Iris could have been considered Sophie’s biggest fan throughout the entire world. There was probably nobody who admired Sophie more than she did, and she even fantasized about Sophie back before she met Kris, dreaming about one day working at her side or even being her partner.
Then there was Kris.
Before she knew more about Kris’s architectural accomplishments, Kris was, essentially, a normal guy. He was kind, genuine, a bit on the slow side of things, but exceptionally loving. But still, he was somebody who could have been considered a normal guy, one of many, while Sophie was a one-of-a-kind figure who nobody else in the world could compare to. There were potentially many people like Kris out in the world, but nobody else like Sophie.
And yet, there Sophie was, drinking her sorrows away because Kris rejected her.
That wasn’t what made Iris unable to take her eyes away from Kris, though.
Sitting across from them was a woman who Iris believed to essentially be at the top of humanity. A woman who she had endless respect for and believed made the world a better place simply by existing. A woman of renown who was untouchable and who others bowed before, never allowing anyone to speak back to her, not that any would dare.
And Kris stood up to her. For Iris.
In that moment, the idol who was Sophie Leblanc standing at the peak of Olympus, was pushed off the peak of the mountain and sent tumbling down all the way to the bottom of it.
Now standing at the top was a man, but not just any man.
The true, near-mythological entity to worship above everybody else was none other than Kris.
Iris loved Kris, and she never loved Sophie more than him.
Yet, seeing him stand up to her number one idol, for her, took her love for Kris and multipled it by several times—no, but hundreds… thousands… perhaps even by trillions.
Iris was in such an overwhelming state of internally fangirling for Kris that she couldn’t even say anything. All she could do was stare at him, unblinking, with an entire body full of overwhelming love that easily transcended what should have been possible.
She felt like a fool for ever feeling any other way. How could she have been so blind this entire time?
“Sorry,” Sophie said, looking at Iris. “I… was rude.”
Iris didn’t even notice the response, prompting a vein to pop in Sophie’s forehead.
“The first apology I’ve said… in the last decade… was ignored.”
Kris looked at Iris and poked her nose, causing her to snap out of her lovey-dovey haze. “Hey, she’s talking to you. You alright?”
“A-ah! Right, yes.” Iris cleared her throat and looked at Sophie. “S-sorry about that. What were you saying?”
“I said sorry,” Sophie answered. “I was rude. Sorry.”
“Ah, it’s alright, but thank you.” Iris then went back to looking at Kris, her mind flooding with overwhelming love for him once again.
“Is… something wrong with her?”
Kris looked into Iris’s eyes and then back at Sophie before shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I see her boss look at my bro like that sometimes. I think it’s like, a super happy kind of look, I guess. But when her boss does it, she’s usually drooling, and Iris isn’t doing that… so I’m not sure. Drooling might be a requirement.”
“Your friends sound almost as mysterious as you.”
“I’m mysterious?”
Sophie looked shocked when she heard that. “Are you joking? You’re the greatest prodigy to enter architecture in a century, yet people know almost nothing about you. You never show up in public, you are extremely selective regarding what projects you work on, you have turned down amounts of money that anybody else would sell all their organs for—you, Kris, are beyond mysterious. An incomprehensible being of madness and renown. You came into this world, displayed a gift none can compare to, and only return to bless us with your art when the mood strikes you. Nobody understands how you work. Nobody understands your thoughts. None can compare to you. You are a man who even I envy and aspire to be more like.”
Kris shrugged. “I’m just a normal dude. If you want to know more about me, then uh… I like orange, my favorite ice cream flavor is the one with pretzels and chocolate and caramel, my favorite pizza topping is sausage, I’ve got five of the best girlfriends in the world—wait, six now, and my best bro likes dogs and fishing.”
“Ahh… to act like you are but some simple man despite who you are. Your mind is even more incomprehensible than I believed.”
“What’s so crazy about that?”
“What is not crazy about that? You are a man who can have it all. Wealth, power, fame—the world is at your fingertips. No human can truly resist that without an ulterior motive. Such grand promises corrupt even the most moral of bastions. It is simply not possible for a human to exist with so much offered to them without taking it all unless they are getting something even better out of it.”
Kris shrugged again. “I don’t really care about that stuff.”
“Exactly! Tell me, Kris. I need to know. What is it that you care about? What drives you? What is the method behind your madness? What inspires you? I need to know!”
And once again, Kris shrugged. “I don’t know. I just do what I wanna do. I’m really not as special or whatever as you think I am. I’m just a normal guy. Promise.”
Sophie chuckled, then again a bit longer, before bursting out in laughter. “I see! Yes! I get it! This act of yours—it’s an act! Brilliant! Playing the role of one of those ‘normals’ who grovel at our feet, acting as if you are one of them while they struggle to even imagine what lives like ours are like… ah… what a brilliant performance you have put—”
“I asked for zombies and no choices for food. I don’t want to have to ask for your manager, but I want this date to go how my girlfriend expected it.”
Sophie blinked again. “The… manager? I own this building. I own everything here.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re the manager. Owners employ managers. You don’t seem very good at the managing stuff, so I want to speak to a real manager.”
At that point, Sophie took another swig of wine. “You… you really are putting on a good performance as one of the normals.”
“I’m not acting.”
