Reaction
"Is it packed out there?"
"Enough that double pay still wouldn't feel like enough."
"Hearing that just makes me want to work even less."
One of the serving staff muttered the words under their breath, staring out at the long line snaking past the entrance with dead eyes. They hadn't applied because the owner was Baekho — but right now, that hardly felt like a consolation.
Wasn't break time supposed to mean, you know, an actual break? So why were they spending it cleaning, restocking, catching up on dishes, mopping floors, sorting ingredients…
Well. Technically that was what break time meant around here.
Still, the workload was so brutal that even the part-timers pulled down salaries beyond anything they'd imagined — and that part, at least, they liked.
That was about the only upside. Everyone who came through the door seemed to have roughly the same reason for showing up. Were they here for the food, or were they here to see the owner and figured they might as well eat while they were at it? The real problem was that the owner was almost never actually around.
Which meant everyone who worked here either had to know the owner's whereabouts in real time, or be skilled enough at deflection to fake it.
Or both.
Even someone who'd only been on the job three months was watching their talent for improvisation grow by the hour.
"Was it like this back when you first opened?"
"Probably not quite this bad…"
Wait. Or was it?
If you piled opening-day hype on top of everything else, the place would have been a genuine human hell — the kind of crowd that made "packed to the rafters" sound like an understatement. It would have been less like running a restaurant and more like a warehouse job that had spontaneously manifested inside a dining room.
Which was exactly why the quiet rumor mill said no restaurant in the city had burned through part-timers quite so spectacularly in its first three months. Not because the treatment was bad. Because the work was hard.
That aside—
"It's awfully loud out there today…"
"Yeah, it is."
The murmur of the crowd carried all the way inside. Had the owner shown up? A glance at a wristwatch: 4:28 p.m. Reopening was any minute now.
Even so, the noise outside was sharper than usual. When was the last time it had been like this? As far as anyone could remember, it only got this loud when the owner came back from running errands and ran straight into the waiting customers.
But today the owner was already inside.
"Well. We'll find out once we open the doors."
It was a sudden thought, but there was that line from a certain anime — that reality is more dramatic than any drama.
These days drama plots were such a mess that the saying didn't always hold…
"…It's pretty crowded. I'll come back later."
"Oh — no, it's fine! I'll clear the reserved sign off that table for you."
Out of nowhere, another beastfolk walked into the restaurant — someone no one had expected — and the sheer improbability of it made reality itself feel a little suspect.
Sideways glances. Everywhere.
It wasn't just the serving staff. Every pair of eyes in the place was rolling and darting with barely concealed interest.
"…Who is that? A friend of the owner's?"
"I haven't heard anything like that."
A snake's tail, thick as a thigh and striking enough to draw genuine admiration. Pointed ears jutting from long, straight hair. Deep blue eyes.
Gazes poured toward one particular spot in the restaurant — gazes so blatant they practically carried physical force.
…Not that the person at the center of all that attention seemed to care in the slightest.
"…You don't include the tip separately here?"
"Sorry? The tip?"
"Ah."
…There was something a little odd about her. Someone who'd lived abroad, maybe? Well — imagination was free to run wherever it liked, regardless of time or place.
That was as far as the speculation went.
With customers flooding in like a tide, standing around staring at someone was a nuisance to your coworkers and to the person being stared at. The server carefully set down an order slip crammed with an absurdly long list of dishes and moved on to the next table.
There were too many people. Far too many. And human memory was volatile by nature — the memories of restaurant staff in the middle of a rush even more so.
After the chaos finally settled, every order had been confirmed and every table set. Now it was the kitchen's turn to suffer.
And then—
"Just to confirm your order. One garlic carbonara pasta, one gorgonzola pizza, one grilled chicken and mushroom risotto, and one herb ribeye steak. Is that correct?"
"Yes, that's right."
"We can pack up anything you don't finish, so just let us know if you get full."
A nod.
Enough food to stuff two people sat on a table occupied by only one. It didn't take long for those cooling stares to swing back toward that same spot — but her eyes were fixed on the food.
Cutlery rose quietly.
And the devouring began.
Even though every dish had just come off the line, still piping hot, still throwing off thick curls of steam.
People say that when you encounter something that contradicts your assumptions — or simply something strange — your gaze is drawn to it automatically.
The sages of old dressed that impulse up in lofty language and called it inquiry, naming it both human nature and the engine of progress.
Resolving curiosity about something different from yourself was the most powerful fuel that moved people — the strongest reason of all.
Which was why…
"…Whoa…"
…watching Serpentia slowly coil that sleek tail while diligently working through what looked like more than five servings of food felt, somehow, almost legitimate.
But that was as far as they were allowed to go. Snap a sneaky photo and you might later find a summons arriving by registered mail or text, and end up meeting her somewhere far less pleasant. Manifestor-related law was ruthlessly strict about that sort of thing.
Either way, her appearance had filled everyone eating in the restaurant with questions.
Manifestors were rare enough in society as it was — and ones with physical traits this pronounced were vanishingly so. From the distant past, from the moment animist faith first appeared on Earth, people like her had been objects of worship.
