Happy Thursday/Friday! Thank you guys for the feedback so far, I really hope you enjoy this chapter! I'm a bit early again with the chapter, mostly because I can't be sure how much time I'll have to update over the next few days ;D;

Chapter Two

Never in her life has a cheap fast food burger tasted so good. Usually she hates the things, the way all the grease gets on her hands, but today feels different. Yomi can't seem to stop inhaling the burger, can't even feel disgusted as she licks the grease from her fingers. A coworker watches with mild interest, leaning back in their own chair in the break room. Yomi's shift starts in ten minutes, and she only got out of school half an hour ago. The bike ride to the supermarket had cost her a good fifteen minutes, while the past five have been spent shoveling any and all food given to her down her throat.

It's not the first time she's forgotten her lunch, and it's certainly not the first time Nakamura has had to buy her some snacks from across the street to make sure she doesn't collapse during her shift. But it's most definitely the first time Yomi's enjoyed the situation.

As much as she hates to admit it, she buys fast food more than she eats her mother's cooking nowadays. When Yomi can't get to the kitchen fast enough, she sneaks out and uses the excuse of being invited to a friend's house for dinner. It's a disgusting habit by this point, and she's come to hate the feeling of self-loathing that comes with eating the stuff. But right now feels like the most blissful ten minutes of her life, and it finishes all too soon when she eats the last few bites of the burger.

Nakamura watches blankly, his usual poker face put up to hide his own amazement. He's told her multiple times that, of the people he's seen eat during his shift, Yomi eats the fastest—yet why this surprises him is beyond her, especially since he's the one who supplies her with food half the time.

She wipes her face with the napkin, if only to appear just a little dignified. Nakamura chooses now to speak, probably thinking she won't snap at him now that she's had her fill.

"Have you ever considered eating a little more like a lady?" he asks her. Yomi snorts and rises from her chair. It can't hurt to put her apron on over her school's uniform—the dress shirt looks close enough to the supermarket's uniform to pass, anyway.

"Ladies get hungry, too," she reminds him.

Nakamura hums in disbelief. "I wouldn't call what you just did 'being hungry'. Looked more like I was watching a human vacuum cleaner."

He's probably not wrong. "Whatever. You'll still feed me if I forget lunch at home again, anyway."

"You're right. It's almost like I enjoy watching you contradict your own tastes."

She flips him off as she looks up at the clock above them. There's still five minutes till her shift starts. Yomi's already becoming impatient as she watches the second hand tick by; their manager wouldn't mind if she decided to come in early and help with carrying things, would he? Umeki is a stickler for punctuality, yes, but what about being early? Surely he wouldn't mind it.

Yomi scrunches up her face and sighs. "If I get yelled at for starting early by Mr. Umeki, would you have my back and say I helped you out while you had to deal with a customer?"

The dark-haired man raises his brows at the girl. "Why would you get yelled at? You're his favourite employee when it comes to customer service."

As much as that statement is true, Yomi still thinks that being the favourite won't keep her exempt from a scolding. She's not about to argue over the technicalities, though; not when there's only a few minutes till her shift begins.

It isn't until she starts to fidget on the spot that Nakamura sighs at her, resuming their conversation. "Just wander around and see if anything needs tending to before you start," he tells her. "You're gonna give both of us a headache if you keep loitering near the door."

Yomi doesn't even say a word to him as she rushes out of the break room.

There's really not a lot she can assist with as she waits, forced to do as Nakamura had said and wander about. It's not like Yomi prefers to be working at all times—if anything, she mostly just likes to keep herself busy. Distracted. It's the reason why she went for the job when she saw the 'Help Wanted' sign in the window months ago. It fills in time before she's left with her mother for the rest of the night, and time to herself is rare nowadays.

She finds a way to pass the remaining few minutes by helping carry a few boxes out of the storage room. Some kind of drink is inside them, one she can never bother to remember the name of. Yomi is granted just a glimpse of a lime-green coat through a gap in her box before it's taken from her with a blank, "Thanks." A register has opened up by the time her hands are free, and it doesn't take long for Yomi to pin her name-tag to her apron as a tall woman yawns behind the counter. They give each other a soft high-five as they switch places—it's their own personal "tag in" motion, a way to make starting and ending a shift feel more like a team effort.

