Day 57

One day before the opening. That means a different type of preparation.

I wouldn't say we've become baking experts, but at the very least we should be able to hold our ground-at least somewhat-and expect Chansey's egg-based recipes to do the heavy lifting for us. Because if they don't, I've got zero confidence in us making a profit.

But with my attention away from the kitchen for once, I have the time to spare to make the place look presentable. God knows why I never bothered working on the layout before today.

The bakery's counter had an L-shaped form, covering most of the wall connecting to the kitchen and storage rooms, and a small part of the one adjacent. It provided plenty of space to sell and display products behind the counter, which after careful consideration, should be enough for tomorrow.

After dusting off the behind-the-counter section, carefully turning on and off all of the refrigerated appliances, and making sure I at least knew the basics of each one of them, I felt comfortable enough to move to a different task.

The bakery wasn't small; the counter didn't even occupy a quarter of the space. The rest featured mostly wooden displays for customers to choose from a variety of bread or other goods being sold at the time. Its wooden and somewhat rustic design held up quite well.

But that was a problem.

I didn't initially give this much thought, but it slowly made its way into my mind the closer we got to the opening. There is no way we will be able to fill all the available displays in the bakery for the opening day. Not only do we not have the manpower (or pokemonpower), but I refuse to plan without having a firm grasp of the clientele I'll be dealing with.

'It'll be weird, but we will leave half of the shop empty for the first couple of weeks until I can think of something.'

It annoyed me, plain and simple, but there was no way around it. Perhaps I should've listened to Monty and gotten another Pokemon to help me out, but that didn't sound like a smart solution for the short term.

For now, we will just store the wooden displays and focus on those on the counter. Our front display should and will be our best weapon on the first day, everything else takes a backseat.

Without further ado, I grabbed one of the four available wooden displays from both sides and tried carrying them to the second floor. Needless to say, I only made it halfway into the kitchen before Chansey stopped her baking to give me a curious look.

"It's heavier than expected," I said before pointing at the displays left in the kitchen. "Think you could help me, Chansey?"

As expected, Chansey wasted no time and grabbed the displays with ease, carrying them as if it took her no effort. Granted, I hadn't made the time to build muscle since I got here, but even so, those things were not exactly light.

'Sometimes I forget how incredibly strong they are.'

The thought came to me as I saw Chansey nearly prancing with the wooden furniture in hand, carefully dodging doors and kitchen machinery as she carried it to the temporary storage room we had on the second floor.

I sighed, 'Next time I'm leaving the heavy lifting- no, any type of lifting to her. My ego is already nonexistent anyway.'

It is taking me time to fully accept what Pokemon are capable of. While my memories from the games are faint at best, my new reality forces me to recognize what they can truly do with different eyes. Not only are they stupidly strong, but also durable to the point where I can't avoid questioning what their physiology is like.

I remember staying up late while watching one of the many conferences on one of the League channels. The amount of power and punishment Pokemon can dish out is something of another world. Which is obvious given my predicament.

I didn't care much about who was winning the battle, but the display of power was something I had a hard time believing at first. The fact they allow us to command them to battle is also something I question.

This kind of thing makes me wonder how humans ended up at the top of the food chain of this world. Did the Pokemon just let them do it, or do they have no interest in overcoming humans?

So many questions, and even after looking them up, the most common answer by professors and researchers alike tended to be vague: placing focus on the bonds with humans, and how Pokemon understood balance in nature better than us.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I spent a great deal of time researching the topic.

After looking into it for hours I concluded that I didn't understand jackshit so I let it be.

Even then, I'm in no position to judge, nor do I have the time to question it. It was the outcome of a short-lived interest.

Back to the topic at hand.

I don't have any knowledge of how the placement of the product will affect sales. I know it can happen, but little else, so I'll come up with something for now and change it later if something better comes up.

Both moomoo milk and berry jam will share their display, one of the two close to the door. I should have enough of them to fill it, even though having a display with only jam and milk won't provide much variety.

The one next to them will have donuts. Learning to use the donut fryer was easier than expected, and the time spent preparing them was short. I've not experimented with them much, so simple glazed donuts will do for now, especially after Monty told me they are money-makers since kids love them.

It's worth keeping in mind that the donut dough was store-bought, I didn't bother making it myself, but I'll keep a mental note to give it a try later.

After that, the order matters little, but I want to separate the bread with eggs from the ones without. Mostly because all the eggs we used are Chansey's, and that is a selling point I'm not going to ignore. Not when they are expensive for a good reason.

That said, not many breads have them, so we are low on variety right now. We only have brioche, pudding, and a couple of muffins from a recipe we found not too long ago.

And on the 'normal' side we have everything else, which should use no more than two displays. Or maybe I could put them all in one. I might need to give it more thought, but this will do for now.

