Aru Shah Oneshots

Love and Cookies | PART 2

"I'm obsessive and I love too hard,

Good at overthinking with my heart,"

"Miss. Hira?"

"How you even think it got this far, this far?"

"Miss. Hira?"

Hira slipped off her Airpods, abruptly stopping the music and looking up. 

A man watched her carefully, hair springing from his chin in a tiny goatee and his tiny circular glasses beginning to slide off within the moments he had been looking down on her. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry..." Hira glanced at his nametag, "...Smithers! My friends haven't arrived yet and I'm not exactly sure when they will be-"

"HIRAA!" 

Hira rolled her eyes, "Nevermind, I think they're here."

"Hira my beloved sister-in-law, I can't believe I finally get to be in one of your grand videos after such a long time of being with your sister and everything-"

"One more word from you and I will be tempted to throw you out," Hira managed to say without entirely glaring at Rudy. Her sister approached them finally, after holding the door for a long streaming of guests, letting out a breath. 

"God, no wonder this place is always full," Mini, Hira's step-sister, remarked. 

"So, when are you turning on the camera. Wait, I think I left my guitar at home. Should I have brought it to advertise my music? Oh no, Mini we have to go ba-"

"No! Rudy, forget the guitar, we came here to support Hira, not advertise. Now come on," Mini grabbed Rudy's hand and followed Smithers to our table, right next to the employee door and handed each of us a menu. 

"Gods, that is a big menu," Mini muttered. 

Rudy smirked, a gleam in his eye, "Not as big as your d-"

"RUDY?!"

"Doctor's credentials, geez, let me finish my sentences," Rudy smirked and Mini blushed furiously. 

"OK, both of you shut it on the dirty jokes, I'm starting the recording," Hira clicked record on her phone and held it up, "Halo, it's Hira, and today, we're here at currently, Georgia's biggest restaurant, Flavor!"

"'We' being us!" Rudy butted in the frame, smiling widely. 

Hira frowned, "Rudy, calm down."

Rudy sat back in his seat and frowned. 

"In fact, I am here today with my sister and her husband Rudy, who is a great musician and you can find his music on Spotify," Hira winked at Rudy, who immediately beamed at the mention of his music, "You guys can remember one of my previous videos of tasting the food at their wedding, which was absolutely divine, and I myself had made the cake!" 

"Anyway, we're here to order and really see what the talk is about at this restaurant. Is it really worth the wait? Let's find out."

"So that's where you're going to put the intro right, with the one that you say, "Mmmm" in that really weird tone?" Rudy asked once Hira stopped the recording. 

Hira glared at Rudy. 

"It kinda sounds like you were moaning."

---

Hira, Mini, and Rudy, had thoroughly enjoyed their time, feasting on the several courses of food that they had, with minimum money-spending (Hira had gotten a discount for doing the critic thing). Just when it was time for them to go as Hira was recording her outro, they heard a scream from the other table. 

"THERE'S HAIR IN MY SOUP!" A blonde woman screeched, loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear. Hira flipped her camera to get a clip of the scene, and the manager, Ms. U, ran out from upstairs, a waitor by her side, Luis.

She stared at something in the soup bowl and her eyes widened. 

"I feel like I've seen her somewhere before," Rudy murmured. 

"Not now, Rudy." 

Ms. U looked at my camera and cleared her throat. 

"Who made this soup?"

---

Brynne Tvarika Lakshmi Balamuralikrishna Rao had once completed her dream. And now it was over. 

Ms. U stared down on her with pity and disappointment. 

I stared at the piece of hair, "Tha-That wasn't me, Ms. U, I swear. That's not my hair."

"Brynne."

"Ms. U, please."

"CHEF RAO!" Ms. U snapped, her eyes growing wild for a moment. 

"You're fired." 

She finally had said it. The two words that Brynne had dreaded most for the past 12 years since she had decided she would be a chef. 

"Ms. Uloopi, if you wouldn't mind." A girl stood up from her desk, handing her recording phone to the girl next to her. 

Great, now Brynne was going to get embarrassed on the internet too. 

"That hair is obviously way too long and the wrong color to be Chef Rao's hair." The girl said moments after inspecting it. 

"But the fact that she was the one who made the soup and did not attend to the fact that there was hair in her soup is unacceptable." Ms. U remarked. 

"But what if someone put it after she had made it as a sabotage. As in someone who would want to take you down from the inside. Someone from a rival restaurant, perhaps?" The entire room gasped at her words. 

Ms. U raised an eyebrow, "An interesting theory, Hira. But whatever it is," She turned to Brynne, "You are banned from the kitchen."

Brynne's chest relaxed. At least she wasn't fired. 

"But if any mishap happens again with you, you're definitely fired." Ms. U warned, and then turned to the customer, "Let's get you another soup, miss." 

"I'd rather not eat in a restaurant with moles, thank you." The woman picked up her handbag and left immediately. 

"No wonder she's here alone," Hira muttered. 

Brynne paused, realizing she should probably thank her. 

"Um, thanks for helping me not lose my job on something I didn't do?" Brynne's statement came out as more of a question. 

"You need to work on your "thank you"s. But you're welcome. You didn't seem like you deserved it." She smiled and turned back to her table, "Can I have my check?"

Brynne smiled as she turned, a tug in her heart.