Family Owned Establishment

A Day In The Fated Future

House of the Crowleys

(Dazai Crowley's POV)

As I said before, the top floor only consisted of the bedrooms belonging to me, Alice and our parents, with a couple bathrooms in between. And with Blair growing hungry, we did our fair share of exploration and finally decided to move on downstairs. 

Surprisingly enough there wasn't much to say about the second floor. It looked like your fairly average living room. Sure, some of it did serve as stimuli for my memories, but I didn't recall anything special. 

Course some of the mysterious light did return and brought more familiar details, but none of it was really worth noting. Well, besides the huge TV and maybe some other family pictures we had mounted on a table somewhere in the far corner. 

At one point, I did try turning the TV on and see what would happen. But, of course, to no one's surprise, it said "no connection", which I should've expected to happen, but I felt oddly disappointed. 

To make matters worse, Blair saw my expression and teased me about it. Since there wasn't much to say or do, I simply rolled my eyes and kept moving.

After coming down a long flight of winding steps, we finally came down to the first floor, which so happens to be a lot more different then the last two.

Judging from the furniture, it appeared to be some sort of indoor cafe with some aspects seen in bakeries. There were many tables and chairs standing in the center of the room and booths sitting near windows, each dressed adorned with cute vases and other eye-catching accessories. 

The border between the public area and employees only territory was defined by a short line made of slanted donut racks. And since we came down from upstairs, we ended behind the cash registers.

"Hey, Dazai. Look! Donuts!~" Blair shouted aloud in happiness as she pointed to the shelves ahead. 

Surprisingly enough, there was actual food placed inside. And it wasn't just donuts, but there were all types of baked goods. I'm talking about cookies, crackers, brownies and cupcakes.

Each of which came in many different and assorted shapes, sizes and colorful flavors. They were so well baked that simply looking at them was enough to make our mouths water. 

"I wonder who made all of this stuff?" Blair asked as she slid one of the panels open to grab something. 

"If you don't know who did it, don't try eating it in the first place…." 

"Hey, when you present food to a hungry person, he can't help but indulge himself~...." She replied before helping herself to a hearty bite. 

I rolled my eyes at her and looked around. 

"If I remember correctly, I think my mom's the head chief in this house. I know she's good at cooking a lot of things and whatnot but I forgot that she decided to make a business out of it." 

"Oh, so then this place belongs to you huh?~" She asked. 

"Yeah, I guess?" 

"So that means~…. there's no problem with me eating here since I'm part of the family too…right?~"

As she was talking, Blair tried walking around me while tracing her index finger along my chest in a flirtatious manner. 

"No, that'll be ten bucks, ma'am." 

Suddenly, she stopped in a surprised manner.

"Ten!? Can I atleast get the family discount?~..." 

Obviously, I was mostly joking, because right now, I couldn't care less about making a quick buck off a woman who ate my food without permission. 

Besides, I was actually getting hungry myself. And since you can't really think on an empty stomach, I decided to look around for the nearby kitchen. 

"What are you looking for? Food's right here you know." Blair asked me. 

"I don't know about you but I'd rather not eat sweets on an empty stomach. It fucks you up on the inside." I stated, before moving on. 

"Pft~, okay Mr. Health Critic~...." 

Rolling my eyes at her yet again, I pushed past some thick sliding doors and entered the back rooms where the kitchen was supposed to be.  

In here, there were several types of stoves like electric glass tops and open gas burners. Deep oil fryers for potato wedges, chicken and other fried goods. Cutting boards were adjacent to utensil holders which held a variety of multipurpose knives. 

The place was littered with many large and spacious rooms for storage such as pantries, refrigerators and freezers, all to which each held different ingredients like well preserved meats, bundled herbs and bottled spices and oils all in bulk. 

With all of this at our disposal, it was clear that me and my family in the past never went hungry. 

Oddly enough, just being in here brought back some heartwarming memories. In fact, the many aromas that wafted through the air were rather nostalgic. 

Yeah, now I remember. Back when we were a lot younger, me and Alice used to be in here nearly every single day. Under Mom's tutelage, we began learning how to cook exceptional plates of food. 

The success, the failures, all of these experiences and enjoyable moments came back to me vividly.  

The path into mastering the culinary world is long and incredibly difficult, but every so often we would get better and better at refining those trades. 

As I was deeply reminiscing about the past, I began to recall some of the old recipes I learned from back then. One in particular just so happened to be one of my favorite classics. 

Understanding what I needed, I returned back to the present day and began looking around. If this place was truly the physical manifestation of my memories, then all of my tools should be in here. 

And it wasn't long until I got everything I needed together before I got straight to cooking. 

Though with that said, everything else that happened afterwards was pretty much a blur. 

Not as in I couldn't make out what was happening around me, but more so I was so detached from reality that I didn't bother to make sense of what else was happening. 

From start to finish, I was so engrossed in cooking, nothing else seemed to even matter. All that I focused on was safety, preparation, flavor, presentation and efficiency.

Some time later however, I somehow snapped back to reality and walked back out of the kitchen with two hot plates in hand. 

After noticing Blair seating somewhere in a faraway booth, I carefully walked my way towards her. Only for me to notice she was glaring at me with a rather sour expression on her face. 

"What's wrong?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"You were ignoring me...!" She said in a downtrodden "hmph" manner. 

"Ignoring? When the hell did I do that?" 

"You seriously don't remember!? I was calling out to you and seeing what you were doing. But you didn't go as far to say a single word to me. All you did was move around the kitchen in absolute silence, pretending as though I didn't even exist!" 

What?...Even after Blair explained everything to me, I still couldn't understand what she was saying. I literally didn't even see her during the whole time I was cookin–.....Oh. 

Now that I'm thinking about it some more, I think Blair had come in to check on me at one point to see what I was up to, but I was so lost in a trance I didn't really pay her any attention. With me being so focused on cooking, my mind had tuned out anything I subconsciously deemed as a distraction. 

In other words, this meant I ignored Blair so hard, I forgot she even existed. Since it happened quite literally, it made it no less hilarious to me. 

"Pft~…" I snickered aloud. The mere thought of it was enough to make me laugh.  

"Oh, so you think it's funny ignoring your wife!? For shame, mister!" Blair retaliated with an angry voice and cute and puffy cheeks.  

"Heh, oh relax~...." I replied while struggling to get the last bit of the humor out of my throat. 

After coughing a little while after, I got myself back on track and spoke seriously. 

"Word of advice, don't try distracting a person who's clearly cooking, okay? You saw what I was doing and I even told you I was going to whip something together before we came down here, remember? So stop trying to be some spoiled girl who needs my attention every five seconds." I said emotionlessly. 

Suddenly, Blair fell silent. Her expression changed to that of subtle guilt and regret. 

"You're right…I'm sorry, Dazai…" She softly replied.

Since she immediately learned who really was in the wrong here without being too stubborn, I sighed a little in relief and decided to look past that. 

"Good, now let's eat." I said while placing the food on the table in front of us. 

"U-....Uhuh…..well, uh, thank you for the food~....."