End of Innocence v2.0

By Dixxy

Chapter Nine: Preparations

Kojiro and I stared up at the finely decorated sign. The Golden Sunset wasn't a huge place, but I had heard of it before- Kento's parents had gone to some sort of a charity ball or something that had been catered by it. Mr. Rei Fuang had told us it was the best non-Chinese food he'd ever tasted (he has a bit of an ego problem when it comes to the family business, even though all the recipes are from Mrs. Rei Fuang's side of the family. . .).

The two of us walked it to find the restaurant was just about empty. Many round tables saw with white tablecloths draped over them. I ran my hand over one to see that it was made of a very good material. Kojiro, being bolder than I was, walked further into the place. "Hello?" he asked. "Is anyone here?"

Footsteps could be heard some ways a way. Before long, a short, chubby Japanese man emerged. He stopped before Kojiro and looked my friend up and down. The man looked somewhat professional in his green business suit and gold-rimmed glasses. He had a short but thick neck and not much hair on top of his head. "Yes? May I help you?"

Kojiro bowed respectfully. The man seemed to like this gesture and bowed in return. Despite the fact neither one of them paid any attention to me during this, I pressed my hands together and bowed as well. "Yes. My friend and I would like jobs. You advertised it in the newspaper," said Kojiro.

The man looked over at me. I smiled nervously. "Hi," I said, waving cautiously.

"Hello," he said. The man then turned back to Kojiro. "Do you have any prior experience?"

Kojiro's head dropped. "Uh. . . I don't. . . but Cye might. . ."

The man turned back to me. "Well? Do you?"

I wracked my brain for an answer. "I. . . er. . . the family I was living with owned a restaurant and I waited a few tables whenever they were shorthand," I said. I bit my lip. This man did not seem very impressed with us. "It was only a few times but. . . we really, really need these jobs, sir."

"Oh, I'm sure that you and all of my other applicants need this job," said the man. "Why do you think you need this job any more than my other potential employees? Why do you two think you're so special? You two certainly don't look very well kept if you ask me."

Kojiro and I exchanged looks of defeat. "C'mon, Cye," he said. Kojiro draped an arm over my shoulder as we started to walk towards the exit. "We'll find another job and we'll get an apartment and we'll make sure Ariel grows up just fine, you'll see. We don't need a job from-"

"Hold it right there, young men."

Both of us stopped in our tracks and turned around to look at the man again. He had his arms folded and was staring at us intently. "Uh. . . what?" asked Kojiro. "Didn't you just say we were too scruffy looking to get a job at a place like this? It's just so fancy and we've really got crap-"

"What did you say about this. . . Ariel?" asked the man.

Kojiro looked at me and gulped. He wanted me to answer the question. I gulped. "I have a daughter," I said. I clenched my eyes shut getting nervous. "Her mother wanted to abandon her at an orphanage. I didn't even know about the pregnancy until I found her while she was on her way there. I couldn't see my own child put into such a. . . a horrid place like that."

"Toyama, by any chance?" said the man, growing quieter.

"Yes," I said. "Toyama. I argued with her briefly over it, and I. . . I took our child. I know I'm young and I know I'm very unprepared, but I want to raise this baby. She's not even two months old yet. Kojiro and I are living out of the Teen Crisis Center. I don't want her to grow up amongst all these drug addicts and suicidal maniacs."

My man nodded. "I grew up in the Toyama Orphanage."

Kojiro and I exchanged looks. "You did?" was our collective answer.

"Yes," he said. He held up a finger, telling us to wait. "I'll be back very shortly," he told us. He disappeared into a side office, the sound of something moving around quickly following. Kojiro and I looked at each other, each shrugging. What was this man doing, anyways? Why had he asked about Ariel?

I felt something hit my chest and looked down to see a plastic grocery bag in my hands (One of Mr. Rei Fuang's favorite games was "Think Fast" and I adapted very quickly to the game). Kojiro also had a bag. I looked inside the bad and saw clothing inside. We looked up to see the man smiling.