Not even a minute passes before Yomi is starting to scan items and pack them in plastic bags. Her lane isn't filled to the brim like the express lane behind her, and it looks as though the majority of people moving through it want to buy cigarettes on their way out. She greets a weekly regular who buys his usual frozen dinners, a woman with two kids who had heard the prices in this store were cheaper than her usual haunting grounds, and even sees teens she'd been classmates with in junior high.

It's painfully obvious how few people she kept in contact with after she started high school this year. Despite how long she's been working, it never gets any easier to think about just how much she's grown away from her old friends. Sometimes they'll see her behind the register and actively try to avoid being served by her, clearly recognising her, and other times they'll nervously try to make small talk and act like they wanted to talk more in the future. No numbers are exchanged and the topic of social media isn't really appropriate during work (unless, of course, it was for the purpose of promoting their store). Under normal circumstances this wouldn't bother Yomi much. After all, she'd been separated by a few of her friends after primary school and she'd gotten along afterwards quite fine. Yomi still thinks about them—barely-there memories of being annoying and spoilt with three other kids—but she doesn't actively wish that she'd kept in contact. Starting high school feels different, somehow; it hurts a little more when she grows away from someone, and it's so much more terrifying finding new people to temporarily call her friends.

Maybe she just doesn't want to deal with the effort and awkwardness of meeting new people her age, she thinks. Nakamura gets along with her fairly well, and he's nearing thirty this year. Kids seem to like her okay—though she likes them more, in all their baby-faced glory—and it's not like she has problems jumping into conversation with elderly people. Maybe she just doesn't know how to talk to people her age. Maybe she's thinking about it too much. Maybe she isn't giving it enough thought.

Half an hour has passed by the time she actually pays more attention to the small talk customers are making with her. Nakamura comes back out with a box of supplies, steadily making his way over to the cooking station at the front of the store, and Yomi takes note of how many people are left in the store. What had started out as a small crowd has turned into a barely-there group: Four teens wearing True Cross Academy uniforms, someone who is obviously from the fast food joint across the street and refuses to eat take-out tonight, and a little boy carrying a large bottle of milk over to his mother by the meat aisle.

A slow night. Yomi can always tell what kind of boring a shift is going to be just by how many customers are left behind by six. She doesn't finish her shift by eight, which is how she prefers it, and the slow traffic allows her to have snacks in between customers. She'll eventually buy a frozen dinner and heat it up in the break room, and then she'll ride her bike home to a sleeping Homura by nine.

Nakamura passes her by as he puts on some gloves—usually a sign that he's about to do heavier lifting than he already is. He gives her a quick glance, waiting for her to finish bagging her customer's groceries, before he walks back around and pauses at her lane.

"On a scale of one to ten," he says casually, "how well do you think you can put up with being flirted with tonight?"

Yomi sighs deeply. Nakamura only ever asks this when one of their new regulars comes in. He's either alone or with two friends, and he always buys the cheapest of everyday items—keychains, pens, small notepads—just for an excuse to flirt with Yomi while she rings up his items. She's shot him down plenty of times, refusing to accept his offers of getting to know each other better, but he seems too persistent to even notice that Mr. Umeki is on the verge of banning him from the store.

His only saving grace is that he dyes his hair her favourite colour. But a dash a pink isn't exactly enough to make a playboy seem interesting to her.

She clicks her tongue quietly and waves her hand at him. "Probably an eight. I'd be a solid ten if his friends just dragged him away before he tried."

Nakamura winks at her while keeping the rest of his expression neutral. "I'll be waiting by the express lane with a Zippo, then."

She squints at him. "What are you gonna do? Mildly inconvenience him?"

"Clearly you've never tried to put a lighter out with your hand." He pushes away from the lane and heads over to the express lane, standing patiently behind the young woman and her son.

