Fish Café
"Tea you're working here? I could have sworn that I heard your boyfriend say that you worked at Burger World." Mai asked startling said girl as she walked past the blonde woman's table, Tea always guiltily got distracted by the giant fish tank that acted as a wall in the Domino Aquarium's café to pay much attention to what the customer's faces looked like.
"What boyfriend?" Tea made a face wondering which one of her friends the blonde was talking about. "I have four friends who are like brothers to me, no boyfriends are among them. And as for your question, I did work at Burger World for a while but I got tired of having to wear that god-awful uniform of theirs and get ogled by a bunch of creepy adolescent boys who acted like me being a servant girl was half of their fantasies realized, especially at the rate those idiots were paying me, so I applied for the job here where the pay and treatment of the employees is better and the uniforms are not only more women friendly but they also don't itch." Tea explained politely as she gestured to her black pants and blue short-sleeved shirt that was just baggy enough to make her boobs look smaller, forcing people to look her in the eye as she took their orders.
Mai raised her eyebrows. "You really hated working at the other place that much?"
Tea snorted. "It was a crappy first job, if I had known better I would have tried to interview at some other place from the very start."
Mai blinked. "That's strange because when I talked to Yugi the other day he said that you loved working at the crappy job."
Tea closed her eyes, looking pained.
"He was one those creepy adolescent boys wasn't he?" Mai concluded with a deadpanned expression.
"I am so going to embarrass him for this later." Tea swore. "I've got to break him of the habit of treating me differently every single time he's reminded that I'm a girl, he sometimes, not often thankfully, acts like I'm some sort of… alien just because I have different plumbing than him, it's never been a problem before, so I don't know why it is now." The girl huffed upset.
"I think you know why." Mai teased. "C'mon hun, it's obvious that he's working up the courage to ask you out."
Tea flinched. "I hope not, that would be a very bad idea…"
"But you two would be awfully cute together." A small frown formed on Mai's face. "And from what I've heard you guys have been practically joined at the hip since forever, that gramps of his along with both Joey and Tristan are all just waiting for him to gather the courage to ask you out and you two to start your storybook lifelong romance." There was an undercurrent of sarcasm in the woman's tone but Tea didn't feel like interpreting it at that point.
"I'm a lesbian." Tea sighed slightly irritated, she felt like she was at her limit with this so she put her hands on her hips and shot Mai a look that dared her to continue on about how she should run her own life without knowing Tea very well at all in the first place. "And even then Yugi is like the bother I always wish I had and the other one is… actually like and older brother figure so… yeah no, not ever happening."
Mai's eyes went huge, much to Tea's satisfaction.
"I'm guessing your friends don't have a clue about this." Mai guessed.
"I've started to drop hints left and right lately but they still haven't gotten the hint or given me enough to gauge what their reaction will be when I do eventually tell them." Tea shrugged trying to sound like it didn't bother her as much as it actually did trouble her, very deeply if she was obliged to be truthful about it. "They've been under the completely false idea that all of my past dates have been my attempts to make female pals to hang out with, like I always joke I need to have…" Tea looked away.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Tea asked curiously looking around; it was a really slow day, barely anybody was in at the moment. "No offence but this doesn't seem like your kind of scene… and I'm pretty sure that you've been here long enough to have heard that when full, this place is like a gay hot spot so…?"
"Actually… I came here to see if I could pick up a date…" Mai coughed awkwardly. "But it seems that I've come at a slow time for there to be very many single ladies around… that is… you wouldn't happen to be single would you?"
Now it was Tea's turn to be taken aback. "I am single." She nodded dumbly.
"So would you like me to take you out on a date after your shift ends?" Mai asked making Tea's head spin.
"I've actually got mermaid practice after this but… I'm done with that at six… so if you still want to around that time… I'd like to go on a date with you… I'd like it a lot actually…" Tea blushed playing with her fingers.
"Mermaid practice?" Mai asked curious.
"It's why there's no fish in the fish tank." Tea explained. "This place offers it's employees free lessons to learn how to swim in a silicone mermaid tail in exchange for the ones who have mastered the art to put on shows for the public, I'm interested in all kinds of dances, even ones underwater, and this would be a nice fallback skill when I need to get a part-time job while I study in New York and even after that, if I run into a string of dancing jobs that won't hire me because of my body shape or whatever, and I need to get employment."
"They're really that picky about dancers?" Mai asked brows furrowed.
"I'm one of the few in my dance studio who the instructors haven't managed to convince into getting surgery or take hormone shots." Tea stated with a shrug, Mai looked just as horrified as her friends did whenever she mentioned the subject. "I know that there are lots of different kinds of dances out there and lots of different jobs that go with them, I know that having a diverse skill set will give me, with keeping my body type, a chance at doing what I love." Tea sighed wistfully.
"Good for you!" Mai told her sincerely with more than a little strength in her words. "…Say can I watch?"
"Me at practice?" Tea asked. "Sure, we're allowed to have a friendly spectator or two if they want to watch."
"I look forward to it." Mai grinned flirtatiously, making Tea blush again.
