By the time we'd walked from the ferry docking area to the towns main thoroughfare, the sun was busily climbing into the sky. The Vietnamese still gave us a wide berth, though our company and the fact we were dressed in their military's fatigues assuaged some worries. Giang's father, Hạ sĩ, had taken Duc onto his shoulders, carrying the boy in a piggyback. I looked at Countess, and when the Battlecruiser noticed my gaze, I stretched out my arms.
"I want ups." Countess looked confused for a moment, before looking at the Father/Son pair, coming to a look of realization.
"O̸h̵,̷ ̶s̵u̵r̵e̴."
She put her hands under my armpits and hoisted me up, settling me on top of her shoulders as we continued along. I put my hands on top of her head to steady myself as I looked around from my new, vastly improved perch. the streets were starting to show signs of life, Cambodian shopkeepers opening up their stores, watching the streams of refugees enter their small town with some small amount of alarm and greed. A horse-drawn cart came through close by, headed in the opposite direction filled with leafy green plants piled high.
Chitose studied the small map in her hands, taken from the boat, as she looked up and pointed.
"There's a restaurant further down that way, its right across from the Pagoda over there." We swerved to the right side of the road, stopping at the building Chitose indicated as the majority of refugees carried on, likely to try and find lodgings.
The building wasn't in good shape, paint peeling off in places, but the inside was colorful, there was a buffet table near the kitchen, and a holding tank for live crawfish as well as other river animals. The establishments' owner, a rather unremarkable man with a receding hairline, went to welcome us before stopping, taking in the trio of us in our pale complexions and PAVN uniforms with wide eyes. He said something in Khmer, that Ha Si responded to in kind. The man looked out the door at all the passing people, before seeming to sag a bit in relief.
"Tell him where here to eat, anything he's got, we want," I said. Giang relayed this to his father, who relayed it to the shopkeeper, who smiled. He said something to Giang's father, who told Giang, who turned to us.
"He say take seats, buffet is take what we want, pay before eating." I nodded and told Countess to let me down. We claimed a seat near the middle of the floor, and I walked over to get our meals. While I got a good grip on the buffet table, Chitose started a conversation with Giang.
"So, how does your dad know Khmer, anyway?"
"Moms Gran was Cambodian, taught mom and dad after she run from country with her due to the Khmer Rouge, she was baby then-" He was interrupted by a scraping sound as everyone looked over to me, shoving a table aside gently as I carried the buffet table above my head. The restaurant owner babbled something, sounding agitated and confused, before Giang's father replied. The man, looking over at Chitose (Who waved and gave a polite smile) gave a reply, before heading into the kitchen in a hurry, quickly coming back with a beat-up looking debit machine. As Chitose paid for our food using Lao's card, I put down the buffet table next to ours.
There were a lot of soup and rice options, along with fresh vegetables from the local farms. I piled up my first plate as Countess and Hakone got theirs, I turned to the boys.
"Might wanna grab what you want before we start in on this, otherwise you might lose a hand." Giang translated for his family, and the boys quickly picked out a meal for themselves. Hakone piled a virtual mound of rice onto her plate, before drenching it in some of the sauce put off on the side, Countess got herself some of the rice too, but mixed in some meat dishes as well, piling on some pork slivers and stir-fry. I got some vegetables and beef, only getting a side of rice for now.
I dug-in eagerly, and I wasn't disappointed. An actually well-cooked meal was amazing after all the time we'd spent on the ocean, and while I did still enjoy the flavor of raw resources, this was food that had been made to taste good, and it showed. before I'd even had the time to blink, I'd finished my plate. I looked over to the others briefly as I leaned over to the buffet table to refill my plate.
"Hakone... Are you, crying?" The Heavy Cruiser swiped at her eyes, looking down at her empty plate as she sniffled.
"N-No..." I just looked at her, until she noticed my disbelieving gaze.
"It's just so GOOD! Do humans eat this sorta stuff all the time?" I nodded, Hakone wiped the rest of her tears away as she went to fill her plate again, looking over at Giang.
"Lucky..." The boy just shrugged, slurping at his noodles.