How can she even reply to that? Yomi stares at him in disbelief, pink-haired boy forgotten as she tries to connect the dots between his promise of backup and this new revelation. Is Nakamura saying that he's put a Zippo lighter out by pressing a hand to it, rather than just letting a small gust of wind make short work of the flame? Where's the scar, if that's the case? If it's a bigger deal than she'd assumed, why hasn't she seen evidence of a small burn on his hands before?

Yomi blinks and shakes her head. She's thinking too much about it—he'd probably cover any scar he has with foundation or something, and he wears gloves half of the time. It's really not that big a deal, when she thinks about it rationally.

The sound of packaged food sliding towards her breaks her away from her thoughts of Nakamura. Yomi jumps ever so slightly, heart beating wildly in her chest at the surprise; two of the True Cross students are in the lane, but neither of them are the one she expects. It's his friends, the small bald one and the rooster head with piercings. Equally threatening and feeble as she looks between them, it's almost amazing that they look to be as thick as thieves as they continue their discussion in front of her.

The rooster head—she swears Baldy calls him "Bon"—tells Baldy that it's a relief someone named Shima is helping get the rest of the food. She dares a glance down at the items she scans, surprised to find that it's actual vegetables and condiments being totalled up on her screen. Food for an actual dinner—the opposite of her own plans. Yomi's almost amazed, especially since Baldy and "Bon" don't buy anything whenever their friend drags them here.

There's no harm in attempting small talk tonight, she thinks. After all, a checkout chick is expected to ask about her customers' days while she scans their food.

She almost manages to ask a short, "Big dinner planned?" before Bon takes notice of her presence. There's a stunned expression on his face, his narrow eyes widening to the size of saucers. Yomi has to stop herself from glaring at him in response.

"Crap," he says, and his voice sounds strained. Like he didn't want people to hear him curse out loud. "Sorry—didn't even realise we went to Shima's usual lane."

It's directed at Yomi, but part of it feels like Bon was saying it to himself. She pays little mind to his apology, shrugging casually as she tries to keep up a neutral expression. Shima must be the name of the pink-haired boy. Funny how she never took notice of what they called him till now.

"It's fine," she says. "You've got too much stuff for the express lane, anyway. Didn't expect you guys to have more than just a few pen packets this time, though."

Baldy chuckles as Bon blushes, mostly likely in embarrassment over every other encounter they've had thanks to Shima. "A friend of ours said he'd treat us to dinner if we paid for half of the stuff," Baldy explains. Yomi hums with interest.

"He a good cook?" she asks. Baldy nods again, this time with an almost insistent speed.

"We've only tried his curry rice, but man," he says dreamily, "is it the best thing for a chilly night."

It sounds like the guy's a decent cook. Part of Yomi almost wishes that she could try the curry rice herself, but she knows it'd be too much to ask for, even of these boys. Besides, it'd be best to avoid Shima as much as possible, even at the cost of a good meal.

She tries to keep the conversation alive, but only manages to chuckle out, "Maybe he should teach my mom how to cook something good for once."

The boys laugh back nervously. They don't know if there are any boundaries they shouldn't cross, and she really can't blame them. If someone started complaining about their mother's cooking skills to Yomi, she'd always have that lingering thought of, She's not that bad, is she?

"So what'd he have planned tonight?" she asks. She scans a carton of eggs with a curious expression. How long has it been since she'd eaten eggs with something?

Bon scratches the back of his head as a scowl makes its way to his face. "Asshole said it was a surprise," he tells her, "but I think he plans on making a feast. There was way too much stuff on the list for just one dish."

"Leftovers for the weekend, then. You guys are lucky—that's, like, three free meals in a row."

They hum in agreement, pleased by the fact that they'll be getting extra food out of it. She rings up the rest of their items, bagging each one with care as she reads out the price, and waits patiently for the two of them to pull out enough money between them to pay. She thinks it may be her lucky day today—Shima still hasn't fluttered over to her and tried to flirt. A small part of her hopes he's forgotten, but a slightly louder part just knows her luck isn't that good.

