Sakura had soiled the good Illustrious name which she had promised both master Mari and herself that she would defend with all her might.
Soiled it. Soiled it. Soiled it.
And more importantly perhaps, it was the better kind battlefield that ideally had only winners and no deaths. A shame how NERV did not seem to think so with their brutal ideologies that Sakura all but cursed nightly.
The differences in their polar opposite doctrines did nothing to quell the often very violent arguments she and her brother could not help but break into time and time again and it hurt her just to hear him mentioned let alone return home for even short periods of time without feeling immense discomfort.
The place which had started as but her bread and butter for playing her part in providing money to her financially struggling household which owed NERV a lot of debts despite being underage for most jobs remaining, had all but become the new haven she now called her home instead.
...
Her happiest memory being the day she met Mari.
A cold and windy evening when she'd been turned down for every job offer on account of being "too young" and "too pretty and innocent for the harsh world outside the warm and loving embrace of mummy and daddy" (unbeknownst to them all, her father was a very angry man who was a heavy drinker and given to random bouts of unprovoked rage in which furniture from all over their meagre abode was smashed) even after she had gone to every job office in Tokyo Three begging and pleading that she'd take any job they had no matter how unpleasant.
"Go home to your mummy and daddy, kid, you're too young."
"You? Work? With those tiny arms you couldn't survive a day on this job"
"Shouldn't you be in school right now, you little brat?"
"Ha ha ha. Oh wait you're serious about finding work with your weak and tiny body. Well let me laugh even harder. HAHAHAHA!"
Her father had forbidden her from coming home unless she could prove to him that she could find employment and earn her keep in the financially struggling family.
It was that or be kicked out onto the streets to beg until she starved. Her father didn't care one bit.
NERV had become even more stingy with the extraordinary protection fees it demanded from everyone and the discount along with the tiny salary Toji received as a pilot in NERV was failing to make ends meet.
This had only worsened the gruff their father had landed himself into ever since their mother had been hit with a NERV escort truck which had been in too great of a rush to see the unfortunate woman who was crossing the street perfectly carefully and responsibly.
And it went without saying that NERV being NERV, gave her family, zero compensation.
Sakura and Toji's mother died because the family didn't have enough money to afford her high medical bills for the operation that would have saved her life. The hospitals too had been sucked dry by NERV's taxes and in turn was forced to charge higher and higher prices per operation.
So when Sakura's father had run into the reception fists flailing while demanding they heal his beloved and his children's loving mother despite his insufficient funds, the emotionless man simply repeated word for word the section in the hospital's terms and conditions which clearly stated that only patients who had a sponsor able to afford the bills were to be given any further treatment whatsoever.
Not long after, the dying woman's life support machine was switched off and this had incited a violent frenzy from her broken husband who was simply zapped with a taser and promptly thrown out the hospital to where his two anxious children were waiting for him. (Children were not generally allowed into the hospital)
Sakura and Toji had very reluctantly dragged the unconscious form of their father home knowing that the instant he re-awoke, his remaining righteous fury would be taken out on them.
Their grim predictions had been absolutely correct despite their youth and naivete and Sakura still remembered vividly the intense beating her father had delivered to her the moment his eyes reopened and the first thing he saw was her tending carefully to his wearied body.
He had become a heavy drinker since then and this had tightened the strings on their already strained purse even more and it was for this reason, he had demanded his daughter bring him some money as well or be booted from his presence evermore.
But Sakura knew her family members too well to know that the actual reason he had sent her out on this pointless quest was because of the unfortunate fact that she had her mother's hair and eyes and her father could not look at her without being reminded of the woman he had lost to austerity and greed.
He wasn't nearly this bad to Toji and even continued to give some degree of fatherly love to her brother.
Something that the brother in question could not help but rub in her face a little much to her eternal heartbreak.
It was as if even a brother as dear and loyal as her Toji was blaming her for this traumatic incident she had zero control over and which she would never have wished even upon her worst enemy.
No affection from her now dead mother.
No love from her forever broken father.
No respect from her now vindictive and showboating brother.
A flower without sunshine doomed to perish in darkness, unwanted and unloved by anyone despite doing nothing wrong.
