Chapter 22 - Incident At The Café + Damien And Kent
Emilin headed towards the largest shopping center in the city. It was a mall that looked similar to an indoor plaza at the entrance. It also resembled a greenhouse from a distance as all roofs were made of glass.
Seemingly very eco-friendly. Though that didn\'t guarantee it was.
When customers were starting their shopping experience, the calmer ambiance would most likely make them walk slower and look around more shops.
Perhaps that was the designer\'s goals.
That wouldn\'t last very long because once you went in, it wasn\'t as calm anymore. It wasn\'t super crowded per se, but it wasn\'t lacking in bustling people. Just like any other mall really.
Emilin had made sure she came on an empty stomach that morning. She headed towards a café that was close to the entrance and her eyes seemed to shine as soon as she went in.
Right before her eyes at the counter and through the display glasses, there were rows upon rows of desserts.
They ranged from layered mango cream pudding to black forest cake. Every one of them looked more delectable than the previous, yet none of them looked worse than the former.
A foodie\'s mini paradise.
This café was called LaLaLatte with multiple branches all over the world. Their desserts were widely known and acknowledged by connoisseurs around the world.
This café was connected to 3 floors of the mall. It was also at a prime location. Most people who wanted to enter and leave the mall would all have to walk past. While entering they could have a treat and come here to rest before leaving after a long day of shopping.
On the floors above, they could also rest while shopping. Not only that. Escalators were right next to each entrance of the café.
It made one question how much the rent was for such a location in this big-scale mall.
It was unknown if LaLaLatte\'s boss had some connection to the mall owner, but it would be hard to rent these kinds of locations without connections.
Emilin sat down on a window seat after ordering a fluffy pancake breakfast, whip cream set + a slice of mango raspberry mousse cake.
Emilin had already sat down and closed her eyes as she waited for her food. Her aura was calm, and she sat up straight to close off all of her senses except for her hearing for those moments.
Emilin concentrated as hard as she could so that she could accomplish her task. Trying to catch stranger\'s gossip. It was a hobby of hers.
Meanwhile, her food had been brought up by the waiter and placed in front of her. She had yet to hear anything interesting and her food was 20 times more important.
Some passer-by would look at her way every once in a while, then turn their heads because they didn\'t want to make it too obvious that they were looking.
It wasn\'t working.
Emilin was concentrating so much on eating that it seemed as if she was trying to finish a final stroke on a future masterpiece. It made others want to eat what she was eating and try to appreciate it as much as she did.
Eating was also a form of art.
It was about time for people to acknowledge this fact.
Just as Emilin was about to move on to her mango raspberry mousse cake she noticed some commotion between some people two tables over.
"Doctor! Are there any doctors here!" One of the waiters amongst the people shouted in a voice loud enough for everyone in the café, as well as some people outside to hear.
Emilin wasn\'t very interested in going, it would only add to her never-ending troubles. Even so, she couldn\'t help but glance in the direction of the commotion anyway.
Her eyes widened when she saw the two people at the center of the clamor.
The person in need of help was a black-haired man with a pale countenance hidden behind the black rims of his glasses. He was holding his stomach really hard as if his stomach hurt which is what he made the surrounding people believe.
For a trained eye, however, it was obvious he was choking on something, this could be seen through the changes in the blood circulation and his face\'s countenance.
He knew that the man next to him didn\'t know the Heimlich Manoeuvre and so he was attempting to do it on himself, but due to the stressful situation he was in, he couldn\'t do so properly.
The man next to him was one with hair dyed light blue. It was obvious as his eyebrows were pitch black and he didn\'t look like he was wearing a wig. He wore a suit of a similar pigment to his hair color, making people wonder if he had lost a bet.
His dress shirt was white with a shiny golden western bow tie around his neck. This man was trying to see what was wrong with the black-haired man wearing glasses while simultaneously asking for help from the surrounding people.
Emilin who was at first skeptical about helping reached the black-haired man\'s side in a flash.
With a quick Heimlich Manoeuvre, she smoothly unchoked the man who was then lying on the ground. A piece of food soaked in saliva was ejected and landed on the chest of the blue-haired man.
The man who had just seconds before looked like the most caring man changed faces faster than one could say Dorayaki.
"Bro, I\'m here trying to help you as best as I can, and now even while choking you won\'t spare me?" The tense atmosphere that was created due to the life that was in danger dissipated just like that.
The man who Emilin had just helped laughed as if he had not just gone through a life or death situation just seconds prior.
"How could I? You\'re the one that\'s supposed to be serving me today. How could I possibly die on you? Even if I did, my ghost would have to haunt you for the rest of eternity, just imagine how tiring that would be for me."
"You\'re not worth it." The black-haired man continued as he pushed the bridge of his glasses so that they would go back to place.
The man wearing the light blue suit ruffled his light blue hair and turned around to the girl that had just saved his friend.
"Couldn\'t you just have let him choke to death?" He asked the complete stranger.
Emilin scoffed. Maybe she should have.
"You can only blame yourself Doraemon," Emilin replied in a soft and nonchalant voice.
Well the only reason she saved him was because of the blue-haired man. Emilin was convinced that the blue-haired man was a cosplayer, he had an uncanny resemblance to Doraemon, just in a human form and taller as well as less round.
Otherwise, she might have really just let these people be to forgo the trouble. It wasn\'t her problem to deal with anyway.
Seeing that both people were fine, Emilin went back to her table to get her cake and ate it in 3 seconds flat before leaving.
The men who were left on their own were too stunned to do anything before she had already left and the surrounding people who had gathered to see what was happening weren\'t any less speechless.
"Can you believe it? She left just like that. Damien, what are you still doing here, shouldn\'t you go thank your savior?" The blue-haired man said. He had just ignored everything else Emilin said. The black-haired man, Damien, stood up and looked straight at his companion who was shorter than him.
"Well it doesn\'t look like my savior wants my gratitude seeing as how she left, but you Doraemon Kent, seem to be asking for something." He was getting ready to give his friend a punch in the face.
"Hey, hey. First, What Doraemon? Kent is just fine. Second, it\'s not my fault you can\'t chew properly. Rather than majoring in business management, I\'m sure we could find some classes on chewing for you."
"If they don\'t have classes on chewing, how can they even call themselves top universities." Kent wasn\'t helping his cause at all.
"I might really need to choose another school. If they are accepting people like you, then it\'s no good." Damien tidied himself up and gave his card to a nearby employee to pay for all the troubles they had caused.
"Hey! Why don\'t you ever say that the others are no good? They also got accepted and they\'re no better than me!" Kent didn\'t realize that he was both admitting that he was no good and throwing his pals under the bus at the same time.
Damien chuckled, "You\'re right, but they aren\'t here, which means they\'re at least better than you at something."
Kent looked very reluctant while thinking, \'I should have shoved a bigger piece of that doughnut down his throat.\'
He hmphed.
Meanwhile, Emilin had long left and started her shopping journey not knowing that she had left multiple tables of people dumbstruck.