By the time I had the layout figured out, Chansey returned, showing barely any sign of fatigue as she stood there looking at me.

"Chansey, nice timing. Did you place everything in the storage room?"

She nodded.

"Awesome, I'm almost done figuring everything out here. I'll let you know the order of the products in a minute, but for now, I need your help with something else." I reached for a white plastic bag placed on top of the counter. "I need you to help me with the price tags. I tried looking if Monty had any from last time, but couldn't find a thing, so I bought some from a nearby supply store. You know, the one with the Comfey."

Chansey made a small gesture as if she was trying to remember the store. She had never gone in before, but we walked in front of it a couple of times.

"Anyway, we need to manually write the price tags." I made a small pause to look at her, confusion surfacing on her face. "I know you can't write, but you can still help me out with that." I took some colored papers and a few markers of different colors from the bag. "Since some of the bread is made with your eggs, I thought you would be interested in adding some decorations. What do you say, wanna give it a try?"

With how her expression shifted from a concerned frown to her usual happy face, her response was obvious.

I handed her the materials. At first, she seemed lost on what to do, but she let her creativity flow shortly afterward. I focused on writing the names and price tags on different, less colorful, pieces of paper.

'How do we stick this to the glass anyway?'

I finished mine fairly quickly, while Chansey didn't seem quite done with hers. I took advantage of the extra time to give the equipment an additional check-up.

The refrigerated displays worked fine, and the same was true for the fridges behind them, even if we had no plans to use them. What concerned me was the cash register. The thing wasn't too old — thankfully — but the instructions were impossible to understand at first glance. I had to modify the entries for each product and just thinking about it made me wince. I had to push my laziness aside and drag myself through the instructions.

Aside from that, everything should be good to go. I already gave the place a quick sweep in the morning, both inside and outside. The only thing left to do is to have the dough ready for tomorrow.

I felt something pull my shirt from behind.

Chansey was holding a couple of drawings in her hand, pushing them to my face.

"You're done? Well, well, aren't you quite the artist."

Chansey smiled and scratched the side of her head in embarrassment.

I took the drawings from her hands. There weren't many, but some of them surprised me. Sure, it wasn't a Picasso-level painting by any means, but it would be a disservice to her if I didn't recognize that it was far from average, at least in my eyes.

The lines were neatly drawn, the sizes and shapes fitted the paper perfectly, not to mention the selected colors worked just fine, even with the limited amount of materials she had to work with.

And what was the drawing exactly?

From what I could tell, Chansey drew herself holding one of her eggs, raising it as high as possible, and in a typical Chansey manner, there was a big smile drawn on her face. Each drawing is slightly different, which I assume she did to give me the option to select the one I wanted.

"Not going to lie, these look great. However, we only need a few, two of them should be good enough," I told Chansey as I looked through the drawings, "But we'll save them for later, we might find a use for them."

'I'll probably put them on the fridge door.'

Adding the price tags was an easy thing to do, we only required a bit of duct tape to make it work. Although half of the displays will remain empty, I hope it won't look too bad, and business won't be affected. A customer's perception can be a dangerous thing.

Once it was all done, we gave the display, and anything behind the counter, a clean sweep and moved off to the kitchen to prepare the dough for tomorrow. The big day was almost here.

Day 58 (THE BIG DAY)

I could barely catch any sleep, my mind had been out of control the entire night, not because of excitement but out of stress.

All the things that could go wrong flashed in my mind one after the other. This was a first for me, I've been in big events before, where I was a participant, but I never experienced something like this. One could say it's because the situation is different than back then.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and turned to the alarm clock on the nightstand. 3:33 AM.

'The witching hour, great, off to a good start.'

At this point, trying to sleep any longer would be fruitless. I quickly left the bed, turning off the alarm I had prepared in advance and leaving for the kitchen. I left Chansey's ball on the nightstand since she was probably still sleeping. If it was necessary I would wake her up later.

Since it was early I went ahead and prepared myself a more or less decent breakfast. I had thought I wouldn't have the time for it, but now I did.

We planned on opening the bakery at 7:00 AM, but to do so we would have to be up at least four hours earlier to get everything ready. Especially today.

I also prepared Chansey's breakfast, which wasn't particularly complicated. Normally Pokemon are fine eating human food, but their ideal nourishment isn't contained in your everyday meal, so it's highly encouraged— although some suspect it's some sort of global market scam— to buy dedicated Pokemon food, which is sold everywhere. The food can then be accompanied by condiments, berries, meat, or any other food normally consumed by humans.

Pokemon nutritionists must be making a killing out there.

I started breakfast once everything was set, not expecting Chansey to wake up anytime soon. 'I might have to wake her up myself.'