In the modern age the worship had faded, but it had simply transformed into social attention and popularity, carrying straight through to this very moment.
In short: she was like another celebrity who'd casually wandered into a restaurant where a celebrity did the cooking.
Of course…
"Mm…"
She was completely absorbed in her meal.
Her pace was neither fast nor slow. With the calm, tidy motions of any ordinary diner, the food was steadily disappearing.
And one more peculiar detail—
───scritch, scritch.
She pinned the steak with her left hand, wrapped her tail around the knife, sliced through the meat in neat strokes, and fed herself pizza with her right hand at the same time.
An eccentricity that might have been possible for only one person on the entire planet. In that instant, one of the idle debate topics that floated up on internet communities whenever things got slow — If your tail was big and long enough, could you use it like an extra arm? — found its sudden, definitive answer.
And so the time stretched on: present and yet somehow not, unbearable for everyone except the person at the center of it.
"Is everything to your taste?"
A fluffy white tail.
Ears pricked straight up.
Hair striped in white and black like bands of light and shadow.
Having caught wind of the news, the restaurant's owner had appeared.
"Aahh."
Finally starting to feel human again. Skipping both breakfast and lunch had nearly killed me with hunger.
Snacks didn't count, of course.
For a body that seemed to have nothing but advantages, the biggest chronic problem was fuel efficiency.
A physique whose daily minimum burn cleared 5,000 kcal was basically a hippo in human form when it came to food. Back in the day, everyone on the team kept spare calorie bars in their rucksacks because of it. Of course, I hadn't been the only Variant operating with the unit back then, so…
Though among all of us, I was still the one who carried the most snacks.
Anyway.
Rustle.
Dozens of different aromas drifted up from the takeout bags hanging off my arms and tail.
Between the meal just now and everything else, I'd at least hit the daily minimum. Whatever I'd just bought could serve as snacks or a late-night bite later.
…Looking at it like this, I was a complete pig. Shoveling down calories and money in bulk. I hadn't been back long enough to have earned any of this myself.
Right now I was spending money the old me had saved up.
…Sorry, past me.
I'll put it to good use, at least. No idea what you were doing with your days back then, but still.
Thinking about it that way, spending like this did feel a little risky.
If I'd stayed over there, I could have worked as a consultant for urban combat or a tactical advisor… no, there wouldn't even have been a need. We were war heroes. The U.S. government would have waited on us hand and foot just for existing.
…But what could I do? I'd gotten tangled up in a situation that forced me back here, so there was no point dwelling on that part anymore.
Better to start figuring out how to make money on this side, and fast. If the Icarus Device was compatible with the local U.S. government standards, I could pull the back pay I'd never touched — shame it didn't look that way.
I'd try the moment I got home.
Turning all of that over in my head, I found myself back in front of the apartment complex before I knew it. Even to someone almost completely ignorant about civilian housing, it looked like a decent place.
Had I originally lived here? That part was still fuzzy… and while I was walking along with that thought, something foreign brushed against my fingers in my pocket.
"…What am I supposed to do with this."
The source of the rustling was a business card.
I was still pretty dazed about the whole thing. This wasn't even fine dining — who walks up to someone in the middle of a meal to ask for something like that?
Then again, even fine dining usually didn't work that way, did it?
Anyway, if you asked what had actually happened, it was simpler than it sounded.
Mid-meal, the owner whose name was on the sign had appeared, asked a few questions — and despite the restaurant's name, she'd apparently stepped back from hands-on cooking about three months ago — and then, while I was settling the bill, she'd handed me her card.
On the back were a roughly scribbled commemorative signature and a note asking if a photo would be all right. The phone number was printed on the front, of course.
The place had been far too crowded, so we'd agreed to talk it over later.
"…How long has it been since I last saw a city this alive."
I'd heard from a Variant friend — no, a Manifestor friend — that Chicago was still relatively livable, but… I hoped he wasn't taking my death too hard.
The man had gone and speedrun a relationship with my mentor and gotten her pregnant, so I really hoped the shock hadn't hit him too badly.
No idea when I'd get to see them again.
At any rate, the restaurant had opened around 4:30. I'd waited roughly forty minutes and spent about as long eating, which put the current time somewhere near six.
Right in the middle of summer, so even in the evening the outdoors were still fairly bright. The day was winding down under a sunset that looked like someone had dissolved pale red pigment into the air, and throngs of people were slipping out into the fading light for walks or appointments.
Calling this place a lively city felt a little off — but Manhattan, no, America itself… had completely collapsed. Seeing faces without worry or fear carved into them was almost a first for me.
"Well. Doesn't look like there's anything else on the list…"
One by one, the mental checklist of things I'd meant to handle today was getting crossed off.
The plate carrier, tactical vest, firearms, and the rest had been moved somewhere safe — scratched off. Today's recon had given me a rough map of the neighborhood in my head, so that was gone too.
Let's see, next was…
───Bzzzt!
"Ugh — Jesus."
With that obnoxious noise, the Icarus Device shuddered and spat out a hologram.
Scattered fragments of text snapped into alignment in an instant. Summarized, the contents read roughly—
"Ah."
I should probably go find a fitness club nearby.
Gotta work out.