"My name is Mr. Miyamoto. I expect you both to be here tomorrow morning at no later than ten thirty for your training. Your shirts and pants are to be ironed, you are to supply your own pencils for taking orders, and if you do not have black dress shoes, speak with me tomorrow- I can get you a discount at my brother's shoe store," he said.

Kojiro and I stared at the man in wide-eyed shock. Before the man could react, we both jumped him and started to hug, squeeze, and bless the man in the name of every deity we could think of. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" said Kojiro. "You are my hero of the day!"

"Hey! HEY! Get off of me! I can't breathe!"

About a month after I received Ariel and three weeks after we'd gotten jobs at the restaurant, Kojiro and I found an apartment. Well, Kojiro found the apartment. I had just gotten back from my teen parent discussion group ("College, Kids, and Careers- Survival in a Dog Eat Dog World") when Kojiro rushed in, flailing his arms around excitedly. "I did it! I finally found one?"

"Found one what?" I asked as I repositioned Ariel in my arms.

"An apartment!" said Kojiro. "It's cheap, it's got two bedrooms, and the bathtub isn't in the kitchen!" Kojiro started to pace back and forth, rubbing his hands excitedly. "Cye, you should see it. Sure it isn't the nicest place, but it'll do. Think about it, Cye. A home. A place to call home."

"Are you sure about this, Kojiro?" I asked, putting the baby into her crib. "Do we have enough?" So far, we hadn't been able to save up too much. Ariel had gotten some sort of an ear infection two weeks earlier and we had to dip into our savings to pay for her medication and doctor's appointment. It had cost quite a bit since we hadn't figured out what to do to insure the baby.

"Well. . . oh, we'll never save up enough before someone else buys it!" said Kojiro, flopping down into one of the chairs in our room and slamming the newspaper down to the floor. Then he stood up and started to pace, his arms flailing again. "We're going to outstay our welcome here! We're all gonna starve and Ariel's gonna grow up to be a prostitute and we'll have to become drug dealers to make ends meet and we'll rot in prison once the cops find us and-"

SLAP!

Kojiro breathed heavily from his place on the floor. "Cye. . . thank you," he said. I nodded, extending a hand to help him to his feet. He dusted his pants off and sat back in his chair. "Right. Now, money for an apartment. How are we ever gonna get the money for it? The restaurant is paying us great money, but it isn't enough!"

"Just be patient, Kojiro," I said. "Apartments aren't as expensive as houses or condos, but if we want one that isn't a bad neighborhood we're going to have to save up for a while. Besides, we usually get one good tipper a night and we've been working at least three nights a week. I'm thinking we bump it up to four or five nights a week if Mr. Miyamoto will allow it."

"Allow it? He'll love us for that!" said Kojiro. "Face it, he's seen the way the customers light up whenever I joke around while taking their orders. He ADORES the way you just communicate so well with everyone and make them feel really comfortable. I'm surprised he hasn't gotten on his hands and knees yet to beg us to go on full time!"

"Well, he knows we're going to have to tone down once school starts," I said.

"Yeah. . . that's in two weeks," he said. He grabbed a pad of paper off the table. He started scribbling down some figures. "If my calculations are correct- which, I warn you, they probably aren't- we should have the money in two weeks if we work five nights a week for three weeks."

"We can't work that often for that long," I said. "School. And there's no way in hell I'm going to drop out. If I can do it I'm going to get at LEAST a high school diploma so I can get a better job so I can support Ariel. There's got to be SOMETHING we can do to get more money." I frowned, realizing what our only solution was. "Six nights a week."

Kojiro blinked at me. "You're nuts."

"Extra long shifts," I said. "We need to money, Kojiro. The people here KNOW we have jobs and we're trying to save up- if we kick it up a notch or so, they'll be happy to take Ariel all the much longer. Face it- the sooner we'll settled down and out of here, the sooner they can start helping other people, remember?"