In the meantime, I had a quick rundown of all the things we had to do.

Today's dough should be done with the second rise, so preparing the bread should be the easy part. What concerns me is the… social part of the job.

Up until now, all we had to do was prepare the dough and bake, any other aspect of the job came as a 'thought for later'.

It's not like dealing with people that worries me much. If the interactions I had so far are anything to go by, people are incredibly nice in this world. It certainly makes you wonder.

Yet, a customer service position was dreaded by many as far as I'm concerned, so I can't help but be worried about it.

'Maybe if I place Chansey in charge of the counter and I stick to the kitchen…' I shook my head, I couldn't just put Chansey in that position. As caring and gentle as she was, I'm sure customers would have questions she might not be able to answer.

"So it must be me, huh?"

I sat there, wondering how the day was going to play out as I ate breakfast in silence. It took me a couple of seconds to realize Chansey had walked into the kitchen at some point.

She had mindlessly walked into the kitchen for a glass of milk, dragging her feet and sitting next to me afterward. I had gotten used to her morning drowsiness.

"Morning."

In a very zombie-like manner, Chansey returned the greeting, and sat in front of me, seeing as her breakfast was already served. This was her usual routine in the first hour of the morning.

I took another spoonful of cereal. It was dry as hell, even after adding extra milk to the bowl. I'm not buying this again.

I waited for a bit for Chansey to get her bearings. Waking up isn't easy, even for Pokemon.

"So, how are you feeling about today Chansey? Ready for the real thing?" I asked while still chewing the cereal, a more challenging task than it needed to be.

"Chansey, chan!" Although without her usual energy, she still managed to send a smile my way with what I assumed was a positive answer.

"Same here. Let's hope for a day without complications," I said before taking one last sip from my cup of coffee.

Chansey mimicked me, by raising her bottle of milk and gulping the whole thing down in one go.

With the breakfast out of the way, we got into our uniforms and moved downstairs towards the bakery's kitchen.

The uniform wasn't exactly a uniform, just an apron in a pale-brown hue with a tea towel hanging by one of its pockets. However, in Chansey's case, we had to make some small adjustments to her apron since she didn't want her egg to be covered by it. Besides that, I wore a shirt and jeans. Monty said it wasn't necessary to wear a 'professional' outfit, especially when it was only the two of us. I obliged, I didn't mind it as long as I was comfortable.

The kitchen routine was the same, we got everything ready and started baking today's dough. The main difference was the amount we had to prepare and that we had a deadline to have it all ready.

No more 'chill baking.'

'It was nice while it lasted.'

"Okay Chansey, let's get this done," I let Chansey know as we took out the first mass of dough from the fridge.

"Chansey!"

Organizing which dough should be prioritized was a pain and I regretted not planning it out sooner. In the end, our baking order was based on time, sales expectations, and taste. Everything would be fine as long as we got to meet the self-imposed quota for the day. Luckily for us, the dough could be prepared a day before, even if not all of it.

Another point worth mentioning about our products was that they could be easily separated into three groups: bread with no eggs, bread with eggs, and the rest. The last category was reserved for donuts and anything else that wasn't produced in the bakery. I counted on the last category expanding in the future.

As for the rest, we ended up working with recipes we had confidence in not fucking up, and the ones that ranked high on our 'taste tests.'

That left us with the following for the 'egg-less' category: white bread, whole grain bread, crusty rolls, ciabatta, focaccia, sourdough, and stottie cakes. Given the available time and hands, we were forced to cut corners, which ended up being nearly half of what I'd intended. 'It's a shame because I wanted to bake crumpets.'

Those types of bread were meant to be slow-moving products, at least compared to the egg-based ones, although that had yet to be properly tested on the field. I was only going with that line of thought because of how valuable Chansey's eggs were, which I assumed was true of anything that used them as ingredients. The same would be true of every other product taking a backseat in the bakery.

Or so we speculated.

When it came to bread made with Chansey's eggs, we tried to narrow it down as much as possible, while keeping some variety. In the end, we decided to go with white bread, brioche, naan, teacakes, and Alolan Sweet Bread.

It wasn't a foolproof plant, but I was proud of it even if it was made at the last minute.

"This batch should be ready in a bit Chansey," I let her know as she passed next to me, carrying a bowl filled with dough over her head. "Are you done with the next one?"

"Chan Chan!" she squealed as she increased her pace, masterfully keeping the balance of the bowl over her head.

Things were holding up so far. I liked to believe our rush and panic were due to the day being our first day rather than the norm.

I let out a sigh as I finished adding the pimples to the focaccia dough, only to notice I had forgotten the oil, which I could have sworn I had with me a moment earlier.

"Chansey, have you seen the Arboliva Oil? I had it with me a moment ago," I asked the egg pokemon. However, my eyes remained on the work table as I placed another focaccia dough on a new tray.

