Beyond Love

Extraordinary

A/N: Bakers! Apologies for the late update, I'm in the middle of finishing my exams, so yay! ^0^/ As always, I write through them (although at a pace much slower than I'd like) so here is an update! :) Enjoy.

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The special guests were taking an unusually long time at Miss Rachel's display, exchanging private conversations with one another and smiling as they did so. Shea and I couldn't quite tell if it was a good or bad thing for guests to remain around even after they'd finished sampling the dessert.

While the award-winning French pastry chef seemed to be actively conversing with Miss Rachel and her assistant (with the help of a translator), the rest of them were taking a closer look at the shortcake.

"Damn it. Wish I could hear what they were saying," muttered Shea under her breath. I poked her arm and advised that even if she could, she probably wouldn't be able to understand them anyway.

"Hey. I took basic French back in middle school, okay? And like, I'm on my third level one class for Japanese," she reminded with a smirk. I raised a brow.

"And the words you know are...?"

"Konnichiwa."

The conversation ended right then and there. Neither of us openly acknowledged Shea's lack of proficiency in the language—it was far too embarrassing.

I returned my gaze to Miss Rachel's display table, where the huge, whole strawberry shortcakes were. Some of the guests had moved on to the creations of other pastry chefs, but the remaining stayed, penning down notes and exchanging words that were barely audible.

"Well, looks like they go by what piques their interest," sighed my sister, shoulders falling as she broke out of her 'professional' act. "I thought we were going by alphabetical order. Scared the shit outta me."

"What piques their interest?" I prompted with a blink.

"Uh," Shea coughed stiffly. "Not that our shortcakes wouldn't. Just..." she gave the guests a pointed look. "Pretentious people tend to miss out on the bigger things in life."

I laughed. "No one said they were pretentious, Shea."

"Yeah but being impressed by some fancy deco obviously means they are," she grumbled, displaying her tendencies for teenaged angst. I briefly remembered going through that stage.

"I think it's something worth appreciating nevertheless," I tilted the sign of our bakery further to the left, in hopes of attracting more attention. "Maybe the guests understand that there is beauty in many things. That everything has its own form of value."

My youngest sister patted me on the head. It was a strange thing to do.

"The problem with cinnamon rolls is that they give the world too much credit."

*

Although I was slightly relieved that the special guests hopping from table to table in a random order meant that there was no anticipation of being 'up next' down the row, the uncertainty and subsequent fear of not knowing if I was next did things to my heart. ;-;

Pebble-me was so busy re-thinking the exact words to say in my self-introduction (which I was likely to mess up regardless) that I didn't notice a man standing in front of our display, taking pictures of our shortcakes with a camera that looked as big as my face.