Chapter 7- Saturday Pops for Her
Sorry, sorry. I'm putting a note at the top. I won't do it again. But I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Please enjoy.
"Shirogane-san," Ichigo began in a voice of the utmost cajolery, "I have a question for you."
"As you are most likely asking for a raise again, the answer is no," Ryou said tonelessly.
Ichigo stamped her foot. "Shirogane-san! I put in twice the work of anyone else around here, so I deserve a raise for pulling most of the weight!"
"Twice the work, hmm? Then how is it that you are standing here, wasting time, while everyone else is working hard to make up for the slack of one lazy worker?"
Ichigo whipped around. Even Mint had decided to change the routine a little and actually wait a table, at the one time when it might have been opportune for her to stick to her usual schedule of doing nothing. Ichigo fumed.
"Come on, Shirogane!!"
A few tables away, Hazelnut set a dish in front of an excited customer, watching the exchange between her boss and her co-worker.
She frowned. "Ryou sure likes to make Ichigo angry."
"It's weird, isn't it?"
Hazelnut jumped. Akasaka-san had come up behind her without her sensing his presence at all.
She met his gaze, though not without an involuntary shudder. "I-I guess that's just the way Ryou is, Akasaka-san."
He smiled, and Hazelnut imagined flowers blooming in his wake. Then she imagined the flowers all catching fire simultaneously and burning into black ash around him.
"Actually, Hazelnut-san, I was just thinking about how cats are."
"C-cats, Akasaka-san?"
He nodded gallantly, sending chills down her spine. "Cats are so nice and dainty graceful and friendly. If you pet a cat, she will purr for you."
He smiled again, leaning closer to her face. "So unlike big, ugly, lumbering bears."
Hazelnut froze.
"Bears are so horrible; blundering about and terrorizing people. And what's worse, they have no idea how to love anyone."
His voice had dropped as he uttered that last sentence, rasping it right into Hazelnut's ear.
He glanced over at Ryou and Ichigo. "If Ryou were ever caught in the clutches of a bear, I should hope that a sweet little black cat would be there to lead him back to safety."
He straightened up.
"Well, it's been lovely chatting with you. But I have work that really must be done. Farewell, Hazelnut-san."
Hazelnut stared at his retreating form. He had spared her before, supposedly because Ryou was happier, but now…now someone else could make him happy.
As Ichigo's argument increased in pitch, Hazelnut began furiously scrubbing a table into oblivion.
"Stupid, stupid cats."
Pudding bounced over to where her friend was working. "Shirogane nii-sama and Ichigo ne-chan fight like an old married couple, don't they?"
Hazelnut clenched her cleaning rag viciously. "They…do…NOT!!!"
Everything in the café stopped.
"Ryou, I'm leaving early today," Hazelnut said savagely.
He shrugged. "All right."
The orange haired girl threw down the rag and stalked off to the changing room.
Ichigo, quite unsure of what had just happened, immediately returned to her boss.
"You will give her the day off just like that, but you won't give me a raise?"
Ryou turned and looked at her. He was done arguing. "Ichigo, you have two options. One, kindly cease speaking and you may continue employment here, or two, you may continue speaking, and I will kindly cease your employment."
It had been a while since Hazelnut had donned her gang coat. She now ran her fingers slowly over the roughly hewn crimson fabric.
"Hello, old friend."
A few minutes later, she was riding through the old alleyways, looking for someone, anyone, that she could take her frustrations out on.
Three shady looking young men whistled as she passed by. She braked.
Perfect.
"Were you addressing me, you worthless bags of scum?"
One of them spat out the cigarette he was sucking on and squished it under his boot. "You've got quite a mouth on you. I hope you're willing to apologize for that, kitten."
That was the wrong choice of words. Hazelnut gave him a swift blow to the stomach that sent him reeling backwards.
"Don't equate me with cats," she snarled.
His two friends moved in, but Hazelnut was all too happy to show them the full extent of her rage also.
She hefted one guy up and swung him into his friend, then kicked the both of them to the ground.
"Come on! Fight me!" she yelled. "Get up and fight me!"
