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Zok, Biff, Pow, Wham.
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Valencia, Venezuela
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Continuation:
Spoiler for Chao Bao Zi:
The Chao Bao Zi. From the outside, it really didn't look like much. But once inside, the mere scent of delicious food filling the whole cart restaurant was enough to nearly mesmerize young Mr. Springfield.
It wasn't just the smell floating all around, however. It was also the warm and homely feeling you could get from simply stepping into the old wagon turned stall.
"It feels almost like being back at home, despite it being so different" he marveled as he sat at a table with Chisame and Hakase.
"Hmm" Chisame hummed while looking through the menu. "Did you eat Chinese takeout often back at home?".
"Never" he denied. "I don't mean exactly that, it's just... this oddly familiar feeling. It's like you almost can touch the labor of love put here...".
"Chao is very passionate about everything she does" Satomi observed calmly. "She gives one hundred percent of herself to all of her activities".
"Nihao, Negi-bozu!" 2-A Student Number Twelve, Ku Fei, passed by before their table, rolling around on skates, wearing a red sleeveless Chinese dress and carrying a large food tray on each hand. "Nihao, Hakase-chan!".
Chisame scoffed at being apparently ignored. "Always the same thing".
"Call me 'Negi-sensei', please!" Negi protested at the heavily accented Chinese girl and then sighed in defeat. "First Kasuga-san, now her... at this rate, the other teachers will look down at me soon...".
"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it" Hasegawa dryly cracked, although the way her roommates looked at her outright told her neither of them got the reference. "Super Chicken" she said.
"Is that one of the recipes?" Negi asked.
"No! It is—" Chisame interrupted herself, shaking her head. "Forget it".
"Sometimes you are weird, Chisame" Satomi flatly confessed.
"That's something, coming from you!" the other girl snapped.
Negi just laughed, amused, until he noticed someone was glaring at him from another table. He discretely looked back to see a beautiful girl, two or three years older than his students, with long black hair and wearing a black motorcycle outfit, quietly, yet grimly eating a bowl of ramen while staring at him from afair.
"Girls?" he whispered.
"What?" Chisame asked.
The boy kept his voice very low. "Who's that girl over there?".
Both of them looked into the direction Negi's own eyes were taking as low-profile as possible.
"Beats me" Chisame said. "I think she's a Sempai from high school, but I don't know her name".
"Neither do I" Hakase added. "Haven't you taught her any classes yet?".
Negi flipped through his booklet, detailing the class rosters he had to cover both at his homeroom and as an English instructor elsewhere. Finally he settled at High School Class 1-A's pictures, where he found the one he was looking for. "Kuga Natsuki-san, no membership at any club, no other information given. But I don't remember ever seeing her there...".
"She skips classes often, from what I have heard" a soft, feathery voice came from his right side, making him to look at the suddenly there, as if arrived from nowhere, plump and gentle looking 2-A Student Number Thirty, Yotsuba Satsuki. "She eats here almost every day, but never talks to anyone".
"Ah, hello, Yotsuba-san!" Negi quickly bowed.
"Hello, Yotsuba" Chisame greeted cordially enough. The chef was one of the few classmates she could actually tolerate, but then again, everyone loved her.
"Ah, Sacchan!" Satomi perked up, with a tone she rarely had used in the time Negi had spent with her. "Bring Negi-sensei a special stamina soup and some nikkuman, will you? He will need all the energy he can gather for his second week at the job".
"It sounds good" he nodded. "Hakase-san knows your specialities far better than me, so I'll go with her choice. Although everything in this menu seems delicious".
"Thank you for the kind words" Yotsuba smiled softly.
"The same for me then" Chisame spoke.
"A few ribs with spicy sauce and salad for me" the scientist asked before looking all around. "By the way, where is Chachamaru? Shouldn't she be serving the tables with you today?".
"Evangeline-san arrived early and took her away" Satsuki explained while taking her order. "They said they had something urgent to work on".
"I see" Hakase nodded, slightly spaced out in her own unreadable thoughts by now.
Chisame, on the other hand, noticed Negi suddenly looking more concerned as of that moment. "Is there anything wrong?".
He shook his head. "No... Nothing!".
"How was Kasuga, by the way?" the cosplayer questioned. "Feeling any better now?".
Negi's cheeks gained the briefest reddish shine as he remembered that morning's kiss, but then he just laughed it off. "Yeah, she's fine by now! She told me she'd come back to classes tomorrow!".
"Great, another piece of insanity back at the old classroom" Hasegawa observed in a detached tone.
She had just noticed his blush, of course, even though Hakase obviously hadn't. But if he thought she'd ask him about it, he had another thing coming.
After all, why should it matter to her at all?
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