Reincarnated Emperor

Ad: https://discord.com/channels/843262375083769898/1181597912694792302 Main character: https://discord.com/channels/843262375083769898/1181008709908959334/1181595664879198249 (edited)

Here.

It was just another working day for Ricky, he entered the fast food restaurant where he worked at and as always was flipping burgers that were meant to be for the customers that came in and out of the restaurant as staff from the front desk yelled out the customer's orders to him and the other fry cooks. Which was a line of work that he bore no love for and he always felt like something was missing in his life. As if he had lived a better life which he could remember from time to time but he didn't talk about it to people because he knew full well no one would believe him whatsoever. So he kept his mouth shut and continued to work his job in his currently miserable life.

Unlike Ricky, it was a new day for Yuzu. She hoped that this new job at the local fast food restaurant would continue to put a dent in her family’s overdue bills. She checked her reflection in the large and somewhat grimy glass window. She tightened her short, light brown ponytail and straightened her baggy cream tee with a yellow and green watercolor citrus print—a favorite that she liked to think might bring her luck, a gift from a friend who had said it’d reminded her of Yuzu’s name. Her ripped orange canvas pants were rolled up above well-worn, white Dr. Martens that she’d owned for nearly a decade, and she bent to try to rub off a scuff on the toe, but of course it was no use. Yuzu straightened her white canvas crossbody bag as she rose. She took a deep breath before she reached out and pulled open the swinging door. Even though it wasn’t yet noon, the joint was popular with the locals, as always. One unique thing about the fast food chain was that it was almost like a cheap diner, with family-style booths and counters similar to those at McDonald’s or In-N-Out Burger. The servers inside and out had to wear roller skates, for both expediency and a fun factor. Unfortunately, the setup meant that servers had to attend to drive-through customers and the sit-down customers inside. Yuzu didn’t mind dealing with customers, however; she’d been working as a barista full-time before getting laid off when it was announced that the place would shut down. .

10:11 AM

She’d come to the fast food restaurant a few times with her family when she was younger, so she had a couple of nostalgic memories of the place. But now she was a twenty-something woman struggling to make ends meet while still trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Even as a teenager, she’d always had the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she was destined for something more, as though she were meant for another kind of life. The sadness and longing for something unknown were especially poignant whenever she woke from dreams that she couldn’t remember. Of course, all that was probably wishful and egotistical thinking. She knew she wasn’t anyone special. She was just like any other struggling person in this crowded town, and she had to make the best of it. Yuzu would fill as a part-timer, the manager had told her after the interview. A part-time server had quit, and they didn’t have anyone with a friendly personality that was suitable to work the front. The manager had been vague about the variety of tasks required, but Yuzu knew that it’d probably involve anything that needed to get done, in addition to serving the sit-down customers and working the cash register. She’d asked about being full-time, but he’d replied that they didn’t need that right now. Maybe she’d ask again after she showed how hardworking she was. As she walked towards the ordering area, she put on a cheerful, small smile—not so disingenuous that it seemed like the grin of a clown, but not unpleasant, either—just a hint at the corners, enough to give the impression that she would be pleasant to customers and coworkers alike. .

10:12 AM

She spotted the gruff, lanky, mustachioed, middle-aged manager with a messy brown mullet at the cashier, and when he was done taking the customer’s order, he wiped his hands on his trousers and barked at her. “Good. You’re early. Introduce yourself to the coworkers, and then go get changed in the back. Your name tag’s on top of the uniform. Make sure you don’t pick the skates with a broken wheel, lest you break a leg—har har har...” He sneered with a crooked grin at his own bad joke, and then turned and hollered at all of the workers. “Listen up, everyone! This is our new part-timer, Yu—Yuki?—no? Anyway, she’ll introduce herself.” With that, the manager looked at Yuzu expectantly, his arms crossed. Yuzu stepped behind the counter and scanned the fast food restaurant’s workers and nodded politely, smiling as most of them turned to stare at her. The college students manning the drive-through lane barely spared her a glance. The one tall, female server with heavy makeup and shiny jewelry looked distastefully down at Yuzu’s outfit as she skated by, holding a tray of milkshakes and fries. There were at least four fry cooks standing at the long row of grills in the back, and one of them looked oddly familiar, with his blond hair, blue eyes, and glum facial expression. “Hello, everyone! I’m Yuzu,” she called over the sounds of sizzling meat and onions from the kitchen’s grills and fryers, and the buzz of the air conditioning. She waved both of her hands in front of her torso in greeting. “I look forward to working with you!” Some of the coworkers nodded or waved back, a couple of those gestures accompanied by grins, but most of them only acknowledged their new colleague out of courtesy. The manager clapped his hands loudly together, not giving a chance for the others to introduce themselves. “Alright, get back to work!” Without another glance at the newcomer, he turned back to the cash register to serve the next customer. .

