Chapter 36
Chapter 36
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Colleague
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The facade of Family Restaurant Matsuba was made entirely of glass, just like most eateries, so observing Harumi was a piece of cake.
That said, standing idly in front of the restaurant and peering inside would draw suspicion from anyone, so I slipped into a nearby public phone booth, picked up the receiver, and pretended to make a call while keeping watch.
Harumi pushed open the door and stepped inside, looking a bit lost at first, then spotted someone resting at a table and hurried over, bowing her head deeply.
Bow!
"H-Hello!"
By focusing intently, I could just about make out the shape of her lips. Reading lips from this distance through two layers of glass with the naked eye was normally impossible, but this protagonist's body made it happen.
As long as your heart was set on a heroine, nothing was out of reach.
"Y-Yes? Sorry, we're on break right now."
The woman who looked to be in her mid-to-late thirties—the owner—had been slumped exhausted over a table, but she snapped to attention at Harumi's greeting.
"N-No, that's not it! I-I'm here about this..."
Rustle rustle
Harumi reached into her pants pocket with her small hand and pulled out something crumpled up tight.
It was a flyer.
The kind that had been folded and unfolded countless times, with the creases faded white.
[Help Wanted]
Family Restaurant Matsuba is looking for family...
The fine print below was too small even for me to read.
Harumi bowed deeply once more.
"Please let me work here!"
That girl... she had come to a family restaurant for a job interview, of all places.
I had no idea what her circumstances were, but imagining how much deliberation it took for that proud girl to bend her stiff back like that was beyond me. The fact that she was desperately job-hunting meant her situation was truly dire.
They say even a rich family's fortune lasts three years after ruin, but was that even possible?
Maybe her parents had passed away suddenly or something?
Either way, Harumi's financial state looked even worse than I'd imagined.
"Ah, you're here about the help wanted flyer. Hmm... Any experience working at a family restaurant?"
"N-No, I don't..."
"What about serving somewhere, or even a convenience store gig?"
"None of that either..."
The owner wore a troubled expression. She had been resting during break time, and now some inexperienced kid shows up without a resume, making things complicated—that was her face.
A male owner might have bitten at Harumi's cute looks, but between women, no such luck.
"Come to think of it, we don't hire minors. Students need permission first..."
"I'm an adult!"
Harumi indignantly thrust out her ID.
The owner scrutinized it carefully, pondered for a moment, then made a proposal.
"Then how about a one-day trial today? I need to see you work, Kanemochiru, and you need to experience it to know if it's for you. Of course, we'll pay you for the day."
It was a fair offer. As expected, Harumi nodded vigorously, her twintails bouncing.
"My goodness... So Harumi was working here all along."
Now I understood why she had so vehemently opposed me joining her on restaurant visits in the game. And why she hadn't been pleased about the uniform talk—instead, she seemed ashamed. That baffling question, "Did you see?", must have been her asking if I'd caught her working part-time while passing by.
After a short wait, Harumi emerged from the staff changing room in a simple uniform.
"First, could you handle some cleaning?"
"Y-Yes..."
Harumi listened to the owner's instructions with a dazed look, then grabbed a mop and started fumbling around. It was obvious to anyone that she'd never done this in her life.
"Hey, miss! A mop isn't a dust collector! How do you hold it upside down? The food will get filthy!"
"H-Huh? S-Sorry..."
"Sigh... I'll discard this. Please clean the floor properly."
"Y-Yes..."
Thoroughly deflated, Harumi dunked the mop into a bucket of water, pulled it out without wringing it, and started scrubbing the floor.
Splash splash splash
She was turning the floor into a swimming pool.
She'd never learned that you squeeze out the excess water before mopping...
Slip—
Thud!
"Eek!?"
Her scream was loud enough to faintly hear through the glass as she fell flat on her butt.
Oof, cleaning those slippery tiles while soaking them through— of course she'd slip.
"U-Ugh..."
Harumi sat there sniffling, on the verge of tears.
Not because her butt hurt, but because she felt so pathetic right now.
...But she didn't shed a single tear.
She planted her hands on the floor.
Pushed up with her legs and stood.
Struggling somehow to adapt to reality.
That rich girl.
How could this be...
Unlike with Ren, I hadn't grasped even half of Harumi's true appeal.
She wasn't just some pampered rich girl... She was the archetype of the "striving heroine."
The kind of small, pitiful girl anyone would want to cheer for.
A girl who'd never done chores in her life, not even knowing a bus card from a watermelon, had picked up a part-time flyer from the ground, taken it home, read it over and over.
How many times had she thought, "Do I really have to do this?"
And yet, here she was, struggling on.
'Beautiful...'
The beauty of her inner self, not her looks.
How could you not love her...
