Chapter 22: Sailor Moon Cafe' Theme

It was nearly ten in the evening when Hayashi Sakura got off from work and arrived at her apartment. She immediately changed into her pajamas after a quick bath and turned on her tv to watch an anime called Sailor Moon for tomorrow's theme at the La la land Cafe.

Their boss, Ms. Cookie, has suddenly decided to go retro. However, instead of the normal way of doing it, she decided still to choose an anime done before the 20th century. Later, Ms. Cookie chooses Sailor Moon as their newest theme for tomorrow. This will also be a good way to sell their newest addition to the menu, which is the crescent-shaped butter cookies.

Sakura hasn't watched any episodes of Sailor Moon before, so therefore she needs to immerse herself into it to get her character right. As the leading maid in the rankings, she gets to play Usagi Tsukino a.k.a Sailor Moon, the main protagonist of the said anime series.

Sakura almost forgot to eat her meal in the middle of watching the anime series. During her break at the cafe earlier, Ms. Cookie had only given her the strawberry tart, so she walked straight to the kitchen as the anime series continued to play.

For today's dinner, Sakura is planning to cook simple chicken curry. She started defrosting the chicken breast out of her fridge before she began all the work of mincing onions and chopping carrots.

"I am the pretty guardian of love and justice in a sailor suit! Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Sakura let her mind wander off towards her tv as the anime series keeps on playing in the background. She watched in awe as the character she is going to portray this Friday transforms into her Sailor Guardian form. The animation is rather bad, she must admit, since it was made in the 1990s. Despite this, her childhood memories seem to resurface as transformations were a big deal in the animation world in the past.

Chop!

Sakura was so absorbed in the anime she is currently watching that she forgot to be careful in handling the knife and accidentally cuts her index finger, shooting a pang of pain right there that made her omit a high-pitched shriek that she didn't intend to make in the first place.

Meanwhile, Yamaguchi Alan had just gone downstairs and is about to knock on Sakura's door to give her some of the cookies that his sister had baked for him this afternoon to let her have a taste of it as well when he hears Sakura yelp from the inside. Instinctively, he held the small bento box wrapped in a pink cloth in one hand and used his other hand to knock consecutively at the door as loud as he could.

"Hayashi-san? A-are you alright?" he asked with a hint of concern in his tone.

No response.

Alan tries to knock once again when the door suddenly swings open, and it reveals Hayashi Sakura in her distressed state.

Faking a smile, she says, "W-what can I do for you?" while covering her bleeding finger behind her.

Alan sees right through it but tries to ignore it and states, "Well, I heard you shout earlier, so I was worried and immediately came here--- Wait, is that Sailor Moon you're watching? That's Akira's favorite as well---"

Panic rises inside Sakura as she realizes that she forgot to turn off her tv. And before Alan could finish his sentence, Sakura makes a run to her living room and turns off the tv as quickly as possible. Seconds later, she was back to entertain Alan once more.

"So, you were saying?" Sakura smiles as if nothing happened. This time, she forgot to hide her bleeding finger and Alan was able to spot it immediately.

"Hayashi-san! Your finger's bleeding, geez!"

Alan starts to unwrap the cloth around his bento box and uses it to wrap it around her finger to somehow stop it from bleeding. Later he gives the bento box to her, saying that it's from her sister, and immediately instructs her to clean her wound as soon as possible or else it will get infected. Sakura soon follows as she went back inside her room after thanking him for the cookies.

Shaking his head disapprovingly, Alan now starts to walk back in his room as an amused smile appears on the corner of his lips.

***

The next day at La la land Cafe….

"I am the pretty guardian of love and justice in a sailor suit! Sailor Moon! In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Hayashi Sakura a.k.a Patty in the cafe is now in her full-blown costume consisting of a sailor uniform, a big red ribbon in the middle of her chest, and red boots that reach to her knees. Her blonde wig for today was tied into two ponytails with a bun on each side to complete her Sailor Moon look.

"Wow, Patty-san, you look great in that outfit! I'll make sure to win today's event to get a picture with you!"

A middle-aged man in a business suit just entered their cafe and looked at Sakura with sparkling eyes as he saw his favorite maid in a cute sailor uniform. All customers with an acquired 1000 points and upwards are the only ones that have a sure spot for taking a picture with their favorite maid.

If that customer, like this guy, has lesser points than that, he needs to undergo today's cafe event where the customer needs to eat their newly-added food in their menu, a box of deliciously-baked crescent-shaped butter cookies, in a limited time only. Once successful, the customer will eventually acquire an instant 1000 points that he will use to get his desired picture with a certain maid.

Smiling towards the man, Sakura says, "I wish you good luck then, master. Do your best!"

After leading that certain customer in his seat, the chimes attached to the door start clanking once again, and a new customer walks inside. She was about to repeat her lines when she froze to her place when she came face-to-face with Mori Ken, who is now in a daze as he eyes her from head to toe.