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Crispin loved Valentine’s Day. It’s not like he had any significant other for the occasion (he’s still working on that). He just enjoyed the atmosphere. Red and pink were everywhere. Hearts decorated rooms and lockers. Of course, he had other reasons. He was a chef by trade and would be more than happy to cook Valentine’s Day dinner for anyone. However, this year was a bit different. He had accidentally booked two different dinners in the same time slot.
He was running around the Terarium, looking for anyone who could help him.
“Please?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“I’ll call my dad.”
“Please no.” Crispin slouched over. “What am I going to do, Lacey?”
“Can you just call one of them and cancel the dinner?” Lacey said, “I’m sure whoever you booked will be fine with it.”
Hiding behind the frying pan, Crispin said, “I would … but I already spent all their money.”
“Okay, whose money was it exactly? I’m sure if you apologize everything will be all –”
“It was Kieran’s and his date's.”
“Oh … yeah, I can see why you asked me to break your arm.” Kieran was certainly no longer the emo edgelord of Blueberry Academy, but nobody wanted to press their luck by having him as a dissatisfied customer. Everyone is at their worst when it comes to money. “Who’s the other one?”
“Juliana and her date.”
“Okay, let's not look bad in front of the foreigner either.” While it wouldn’t utterly destroy relations between Cyrano and Clavell, it probably was not a good idea on principle to take money from a foreign exchange student, especially if the money was taken by a more prominent member of the BB League. “Have you considered asking Carmine for help?”
“You took money from my brother, spent it all, and now you have the audacity to come to me for help?” Carmine pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “How much money did Kiki even pay you anyways?” Crispin immediately grabbed a piece of paper from Carmine’s desk and scribbled some numbers. When Carmine looked at it, she immediately dropped the paper. Her yellow eyes, once sharp like a serpent’s, grew soft and shrank at the number. “Follow up question, where did Kiki get that money and how did you spend it all in one night?” She knew he had a ton of cash on him from his BB League winnings, but she didn’t expect him to be this well off.
“Hey, I just spent the money. I don’t question where it came from.” Crispin raised his frying pan against Carmine who really looked like she was going to rip it out of his hands and beat him with it.
“Okay, how much did this other person pay you to cook?” Once more, Crispin didn’t actually say how much he was paid. He just scribbled it on a piece of paper, a piece of paper which Carmine tore up in frustration. “Of course Juliana would be loaded. How the hell do you spend all this money in a single night?”
“Yes, I’m aware I screwed up. How do I get out of this?”
Carmine shook her head. “Look, I learned my lesson the last time I schemed behind my brother’s back. You’re going to be upfront and honest about what you did and what mistakes you made. I’m sure he’s going to be mad, but he’s not going to kill you.”
Crispin had an evil grin on his face instead. “That’s it! I’m going to find out the mystery dates these two have and get one of them to cancel.”
Carmine was silent. She quietly walked over to the door, pulled it open, shook her head in a disapproving manner, and pointed into the hallway. Crispin was smart enough to not earn more of her ire and decided to leave.
If Drayton hated doing anything, it was working. His hobbies included pushing people’s buttons to amuse himself and slacking off. He did not intend to turn that into a line of work. Apparently, he owed Crispin a few too many favors. Why did Drayton give him all those IOUs? Who knows? What matters now is that Crispin and Drayton were freezing their butts off in the polar biome, watching Kieran through binoculars.
“This would be far easier if you just told him you screwed up and booked two people in the same time slot. Better yet, ask either Kieran or Juliana to move their dates by thirty minutes so you can do both in the same night.” Crispin rolled his eyes at Drayton.
“Yeah yeah, do you think that guy over there could be Kieran’s date?”
Drayton shook his head. The guy who always complains about drama and people not being direct with each other is the one who is trying to start drama and is making this a convoluted scheme. Figures.
Amarys didn’t watch many cartoons in her life. She, however, recognized the spying magazine/newspaper. The eye holes cut out of the paper are quite noticeable. This is especially true of a cafeteria full of students who would rather be on their phones and probably have never seen an actual newspaper in their lives. She decided to circle around and saw Crispin was spying on someone. She looked up and saw he was looking at Juliana.
“Crispin, what are you doing?” Crispin jumped at the sound of Amarys.
“Spying on Juliana and trying to find out who she likes.”
Amarys took one look at her watch and saw she had plenty of time for this conversation. “I’m going to regret asking this: why?”
“Because I booked Kieran and Juliana for separate dinner dates at the same time and really, really don’t want to let either of them know I made a mistake.”
“Can’t you just –”
“Nope, I spent all their money.”
“Then why don’t you –”
“It was a lot of money.”
“Why the convoluted –”
“Because I’m in too deep.”
Amarys sighed. I don’t get paid enough to put up with this, and I don’t even get paid.
“Not competitively viable,” Crispin scoffed to himself, “Can you believe that nobody in this entire school has a Pokémon that knows teleport?” When he entered the League Club, he saw the rest of the Elite Four, Carmine, and a very well dressed Kieran and Juliana. “Kikiana, I mean Kiki, Juli, you two look nice tonight.”
“Drop the act, Crispin,” said Kieran, “We know what you’ve been up to.”
“Carmine told us everything,” said Juliana.
“Uh, I can explain!” Once more, Crispin did his usual shtick of hiding behind his frying pan.
“You can do that …”
“... After you cook us a nice dinner!”
Crispin stumbled backwards. “What? You two … together?”
Carmine shook her head. “It turns out this whole misunderstanding could have been resolved if you just talked to them.”
“And if you had enough social awareness to know that Kieran here wouldn’t have a chance with anyone except Juliana.” Cue Carmine yelling Why you toothpaste-haired bozo! at Drayton.
“No no, Sis, that’s probably true,” Kieran said, “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Aw,” said Lacey, “That’s just too cute.”
“One thing I want to know is where Kiki here even got the money from,” said Juliana.
“I hope you like long stories.” He turned to Crispin. “Preferably over dinner.”
“Uh right, dinner for two coming right up!”