Notes: This one takes place a little over a week after chapter nine. Specifically, I imagine that chapter nine took place on September 13th, and this one takes place on September 22nd.
As one final note, Anzu's behavior in chapter four of the manga seems a lot more like that of a hostess/waitress than a burger joint cashier. I don't know what's going on with Burger World—what sort of burger joint sells cigarettes and Russian vodka?!—but I'm going to treat it like more of a diner than a McDonald's given what we see of how their staff handle their customers.
Whispers in the Dark
Part X: Say What You Want to Say
It wasn't until she passed by his table for the fourth time that Anzu recognized him.
She had been too preoccupied to really take much notice of him the first few times, she reasoned. He was seated down by the far end of the restaurant in the third to last booth, and given that it was the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday, Burger World was slammed. She was too busy running drinks and meals to her own tables, or helping fetch napkins or drink refills for coworkers' tables to pay him much notice, especially since neither he nor the guy he was sitting with seemed to have ordered anything. But on her fourth time passing his table on her way to the back to get a replacement bottle of ketchup after a customer's four year old emptied the previous one out onto the floor, Jounouchi leaned back in his seat, one arm thrown out over the back of the bench as he regarded the man seated across from him, and Anzu stopped in her tracks.
It was definitely Jounouchi. She was sure of that the second she got a good look at his face, but he looked different enough that Anzu thought maybe preoccupation wasn't the only reason why she didn't notice him at first. His hair was a lot shorter, for one thing; although it brushed his ears on the sides, he had taken a lot off the top and it no longer fell into his eyes in the haphazard way she remembered. It was more clean-cut this way, but something about it still looked a little off, much in the same way his clothes did. In lieu of a school uniform or the t-shirts and beat-up denim jeans she remembered him sporting on their off-days, Jounouchi was wearing a button down white shirt and—from what she could see of his legs beneath the table—black slacks. His shirt didn't seem to be tucked in, and he'd left the top two buttons undone, but the clothes were still nice—sharp. There was nothing wrong with them, but something about the ensemble still felt a little—
"Hey, burger girl!" Anzu jumped a little as her customer's voice rang out from across the crowded restaurant, and as she turned, she saw that three of her female coworkers did the same. Her customer only had eyes for her, though, as he waved one large, annoyed hand in the air. "Where's our ketchup? You gonna stand there all day or what?"
Anzu forced a smile, and in the most cheerful voice she could manage, said, "Coming right up, sir! I apologize for the delay!"
The man huffed and dropped back in his seat, looking no less annoyed than before as he said something in an undertone to his wife. Anzu gritted her teeth, and barely bit back the addendum that if he had taught his kid some manners in the first place, he wouldn't have a ketchup shortage problem to begin with. Her job was to deliver speedy service with a smile, after all. Anything other than that—any scowls, any sighs, or any well-deserved lectures delivered straight to rude, belligerent customers—would make her lose her job long before she'd saved up the money she needed for New York. Anzu took a deep breath and exhaled it in one short burst to try and relieve the tension she could feel building in her chest, but any tension she released came right back the second she turned around to find Jounouchi staring at her.
He didn't look at her for long; the moment her eyes met his he looked back to the man seated across from him, and shook his head a little when the man asked him something Anzu couldn't hear over the noise in the restaurant. That didn't particularly bother her. What bothered her was that she couldn't really make out why Jounouchi had been looking at her like that. He must have heard her voice, but he knew she worked here. He probably saw her before she noticed him. But even considering that, he hadn't looked surprised, or upset, or . . . anything, really. She supposed he'd only looked at her for a few seconds, but those few seconds weren't really enough for her to get a read on what he was thinking.
As she dodged around one of the grill cooks in the backroom and made her way to the condiment shelves, she snorted. Even if he did have semi-fancy clothes and a neater haircut, he was still Jounouchi. Whatever he had been thinking about, it couldn't have been that deep. She was giving him too much credit.
Even so, despite how impatient her customer had been, she walked a little slower as she made her way back to his table after digging a fresh bottle of ketchup out of one of the boxes on the condiment shelves. It was still too loud for her to hear what they were talking about, but at least this way she could get a better look at the guy Jounouchi was with.