"What on earth?"
The owner came rushing over at the commotion from afar, saw the disaster on her floor, and let out a deep sigh.
"Oh no! What a mess! How could you flood the place like this? Are you joking around!?"
"S-Sorry! I'm sorry!"
The owner clutched her forehead and muttered something as she took the mop herself.
Customers weren't due yet, but from this alone, it was already a fail.
In the original story, she probably kept coming back to beg for a job even after failing like this. The exasperated owner eventually gave in.
That explained why she always rushed off somewhere after school with me—it was her shift.
The owner wrung out the mop properly and cleaned the floor herself, then predictably pulled out two 10,000-yen bills and handed them to Harumi.
"...Even so, since a young girl like you got chewed out on your first try, I'm giving you extra. Head home now."
"W-Wait... I-I can really work hard..."
"Sigh..."
From the owner's perspective, that was the natural response. Giving 20,000 yen as cab fare to someone who'd wrecked the place—out of pity—was saintly.
Grit...
Harumi bit her lip until it turned white.
She bowed at a perfect right angle. Her head, rarely lowered in life, dipped very low.
"Please... I beg you."
A transparent droplet fell onto the restaurant floor, parallel to Harumi's face—one, two.
"This is driving me crazy."
The female owner clutched her forehead.
Even from her position, it was hard to coldly turn away a much younger girl begging through tears.
"Fine. We don't usually hire like this for restaurant part-timers, but..."
"Y-Yes!? Th-Thank you! Thank you!"
"Don't thank me yet. Hear me out first. In exchange for hiring you, Kanemochiru, it's a one-year contract, with three months probation at 90% pay. If I decide during probation you're just not cut out for it, you're fired."
"Yes!! I'll do it!"
The owner shook her head in disbelief.
A woman with that much life experience could instantly tell if someone was delicately raised.
To her, Harumi clearly wasn't the diligent type. Sure, her willpower alone commanded respect—even from me—but a lifetime of pampering wouldn't change overnight.
Still, she decided to give her a shot.
Harumi's part-time job.
"This could be really useful..."
The key to conquering a heroine was time—how often you met, how much time you spent together. Without that absolute quantity, no amount of game knowledge helped.
I'd taken the Practical Committee spot partly to meet that condition with Ren. In fact, it had been huge for building favor early on.
For Harumi... working the same restaurant as her.
Comforting and subtly helping her during tough, unfamiliar shifts— for a lonely girl with no one to rely on, that would hit big.
"Working at a restaurant isn't easy. You're not taking it lightly, are you?"
"N-No way!!"
"Good. Then... see you tomorrow."
Harumi bowed repeatedly as she left the restaurant. I ducked my head low in the phone booth, pretending to talk, before she spotted me.
"Woohoo! I... I can work! I'll make money!!"
Harumi skipped toward the bus stop.
That happy?
Anyway, time for me to get to work.
A reserve part-timer had just left, so they might not hire me, but it wasn't hopeless. The place was huge, yet only the owner was visible during break.
I couldn't see the kitchen, but the staff seemed too few for the size.
A guy with my physique and smarts might get in easily.
Ding-dong—
"Excuse me."
"Oh... Another customer? Sir, we're on break right now."
Same line as before from the owner.
"Ah, hello, ma'am!"
I bowed deeply like Harumi and greeted loudly.
Self-made owners that young valued passion and initiative most.
"Y-Yes?"
As I bent at a right angle, she stepped back, as if I were some yakuza.
"I'm here about the part-time flyer! Could you let me work?"
"Huh?"
Stunned by two part-timers in a row begging for jobs, she shook her head to clear it.
"N-No, I just hired one—"
Grab!
I took her hand.
I'd noticed her left ring finger was bare earlier.
She might have removed a ring to work the kitchen solo, but there wasn't even a mark. A finger that had never worn one.
"Eek!? W-What are you doing!"
The owner panicked at the rough male touch.
One thing I'd learned since coming here: Academy classmates had a subtle wariness toward me as a Korean exchange student, but older women melted around me.
Director Mesui, the vet lady, the animal hospital nurse lady.
Maybe mature women catch a whiff of prime male pheromones. Even before possessing this body, big data showed older women went wild for fit guys—probably biological instinct.
"I can work really hard, ma'am. Cut my pay in half—no, don't pay me at all! I just want to learn!"
Female, feel the overwhelming male presence!
"A-Ahem..."
The owner glanced around, fidgeted in my pot-lid-sized grip, and nodded. Accepting a hire, yet her face was like a maiden getting proposed to.
Men are their bodies, after all.
"Alright. With just three women here, a guy like you would be reassuring..."
Of course.
Tomorrow, same workplace as Harumi.
Harumi Illustration #1
