No sooner do the Academy Knights’ newest members attend their first meeting does President Kruget (Claire’s Flunky #1’s big bro) announce the upcoming Foundation Day Fair, which is for all intents and purposes the school’s culture fest.
They usually do a café, and Rae both appreciates how having maids and butlers wouldn’t be that novel in this world. Thankfully, Rod and her think alike, and his suggestion of a cross-dressing maid cafe (with the girls dressed as butlers) is voted through, as Claire and Misha wouldn’t mind seeing Thane and Yu in maid’s outfits.
That said, there are other Knights matters to attend to, and a gung-ho Claire accepts, with gusto and an ojou laugh, a new job from the vice president (Lene’s brother) without knowing what it is.
Turns out the job is to stake out the kitchens after dark in order to investigate reports of a weird, possibly slimy ghost. Claire may want to back out, but her honor forbids it, so she and Claire head to the kitchens that night. When Rae emerges with a tasty chocolate dessert, Claire puts two and two together.
Rae is the “ghost”, working into the night after her maid duties are complete. As for the “slimy hand” another student felt on her shoulder? Claire feels it too, and rushes into Rae’s welcome arms. It turns out to be simply Relaire, who is practicing transforming and tagged along with Rae.
With the mysteries solved, Claire is ready to split, but finds the hallway too creepy, so she curls up in the two-person bed Rae made for them. As she sleeps, she dreams of a sad memory, perhaps the worst of her life. Upset that her mother was ditching her on her birthday, lil’ Claire told her she hated her and stormed off.
That was the last time she saw or spoke to her mom, as she died in a carriage accident on the way home. Claire was devastated, as you’d expect, and her father was nowhere to be found, as you’d also expect. But Lene and the other maids were there to comfort her and tell her it’s not time for her to join her mother yet.
Rae watches Claire crying in her sleep and calling for her mother, and in the morning, Claire finds Rae clutching her hand and slaps her. But Rae wasn’t trying anything, she was merely comforting her in the night.
As the Foundation Day Fair approaches, Rae enlists the help of Lene, Claire, and Misha to try out some dishes for the café, including one with mayonnaise. Like the chocolate desserts, Claire believes them to be from the high-end eatery Broumet…and they are. But it’s Lene who discovers that it’s Rae who is supplying the new-fangled recipes to Broumet, in exchange for cash.
Lene doesn’t tell Claire this, but she can’t keep Claire away from trying out another new recipe: Crème brûlée. It’s an instant hit, and Claire wants perhaps more than a high-class young lady should have in one sitting. She also notices Rae and Lene have become fast friends, and can’t quite hide her jealousy.
As for Rae, she takes Lene aside, slips her a recipe for mayo to memorize and then burn as “insurance.” Rae then narrates the end of the episode, saying how blessed she felt for these days when not much of anything happened, and wished—past tense—that they could last forever.
Even with something as lightweight as a cross-dressing maid café coming up, these ominous words portend some kind of reckoning or dark times on the horizon for Rae. Combined with Claire’s past tragedy, the show is looking to balance the comedy with more serious drama here at the halfway point.
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