He looked too old to be a student, that was for sure, Rintama High or otherwise. If Anzu had to guess, the man was twice their age, give or take a few years. His hair was short and brown, as nondescript as the five o' clock shadow he had around his jaw, and in stark contrast to the rose-colored sunglasses he was wearing despite the fact that he was indoors. Considering how sensible the rest of his business casual appearance looked, Anzu felt the sunglasses were more than a little odd. There wasn't very much time to contemplate them, however; she looked up in time to see her customer standing up again, his eyes trained on her, and she quickened her pace, holding the ketchup bottle up where he could see it to placate him before he could shout at her again. But as she passed by Jounouchi's table, she saw the man in the sunglasses pull a manila file folder from the leather satchel at his side, and hand it across the table to Jounouchi.
"Here you go!" Anzu said as she reached her customer's table, and she slammed the bottle down with a little more force than necessary. Judging from the looks on her customers' faces (all except their four year old, at least, who looked like his birthday had just come early), none of them appreciated it, but Anzu plastered a bright, plastic smile on her face regardless. "Please let me know if you need anything else!"
"Smarter waitress, maybe," her customer muttered to his wife, and his wife tittered an agreement beneath her breath.
New York, New York, Anzu chanted in her head, as she squeezed her fingers into tight fists at her sides and walked away. You're doing this for New York . . .
But paying for dance school in New York was a faraway problem. As much as she needed this job now to make sure she would have the money for then, then wasn't still for another couple of years yet. There was a much more pressing, more current problem sitting in a Burger World booth, scowling at something contained in a manila folder.
After the disastrous meeting with Hirutani a week ago, they hadn't made any progress looking for Jounouchi. Honda was grounded after being taken in by that police officer; from what he'd told Yuugi and Anzu at school the next day, he had been able to reason with his sister enough so that she didn't out everything he did to their parents, but she'd still revealed enough that Honda was pretty sure he was grounded until his next birthday at least.
"They'll probably ease up so long as I'm quiet for the next couple of weeks," he had said. "But if I'm caught doing anything against the rules of my grounding, that will add another couple of months to my sentence."
With Honda grounded, that left Yuugi and Anzu, and while Yuugi didn't want to give up, Anzu was wary about continuing on with just the two of them. Hirutani was dangerous. Even if Honda's sister hadn't told them as much, the confrontation they had with him outside of the café said enough on its own. Anzu had meant what she said when she said that it wasn't over—if nothing else, she didn't want to stand for someone talking about another person like they were chattel—but she also didn't think that she and Yuugi had the same odds in a fight against Hirutani if it came to physical blows like Honda did. She would still fight if she had to, but she didn't want it to come to that if it could be avoided.
But Yuugi was adamant, and so on days when she didn't have to work, they went out to look around the city, with a promise made between them that they wouldn't do anything if Hirutani was there. It was a decent compromise, anyway; Yuugi agreed not to go off on his own, and Anzu agreed to keep looking even though Honda was under parental lockdown. Anzu still didn't want to confront Hirutani again, but at least now she didn't have to worry about Yuugi doing it by himself. All the same, despite spending Anzu's free afternoons searching, they hadn't been able to so much as spot Jounouchi even once . . .
. . . only for him to turn up here, at her job, talking to some strange man she had never seen before.
Part of Anzu wanted to call Yuugi, but her cell phone was in her purse back in the employee office. There was no way she could go back and get it, especially with her manager cracking down on phone usage while on the clock (which was stupid, Anzu thought bitterly, and entirely Chiaki's fault; why did he have to be glued to his phone all the damn time?!). But she couldn't do nothing, either. If she went back to school tomorrow and told Yuugi that she saw Jounouchi at work and didn't do anything about it . . . well, she could already picture the look of confusion and dismay he would give her. She didn't think she wanted to face that for real.
So she turned and skirted along the counter to where Chiaki leaned up against it on the other side, not-so-discreetly checking his phone down by his waist. She cleared her throat when she was near enough, and he hastily shoved his phone into the pocket of his work pants before he flashed her a smile that was one third dimples, two thirds impish.
"Mazaki poppy!" he said, and as he always did whenever he greeted her, he said 'poppy' in English to make it rhyme with her name. "This is a surprise. What brings you my way?"
"Oh, you know. Just our job," she said, and gestured at the busy restaurant around them. Chiaki looked at the swarm of customers and coworkers briefly before he turned his smile back to her. She had to hand it to him: For a guy who she knew for a fact had no real intention of dating any one particular person, he was a pretty dedicated flirt. Two could play at that game. She put on a winning smile of her own and placed her elbows on the counter as she leaned forward. "Hey, Chiaki-kun, do you think you could do me a favor?"
"Oh, I'm Chiaki-kun now, am I?" he said, and he mimicked her pose, chin on laced fingers and all.
