Captain Cinderella and the Newlywed King
A short while later, Haeshin—face flushed scarlet—and Crystal, looking thoroughly delighted, came bickering their way up to the counter.
"Hahaha! Bartender!! You should have seen the state of her just now! She couldn't even find where the coin slot was, so she tried to jam a plastic chip into the bill feeder—and when I told her to pull the lever, she hung off the machine like she meant to tear it apart!"
Crystal clutched her stomach, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
"And then she grabbed the slot machine and shouted, By royal command, spit those chips out this instant!"
Wiping the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, she slapped the counter with her palm, and her booming laughter rang through the quiet lobby.
"Silence, you wretch! Hold your tongue this instant!"
Haeshin's voice cracked sharp. The usual arrogant, crushing dignity of the heir apparent was nowhere to be found. Flushed red to the tips of her ears, she huffed and jabbed a finger at Crystal.
"Th-those insolent lumps of metal dared to refuse Our touch! From the very start, it is against all reason that the sacred body destined for the throne should have to wrestle with such vulgar machinery!"
"Yes, yes, of course! The casino machines failed to recognize Your Majesty's dignity and committed treason! Kyahahaha!"
"Th-that vulgar pirate dares insult Us to the very end...!"
Unable to swallow her fury, Haeshin trembled. Shame and rage tangled until she hardly knew what to do with herself—and then her gaze snapped, all at once, to me standing behind the counter. The moment she found me, she coughed hastily, drew her collar closed, and tried by any means to salvage her crumpled dignity. The fire in her face, however, would not easily die down. She dropped into the chair before the counter with a thud.
"Attendant! Our insides burn, and We are most displeased! Present at once something to soothe the mood soured by that arrogant pirate's noise and those blasphemous machines! Something cold... and very sweet, to quench this blazing wrath of Ours!"
It was a command straining for dignity, but knowing she had only just been wrestling with the machines, the bellow sounded like nothing more than a sulking child's tantrum.
"Right, Bartender! I'll take something cold too! Ahh, I've been laughing my head off since morning, and my throat's bone dry! Something pretty and refreshing, like that Shine on the Beach or whatever it was!"
Crystal hopped up onto the seat beside Haeshin and tossed out her order with cheerful ease.
Behind the two of them, Grace came trudging over with a thoroughly vacant look. Shoulders slumped, eyes unfocused, she sent me a wordless plea for rescue. I nodded without a word and began setting out the juices to make the drink she had liked.
At that, our sovereign's eyes changed.
"A layered cocktail of peach, orange, and cranberry juice. That Shine on the Beach—its true name is Sex on the Beach, is it not?"
Haeshin dropped the bomb with a perfectly blank face and not a flicker of emotion, in the dry tone of someone reciting a line from a general-knowledge book read in a library. The same person who couldn't open a snack bag with her own hands, and had tried to jam a plastic chip into a slot machine, was somehow astonishingly well versed in trivia like this.
Beside her, Crystal's cheerful leg-swinging stopped dead.
"S-s-s-se... wh-what?! S-se..."
Her voice cracked pitifully. A vivid blush raced in real time up her tanned skin, from the nape of her neck to the tips of her ears. Her lips trembled in little spasms, and those big eyes whipped toward me.
"B-Bartender! D-don't tell me you gave me a drink with a name that—that dirty—first thing in the morning?!"
"You told me to just handle it instead of looking at a menu... And ordinary people usually fudge the first word anyway."
I waved my hands in a hurry, pleading my innocence. Crystal, however, had already lost all reason. Once again she had turned into an innocent girl flailing in terror at a single suggestive word.
"Still! The meaning—the original meaning is what it is! You made me drink something that embarrassing first thing in the morning and laughed at me on the inside, didn't you! Kyaaaah! I don't know! I'm already married off!"
Crystal clapped both hands over her burning cheeks, flopped onto the counter, and drummed her feet.
Haeshin side-eyed the thrashing Crystal as if she were a hopeless case.
"What a dreadful fuss. It is merely the name of a cocktail. What cause is there to scream so vulgarly? We have only corrected an erroneous designation."
She seemed to have cleanly forgotten who had just been shouting at a slot machine to spit out its chips. A king perfectly cold toward another's shame, while setting her own dark history neatly aside.
Paying Crystal's feelings no mind at all, Haeshin pressed me for her cocktail.
"Attendant. Leave that noisy pirate be, and finish presenting Ours. Something cold and sweet."
"Yes... understood. Haha... I'll prepare two: a taste of the south, and the height of sweetness."
I decided to start with the drink I could make fastest—the one that might calm our captain, whose face was currently on fire. I opened the refrigerator, took out orange juice, pineapple juice, and lemon juice, and tipped them into an ice-filled shaker. After a light shake, I poured the cocktail over fresh ice and offered her the glass.
"It's a Cinderella. The name really is on the menu... and the description adds that it's a cocktail for people who can't drink alcohol at a party."
In the present situation, plain fact seemed likelier to cool our captain's burning face than any joke or excuse.
