Golden Festival Day 36
Iris woke up feeling strange.
Her stomach twisted.
Iris shot upright in bed: "…Oh no."
Her face went pale. Another wave hit. Iris clutched her stomach and slid off the bed.
Ten minutes later, Kagura kicked open the bathroom door after hearing the groaning of a zombie.
Kagura: "IRIS ARE YOU ALIVE?!"
Iris weakly lifted her head from the sink: "…I think… I made a mistake…"
Ariel peeked in: "What's wrong?"
Iris whispered, ashamed: "I ate pizza."
Shinatsu leaned against the hallway wall: "From yesterday?"
Iris nodded slowly.
Shinatsu: "We left that out all day."
Ariel: "Is that bad?"
Kagura: "WHO LEFT THE PIZZA OUT."
Her voice pierced through the house, waking everybody up.
Diego: "Wasn't me."
Caesar put on his glasses: "It's probably all of our fault, nobody remembered to put it up."
Beatrice: "A shared crime."
Iris groaned: "…I feel like I'm dying…"
45 minutes later, Iris sat in a hospital bed wrapped in a blanket like a defeated burrito.
A nurse handed her a glass of water: "Food poisoning."
Iris nodded weakly: "…That checks out."
Meanwhile at the dining table.
Diego: "So Iris is alive."
Chifuyu: "Barely."
Esmarie: "Poor Iris…"
Shinatsu: "She'll be fine."
Marlon: "Food poisoning from pizza, huh? That's a rough way to start the day."
Chifuyu: "She ate the pizza in the middle of the night. Could that count as her breakfast?"
Marlon: "I think so."
Yuji looked unimpressed: "No."
Esmarie blinked.
Esmarie: "Wait." She sat up. "Was it breakfast?"
Marlon: "First meal of the day is breakfast."
Yuji: "Not if it's in the middle of the night."
Chifuyu leaned back slightly: "Explain."
Yuji: "What's there to explain. Breakfast is morning food."
Esmarie raised a finger: "But what if someone wakes up at 2 pm?"
Yuji paused: "…Then they missed breakfast."
Chifuyu grinned: "That's ridiculous."
Marlon nodded: "If the first meal someone eats is at 6 pm… that's breakfast."
Yuji: "Wrong. That's dinner."
Diego leaned against the counter: "What if the first meal is a filet mignon at 6 pm?"
Esmarie: "That's actually interesting."
Chifuyu: "That's still breakfast."
Yuji: "No it isn't."
Chifuyu: "Okay. Let's break this down."
Diego started busting a move in the kitchen.
Yuji sighed.
At the dining table was the philosophers debating what breakfast is.
Chifuyu: "There are three possibilities." He held up one finger. "Definition one. Breakfast is defined by time. In other words, a morning meal."
Yuji: "That's the only right definition."
Chifuyu held up a second finger, ignoring him: "Definition two. Breakfast is defined by sequence. First meal after sleep."
Marlon: "That's a possibility."
Chifuyu raised a third finger: "Definition three. Breakfast is defined by type of food."
Esmarie: "That one. Like pancakes!"
Diego: "Eggs."
Marlon: "Bacon."
Nicholas: "Breakfast burrito."
Chifuyu: "Excellent, those are indeed breakfast foods. But can they not be eaten during any other time of the day?"
Esmarie: "Oh my god."
Marlon: "He's right."
Yuji: "…Where are you going with this."
Chifuyu: "The truth is…"
Everyone leaned in slightly.
Chifuyu: "ANYTHING IS BREAKFAST!"
Shinatsu: "I'm too tired to listen to this."
Chifuyu: "Breakfast literally means breaking the fast."
Marlon: "Holy crap, that's why they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Because it's every meal."
Esmarie: "Is this not groundbreaking news?!"
Chifuyu: "The moment you decide, 'I want something to eat,' that something becomes your breakfast. Over and over again throughout the day, and in the middle of the night."
The room fell silent.
Esmarie's eyes sparkled: "…Whoa."
Marlon: "That actually makes sense."
Chifuyu leaned back smugly: "Exactly."
Yuji stared at him, then left the dining room: "I'm surrounded by idiots."
Chifuyu then put him hand next to his head and spun his finger, doing the gesture that calls him bird for brains.
Esmarie joins him: "A normie wouldn't get it."
Marlon shook his head disappointed: "I thought Yuji was smarter than this."
Diego burst out laughing: "Poor Iris is in the hospital and we're debating breakfast."
Beatrice: "This was an eye-opening debate."
Nicholas: "Haha. If you think so, it must be true."
Caesar: "As expected of Chifuyu. He's discerned the true meaning of breakfast."
***
Iris sat upright in the hospital bed, wrapped in a blanket with a defeated expression. Her hair looked slightly messier than usual, and the color had completely drained from her face.
Kagura leaned forward in the visitor chair, elbows on her knees: "Feeling better yet?"
Iris slowly shook her head: "…Not really."
Kagura: "Did you forget that pizza had been left out?"
