Volume 1, Epilogue
…Jingle jingle.
The red door opened and a doorbell rang.
“Welcome!”
It was afternoon, and the store was packed with people enjoying their tea. Placed atop the white tray that the waitress girl held was some tasty-looking mille feuilles. Decorated with red fruits and dusted with confectionary sugar, they seemed to shimmer in the light. Their sweet fragrance tickled one’s appetite.
Confronted with food he had never had before, the man followed the sweets with his eyes. entranced. He was a traveller from the neighboring country who had heard of the store through rumors.
“Would you like a counter seat if you’re dining alone?”
A woman behind the counter noticed him and motioned to the empty seat in front of her. He glanced around while moving to the seat and smiled warmly to the woman.
“Welcome, here is the menu.”
The menu given to him was written in the common language of this world. However, he had never heard of the names of the menu items before.
“…Excuse me, do you have any recommendations?”
At a loss, he anxiously asked the woman. She smiled and pointed to an item on the menu.
“Do you like sweet things? Then I would recommend ice cream today. It is perfect for the season, and it will cool you down.”
A cold and sweet food?
He couldn’t imagine what kind of food it was, but he went along with her recommendation. “I’ll have that then,” he said, and she took his order to the back.
He let out the breath he had subconsciously held in, and peeked at the food the people around him were eating.
To his right sat a young boy, clad in a uniform that looked like it belonged to the chivalric order of this country. He was eating a round and flat crust full of some sort of thick liquid and rectangular objects.
To his left was a lady wearing a plain yet high quality dress. She had on her plate a yellow thing that looked like a flipped cup, covered in brown sauce. She took a spoonful out of the small mountain of yellow and brought it to her mouth.
Although neither food was anything he had ever seen, so he couldn’t imagine what they tasted like, the expressions on the two people showed bliss and satisfaction.
“Thank you for waiting. Here is your ice cream.”
Anticipation bloomed in his chest as the woman returned and placed a bowl in front of him. The glass bowl was filled with ice cream—a strange name to the stranger food. The slightly yellow thing looked dazzling, with a small leaf of vibrant green placed on top.
He drew a breath, and a sweet fragrance caressed his nose. He reached for the spoon, his mouth salivating. He dug into the slightly hard surface and tentatively brought the spoonful to his mouth. Coolness spread through his mouth with the sweet and rich taste before melting away.
Another bite, and another bite, and he could not stop his hand as he emptied the glass bowl in an instant.
Now he understood the faces filled with bliss to his left and right. And he decided that while he was in this country, he would visit this shop every day.
When the female employee came to take his bowl, he inquired about the business hours and asked for the check. After paying, he left the shop with a bounce in his step.
This was Café Omusubi, quietly standing in a corner in downtown of the Feliformia Kingdom.
The shop with a strange name served stranger food that had no precedent, but was lauded as food with the best flavor. It also served a large variety of sweet food, named sweets, that went well with tea.
Unbeknownst to most, the shop owner was a woman from another world.