Bonus Story:
Serafina’s Ideal Shop
“A SHOP?”
Fackt nodded at my question as he pushed his glasses slightly up on his nose.
“That’s right. My sister and her husband are planning to start a new business, but they haven’t decided on what to do yet, so they asked me for advice. They want it to be something they can run all by themselves, but they don’t have any ideas beyond that.”
“So you’re saying they don’t know what kind of shop they want to have?” I asked as I sat on a bench in the castle garden, swinging my feet from side to side.
Fackt wasn’t usually assigned to my guard detail, but that day he was there in addition to Canopus, Scheat, and Miaplacidus. When I’d asked him, “Tell me something interesting,” he’d brought up the topic of his older sister and her husband. Apparently, she was two years older than him and recently married. The couple wanted to start a new business together, but they seemed at a loss about what to do.
“Hmm. If it were me, I’d want to open a strawberry shop!”
“A strawberry shop? Not a general fruit shop?” Fackt asked with a confused look.
“Yep, that’s right!” I affirmed with a nod. “If you don’t sell out every day, you get to eat the leftovers. So I’d want to only sell my favorite fruit!”
“…I think you’d need to consider whether a business could be viable before focusing on your desires. No, no…forget I said that!”
After Fackt mumbled something under his breath and fell silent, Scheat grinned and said, “I think the Princess’s point of view is wonderful! A job is something you do every day, so it’s important to choose something you love! If it were up to me, I’d make a muscle training institute. The pitch would be: ‘We’ll give you muscles anywhere you want!’ Once my client tells me their goals, I’d train them until they collapse!!”
“You’d be drowning in lawsuits if you did that. Or, rather, all your customers would run away.”
“They’d be bringing it on themselves! It’s their fault for thinking that building muscle is easy. How hard do you think I had to work to obtain this muscular body of mine?!” Scheat rambled on as Fackt studied him with an astonished expression.
“You…do realize that business is about empathizing with the customer and doing everything possible to meet their needs and desires, right? If you don’t, you’ll be waving goodbye to your profits.”
“Oh, right! I forgot about the moneymaking part!!” Scheat shot Fackt a sidelong glance, having just realized that he was overlooking one of the most important things.
Next, it was Miaplacidus’s turn to pipe up. “I’d start up a ‘red thread of fate’ shop! The idea is that you tie a red thread around the finger of each person, and if the thread doesn’t snap when you pull them apart, that person would be your true love. But actually, I’d sell two types of thread—thin and thick—and let the buyer decide which one they wanted to purchase depending on how much they liked their partner. What do you think?”
His smug expression seemed to suggest, How’s that for customer empathy? But Fackt wrinkled his nose distastefully.
“Just hearing that description screams fraud. That kind of business won’t last long,” was Fackt’s perfectly reasonable response.
Canopus spoke next, his chest puffed out with pride. “I would start a shop called ‘Second Princess Memorabilia’! Adoring fans would be able to purchase the princess’s pictures, quote collection, and progress reports. I know they’d fly off the shelves like hotcakes!!”
Oh dear. Canopus is saying something strange again, I thought to myself in stunned surprise.
Scheat also looked like he had something on his mind. “Pictures might not be a bad idea, but I’m not sure about the quote collection or progress reports. I don’t think you’d want to do anything that would ruin the princess’s image.”
Something about that didn’t sound quite right, but before I even had time to start putting two and two together, Miaplacidus jumped into the conversation.
“He’s right. It’s better for them to imagine and admire the princess from afar. If they knew the whole story, I’m sure they’d be disillusioned and start saying things like ‘This isn’t what we signed up for!’”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
But before I could protest Miaplacidus’s statement, Fackt—who’d been listening quietly the whole time—raised his hand and grabbed everyone’s attention.
“Apologies for butting in while the mood is so lively, but do you mind if I ask you all a question?”
When we all nodded, Fackt turned to me first.
“Let’s start with you, Princess Serafina. Do you actually plan to open a strawberry shop in the future?”
“Huh?! No… I’m planning to be a saint.” I answered honestly.
Fackt gave a little nod before turning to Scheat.
“How about you, Scheat? Are you going to open this ‘muscle training institute’ you spoke of?”
“No. I’m one of the proud knights who guards Princess Serafina! I have no intention of doing anything but that!”
When Fackt asked Miaplacidus and Canopus a similar question, they both replied that they also intended to continue being knights. Hearing this, Fackt’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses.
“To sum it up, it seems like all of you, including Princess Serafina, would rather continue doing your current job, or something you’re good at, rather than the thing you like.”
“Whoa, what an eye-opener!” everyone said, gazing at Fackt like they’d been struck by lightning.
Then, Scheat and Miaplacidus addressed him with an air of admiration.
“Fackt, you’re a genius! Since you’re so smart, why’d you even bother asking us instead of thinking about it yourself? Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Yeah, we gave it our best shot. If you’re going to reject our suggestions on the spot, there’s not much else we can do.”
Fackt’s eyes continued to twinkle as he responded to the other two knights.
“I’m smart because of you. You don’t use your brains—and when you try to, you come up with inane ideas—so I have to use mine more than anyone else. Thus, the more I use it, the cleverer I get.”
Fackt’s statement came off a bit sarcastic, but Scheat laughed it off with an easygoing smile.
“Ha ha ha! Who would have thought our daily efforts contributed to the cleverness of Lord Fackt!”
“However,” he continued, still grinning, “allow me to say one more thing. While the concept of opening a muscle training institute is appealing to me, the thing I love most of all is being a knight!”
Canopus and Miaplacidus heartily agreed with his declaration, so I made a loud one of my own.
“I also want to be a saint the most!”
“…I see.” Fackt reflected calmly. “So that means everyone here is doing or wants to do not only what they’re good at but also what they love the most. I’ll pass that information along to my sister and her husband.”
Now it was my turn to ask him a question.
“What do you love the most, Fackt?”
For a moment, he appeared to be at a loss for words. He stayed quiet for a bit longer while Scheat and Miaplacidus smirked and patted him on the back, before finally sighing and reluctantly starting to speak.
“…I like being a knight. I want to continue being one forever.”
I didn’t know this, but when Fackt first joined the knight brigade, everyone had teased him about not being very good with a sword. Even saying things like “Why did you become a knight in the first place?”
In response, Fackt would always tell them, “Because that’s what I wanted to be!”
Apparently, he’d been thinking back on those days when he answered my question. Miaplacidus and Scheat flanked him and peered into his eyes.
“Whoa, what an eye-opener, huh?!” they teased in unison.
Their smug interjection was met with a glare at first, but then Fackt’s expression softened into an amused smile.
“Yeah. It’s just as you’ve said. I’ll be sure to tell my sister and her husband to do something that they love! If you have the passion to continue, you’ll get good at it eventually, even if it doesn’t go as planned right away.”
“That’s excellent advice!!”
After that, the knights started patting each other on the shoulders, and I watched them, admiring how close they all were.
Not long after, Fackt came by to inform me that his sister and her husband were opening a honey shop.
Honey was one of my favorite things, so I broke into a huge grin thinking about how I’d have to pay the shop a visit sometime.
The knights, who seemed to have read my mind perfectly, nudged Fackt as they grumbled among themselves about their increased workload—but that’s a whole other story.