Flambéed Love (Story of Seasons / Harvest Moon Fanfiction)

Chapter 11: Chocolate

Minori headed to the restaurant excitedly, holding a woven basket in her hands. She had finished given the chocolate cookies to Mistel, Nadi, and Kamil simply as a kind gesture to the bachelors in town, and chocolate truffles to Fritz and lastly Klaus, whom Minori is closer to. The only bachelor left is now Raeger, and she has baked him a special chocolate cake, to show her appreciation for the numerous times he has helped and shown kindness towards her, but mainly because of the feelings she has for him.

While Minori does not have perfect eyesight, she could still see a figure coming out of the restaurant from where she was currently at, in front of the guild. She saw Lillie cheerfully walking out of the restaurant, looking especially happy – which makes her wonder if anything good had just happened inside... possibly with Raeger?

'Well, they ARE very close after all' Minori thought. 'Could it be... has Lillie just confessed to Raeger?!'

Minori shook her head. 'No, I shouldn't be having any weird thought. I came here to deliver this cake, which I've put my best effort into, as a Valentine's Day present to thank Raeger for all that he's done.'

Once she calmed herself down, she continued walking towards the restaurant and repeatedly rehearsed her accompanying speech in her mind. She finally arrived at the main entrance and took a deep breath before firmly opening the door.

"Welcome to the restaurant!" Raeger was looking down towards the basin to clean the dirty dishes when his next customer came. He tilted his head up to find a very familiar face smiling at him from where she stood near the entrance. He was dumbfounded when he saw Minori right in front of him, just minutes after he and Lillie discussed about his love interest that was now at very close proximity; and he continued staring at her, speechless.

"Hey, Raeger! What's with the look?" Minori giggled, questioning him as she walked towards the counter and took a seat – which made Raeger come to his senses, and he finally uttered a few words back.

"AH! Sorry, Minori. Today's been... rather overwhelming."

Minori shot him a confused look, until she saw the pile of boxes, presumably Valentine's Day presents, stacked right behind him. "Are those all... Valentine's Day presents for you?"

Raeger sighed, "Yeah.. it happens every year. They came here just to give me some presents and then talk endlessly about themselves." He paused as he sighed once again. "But I just can't force them to leave, that'd be so rude."

Minori gave him a look of concern, "That sucks... I'm sorry that you have to go through something like that every single year." She paused, suddenly remembering that she, too, had a present box for him. Would he feel troubled receiving yet another Valentine's Day present? Minori could see that some of the gifts are clearly expensive, judging by the extravagant packaging; and meanwhile, hers was pretty much.. simple.

"Hey, Raeger."

"Hhhmm? What is it?"

"I, uh.., I know you already have a lot of gifts by now, and mine's not that special compared to the ones you got, but.." Minori paused to take a medium-sized box wrapped in yellow out of her woven basket, and bashfully hand it towards Raeger. "I made something for you."

Raeger gazed at the box for a while feeling astonished, before he slowly took it away from her hands.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Raeger!"