"If you do me this favor," Anzu said, as sweetly as she could. "I want to do a table swap. Table seventeen for table . . ." Anzu thought over her current tables, remembered how the one grouch with the ketchup-loving child had muttered about wanting a smarter waitress, and said, "Twelve."
"Seventeen?" Chiaki blinked, and then laughed. "Have you seen seventeen? They're not ordering anything. Not that I'm really complaining, because it's less for me to do, but . . ." He gave her a shrewd look. "Is that why you want it? Less work?"
"No," Anzu said quickly. "I want a hard sell. If I can get those guys to be paying customers, then Himura-san will give me more hours. I mean, if that won't convince him, then nothing else will, right?"
Chiaki snorted. "You bet. If there's one thing he loves more than a kiss-ass, it's a kiss-ass that's also a hard and dedicated worker." Anzu scowled at the implication that she was a kiss-ass, but before she could counter it, Chiaki said, "All right, you've got your swap, but only because you're cute as buttons and I can't say no. You know how cute girls are my weakness."
"Cute everything is your weakness," Anzu said, but she returned Chiaki's smile even as he shrugged to give her the point. "Thanks, Chiaki. I owe you."
"Aww, lost the -kun already?" he said, and put out his lips in a mock pout. Anzu stuck her tongue out at him as he added, "You said I'm taking twelve, right?"
Anzu opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, her boorish customer did it for her. "Burger girl!" he shouted. "Hey, burger girl—we need another thing of ketchup!"
Anzu turned to see that the child had once again wrested control of the ketchup bottle, and had done a great job of adding another puddle to the lake of ketchup already piled on the floor beneath the table. Relieved that she was losing the pain of having to deal with that mess on top of gaining the opportunity to talk to Jounouchi, Anzu beamed.
"Actually, burger boy will be helping you now," she said brightly, and she grabbed Chiaki's arm to push him lightly toward the table. "Go on, help the man with his ketchup problem."
"I—what—no, wait, I take it back. I want my table back!" Chiaki cried. Anzu wagged her finger at him as she started down toward the other end of the restaurant.
"No can do, Chiaki-kun. No fair trade-backs."
"You never said that before we made the trade! Hey! Mazaki poppyyyy!"
Chiaki's whining fell on deaf ears as Anzu darted around one of her coworkers leading a family of six to their table. She was relieved to see that not much seemed to have changed between Jounouchi and his companion; at the least, neither of them looked ready to leave. As she approached their booth she reached into the pocket of her work skirt to pull out her notepad and pen, and put on her biggest smile when she drew level with the table.
"Hi!" she said, and she tried to infuse her voice with the same upbeat attitude she'd used with Yuugi for the past two months, rather than the manufactured I-wish-I-could-poison-your-fries cheer she greeted most other customers with. The man in sunglasses looked up, his eyebrows raised but an easy smile on his face, while Jounouchi's eyes remained fixed on whatever he was reading inside the manila folder. "We hit a bit of a snag with our table rotation, and so your previous server has been assigned to another table. I'll be taking over as your server for the remainder of the afternoon."
"So long as there aren't any other scheduling snags, right?" the man in sunglasses asked, but his tone was light—teasing. Anzu felt her smile become a little more forced all the same.
"Right!" she agreed. "So, I see you haven't had anything to drink yet—might I interest you in something? We have water, several different soft drinks, some alcohol so long as you're of age—"
"Oh, I'm fine," the man in sunglasses said. He looked to Jounouchi. "Joutou-kun, how about you?"
Joutou? Anzu furrowed her brow, but Jounouchi didn't look up. It didn't look like he was really reading whatever was in the folder, either; his eyes had been stuck on the same spot since she had stepped up to the table.
"No," he said, voice flat.
"Looks like we're good on that front," the man in sunglasses said, unruffled by Jounouchi's attitude. Anzu pasted a smile back on her face—however weird that name was, and whatever reason Jounouchi had for apparently using it, it wouldn't help for her to show open confusion over it—and focused her attention on Jounouchi. If there was one way she could get through to him—or at least one way she could get him to actually look at her—it was with food.
"Are you sure?" she asked. "We're actually running a promotion this month with two new flavors of milkshake: green tea and red bean. They're both great, but I'd personally go for the green tea, if I were you. It's definitely the best milkshake you'll find anywhere in Domino."
"That's a pretty bold claim," the man in sunglasses said.
"So, what do you think?" Anzu pressed, and as she kept her eyes on Jounouchi, the man in sunglasses looked to him as well. "It's pretty hot outside, still. A milkshake could help you cool off."