Kojiro frowned. "How does seven sound?"

I gulped. That would even be enough to start a small bank account of some sort. I nodded. "Seven nights. Overtime." I sighed heavily. "We're going to be exhausted by the time we get the money, but it'll be worth it, right?" Kojiro nodded glumly, stood up, and quietly announced he was going to call our boss.

After a week of overtime, we counted up our tips and respective paychecks after we got home on night number seven. Kojiro clicked his tongue as he counted the money. I was sitting cross legged on the floor across from him with Ariel (she'd woken up when we got home and I'd taken the task to try and get her back to sleep) in my lap. She was asleep, her mouth hanging open as if looking for a bottle. I didn't want to put her in her crib right away. She was just too cute.

"Man, why don't people understand we want MONEY for our tips?" said Kojiro. "We don't need some of these things!" He held up three piece of candy and a condom. "Will THIS pay for an apartment? NO! OF COURSE NOT! I swear if I get ONE MORE Hershey's bar I'm going to get FIRED for KILLING the customer and ARRESTED for KILLING THE CUSTOMER!"

"Kojiro calm down!" I said, giving my friend a stern look. "Look, from what we've counted and what we haven't counted, we're almost there to an apartment." I rolled my eyes. "And when you FLIRT with the female customers you're going to GET phone numbers and condoms because some of them think that's what you want and they're glad to give it to you."

Kojiro blew up at his bangs. Then, he grinned. "You know what, I think I know why I keep getting all of these things." He puffed his chest out and held his head up high. "Cye, don't you get it? I must have animal magnetism! The girls are WOOED by my incredible charm and dazzling good looks so-"

"Kojiro. . . some of those numbers were given to me, too."

"Then you have it too!"

I shuddered and looked down at Ariel. "That's the last thing I want right now."

Kojiro looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and backed away. "You're not gay or something, are you?"

I scowled at him. "Hell no!" I said. I repositioned Ariel so she was cradled in my arms. "I'm just as straight as you are, but think about what happened with my LAST girlfriend. She raped me and now I'm stuck taking care of the baby that was conceived during that act!"

"Okay, okay, Cye, just calm down, don't bite my head off," said Kojiro. He then went back to counting for the next several minutes, taking down a few numbers on a piece of paper every so often. I watched, wanting to help him. Kojiro wouldn't let me- last time I tried to help with our financial situation I kept getting in his way and Kojiro is a MUCH better bookkeeper than I was.

I almost smiled at that thought. He'd learned a lesson about me Kento had learned when we were kids. See, Kento decided to open a lemonade stand one summer. While he handled our "patrons" (I wanted to call them "customers" but he said his way was more professional), I took down all of our earnings. Unfortunately, I kept charging people the wrong prices and once forgot to collect the money and just sent a VERY happy little kid on his was with a free drink. To say the least Kento was very upset- he estimated we were out roughly three thousand yen by the end of the first day. I wasn't surprised to find myself inside MAKING the lemonade for the remainder of the summer. As an upside, my lemonade tasted better and we more than made up for the lost money.

After several minutes of counting, Kojiro had everything counted up. "We should have enough to buy an apartment as is and have some left over to buy clothing and stuff like that." He grinned, his eyes twinkling merrily. "This is GREAT ! Tomorrow, first thing, let's head out and go apartment hunting! Whaddaya say? Are you up for it?"

I sighed heavily. "Ask me AFTER I've have a good night's sleep."

Kojiro nodded in agreement. "Yes. . . sleep. . . need sleep. . . want sleep bad. . ." he said, adding in a yawn for good measure. He took all of our money and stuffed it into the backpack we'd been using as our "bank account", then jammed the door closed with a broken broom handle (the lock wasn't very reliable). While trying to balance the baby in one arm and brace myself with the other, I got to my feet and went to put the baby in her crib.

I went to sleep that night feeling slightly better.