Café Munio: Chapter 2
On Sunday, it rained. The downpour soaked Tsuna's shoes through, but thankfully, Tsuna was already inside the shop when the thunderstorm truly began. Lightning flashed as Tsuna stared at his ruined shoes and socks.
"Here," Lal dropped a pair of flip-flops by his side, "Change into these. We can't have you tracking wet footprints all around the café on the first day."
That was her excuse, but Tsuna knew on instinct that this was how she showed kindness. So he replied with a smile and soft "Thank you."
It was infinitely more comfortable wearing flip-flops than his wet, possibly stinky shoes, and Tsuna sighed at he relaxed in the chair. Of course, he was in the back room—Lal would never allow him to sit on one of the customers' chairs.
The tinkling of the chimes signaled that a customer, or possibly customers, had entered. Tsuna jerked up in shock—who would come to a café during such a heavy thunderstorm? Perhaps they were seeking shelter. Yes, that was the only possible answer.
Multiple voices jabbered away outside, which alerted Tsuna to the fact that there was more than one customer inside the café. He shook his head in disbelief, and exited the room.
Seated around two tables were seven thoroughly soaked people. They were certainly a most peculiar group—at least, they were definitely not normal.
"VOI!" an eardrum-shattering shout echoed through the dainty café and Tsuna winced as he grabbed a couple menus from a nearby shelf. "I told you it was a bad day for the mission!" a long white haired man ranted angrily, waving a—was that a sword?
"It was senpai's idea." This came from a boy wearing a humongous black frog hat that was bigger than his own head, and Tsuna marveled at how heavy it must be.
"Shut up, my uncute kouhai*," which was said by a blonde haired boy roughly Tsuna's own age, who was wearing a sparkling tiara and waving a few very sharp-looking knives. To Tsuna's horror, the blonde promptly threw them at the previous boy, and the knives impaled themselves into the frog hat.
Tsuna was dreading approaching these customers more and more by the second.
"Shut up, trash," a deep voice growled, and Tsuna shivered, eyes darting from customer to customer.
The one who had just spoken was a spiky-haired man with scars on his face, and he had his eyes closed and looked like he was trying to sleep. A permanent frown graced his features, and the person who spoke up next was a man with a strange toothpick-like mustache and goatee.
"The boss wants you to shut up!" he said angrily.
"I won't listen to a filthy peasant like you," the blonde haired boy shot back, "Idiot Levi."
"Ah, senpai has said something intelligent for once," the frog-hat boy droned, only to find more knives in his hat.
"Clean them and return them to me, froggie," the blonde boy snapped as frog-hat boy plucked the knives out of his hat and bent them like it was no big deal, before dropping them on the ground.
"No way in the six stages of hell, fake prince senpai," he said in that unnerving monotone.
Tsuna prayed to all the gods who may be watching and decided that now would be a good time to intervene before a fight broke out.
"U-um, excuse me," Tsuna began timidly, sliding the menus onto the table, "Would you like to order?"
"What took you so long, brat?" the white-haired sword-waving maniac snarled, flipping open a menu. Tsuna shrank back.
The green haired man with the Mohawk spoke up for the first time. "Don't scare the boy, Squ-Squ!"
"Shut up!" was the loud, brash answer, and Tsuna wished he could sink into a hole and hide and never come back. What was wrong with these people?!
"Senpai, I want a lava cake," frog-hat boy droned.
"I hope they make it with real lava! Then you can jump in and die!" the blond haired 'prince-senpai' seemed entirely too happy about that.
"U-um, sorry to disappoint you, sir… we make the lava cakes with molten chocolate," Tsuna intervened desperately, praying for no knives to be sent his way.
"That's your highness to you, dirty commoner!" prince-senpai growled, and Tsuna jumped.
"A-ah, yes, your highness," he squeaked. Why, oh why had he picked this job?
The rest of the group gave their orders and Tsuna happily retreated from the table, running to the kitchen to give Fon the orders. Then he waited at the cashier and tried to drown out the noise of the rowdy argument going on at the customers' tables.
"Which one's salt? Which one's pepper?!" Prince-senpai was saying, irritation lacing his voice.
"My, my, your mother must be very disappointed in you, senpai," frog-hat boy deadpanned, and the prince howled and lunged at him.
The guy with the mohawk pulled the two apart from where they were rolling on the floor and said, "Fran, Belphegor, really! Behave! Or Mama Luss won't bake any cookies tomorrow," he sang, and the two quieted down.
Tsuna noticed with growing dread that the prince's frantic stabbing had left little slitted marks in the nice, polished wooden floor. Oh, Lal was going to kill him later. Not only that, but… those knives were real!
The fluffy brown haired boy wondered if he should be writing his will.
"Tsuna!" Fon called from the kitchen window. Tsuna took that as his cue and ran over to see plates of beautifully prepared desserts.
"These look wonderful, Fon," Tsuna smiled at him. Fon thanked him and Tsuna readied his nerves for the predictably terrible experience that serving these maniacs would grant him. He picked up the tray and made his way through the tables.
"E-excuse me," Tsuna cleared his throat. "Your orders are here," he said in a small voice, and was surprised when a hushed silence descended over the tables. "One lava cake…" he began.
They were all really quiet as they devoured the desserts with the enthusiasm of multiple cats in a cat-brawl in some alleyway, because Tsuna admitted that they all sounded horribly fierce as they shoved desserts into their mouths.
Frog-hat boy, or Fran, as Tsuna had learned just now, was the calmest in eating. He sped up when he noticed Prince Belphegor was almost done though—Tsuna learned why a few seconds later when Bel leaned over to try and steal Fran's lava cake.
"Give the cake to the prince!" Bel demanded.
"No, senpai, this is mine. Go find your cake in a trash can somewhere," Fran held the cake away from Bel as four more knives landed in his hat. Tsuna was about to go over and try to break up the upcoming fight when Fran vanished.
He simply disappeared, and Tsuna rubbed his eyes as the prince raged. "Stupid uncute kouhai! The prince wants more dessert!" he ordered.
Fran shimmered into view from outside the store, a green umbrella over his head and a sign that said, "I'M NOT PAYING" plastered to the window of the shop.
The remaining group members glanced at each other, and Bel was the first to leap for the door as everyone else struggled to squeeze through at the same time, which resulted in a lot of violent swearing and the insulting of other people's moms.
The scary black-haired man with the scars was the only one left, and Tsuna really didn't want to go up to him and ask for a check.
He didn't need to, though, because when the man opened one red eye to glance at his empty surroundings, he bellowed, "TRASH!"
"Boss!" the toothpick mustached man came running in.
"Pay. We leave for Italy in an hour." The man stood up and strode out of the café, slamming open the door as he did so. Tsuna watched, feeling like the door would fall off its hinges. To his alarm, it did, and landed with a clatter on the floor.
Tsuna could only gape as mustache-man waved an annoyed hand in front of his face. "Hello? …Hello?!"
Tsuna snapped back to reality and responded with a hurried, "Yes, sir!" After exchanging the proper amount of money, the man left and Tsuna collapsed with a sigh onto a chair.
Unbeknownst to Tsuna, when the Varia had been in the café, there had actually been more than ten black-clad men standing in the shadows outside, talking in hushed whispers through an advanced communication system.
"There they are."
"But it's the Arcobaleno café."
"Damn it! We can't go in there; we'll get our heads chopped off!"
"Who's that boy? He's not an Arcobaleno."
"Monitor him for a bit—he might be dangerous."
*Kouhai: the Japanese word for protégé or junior, compared to the senpai (or senior, person of the upper class).