A few seconds later, Chansey's words echoed from the storage room, followed by a flying bottle thrown in my direction. I swiftly managed to catch it in the air with only one hand, just by spotting it at the corner of my eye.

'How did I even do that, what the hell?'

Not long after, the focaccia was done and ready for the oven, but that only meant moving to the next task. The clock waited for no one.

I'd love to say everything else came along just fine, which it kind of did, but the pressure blinded my perception of things.

That could be seen in Chansey too, as she frantically ran from one corner of the kitchen to another, carrying dough, utensils, ingredients, or simply hurrying up to check if the ovens were properly tuned before we baked coal.

"Will it be like this every day?" I might want to reconsider my career choices.

I shook the thought from my head. It wasn't the time for negativity, so I'd leave that for later.

The baking process kept going for a bit longer, and we managed to keep the chaos in the kitchen to a minimum. We had a couple of casualties in the form of accidents that cost us dough and a batch of white bread, but it wasn't a big deal.

As soon as a batch was ready, we placed it on racks to cool off for a bit and then transported them to the main area where we dumped them on the display.

When I returned to the kitchen after transporting a second batch of freshly baked bread, I looked at a small clock placed on the counter.

6:34 AM

'What! Already this late?!"

I stormed my way into the kitchen, startling the poor Chansey in the process, who nearly dropped a bowl of dough.

"The donuts Chansey" I nearly screamed as I approached the fryer on the other side of the kitchen. "We forgot about the donuts!"

Chansey's expression became the literal definition of a question mark for a bit.

She jumped in a panic once she had processed what I was saying, not knowing what to do with herself.

If it wasn't for our situation, I would've probably laughed.

"It's fine… I think." I told her as I managed to turn the fryer on. "We still have some time to make them in time. In the worst-case scenario, one of us will stay here and prepare them."

"Chansey Chansey!" She squinted her eyes at me, the angriest expression she was able to muster.

"Hey, it's not a big deal, bread is the main attraction after all, donuts were just a last-minute addition."

The oval pokemon let out a sigh and relaxed her posture.

"We're still close to opening hours so let's hurry it up," I mentioned after taking a quick look at my watch.

Her relaxed posture vanished as fast as it appeared.

The both of us stood in the middle of the bakery, admiring hours of hard work, minutes away from opening to the public.

The time spent working on making the bakery presentable, the hours of baking practice, the work on layout and decoration, and even the confidence placed on us by Monty. All of it added up to this moment, as well as the foreseeable future hopefully.

"Well Chansey, are you ready?"

"Chan—Sey!" She beamed at me.

I approached the storefront and took a quick look outside without opening the door. Not a soul could be seen.

'Well, I wasn't expecting a crowd but this is a bit disheartening.'

I switched the wood sign hanging from the inside of the door from 'close' to 'open'.

A small part of me expected the place to be crowded as soon as I switched it, in a cartoonish kind of way. I'm already living in a fantasy, I can't be blamed for fantasizing.

"I'm sure they'll arrive soon Chansey, let's just… be ready."

Chansey nodded, not showing any concern like I did.

I took my place behind the counter and Chansey hers next to mine. We agreed on taking turns checking the ovens now and then while someone worked at the front.

In the meantime, I went over the basics of the cash register. The thing wasn't easy to manage in my eyes, and it didn't help that the model was a couple of decades old. Thank God I was able to convince Monty to buy a card reader.

I made a mental note to buy a new cash register once the business gets going, provided the thing isn't too—

The bell by the door rang.

'It begins.'

I froze, and slowly raised my head from the cashier.

By the door stood not a person, but a Pokemon whose shape I was fairly familiar with. A poliwhirl was looking directly at us in a friendly manner.

"Poli." He made a small wave with his hand.

'Okay, so the first customer is a Pokemon. I probably shouldn't be surprised.'

"Welcome to our bakery." Chansey chimed in with a greeting as well. "You're our first customer, please feel free to look around."

The poliwhirl gave us a nod and turned right, where most of the bread was displayed.

I couldn't help but watch as the water type looked at the displayed products. His expression remained serene, there wasn't much I could read into.

"Chansey," I called her up. The oval Pokemon approached quickly, and I knelt to her eye level. "Given the situation, how about you take care of our first customer? The language barrier can be hard to navigate for me. Plus they might have questions that only you can answer. How about it?"

Chansey's eyes lightened up with excitement briefly, followed by a mostly composed nod.

"You got this." I gave her a small pat on the back.

I watched as Chansey attended our 'first customer' with her classic happy-go-lucky attitude. There was little interaction, but she did it properly nonetheless.

