The Princess Outside A Fairytale Story

Cooking

“I’ve cooked breakfast and lunch already. Just heat it with the oven, okay?”

The sleepy Syr just nodded her head as she yawned and rubbed her eyes while walking towards the kitchen. She just wake up and she’s still feeling really sleepy even though she completed the recommended 8 hours of sleep.

Syr heard the front door slam shut signaling that Ryuu already left the apartment.

Syr opened the fridge to drink some water first. Drinking water after waking up is a good thing, why? Just because it’s good. Kidding, it's because we didn't drink any for the past 6-8 hours. It's important to make our bodies hydrated again but water actually tastes bad during the morning.

After drinking water, Syr took a seat on the wooden chair at the small dining table and looked for the breakfast that Ryuu prepared. Without waiting any longer, she started eating while scrolling down on her phone. Reading messages from her mother and her best friend. After checking the messages, she clicked the blue icon social media app to scroll and skim some nonsense posts from random people that are actually her friends on the said social media app.

Syr came across a picture of a cup of coffee then she suddenly remembered the joke she made yesterday.

“What the hell is this? I knew it. This really is nonsense. I shouldn’t have let-”

Ryuu was interrupted when a notification bell from her phone was heard. She immediately snapped her head to the phone as she stared at the screen. She just received a text message from Laura. Laura. replied. to. Syr’s. message.

Ryuu’s eyes widen in disbelief as she still just keep staring at her phone. Her hands are trembling and her breath was caught in her throat.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Syr asked as she stared at Ryuu who’s just staring in disbelief at her phone screen. Syr frowned, thinking that maybe Ryuu is just being crazy when a realization hits her. She immediately grabbed Ryuu’s phone from Ryuu’s hand to confirm her suspicion, which made Ryuu groan.

Just like Ryuu, Syr’s eyes widen in disbelief too when she saw Laura’s name in the notification bar. She immediately double-clicked Laura’s name to open it but a password of course stopped her from doing it. She cursed as she faced Ryuu once again.

“Open your goddamn phone.”

Syr said in a hard but low voice, remembering the kid that was sitting close to their table, she doesn’t want to receive another glare from the middle-aged woman.

Ryuu, still in a daze, slowly raised her hand and opened it using her fingerprint. When she finally unlocked the phone, that’s when she only realized what happened and what she had just done.

“H-Hey give my phone back to me.”

Syr ignored her and just keep her eyes on the phone. Ryuu, losing patience, stood up from her seat and take a seat beside Syr to take a peek at her phone. The couch that they’re actually sitting at is a two-seated couch so Ryuu didn’t have any trouble peeking on her phone.

‘What?’, that’s what Laura replied to the text.

Syr feeling excited, started typing for a reply when Ryuu snatched her phone back.

“Hey, what are you doing? Why are you the one replying to my wife’s message?”

Syr rolled her eyes but didn’t snatch the phone back.

“And who was supposed to reply? You? All you will ever say is sorry and beg her to talk to you and then what? She will no longer reply.”

Ryuu bit her lip and looked down at her phone in her hand. Syr is right. What she will really reply is sorry and beg her wife to talk to her and the possibility of her wife not really bothering to reply is higher than she can even imagine. And it’s not even because of her why her wife sent a message. It’s all because of Syr’s message that she thought was nonsense but actually the most effective of all.

Ryuu sighed and handed the phone back to Syr but didn’t go back to her seat.

Syr smiled and even gave her a thumbs up then unlocked the phone once again with the help of Ryuu. She no longer wasted more time and immediately type the response to Laura’s text.

You mean a latte to me! Can we talk and resolve our problem now? Please. I miss you so much.

When Syr typed that message she no longer bothered to ask Ryuu what she wanted to add. Syr knew what Ryuu wanted to say to her wife. She just made it more organized and calmer.

The two waited patiently for Ryuu’s phone to light up and ring again with a short notification bell but it didn’t. Even when they already got home, it didn't. Syr is so guilty that time that she kept on biting her lip. She really thought that that can be possible but Laura maybe is really hard to once again ignore Ryuu. She apologized to Ryuu but Ryuu didn’t become angry at all. She said that whoever replies to that message, Ryuu is sure that they will still not get any reply from Laura.

Syr dried her hands with the clean cloth then picked up her phone that was playing random music placed on the kitchen counter next to her. She just finished washing the dishes and she’s now planning to clean the whole apartment. It’s not like she has anything else to do aside from household chores. It was indeed Syr’s first time doing household chores but she’s not dumb enough to keep making mistakes and making a mess. She succeeded in washing the dishes without breaking any of them.

