2
Chisato strolled down the streets while humming to the music that was playing in her ears. She was on her way to her new job at Le Renard Noir. She had expected to be tested; she had prepared herself to make any dish that the owner had asked of but instead she got an immediate acceptance.
She found it weird that Atsumu didn't ask her to do anything to prove her skills but he said that he trusted her. And that it was in her horoscope, whatever that meant.
"Good morning Kashiwabara-san" she said quietly as she walked into the restaurant. Atsumu's head popped from the counter and he gave her a smile.
"Morning, Chisato. It's fine for you to just call me Atsumu" He said and Chisato blushed while shaking her head. Atsumu just chuckled at that.
"You're my senior, it would be very rude of me to" She said and Atsumu whined.
"Not the senior card" he muttered but Chisato didn't seem to hear him and walked into the kitchen.
She found this job to be perfect for her. Chisato wasn't big on people, she was terrible at interacting really but after meeting Atsumu who was very gentle and easygoing, she found it even easier to interact with him.
Which was another plus to the job. She could make money to pay off her student loans and wouldn't have to talk to others in order to do her job. A win-win situation.
Chisato pulled her red hair up into a bun and washed her hands. Her first day as Le Renard Noir's cook has now begun.
~8~
"Sakuma-san, are you still in here?" Arisa groggily woke up to the sound of one of her co-workers trying to wake her up.
"Sakuma-san, did you spend the night in the lab again? Don't you think you should go home? I'm worried about you" Arisa looked up with blurry vision and she could make out just enough to see that it was Nao. She picked her glasses up off the table and placed them on so that she could see her surroundings.
"Sorry…" She muttered. Nao simply smiled and began to help her clean up her table and after they were done, he asked her if she would like him to walk her home.
"No, it's alright" She said and left Nao standing at the entrance with a frown on his face.
Once Arisa got home, she dropped her bag in the entry way and simply headed off for a shower. She tried to remember all of the chemicals she used and the properties behind them but once again, she could not figure it out.
Arisa had spent all of her childhood taking care of her mother who was suffering from an ailment which later took her life when Arisa was thirteen. Since then, Arisa has immersed herself into studying hematology and trying to find out if there were a proper cure but even after all these years, she still hadn't been able to find it.
Test run after test run had eventually tired her out and she gave up and instead decided to study all types of medicine so that she could help others.
Yesterday was the day her mother was diagnosed with the illness that took her life and something in Arisa wanted to try again but she failed again.
Arisa felt the gnawing feeling in her stomach grow and wondered when was the last time she had eaten. Could have been a couple days or even a week. She rarely ate and only took supplement pills to get her through the day.
After getting out the shower and getting dressed, Arisa grabbed her bag that had been abandoned at the entryway and headed down to the restaurant she had been frequenting as of late. She had just found out about it recently and what was even better was that it was only a few blocks away from her house.
Another plus was that it was rarely crowded unless it were the afternoon and Arisa only went in the evenings and the time now was just a little past three.
She walked into Le Renard Noir and the same bearded man who always greeted her was there again to greet her, as if he had been expecting her which wasn't too off since she came at the same time everyday and left at the same time every day.
Arisa didn't really order anything in particular except for green tea. It was really the only thing she wanted and it was small and didn't take up a lot of space so that she could spread her notes out in front of her. It helped her if she could see everything in one place.
However, today Arisa was here for food. When Atsumu had brought her, her green tea she spoke up.
"Excuse me…" Atsumu stopped when he heard Arisa's low voice.
"What is good to eat here?" She asked. Atsumu had listed a couple of things but in the end, Arisa didn't really know what to get so she just asked him to choose for her and he happily agreed.
"Hey, boss. What's got you thinking?" Hiro asked as he walked in with Takuto and Riki behind him. Atsumu had a contemplating look on his face when they came in.
"Beardie thinking? The world must be ending" Takuto said snickering at the end and Atsumu frowned.
"This is serious Takkun" He said.
"Serious? What's the matter?" Riki asked sitting on one of the bar stools.
"You see that girl over there?" Atsumu said gesturing towards Arisa who was looking over some papers.
"Yeah, she's pretty cute. Wait, don't tell me you're in love" Hiro said while Takuto made a disgusted face.
"Nasty…" He muttered. Atsumu shook his head.
"It's nothing like that. She's a regular customer here but has only ever ordered a green tea. She asked me to choose something for her to eat and I have no idea what to choose" Atsumu said.
"That's it?" Riki deadpanned.
"What do you mean that's it? This is a serious matter!" Atsumu cried and the boys just shook their heads.
"Well, I have a serious matter too. I want pork noodles" Takuto said and Atsumu suddenly perked up and had hugged Takuto out of nowhere.
"Takkun you're a genius!" Atsumu said before heading to the kitchen.
"Great, now I have to take an extra long shower tonight" Takuto said while Hiro and Riki just chuckled. They looked back over to Arisa who had pushed up her glasses before taking two papers and examining them side by side.
"She's a regular here, huh? That's surprising considering this place is always dead empty" Riki said and Hiro nodded.