Poliwhirl maintained a cool facade throughout, looking at the displays and asking questions at Chansey—or at least, I assume he was—before making a choice. Ultimately, he decided to go with a couple of brioches and Alolan white bread.

Since Chansey had been working with him the entire time, I thought it fitting for her to manage the register as well. And with a satisfying 'ding,' our first sale was completed, alongside a pleased customer.

However, our moment of euphoria lasted little, as a new customer had already arrived. This time it wasn't a pokemon, but a lady who seemed no older than 35, standing by the door with a cloth in her hand.

"Welcome," I managed to let out, hiding my creeping anxiety.

Thankfully for me, Chansey chimed in.

"Good morning! It's great to see you guys finally open," she said as she stepped inside. "I'm glad to know I got the date correct. I wasn't sure if the neighborhood got it right."

'Fuck. I should've created an Instagram account or whatever the Pokemon equivalent is for that shit. Off to a beautiful start, good job me.'

"Great to know the word of mouth worked." I stifled a laugh, trying to make it sound as natural as possible. "Is there anything you're interested in? We don't have the biggest selection but we're confident about the quality. Isn't that right Chansey?" I asked, glancing at my colleague.

Needless to say, Chansey added her own words to the conversation, with a pleased ear-to-ear smile.

"Oh my God, you're adorable," she said after landing her eyes on Chansey. "So the rumors are true, a Chansey is working at the bakery."

"That she is, I wouldn't be able to do it without her."

Her smile grew. "That's great to hear, Chansey products are sooo hard to come by these days. Not to mention the price…" Her gaze turned to one of the nearby displays.

I expected people to be interested in Chansey's bread, but I wasn't expecting our first customer to be so blunt about it. Maybe it is a cultural thing, or just me taking it the wrong way. Either way, I moved toward the section where egg-based breads were stored and presented each type to the lady.

"I've seen some of these before, were these prepared back then too? I used to come here a lot as a kid, but I remember little of what they used to sell back then. Ah, right, they sold some sort of muffins, I think they had rawst berries on them. Do you have those by chance?"

"Ah sorry, we're starting with a new product line, not related to our predecessor you could say." There was visible confusion on the woman's face. "Monty, the previous manager, suggested against trying to imitate the previous products, so you could say it's a fresh start. But we also plan to look into expanding our offer in the future. This means some products from then could make a comeback. Isn't that right Chansey?"

I expected the usual reply but Chansey wasn't by my side, where she usually stayed. Instead, she had gone back to the register. Someone else had wandered in while I was talking: another lady with her pokemon, some sort of bunny whose name I couldn't remember.

"That's a shame," my client said. "Hopefully you'll be able to add it in the future. I've fond memories of this bakery from when my mom used to take me here."

"We'll do our best to meet your expectations, ma'am."

I smiled before showing her our bread selection. She didn't take long to decide and, as I had expected, all the products she picked were egg-based. Mostly teacakes with some ciabatta on the side.

By the time her purchase was complete, a group of five had entered the bakery and, since Chansey was busy with the previous customer, I had to take it on myself. The customers were beginning to ramp up, and while I wasn't a fan of what came after, on the inside I was glad people were interested in checking the place out. However, I hoped that the number of people in the bakery remained at a volume we could manage at all times.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

We severely underestimated people's interest in the bakery's opening. Not even two hours after the opening, we were already reaching maximum capacity for the establishment. I didn't even know that was possible, let alone for a bakery. What the hell is going on?

It didn't come as a surprise that most people were here for our egg products. Almost all of those breads disappeared from the displays in less than two hours. Even a small fight broke out for them and, of course, we had to break them apart. At some point, we only had Alolan sweet bread left, which only remained because it wasn't common in this region.

It would've been wrong to call it chaos, but it was pretty close. Aside from everyone aiming for Chansey's bread, we had a few situations I had no clue how to manage. For example, there was a point where we got an entire family with nine kids come in and they swept almost every donut. Or another time when a driffblim had an allergic reaction to the jam, and I for one had no idea Pokemon could get red dots all over. The more you know, I guess.

The high influx of customers kept going for a while and only stopped an hour before noon. By then, the line outside was gone but still had a constant amount of customers coming in and out.

"Would that be all?" I asked a pair on Indeede who took their sweet time deciding what to order.

The pair of pokemon switched looks, as if to confirm they didn't need anything else, then went over the stuff in their bag, and then focused back on me. With a blank expression, one nodded to me.

"Very well, thanks for your purchase. Have a good day, we hope to see you again."

Not a second after the pair of pokemon left, someone was already in front of me. This time a man, short and probably in his late fifties. To his side was an anxious-looking clobbopus.

"Good morning sir, how can I help you today?"