“So good that… it’s even starting to convince me…”
“Good, since I’m being serious and want to be taken seriously.”
Sophie shook her head for a moment before looking directly into Kris’s eyes, and she looked hard, as if she were searching for something within them.
Yet…
She didn’t find what she was searching for.
The drive. The elitism. The passion. The dedication.
None of it was there, at least not by her standards, and those were qualities that were impossible to hide.
“You… are a normal, aren’t you?” Sophie asked.
“I guess so?” Kris replied. “But it sounds rude to call people ‘a normal.’ It makes you sound like, one of those elitist jerks who thinks you’re better than others. If you want people to like you, you shouldn’t do that.”
“The one I have yearned for is…”
“I’m starting to think the service here is really bad.”
“The… the service is bad? But… the critics love it. People pay for our experience. They—”
Kris looked at Iris and asked, “I know you were looking forward to this place, but since you haven’t really been happy with it, want to go to a burger place I like? Everybody there is super friendly.”
“A… a burger place? You are choosing that… over me?”
Iris snapped out of her love delusions for a moment to nod and say, “Wherever you want to go, Kris. So long as I am by your side, even a roach would taste transcendental.”
“A roach?” Kris asked.
Iris realized what she said, inspired by her delusions, and shook her head. “My apologies, I misspoke. My mind is simply so full of you that it is thinking rather silly things at the moment. But yes, Kris. I would love to go to where you want.”
“Huh, alright.” Kris stood up first, got behind Iris, and pulled her chair out for her. That would normally be something she would do as a maid, but the love delusions slowed down her maid reflexes.
Meanwhile, Sophie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The man who she admired—the man who she so hungrily yearned for ever since learning of him, he wasn’t who she thought he was. There was no mystery. No drive as intense as hers. No flame. No desire to be better than everybody else. He was just… a normal guy.
A normal guy.
A normal guy who rejected her. Sophie, all of people in the world, who was courted countless times before by some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men… was rejected by a normal guy.
Sophie reached up to her chest and clutched at her heart over her clothes.
The beating of her heart was something unlike anything she could remember—no. There was another time when it beat with such intensity.
Her first job.
Flipping burgers in a small-town restaurant.
A customer gave her a compliment. A simple compliment, but a genuine compliment.
There was nothing fancy about the burger. It wasn’t a work of art. It wasn’t gourmet nor did it have a story nor theme behind it.
It was just.
A burger.
Two buns. A patty. A slice of cheese. Ketchup. Mustard.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
A good, simple, cheap burger.
So long had she chased more and more praise, only for her to—
“Here, you go,” Kris said, holding the door to the room open for Iris.
Iris couldn’t even be upset that Kris was depriving her of performing her maidly duties for him. She was still too far deep in her lovey-dovey thoughts to mind.
So while Sophie had an identity crisis and all sorts of internal revelations about herself, even to the point where she began laughing by herself in her chair, Kris just gave her a weird look over his shoulder before closing the door and leading Iris out of the restaurant.
Once they were out of the restaurant, Kris said to Iris, “No offense, but—wait, you’re not supposed to say ‘no offense, but’ because that basically means you actually do mean offense, I think. Uh… well, maybe it might be offensive, but you have a weird taste in idols, Iris.”
Iris shook her head and wrapped her arms around Kris’s nearest arm, hugging herself against him and resting her head on his shoulder. “On the contrary, I believe I have the grandest taste in idols across the entire universe.”
“Huh. I don’t really see what you see in her, but I guess you can idolize whoever you want as long as it’s not like… I don’t know, Hitler or something.”
One drive back to the neighborhood Kris lived in and Kris led Iris into a small restaurant surrounded by other shops all around it. It was just a little hole in the wall that was narrow, cramped, and full of happy, smiling customers loudly talking to each other while local news played on a television on the wall.
“Heeeeeyyyyy, Kris! What’s up?” shouted one of the men from behind the counter after seeing him enter.
“Here for a burger,” Kris said.
“Bet. The usual?”
“Yeah.”
“And how about for your lady friend?”
Iris, still clinging to Kris’s arm, smiled and said, “I’ll have whatever his usual is as well.”
“Aight. Gimme five.”
Kris and Iris sat down at one of the free tables and could barely even hear their own thoughts in the loud room full of cheerful life.
It also took eight minutes to get their food instead of five.
When they did get the food, though, two trays were set down in front of each one of them. Kris’s “usual” was apparently a triple burger with bacon and cheese, large waffle-cut fries, and a large, chocolate milkshake.
“Alright, Iris, let me teach you one of the most important things to do,” Kris said.
“Please do,” Iris replied, carefully watching Kris.
Kris, rather dramatically, picked up one of his waffle fries, slowly brought it up and over his milkshake before checking to make sure that Iris was keeping up, and then dipped the fry into the milkshake.
“Now this,” Kris said, “is good eating.”
Iris followed suit and while the combination of salt and sweet might not have been one of her preferences, getting to eat the same thing in the same way that her idol just ate, while sitting with her idol, made her milkshake-dipped fry one of the greatest things she had ever tasted.
Neither of them noticed the “breaking news” on the television regarding Sophie Leblanc shutting down her restaurant, firing all of her staff all over the world, and declaring that she was giving up on the world of the gourmet.