When Warren arrived at the Paper Lantern, it was only by the sheer power of his mind that he'd made it there. He hadn't wanted to go to work in case his mom rang but he hadn't wanted to lose his job so he'd had no choice but to show up.

Walking to work that day had been quite strange and isolated. Half the people had given him very suspicious looks (obviously the families 'in the know') and those who were oblivious to his parentage gave him a wide berth anyway but he suspected that was more to do with his attire than anything else. He was dressed in his standard black but he suspected the scowl displayed on his face as he trudged through the rain was more off-putting than anything else was.

His father mostly dominated his thoughts but there was always more concern for his mom. She, of course, was freelance so there was no office he could call and her cell was still switched off. He was really worried – not only for her safety but also for his own as well.

What is his father showed up on the doorstep? What would he do then? There was no way he could fight him!

As he meandered up the stairs from the back entrance, the restaurant was still dark. This was probably due to the fact that Warren had arrived half an hour early for work that day. It wasn't that he was overcome with a desire to wash dishes or anything, he just couldn't stay in the silent house by himself any longer. It was so quiet all the time Warren was beginning to doubt his own sanity. He'd had to get out of there, even if was only to rinse left over Chinese food down the drain.

He sat in the staff room in the dark, listening to his music until Crystal came in and flicked the light on.

'Jesus, Warren, you scared me! Sitting in the dark all by yourself! What are you doing here so early? The restaurant doesn't open for another,' she paused to check her watch, 'twenty minutes!'

Lazily, Warren looked up at her, pulling out his earphones before he answered her.

'I had nothing better to do at home.' He stated simply. 'What about you? You're here pretty early too.'

'I'm usually here much earlier but I got waylaid.'

She paused, thinking about how she'd spent much of the day soothing her mother about her father's apparent defection to the dark side.

'I have to set everything up, lay the places, light the candles, you know. Usually I have more time than this but seeing as you're here, you can help!'

Warren took hold of the tray of cutlery thrust into his hands as Crystal wandered around the restaurant with serviettes.

'Last night,' Warren started curiously, 'how did you know my last name?'

'Huh? Oh, it was on your application form. I'm not a mind reader!' she laughed. 'It's weird that I won't do this again 'til next week,' Crystal commented as she arranged the cutlery.

'Why, what's happening?' Warren asked.

'What with sophomore year starting, my mom doesn't want me working so much. She says I need to concentrate on my schoolwork. I can see her point, I'll just miss the money!'

'God, yeah I'd forgotten school was starting up again. Which one do you go to?'

'Oh, um,' Oh shit, what do I say? I can't say Sky High, what will he think?

'Crystal?' Warren prompted.

'Yeah, sorry, it's…a private one just outside of the city. What about you?'

Luckily Warren had prepared for this one. He wasn't going to blurt out that he'd just transferred to Sky High to finish out high school – what if she knew about it?

'I'm going to one in the city, I transferred there after we moved at the beginning of summer,' he lied smoothly.

'Aren't you going to miss your friends?' she asked inquisitively.

'I didn't really have many – it's cos of me that we moved actually.'

'Why, what did you – I'm sorry, that's really rude – you don't have to answer that,' Crystal looked down, blushing furiously.

'Don't worry, I don't mind. I got into a lot of trouble at my last school – fighting and stuff. We had to move so I could get a fresh start.'

Amazingly, Warren found himself opening up to this girl; maybe yesterday had just been a bad day for her. She was the first person he'd met here and he was basically telling her his life story!

Then, just like that, all the thoughts about his father came flooding back. If he weren't careful, he'd end up telling her about him as well. Suddenly, Warren didn't feel like continuing the conversation anymore.

'Well, if we're done here I think I'll go get set up back there,' he said hurriedly, grabbing the cutlery tray and moving extremely rapidly back into the depths of the kitchen which was now alive with the sounds of the chefs.

Was it something I said? Crystal wondered but her thoughts were soon curtailed by a knocking on the restaurant door. They were supposed to have opened ten minutes ago and the manager's family were standing in the rain, not getting any drier!

Shit! It's his family tonight! 'Warren!' she yelled, 'it's Mr. Lee's family in tonight! You're going to have to be really quick on those plates tonight so we can keep up! They eat a hell of a lot of food!'

The knocking repeated, more insistently this time and Crystal hurried to open the door. Warren sighed, so much for her having an off day yesterday, she was abrasive all the time! Was all this really worth it for $5 an hour? He doubted it but everyone had to have a lousy first job right?

The evening was manic. Order after order was called up and Warren washed dishes furiously. By the end of the night he was very wet, wrinkly and was sure he'd washed every plate in the building at least twice.

Dishwashing at the Paper Lantern was a pretty solitary job – for some reason there was only one of him – so no one noticed if every so often he waved his hand over the water to get it hot enough or over the plates to get them dry for the next lot of food.

It was 11pm by the time he'd stacked his final plate. His arms and back were aching and as he made his way into the back of the kitchen where the 'staff room' was, he stopped suddenly. He could hear guitar playing coming from inside and a dim glow escaped from under the door, as did the first notes of Sidewalks by Story of the Year. He smiled; it had been the track he was listening to earlier.

The door was slightly ajar and Warren pushed it open further and surprisingly (or not, who else could it have been?) he saw Crystal sitting on the table cradling a guitar, playing softly to herself.

She appeared to be crying but Warren wasn't sure. Her back was facing him and her hair hung about her face but she definitely wasn't happy.

'Crystal, are you ok?' he said softly.

'What?'

She hurriedly wiped her face and turned around to face him.

'How long have you been standing there? Don't you know it's rude? Anyway, what are you still doing here so late? You don't get paid extra for staying after hours you know!' she snapped.

Truth be told, she wasn't angry, she was just surprised. She felt somewhat violated, he'd been watching her when she felt pretty vulnerable.

'I only came to get my bag and then I saw you were upset. I wanted to see if you were alright, see if I make that mistake again!' he snapped.

'Yeah, well, I'm fine so you don't have to worry. Here's your bag,' she thrust it at him, 'I'll see you next weekend.'

'You know what? One day you're going to need someone else you know. Actually, it's no wonder no one wants to be around you, what with your gracious manner.' He snarled.

Suddenly, even though he'd been trying to control it, a single flame popped up on his right arm.

'Jesus, Warren! You're on fire!' Crystal shrieked.

'Oh shit, what?' he said, glancing at the offending item. He shut it off. 'It's nothing, don't worry about it. See you next week.' He said quickly and almost ran out of the building.

Crystal looked after him with a bemused expression on her face as she listened to his footsteps clattering down the metal fire escape behind the building.

What had all that been about?