At a window seat in front, Yanami was dealing with the customers in front of her with a troubled expression. Kiyono's gaze followed, and at the table sat two men.
One man had a prominent samurai-like hairstyle with shaved sides and the remaining long hair tied high at the back of his head. He had single-fold, narrow eyes and radiated a sharp atmosphere—probably already a working adult.
The other had dyed yellow hair with shiny earrings. Since he had a very lackey-like style, let's call him Yellow-Hair Lackey.
Kiyono heard their conversation.
"My name is Ishida Kazuyu. You're really cute—please give me your LINE account."
The samurai-haired man took out his phone, a frivolous smile appearing at the corners of his lips. While his words sounded like a request, his actual attitude was overbearing.
So it really was a pickup attempt, and the troublesome kind at that.
Kiyono lifted his foot, ready to intervene at any time.
He wouldn't allow any NTR behavior to happen in front of him!
But Yanami was much more clever than he'd imagined. Facing the customer's unreasonable demand, the girl blinked and lightly tilted her head.
"LINE? I'm very sorry, customer, but my LINE account has already been banned..."
"Huh? Why?" Both Ishida and his companion were stunned.
"Because last time I promoted a certain casino in Kabukicho that was really unscrupulous, and I lost over two million... then I got reported and banned."
Yanami lightly stuck out her tongue. Beneath her seemingly pure and cute appearance, she hid a dark heart!
Oh! Deliberately smearing herself to discourage the pickup artist—that's a good move, Miss Yanami!
Kiyono paused in his steps, wanting to see if the other party would retreat in the face of difficulty.
"I see. Then tell me your phone number—next time I'll take you to an absolutely fair place to play."
Ishida tapped the table with his finger, ignoring his subordinate's frantic head-shaking hints, and said with interest.
"Umm, I don't dare use my phone because I borrowed scary high-interest loans before, otherwise threatening groups would call to harass me all the time..."
The smile on Yanami's pretty face gradually became forced, clearly encountering someone who pestered to this degree for the first time.
Kiyono was also speechless. The girl's refusal attitude was already very obvious, but the other party still persisted shamelessly. What an annoying guy.
"Stop joking around. Tell me your contact information, or I'll keep waiting here."
Ishida stood up. He was a head taller than Yanami, and combined with those sharp eyes, he was quite intimidating.
Yanami bit her lip.
She didn't know what to do anymore. She didn't want to give her number, didn't want to cause trouble for the shop. Kusunoki, where are you... After hesitating for a moment, she was still preparing to take out her phone, planning to brush the guy off first...
Looking at the blue-haired girl's expression, Kiyono took a deep breath.
Really can't stand this.
Although he couldn't be a cool male protagonist.
He had his own methods.
Kiyono picked up the plates from the dining table.
"CRASH—!!!"
The crisp shattering sound made the entire restaurant silent for a moment. The next instant, everyone's gaze turned toward this direction. Yanami, who had already taken out her phone, and Ishida were also attracted over, looking shocked.
A stack of plates fell heavily to the ground, fragments reflecting dazzling light under the illumination.
Kiyono looked at the plates shattered all over the ground, stunned for two seconds as if he hadn't reacted, then hurriedly bent down.
"I'm terribly sorry! I'll clean this up right away!"
Standard bowing, pure craftsman spirit.
The dining customers cast strange looks, while the surrounding servers hurriedly came over to help with cleaning tools. Seeing this situation, Yanami's eyes lit up. She directly took this opportunity to come to Kiyono's side, put on gloves, and helped him clean up the fragments.
"It's rare for Kiyono-kun to make a mistake," Yanami said quietly to him.
"I'm not a robot—making mistakes is very normal," Kiyono said with his head down, voice calm.
"Is that so..." Yanami tilted her head and for some reason showed a sunflower-like smile.
The servers here were cleaning up fragments together, while Ishida on the other side clicked his tongue with some displeasure. But he also knew that after this interruption, there was completely no opportunity today...