10:12 AM

Yuzu had to walk quickly through the kitchen area to get to the back room where she could change. As she neared the tall man who appeared to be around her age, she paused briefly to try to get a better look at his oddly familiar face. Was it Richard, or Remy? She was sure that she’d been in the same schools as him when they were young; they’d even been in the same class once. Their paths kept crossing, for some reason—yet they’d never had a conversation. Well, Yuzu was about to change that. She tapped the man on the shoulder and leaned in, trying to get a look at his name tag. “Hey,” she said, smiling up at his face in a friendly way. “Do you remember me?” The day was looking brighter for her already, now that she was sure there was a familiar face in the fast food restaurant.

Ricky looked at Yuzu as he soon remembered who this woman was. "Oh...you must be Yuzu..." He replied and added. "Long time no see and what made you want to work at a place like this?..." He really looked like he wanted to be anywhere else other than this kitchen, having staff at the counter yell at him so he could cook burgers for people he did not know or even see that often. Clearly this was not how he wanted to live life and he knew he was someone much more important in the past. "Don't worry about the manager...he is always yelling." He tried to work as hard as he could, earning a minimum wage that he felt like was nothing at all but it had to be better than nothing so he continued to cook the burgers. Flipping them as he looked at them with a hopeless expression. "I knew I was someone better than this, I knew I was but who will believe me?" He muttered to himself. When he was at school with Yuzuki many years ago, he was even depressed back then as he was now, the lanky build remained with the sunken blue eyes thanks to fatigue from a lack of sleep brought on by nightmares about the final moments of his past life which caused him to awaken in a cold sweat and often sat up screaming in terror or even screaming random Slavic sounding names too. (edited)

"Yeah, long time no see," Yuzu said brightly, cheering up a bit more as the man responded in the affirmative. Her green eyes met his blue ones as she smiled genuinely. "We last saw each other in high school, hm? Wow, it's already been six or seven years..." Maybe it was fate that the world had placed a potential friend here in the crowded, growing town. The idealistic part of her wanted to think that, but the pragmatic and cynical part of her corrected it as just a coincidence. She managed to read the name tag pinned to the lanky man's shirt. That's right, his name was Ricky. She remembered the teachers saying it for roll call now. He looked like a grown-up version of the listless boy who she remembered. She'd been too caught up in her own world to wonder about it back then, but the dark circles in his hopeless face were obvious up close. She shrugged to his question, still smiling a little bit, but a hint of tired bitterness crept into her voice. "I just needed a job for money, like everyone else, you know? My mum caught sick a few years back, and the medical bills were--" Yuzu suddenly stopped, realizing that she about to dump too much information on a near-stranger, even if she had sort of been around him her whole life. "Anyway, I was working as a barista, and then the place shut down. Couldn't find full-time work for a while, but at least this place needed a part-timer." When Ricky advised Yuzu about the manager, she glanced towards the manager and then nodded smiling back up at Ricky. "Noted, thanks." As he continued to cook the burgers, she heard him muttering something strange to himself, and her eyebrows raised when she heard him voice the thing that she'd felt for a long time now. This wasn't her ideal life, she knew, but she'd never said it to anyone herself, not wanting to come across as delusional and arrogant. She opened her mouth to ask Ricky to clarify, but just as she did, the manager yelled at them as he slammed down the phone. "Are you