"I'm gonna go talk to her!" Hiro said and before either of them could protest, Hiro was already gone. They watched as Hiro had said something and stuck his hand out but Arisa merely looked at him. Riki and Takuto started snickering when Hiro dropped his hands and said a couple more words before retreating back to them.
"Well that's a first" Takuto said as Hiro came back dejected.
"I asked for her name and she looked at me as if she wished I were dead" Hiro said pouting.
Just at that moment, Umi had walked into Le Renard Noir and Hiro threw himself onto her.
"Umiiiii" He whined and Umi just froze not knowing what to do or why she was being hugged so tightly but judging by the laughs that were coming from Riki and Takuto, she assumed they were bullying Hiro.
"What's the matter?" She asked.
"He got rejected" Riki said after finishing his last few laughs.
"Rejected? By who?" Umi asked and they pointed towards Arisa who now had her food in front of her.
"Here you go Takkun" Atsumu said placing the pork noodles in front of him and Takuto silently cheered in his head.
"Don't worry Hiro, there are plenty of fish in the sea" Umi said and Hiro smirked.
"Are you suggesting that you're the sea and I'm one of the fishes?" He said and Umi was confused.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"Your name means 'sea' doesn't it?" Umi just chuckled wearily.
"Yeah, definitely didn't mean that" She said before breaking out of Hiro's hold. She looked over to Takuto and saw that his face was that of pure astonishment.
"These are the best pork noodles I've ever tasted. They're waaaayy better than Beardie's!" Takuto exclaimed and Atsumu, hearing his name, popped over to them with a hurt expression.
"Better than your old man's?" Atsumu asked and Takuto nodded.
"Did you learn a new recipe or something?" He asked and Atsumu shook his head.
"We have a new cook" He said winking and all of them wore shocked expressions.
"People actually want to work here?" Hiro muttered and Atsumu frowned.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" He asked and Hiro just chuckled while shrugging his shoulders.
"Anyways, before we get sidetracked and all, we still have to discuss about our mission tonight" Riki said with his normal serious air.
"Oh, Umi" Atsumu said and Umi looked at him.
"You no longer have a job at the museum" the shriek that left Umi's lips had everyone covering their ears and even Chisato peeked her head out to see what was happening.
"What do you mean I don't have a job anymore?! Why?!" She said grabbing a fistful of Atsumu's shirt and bringing him down to her level.
"She's surprisingly strong…" Riki said.
"And scary…" Hiro muttered. The three of them watched as Umi berated Atsumu with many questions and shook him back and forth to the point his glasses fell off.
"What is going on?" Kenshi asked as he entered to the sight of Atsumu trying to recover from Umi's relentless attack on him while Umi was silently fuming in her seat.
"Umi went berserk! It was scary" Hiro said and Kenshi sighed.
A couple of hours later and soon enough it was nearly closing time, which meant it was time for the Black Foxes to meet but not before Atsumu had asked Riki to talk to Arisa about her food while he helped Chisato clean up in the kitchen.
"Why me?" He asked.
"Takkun isn't nice to people, Kenshi is cleaning tables, and we all saw Hiro's earlier interaction" He said chuckling. Riki huffed and went over to the independent girl. He put on a charming smiled before speaking.
"So, how did you find your meal? The boss wants to know" He said pointing at Atsumu who had given Arisa a thumbs up to which she just looked at him before returning her gaze to Riki.
"I enjoyed it…It's been some time since I've had a cooked meal" Arisa said and she found herself smiling, just a little though. However, that smile was enough to capture the narcissistic leader's interest. Although it was small, her feelings were clearly written on her face, something that was not present before.
Arisa couldn't even remember the last time she had miso soup. Most likely before her mother died. She normally only ate microwaveable and canned foods but now she rarely even ate those. One could say that Arisa was someone who didn't really look after herself well, or maybe even failed to care about taking care of herself.
She placed some money down on the table before giving her bowl to Riki, her smile now gone.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it" He said, much more sincere than he had planned it to be. Arisa nodded and Riki watched as she silently left before going back to Atsumu and handed the dish off to him.
"You are amazing" Atsumu said to Chisato and she blushed at the random compliment.
"Whatever do you mean?" she asked while drying her hands. They had finally finished cleaning up and Chisato was just about ready to leave.
"Your cooking brought a smile to even an aloof loner. I wish I could give you a promotion!" Atsumu said laughing and Chisato chuckled before thanking him.
As she was walking out however, she bumped into someone and her smile now vanished off her face as she stared into the icy eyes of Takuto.
"Don't you have eyes?" He grumbled.
"Why are you so mean? It was clearly an accident" Umi said frowning as she looked at the frightened expression that Chisato wore.
"I-I'm sorry" she said before briskly walking out of the restaurant and away from the scary man.
"Geez, and just before you were complimenting her cooking. Talk about bipolar…" Atsumu said coming out of the kitchen. Takuto's eyes widened in surprise.
"She was the one…?" Takuto trailed off and Atsumu nodded. Takuto groaned internally. Now he felt bad, which was saying something since Takuto didn't ever really regret the things that he said.
"How about we start planning for Umi's first mission, hm?" Kenshi said and they all nodded.