Instant Noodles

Chapter 2: Meetings

Rachel Tan was a very observant person. As soon as her Filipina friend and co-worker entered the restaurant, she could immediately tell something was wrong. She was about to ask her friend why she had left so suddenly but the Singaporean instantly stopped herself. Instead of Maria's usually smiling face, the Filipina looked royally pissed.

The Singaporean pondered whether or not to involve herself right away as she scrubbed away the dirt on the dish she was washing. As a friend, she knew it was her duty to ask what was wrong and do whatever in her power to help resolve the issue bothering her friend but… Siao (Crazy) No. Definitely not.

Whenever Maria was mad, Rachel knew very well from experience that her friend could easily be likened to a dormant volcano. Though rarely angry, the Filipina was just as destructive and could, without a doubt, make every grown man within a five meter radius come crying home to their mommies.

Rachel considered her options carefully and decided it was better to wait it out and ask her friend about it tomorrow. Why should she, someone who probably had nothing with whatever the reason behind her friend's rage was, have to experience the brunt of her friend's tremendous anger? That would be just stupid!, she reasoned.

While trying to get rid of that small piece of dirt that absolutely refused to come off the plate she was washing, the Singaporean glanced at her friend. Maria, who still looked greatly annoyed, was packing her stuff and preparing to go home.

"Damn it!" The plate almost slipped from her hands. Why did Chinese food always have to be so oily? And this stupid piece of dirt still wouldn't come off too!, she grumbled to herself.

Foot steps were heard coming down from the second floor; it was probably Mei, their Taiwanese friend and the sister of the owner of the Huang Ti Mian. Apparently, Mei had been assigned to keep the second floor clean that day.

"Maria! Maria! Can you-" The Taiwan native stopped herself. The dagger glare her Filipina co-worker was giving her began to scare her. Maria definitely didn't bother to hide the fact she was not in a good mood that moment, that's for sure. The Filipina girl said a gruff good bye to her co-workers and immediately left the restaurant.

"Hey, Rachel… What's wrong with Maria? She looked really, really pissed off." The Taiwanese girl pouted.

"Dunno lah"

"And Rachel..?"

"Hmm?" The Singaporean didn't even bother looking up and continued scrubbing; this piece of dirt was really trying her patience!

"Why are you washing that plate so much? It looks clean enough to me…"

"The stupid dirt won't come off."

"Umm… I don't think that's dirt. I think that's part of the plate's design."

"….."

A stream of curses mixed in bits of English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil over a "stupid plate" were heard coming from the kitchen.


"Good Morning!" Maria greeted her co-workers cheerfully as she entered the restaurant. She wore a wide smile and not a trace of the foul mood she had last night was present in her beaming face.

The Singaporean and the Taiwan native replied respectively; the former being curt and quick to respond while the latter replied with an overload of energy and cheerfulness.

Rachel mentally congratulated herself; she had judged correctly and, for the most part, avoided the volcano-like wrath of her friend. She was bout to ask her friend what happened last night, but she dissuaded herself. No, not now. It would be wiser to observe and asses her friend's disposition first before asking anything her about last night, she decided.

The rest of their day proved to be highly uneventful. The restaurant was semi-busy as usual and Maria continued to work like nothing wrong had happened the night before. She even smiled sweetly at the most annoying, picky, and highly indecisive customers that entered the restaurant! A task Rachel herself, admittedly, could not do.

"Hey Maria…" It was already the end of the day and the Singaporean's curiosity got the better of her.

"Yeah?"

"About last night…" Rachel cleared her throat. "You were acting pretty weirdly, lah…"

"Um… About that…" Maria glanced around shiftily. "Remember that weird customer we had last night?"

"The one with the shades and the trench coat..?"

"That's the one." Rachel raised an eyebrow. Sure he looked… suspicious (was that the word?, she wondered), but he didn't seem dangerous. Still, appearances could be deceiving.

"You see, last night, he-"

Their conversation was interrupted by a scream coming from the dining area. Without a single thought, both girls ran out of the kitchen area and headed out to see what was wrong.

"Mei? Are you al-" Maria stopped mid-sentence and glared. Without the facemask and the trench coat, Maria could easily recognize his face. It was that weird customer again! After making her run after him and practically scaring her to death, what the HELL did he want?

"You! What do you want?" the Filipina asked in a cold, annoyed tone.

Her former customer had a cocky smile on his face, as if happy to bother her yet again. He then turned to face his companion, frowned, and muttered something Maria couldn't hear.

"Of course, you have to at least apologize to her. Any girl would be traumatized by that kind of experience." was his companion's calm reply.

Maria didn't immediately notice her former customer's companion. Like her former customer, this new guy was also clad in expensive looking clothes, but, unlike his companion, he didn't have an arrogant scowl. Instead he had an easy-going smile on his face which was, in Maria's opinion, much more preferable than his companion's expression.

