Tokyo Mew Mew Fan Fiction ❯ Held Loosely ❯ Minimum Wage and Locked Doors ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter Four: Minimum Wage and Locked Doors æœ€ä½Žå·¥ èµ„å’Œé” 3;—¨

“I have a lot of ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck.” --George Carlin

When I woke up I could feel the microchip digging into my head. When I tried to pull it off, a huge surge of pain enveloped my head and I was forced to stop pulling. Well, maybe Ryou knows how to take it off. I mean, it's his invention after all. I looked over at the armoire and spotted the revolting cafÃ© uniform hanging from it and knew it was going to be a very long day. All I really wanted to do was sit in my room and play my guitar and get the year over with. Was that too much to ask for? None of this was my fault anyways…Well, okay, it sort of was:

Let's just say I made friends with the wrong people. You know the kind, piercing everything, doing drugs, that sort of stuff. My trouble started with this gang that had formed at school. They were the cool people. Everyone wanted to be in their little coterie of juvenile delinquents. I had just transferred to that school, so I didn't have that many friends; I was looked upon as `that weird new kid'. One day, the ringleader of the group (his nickname was Crusher or something like that…I don't remember.) came up to me.

“Hey. You're the new kid right?” he said. He sounded like he was stoned.

“Um, y-yeah…” I stuttered tentatively. `Crusher' had a very extensive reputation.

“Hm. Ya' know, I been watchin' you. You seem pretty cool. How `bout hangin' out with me an' a couple of friends tonight?”

“You mean, you want me to hang out with you guys?” I asked hopefully. It had been a dream come true.

“That's what I said, ain't it?” he said in an exasperated tone.

“Well…okay. Sure.” I replied quietly, trying to keep myself from jumping up and down and screaming at the prospect of having friends.

“Cool. We'll be down at the skate park. Nine o'clock. Don't be late.” he announced then nonchalantly strolled down the hall. The skate park was filled with the Future Drug Addicts and Serial Killers of America along with their skateboards. `Crusher' and the rest of his crew sat out to the side and observed the skaters, occasionally commenting on a `way rad move'. I sat at the edge of the crowd, watching everyone have a good time. `Crusher' motioned for me to come to the center of the circle of conversation that had formed. I did so. `Crusher' stood up.

“Hey guys. This is ….uh…” he said, forgetting my name.

“Komori Hoshi.” I answered.

“Is that Spanish or something?” said a girl that sat next to `Crusher' that had at least twenty piercings in each eyebrow.

“No,” I replied, “It's Japanese.”

“Right, right.” She said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

The grey ring of smoke drifted up to me and made my eyes water, while the smell made my lungs feel like they were caving in. She looked up and offered one to me. “Here.” I forehandedly picked the cigarette from her outstretched palm at and stared at it in disgust. Everyone was staring at me and noticed the face that I made.

“What's wrong? Scared of a little smoke?” the girl taunted as she stuck a lighter into my other hand. A wave of mocking laughter rippled through the crowd.

“N-no. Of course not.” I said, lighting the cigarette and taking a deep puff. Everything started to burn, like I had swallowed a bonfire. My eyes squinted as I coughed up the smoke that I had been dumb enough to exhale. `Crusher' patted me on the back.

“The first one's always pretty tough.” I hadn't realized it, but that had been some sort of initiation into the crowd. Before I knew it, I had too many friends to count. I also was out almost every night hanging with my `friends'. My mom started to worry at this point, after seeing me wearing more black than usual and also catching me attempting to pierce my tongue. After that, she started trying to `straighten me out'. Nothing really worked; it actually made me worse. I guess it had gotten so bad that the only thing to do was to send me away… So it's my fault for even getting involved with all those jerks. Oh well, they weren't that fun to hang with anyways…

I slipped out of my pajama pants and ripped up T-shirt and into the overly-flouncy cafÃ© uniform. The only part that I didn't completely loathe about the entire outfit was the shoes, which were a slightly faded grey. I looked myself over in the mirror.

“I look like a frickin' Barbie doll.” I muttered in self-loathing disgust. I shook my head and started the trek downstairs; surprisingly, I only took five wrong turns that time. I saw Keiichiro sitting at the table sipping a steaming cup of coffee. He looked up.

“Ah, good morning, Komori! Are you ready to start your first day at CafÃ© Mew Mew?” he asked politely.

“No. I'm not really a morning person, you know?” I yawned.

“You're probably still on New York time…Um, I'm guessing Ryou didn't tell you how to get that giant microchip off your head?” he snickered.

“Nope, and I already tried pulling it off.” I said, shielding my forehead, fearing that Keiichiro would try to yank it off my head. Keiichiro laughed another one of his infamous laughs.

“Don't worry, I have no such intention.” He said as he leaned towards my forehead. After pressing the microchip in almost every imaginable place, it made a minute CLICK! and finally removed its cuspated probes from my head. I rubbed my forehead, hoping it would ease the pain of the minor wound.

“Nn.” I groaned. Keiichiro glanced at his watch and gasped.

“Ah! We'd better get down to the cafÃ©!” Keiichiro said as he grabbed me by the hand and led me out the door at full speed. He led me in a full-fledged sprint to the cafÃ©. By the time Keiichiro and I had reached the front door, we were both gasping for breath.

“I guess this is a sign that I should start working out more.” Keiichiro wheezed. He unlocked the cafÃ© and we stepped inside, still tired from the run.

“Okay, Komori. Your job is to greet the customers, seat them, take their orders, and deliver the food. Don't worry, I'll be helping you out too.” He instructed after gaining back his breath. Suddenly his watch flashed and made a slight beep; Keiichiro glanced down at it.

“But first there's something I have to attend to. I'll return in a little while...” He said and briskly ran down the hallway that led to the storage rooms. That's weird… I hauled myself up onto a table and sat there for a while, wishing I was back with my guitar and not in this stupid cafe. And then I heard a small jingling noise coming from the door. I looked up. Oh, goody. A customer. I jumped off the table, nabbed some menus, and rushed to the front to greet them. And then, to my surprise, said in fluent Japanese, “Welcome to CafÃ© Mew Mew." And that was pretty much what I did the whole day. I was lucky though; it wasn't very busy today. Maybe four parties per hour or so. I did wonder where Keiichiro had gone and what the crap was keeping him this long.

“I'm sorry, it took so much longer than I expected, Komori!” Keiichiro apologized. We continued to work a little longer, until it was about an hour until the cafe closed.

"Komori, could you go to the freezer in the storage area to get some vanilla ice cream?” Keiichiro called from the kitchen. I nodded and walked down through the hallway that led to the freezer. But my problem was that there were about five different doors along the hallway. Which one was the freezer, I could only guess. I opened the first door. Plain storage. Same with the second. I tried to open the third door, but it felt like it was locked. Thinking that it might be the freezer and the handle just froze over, I pulled and yanked on the door handle. And that's when I saw it. A deep, eerie green glow shone out from under the door. Surprised, I fell back onto the floor, staring at the door in shock. That's definitely not the freezer! I scrambled up and checked the other doors, finding the freezer and the vanilla ice cream, still shaken from what I had seen. At the end of the day, Keiichiro came up to me and patted me on the back.

“You did an excellent job today, Komori!” Keiichiro praised.

I leaned on the nearest table and took a deep breath.

“Thanks.” I sighed.

“Oh, before I forget,” he said holding up an envelope, “Here's your pay for today.”

“Pay?” I asked.

“Well, sure! You didn't think I'd make you work yourself to the bone for nothing did you?” he laughed. I gave him a small smile back. Yes, I did think you would.

But one thing still bothered me: what was behind that locked door?