Chapter Twelve:
Hirari and Zaza looked around the kitchen, shocked. Everything was a mess; it appeared that the head chef had just retired and the other helpers didn’t have anything organized at all. “It looks like we arrived just on time,” Hirari announced. Then, she set about arranging matters so that the kitchen would run more smoothly.
As she was giving out orders, she turned to Zaza and said, “Since you’re a cook’s helper, I’ve got a job for you. Can you get these ingredients from the storage room for me? I can’t seem to find them here. Thanks!” Handing Zaza a long list, she turned back to some other helpers, doling out more instructions.
Zaza looked at the list and her jaw dropped open. “How am I expected to carry all of these back with me?” She sighed and headed off to the store room.
About half an hour later, Zaza emerged from the storage room, her arms laden with ingredients. They were stacked so high that she couldn’t see where she was going. As she headed into the general direction of the kitchen, she heard a, “Watch out!” before she collided into someone and the ingredients went flying.
“Oh no!!” she moaned as she scrambled to pick all the ingredients. Glancing up, she saw a group of people standing there staring, one of them being a tall man which she had bumped into. Wondering why they were so shocked, she told the man, “Well, don’t just stand there! Help me pick this stuff up!”
Immediately another man jumped forward with a stern look on his face and opened his mouth to say something. However, the tall man silenced him with a gesture. “It’s alright,” he told the man, and then bent down to pick up some of the packages littering the hall. “Where does this go?”
Zaza, who had picked up the rest said, “The kitchen.”
He smiled at her. “Okay.” Then he turned to the group of people. “Well, don’t just stand there gawking. Help the lady carry her packages!” Ignoring Zaza’s protests, her packages were taken from her and she was escorted to the kitchen. When they reached the kitchen, her parcels were all placed neatly on one of the tables. “Dismissed!” the tall man said, and the group quickly left. Zaza still had no clue what was going on or why they had followed his instructions so promptly. As she looked around the kitchen, she noticed that all of the helper chefs were staring at them with their mouths open in shock.
Puzzled, Zaza leaned over to the man. “Why are they all looking at us?” causing the man to chuckle to himself. “What’s so funny?” she asked, even more confused.
Suddenly, one of the chefs hurried over and bowed low to the ground. “Prince Takeshi, if we had known you were coming we would have prepared some delicacies for you.”
Takeshi shook his head. “It’s alright. It was sort of an…impromptu visit.” He turned to grin at Zaza, who was not staring at him with her mouth open as well. His grin widened.
At that moment, Hirari came bustling up. “What is going on here? Everyone get back to work!” The kitchen came alive again as the helpers all went back to their respective jobs. Hirari shook her head and turned to Zaza. “Zaza? Are you okay?” She waved her hand in front of Zaza’s face.
Zaza snapped out of it. “Yeah?”
Hirari shook her head. “Nothing. You just looked out of it, that’s all. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
Zaza watched her go over to scold a helper that had just spilled a basket of eggs, and turned slowly to look at Takeshi. “You’re a prince?” He nodded, still grinning. Turning away from him, Zaza groaned. “I can’t believe I ordered a prince to do an errand for me.”
Hirari came rushing back. “Oh, and Zaza, could you take those ingredients back to the store room? I just found out that everything I needed was in the pantry!” She rushed off again, hoping to get away from Zaza’s wrath as quickly as she could.
Zaza stared after her. “WHAT?!?! Hirari! GET BACK HERE!!” She got no answer. “Jeez…” she turned to the table to discover Takeshi loading the packages into his arms. “What are you doing?”
“Taking it back.” He straightened and winked at her. “I already did one errand for you. Another won’t kill me. But you owe me a favour then.”
“What kind of favour?” Zaza asked curiously.
He leaned closer. “A date,” he said matter-of-factly. Then he started to walk out
of the door leaving Zaza standing there, in shock again. “Well, come on, slowpoke!”
At that, Zaza started, grabbed the rest of the packages, and hurried out muttering, “I’ll show you slowpoke, handsome prince or not!”
Hirari poked her head around her hiding place. Relieved that she had escaped from Zaza’s clutches, she smiled and returned to work.