2016-12-25: Melancholy Dreams and Dream-Coloured Sweets

[robkelk]

Melancholy Dreams and Dream-Coloured Sweets
By Rob Kelk

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Chapter 1

Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montreal, QC, Canada
December 25, 2016


"Santa-san, I've been a good girl all year, and I'm an isekai character now. Could you give me some powers, please? The dress was nice, but I felt like a little girl playing dress-up when I wore it."

Konata Izumi sighed deeply. She'd been an isekai character for two whole days now, and she still didn't have any powers, or a boyfriend, or a quest to undertake. The lack of powers rankled her in particular; she'd seen Guru Clef at the Christmas party the previous night but she never got a chance to ask him to cast Bestow Magic on her. She'd also seen Belldandy, but Megami-sama was too busy to grant anybody a wish. Konata was certain that she'd earned one... hadn't she? She didn't consider, or even imagine, that anybody who's certain that she'd earned a divine wish probably hadn't.

And getting a boyfriend was just as fruitless as getting powers. Mind you, the only available guys in the apartment building were Shirou Emiya and Archer. Considering what it meant to be Shirou Emiya's girlfriend, she'd probably be better off chasing after Shirou Takamachi in Philadelphia instead. Even considering Shirou Takamachi was happily married and had children her age. Archer... had the same problems as Emiya.

"Who else might make a good boyfriend?" she said to herself in Japanese while standing on a footstool and looking through the kitchen cupboards in search of something to make for breakfast the next day. Grahame Bright was married to Cassiopée, her landlady, and Souichirou Kuzuki was both too old for her and engaged to Caster. Then she thought about the residence in Ottawa, a couple of hours away by train or a couple of steps away by portal. Accelerator was even more dangerous to date than Emiya was, Touma Kamijo was clueless, Rob Donaldson was way too old for her, Tuxedo Kamen was definitely spoken for no matter which version of Sailor Moon he was from, and Artemis was a talking cat. And while there were others like her in Canada, she had no desire to even speak with any of the Nerima Wrecking Crew, let alone date any of them... or to date Tenchi Masaki, either. She liked having unbroken bones. She sighed again. "There are way too many people from shonen stories in this world. Where are the people from all the shojo stories, with their crowds of hot available guys? It looks like I'll have to find a boyfriend somewhere else, maybe in the States... or somebody who isn't in on the whole 'displacee' thing." Switching to English because she thought it more appropriate for what she was about to say, she continued, "I wonder who might want a girlfriend in Canada?" She grinned at the reference, then she closed the cupboard doors. "And we don't have much to choose from for breakfast tomorrow."

That was her first quest in this new-to-her world: Discover what her apartment-mate, Miyuki Takara, wanted to eat.

Calling it a quest made her feel better about it.

Heading out to the living room, Konata said, "We don't have a lot in the kitchen, Miyuki-san. I'm making a shopping list; do you have a pref..." she trailed off when she realized her apartment-mate was crying. "Never mind food. What's wrong?"

Miyuki looked up, used a tissue to dry her eyes, and replied, "We're never going home, are we?"

"Oh, Miyuki-san, why do you think that?"

"So many of those people we met yesterday have been here for months. They haven't gone home."

Konata knew exactly what to say. As she sat down beside her roommate, she replied, "They haven't started their quests yet. All we need to do is find out what our quest is and complete it, and we'll be able to go home!"

"But those girls from Okanoue Girls' High School went on a quest to reach their home, and they're still in this world..." Miyuki forced herself to not cry again. "Also, if somebody like Guru Clef was able to give us quests, he would have been giving people their quests yesterday. I hope I'm wrong... but I think there aren't any quests for people like us. We're never going to see our families again, or Minami-san, either."

Konata realized that just because she thought she was starting the adventure of a lifetime didn't mean her friends thought that way. Miyuki was homesick. And Konata admitted to herself that her apartment-mate was right; she was beginning to miss her father and Yui-neesan and Yutaka... and her own friends. "Or Patty, or Tamura-san, or Kuroi-sensei." Konata sighed deeply as she sat down beside Miuyki on their sofa. "You might be right. But if we give up hope, we'll never know for sure. And that's why I know I have to find my quest in this world." She refused to give up hope.

"You're going to quest for a quest?" The recursive thought brought a smile to Miyuki's face.

Konata smiled just as widely; her apartment-mate wasn't crying any more. "That's the Miyuki-chan I'm used to seeing! Now I can ask: what do you want me to add to our grocery list?"

"Didn't Mme. Bright say that she was making a big meal for everyone? Maybe we should just have a light snack if we have anything at all."