The moment I finished, Crystal's noisy thrashing on the table stopped as if someone had cut a string. Still cupping her scarlet cheeks in both hands, she peeked up through her fingers at the yellow drink held out to her.
"C-cough! Th-that's right! A party!"
Crystal sprang upright like a coil. The tearful panic of a moment ago vanished without a trace as she hastily cleared her throat.
"Of course! This great captain does occasionally enjoy a very wholesome—ah!—refreshing party drink! Indeed she does!"
She snatched the glass from my hand as if seizing it, bit down on the straw, and drank hard. Through the cold ice, the sweetness of pineapple and orange braided with lemon's bright tartness, and the liquid vanished in a flash. The coolness reaching all the way to her nape seemed to take a good deal of the heat out of her face; the blush spread across her tanned skin began to fade in earnest.
"Haa...! So refreshing! I knew something like this suited the great Crystal perfectly! That weird-named cocktail from before—throw it to the bottom of the sea!"
She made a point of not so much as glancing Haeshin's way, pouring every ounce of her attention into the Cinderella before her.
Beside her, Haeshin stood with her arms folded, looking down at the display as if she could not believe her eyes.
"Playing at pirates, and yet imitating a princess who lost her glass slipper. A farce so ridiculous it has no equal."
She clicked her tongue lightly and turned her head. At that merciless review, Crystal's shoulders flinched—but the captain pretended not to hear, and only gnawed on her straw.
Having lost interest in Crystal, Haeshin's black eyes fixed straight on me. Her slender fingers tapped the bar. Tap. Tap.
"Attendant. That noise pollution seems more or less contained. At last, it is Our turn."
She issued the command with her usual arrogance.
"So that this displeasure—born of insult at the hands of those lumps of metal—may be washed clean away, present something very cold, and sweet enough to leave the head dazed."
From somewhere behind me came the faint sound of Grace letting out a long, relieved breath. All that remained was to suit the palate of a sovereign with no life skills whatsoever, returned from the casino having lost her chips and thoroughly out of sorts.
"Yes. Understood..."
I approached the Familiar that had been watching Grace's mood and asked it to bring heavy cream and nutmeg, if it had any. The creature's rabbit ears twitched—and in the next moment it had become a girl with rabbit ears, darting off toward the kitchen. A short while later, a plastic tub of cream and a packet of nutmeg in hand, I resolved to be the cleanup hitter who would put an end to this chaos.
I took up the long bottle of fine Galliano and poured a measure, then added white cacao liqueur and the cream the Familiar had brought in equal parts, and shook them gently. I poured the cocktail into a well-chilled glass, dusted it with the nutmeg, and offered it to our sovereign.
"A Golden Cadillac. Sweet and cold, and... there's a joke mixed in, that you can't drink it alone. It was originally created to congratulate a couple on their marriage."
Haeshin wrapped her slender fingers around the cold glass. She took the smallest sip, just enough to wet her lips, and her eyes widened a fraction. The vanilla and anise sweetness peculiar to Galliano, together with the softness of white cacao and cream, seemed to melt the mood those machines had crumpled, gentle as snow giving way. She set the glass down slowly, trying to keep her dignity—but she could not hide the satisfied smile already spreading at her mouth.
"Hmph. Presumptuous, Attendant. To dare speak to Us of a consort."
Haeshin looked down at me with a prim air. The tone was reproachful, yet no displeasure clung to her voice.
"The place of a king's consort is the seat beside the one who rules all under heaven. Since you have offered Us something this sweet and raised a couple's cup, We shall take it as an oath that you give all of yourself to Us."
Having twisted the situation to her own taste by her own private logic, our sovereign brought the glass to her lips once more. Cream smeared thick along the rim, and with no straw at all she took it into her mouth—less a king than a child whose mood had been entirely restored by a sweet treat.
But that peaceful appreciation shattered at the violent coughing that burst from the next seat.
"Kegh! Kehek! Cough! M-m-mar... a m-married couple?!"
Crystal nearly sprayed her Cinderella and collapsed over the counter. The tanned nape that had only just begun to cool flared red all at once. Tears pricking her eyes, she jabbed a finger at us.
"B-Bartender! Are you in your right mind?! F-first thing in the morning... a dirty cocktail name wasn't enough, and now you're proposing outright?! Y-you two, right here... wh-what are you trying to do in front of meeee!"
The pirate captain, who had lost all immunity to the words love and romance, covered her face with both hands and drummed her feet hard enough to shake the table. In her head, hundreds of mortifying fantasies were already whipping past like a storm.
"Truly a vulgar, noisy creature. A couple's vow is a sacred union. Why react so basely?"
Haeshin wiped the cream from her mouth with the back of her hand in a rough swipe and clicked her tongue.
"Haa..."
From somewhere behind me came a heavy sigh, as if half a soul had already departed.
"Lady Crystal, please compose yourself. Your voice is far too loud."
Grace managed to haul her trembling lips upward into a customer-service smile.
"And you, temporary Bartender. I am grateful that your excellent skill has soothed Lady Haeshin's mood... but please, do not go picking at a scab by attaching unnecessary romantic origins to the drinks. I feel my lifespan shrinking."