The three came at her all at once. She kicked and punched and beat them back a second time.
"This chick's a demon," one of the guys said, rubbing a bruise on his arm.
"Lucky for us, I got a demon slayer right here," said the first guy, pulling out a switchblade.
Hazelnut didn't care. She pulled out a knife of her own. "Are you a real man or not? Can't even beat up one girl with your own two hands?"
They began circling each other.
"You'll be sorry about this, girly." Lightning quick, the man made a stab at her. Hazelnut pushed him back.
He tried again. She pushed him back even more forcefully.
"Ain't you going to try to attack me?"
Hazelnut didn't answer. The man slashed at her again.
"It's pointless," she shouted at him. "You can't win with that."
One of the other goons tried to catch her off guard. As she was reaching back to neutralize him, the man with the knife swung in to seize the opening.
She didn't have time to think. Striking blindly, she heard a scream.
The man with the knife had dropped his weapon and was now clutching his arm, while blood gushed from a wound just above his elbow.
Blood. Hazelnut's head started to spin. Blood. No, she must keep herself. Blood! If she gave up now, she would die. She concentrated with all her might on the other two guys, held up the knife, and said in a low voice, "If you don't leave now, I'm going to kill you."
The trio was gone in thirty seconds.
Hazelnut collapsed to her knees. The wounded man had scattered little drops of blood everywhere. There was still blood on her knife. Must wipe it off, she thought. Her jacket? No, then it would still be hanging around her.
She tried to scrape it off on the gravel, but that just got gravel stuck in it.
A red mist began to gather at the sides of her consciousness.
Hazelnut held her head and closed her eyes. She must not think about it. Taking a deep breath, she forced her thoughts elsewhere.
There was a park, not too far from here. Somehow, she hoisted herself back on her motorcycle and drove to the park. She fell into the grass and rubbed her knife in it.
There. It was done.
She pulled herself up against a tree and looked up at the stars. It was only then that she noticed the trickling sensation on her arm.
The man with the knife must have scratched her while she was stabbing him, for a thin line of blood ran from her wrist to her forearm.
She almost smiled. Years of conditioning herself to fight without breaking skin, hers or her opponents, and this was the second time she'd messed up. But there was no valiant hero for her now.
"I guess he won't come to save me this time."
And she gave up the battle for consciousness.
I guess I've really villainified poor Keiichiro with this chapter. I really don't have anything against the guy; he just proved to be really fun to work with.
Still, I hope I don't meet him in a dark alley at night.
I've also realized that I'm just using chapter titles as an excuse to talk about the music I've been listening to. So, sorry for being so lazy.
This time I actually chose the title before I wrote the chapter. I had a totally different feel in mind when I first thought of it. "Saturday Pops for Her" is a crazy J-pop song by naivepop or petitfool. You can listen to it on their Myspace if you're curious. Ah, sorry, I won't go into a discourse on J-pop until the end so you can skip over it if you don't want to read it. But anyway, I think I should have named the chapter after one of the insane punk tracks I have on my Ipod.
Alright, the alternate title is "Alone."
(Which I got from Newgrounds, I believe. It's by Evil-Dog, in case you're interested. Pretty good stuff; it's all instrumental.)
(Sorry, I think I need to start a music blog or something.)
Also, I'd like to apologize. I forgot to dedicate the last chapter. It was dedicated to Melissax3. I'm really sorry about that; you deserve a chapter dedication!
This chapter is dedicated to Ember Shirogane. Don't worry, there will be more.
Oh, if you want to read my discourse on J-pop, here it is. naivepop or petitfool is actually only good at being mediocre. If you want some really great picopop (yeah, that's the term for the genre), then try Plus-Tech Squeeze Box. They're my favorite. I'm also into Strawberry Machine and Perfume lately. Although, as a warning, if you do decide to check out some of this, take it in small doses. I'm sure it's been scientifically proven somewhere that picopop causes cancer.
Hey, everything else does.
Okay, I'm done. Unless you want to talk about K-pop.
No, no. I'll save that for next time.
Fighting!