12:42 PM

deaf, Yuyuhaku? I said get to work! Don't dawdle! And you, Derrick--" The manager jabbed his finger towards the staff member whose name he also hadn't bothered to remember, and shouted over the noise of the cooking food, kitchen equipment, and AC. "Someone just called in two dozen burgers for pickup. Hurry up!" "Yeah, and fix your mug when you turn this way! Smile at the customers, ya hear?" Another worker at the counter chimed in unnecessarily. He was gunning for a promotion and raise to assistant manager, so he tried to act tough and commanding in front of the manager to show the rest that he was superior. "It's almost the lunch rush, newbie!" "Got it, sorry," Yuzu called back, forcing a smile and keeping the annoyance out of her voice. She turned back to Ricky and spoke quietly. "Let's catch up at break time?" She hoped he wouldn't mind; maybe he had friends here who he'd rather talk with. Then she turned and went into the back room, where she changed into the fast food restaurant's uniform, pinned on her new name tag which spelled out her nickname of 'Yuzu,' and then switched her Doc Martens for a pair of worn roller skates, making sure to poke at the wheels to check that none were loose. She took a quick look in the mirror. The shirt and skirt were a size too large, hanging loose even on her curvy, athletic frame--but that was a good thing, because it might discourage customers from hitting on her, and it might shrink in the wash. With that, she skated out carefully on the greasy floor by the cooking stations, giving another glance to Ricky as she went past him; she'd smile gratefully at him if he looked her way. "Take this out!" ordered the tall girl with false eyelashes to Yuzu as she exited from behind the cash register counter. Her name tag read "Riley," and she jabbed her finger with long, sparkly nails at a tray. Yuzu checked the booth number on the ticket beside the tray of burgers and fries, and then skated towards the front.

Ricky was wearing the company uniform along with cheap shoes as he continued to work and speak at the same time. "I have been here for a few years now and I can't seem to find anything else..." He sighed as he had been here for five years and felt like he had gotten nowhere as there seemed to be no other form of employment whatsoever he could find apart from this restaurant. The burgers he prepared were ready to be served to the customers. "Can they eat anything healthier than this shit?" He mumbled and soon spoke up. "These burgers are good and ready." Trying to get the attention of the other staff in the kitchen. "I bet you now, that fucking ice cream machine does not work for shit, it never does and why do they insist on having a broken one?" He mumbled again to himself.

Yuzu felt relieved that Ricky seemed to have no reaction to her over-disclosure regarding her family's state of affairs. She hoped they could catch up during break time in the late afternoon, as she'd never talked with the tired-looking man, and she wondered what his situation was like. It might be similar to hers, based on his comment. Strange how the career prospects in Ironport seemed to be lacking even as it had grown overcrowded with fresh-faced yuppies in the past few years. Maybe all of them, such as Riley, had been taking the jobs that didn't require a university education, while they swarmed to the colleges in neighboring towns. She caught Ricky's mumbled comments as she went past him on skates, but she was hurrying too much to respond. She had to make a good impression on her first day so that she could ask the manager for full-time work and pay the bills. She continued to diligently take orders from customers. She'd write the orders onto tickets and leave them for the staff at the counter. She also continued to carry out and serve food and drinks. Skating was pretty fun, she thought, but it definitely wasn't the same as the slower pace of the cafe, where their pace was largely limited by how quickly the espresso machines and blenders could work, and the customers lined up in an orderly fashion. Here, the customers kept waving her down--some of them rudely--and she had to skate between them, taking orders and delivering their meals. Despite being thrown into the deep end with no training, and the manager and wanna-be assistant manager both yelling at her to return and pick up and deliver trays, Yuzu kept on with her small smile, doing her best. Meanwhile, the 19-year-old college student part-timer next to Ricky, who was also cooking meat, onions, and buns, and whose name tag read "Noah," commented back. "For such a quiet guy, you sure are negative every single day," he quipped. But he turned and called to the other kitchen staff preparing toppings. "So

1:48 PM

meone check that ice cream machine before noon! It's probably jammed again!" "Shit, Rocky! Fix your face and smile!" yelled the manager at Ricky, a muscle beside his mustache twitching in irritation as he overheard some of Ricky's comments above the kitchen noises. "Stop fucking cussing in front of the goddamn customers, you uneducated pillock!" He turned and hollered over the shoulder of the waiting customer. "And newbie--yeah, you--Yuzuru! Get back here and take out these shakes before they melt!" The manager shook his head at the state of things; that hopeless guy had been here for five years, yet he was still only a line cook on the grill, without the attitude or motivation to become even an assistant manager.

