“I hope you enjoy it.” Tahiko said as the boy placed down her plate and cup. “The students have worked hard on making some of the best stuff they could make.”

“It’s… Really nice.” She replied after taking a tiny bite of her cupcake. It certainly tasted like something high school students with little experience would create, but the effort was commendable. “Thanks for bringing it to me.”

“That’s my job after all.” He responded with pride. “By the way, what’s with your costume?” The words she feared the most finally serviced with his question. Whatever he said next consumed her mind with dread and worry.

“My mom got it for me!” She quickly, and louder than she wanted, answered. Now, face full of red, she quieted down to try and save herself from being a bigger fool than she already was at this point. “I mean, I didn’t choose this.”

“Well, it does look cute on you.” His unexpected compliment brought about many reactions from different people. Of course, Chisa’s heart began to race upon getting a boy to call her cute. That had never happened before. However, it also brought about some more negative responses in the room as well. In fact, the net worth from his statement about her appearance brought about more ire than joy.

The girls were jealous. The boy were a bit suspicious. He had been putting up what seemed to be the naive bit so far, perhaps he had been waiting for his time to actually make a move while playing the dumb boy. Amasa and Fukuna were also among this crowd watching this. Really, for Tahiko and Chisa, they had absolutely no privacy in this moment.

“Well isn’t that something.” Fukuna muttered, trying to appear calm as she took a sip of her tea. Though with her shaking hand, that proved to only make more of a mess.

“Y-you really think so?” Chisa asked. She couldn’t believe what he just said to her. The girl thought for a moment that this was a dream she was about to wake up from. Though she prayed that even if this were just fantasy, that perhaps it could last just a little longer.

“Yeah, which is the weird thing to me.” And with that, he had lost any implication of romance in his words. “Everyone else is dressed to be scary, or as Fukuna has told me, a sexy variant of something that already exists.” While the latter part made no sense to him, this did explain why he was confused with her outfit. A maid, especially one that more or less was just a plain regular maid, wasn’t scary at all. And considering she showed pretty much no skin with this on, he knew it wasn’t supposed to be a sexy variant of it either.

To be fair, he wasn’t all that different either when it came to wearing his knight costume. But at least now the boy was dressed up as a monster with this orc loin, albeit barely.

“Um, it’s just how it is.” Chisa was grateful her mom didn’t spring on for the sexy variant of a maid. That would likely get her in trouble with the school for showing off to much, but there was a reason why that wasn’t purchased for her. The girl didn’t have much of a chest to show off of with cleavage were there to be a sexy variant. “This makes me stand out too much, doesn’t it?”

“Not really.” Even with her clothes, this girl’s presence lacked all of the necessary components to make most others take note of her. It’s why a lot of people weren’t not fans of her being the current center of attention in that boy’s eyes.

“But perhaps we could change that.” Fukuna, not wanting to be left out of the conversation with Tahiko for long, jumped in. “I’m sure we could come up with something to make you fit in a little better.”

“Can’t believe you just came in like that.” Amasa showed up as well, not wanting to be left out for once. Especially not when it involved that girl of all people. Why should she care about what Chisa was wearing?

“You worry about dumb things too much. What’s wrong with helping out a friend of a friend?” She replied. Of course, she did have some selfish reasons for this. After all, wouldn’t she look like such a good person for coming to someone’s aid? “Anyway, it’s not even that hard to make Ida here a bit more ghoulish.”

“I’m sure glad I know someone with fashion sense.” He said. Tahiko didn’t have much of a clue about clothing, and he certainly didn’t know any tricks when it came to the spirit of Halloween. “Gee, thanks.”

“It’s no problem.” She smiled with glee. Meanwhile, Amasa could only roll her eyes in annoyance. This girl really just did this to score some brownie points with the boy. “But you’ll owe me for this.” And apparently to gain a favor from him as well.

“Don’t know if you really need me to be indebted for it, but I’d be willing to do whatever you ask.”

“Do you have any sense of wanting to do things for yourself?” Amasa asked. This boy had no agency at all. It was like he only lived to serve others and not care at all for himself. Sure, he may have grown up to do just that as a knight, but here on Earth he no longer had the role. It didn’t matter if he still had the weapon and armor suit. That wasn’t what made someone a knight.

The worst part about this whole thing was that he was a bit of a rebel when it came to her. A so-called person whom he supposedly owed his life for.

“Do you want me to do something for you?” He asked, completely missing her point. “I’m a servant in this cafe, so it’s only natural.”

“Anyway, how about we get to the task at hand.” Fukuna reminded them of the reason why these two girls even showed up in the first place. That being to give a spooky transformation for the shy girl in Chisa.

What they did was not anything unique, special, or even frightful. After all, this was done on short notice and they didn’t have anything other than what was already in the classroom during this moment. So all they did was put on some greenish paint with some white details to be bones on her face. “There we are, one zombie maid.”

“I see, so we made her undead.” He commented as the boy took a good careful look of her face. This made Chisa incredibly nervous with him being so close to her face like this, his eyes scanning along her skin for details. It made her very self-conscious about her appearance and towards any potential blemishes he might’ve spotted, though it wasn’t as if he’d be able to see any of them with all this paint. “We did a phenomenal job.” Tahiko was pleased with it, but it wasn’t that great of work done on her. It was clearly rushed and uneven. Nothing about it screamed zombie to most people, just a maid with a green face now.

“I’m happy that you think it looks nice.” Chisa breathed a sigh of relief. Even if other people might’ve thought it was weird, at least he wasn’t going to be a part of that and it gave her some slight joy. “Anyway, I think you all have been putting a bit too much time on me.” They were supposed to be serving a cafe, but once she arrived all the attention had been placed on her.

“It’s not really a problem.” Said Amasa. By the time she showed up, most of those interested in coming had already arrived and been taken care of. Though really, her having attention wasn’t the problem, it was more so that she took the attention of a certain boy that got some of the guests a bit peeved. “If anything, we’re about to get off on our shift.” Which was something the girl was very glad for. She just wanted to get out of this dumb elf costume and into her much more modest witch gown.

“Oh no.” Now that she had brought that up, Chisa realized that she’d have to be getting back to her classroom to take part of her own shift there. “I’m sorry, but I need to get going. It was nice being able to see you again.” She politely thanks Tahiko for his services.

“Actually, I’d love to see what your class decided to do for this special holiday.”

“Are you sure?” For some reason, she was apprehensive about wanting him to come along. Whatever it was, must’ve caused her to feel embarrassed about it or something.

“Ooh, we should all come along too.” Without waiting for permission, Fukuna basically forced them into it. “I’ll grab my friends and we can get going.”

“Sometimes I forget you have other friends.” Amasa snidely remarked. Ever since Tahiko arrived, it seemed she was spending more time with them nowadays. “I barely see you hang out with them.”

“I totally do have normal friends.” She responded irritated. “You just don’t notice.” And with that, she left them momentarily to go get said friends.

“I suppose I don’t really have a choice here, now do I? Fine, before you ask I’ll come along too.” Despite not wanting to visit any other classrooms to see what dumb ideas they came up with. Amasa figured it would be a good enough idea to keep an eye on Tahiko before he did something stupid again.