"That wasn't what I meant, but you're right; Bright-san told us to bring an appetite."

"Ah." Miyuki thought for a moment, then added, "Even so, could we get something from Mlle. Tennouji's bakery and coffee shop?"

"You just want something sweet, don't you?" Konata said with a grin. "You'd better be careful that all the strawberries you eat don't go to your waist." Miyuki gasped and put her hands over her midriff to hide her figure. "Sure, we can go get some tarts or something from Tennouji-san if Patisserie Belge is..."

After a moment, Miyuki said, "I'm sure they'll be open."

Konata shook her head. "How could I have missed it? A blonde young woman named Tennouji-san working in a patisserie. Miyuki-chan, did you read Ribon while you were in junior-high?"

"I read a few issues... oh! Now I remember! What was the story called... Yumeiro Pâtissière?"

"Exactly. I'll bet you a strawberry tart that she's a displacee, just like us. Let us start our quest to find out more about our neighbours!"

---

"We're going next door to get a snack."

Kagami looked up from where she and Medea were setting tables for lunch. The tables had been pushed together to form a long communal-style arrangement that all fourteen of the building's residents could share. "I wouldn't if I were you. Tsukasa, Cassiopée-san, Grahame-san, and Shirou-san are all working in the kitchen, and they're all busy doing different things. I think we're going to have a lot of food in an hour or so."

"In that case," Konata replied, "we're going next door to say 'Merry Christmas' to our neighbours." Seeing Miyuki's disappointed reaction to her comment, she added, "Okay, fine, and we're getting a small snack."

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Oh, let them spoil their appetites," Medea said. "As Socrates said, each person is the final authority for himself. Or, in this case, herself. And the less they eat, the more there will be for the rest of us."

Konata turned to Miyuki and repeated, "A small snack." Since they immediately headed for the door, they both missed seeing Medea smile at that comment.

It took them less than a minute to reach the bakery. As they opened the shop's front door, the girl behind the counter — a brunette teen with her hair in twin buns — looked up from the cookbook she was reading and smiled. "Merry Christmas, and welcome to Patisserie Belge!"

Miyuki replied, "Merry Christmas! Two strawberry tarts and two bottles of sparkling water, please."

"I'll take two strawberry tarts, too," Konata added with a grin.

"I thought that you insisted that we get a small snack."

The girl behind the counter hid a giggle behind her hand, then said, "We only have two strawberry tarts left. We didn't make very many because we knew business would be slow today. One strawberry tart and a bottle of sparkling water each?"

"Yes, please," Miyuki replied.

Konata and Miyuki were seated at one of the patisserie's tables in less than a minute. "Thank you for the food," they said in unison, then took a bite from their tarts.

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

Miyuki was the first to speak. "Oh, my."

"Yeah," Konata added. "I didn't know that strawberries could taste like this." [1]

"Where have these been all my life?" Miyuki asked rhetorically.

Konata answered anyway. "In a different reality altogether, just like us." She turned to the girl behind the counter. "Isn't that right, Amano-san?"

And that surprised the pâtissier. "How did you know my name?"

"I read it in a manga. You are Amano Ichigo, aren't you?"

"Yes..." she said with some suspicion.

"And you found yourself here, not knowing where you were or what day it was?"

"Three and a half months ago, yes.  How do you know that?"

Miyuki replied, "Because the same thing happened to us the day before yesterday. My name is Takara Miyuki, and my friend is named Izumi Konata."

"Izumi Konata... Wait here, please." And Ichigo headed into the patisserie's back room. Switching from French to Japanese, she said, "Mari-sempai! Makoto! Vanilla! Everybody! There are other people like us here!"

"We'd better finish our snack while she's back there," Konata said just before taking another bite of her tart.

"Yes, it would be a bad idea to tell them what we did say and then leave." Miyuki replied before enjoying her own tart.

Just after the women finished their sweets, the entire staff of Patisserie Belge — two young women and three young men, that Konata and Miyuki could see — made their way out of the back of the shop. The blonde woman said, "I'm Mari Tennouji, although Ichigo says you already knew who we are. I remember seeing you yesterday evening. What's all this about being from a different reality?"

"That does sound preposterous," the blond boy added. "Oh, and I'm Makoto Kashino."

"And I'm Konata Izumi. It may sound crazy, but how else would somebody who doesn't make desserts at all know about Sweet Spirits?"

That gave the staff pause. Finally, the boy with glasses said, "You could have heard about Sweets Spirits from somebody else." He emphasized the plural 'Sweets' slightly. "And I'm Sennosuke Andou."

