[center][h1][u][i][b]NPC[/b]s[/i][/u][/h1][h3][i][b]B[/b]ritish [b]T[/b]hemed [b]C[/b]afé | [b]A[/b]pril 14, 2012 (08:49 [b]AM[/b])[/i][/h3][/center]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-OzzbfV70M][sub]♫ 10.000 Bullets (Tsukiyo ni Saraba) OST - Joni Scott Club[/sub][/url]

	`Yay!` Paula cheered internally as she had successfully gotten the boy to speak to her, and she payed attention to the response.

	As the boy spoke initially, Paula tilted her head slightly in order to try and figure him out a bit. From what she could tell, he was more familiar with French then he was with English - given how he had chosen to respond to her French greeting instead of the English one - yet some of what he was saying had suggested that he understood at least [i]part[/i] of the conversation between her and the café owner just now, which had been in English. Well, either that or he had more or less just [i]guessed[/i] she was a regular due to how familiar she was acting with the owner and the fact that he had seemingly known what she wanted before she told him. Regardless, he was right about that, but before Paula could respond the boy seemed to nervously apologize for - at least in Paula's mind - absolutely no good reason at all.

	`I hope I'm not making him uncomfortable...` she thought to herself, not understanding why he thought it was 'brash' to ask her such a simple question as whether or not she was a regular of the café. It was not like he had asked for her measurements or something like that -- she had gotten that sort of comment before.

	Once the boy had introduced himself as Itzal and explained that he was a tourist, he said one of the strangest things Paula had ever heard. It was not the fact that he was on a trip here, nor that had pulled out an envelope to show that he was invited by someone. Even the fact that her 'employer' was apparently the person who invited him to Paris was not entirely unbelievable, even if it was a bit too coincidental -- you might even had called it destiny. What was [i]really[/i] strange to her was that he had referred to her 'employer' as 'The Devil'. Admittedly, Paula had no idea how much English this boy could understand, but it must have been enough to get at least a vague idea of what she had been saying to the café owner if he knew this much, but was he talking about the café owner or about Monsieur Bonaparte?

	Paula thought a little about the back and forth she had previously with the café owner.

	Assuming that he had understood their entire conversation, there was no way he was referring to the café owner because their discussion had made it clear that she [i]used[/i] to work here, and had now been employed elsewhere. If he was referring to Monsieur Bonaparte - which made more sense, because Boss hardly had any reason to send out invitations to foreigners to the best of Paula's knowledge - then it still did not make sense for him to connect her employer with her previous statement about it not being nice to call her 'The Devil'. This led her to believe that he understood part of their discussion, but not all of it. Though, in all fairness, there were so many urban legends about Monsieur Bonaparte at this point that it really would not be all that surprising if someone [i]had[/i] actually been spreading word about him being 'The Devil', so perhaps Itzal was taking those folktales too seriously?

	Since she was busy thinking about everything for a moment, Paula had not really noticed that Itzal was staring at her. Either way, despite being a bit confused Paula maintained the same friendly expression on her face throughout the entirety of his talking to her, and did not even seem bothered by the fact that he had not really given her a chance to reply to anything he said. In all honesty, she sort of just seemed to enjoy the company, and had a very welcoming and approachable presence. Part of her wanted to make a joke by turning around and asking 'Boss' if he was 'The Devil', mostly because the two of them were always teasing each other, but she figured it might make things more confusing for Itzal and she avoided it for that reason -- the boy was getting [i]really[/i] embarrassed and she could easily tell.

	"It's okay." she replied, smiling in a way that sort of said 'don't worry about it' in an attempt to ease Itzal's tension, "How about we take a seat and talk about the problem?" she offered, having already missed the chance to talk to two other new people like this and not wanting to blow a third chance.

	By this point, the café owner was working on Paula's 'builder's tea', as well as the pancakes that she usually liked to have with it. A smile was crossing his face as he watched Paula seemingly working to make a new friend, sort of like an uncle would look if he was witnessing his niece get excited about that sort of situation. The next thing that Paula said was actually something which he had predicted in advance the moment she started to talk to the boy -- he could see where this was going from a [i]mile[/i] away.

	"Are you hungry?" Paula asked, pretty much only a moment after offering to sit down and talk with Itzal, "It's my treat." she said, smiling.