"Plus, she was nice enough to return your phone too" his companion added. The new guy sighed and then turned to face the Filipina. "Miss..?"

"It's Maria. Maria dela Cruz." She decided to trust this new guy; he seemed much more agreeable than his companion. And besides, no way in hell did she want to talk to rude jerk again!

"Right. My name is Ridwan and this" gesturing to his companion (aka Maria's former ill-mannered customer), "is Sanjaya or Jaya for short."

"Miss dela Cruz, we'd just like to thank you for returning Jaya's phone. It's umm… very important to us. Also, I'd like to apologize in his behalf for…" Ridwan paused for a moment, as if unsure of how he was going to phrase what he was going to say.

"Jaya, Ridwan~ Are you done already? It's already pretty late."

Ridwan's apology was interrupted by the entrance of a long-limbed Indian man who had a melodic voice and very graceful movements. He reminded Maria of one of those actors she saw in a Bollywood movie on TV.

"Manager, this is Maria dela Cruz, the waitress who returned Jaya's phone." Ridwan informed the tall new-comer.

"Karun, it's late. We should be going now." said Sanjaya.

"Ah, yes." The Indian man smiled at Maria. "Thank you very much, Miss dela Cruz. Sorry for having inconvenienced you last night. We shall be taking our leave."

Sanjaya was the first to exit, sauntering away slowly. Next was Ridwan, but before going, he waved a quick goodbye and smiled at Maria.

The Indian man was making his way to leave the restaurant, but, just right before the door, he suddenly stopped and said, "Oh, and please give my regards to Yao as well. He's an old friend of mine and his noodles are excellent."

As quickly the three had arrived, they had soon left the building. Maria was left just as confused as she was before they came. Seriously, who were these people?

Mei! The Filipina's eyes widened as she remembered her friend. During the conversation she had with those "weird customers", she had forgotten about her Taiwanese co-worker in her confusion.

Maria's eyes scanned the room. She found Mei sitting on a chair, staring at her with huge eyes. As she made her way to her friend and asked, "Mei, what hap-"

"WAHH! MARIA! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" Mei interrupted her co-worker with an accusing voice and began to sob. "I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!"

"Wait… What?" Again, Maria was left confused. The Filipina then turned to the Singaporean who had watched the whole exchange coolly. Rachel just shrugged.

"Mei… What exactly DIDN'T I tell you?"

"That, that you knew the members of Asia's second biggest band, Instant Noodles!" The red-faced girl said between sobs.

"Huh..?" Maria looked blank. "I don't know anyone from that band. I've never even heard of it until you mentioned it now."

"Liar! Those people who just came in were it's members! The guy who was talking to you, Ridwan, is their bassist from Brunei, while the taller one, Sanjaya, is their drummer from Indonesia!"

Maria's face paled as she processed the information her friend had told her. Her thought returned to the events that happened the night before. No wonder women were chasing that guy and screaming that they loved him. They were his fans! That also explained why he was surprised that she didn't know who he was and Mei's fan girl scream.

God… What in the world just happened?


AN:...Um, hi. Yeah, I know I have a lot of apologies to make for this chapter. First, for the lateness of this update. I don't really have any excuses except I'm really really slow at writing and that I was kinda busy with school and that I got distracted playing The World Ends With You (JOSHUA! X3) and Runescape. Sorry...

Second, actually the Indonesian stereotype I know of now is that they're really friendly, gentle, and arrive late most of the, in other words, almost the exact opposite of the way I portrayed Indonesia here. I'm so sorry! DX I just had this image of him being really laid-back and cool in a cocky bad boy-ish way (which I obviously failed in portraying because I couldn't think of anything cool enough to make him say TT^TT) Again, I'm sorry...

Third, sorry if India and Taiwan are OOC. I'm not really sure what India's personality is like even after reading Hima- sensei's Halloween comic OTL. And for Taiwan, I know I really made her sound baby-ish. Sorry!

Lastly, I'm sorry for the rushed-ness of this chapter and the weird ending. Despite the not updating this story for a while, this chapter felt really rushed and, unlike the previous chapter, I did not have much time to re-write and revise the whole thing. This actually my first draft with some revisions here and there, so, if I missed any grammatical errors, I apologize in advance.

Also I'd like to thank those who reviewed namely: 18katrina, Luna Espejo, Yokina-san, AnonAhoy (actually, I really am new at writing, this whole chapter screams my newb-ness ^^;; the other chapter might have been a little better since I re-wrote and revised it a couple of times but thanks anyway :D), royal-tru-orange (sorry, I don't know any French except Oui and Bonjour OTL), theluckyshipper, storyteller412, AliceWang, and Stephy825 (...) All your reviews and comments (and the fact that people actually read this) really made my day :3 Thank you.