"Well, yes," Konata said. "And that somebody else was Natsumi Matsumoto, the mangaka who wrote Yumeiro Pâtissière. That's the story that you're all in."

"I'm inclined to believe these young ladies," the other boy said. "They do look like the characters from the Lucky Star manga."

Miyuki turned to Konata. "I thought Kazari-san said we were from an anime."

"I wouldn't be surprised if both of our stories were turned into anime," Konata replied. She turned back to the others. "And I'm guessing you're Satsuki Hanabusa, right?"

"I am, yes."

"Are your Sweets Spirits here, too?"

"You can't see them?" Ichigo asked in reply while gesturing toward what Konata and Miyuki thought was empty air.

"No, I can't. Darn it."

Miyuki mentioned, "Neither of us are pastry chefs. Why should we be able to see them?"

Konata muttered, "Because I was hoping that might have been my power here. We're isekai characters now, we should have powers."

"We don't have powers," Mari pointed out.

Konata replied, "But you do have Sweets Spirit allies."

"Well," Ichigo said, "you have perfect fluency in French. The rest of us, even your friend Takara-san, have Japanese accents."

"You do, don't you? I wonder why that is. Maybe Cassiopée-san knows why. Oh! You have to meet Cassiopée-san! Come over for lunch!"

Before the others could reply, Miyuki said, "Are you sure you should be inviting them over? Mme. Bright was planning something special."

"You heard what Kagamin said. There's going to be plenty of food."

"Still, we should bring something to help out if we're dropping in unannounced," Mari insisted.

"That sounds like we're accepting their offer," Makoto commented.

"We are. They seem to know more about what happened to us than we do." Mari turned back to Konata and Miyuki. "How many people will there be at the dinner table?"

"There were fourteen of us before Konata invited you," Miyuki replied.

Mari looked at what was left in the display case, then turned to the other pâtissiers. "Ichigo, select gâteaux moka for two dozen people. Sennosuke, put the 'closed' sign in the window, draw the blinds, and lock the front door. Makoto, make sure the ovens are turned off and the windows are closed. Satsuki, you and I will put what's left of today's stock in the refrigerators. Let's not keep our new friends waiting!"

---

After locking the back door behind them, the group made its way to the back door of the apartment complex.

"Bright-san?" Konata asked as she opened the door. "Can we squeeze in five more displacees for dinner?" She walked into the dining room, letting Miuyki guide their visitors behind her.

Cassiopée replied to Konata without looking up from the bottles at the dining room's bar. "Displacees are always welcome. If it were any other day, we might have had a problem, but today we should have enough food to go around. We simply won't have as much food left over for tomorrow. Five more for dinner, and since I'm making the [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribou_(drink)]cariboo[/url] right now, I'll mix an extra pitcher."

"Ten more," Medea said quietly while she and Kagami moved to add another table to the long row of tables, "and you five are the cutest eidolons I've ever seen."

"You can see us?" Honey asked in amazement.

"Of course I can," Medea replied matter-of-factly. "I am a master mage."

Cassiopée wondered why Medea appeared to be talking to empty air, but assumed there was a reason for it and didn't interfere. Instead, she turned to the displacees who she could see... and gasped in surprise. They weren't newcomers.

"Mlle. Tennouji, you're a displacee?"

"Is that what people like Mlle. Izumi and Mlle. Takara are called?"

"Maudit d'esti," Cassiopée muttered. Then she said in a more normal tone of voice, "Yes, anyone who has been displaced from their home worlds to this one is called a displacee."

Ichigo said, "We were wondering why we couldn't find any trace of St. Marie Academy. Is that because we're in another world?"

"Oh, yeah," Konata replied.

Marie said, "Then we're displacees, yes. Can you explain what that means, please?"

While she continued mixing the pitchers of drinks, Cassiopée gave Mari and the others the quick description: Something or multiple somethings had happened to put various realities at risk, some people were being displaced from their home worlds to the world that displacees had begun to call Refuge when talking amongst themselves, and various divine and infernal beings were working together to end the crisis and provide housing for the displacees while the crisis was ongoing.

At the end of it, Makoto said, "I'd think you're delusional, except that Mlle. Izumi and Mlle. Takara know who we are and we know who they are."

Konata grinned. "We can show you chapters of the manga you're in, if you want. As soon as I find copies."

Cassiopée smiled at Konata's eagerness to help out. "Or we can show you the anime that you're from, later. It's too close to the start of the Christmas feast to do that now. And before you ask the same question that Rin did, no, we won't be serving fried chicken. Where are you living? I know you've been in this world for at least a couple of weeks, and if you're close enough, we might be able to entertain you with a story from your own lives before you have to go home today."

