Jouryoku Kafe (The Evergreen Café)
Chapter 1: Pure, Impure
"Irasshaimase! Welcome, sir, to the Evergreen Café! Are you alone today, or are there others coming in with you?"
"E-Eh? Well, my friend's supposed to meet me here...he said that he'd come around twelve, and that's...about five minutes from now. So he should be here soon."
"Oh, okay! Would you like to take a seat while you're waiting, or would you prefer to wait outside for him?"
"Do you have any open tables, miss?"
"Of course! This is our in-between time, and most customers don't come in the late morning hours...though we get a pretty big crowd earlier on. May I please have your name, sir?"
The young brunette grinned innocently, boyish features illuminated in an instant. "Goku. Son Goku."
Female waitress Yaone smiled kindly, and picked up a menu from the nearby tray. "Right this way, then, if you would."
In downtown Tokyo, the hottest new restaurant/café, Jouryoku Kafe, was constantly visited by people of all sizes and ages. In the early morning hours, around 6 o'clock, middle-aged men and women heading to work that day would stop by to get their morning coffee; by 7, students of the local high school dropped into the booths to have a warm breakfast before going through over seven periods of educational studies. In the afternoon, it was a rapidly popular lunch spot, for they sold both traditional Japanese cuisine and American food, both which sold extremely well due to the high-quality put into their dishes.
Dinner was, surprisingly enough, not as crowded as the lunchtime hours; but this was probably due to the fact that the restaurant nearby had much better food suited for an evening meal. In any case, this assiduous new business was booming; and because of their low prices, it was no wonder that everyone in the Shinjuku prefecture loved the Jouryoku Kafe.
Another incentive that made many of the female customers enjoy coming to this place, however, was to see two young men who had grown quite a popular fan base themselves over the past few years of living there: twenty-two year old waiter Cho Hakkai, and his elder by one year more, manager Genjou Sanzou.
But that was another story for another day; because for the moment, our attention shall be focused on this café's newest, and soon to be most frequent, visitor: 18-year-old Son Goku.
After picking out a small booth created to seat two people and sending the young waitress away with an order of a medium Coke in place, Goku stared out the nearby window and peered through the passing group of city folk for a trace of red hair. "Mou...where the hell is he?! He said he'd meet me here at one, but I don't see him anywhere! That erokappa had BETTER not have lied to me and ditched me for some freakin' girl! Although, I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that..."
"Umm...I'm sorry to bother you, but I came to take your order...if you're ready, of course."
Starting, Goku whirled around to face not the waitress from before—I think she said her name's Yaone, he remarked mentally—but a smiling young man who did not seem facially much older than himself. However, this person was taller than the diminutive Goku, because despite his age, Goku remained quite smaller than the average just-turned-adult; and though he too was brown-haired, this male had a pair of vivid emerald eyes.
"Yeah, I'm ready! Sorry about that...I was looking for my friend, and I sorta wound up thinkin' out loud..." Sheepishly, the younger one scratched the back of his head. "You don't think I'm a freak or anything like that, right?"
"Oh, no, not at all..." The young man chuckled, the easy smile never quite leaving his face. "Despite the bright looks of this place, I'm afraid most of my coworkers are pretty serious...and for the record, I hardly get to make contact with such a cheerful boy like you!"
Goku laughed out loud, taking an instant liking to this near-stranger's polite speech patterns and gentle tone, for some reason. "Yup! That's what everyone says; I'm cheerful, loud, and the best pal around! You can call me Goku! Ne, what's your name, mister?"
"Hakkai. Boku wa Cho Hakkai desu." Hakkai bowed, and then quickly lifted his head back up, the pad and pen in his hand poised. "Now, what would you like to eat, Goku?"
"I'll have--"
"Oi, bakasaru! Why'd you go in without me for?! You could've at LEAST waited outside for me!"
Leaping out of his seat in reply, (and scaring poor Hakkai to the point where he had to move out the boy's way), Goku went flailing at the redhead who had just entered.
"EROKAPPA! YOU'RE A MINUTE LATE, AND YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT THE NERVE TO YELL AT ME!? AND STOP CALLIN' ME A STUPID MONKEY, YOU PERVERTED WATER SPRITE!"
Unlike the way the livid Goku had been yelling, Sha Gojyo mildly tossed back his long red hair and fired back an equally-impressive insult. "Well, if the name FITS, then I guess you'll just have to WEAR it! And who th' hell are you callin' a pervert?"
"YOU, erokappa! And you made me mess up my order, so now Hakkai won't know what I want! Arrgh...it's all your FAULT, Gojyo!"
"Now, now; the both of you, calm down..." Hakkai soothed, taking the enraged Goku by the hand and leading him back to the table. "Goku is, indeed, right; I'm afraid still haven't gotten your orders yet. So if the fighting can perhaps wait until after this, I'll get your food made while you continue."
Goku pouted and sulked, leaning back in his side of the booth; the older of the two tossed a crooked smirk towards their waiter. "Hey. You're Hakkai, right? Nice to meet'cha, I'm Goku's friend, Gojyo. Of course, he should've been introducing me firstly instead of trying to yell at me for being, 'a minute late...'"
"WHO ASKED YOU, EROKAPPA?!"
Hakkai chuckled again, smiling gently at both teens. "Well, it's very nice to meet you, as well, Gojyo-san--"
"C'mon, man; don't use honorifics like that. It makes me feel old! Just call me Gojyo, alright?"