"Hey laddie, you see I was told there would be bread made with Chansey's eggs, but there don't seem to be any left. Do you know if you'll be refilling 'em any time soon?" the man asked, direct but not aggressive.

"Uh, oh, I'm sure more is on the way. They've been way more popular than we predicted."

The man let out a hearty laugh, which caused his clobbopus to give him a queer look. "You sound surprised, don't tell me you didn't see it coming. Now that would be unexpected."

"We foresaw them selling faster than others, but not to this extent."

"This is your first time managing this type of business, isn't it? Didn't old Monly teach you the ropes? I guess teaching was never his strong forte." The man shook his head slightly, but a smirk remained on his face. "Either way, I assume that's something you'll figure out with time. Most first-timers learn that way anyway, myself included."

"It's been a learning experience, but we're getting by," I replied politely. "But yeah, we were not expecting this type of reception."

At that exact moment, Chansey emerged from the kitchen, pushing both doors aside with her back, avoiding damage to the recently baked goods she was carrying on two different trays.

Chansey didn't even notice, nor greeted the man by the register, instead going directly to refill the displays. The bread she was about to place wouldn't even fill half the display, but we desperately needed more, and any amount was better than nothing.

'Poor Chansey, she has been going at it nearly all morning.'

While she hastily completed her duties, I couldn't help but look at her face. A gentle fatigue softened her gaze, and the corners of her mouth didn't quite reach her cheeks enough to make room for her usual smile; a hint of the effort expended throughout the morning. Even so, I knew it was a weariness tinged with fulfillment.

"Well, it seems we now have a few freshly baked ones. Do you know which one you'd like to buy?"

"I'll be sure to give it a look."

The man took longer than average to select what he wanted. I wasn't sure what he was looking for, but I had little time to attend to him with more customers in the store. In the end, he ended up buying white bread and a muffin, which he promptly pulled out from the bag and ate in front of me. The muffin I mean.

Then man gave the muffin a quick bite, which he then shared with his little octopus pokemon. All the while, keeping a pleasant smirk on his face. Afterward, he stayed a bit longer, only approaching when no customers were in line anymore.

"Now this," he pointed at the bag in his hand, "this is some high-quality stuff you got here. No wonder those breads disappear in less than an hour. You're sitting on a gold mine, lad."

"Thanks?" I replied, awkwardly.

"No no, thank you. This is exactly what we needed." He pulled a black card from one of the pockets on his shorts and handed it over to me. 'Life Dew Cafe' it read. "I manage a small cafe, three blocks down the road," he pointed towards the west, I think, "It's nothing too grandiose, just a small store near the old mall. You know it?" I nodded. "Great, so yeah, after hearing about an old bakery reopening, being managed by a new guy and his Chansey, I had to come and check it out. This was a business opportunity I couldn't let pass."

"I'm glad to hear that, but by 'business opportunity' you mean what exactly?"

I more or less knew what he was referring to, but I wanted to be sure.

"Your bread," he pointed out raising the bag in his hand a little, "It's delicious. We could make great use of this to enhance our own cuisine. Chansey bread is so hard to come by, not to mention expensive. Having a local supplier would surely help."

'As expected.'

"I see what you mean. However, I'm going to have to turn you down." I could see the smile on the man fade, "It's not out of lack of interest but, I don't think we'll be able to provide what you're looking for yet. There are still so many things that we need to work on, especially after experiencing our first day. We still need to work on our supply lines, work on desired quantities, tendencies of the market, and even our schedule might receive a few changes. Once all of that is done, we might consider looking to work with other businesses further."

The man let out a small cough on his hand, before bringing another smile to his face. "That's okay, I suppose. It takes time to get started, I should've known better," he laughed.

"I'm sorry, that's probably not the answer you wanted to hear."

"No no," the man was quick to respond, "This is fine. It's important to take care of your own business first. And the last thing we want is for our new baker to disappear due to poor business decisions. Tell you what, you keep that card, and give us a call if you are ever interested. We always try to prioritize working with our own rather than outsiders in here y'know?"

"Our own? I'm sorry I don't follow."

The man gave himself what looked like a mental slap in the face. "Right, you're new here. We, the business owners in the old commercial district have a group of sorts, where we help each other whenever we can. But you don't have to feel forced to do that, we just do it due to a sense of fellowship, you could say." The man pulled his phone out and mumbled something as he looked at something on it.

"I think I get it. So it's like an association of the merchants around the old district area, is that correct? To talk about events, safety, taxes, and that sort of topic?" I asked as I spotted a new group of customers entering the store.

"Yes, something like that. I'll add you to the group chat, that way you'll be up to date. May I have your number?" asked the man without taking his eyes off his phone.

"Sure thing."

I gave the man, whose name I later found out was Collin, my number, and after a few taps a notification popped up on my phone. Your Friendly Neighborhood Merchants showed up on my chat list, it had a bright-colored cartoon Jigglypuff as the profile picture.