Ricky listened and was now on his way to have lunch now that his lunch break was coming up. "Fucking dickhead." He mumbled as he really didn't like his manager whatsoever just because of his attitude alone. He went to grab his pack lunch which consisted of a simple cheese and ham sandwich, an energy bar, an apple, cheese and onion crisps and water from his Nalgene water bottle. Wishing he was anywhere else but this restaurant as he soon began to eat, wondering what Yuzuki was doing and how she was finding her first day at this restaurant. "Yuzuki, you choose a very shit place to work..." He muttered before he tucked into his food. He also wondered how his other colleagues could stand to work in a place like this as he continued to eat the food.

"Phew..." Yuzu sighed in relief as she realized that the customers were slowly filtering out, the fast food restaurant booths now only a quarter full. Most of the employees left their stations to go on their thirty-minute "lunch" break, which was at 4:00 PM, the slowest time between the lunch and supper rushes. Yuzu skated to the back room that doubled as a break room. She spotted Ricky sitting by himself at the far end of the table, away from the two other staff members getting their packed lunches and cigarettes out from their lockers. He was muttering to himself again, and she heard her full given name being spoken by him. Yuzu smiled politely at the two staff members who left the back room. She entered and grabbed her desaturated lichen green, insulated, wide mouth bottle from her locker, and a ziplock bag of dried fruit and nuts. She hadn't packed a proper meal, because she'd eaten breakfast, and that'd have to do until suppertime. The uniformed woman skated to the folding chair beside Ricky and sat onto it. "I didn't really have a choice of where to work," she told him in a soft tone in case anyone came in and overheard her. "No one else was hiring. I was looking for a long time before I got the coffee shop job, too--almost a year. It was rough, honestly. But yeah, it seems the vibe in this restaurant has changed for the worse compared to when I was a kid." She reached down to untie her roller skates just to relieve her aching feet for a moment, and rubbed at her sore calves and ankles over her short beige socks as she continued talking. "What did you do after high school, and how did you end up here, Ricky?" As she listened to his reply, she sipped the warm tea from her bottle and snacked on the trail mix. (edited)

"Part time college job that well...due to my bad luck became full time and when I was a kid I loved eating here." Ricky responded as he soon added. "Now I am working here, I hate this place more than I hate my own life." His eyes looked baggy and the demeanour continued on as he continued to eat. "Lunch at 4pm? That should not happen at this rate it is dinnertime." He even began to resent the customers who came here but he dared not speak his resentment aloud. Lest he be fired and the customers leave bad reviews for the place. "Honestly, that coffee shop sounds much more pleasant this damn place, from the kitchen you can hear bratty children whine to their parents about them not having a fucking toy in their meal. I mean, those things are a more of a hazard than a plaything."

"Ah, I'm sorry..." Instead of looking uncomfortable at the mention of hating one's own life, Yuzu looked at Ricky sympathetically. "I didn't even get to go to college. My mum fell ill in our last year of high school, and we suddenly had to use all the savings to try to pay off her medical bills. She passed a few years ago, but my father and I are still paying off the debt." "Oh, the entitlement of some of the customers," Yuzu agreed, lowering her voice even more. "I keep having to tell the parents with a smile that if they want a toy, the McDonald's is down the street. They should put up a sign or something, and maybe ban children. I think you were too busy to see, but this one kid kept running through the aisles. I was really trying not to kick in his face with the skates, but I can't even see well when I'm holding so much on a tray." She sighed and shrugged with a half-smile, slouching back against the hard folding chair. "Well, I'm used to it. The coffee shop was definitely more chill and organized, but some of the customers were just as silly. You wouldn't believe the number of parents ordering double-shot ice blended espresso drinks loaded with sugar and caffeine for their kids, who then run around." Yuzu stopped herself again, realizing that she was venting. She sighed. "I'm sorry." She asked about Ricky instead, turning her green eyes to study his tired face. "Did you manage to graduate from college? What about your family? Are things not going well for you?" Looking at the eye bags, she thought that either this place was really overworking him, or he was working two jobs, or both, or something else.