Iris looked embarrassed: "…It smelled fine."
Kagura crossed her arms: "That's how it gets you."
Across the room, Shoyo leaned casually against the wall near the door taking pictures of Iris with a smile.
Kagura: "You're supposed to be here for emotional support, not getting a kick out of this."
Shoyo: "She'll be fine."
Iris sighed.
Shoyo checked his phone for a second. Then he looked up: "You've got a visitor."
Iris blinked: "A visitor?"
Kagura: "Who?"
The door creaked open slowly.
An old man stepped inside.
His posture was hunched, his steps slow and deliberate. His coat looked older than the hospital building itself, and his hair stuck out in random directions like he had lost a fight with a windstorm.
Iris tilted her head slightly: "…Who is that?"
Nobody answered.
He just kept walking.
Step.
Step.
Step.
The room went quiet.
The old man kept approaching the bed.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
Iris shifted slightly under the blanket.
Her expression changed from confusion…
To concern.
Iris: "…Um…"
The man didn't speak.
He just kept walking forward.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Kagura glanced at Shoyo who also looked confused.
Iris's shoulders tensed: "E-Excuse me…?"
Still nothing.
He kept walking.
Step.
Step.
Step.
The old man was now just a few feet away.
The silence stretched.
Shoyo grabbed the man by the shoulder and shoved him toward the door: "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! GET LOST!"
Kagura: "Took you long enough."
Old man: "Oh dear. Sorry, wrong room."
Shoyo: "…Weird."
This time, a girl stepped inside.
Red hair.
A presence that immediately filled the room.
She leaned casually against the doorframe.
Shoyo: "Sup."
Ruby: "Hey."
Iris: "Oh, it's you."
Ruby: "Been a while, haven't seen you since the first arc."
Kagura: "Who's this?"
Ruby: "Pardon the late introduction. I'm Ruby Scarlet. I was on my way to see Ina when I heard Iris was in the hospital from food poisoning."
Iris: "Thank you, but why are you visiting me? We've only met once."
Shoyo: "This weirdo took a liking to you."
Ruby: "Ignore him, he's jealous of me."
Shoyo: "Jealous of what exactly?"
Ruby: "My awesomeness."
Kagura: "If you can rub Shoyo the wrong way, that means you're a good person!"
Shoyo: "Uh, what's that supposed to mean?"
Ruby walks up to the bed: "Is it okay if I rub your head?"
Iris: "Um. Sure."
Ruby begins rubbing Iris's head, but to Shoyo and Kagura it looks like petting. Nonetheless, it somehow temporarily alleviates Iris's pain and she feels better for the moment. More than better, it feels like she's been wrapped by fluffy clouds with a soothing element. She makes a funny face expressing the absolute serenity she's feeling.
Shoyo: "What's going on here…"
***
Tonight's Odd Job had brought Chifuyu and Yuji to one of the more… questionable parts of the city. They stood outside a narrow stairway that descended underground beneath a graffiti-covered building. A flickering sign above the door read: LIVE TONIGHT
Chifuyu: "I have a bad feeling."
Yuji stood beside him with his hands in his jacket pockets.
Yuji: "What's the worst that could happen?"
A skinny promoter pushed past them carrying cables.
Promoter: "You the bodyguards?"
Chifuyu nodded: "Yeah."
Promoter jerked his thumb toward the stairs: "Then why are you just standing around, show starts in 5."
Yuji and Chifuyu exchanged a look.
Then they went down.
The basement was packed.
And loud.
Very loud.
Colored lights flashed erratically across the room.
Some of the crowd looked normal.
Some looked like they had crawled out of a horror movie.
Chifuyu: "Is that rock makeup?"
Yuji: "Maybe heavy death metal rock."
They moved toward the side of the stage.
The band was preparing. The drummer was hitting random test beats like he was attacking the drum set. The guitarist was tuning his instrument while yelling something unintelligible. Then the lead singer stepped up to the mic. He looked completely unhinged.
Chifuyu squinted: "These are the guys we're protecting?"
Yuji: "Looks like these lunatics can protect themselves."
The singer grabbed the microphone.
The crowd began cheering.
People shoved closer to the stage.
The lights dimmed.
The drummer started pounding a rhythm.
The singer leaned into the mic: "THIS IS A COOL LITTLE SONG—"
The crowd roared.
Singer screamed: "ABOUT SHOOTING BLOOD—"
The crowd got louder.
Singer finished with full enthusiasm: "OUT YOUR ASSHOLE!!!"
The crowd exploded.
People started jumping.
Someone knocked over a chair.
Someone else screamed in joy.
Meanwhile, Chifuyu and Yuji's necks turned toward each other instantly.
Their faces were identical.
Absolute disbelief.
The music began violently. The guitarist screamed into his instrument. The drummer hit the drums like he was trying to summon something. The singer started shrieking lyrics that sounded medically concerning. The crowd lost its mind. People were jumping and headbanging. And for the next two hours, Chifuyu and Yuji endured one of the most traumatizing Odd Jobs of their lives.