As Bon and Baldy pick up the bags and stand a short distance away, waiting for their chef friend, Yomi waves to them and says, "Enjoy that feast tonight."

With the worst timing imaginable, a packet of meat slides over to Yomi and lands just shy of her scanner. A smooth voice, recognisable and unmistakeable, coos, "I'd enjoy it much more if you joined us."

Shima. She has to hold herself back from hissing the name in annoyance. In the split second between hearing his voice and actually noticing him, Yomi's expression contorts into that of a disgusted glare.

"I'd rather not," she grates out. Bon and Baldy look exasperated already, furiously searching behind Shima for their chef friend.

"Is it because there'd be others?" Shima presses. "I know dates can be awkward when there's more than two people."

Lord help her. "Not interested."

The pink-haired boy pouts at her. He doesn't seem as persistent today, probably on a time limit due to his friend buying perishable ingredients and promising to cook dinner. She wishes the chef friend would cook for them more often, if only to keep Shima from pressing her to go out with him just one time.

She calls out his total and looks to him blankly as she waits for him to pay, but he doesn't immediately reach for his wallet. Instead, Shima crosses his arms in front of his chest and smiles guiltily at her. "My friend's still coming with the rest of it," he tells her. "I kinda rushed ahead while he was still picking something."

What an impatient, opportunistic boy. Yomi rolls her eyes at him. "How far do you think he is?"

"Not far—" Shima's eyes light up before he can even finish his sentence. Dread pools in Yomi's stomach as she sees the idea form in his gaze, the flicker of his eyes between her and one of the aisles in the store. "Okay! I have an idea!"

"No." She stuffs the meat into the bag with less care than before.

"Hear me out!" Shima presses his hands together almost in prayer, like he's begging her to listen to him. Yomi's brow raises ever so slowly, waiting to hear what inane idea he wants to share. "I know you don't wanna go out with me—"

"Really?" she scoffs.

"—but what if I set you up with someone? I know a guy who's really nice and cool and he's great with animals."

What a dumb suggestion. Does he really think she'll pounce at a date with someone because they're good with animals? Everyone's definition of "nice" and "cool" are different, too! For all she knows, his friend could be the kind of person she'd never be caught dead in public with! Yomi rolls her eyes again, listening as Bon and Baldy try to talk Shima down from playing wingman.

He stares at her with an almost puppy-eyed gaze, something Yomi's always been susceptible to thanks to her love of small children. She clutches the bag tightly by the handles and sighs softly. Maybe if she agrees to one date with this friend, Shima will get off her back and just be a normal customer for once.

"Fine," she says shortly. "One date. Tell him I expect him to take me out Saturday. And he'd better be as nice as you think he is."

Shima grins at her victoriously. He's probably patting himself on the back in his head, proud that he'd managed to make her cave in under pressure and agree to date at least someone he knows.

As she adjusts her grip on the plastic bag and listens to the sound of more items sliding into her lane, Shima claps once and says to her, "Well, you can tell him right now!"

Wait, nice-cool-good with animals friend is chef friend? Yomi has to hold herself back from gasping out loud. Free meal, she thinks with a glimmer of hope.

"Tell who what?" comes a new voice, and she swears it sounds familiar. Mellow and curious, but she feels as though she can recall hearing it angrier and anxious; someone she's met before? Someone from middle school?

She looks up at him curiously. At first his appearance doesn't register with her—he's changed over the course of a year, that's for sure—but once it does Yomi can hardly stop herself from dropping both the bag and her jaw. She'd expected Yukio Okumura, genius of his age group and mature, natural-born leader, to attend True Cross Academy, even by scholarship alone. But Rin? It feels almost too unreal to process.

He stands there in the white button-down, free of his jacket like Shima, and his tie is loosened now that classes are over. There's almost no recognition in his eyes, like he can't quite figure out who his checkout chick is.

Shima gestures to Rin with a flourish. "Rin Okumura, chef extraordinaire," he announces. "And your date for Saturday."