"I'm sorry to hear that, I hope she pulls through." Ricky's mother was fine but his grandmother was not fine at all, which he soon stated. "I had lost my grandfather a few years back, cancer it was and he had battled it for a year but he clearly lost that fight." Then he looked at Yuzuki after looking at his food. "They are brats and their parents are useless, I am sure they are useless." "Well, I felt like I had a life much more important than this, I did graduate college but I just ended up with this dead end job." He wondered if he should explain this to her or not. "Well...I know you won't believe me, I am sure I had a past life that was not this." Now trying to figure out where he wanted to take this as he now said it.

"Thanks, but she passed a few years ago," Yuzu said with a tiny, sad smile tinged with bitterness. "Lost her mind." She didn't elaborate. "I'm sorry about your grandfather, too." And then she nodded to his statement about the brats and their parents. She felt glad that someone else understood and that she could talk honestly to Ricky about these topics. "Well, at least you graduated. Maybe someone not in this town will see the value in that--if we ever get enough money to leave," Yuzu said with a crooked smile, still trying to look on the bright side, kind of. She listened to Ricky speak, staring at his face. "You're sure?" She asked cautiously, waiting to see if Ricky would elaborate. They weren't even really friends yet and had only worked together for just over four hours, so she doubted that he would fully open up. Yuzu didn't say anything about her own hunch that she was destined for more, or used to have more, or her odd feelings of emptiness and longing whenever she'd wake from dreams that she couldn't remember. It was indeed difficult to believe that someone else was talking about something that might be a similar experience, but she was fairly certain that Ricky wasn't lying.

"It was years ago and I'm sorry I brought it up." Ricky didn't want to make Yuzuki feel sad on her first day on the job. "Money is always something that comes and goes so quickly, they talk about saving up but it always seems to be out of your grasp before you even know it." Then he added. "I know in some other life, I had the respect, adoration and wealth beyond all forms of imagination." That was as his past life as Alexander Nikolai Grebenshchikov III. "And then...it all was torn from me."

"That's okay; it was a few years ago." A part of Yuzu had been grateful that her mother had passed from her suffering, even though the deceased had left her daughter and husband to suffer. "And, heh, yeah..." Yuzu nodded at Ricky's wisdom about money. Then she peered at the tired man, giving him a strange look. She didn't think he was lying, but she had a suspicion that maybe he was not entirely mentally well, especially since he had said he hated his life. It wasn't uncommon for people to escape to fantasy when their lives were difficult to deal with, and she wondered whether Ricky was doing just that. Riches beyond imagination, huh? Yuzu chose her next words carefully, not wanting to come across as though she thought Ricky was delusional. He seemed to be convinced in what he was saying. "Why are you sure that you had those things in some other life? And how did you lose them?"

"There were men, all armed and it was in a small ramshackle house...the entire family was there with me and then it all ended with a crescendo gunfire followed by my family screaming shortly..then everything went black." Which was the end of Ricky's life as Emperor Alexander Nikolai Grebenshchikov III. "I know I had a life better than this..I had people who obeyed me..until that revolution happened." Yet he had no evidence or proof of this happening, absolutely nothing to prove it happened and he Ricky knew it. Hence why he didn't speak of it until now as Yuzuki was in his presence. Continuing to eat his lunch as he looked at his coworker.

Yuzu winced as Ricky told her about the murder, green eyes staring at sunken blue ones. "So you had a, uh, vision that a group of men murdered your whole family? Or a dream? And why would people 'obey' you? Do you mean servants?"

7:18 AM

She looked away to drink her tea with a trembling hand. If that had been a dream or nightmare, then no wonder Ricky looked as though he got no sleep. For Yuzu, who hadn't been exposed to violence in this current life, the tale was disturbing. She almost thought Ricky was oversharing just to make her uncomfortable as some sort of new employee hazing practice, and she scooted her folding chair a few inches away from him, hoping that Ricky himself didn't have murderous tendencies and that it was a bad joke. Yuzu looked up at him again, adding a third question. "And why are you telling me this?" Of course, she had no idea that Ricky hadn't spoken to others about the topic.

"An entire empire, a people and nation at my command and for my family to rule over, I only remember so much of it." Ricky could only remember small portions of it and he added. "Yes...every night, that plays out in a dream and I wake up screaming afterwards...especially my then wife's name." He had a wife during his previous life as Emperor Alexander Nikolai Grebenshchikov III. He was not a violent person whatsoever. "They had rifles aimed at me, my wife and children." That was when he was angered by this, wondering how the people who overthrew him and the Grebenshchikov dynasty the Ruskian Empire once ruled over.