Countess also seemed to be enjoying herself, and I could almost see the stars in her eyes as she shoveled another helping onto her plate. Chitose was more subdued, eating her share with the most table-manners out of everyone, as the rest of us simply shoveled food down our throat-holes like savages.
In the end we had to pay three more times, as we emptied the buffet table, again and again, onlooker's amusement became amazement, then faded into a vague sort of horrified fascination as we demolished the restaurants food-stocks. Other people came in to eat, locals mostly, but most quickly left when they saw our uniforms. Of those that stayed, most were the Vietnamese that had trickled in, some took to taking pictures and cheering us on when a restocked table was wheeled out, and before we left (due to cleaning out the restaurants entire stock) the owner came up and asked for our signatures.
"Why does he want them?" I asked, a bit mystified.
"He got picture with collapsable camera, he wants display signed picture of you all eating. Most any person has ever eated in his store." Giang told me.
"Fair enough!" We signed the provided paper and left, the man shooing out everyone else in his store as he turned around the sign out front from 'open' to 'closed.'
"I think we put the guy out of business for the day... I'm still hella-hungry though. What about you guys?" The girls nodded, while the food had satiated them slightly, their stomachs were still practically aching. Chitose pulled out her small map again, squinting at it as the morning sun reflected off the paper into her eyes.
"There's another place close by, looks like some kind of bar... Do you think they'd let you in Georgia?" I shrugged.
"We can take a look if nothing else." We started off again, passing palm trees and houses that had seen better days. We even saw a group of goats! Tethered up near the road, grazing and watching us silently as we walked by. There were more of the locals here, and they were a jumpy bunch, one man even crossed the street entirely to get out of our path! We came into the next big cluster of buildings, and among the market stalls Chitose pointed out the doors to our next victi- Our next venue stop. Music blared from the place as we stepped inside, no one stopped us at the door, though I could see a couple of people working the bar off to the side, there was a menu on a chalkboard near the door, the squiggly lines of Kimmerish still gobbledygook to my eyes.
There was a small stage set up in the back, overlooking the rest of the tables, a large and dusty electrical setup was there, attached to a tv and microphone. A man was rather valiantly trying to sing what sounded like a rendition of 'Take on me" in Khmer as group of what must have been his friends egged him on.
He wasn't very good at it.
Chitose perked up a bit. "This must be a Karaoke bar!" She went off to the bar, taking Ha Si and Giang with her to get us some more Grits'n Gravy. I took in the sights briefly, waving cheerily to a small family having breakfast that was leaning away from me in their seats nearby. The kid waved back shyly, staring at my eyepatch, before the mother grabbed his hand and led them out the door, skirting around us.
"Cheery bunch for a bar, isn't it?" I said to no-one in particular, as Chitose came back with the boys, a plate of food in one hand and a bottle in the other.
"I made a tab, you can order what you like, they'll stop us if we go over the limit so I can put more on." I eyed the bottle in her hand skeptically, she noticed the look, reddening slightly.
"Its been a while, OK? Ha Si said he's staying sober, someone else can be the responsible one for once." I looked at her, squinting my eyes, before looking at the bottle of liquor in her hand. She started to nervously fidget.
"Alright." She sighed in relief. "But only if you share it with me."
"What!? Georgia! you're too young to be drinking!" I gave her an incredulous look.
"I'm also too young to be popping peoples heads off! but I do THAT anyway... Besides, it's not like we're human, there's not a legal drinking age for ships last I checked. I don't think this is the kinda place where they'd card people anyway" Chitose thought about that for a moment, distracting her enough that I was able to quickly swipe the bottle out of her hand.
"Georgia!" I started off towards the bar, chuckling as Chitose made to grab the bottle back awkwardly, I dodged her grasping hand.
"I'm gonna go find a couple of glasses, we aren't drinking out of the bottle like a couple of bums! Fairly certain you wouldn't want the indirect kiss anyway." Chitose's face reddened as she sputtered. Honestly, the Japanese woman was so hilariously easy to tease.
Well, this will end well. Luckily the boys will be staying sober at least, And Georgia wouldn't let her girls have any... right? Yeah, she's totally responsible, well, when she has to be.
Sometimes.