Chapter 7: Chapter 6: Work first, then Play

The place I work at part-time is a small izakaya business run by a family of three, located downtown of Shibuya. It is quite a popular restaurant for office workers to drink and hangout, mostly during lunch period or after work hours.

My work hours is only a half day during the lunch period. Which is from eleven in the morning to three in the afternoon.

What I work as is essentially the cook, since the only other person who can cook in that restaurant, besides me, is the restaurant's owner and my boss, Mr Yahiro. Whereas his wife, Mrs Kanae, and daughter, Sanae, are the servers of the establishment.

But as of right now, the only people working in the restaurant are Sanae and me.

"Yoruto! We got an order for one tonkotsu ramen, one katsudon, two sides of gyoza and two mugs of cold beer." Sanae read out an order aloud to me in the kitchen.

"Oi! Who the hell is ordering alcohol in the middle of the day!?" I retorted to the last item in that order.

"Oh. That would be me!"

"And me too!"

Those voices... Mr Yamazaki and Mr Kokonoe. Of course it's them.

"You're gonna get in trouble at work again if you two drink now, you know."

"Hah! Who cares about them. Just get us our meal and beer!"

"Yeah yeah, sure. Sanae, can you handle the beer?"

"Ok."

While Sanae is serving the two alcoholics their beer, I made their meals and served it to them several minutes later.

"Here you go."

"Alright! This smells so good. Let's eat!"

The two alcoholics thus began eating.

"Delicious! Yoruto, your cooking is damn amazing as always."

"Man, I know! He cooks better than my wife."

"Good thing she ain't here then. Otherwise, she'll kill you, Mr Kokonoe."

I then leave the two customers to their meals. A little while later, the door to the restaurant opened up.

"Oh! Aw hell yes! Yoruto's the cook today." another customer walked in, celebrating with excitement upon seeing me in the kitchen.

"Welcome, Mr Sasaki. Ordering the usual, I assume?"

"Of course. Hit it with your best spices, kiddo."

"Will do."

Sanae brought the customer to his seat while I start cooking his extra spicy yakisoba noodles and served it to him.

Soon after he was telling me how good it was, more and more customers kept flooding in, as the lunch period was at its peak then. My hands didn't stop moving and Sanae did not stop running around the restaurant, writing down the customers' orders.

Fortunately at some point, our saviours in the form of Sanae's parents came back from their shopping as they immediately went to help the both of us out until the lunch hours were over.

"Whew~ It's finally over!" said my boss, taking off his headband after the accumulating a lot sweat in it and took a break on the chair.

"Boss, please get up. There are still orders left to make." I kindly asked, seeing him slacking off,

"Good grief. Let this old man rest his bones, aight? Besides, I told you to call me Dad, didn't I?" he retorted, making me sigh when he made that last remark.

"Again with this, Boss?"

"Of course!"

My boss stood up and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, as if we are best friends or something with his outgoing, carefree nature.

"Listen here, Yoruto. You're a really good kid and I like you. Which is why I asked you again, won't you become my son? You can have Sanae for free in return."

"Why the hell are you throwing your own daughter in the deal like she's a bonus merchandise?"

"Hahaha! Don't think too much about my phrasing, kid." he laughed off my retort and grabbed my head. "Look at Sanae right now." he said, forcing my view to the front where Sanae is.

"What do you think? My daughter's a cutie, ain't she?"

"Obviously, yeah."

"She's also a beauty, don't you think?"

"Absolutely."

"You also think that she's sexy, am I right?"

"With those large breasts and body proportions, only a moron would deny that fact."

"So in other words, you're attracted to my little girl, aren't you?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

When I replied with that, the boss slapped my back hard. "Then hurry up and get married to her! You got her daddy's approval already, so join the family, son."

I sighed again. "Sorry. But I'm not saying anything until I hear Sanae's opinion on this topic. It's involves her after all."

"And I already told you, you don't need to worry about that. Sanae is sure to be happy about it."

"That's just you saying that, Boss. And besides, I still have my sister to care for."

"Gah, you damn siscon!" Boss complained about my reason for holding off my answer. "Fine. We'll talk about this another time then. But don't think I'm giving up that easily, alright, kid?"

"Yeah.... Sure." I sighed for the third time and returned to making one of the customer's meal.

"Ah wait. I'll handle that for you." my boss, however, then stopped me.

"You can go off now. It's already past your work hours." he stated, pointing at the clock on the wall which I had just noticed the time to be ten minutes past three already.

"Oh. Ok then." I said, passing the ladle to my boss, washing my hands cleanly in the sink and took my apron off, as I head to the backroom then to change back into normal clothing and grabbed my bag. Exiting the backroom and the staffs only area afterward, and made my to the restaurant's front to leave.