"Friendly Neighborhood Merchants? A bit corny, but I suppose there's no harm in it," I said out loud without realizing it, which Collin didn't seem to mind.

"I know, right? I don't like it myself, but the cronies loved it and they're in charge of everything and I didn't want to spend effort arguing against it."

Before I could say something back, I noticed a flood of messages began appearing not a second after joining, aimed at me of course. It seemed most didn't know who the new number was, which Collin tried to explain afterward with little success.

"Shoot, maybe I shouldn't have done that yet…" he cringed. "Well, what is done is done. Just introduce yourself when you have the time and things will smooth out with time. Also, one of the cronies will show up soon to introduce you to the whole group. Probably at some point during the week, I'm not sure."

I assumed that by crony he meant one of the members of the group, but decided I didn't feel like asking. "Got it, hopefully it wasn't too much trouble."

"Not at all, lad, it was going to happen sooner or-"

The man was stopped by the clobbopus pulling at the ankle of his pants. He was pointing towards the line that was forming behind him.

"It seems we took too much of your time. Be strong lad, filling Monty's shoes won't be easy. Let's go, bud."

With the clobbopus climbing to his shoulder, Collin left the building almost in a hurry.

I didn't know if it was because of how tired I was, but most of the conversation had left my head a second after.

"Friend of yours?" Asked a customer who was in line behind the now-gone Collin.

"I don't know right now."

After attending the line, I took what little time I had available and entered the kitchen, stumbling into Chansey working on some donuts.

"Chansey, time to switch. I don't want you to pass out here," I joked.

She did not respond at first, only looked at me puzzled. It was only after asking her if she was okay that her smile returned.

"Sorry Chansey, I didn't mean to make you work so much," I said as I patted her head. "I miscalculated how much was going to be needed."

She beamed her usual energetic response at me, although like earlier, I could tell she was tired.

Chansey washed the flour off her hands and face before going to the service area. There was no one when I left and I believed it would stay like that till closing hours.

Speaking of which, there had to be no more than three hours before closing time. It was a little after noon, and the idea was to close at around three o'clock. We still needed to work out the details, but I needed to take into consideration how much Chansey and I could handle on our own.

It wasn't looking good so far.

'Will I need to hire help? Sounds like a pain but if I must…'

Instead of focusing on our possible impending doom, I shifted my attention to, well, work. Because why the hell not?

I grabbed a paper that was glued to the top of the kitchen table. It had a list of the dough that needed to be prepared for the day after, Chansey had already crossed some of them off the list.

"Okay so let's see here… brioche and crusty rolls? God damn it, the dough for brioche is a pain in the ass."

Not even two minutes into preparing the dough, the smell of burning iron filled my nose.

Oh great, there goes the donut fryer.

Nearly four hours after I switched positions with Chansey, we had officially closed the first day of our bakery.

I was beat.

After placing the last group of dough in the fridge, I looked for the nearest chair and fell on it with the grace of a drunken bellsprout, or whatever other pokemon analogy that might make sense. Can pokemon even get drunk?

I took a look at my watch. 4:12 PM

"I could probably go to bed, what's stopping me?"

At that moment, the kitchen door burst open.

"Ah right, responsibilities."

I expected Chansey to show up but instead was greeted by another familiar face, which I should've expected at some point during the day.

"I can see you're doing great," Monty quipped.

"You think?" I raised my head, "I was expecting a lot to happen on the opening day but it seems I underestimated it."

"You would be right. This was something I had no experience in, so there was no warning I could give you," he said with a playful grin.

Seeing I was slumped in the kitchen corner, Monty took the time to observe the place. Walking around the kitchen slowly, as if he was trying to immerse himself in it.

"Where's Chansey?" I asked seeing she was not with him.

"Oh, she was doing some cleaning when I got in. She looked almost done with it."

I only nodded and then leaned my head on a nearby wall and closed my eyes. I wasn't going to fall asleep but had an awful neck pain for some reason.

"So, seeing as nothing is on fire—"

"The donut fryer was."

"Oh, well that thing was always causing trouble back then too, we can get it fixed, I know a guy. But putting that aside, got any other interesting things to tell me?"

I told Monty everything from the time I woke up till closing. I didn't mind sharing details but halfway through the recap, I got tired and gave him an abridged version. Monty stayed silent during my retale, only making weird facial expressions now and again. At some point, Chansey joined us too, guess she was done with the cleaning.

"This Collin guy, good to know that he is still eccentric as ever. However, I wasn't expecting him to introduce you to the merchant community."

"I assumed you were part of it too. Why didn't you mention it sooner? Would've been useful to know earlier."