Yuzu could only stare at Ricky in disbelief and worry as she waited for him to answer the third question she had asked.

7:35 AM

A part of her felt sorry for him, a part of her thought he needed to see a therapist, and yet another part of her thought it was believable, somehow... Still, why was Ricky telling Yuzu all this? She didn't understand.

Ricky saw going to a therapist to be a waste of time as he knew he would not believed. Not even by a therapist as he knew any good therapist would laugh him right out of the office if he were to come at them with such a thing. He had been sitting on it for his adult years, only making small references to it during his childhood years but it only grew over the years and people stopped believing him so he just kept his mouth shut about it until now.

"So why are you telling me this now?" Yuzu asked Ricky, assuming that he'd never told anyone before, based on his troubled and tired expression. "Why me?"

"I don't know...I guess you looked like someone who would actually believe me and I have been quiet about it for years until just a few seconds ago." Ricky did not tell anyone about it, not even the manager who would likely tell him to get out of his face and get back to work. "You have been sat here, listening to me in conversation and I now felt like I needed to get it off my chest before it eats me even further." Which it had been doing for years now and he added. "I always felt so pathetic too...but you don't want to listen now, huh?" He soon asked Yuzuki in a defeated tone.

"I see... Yes, it's difficult to believe," Yuzu admitted. "I mean... An empire, a wife, and a family, all murdered? That's... gruesome. You're not married, right? So how did you get those memories?" She looked at Ricky's fingers as he was eating, to check for rings to guess whether he was married and maybe getting a story mixed up. But because Ricky seemed calm yet hopeless, and Yuzu got a strange sense of deja vu, she had the hunch he was telling the truth.

"Not now I am not..." Ricky was never married in the current life he was living in, he was single and there was not a ring on his finger whatsoever. He could not go balling out this sort of thing as no body would take him seriously. So he pathetically had to carry it on his shoulders and keep his mouth shut as he went about daily life. "Speaking about it will not make anyone else believe me and I indeed had those things before I was born into this world..."

"How are you so sure, Ricky? And do you think you can get back to that life?" Yuzu asked curiously, even though she doubted it. She kept her doubts to herself, however, not wanting to depress Ricky even more. A part of her wondered if Ricky wanted revenge...

11:31 AM

She wondered if she had another life too, or if she could leave this one and be happier. Maybe that was the feeling that her dreams had been telling her--that she'd lost something, something like what Ricky was talking about so sincerely. It looked like he had been carrying a burden by himself for a long time. Even though Ricky's story ended in a horrible way, Yuzu wanted to believe him and to think there was supposed to be more to their life than this...

"I know so, I know what I saw and I don't know if I can." Ricky didn't know if it was even possible to even return to his old life. "I guess what life ends cannot be relived." So revenge was out of the question on this matter. "And here I am, stuck as this nobody, flipping burgers and taking orders from a man who clearly dislikes me despite him not knowing barely anything about me." He did not even know much about the manager either.

"It's okay, I think things will work out, eventually," Yuzu said, trying to be optimistic, even though she herself wasn't totally convinced of her own words. In truth, she wondered something secret, but she wasn't going to tell this person in their first conversation. As for the manager, she didn't know if his behavior was anything unusual; he just seemed like a bad manager who liked to pick on the staff members, but especially Ricky, for some reason they didn't know. "Do you think the manager is from your old life, somehow?" A crazy conjecture, but they were on the topic of past lives anyway, so it wasn't too weird of a question.

12:15 PM

"By the way, since our break will be over soon, here's my number... If you want." Yuzu showed Ricky her cell phone to exchange numbers in case he wanted a friend. After her best friend had left for university in the next town, she didn't have many people to talk with anymore, despite being a considerate and cheerful person towards others, most of the time.

"Work out when?" Ricky did not know if they would and he soon added. "I don't think so and if he was, he would of been ignored or was insignificant." He did not remember anyone like him in his old life and he took it. "Thank you." He would be sure to remember it. Placing it in his pocket as he had to put away his lunch box in order to get back to work. He did not want the manager yelling at him for being late and especially when customers were around and wanting something to eat too.