"Ah, Yoruto. You're clocking out already?" Sanae asked, seeing me coming out in my casual wear.

"Yeah. I'll be going home now. So I'll see you on the day after tomorrow then." I said, since that's when my next shift will be.

"Wait, what!? Yoruto's going home already?"

"Geh. That's means Yahiro is the chef now!"

The customers started complaining when they realised I'm no longer in the kitchen. Naturally, Boss heard them and slammed his fist on the counter.

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"Oi! Da hell you mean by that, huh!? I'm great cook, you bastards!"

"Yeah. But not better than Yoruto."

"That's right! Yoruto's cooking is what I came here for! Hire him full-time already so that he can stay longer, you stingy old man!"

"What the fuck did you say to me, huh!? You bastards wanna get a beating. Is that it? IS THAT IT!?"

Don't go picking fights with the customers, Boss.

"Well, I'm getting outta here before your father starts something." I said my goodbye to Sanae.

But then, my boss interfered.

"Sanae, take a break and buy your daddy some juice at the convenience store near the station." he instructed. Making it so that the both of us will walk together.

"Alright, dad." Sanae replied and went to grab her wallet. While her father looked at me with a smirk and gave me a wink with a thumbs up.

This old man....

Then, Sanae returned as we head to the station together. During our walk there, she asked me a question.

"Hey, Yoruto. What were you and dad talking about earlier?"

"Did you not hear us? Your father was pretty loud, you know."

"I was busy taking customers' orders. So I didn't really pay attention to it."

"I see. Well basically, your father asked me to marry you again."

"Oh. That again, huh...?"

"Yeah. I did not give him a response yet though. Since I wanted to know what you'd think about it first, before accepting anything." I then shifted my gaze onto Sanae. "So, thoughts?"

"I don't mind. I do love you after all, Yoruto."

"I know. And I do too."

"So then, what's the problem?"

"Take a guess, milady."

"Hmmmm....." Sanae thinks for a second. "It's your sister, correct?"

"Nope. It's money." I replied. "I just bought my sister a Dive Gear and a new game with my own money, so now I have to save up more money to buy a ring for you."

"Pfft." Sanae lets out a laugh. "I see, I see.... Guess I'll have to wait then." she said. "But you do realise that it's my parents' money that you're saving up, right? Why not ask them to lend you some money for that ring then?"

"You have a point." I agreed with her on the first part. "But I don't like the idea of asking someone for help when I can manage it on my own." I then said, disagreeing with her on the second part. "Besides, even if my savings were basically from your parents, I'd prefer that the money I used were well earned through my efforts rather than being something of a loan."

"Hahaha~" Sanae laughed again. "You sure are prideful, aren't you, Yoruto?"

"Yeah. I guess I am in a way."

"Oh." I then let out my voice then, seeing as the train station was just in front of us.

"Looks like this is where we part ways." I remarked.

"Looks like you're right. I guess I'll see you at the restaurant again then."

"Yeah. See you then. Bye, Sanae. Try not to get hit on by strangers on the way back, alright."

"Don't worry, I won't." Sanae approached closer to me after saying that and gave me a peck on the cheek.

"Give your sister my regards. Bye, Yoruto." she then walked off, waving goodbye to me.

I waved back and made my way into the station, while Sanae entered the convenience store nearby.

Afterwards, I took the train back home.

"I'm back!" I shouted. But no one was there to greet me "Welcome back".

Hikari's still at school since she's part of the track and field club. And Mom should still be somewhere overseas because of her line of work. So of course I'm the only one in the house right now. Just like always...

"I guess I'll just do some cleaning—"

No, wait. I already did that in the morning. So then, what else?

Laundry then?

Nah. I did that yesterday already.

Prepare dinner?

Not now at least...

Grocery shopping?

There are still things in the fridge though.

Workout?

I don't feel like it today.

"So, what else is there?"

I took a bit more time to think of what's there left I could do around the house. However, I have also pretty much done them all in a day prior or few days prior. I also had my lunch already on the way back home. Meaning that I have nothing to do as of the moment.

I surprisingly have more free time than I thought I had.

Maybe I'll play UFO until 6pm then. Since I'll need to prepare dinner at around that time.

With that thought in mind, I head up to my room, put down my bag, changed my clothes into something I'm more comfortable to wear at home and switched on my Dive Gear. Booting up the game.

Alright then. My second day into game. Let's see how this goes.

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[Welcome back to Umbra Frontier Online.]

[Transporting to the last logout point....]

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