Rin jumps at the statement. He goes from curious to flabbergasted at the drop of a hat. Jaw dropped like Yomi's, horrified expression trained on Shima as he splutters about not needing a wingman and that he doesn't have time to go on dates with strangers.

She's changed just as much as he has, if not more. He probably doesn't recognise her—her hair no longer a short fuzz, but now boyish and curling out from under her beanie; skin no longer pale, now with some of her original sunkissed colour back. She gained back some of her weight (she's not the twig that went to dinner at Fujimoto's Monastery, after all), but even that just serves to throw Rin off regarding who she is.

As Bon and Baldy rush over to Shima and scold him, Rin turns to Yomi with the most embarrassed, apologetic expression she's ever seen on the boy. Even when he'd expressed his sympathies for her time with cancer, he still hadn't looked as ready to drop to his knees and bow down for forgiveness.

"I—I'm really sorry!" he insists. "I swear, I didn't know he'd do this!"

To be fair, none of them had. Not even Shima had known he would attempt this until it sprang into his mind. Yomi shakes her head at him, waving her hands in reassurance. He still hasn't given any sign of recognising her, which is both a shame and a relief. How awkward would it be once it came out that the two already knew each other?

"It's fine," Yomi tells him. Except it's not. Chef friend that she'd almost considered going through with a Saturday date for free food is Rin. "None of his friends seem to be in on it."

The dark-haired boy is rubbing at his head nervously, muttering to himself that he'll have to beg the manager not to ban him this time around. He looks genuinely distressed at the situation, at Shima's antics. Yomi can only scan the food in her lane as she tries to avoid his gaze, listening as Rin attempts to compose himself.

"Look, um—" He pauses. When Yomi looks over at him, wondering what has him silent all of a sudden, she finds him staring at her apron with narrowed eyes. He must be trying to figure out what it says. Does he have eyesight as bad as his brother's, she wonders?

Yomi tugs at her name tag with a frown, worried that the name alone would let him recognise her. "It says—"

Rin cuts her off. "Akiba? Yomi Akiba?" he says in bewilderment. She can't help the embarrassment that washes over her, the small pang of guilt that comes with Rin's recognition. If he remembers her name, he'll remember that disaster of a dinner—as well as their own rough history up until the middle of primary school.

But instead of looking appalled, just as she'd expected, Rin breaks out into a huge, almost idiotic grin.

"I didn't recognise you!" he marvels. "The hair and the clothes—" He gestures to her wildly as he slides the rest of the food in his hands into her lane. "You work here?"

Yomi barely gets time to respond—not that she would've responded within ten seconds, really. She stands there dumbfoundedly, tightly gripping a bottle of mayonnaise. Rin stares back at her, becoming excited over the prospect of reunited with an old… Oh geez, what even are they? Former schoolmates? Enemies? Acquaintances? It's so confusing to think about!

As she stands in silence, Shima breaks free from the headlock Bon had been holding him in. He flings himself at Rin, shaking the boy almost immediately. Yomi tugs at the her beanie, smoothing out a few of the curls sticking out, as she watches her screen in embarrassment. She'd been ready to deal with Shima and his antics, put up with him for maybe ten minutes. But this is way beyond her expectations—and as far as she knows, Yomi had still agreed to spend time with Rin before she'd known he was chef friend!

She rings up the total, cutting Shima off as quickly as she can when he mentions Rin "knowing all the cuties". Rin shoves him away and reaches for his wallet, hands her a single ten thousand yen note. She gawks at it; her gazes slips between Rin and the note, unable to process how on earth he'd come across such a thing. Only people who bought expensive wines and fancy meat products used this kind of money—not students on scholarships! Yomi blinks at the thought, suddenly very aware that she doesn't know the exact circumstances Rin would even be at True Cross for. Yukio, it's obvious; smart and charming, top of his class. But Rin…

Rin was Rin.

The register chimes as she starts collecting other notes and coins to give back, almost emptying her till with the amount she needs to hand him. Shima has joined his friends again, dejected, while Rin picks up the bag on the counter.

"So…" Yomi bites her lip as she tries to think of a way to ask her burning question without sounding rude. "True Cross?"