"Pass," Jounouchi said, still not looking at her.
"Well, all right, then!" Anzu said, and she squeezed her pen a little tighter. "Maybe milkshakes aren't the best thing. How about some food? We have some specials going on right now. Right now, chef's recommendations start with the apple burger, which is your typical burger topped with a grilled cinnamon apple for a bit of sweetness with your spice. It comes with a side order of fries, of course."
"Not interested."
"Okay, then how about our meat beast royale? Can't go wrong with that," Anzu said. "That one has one beef patty, one chicken filet, and a pork patty, topped with red miso, green onion sauce, three different cheeses starting with—"
"Still not interested," Jounouchi said through clenched teeth. Anzu returned the favor in kind.
"That's fine, we have plenty of other options! How about—"
Jounouchi closed the manila folder and slammed it on the table in the same motion. "What part of 'I don't want anything' did you not get?" he snapped, glowering at her. Anzu tried not to look caught off-guard by his sudden outburst. "I'm not hungry, screw off."
"Since when are you not hungry?" Anzu demanded. "You're always hungry. There has to be something you want."
"Always?" the man in the sunglasses asked, sounding interested. He looked between them. "Do you two know each other?"
"Yes," Anzu said, at the same time that Jounouchi gave a very vehement, "No." The man in sunglasses raised his eyebrows, and while he looked even more intrigued than before, Jounouchi looked like he was trying to set the table on fire with his mind alone.
"He's, ah, a regular customer!" Anzu said, and she spun her pen between her fingers as the man in sunglasses looked back to her. "I see him in here all the time, so I'm just surprised he hasn't ordered anything, that's all."
"Really?" the man in sunglasses asked. Anzu nodded. "That's funny. He seemed pretty reluctant to come here when I suggested it."
"O-Oh, really?" Anzu asked, and she hoped her laughter didn't sound as nervous as she suddenly felt. Jounouchi had picked up the manila folder again, though he didn't open it, and his fingers squeezed it so tightly Anzu thought he might end up punching holes in it. "Well, that would explain a few things! I mean, I haven't seen him in here recently, but he used to come all the time—"
"What happened?" The man in sunglasses turned his attention to Jounouchi, his chin propped up by his hand, his elbow on the table. "Sounds like there's a story here. Is there a story?"
"No," Jounouchi said. "Just a really annoying waitress."
Yuugi, Yuugi, Anzu chanted in her head, as she resisted the urge to throw her pen at Jounouchi's face. You're doing this for Yuugi . . .
"Aw, come now, don't be like that, Joutou-kun," the man in sunglasses said. "She's just doing her job."
"Pretty sure her job is to not annoy her customers into never coming back," Jounouchi said. The man in sunglasses opened his mouth to reply, but Anzu cleared her throat.
"You know what? You're right. I'll leave you to whatever it is you're doing, then," she said.
"Good," Jounouchi said.
"But I'll be around in case you do decide you need anything, so let me know if you do, okay?"
"Won't happen, but sure," Jounouchi said. The man in sunglasses gave Jounouchi a bemused look before he turned to Anzu.
"We'll keep it in mind," he said.
Anzu gave him one last, quick smile, cast a glance at Jounouchi—who, once again, was steadfastly looking at the table rather than her—and then turned to head toward the back, scribbling an order down on her notepad as she walked.
Jounouchi could turn down the idea of food, but if he was anything at all like she remembered, then there was no way he could turn down food that was right in front of him.
Anzu couldn't remember what Jounouchi liked, exactly, but she jotted down what Yuugi usually ordered and slipped it in with the other orders her coworkers had lined up for their tables. That accomplished, she hunted down her manager and made sure she could take her break once the food was done—a feat that took some work, to be sure, but was made much easier once Anzu bent the truth and told him that she got Jounouchi to actually order something—and then went to check on her other tables while she waited. Fortunately, her other customers weren't nearly as fussy as table twelve; aside from needing a couple refills on drinks, they were more than happy to be left alone, while Chiaki was still busy trying to clean the Lake Motosu-sized ketchup spill off the floor beneath table twelve. Anzu felt bad, but he had agreed, and besides, she could always make it up to him later.
Once her order was up, Anzu checked with her manager one last time to make sure it was all right for her to take her break, and then brought the tray out to Jounouchi's table, where she set it down without preamble. Both Jounouchi and the man with sunglasses looked up, and Jounouchi glowered at her.
