Taken for a Fool

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

Downstairs, Bai Yao is knitting his brows a little, looking at the mess of the box still on the floor.

Is the sentient sea otter perhaps actually trying to swindle him? News of people getting scammed are on the rise recently. The sea otter might actually be in cahoots with the coyotes for all he knows.

Opening a restaurant is no small investment. Outside of the cost of the ingredients and everything else, he only makes enough to support himself, and not very much more. Bai Yao sweeps his gaze across the kitchen and the restaurant area, but there isn’t a thing worth stealing here. The sea otter might be richer than him, even.

The restaurant isn’t really big, either, but it’s clean where it count. The floor is wide white tiles, and the walls have photographs of the nearby island and some oil paintings.

There is only enough space for two rows of booth seats near the wall, with a few more small round tables with light-coloured lacy tablecloth spread upon it in the middle of the restaurant. At maximum capacity, he can only seat 8 or 9 groups of patrons.

Speaking of which, he opens at four in the afternoon. Before that, he must first prep the food in the kitchen, like chopping the vegetables beforehand, that he can make the meals more quickly during rush hour.

Being a small restaurant with him being the owner and only employee, there are only thirteen dishes on the menu so that he doesn’t get overwhelmed. Still, the summer holidays are a time when he finds himself really short-handed.

Qiaohai is a tourist destination, and so his flow of customers change accordingly with the ebb and flow of them in general. Bai Yao is hesitant about hiring a waiter, though. Not just because snow leopards are generally solitary animals, but he has also had a bad experience with a sentient white bunny who he hired provisionally two years back.

That’s why, from that time until now, he’s been running everything by himself.

The little sea otter’s pile of scallop shells is still at the corner, which he needs to clean up before the store opens if he doesn’t want the customers to think of that corner as a garbage heap.

He goes to remove the shells, but oddly, he decides not to throw them away, but has put them aside in a spare drawer in the kitchen.

Then he quickly washes and chops up the vegetables needed for tonight, and cleans all the seafood. He barely finishes everything by the time his restaurant is due to open.

At four, he goes outside to cater to the few tourists who are already queueing outside. Bai Yao greets them, telling them to sit as they like, and to scan the QR code on the desk to order.

Bai Yao is truly quite handsome – at least, he’d be at the very top or second among the guys living in Qiaohai.

Influenced by his snow leopard animal form, his eyes are terribly sharp and aggressive, with a somewhat intimidating aura about him. Add to that his tall and muscular figure with the chiselled features of his face, there’s not really flaws to speak of on his appearance.

It is only because he has firmly told everyone time and again that he is not open to relationships right now, that he isn’t flooded by all the girls introduced as relatives and friends by all the friendly people of the town.

Though reputation spreads quickly during the age of the Internet. Most travel guides and itinerary for Qiaohai already include Golden Shell Seafood Restaurant being the only eatery around for a good while, and less serious blog posts would be remiss if they did not mention how all the tasty food was cooked by this tall and manly mass of handsome-solidified, and that they must not miss the restaurant if they’re headed anywhere near the north of Qiaohai.

Glancing out of the kitchen, Bai Yao can see his restaurant steadily filling up, soon to hit capacity when it’s not even five yet. He might really need to hire a waiter if he still wants to maintain a good quality of service.

And as one can imagine, with over half of the restaurant filled with tourists and especially girls who came on a casual trip, they call out to the owner quite often, just so they can talk to the hunky guy.

Even though there’s the QR code for ordering right there on the table, the girls persistently ignore it and even tell Bai Yao they didn’t bring their phones, so they need to order in person.

Bai Yao’s good hearing means that he can still hear the girls chattering excitedly inside the kitchen. He isn’t really sure if being a sentient, anthropomorphised snow leopard is a good thing or not.

“I wanna tie his hair bun for him! It’s so cute!”

“Look at that bod! Those arms! Maybe he was a navy SEAL!”

“Who cares about that? This meal is gorgeous!”

“Hey, I care! Cuz he’s handsome!”

Then, finally, the whispered phrase still audible to Bai Yao that temporarily convinces him that this is definitely a bad thing.

“Did y’all see how out there his crotch was…”

Bai Yao “…”

It’s been a busy evening. Cooking, taking orders, receiving payment; it was all him. Busy as he was, though, he was also quite fraught with worry and regret at leaving the door right open for the sentient little sea otter. He finds his eyes darting to the stairs every so often, worried the sea otter would be coming downstairs.

Well, a sea otter going downstairs isn’t a disaster, but if he turned into his human form, naked? He can probably shutter his restaurant right then and there.

Finally, at eight, he stops accepting new customers, and prepares the store for closing. After the last table of patrons leave, he ignores the mess to be cleaned up before him, and immediately heads upstairs, wondering if his little space might have been ransacked. Still, he has to open the door at some point, so he does.

The little sea otter is rubbing his face with his paws in the middle of the room.

The living room and bedroom are completely intact and normal.

The sea otter is wholly engrossed in his work, having closed his eyes, and is focusing on cleaning his face like a little cat. His rounded paws are rubbing all about the face, taking care of every inch of fur, even on the head.

While brushing his whiskers, his little canines would pop out a little. Finally, he rubs his nose a little with a paw.

Bai Yao found himself relaxing by the doorframe with his arm crossed, observing the sea otter’s slow but purposeful movements.

Almost six minutes pass like this, and the sea otter opens his eyes only to suddenly see Bai Yao, and freezes up, spooked, with his whiskers still shaking a little. A moment later, his paws slowly return to his chest area, and starts rubbing together shyly. He looks embarrassed to see Bai Yao.

Ha, the little thing sure has made himself at home. He’s fooling no one.

Bai Yao rolls up his index finger, knocking on the cabinet by his side, as he finally enters, and asks, “can you understand what I’m saying?”

The little sea otter might have been a lost tourist or something and doesn’t understand Chinese, is a possibility Bai Yao only just now realised.

He watches the sea otter sit up straight, hanging his paws before his chest, and tilts his head like a puppy again when he hears the question. Though barely a moment later, he slowly nods.

Bai Yao pauses.

He understands?

And he’s still not turning into a human?

So he is being taken for a fool, isn’t he?