Rin blinks and looks down at his uniform, at the emblem on his tie. He laughs and scratches the back of his head bashfully, apparently not expecting the question.

"Yeah," he laughs. "Yukio and I are both attending. It was a surprise for me, too."

She allows herself a little laugh. At least he's aware that she finds it shocking he got in—and sees the humour in it. "So what kind of scholarship did they give you? Unless…" She eyes the ten thousand yen note suspiciously. It sits snug in her register. "The old man didn't win the lottery, did he?"

Yomi hands him the change as Rin looks at her with a puzzled expression. Like he's forgotten something she'd mentioned, drawn a blank on what he can say in response. In the hopes of helping him, Yomi tries, "Fujimoto?"

A look crosses him. She really can't put into words what it is, what he feels behind it, but it doesn't bode well with her. Yomi's gut begins to ache, the way it always does whenever she starts to worry. She'd never really kept in contact with Fujimoto since the dinner she and Homura had attended, and she'd stopped talking to him or even visiting altogether by the time she was back at school again. Even before she'd started her job, she hadn't bothered to accept calls or let him know about her progress.

She's left with that worry as Rin avoids any other mention of the man, endless worst-case scenarios run rampant in her mind. "Sports scholarship," he says half-heartedly. "Yukio got in with an academic one, and I tried for the sports one."

He has his change and his groceries. His friends are waiting patiently for him, and Nakamura is still hovering by the express lane cautiously in case Yomi needs help. There's really not much of a reason for the conversation to continue.

Yomi inhales softly and slides her register shut. The receipt is printed out as she says, "It was good to see you again. Have fun with dinner tonight, too."

Just as she hands him the receipt, the expression on Rin's face changes. He goes from enigmatic and thoughtful to excited and curious, former mention of Fujimoto forgotten. He takes his receipt, but doesn't make an immediate move to leave like his friends do.

"What if we did go through with Saturday?" he asks. "Not as a date like Shima wanted, but just to hang out and catch up?"

She stares at him. Did he just suggest what she thinks he did? Rin, the boy she'd bullied for a good few years and even had her arm broken by at some point? Wanting to hang out? It feels a bit weird, the way he wants to just catch up with Yomi like they're old friends from middle school. What would they even talk about, anyway? Would they reminisce about the fact that they used to fight all the time? That they were essentially enemies all throughout kindergarten?

There's too many questions to consider with his proposal. Yomi doesn't even bother letting herself think on it further as she says, "Lunch?"

Rin beams at her. "We can meet somewhere, yeah?"

"There's a small park just down the road from here," she tells him. Rin's friends are watching through the window eagerly. Yomi does her best not to glare at them as she reaches for a pen. She takes Rin's receipt and writes down her phone number on the back. "Send me a message when you want to meet and I'll find us a spot."

He lazily salutes her, reading over the phone number before shoving the receipt in his bag and bidding her farewell. Almost immediately, upon exiting the store, his friends pounce him and begin their interrogation. Bon shakes Rin back and forth by his shoulders, yelling something incoherent, while Shima clings to Baldy and looks to be moping over the result of his flirting attempt. All the while Rin swats at them and tries to keep a safe grip on his groceries.

Nakamura slides back over to her lane, letting out a low whistle as he does so.

"That went a lot more differently than I expected," he jokes. Yomi doesn't find it very funny, and makes this known as she glares at him out of the corner of her eye. "Seriously, though, who was the guy you chatted with? Looked like you knew each other."

Who did she just give her number to? That wasn't Rin Okumura from kindergarten and primary school, or even from last year. Rin Okumura wasn't so mellow and friendly, surrounded by friends that seemed to click well with him at first glance. Yomi frowns at the boys as they walk back to True Cross.

"How many days until the weekend?" she asks Nakamura. The man looks down at her with wide eyes, almost as though he can't believe she's asking such a thing.

"It's Thursday."

She grunts at the reminder. Two days to accept the fact that, not only has Rin Okumura changed, but he also doesn't seem to mind her presence anymore.