"The cooks accidentally got another customer's order wrong and made this by mistake. Usually we'd just toss it out, but I figured since you hadn't ordered anything, you might want it." Anzu slid the tray over toward Jounouchi, but the most he did was move the manila folder out of the way. He didn't make a move toward the food. "Go ahead, have at it."
Jounouchi stared at it for a second, chewing the inside of his cheek, but then he shook his head sharply and folded his arms. "No. I don't want it. Take it back."
Anzu had only been friends with Jounouchi for about three months before he transferred, but in those three months, she'd never known him to turn down anything edible, especially if it was free. She stared at him for a second, thinking maybe she misheard him or he misunderstood, before she said, "You don't have to worry about paying for it. It was our mistake, so it's on the house."
The dark look Jounouchi was giving her didn't waver. "I said no. Get out of here."
Anzu opened her mouth to ask him what the hell his deal was (because really, she was seriously starting to doubt Yuugi's version of whatever went down in the park), but before she could, the man in sunglasses spoke up.
"What's the harm in accepting a little food? It's free. Unless it's poisoned, it can't hurt, and somehow I get the feeling it isn't poisoned." He leaned across the table, then, and in an undertone easily audible to Anzu despite the din of the restaurant said, "I think she likes you."
Anzu opened her mouth, but the shock and actual offense she felt at the suggestion left her at a loss for words. The look on Jounouchi's face was similarly dumbfounded, but he found his voice faster than Anzu did, his expression as dry as his tone when he spoke.
"Pretty sure her feelings for me are the exact opposite of 'like,' unless by 'likes' you mean 'wishes would get hit by a bus.'"
"You don't think this is a good way to get a guy's attention?" the man in sunglasses asked, and he swiped a fry off the plate, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. Anzu frowned.
"I think whatever she's up to is something I'm not interested in," Jounouchi said, and he gave Anzu a pointed look.
The last thing Anzu wanted was for anyone to think she was interested in Jounouchi—or at least, interested in him like that—but she also knew that she couldn't let an opportunity go to waste when it was practically handed to her on a silver platter. With another mental reminder that she was doing this for Yuugi, Anzu slid into the booth next to Jounouchi and grabbed his arm in a hug as she did so, holding him tightly as he tried to pull away. He gave her an affronted look.
"What the hell—"
"I'm that transparent, huh?" she said, and she forced a giggle and ducked her head a little bit so she could look at the man in sunglasses from beneath her bangs. "Well, you know how it is. When we're on the clock it can be a bit hard to be direct, but I am technically on a break now, so . . ."
"So you're free to be as open as your heart desires," the man in sunglasses said, and a Cheshire grin split his cheeks from ear to ear. Anzu locked her jaw in her own smile as she nodded, and the man laughed. "Well, who am I to stand in the way of young love, hm? You enjoy your break. I'll let you kids get on with it."
"We're not—" Jounouchi began, but the man in sunglasses cut him off as he stood up.
"Don't worry about it. We were just about finished talking, anyway. If you have any questions, you know how to get in touch with me. Otherwise, I trust you to be able to take care of it as discussed." He nodded toward the pair of them with a smile and said, "Good luck," before he turned to make his way out of the restaurant. Jounouchi waited until the man was out of sight before he turned to Anzu, and he looked no less cold than before.
"Get off me," he said.
Anzu released him immediately, more than happy to pull back, though she didn't move from her spot. "It's not like I really meant any of that. I just needed an excuse to sit down," she said.
"Yeah, whatever," he said. Anzu said nothing, and after a minute he said in an exasperated tone, "So, are you gonna move or not?"
"Not," Anzu said, and Jounouchi rolled his eyes and turned to scowl out of the window.
"Great."
She had been standing too far away to really get a good look at him before, aside from his new hair style and outfit, but now that she was seated right next to him—now that she'd had a chance to get a good look at his face—Anzu could see that Jounouchi . . . didn't look well. There were dark circles under his eyes that suggested multiple sleepless nights, and maybe it was her imagination, but he looked a little thinner, too—or at least, he felt a little bonier when she grabbed his arm, though Anzu supposed it wasn't like she'd ever hugged him before he transferred to gain a point of comparison. All the same, despite his clean haircut and nice clothes Jounouchi had an overall haggard appearance, and so she nudged the tray of food a bit closer to him. He looked at it askance, but didn't move to take it.
"Come on, eat something," she said, more gently than before. "You look like you could use it."
He shook his head minutely, and turned to stare out of the window again. "Not hungry."