Syr slowly opened the door of Ryuu’s room. She expected to see a messy room, dirty clothes on the floor, not yet fixed bed, dark wallpaper, and an unorganized cabinet, but she’s wrong. There are no clothes scattered on the floor. Her blanket is neatly folded and the bedsheet is fixed to perfection. The cabinet, Ryuu’s personal things on the cabinet are organized, even have the tall ones at the back of the small ones. The walls are painted white, making the room look cleaner and brighter than it is.

Syr nodded her head slowly, being impressed at Ryuu. She then started sweeping the door, still humming to the song playing on her phone. Cleaning it didn’t take that long since there’s little to no mess. She was about to walk out of the room when she noticed a picture that was placed next to the bed. Out of curiosity she walked towards it and picked it up to inspect it. She recognized the girl that was standing beside Ryuu as Laura. She has only seen Laura twice in the picture but Laura has features that will surely keep her in your mind. And also, Ryuu’s arm that was snaked on Laura’s waist confirmed that hunch of her.

Laura in the picture is wearing a white professional uniform of a chef while holding a trophy. So she is a chef.

An amused "Oh" left Syr’s lips as she returned the picture to the bedside table again and walked out of the room for real. Syr then continued cleaning the whole apartment again and because she’s not used to doing it, it took her longer than needed to finish cleaning.

Heaving a long sigh, Syr took a seat on the couch with ice cream in her hand and grabbed the remote of the TV to turn it on. She just finished taking a bath. She still has a towel on her head and still hasn’t applied any lotion on her body. She was still tired from all the cleaning and she just wanted to take a seat for a moment.

Finding nothing to watch, Syr just turned off the TV and grabbed her phone instead. She clicked on the rectangular red icon with a triangle on the center and scrolled down the recommended videos. She was so engrossed in watching some cooking videos that she didn’t notice her hair started drying already. Great, now she will have a hard time combing her hair.

After a few strands of her hair losing its life on her scalp, she finally finished combing it as she made her way back to the kitchen to heat up the lunch that Ryuu cooked for her. While waiting for the microwave, an idea popped out of her head. Syr opened the fridge once again and tried to look for ingredients. She remembered one dish that she watched earlier and she’s hoping if she can maybe try cooking it.

While roaming her eyes to the ingredients inside the fridge, the microwave finally made a ‘ding’ sound so she closed the fridge and went back to the microwave. But first of all, she needs to fill herself first.

Just to make sure, after eating lunch, Syr went out to buy more ingredients in a nearby grocery store that she saw. Well, she can't be sure how many ingredients will she waste- use before she even makes the best of all the bests she can make at this moment. Syr played the video once more. She’s studying every little thing that the person is doing. From the cutting of the vegetables to how little salt she should add. For the first time, Syr is determined to do something aside from taking care of her plants and running away from home.

Syr didn’t notice the time flew past. She can’t even feel the pain of standing for so long. She even disregarded the fact that her body is lacking in fluid already, her fingers slowly became pruney due to all the repetitive washing of ingredients of her. It’s a relief that she’s only cooking a small portion because if she’s not then she doesn’t know how will she even finish a dish that she can’t understand the exact taste of. The first dish that she finished is kind of salty with an after-taste of bitterness. While her second try of the dish is a little bit sour and still salty.

Syr doesn’t know why. For the first two tries that she did, she made sure to follow every instruction but it still didn’t end up how it was supposed to taste like. She actually wants to give up and never ever try cooking again but at the same time, she doesn’t want to. She was that type of person that when she took a liking to one thing, she will do anything to finish it and satisfy herself. There’s no way she will stop trying to learn how to cook without even trying her hardest, not when she already took a liking to it.

Syr stopped for a moment. She took a deep breath as she went to the fridge and drink some water first, finally noticing her pruney little fingers.

For the last time, she watched once again the video and made sure to pay even more attention to all the details for her third and last try at cooking. Last for now because she’s running out of ingredients already.

Syr is busy cutting ingredients. She’s cutting more carefully now. She no longer wants to fail, well whoever wants to fail? Syr is so engrossed in cooking, so focused on cutting some vegetables that the sound of the door slam shut startled her making the knife lose the trace it’s tracing, and ended up cutting her index finger instead. It’s a relief that she didn’t push the knife down more or else her index finger will be cut into two.

The blood dripping from the cut started coating the vegetable that she’s been cutting. Now Syr is really sure that this third attempt of her won’t end up good. Finally realizing what happened, Syr shrieked in pain as she walked towards the sink and immediately opened the faucet to clean her wound with the running water.