Whether Kawaragi Momoka would feel a guilty conscience and wake up in the middle of the night to slap herself, Asakura did not know-he only gave a light cough and asked Shiina Mahiru.

"Shiina, you worked in a cafe before, so I assume you already have a general understanding of basic service work, is that alright?"

"If I must say... because the previous cafe was a maid cafe, I have an understanding of even the ’non-basic’ parts..."

The girl answered with an expression that seemed a bit difficult to let go of.

"What do you mean by ’non-basic’ service work?" Kawaragi Momoka asked curiously.

"To give an example, if a customer orders a ’Maid’s Love Omurice’," Shiina Mahiru explained, "First, you serve them a frozen omurice made from pre-prepared ingredients-"

"Cough, cough," as a restaurant owner, Asakura coughed dryly to speak up for his peers, "What pre-prepared ingredients? That’s called central kitchen pre-processing technology!"

Kawaragi Momoka and Shiina Mahiru tacitly ignored him.

It seemed that even after only knowing him for a few days, Shiina Mahiru had already more or less mastered the knack for getting along with Asakura.

"And then, you attach a ’special service’ to the dish the customer ordered-cough, excuse me," Shiina Mahiru looked a bit embarrassed, but she still put on a very bright and cute business smile, her hands making a gesture similar to ’making a heart♡’: "Moe-moe pure-pure miracle☆heartbeat Omurice-san become delicious... It’s probably something like that."

She looked at Asakura and Kawaragi Momoka, only to find both looking at her with statue-like shocked expressions-she instantly felt even more ashamed. If this were an anime, steam would probably be rising in clouds from her head right now.

After a moment, the two statue-like people finally regained their lives.

Asakura: "Clearly there is nothing on the table, but for some reason, there’s a feeling that something truly delicious actually exists!"

Momoka: "If it’s a beautiful girl like Mahiru, I might even order this kind of frozen meal omurice for five hundred yen!"

The girl covered her face: "Please, just hurry up and forget it..."

She clearly just wanted to complain about how ridiculous her previous job was, so why did it end up feeling like a shame-play instead!

After a bit of a commotion, Asakura continued explaining the work she would be responsible for.

"Because we are a dessert shop, and desserts are prepared every morning, the work almost never involves the back kitchen. You only need to be responsible for the front of the house. Specifically, that means greeting customers, packaging, cashiering, and cleaning. In addition, there are extra services like providing drinks."

Asakura said seriously: "Although I’ve already tasted the flower tea you brewed at home, for the sake of professional rigor, can you use the materials available in the shop to brew a cup of black tea and a cup of coffee respectively?"

"At home?"

Kawaragi Momoka’s gaze sharpened, and her mouth turned into a mischievous cat-like grin.

"Don’t overthink it," Asakura glanced at her, feeling that if he didn’t explain, she might try to make him play rock and roll again. "Shiina is just a neighbor who recently moved in. I gave her a tea box before, and as a thank-you, she treated me to a cup of tea."

Because he felt that mentioning Hiroi Kikuri would make things more complicated, Asakura simply simplified the matter, telling a "director’s cut" version.

Shiina Mahiru glanced at him but said nothing. She probably also felt the situation was a bit complex and hard to explain clearly. Moreover, Hiroi Kikuri was the type of person where even if you were just stating facts, it always felt like you were badmouthing someone-because there were rarely any good words to be said when she was mentioned...

"No, wait a second... didn’t you just say Mahiru was having a hard time? Mainly financially," Momoka asked.

"Yeah, is there a problem?"

"Boss, your place is actually quite big. As a neighbor, Mahiru’s place shouldn’t be small either, right?" Momoka pointed to herself and asked: "If a Mahiru like that counts as having a hard life, then what about me, who back then couldn’t even afford rent and was about to become a vagrant here in Chiba?"

"...A refugee?" Asakura answered uncertainly.

"Eh, is Miss Kawaragi actually more miserable than me?" The kind-hearted Shiina Mahiru (156cm) was instantly flooded with sympathy. She stood on her tiptoes and reached out to pat Kawaragi Momoka’s (164cm) head, seemingly trying to comfort her.

"Damn it, I’m being pitied by a kid who is so much younger than me!" Kawaragi Momoka said sorrowfully.

"Don’t mind her, go brew your tea," Asakura said to the somewhat flustered Shiina Mahiru. "Both of this girl’s parents are alive and well. Whenever she goes home, she has at least a meal to eat and a bed to sleep in. The reason she’s out here ’eating bitterness’ is purely because she can’t let go of her music dreams. Someone with the ability and opportunity to chase a dream is already happier than over 80% of the people in the world."

"I see..." Shiina Mahiru looked at Kawaragi Momoka with a bit of envy and then walked toward the bar.

"Doesn’t that child have dreams of her own?" Momoka asked with a frown.

"What right does someone for whom survival is a problem have to talk about dreams?" Asakura said calmly.

"Boss, aren’t you curious?"

"She has her own life. It’s better not to interfere too much," Asakura shook his head.

"You’re the last person who has the right to say that, right? Haven’t you interfered in enough girls’ lives?"

"Why limit it to girls?"

"Have you even started on the boys?!" Kawaragi Momoka’s pupils shook.

"Hmm, now that you mention it, it seems they really are all girls." Asakura immediately retracted his statement.

"See, you’re the one who likes interfering with others the most."

"Don’t take the lead, don’t refuse, don’t take responsibility-that is my creed in life."

"That’s literally a scumbag’s creed! Your life is already synonymous with being a scumbag, hey!" Kawaragi Momoka shouted. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

While the two argued endlessly about how cheap Asakura’s life was, Shiina Mahiru had already finished brewing the black tea and coffee.

Using a tea tray, she carefully delivered the two drinks to the table in front of Asakura and the others.

"Coffee or black tea?" Kawaragi Momoka asked, looking at Asakura.

"Black tea," Asakura replied.

"Then I’ll drink the coffee." Kawaragi Momoka began adding sugar and milk to the coffee, the amount so large it made Shiina Mahiru’s eyes twitch to the point of wanting to say something but stopping herself.

Asakura took a sip of the black tea and then evaluated it.

"The entry is slightly astringent, but the aftertaste is great. It has that sweet taste unique to fermented tea, and the mouthfeel is very mellow. It feels like even a child’s tongue could easily accept it... 7 points for the tea, 2 points for the maid’s deliciousness spell, total score is 9 points."

"That spell’s duration is way too long, hey!"