"Since when are you not hungry?" Anzu asked, all too aware that she was just repeating their conversation from earlier. He didn't answer, and her frustration—frustration that she'd felt since that first day in the plaza months ago—began to bubble to the surface again. "Are you not allowed to eat in your little gang or something?"
"I'm allowed to—" Jounouchi started, clearly annoyed, but even as he turned to argue with her he seemed to think better of it. He made a little growling sound in the back of his throat before he looked away again, and reached down to pull something from his pocket. Anzu wrinkled her nose in disgust when she saw that it was a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "We can smoke in here, right?" Jounouchi asked, but he didn't wait for her permission before he pulled a cigarette from the pack and flicked his lighter open.
"Why do you want to? Since when you do smoke?" Anzu demanded.
Jounouchi shrugged. "Few months now. If it bothers you, you can get the hell away from me so I can leave." He took a drag on the cigarette and exhaled, thankfully turning away from her before he did.
It did bother her, but not just because she didn't like the look or smell of the smoke. She scrunched her fingers in her work skirt to brace herself against her annoyance and said calmly, "I want to talk to you."
"Well, I don't want to talk to you," he said, and Anzu curled her fingers a little more tightly in the fabric of her skirt. "Thought I made that clear . . . what, three months ago now? And didn't you get it then? Pretty sure you said you'd gladly stay the hell away from me. Whatever happened to that?"
"Probably the same thing that happened to you promising you'd stay away from Yuugi," Anzu snapped before she could help herself.
Jounouchi's attitude of quiet irritation was gone in a flash. He whipped around to stare at her, his eyes wide and wild. "What?"
His sudden reaction was startling, but once her surprise faded, Anzu only felt the same frustration and annoyance she had felt since she first approached the table and he blew her off. Even if he had been gone for three months, and even if he was in a gang now, he was still Jounouchi. No matter how wild he looked, there was no reason to be afraid of him.
"Yuugi told Honda and me what happened in the park last week," she said, and there was no mistaking the growing panic in Jounouchi's eyes now, though Anzu didn't see a reason for it. "He said y—hey, what the hell?!"
In one fluid motion, Jounouchi grabbed the cup of soda from the tray with his free hand and threw it to the floor hard enough to break it open. The lid and straw skittered across the tile as soda and ice sprayed everywhere, some of it splashing onto Anzu's ankles beneath the table. Everyone nearby—from the other customers in the restaurant, to Anzu's coworkers, to Anzu's manager—turned to see what had caused the disturbance, but Anzu was the only one paying attention to them. Jounouchi, apparently satisfied with having thrown the cup to the floor, was taking another drag on his cigarette.
Anzu's manager was not nearly so composed. He stared at her with bugged eyes from behind the counter, his face flushing unpleasantly.
"Mazaki, what do you think you're doing over there?!" he snapped, but he seemed to realize in the same breath that there were still some customers watching, for he cleared his throat and tried to force his voice to adopt a more pleasant tone. "Being on break doesn't mean you can . . . do thingslike this!"
"I didn't—it was an accident," Anzu said, and her manager's nostrils flared. "It was just a clumsy slip, it won't happen again—"
"It better not," her manager said, and he checked his watch. "You have twenty more minutes." With that, he turned to head down to the other end of the counter, calling for one of Anzu's older coworkers—Hanako—to clean up the mess before someone slipped. Anzu felt bad, but she allowed herself only a second to make a mental note to make it up to Hanako later before she whirled on Jounouchi.
"What the hell was that for?" she hissed. "Are you trying to get me fired?"
"I was trying to get you to shut up," he said, in a voice just as low as hers. Anzu furrowed her brow, but before she could ask why he wanted to get her to shut up so badly—and why he couldn't just tell her to shut up, rather than throwing cups like a child—he said, "What did Yuugi tell you? Don't get into specifics," he added sharply, as she opened her mouth, "but just—you know. Generally. Did he tell you . . ." Jounouchi bounced his leg beneath the table, clearly agitated, and took another hit on his cigarette. He turned away to exhale before he said, "What—exactly, but non-specifically—did he say?"
Anzu stared at him for what felt like a full minute before she had to ask. "How am I supposed to tell you anything 'exactly, but non-specifically?' What in the world does that mean?"
"Just—" Jounouchi made a waving motion in the air, as if trying to magically make an explanation appear, and when none came he sighed, a strange wince crossing his face as he did so. "You know. Just avoid saying anything about . . ." He dropped his voice low enough so that Anzu only really caught the next word because she read it off his lips, "Me."