"I don't know when things will work out..." Yuzu gave a faltering smile. "We just have to believe in ourselves, I guess." She put her roller blades back on and tied them. She would have to work until 7:00 PM through the dinner rush, and then she was off work, because she was only part time. But Ricky would have to work until closing, late at night, since he was full time. She put away her bottle in her locker and also saved her ziploc bag to reuse to bring future snacks; anything could be reused when one was tight on money. She skated out the back room after Ricky, just as the manager came to look for them, even though they were right on time. "Get back to work!" he yelled unnecessarily at the two of them, and Yuzu could only nod and smile, still hoping to be on good terms because she needed her part-time shift to become full-time. Around 5:00 PM, most people from the surrounding areas started leaving work, and the restaurant became packed with customers. Running around back and forth, Yuzu became tired, but at least she made a few tips by the end of the shift. However, the proportion of customers who left tips was not nearly as much as in a coffee shop. She felt disappointed when she saw the meager amount that all the servers had to pool and split between all of the staff members. If things continued like this, she would be evicted next month when the rent was due... When the large digital clock above the kitchen read 7:00 PM, it was time to leave. Yuzu tried to approach the manager when the restaurant was getting slow. "Excuse me, sir, would you please consider changing my shift to full time instead?" She knew the answer right away, because the mustachioed manager immediately frowned, crossing his arms. "No, no, no! No can do, Yuri. You've only been here for one day and your performance was... Well, you're not as fast as Riley, but there's room for improvement, so I may reconsider in the next pay period." With that, he turned away, as though the conversat

1:36 PM

ion was over. Yuzu frowned at the manager's back, but she went to change in the back room and leave. On the way out, passing the grill stations, she tapped the blond-haired, blue-eyed man on the shoulder again and waved goodbye, giving him a small smile. "Good luck with the rest of your shift, Ricky. Thanks for talking today. It was nice to meet you... again."

Ricky hated working these hours, he was soon going back and he replied. "Thanks, see you later." He was soon once again flipping burgers for whatever customer the restaurant may have at these sorts of hours but had to force himself to do it. Wishing the manager would just finally get his name right at long last but he knew it was something that may never actually happen and the misnaming would surely continue on as he would work the rest of the shift.

Yuzu went to wander the town around the restaurant and around her flat to look for work, another part-time job that would help pay the bills. She checked in the windows of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and also went inside to ask if they would be hiring soon if she didn't see any ads in the windows. No luck, of course. It felt like she had been looking for a better job forever, since she got laid off from the coffee shop; the search was endless. The economy was bad despite the population growth. After about an hour, she she finally walked on tired feet back to her flat, or apartment, where she and her father lived. Her father worked as a heavy truck driver, so he was often gone on long-distance trips. Yuzu checked the mailbox and found another reminder from their landlord that they were overdue on rent, and if they didn't pay in a month, the eviction process would start. She sighed heavily as she entered the flat, and she tossed the letter onto the kitchen table as she boiled some water to make herself chamomile tea. While the tea was brewing, she went to take a quick shower and change into baggy old cotton clothes for sleeping, and flopped onto the bed with a towel around her hair. She grabbed the overstuffed floppy plushie by her pillows. The plushie was supposed to be a Samoyed dog, but it was so misshapen from being patched up and refilled over the years, and it was wearing some pastel plaid kilt thing to cover a big hole where stuffing used to come out. So, no one who ever saw the plushie could ever guess what it was supposed to be. Anyway, Yuzu hugged the plushie between her arms and picked up her phone. She would have to tell her father about the eviction warning, so she sent him a text about it, even though she didn't want him to worry. He was also doing his best in this life. She set the plushie aside and sat up against her pillows to drink tea while she scrolled through her phone, looking for jobs or gigs online. All she did was look for work, or

6:49 PM

work, and it was wearing her down. She had no money to go out with friends, and all of them had gone to college or moved to other towns. Then Yuzu remembered that Ricky hadn't given her his number, she only gave him her number, so if they wanted to talk, he would have to contact her first. She wondered if he would get off work soon. She was pretty sure his full-time shift was 11 AM - 9 PM. Working 10 hours a day at that busy place seemed too much.; it was no wonder he looked so tired, in addition to the troubling confession he had told her, that likely didn't let him sleep well.