He threw me a smirk. "And where is the fun in that? You know I like you to find things on your own."

'Of course….'

"Keep in touch with them, bonding with fellow business owners is only natural after all. As long as they're not direct competition." He murmured that last part. "Either way, regardless of how the day went, I got you guys something to celebrate the occasion."

Monty pulled a bottle from a bag I hadn't noticed he had with him. It seemed to be some sort of liquor, a sparkling wine, or champagne if I had to take a guess.

"I wasn't sure if you were the drinking type so I went with a safe pick, low alcohol by volume with a sweet aftertaste. Pretty popular in Kalos I think, they make them with Grepa berries," said Monty as he opened the bottle with ease.

I had very little experience with drinks and in my current state, I wasn't sure if alcohol was a good idea.

But what the hell.

"Chansey," I called out, "be a dear and bring a couple of glasses from the kitchen, they're in the second compartment to the right. Bring one for you too."

Although a bit early to drink, we spent the next hour emptying that bottle. Followed by a cup of coffee on my part because I was about to pass out.

Monty left soon afterward, saying something about receiving guests at home in a while and promising that he would try to visit us as much as possible.

Although I doubt he has a full schedule, something tells me he doesn't like to show up here, and if it's for reasons I'm thinking, then I understand.

Chansey and I spent some time reviewing inventory once again before calling it a day. Not to mention feeding our friendly Sylveon in the back. There was no bread pudding we could give him this time, not due to a lack of material but a lack of energy to do so, it was just some berries plus regular pokemon food, nothing exciting. He even showed mild surprise when he didn't encounter the usual bread pudding.

Speaking of Sylveon, I could see that he didn't look as malnourished as he did the first time we met. I could no longer see his ribs under the dim streetlight, and he seemed to have a bit more muscle on his legs. Although I couldn't be too sure about the last part.

It made me happy to know that I was helping a creature in need, however, I wasn't sure if this was going to be an ideal long-term solution. Eventually, I'll need to change my approach towards him.

The day ended without further eventualities.

However, I took a couple of minutes before bed (which I went awfully early by the way) to introduce myself in the group chat I was added to not too long ago.

Hello everyone,

My name is Evan and I'm in charge of the Small Heaven bakery, I was told it used to be quite popular in the past. I'm excited to connect with this community of fellow entrepreneurs.

If you have any tips to share or just want to chat about our journeys, feel free to reach out. Looking forward to being part of this vibrant network.

I couldn't help but cringe after typing that, but like it or not, some semblance of formality had to be included, at the very least I managed to keep it short.

To the surprise of no one, I was bombarded with messages a second after posting it. It was mostly welcome messages with a few introductions of their own, some saying that they had already visited today or that they would visit soon. I even got some private messages asking me how Monty was— because apparently, he rarely showed up anymore around these parts— or suggesting I contact them if anything came up.

It was a warm reception, way more than what I expected. It's probably due to it being a tight-knit community, or maybe it was a cultural thing. I didn't give it much thought.

Once the chat died down, I got the sudden spur to check their chat logs. Morbid curiosity as usual.

The chat logs were tame, as one might expect from a 'work' chat group with people of different age groups and backgrounds. Most of the topics ranged from upcoming sales, the 'new' mall, upcoming events, and gossip, a lot of gossip.

All in all, there was nothing genuinely interesting. At first.

I saw the word 'anniversary' pop out a few times the more I scrolled to the point where most conversations were bout it. After looking into it, I found out that the commercial district was going to celebrate its 109th anniversary near the end of summer.

'Okay, that's is worth making a big deal of.'

After a quick internet search, I was astounded by the town's commitment to decoration. The entire old town plaza and neighboring stores burst with jubilant colors as they were adorned with an abundance of blue, white, and purple bunting. The vibrant flags swayed gently in the breeze, creating a lively dance of colors overhead. Every street corner was adorned with meticulously arranged flower displays, filling the air with the sweet fragrance of blossoms.

The festive spirit wasn't confined to the decorations alone. A small group of performers had made camp near the old town plaza where people and pokemon alike could be seen watching the spectacle. Food stands of different varieties lined the streets, alongside others focusing on art displays or small minigames for the public to enjoy.

In other words, the event looked big.

And while the prospect of putting in even more work because of an event doesn't sound appealing, the businessman inside of me could tell that was an opportunity we couldn't waste.

"Chansey, I believe I found ourselves a new goal."

The poke ball on my nightstand shivered

A wild update appeared!
We finally got the opening of the bakery, and boy am I glad we did. I'm aware the event was taking a bit longer than expected, but I'm glad I didn't rush it. Now that the bakery has officially opened, upcoming chapters might be shorter but that won't hinder the fic.
I wanted to release this on Christmas... oh well, better late than never.