It still didn't make any sense, and Anzu wasn't sure why he was being so ridiculous about it, but after sighing herself she did her best to accommodate. "He said he nearly got mugged in the park, and then y—um, he didn't. He said he was escorted out of the park, and then sent on his way back home."
"He said all that, huh?" Jounouchi asked. He didn't seem at all relieved by her explanation. If anything, despite the fact that she had fulfilled his weird request, he looked more agitated than before.
"And more," Anzu said. "A lot more. Want me to get into the specifics?"
"Didn't I just say I didn't?" Jounouchi grumbled, and he tapped the ash from his cigarette into the little tray provided on the table.
"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. That's what all three of us have wanted to talk to you about for the past week, but we haven't been able to find you," Anzu said. "Yuugi—"
"Where did he tell you this?" Jounouchi demanded suddenly, and when he looked back at her his eyes carried the same intensity he'd had when she had first pointed out that he hadn't stayed away from Yuugi like he said he would. "And when? When and where was this?"
"What does that matter?" Anzu asked, indignant that he had interrupted her.
"Never mind that, just answer the question," he said.
"Forget that, I deserve to know why I'm being interrogated," Anzu said. "What the hell is going on with—"
"Anzu, for the love of—!" Jounouchi said loudly, and a few nearby customers looked over at his outburst. He ignored them. "Just answer the damn question! When and where, and was there anyone else besides you and Honda around when he did?"
"It was at school," Anzu said shortly. "In the morning, before homeroom, the day after it happened."
Jounouchi tapped his cigarette against the edge of the ash tray again, but it wasn't necessary to ash it this time. Instead, he tapped it in a rhythmic, quick motion like he would a pen against a desk, his eyes unfocused as he thought.
"Who else was there?" he asked after a moment. "Anyone?"
"I don't know," Anzu said crossly, and he glared at her. "Some of our classmates, maybe? I really wasn't paying attention to anyone else considering what Yuugi and Honda had to say."
"This is important," Jounouchi ground out. "I really, really need you to remember who else was there."
Anzu tossed one hand in the air. "I don't know. Hanasaki-kun, maybe—he usually gets to class early, but he sits in the back. I think Ribbon-chan was there too, since she has library club prep in the early mornings even though the club doesn't officially meet until after school."
"Anyone else?"
"I really don't know, I wasn't paying attention. Why does it matter?" Anzu snapped, and Jounouchi brushed his free hand back over his hair, spiking it up a little more in the process given how short it was. "Nice haircut, by the way."
Either he was too aggravated to accept a compliment, or her attempt to curb their mutual irritation by saying something nice backfired completely. The look he gave her was resentful. "You really can't tell me if there was anyone there besides Hanasaki and Miho?"
"I don't think there was. People came in while we were talking, but they did their own thing. No one really paid attention to us, if you're worried about someone overhearing." Jounouchi was quiet for a moment as he took another drag on his cigarette, and after a moment Anzu asked, "Now are you going to tell me why you're freaking out at me like this? Who are you so afraid of? Hirutani and the rest of his creeps go to Rintama with you, don't they?"
Jounouchi gave her a sharp look. "You know his name?"
"Of course I do. Honda told me," she said. The meeting with Hirutani himself outside of the café was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. Jounouchi looked so antsy at the idea that one of her classmates could have overheard Yuugi's story that she thought he might upend the table if she told him they had actually spoken with Hirutani. Besides, she added to herself, given how much of a whackjob Hirutani is, no doubt he already told Jounouchi himself. Thinking about how that conversation must have went down put Jounouchi's behavior into perspective, and Anzu felt a pang of sympathy for him.
"Of course he did," Jounouchi muttered, and he heaved another sigh. As he did, another barely constrained wince crossed his face. Anzu frowned, suddenly remembering what Honda's sister had said.
"Hey, how are your ribs doing?"
"My what?" Jounouchi looked up at her, and Anzu resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew he had heard her.
"Your ribs," she repeated. "They're hurt, right? Honda's sister told us."
"You met sista?" Whether Jounouchi was intentionally dodging her question or not Anzu wasn't sure, but his surprise seemed genuine, and Anzu couldn't help the fact that her lips twitched into a little smile even as she tried to give him a reproachful look.
"Yeah, and I don't think she likes that you call her that, by the way. She said you keep 'accidentally' forgetting not to."
Jounouchi waved her off. "Yeah, yeah—but wait, why did you meet her? When did you meet her? And she told you about—" Realization seemed to hit him then, and he groaned, letting his head fall back against the back of the booth seat with a light thump. "God damn it, sista, I asked you to do one fucking thing for me—"
"If it makes you feel any better, she regretted not listening to you," Anzu said.
