"Old hag! Give me the usual!"
Dante arrived at the Bowl of Fortune half an hour after his shift at the hotel ended. Despite working at a restaurant, a mere dishwasher like him doesn’t get to even taste the food served there. For lunch, he only had some sandwiches he brought with him before clocking in that morning. Because of that, he was craving Nobara’s cooking more than ever.
"Oh! Look who’s finally here!" Ross faced the door with a massive grin. "Finally done with your shift?"
"Can’t you tell?" Dante pursed his lips.
"Your jokes are getting old, Ross." Glenn leaned back, raising his chopsticks as he smiled. "Good job surviving another day. Did things get any better?"
Dante slumped his shoulders and walked to his seat, looking absolutely drained.
"Does it look that way to you?" He sighed.
"That’s just what a normal job is like," Ross said. "You’ll get used to it eventually."
"I would rather not." Noticing that the seat to his right was empty, Dante turned to the others with a question. "Mr. Johanson’s late today, too?"
"Yeah, he sent word not that long ago. It’s more overtime for him today."
Hearing Glenn’s reply added to Dante’s exhaustion for some reason.
"Guess I’m not the only one having a bad day."
Just then, the kitchen curtain moved and the owner finally emerged with a bowl in her hands.
"You still got a long way to go, boy." Nobara said. "There is a reason why I keep telling you to go back to school."
"Spare me your preaching," Dante scoffed. "As if getting a degree would help with anything."
Steam rose from the bowl, bringing with it the fragrant aroma of oily broth and strong spices. Enjoying it for a moment, he looked down and saw that the soup was a darker shade of red than what he was used. Nobara met him with a grin when he turned to face her.
"I got my hands on some of the strong stuff earlier today." She said. "Say goodbye to that bottom hole of yours."
Staring at her for a moment, Dante grinned as well.
"Just what I needed."
He could sense the horrified looks Ross and Glenn were giving him, but he didn’t care. Grabbing a pair of chopsticks from the nearest stack, he snapped them apart and placed them between his fingers, feeling the sweat beading his forehead as he smiled down at the bowl from hell.
Not hesitating a single moment, he grabbed some of the noodles and brought them to his mouth, slurping everything then spending a good two seconds chewing. The others watched as his skin flushed and his eyes teared up, but his expression hadn’t changed, and his smile didn’t fade.
"Hoo~h! Now this is what I call spicy."
He went back down right after swallowing, causing the others to pale even more.
"Dante, my friend." Ross smiled awkwardly. "Could it be that you switched out your stomach without telling us?"
Slurping the bit that was already in his mouth, Dante turned a blank face to the maintenance worker.
"If I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t be washing dishes."
"So... you just like torturing yourself with this stuff?" Glenn asked, still looking at the bowl of ultra spicy noodles.
"Stop being a wussy." Nobara tutted. "If you had even a drop of the boy’s courage, maybe then you wouldn’t be so terminally single."
The office worker shrank under the old cook’s remark, but for some reason Dante seemed to wince as well. His mood made a 180 and that didn’t go unnoticed by the others. There was no avoiding the question that was about to follow.
"What’s wrong, boy?" Nobara asked. "Did your guts finally give in?"
Remaining motionless for a couple of seconds, Dante heaved a sigh then went back to his food. Slurping some more of the tongue-burning noodles, he thought for a moment then said
"I just remembered..." Pausing, he pressed his lips into a line and slowly tilted his head as if trying to suppress unbearable pain. "I have a date tonight."
The air inside the noodle shop changed abruptly. Glenn, Ross, and Nobara all had their eyes slowly widen as they stared at him, disbelief written all over their faces.
Ross opened his mouth to ask a question, excitement gradually taking over his face, but Nobara held a hand up and forced him to shut it. Her expression turned solemn as she stared at Dante, studying the details of his face.
"Boy, you don’t seem to be looking forward to this date. Is there a problem?"
Dante grabbed the mutton slice swimming in his bowl, bringing it to his mouth and taking a bite. He chewed, his eyes wandering to the ceiling as he thought. Swallowing, he looked at the old cook and answered.
"You could say that."
"Well," Ross leaned on the counter, his expression turning serious. "Are you gonna tell us?"
Glenn wasn’t too happy about his personal space being invaded, but he was too curious to complain.
’Hey, why didn’t you remind me?’
[Earlier, you said you cannot wait to get some sleep.] Volcan answered. [I understood that as you having changed your plans for the night.]
’Well, you should have asked.’
A change of plans was out of the question; he didn’t have the option to drop out or reschedule. The matter was something he would’ve preferred not to discuss, but now that the cat was out of the bag, he felt that he didn’t have a choice. Maybe talking about it would help him a little.
"You could say that someone set me up with an acquaintance." He said. "A lot of things depend on this date going well, so I can’t just refuse."
"Don’t tell me..." Ross fixed him with a glare. "Is it the rich girl you mentioned the other day?"
"No?" Dante didn’t understand where the maintenance worker got that idea.
Shifting his gaze to Glenn, Dante heaved a long sigh.
"Someone I would have liked to avoid."