"...Hai...sumimasen, Gojyo." Hakkai apologized sweetly, bowing.
"Aw, come ON, Hakkai! Can we order already, please?! Stop talking to Gojyo; I'm hungry, and I bet he is, too!"
If it had been anyone else other than a patient young man like Hakkai, they might have snapped at the gluttonous boy and tell him to wait. But this was the exception to the rule that we're talking about; and he smiled, bowing once more. "Alright, then...what would you both like to eat?"
After finally ordering their food, Gojyo leaned across the table with a scandalous wink. "Hey, Goku. Hakkai's pretty cute, don't you think?"
The brunette, annoyed, rolled his eyes. "Not THIS again...honestly, you get a crush on almost every halfway attractive person you meet, Gojyo! What's gonna be different this time? You're gonna try to put the moves on the guy or girl, sweet-talk them, and have them slap you in the face later for being crude or perverted! It always ends the same way, so why don't you just give up already?"
"C'mon, saru...this is DIFFERENT, man, seriously...Hakkai's different..."
Goku sighed, pressing a right palm to his forehead "Ugh...I just KNOW you're heading toward another failed, disastrous relationship, Gojyo..."
The redhead frowned, but immediately brightened up again. "Hey, don't put so little trust in me, kiddo. When somethin' important actually comes my way, I know I'll get it. Haven't you nicknamed me the, 'reliable womanizer'?"
The boy turned up his nose, giving an impolite little snort. "That was before I knew you were into guys."
Twitch. "Saru, are you TRYING to get murdered here, or what?!"
"Don't call me a saru, erokappa!!"
"SARU."
"EROKAPPA."
"SARU!!"
"EROKAPPA!!"
"THAT'S IT, I'm GONNA SERIOUSLY FUCKING HURT YOU, KID!" Gojyo made a motion to get out of the booth, his tall, gangly form nearly falling off the seat.
"ONLY IF YOU CAN CATCH ME FIRST, SICKO!" Goku flipped acrobatically through the air and landed gracefully on the tiled floor, making a few on looking customers screech in obvious surprise.
It was quite unfortunate that a handsome blonde, who just happened to be the café's manager, came out of the back room at that moment after just getting dressed and ready for the day from sleeping in. Of course, this also meant he hadn't yet eaten anything; and everyone who knew Genjou Sanzou knew he had low blood pressure-- which meant that after waking up and not eating, he was one cranky person.
And seeing two youngsters about ready to brawl it out in his restaurant did not bode well with Sanzou's mentality.
"What the fuck are you two trying to do?!" Sanzou growled out, fists clenched tightly.
"Uh...w-we can explain, sir..."
"Y-Yeah...the kid and I here were gonna...y'see..."
The blonde stomped back into the kitchen—of which more than a few murmurs were prompted by this action—and came out with two trays in hand. His face was fairly calm for someone who was giving off a killing aura powerful enough to rival a mass-murdering homicidal; Goku and Gojyo shivered, feeling it as a sudden chill in the air.
"...YOU DUMBASSES!"
And even past the shout that scared every inhabitant of the area, the pair who subconsciously knew they would be hit painfully by dining trays didn't even have enough time to duck, before they both went spiraling out the door with twin bumps on the exact same spots on both of their heads.
"That certainly was a rather unorthodox way to send them out, Sanzou. And without any food, either! You seem to be quite heartless, though I'm sure you had your reasons for such an action...isn't that right?" Hakkai had said cheerfully later that night, when he and Sanzou had retired to their rooms for the night in the living quarters of the café.
"Che. I don't know what you meant by that, Hakkai, but you'd better not be implying anything." The young man leaned back on his bed and took a quick drag on his cigarette.
Hakkai smiled gently in response. "Or you'll kill me, right? Believe it or not, your actions are becoming rather predictable, old friend. You should change those catchphrases of yours before the customers begin to pick up on them."
"Like I care."
"A-ha-ha...of course you wouldn't. That's my Sanzou, all right."
There was a taut silence, only broken when Hakkai spoke once more.
"...Goku and Gojyo-san...they're both quite abnormal, wouldn't you say?"
Sanzou barely batted an eyelash at the other adult's cryptic statement. He was used to them by now, though when it came from Hakkai, it usually had an explanation behind it. "...Besides the fact that they're both the biggest idiots I've ever seen, what do you mean exactly?"
The normally cheerful man expressed a rather serious expression. "I didn't mean that, Sanzou...their auras, however, surprised me...they aren't human; and I'd almost swear that Gojyo-san was a half-breed."
Sanzou raised an eyebrow delicately. "...You really have a thing for that guy, don't you? You like him or something?"
"Gojyo-san is interesting in his own way...and for the fact that he's a youngster, or perhaps because of it, his ideals are still quite innocent. And that goes double for Goku, the little one..." Sadly, Hakkai cast a green-hued gaze at the pillow beside them. "It makes me feel quite sorry for them...the world will become worse very soon...and people like those are sure to grow quickly in uncomforting ways."
"...Don't get so sentimental about two strangers, Hakkai." Sanzou tossed the burnt-out cancer stick into the nearby ashtray, the iciness never leaving his tone. "People don't need pity—we can only save ourselves in the end. There's no need for excess baggage on our parts."
Slender hands gripped the loose folds of his pants. "I understand that...I know I shouldn't pity the weak, but...it all just seems so unfair."
"The whole fucking world's unfair, Hakkai." Sanzou told him at last, solid amethyst locking with shimmering jade. "...And you and I know that best of all."