(If I were truly "super serious" like I call myself, it wouldn't have taken me as long to write this chapter as it did.)

When Honest and Shadow approached the cafe on November 16th, 2018, they were ushered into the back room by Rouge before they could even react. "Hurry up and get changed, guys!"

"Why?" Honest asked as she was pushed.

"Because," Rouge said, giving one final shove to both of them. "I'm heading next door to the Club to get the new sound system hooked up and I need you guys to supervise for me."

"Don't you have Honey for that?" Shadow asked her. Rouge let go of the door before she could answer and it slammed shut.

"Wait, so 'boys' is 'boys' and 'guys' is 'boys and girls'?" Honest was asking herself these questions quietly behind him.

Shadow spun around. "Isn't Honey the assistant manager or something?" he asked her.

"Oh!" Honest perked up. Then, her ears became less perky as she was confused. "Yeah, um... I don't know where she could be."

Shadow started walking towards the closet. He pulled out his highly decorated maid cafe uniform and walked over to the center of the room where Honest was standing still, the ribbon on the back dragging the floor.

"Pick your ribbon up. It's creating a dust storm," Honest said, picking it up for him. "See, this is the thing with cross-dressers. They don't know how to take care of dresses."

Shadow puffed out his cheeks. "I'm not a cross-dresser," he said.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but you had no choice whatsoever in deciding that," Honest said, her eyes closed and her chin raised to the heavens. She then opened her eyes and smiled. "You established your role in Chapter 1," she told him in an affirmed manner.

His eyes became empty, slate voids. "You left that part out, remember?"

Suddenly it was as if her mood had shattered. "Oh, right, I did."

He left the room like a silent spectre. Honest ran after him and grabbed his sleeve.

The dark hedgy turned around. "You're not changed yet."

She didn't hear him. It wasn't as if there were too much background noise- she had just simply blocked him out. "We should have a flashback! We don't have too many of those!"

"Can you do that after work, maybe? You can't always expect everyone else to do work for you," he told her.

"Fine, fine," Honest said, sighing. "I will. I need to go through my computer to find that scene anyway. It's been a long time since then." She returned to the back room.

Several minutes later she returned to find that the cafe was already full of customers. She observed the room carefully in search of her cause of woe yesterday. Eventually she had confirmed that he was indeed gone today. That was one less problem she had to worry about.

Now it was February 5th, 2019... 81 days after the last segment *facepalm*. The cafe was still receiving customers and everything was going fine. However, ever since Honey betrayed them by getting Shadow and Honest captured by the Carnival Night zone mafia (read Chapter 13 of {w/Rosy} for the full story), things have been... a little awkward for lack of a better word.

Upon handing the Chaos Emerald over to Tails after work, he had immediately asked them where they got it. Honest told him that they stole it from the Carnival Night zone mafia. However, that wasn't a good enough answer for the yellow (or is he orange?) fox boy. He wanted to know how the mafia had gotten their hands on it, and furthermore: for what they were planning to use it.

"We don't even know where they were keeping it," Shadow told him, not sure if he had the knowledge to answer any of his questions. "Honey was the one who retrieved it while we were inside the ca-" The black pineapple suddenly stopped and looked at Honest. She was beaming wildly. "What's that face for?"

"I know where she got it," Honest claimed.

"You were beside me. How could you possibly know?" A vein bulged from the side of the hedgehog's head.

"My 'Author Powers'!" Honest exclaimed, pointing to her own head. "Honey took a Barrel of Doom up to a higher level and found the Emerald in the place of the old Special zone entrance. I know 'cause I wrote that."

Several question marks hung like a thick fog in the air around Tails's head. "Okay... but why did they have it? How did Honey know about it?"

Both Shadow and Honest shrugged in unison.

Tails eventually let them leave although he swore to continue asking around to see if anyone else knew how the mafia had gotten their hands on a Chaos Emerald. If it was possible for anyone to just wake up one morning and go get a Chaos Emerald, there was going to be a lot more trouble in store for them later down the road.

(The Phantom Ruby ends up being what cause problems in my stories, though.)

Now it was the next day, February 8th, 2019, and Honest and Shadow were walking down the sidewalk towards the cafe. Honest suddenly looked up at Shadow with a worried expression.

"Have you noticed anything weird happening all week?" Shadow looked at her calmly.

"Yes, a lot of people have been getting sick," he replied simply.

"No, that's just one thing that's been going on," Honest said, looking down at the concrete path as if it could tell her if she was going crazy or not. "What about the situation in study hall?"

"There's something going on in the study hall?" he asked, confused.

Honest nodded purposefully before explaining. "Yes. You know how the study hall and in-school suspension are in the same room?" He nodded next. "Well, when we had a stand-in teacher, he lied and said that there was a rule from, how he said it, 'higher up' that prevented us from listening to music while we studied. The in-school suspension teacher heard that and believed him. Now that we have our actual teacher back, the other teacher has convinced him that this rule is real!"

"But that's just something that happened, an event," Shadow said, not getting what she was trying to convince to him.

"And what about how Dina hasn't shown up to work or school all week? Don't you think that's a bit concerning?"

"But she's probably just sick like everyone else," he told her, narrowing his eyes.

"Exactly! But I didn't tell her she could be sick!" Shadow huffed.

"Why do you think that you have to have so much control over other people?" he asked.

"Because I'm the author!" Honest exclaimed, fed up with him.

At one point the sidewalk running in front of Club Rouge and Rouge's Cafe split and became a wooden bridge on one side, the right side, and the sidewalk continued on the other. That bridge then became another sidewalk that ran along the length of a ditch containing a sewage pipe. This ditch eventually ended when it hit a road on the other side of the Cafe. Honest and Shadow kept walking on the left sidewalk until they reached the Cafe and darted inside.

"The problem with the latest edition being focused on Rosy is that there are no jokes to be made," Honest was saying as they walked into the backroom. Rouge was wiping down the front counter before they opened. She looked up as soon as she saw them enter, but they were too busy talking to each other to notice her. Didn't Honest remember that she was writing a book from her perspective as well? You'd think she would at least acknowledge her existence every once and awhile.

Shadow nodded as he went to the closet and rifled through it looking for his uniform. Honest just stood there and talked to him.

"I'm not focusing on Rosy in order to make as many jokes about her as I can. I'm focusing on her because I want to try to understand her serious problem a little more. She's a very serious character, and she has very serious needs. There's no fun to be had with her," Honest told him.

"Can you be a little more serious yourself and get ready for work? I know you don't plan to do much work, but you can at least dress like you do," he told her, "pft"ing afterwards.

Honest did a little "pft" herself and went to the other closet. "I am super serious."

Sorry if this is short, but I think I was preoccupied with {w/Rosy} and moving at this time. :/ Anyway, I have more chapters of this to publish, so you'll be fine. :D

(It was so serious, it was boring u.u)