Jounouchi cracked open one eye to peer at her as he said, "Good."
Anzu didn't answer him right away. Instead, she took a moment to mull over her thoughts, letting him stew in silence as well, before she said, "Look, Jounouchi . . . I know a lot has happened over the past few months. I don't know the specifics of all of it, but I know enough to know how horrible it has to be for you. But whatever's going on, if you'll just let us in, we can help. Even if it's been a few months, we're still friends—"
"No," Jounouchi said abruptly, and it was as if Anzu had dumped a bucket of ice water on him for how alert he suddenly looked. He ground his cigarette into the bottom of the ash tray to put it out, and in his haste he knocked the tray just roughly enough so that some of the ash from inside spilled over onto the table. "We're not. I can't be here. I have to go."
"Go where? Why?" Anzu didn't move, even as he turned to face her, probably about to ask her to do just that. "Why can't you be here? This is a public place, you have just as much of a right as anybody to—"
"You're here," he said, and Anzu scowled.
"So it really is about that Hirutani creep, then, isn't it? Listen, he—"
"I don't think anyone's . . ." Jounouchi sat up a bit straighter to look over the other people in the restaurant, chewing the inside of his bottom lip, and he shook his head as he sat back down. "But I can't say for sure, not when anyone could've . . ." He ran a hand over his hair again, and cast his eyes over the table. "I need something just in case he—"
"He can't get mad at you for this," Anzu said firmly. "You haven't done anything wrong besides throw a soda on the floor. He has no right to hurt you just for being—"
"I'm not the one he'll—" Jounouchi's eyes fell on a glass container filled with seasoning for fries tucked away behind the stack of menus lined up against the window, and he reached out and swiped it in the next second. He tossed it a little in his hand, and gave it a smile of grim satisfaction. "This'll work."
"That will work for what?" Anzu demanded, a sudden swoop of foreboding in her stomach. "Jounouchi, what the hell are you about to do?"
He glanced over at her and said quietly, "For what it's worth, I'm really sorry about this."
"Sorry's not good enough," Anzu said, and she made a grab for the seasoning container, but he held it up, out of her reach, as he shifted to kneel on the booth seat. "Jounouchi—!"
Jounouchi hauled his arm back and threw the seasoning container as hard as he could toward the electronic menu screens posted up behind the counter. It smashed into one of them hard enough to not only splinter the screen and cause it to flicker out due to the damage, but to shatter the seasoning container itself, which rained glass shards and seasoning down on several of Anzu's unfortunate coworkers, who had been behind the counter at the time. They screamed and ducked out of the way, but they weren't the only ones; a few children cried out in alarm, one infant bursting into tears at the sudden sound, while several adult customers had cried out in reactions ranging from blustering anger at the sudden fright to disapproval at the disturbance. For her part, Anzu was struck with horrified disbelief that was so strong it left her momentarily stunned. For his part, Jounouchi was not. The second the seasoning container left his hand he reached down to swipe the manila folder off the table, and since Anzu wasn't moving, he clambered over the table and onto the back of the other booth seat, ignoring the startled, indignant cries of the customers seated at the table on the other side. Several of Anzu's coworkers called out to Jounouchi, and Anzu's manager was making his way across the restaurant while shouting at Jounouchi to stop, but he ignored them all as he bolted toward the door. He was gone before anyone had a chance to stop him.
Unfortunately, while Jounouchi could leave, Anzu had to stay, and if her manager was angry with her over the spilled soda, that was nothing compared to the look of livid fury he gave her now as he finally reached the table.
"Mazaki," he said in a shaking voice, and he pointed a finger toward the back room. "My office. Now."
Dread flooded Anzu as she pushed herself up from the booth seat, and she followed his instruction without a word. Everyone in the restaurant was staring at her now, and when she glanced over to table twelve, she saw that Chiaki was giving her a look of mingled concern and awe, while just beyond him Hanako was shaking her head in disapproval. But even as dread and embarrassment combined to try and push the beginnings of tears into her eyes, Anzu felt a shock of anger as well, and that gave her the strength she needed to hold them back.
This wasn't her fault. Even if she got fired, this wasn't her fault, and she, at least, had done the right thing.
But if she did get fired, and if this set her back on saving for New York, well . . .
Whatever his reasons were, whatever had inspired him to do something so stupid, once they helped Jounouchi get out of the mess he was in—if they could help him get out of the mess he was in—she would personally see to it that he paid her back in full.