Chapter One: Smile
Disclaimer: I am poor. I own very little. Yami no Matsuei is not something I own. My name is not attached to the series in any way. So don't sue.
This is my first Yami no Matsuei fic. Be honest.
Yuuko smiled at the customer, and proceeded with the order. A large Cinnapon [1] with extra icing, to go. She rang up the order on the slightly sticky cash register, and continued smiling. The supervisor was checking customer satisfaction, and Yuuko wanted to keep her part-time job. It had been hard enough to get the blasted permit [2] for it, and she had no intention of losing her hard earned job. One must always be extra courteous when serving the customers.
"That will be six hundred eighty yen." Smile.
The customer whimpered and began sobbing quietly, but pulled out the money. Yuuko might have felt a twinge of concern for the man if he didn't put her through this routine at least twice a week. Even the supervisor had nothing to say against her behavior. It was a miracle that the customer was so thin. She accepted the money, made change in the register, and gave the appropriate coins in the correct numbers required to the customer.
"Thank you, sir," she chirped pleasantly.
The man stepped to the side, allowing Yuuko to catch the order of the next customer. She didn't need to look at him to know exactly what he was doing. He did the same thing every time.
His eyes were watering, and would continue to do so for a few more seconds before he gave a final sob. Then he swooned in excitement over the prospect of getting his cinnamon bun. A moment later, he opened his luminous eyes impossible wide, looking as innocent as an angel. If he had been born a dog, his tail would have been wagging in anticipation.
It should be illegal for a grown man to achieve that high level of childlike adorableness so well.
Yuuko gave a fresh smile to the new customer, and waited for her to decide. This new customer was not one of the shop's regulars, and needed more time to make a decision. Having the eager man standing next to her was also proving to be an excellent distraction.
Not that Yuuko could blame her. Smile.
Her cheeks hurt from all the smiling she had already done that day. Three more hours till the end of the shift. Keep smiling.
The man was definitely attractive, with his exotic purple eyes that gave all his emotions away. His Japanese features contrasted with them quite nicely. He was probably a half. [3] He had to be. Those eyes weren't normal. What with how he appeared, Yuuko wouldn't be surprised in the least if he were half. The excitable man was pretty enough to be a model.
If only he didn't always wear that ridiculous black trench coat over his suit. It made him look like a gangster. And he needed to take better care of his clothes. His tie was crooked and loose. His clothes were never very tidy.
Yuuko kept her eyes on the woman in front of her, but couldn't help noticing how the man had started bouncing in place. Good. That meant his order was almost ready. The supervisor couldn't complain about the order taking too long. Perhaps her current customer would get around to ordering instead of ogling previous customers.
Smile for the customers. The supervisor is watching.
The man's bouncing reminded Yuuko of the time when he bounced right over a smear of icing on the floor from where a little boy had dropped a cinnamon bun. The purple-eyed man had slipped and fallen with a shout of surprise, scaring all the employees and customers present at the time. The stunned look of shock on his face as he went down had been hilarious. It was a memory that Yuuko liked to think of when she needed an emotional boost.
Her smile became a touch more natural when she noticed him pausing in mid-bounce to check the floor for any surprises. He actually took his eyes off his order.
"Ma'am? May I take your order?" Still, customers ogling their fellow customers did not a profit make. Customers purchasing cinnamon buns did, and provided money for employee paychecks at the same time.
The woman snapped her head back at Yuuko, startled, and stammered a reply. She redoubled her focus on the menu board. Even with this particular gargantuan effort, she still peeked at Mr. Black Trench Coat out of the side of her eye.
Yuuko bit back a sigh. Izumi-kun needed to hurry up and get that order out.
The customer behind the woman was a boy from Yuuko's high school. He shifted from foot to foot in impatience. How hard was it to order a simple Cinnapon?
The purple-eyed man's eyes seemed to grow even larger. He practically radiated eagerness. It would seem that Izumi-kun had finally finished getting the cinnamon bun into the Cinnapon box, and had completed drizzling the extra icing on top of the bun. Yuuko could hear her coworker step up to the counter.
Her current customer finally gave her order. A Cinnapon to go. Surprise. Who could have imagined that the woman would order that at a cinnamon bun shop?
Be nice! Yuuko reminded herself. Keeping the job was more important than being sarcastic.
"That will be six hundred eighty yen." Smile.
And that's the first installment. Tell me if the format is off.
Some things the readers should know:
[1] In the anime, the Cinnabon box had the label "Cinnapon" on it.
[2] In Japan, students often need special permission from their schools to get part-time jobs.
[3] "Half" denotes a half Japanese individual. This is an actual slang term used in Japan.
So tell me what you think of the first episode of "Fragments."