"We've been so busy getting and keeping the shop going that we've been sleeping on bunk beds in the back room," Makoto replied. "And we've been here since... when was it, again?" He looked at what seemed to be empty air, then said, "Thank you, Chocolat. We've been here since September 10."

"Depuis le 10 septembre..." She poured herself a shot of rye whisky from the bottle that she was using to make the cariboo, drank the shot in one gulp, carefully put the empty glass onto the bar, then said, "Crisse de câlice d'esti de tabarnak de sacrament de trou viarge!"

Caramel covered her ears in dismayed shock, which showed on her face; she had always been the most innocent of the Sweets Spirits. Of course, only the other Sweets Spirits, the pâtissières, and Caster could see her. Saber, who was just walking into the room with Rin, scowled in deep displeasure at hearing her landlady taking the Sacraments in vain.

Graheme immediately came running out of the kitchen. "What's wrong?"

"Mlle. Tennouji and her friends are displacees, they've been living here since the day before we moved into the building, and nobody told me about them!"

He sighed in relief. Yes, this was a problem, but not one that rated such an extreme reaction. Quietly and calmly, he said, "Calm down, Cassie. We know now."

"Don't call me 'Cassie' in public."

"Ah, yes, sorry. Relax, dear; it's Christmas. This isn't a time to be upset."

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then said, "You're right." Still upset but not acting on the emotion, she turned to the pâtissières to see Sennosuke trying to comfort what she still thought was empty air. "I'm sorry that I never asked my employers about what I needed to know about all of you, I'm sorry if that caused you any inconvenience," then she addressed that spot in the air, "and I'm sorry if my language offended you."

"Oh, think nothing of it," Mari replied.

"And Caramel accepts your apology," Sennosuke added.

Mari continued, "And we hope that you don't mind that we've been sleeping in the back of the shop for the last three months."

"That's something that I can do something about," Cassiopée said, eager to make amends for something that was never under her control. "We have empty furnished apartments above your shop, complete with bedrooms enough for each of you and good-sized bath tubs in the bathrooms. And I'll let you have the first month for free as an apology for you not already living there, if you want to move in."

Ichigo smiled widely. "You have a bath tub?! I've had to make do with showers since we got here!" The brunette turned to her blonde companion. "Mari, they have a bath tub. And we can have bedrooms of our own instead of sharing a bunk bed. And..."

Mari held up one hand in a "stop" gesture. "Ichigo, she had me at 'bath tub'." She turned to Cassiopée as she lowered her hand. "Throw in a bottle of bubble bath and you have a deal."

"I think I can see my way to do that," Cassiopée said with a smile as she offered her hand to Mari. "It's a bit late, but welcome to Appartements Mont-Royal Sud."

"Please take care of us," Mari replied as she shook Cassiopée's hand.

"We're planning on buying basic wardrobes and household sundries for the ladies from Ryouou tomorrow," Cassiopée told her new residents. "You're welcome to join us, should there be anything you'd prefer we buy for you."

"Thank you for the offer, but we do have to work in the shop tomorrow," Makoto pointed out

Mari smiled. "It's Christmas break at McGill and the local offices. Business is slow right now and should remain slow until the new year, unless we get orders to be filled on New Year's Eve. We'll take turns taking time off to go shopping for clothes and household goods. Makoto, since you just volunteered, you, Satsuki, and Sennosuke can keep the shop running tomorrow while Ichigo and I join Mlle. Izumi and Mlle. Takara at the stores."

"My sister and I will be shopping with you, too. I'm Hiiragi Kagami; happy to meet you."

"Tennouji Mari. I'm pleased to meet you, Mlle. Hiiragi." Mari turned back to her co-workers. "And the Mlles. Hiiragi as well."

Grahame smiled and commented, "That's probably for the best. You ladies go have fun shopping tomorrow with my wife; I'll take the young men shopping on the 27th. Now, I do have to get back to the kitchen. Give us another half-hour or so before sitting down."

---

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1. RK: This is canon for Yumeiro Pâtissière, and it's also true in the real world. Wood strawberries are subtly different from other strawberries. Should you want to taste-test for yourself (and I recommend you do), the French company Bonne Maman makes both strawberry jam and wood strawberry jam. RMS:  Count yourself lucky if you can find their wood strawberry jam.  It doesn't seem to be available in my area. RK: Then I'd best provide links, at least to their Canadian website: Strawberry jam and Strawberry and Wood Strawberry Spread.