Ricky worked on and just wanted this shift to end, he looked up at the clock now and then but his main focus was flipping the burgers for whoever would want to be eating them at this time of night. "Who's going to be eating these? Drunk bastards who find themselves in here after a drink or two?" He muttered under his breath as he continued working on. He planned to text Yuzuki afterwards and he had utterly forgotten to hand her his own number and planned to do so when he was to text her when his shift ended. He intended to get hold of her after he had finished with his shift but for now he was bogged down with work. Hoping that 9pm would come sooner than later as he really did not enjoy this job whatsoever. Feeling like he was at a dead end and his life being utterly empty.

"Hey, Dicky!" The manager yelled at Ricky one minute before 9pm rolled around. "Remake these burgers; the customers complained about you careless fry cooks getting hairs in them!" He slammed the meal tray down on the counter and held up a long brown hair, and a long platinum blond, almost silver, one. In one of the booths sat a group of teenagers who snickered behind their hands at the trick they were playing. The manager was too tired to argue, so he just played along even though the hairs clearly belonged to the two gyaru-looking girls in the group. The gangster-looking boys blatantly grinned and chortled and shot Ricky the middle finger when the manager was turned to Ricky.

"Yes..boss...it's Ricky." Ricky sighed and went to remake the burgers as he saw this as a massive inconvenience. Again, he remade the burgers and had only caught a glimpse of the aforementioned customers. "Fucking assholes." He mumbled as he had caught it. He did not want to fight them as he knew he would lose and most of all be fired from his job the second he lashed out at them. Yet somewhere deep down inside of him, he wished he could be fired but the reality is that there would not be a lot of other jobs for him to find if he were to lose this one. He went to remake these burgers. "There should be nothing wrong with them..." He mumbled as he worked on and wanted to go home.

The manager didn't bother replying to Ricky's comments. He wouldn't care about his name now if he hadn't cared in five years already. "Yeah, yeah, Ricardo, whatever, it's not important, is it, boy?" he muttered as he counted money in the register. His own name tag was so worn and faded as to be nearly illegible; he had probably been working here for a decade. Perhaps he was sick of this job as well, but he didn't have the self-awareness to realize how his behaviors contributed to the problematic work environment. After Riley delivered the burgers in takeout paper bags, the manager yelled at the customers to leave so the remaining staff workers could clean up and close. It was 9:30pm by the time they were all done. The manager was frustrated that he now had to pay a little bit of overtime. He watched the employees clock out and he locked up the store. Ricky was finally now free to do whatever his routine was after work.

Ricky was glad this was finally done, he was soon ready to leave as he soon texted Yuzuki saying. "Hey, Ricky, sorry I did not give you my number before you left." He was soon ready to leave the restaurant once he had everything on him. Ready to take his pay and leave as he also waited for her to respond to the text he sent to her. "Finally, this damn job is done for a day." He thought to himself and as he could not wait to get back home but it was not like his mood could improve when he went home.

The manager had handed out the staff members' paychecks and the split tips for the post-dinner shift just before before he locked up the store. Then, without a word, he left.

Yuzu saw a new notification appear as she was browsing through local jobs and gigs. It was a good time for a break, anyway. She tapped on it and it was a text from Ricky. She smiled a bit to herself. Perhaps she had made a new friend today. She tapped out a reply. "Hi Ricky. No problem. Are you finally off work?"

10:55 AM

She didn't want to be nosy and ask about his daily routine in case he was busy, so she didn't send any further questions.

"I am and I am also going home at long last." Ricky replied as a text while he was just glad that it was over as he was now on his way home as he now waiting for her to respond to the text he had sent to her while on the way home. Going there on foot as he often walked to work. He kept his hood up so no one would see his face as he did not want to be robbed during his journey to and from work. His head down as he continued to walk in the dark.

A stranger bumped into Ricky on the way home. "Watch it!" he growled, and he shoved Ricky against the brick wall of the building that they were next to. Fortunately, the stranger continued on instead of trying to rob Ricky.

"That's good. Get home safely!" Yuzu replied in text. She then got up from her bed and wandered around the flat looking for things of value that they would be able to pawn for money to be able to pay the rent. She flipped on the television to put on a late night comedy show just to take her mind off her situation, but it wasn't very funny.