The negative emotions which had bottled themselves up over the tragic years became too much and after being ushered out of the twenty fifth job office and told not to come back till she was a lot older that Sakura could not help but cry bitterly into her dirty shirt.
She pounded her forehead with one tightly balled fist and punched the air with the other while groups of wealthy aristocrats garbed in fancy passed her by without so much as a glance in her direction.
The last job centre had had the esoteric eccentricity of being located on a promenade in the upper crust part of the city and upper crusts were not known for their compassion in the slightest.
It was here where the one out of the ordinary woman she would come to call her master came upon her.
"It's okay" the still crying girl heard from what seemed like back of her mind. "It's okay." The voice was calming and caring yet simultaneously fun and charming.
She felt a caring hand pat her back and through her tears she saw two bright brown eyes regarding her with genuine concern for her plight.
The eyes of Mari Makinami illustrious. Her future employer.
The next moment through her sorrow and between sobs, Sakura spilled her guts to the stranger who at least seemed trustworthy enough.
She told the brown haired woman with glasses about how her father and brother had all but disowned her and her quest for any kind of work which could put even the smallest pile of pennies into her empty pockets.
She remembered her utter jubilation and ecstasy of joy at her master's reply to her plea.
"You can come and work for me. I have this mansion which could certainly use some work. And since my work takes up a great deal of my life, your presence there would be invaluable since I see from the honesty of your expression that you are a good worker.
You wouldn't have to do much. Just tidy everything and occasionally run a few simple errands for me and in return, I'll give you more than enough money to feed your entire family and room and board as well. No strings attached, I promise, and you can start right now if you want."
A cheerful nod and a few brief introductions later Sakura Suzuhara became butler Sakura Suzuhara, head servant (and only servant) of the Illustrious family.
A warm bed and top-grade food as well as a thick wad of notes at every pay review enough to tint her father and brother's fingernails with gold figuratively speaking while leaving herself enough to afford all her wants leaving no obstacle to her happiness.
So long as she honoured the three sacred promises she'd made to Mari.
That she would never lie to or betray her master, for the fall of every great friendship begun with the lack of honesty between two parties.
That she would always follow her orders without question, save for when she believed that Mari's decision would do more harm than good in which case promise one took precedence.
It was this fundamental rule, Mari had taught her which separated truly good people from two groups of do-gooders who only professed to do good but in reality didn't even know the meaning of good.
The herd of obedient cattle that the evil overlords of the world were herding into straight into a death trap through their so called "rules"
And the inconsiderate anarchists who took no advice from anyone even those who only wanted the best for them and thus could never build lasting partnerships living and dying alone.
Balance was the vital aspect of life that NERV had neglected in its corrosive regimen to "bring order to an uncivilised and backwards world", Mari once explained over a glass of warm herbal tea.
Then there was rule three. A rule that Sakura could never fully promise that she could follow to the letter. But it was the rule that truly proved that her master was nothing short of an ideal paragon of honour.
If worst came to worst and if they both were stranded on a sinking ship where only one space in one lifeboat remained, then Sakura was to leave Mari and save herself so that she might continue her master's work for her in her absence.
The feeling of mutual and requited trust. A thing more valuable than all the gold and jewels in the world. A feeling more important than friendship and even love.
A feeling the world had disregarded and in doing so caused its own downfall.
...
But now was not the time for any more sentimentally, Sakura jauntily thought to herself as she finished setting the table with all the dishes she had prepared to an exact science.
And with no more chores for her to do till Mari and her star guest none other than the magnificent one-man army Shinji Ikari returned, she could do as she wished.
Sakura first rushed to the nearest bathroom to check herself over. The house looking like heaven itself made no impact whatsoever if she wasn't fully presentable herself.
A thin but not malnourished ten-year girl with brown eyes and hair down to her shoulder proudly stared back at her through polished glass.
With her appearance checked and carefully cleaned, Sakura jogged merrily downstairs to put on a song that she could dance and sing to until the guest arrived.
"Don't worry Shinji." Sakura firmly insisted. "Mari helped me. She can help you too."