9 PM, after the restaurant closed.
Manager Shiho symbolically scolded Kiyono once, telling him to be more careful next time, and docked half an hour's wages. That was the end of it.
The other seniors didn't care much either—they were mostly well-intentioned, since anyone who worked long enough had made mistakes. Rather, it was already quite rare for Kiyono to only make an error now.
The staff successively clocked out.
The store manager left with the customers, then the supervisor, the chef... And the important work of mopping the floor until it shone and arranging ingredients neatly naturally fell to Japan's hope—the Reiwa era man.
Fortunately, there was overtime pay.
"Today I absolutely must earn back the lost coins!"
Kiyono clenched his fist, took out the large mop, and huffed and puffed as he dragged it back and forth across the floor. His hands worked while his brain fantasized about the novel's plot. The clear water in the bucket beside him became muddy after multiple washings.
When he came back to his senses, the shop was completely deserted.
Kiyono put down the mop and looked up.
In the restaurant, every part of the floor was clean. But there wasn't a single person around. The half of the area he'd finished cleaning had the lights turned off. Through the transparent windows, he could see the moon hanging high in the night sky—extremely beautiful and extremely lonely.
The streets outside had already fallen into slumber.
Whether it was the lights from homes or the aroma of dinner, everything had dissipated into the deep night.
"Today, I also carried through my convictions," Kiyono sighed lightly.
But then, he suddenly heard sounds coming from the back kitchen.
"Kiyono-kun! I'm here to help you!"
A bright voice as if to dispel the night sky.
Kiyono turned around in surprise and saw a flash of blue coming toward him.
The girl's skirt hem and hair swayed slightly as she ran. She brushed back her hair strands and put her hands behind her back, her smile sweet and charming under the moonlight.
"Why are you still here?" Kiyono asked in surprise. Since the girl usually had to attend school, she almost never worked overtime in the evenings.
"Be-because I wanted the overtime pay!" Yanami's eyes rolled around as her cherry-colored lips parted, speaking naturally.
...You've been buying too many snacks lately!
"I've already finished cleaning the kitchen area. Once we get this place done, we can leave!" The blue-haired girl grinned.
"Amazing, amazing."
"Don't use that tone like you're praising a little kid..." Yanami dissatisfiedly nudged him lightly with her elbow, then her expression quietly became gentler. "But Kiyono-kun really works hard. All the seniors are praising you!"
Kiyono was noncommittal. If you don't suffer now, you'll suffer greatly later! He felt the simulated version of himself could continue working hard!
"Hey, Kiyono-kun, what do you usually do when you're not working?"
The girl raised her eyes and actively asked this slightly sensitive question that she normally wouldn't ask.
Kiyono didn't know how to answer. Should he say he was holed up in internet cafes writing novels? In most people's eyes, that would definitely be seen as self-destructive behavior. Before something succeeded, there was no need to boast about it.
Seeing him stumble over his words, Yanami very considerately directed the topic to herself: "Hmph, could it be you're secretly playing games? As for me, when I have time, I go searching for different delicious foods!"
I could have guessed that! Kiyono complained, "That's not really something to be proud of saying!"
"But... I've been dieting lately." Yanami's pride disappeared, turning into dejection.
"Give me half your snacks."
"No way!"
The two chatted about such trivial daily matters, but as they talked, the girl suddenly said out of nowhere: "Thank you."
Her voice was so small it could have been mistaken for a hallucination.
Before Kiyono could react, Yanami was already smiling as she started the next topic.
"..."
What kind of person was Little Senpai?
The blue-haired girl looked up ahead. In front of her was the restaurant's transparent window, and the reflection on the glass showed the boy's face. From what she knew now, the young man was kind to others, acted steadily, had a self-disciplined and resolute personality. He clearly sacrificed himself to help others yet sought no reward in return. This was the first time she'd met such an outstanding peer.
At the same time, he also hid many mysteries. Why was someone so young working part-time? Why wasn't he in school anymore? Why was he working so desperately...
She... wanted to understand Kiyono better.