Restaurant Of In Between Chapter 9: Taiga

I woke earlier than usual today, that's why I started jogging outside my neighborhood. It's been a while since I've done something like this as I usually just do exercise indoors rather than outdoors.

Sweat was pouring out of my body, as I ran throughout the neighborhood. I'm not sure how many kilometers I've run, but it's sufficient to say that it's probably 3-4 at the very least.

(A/N: No way I'd call kilometers ‘miles’.)

In the midst of my morning jogging exercise, all of the sudden someone touched my shoulder making me flinch and stop my movement.

I shifted my gaze toward the culprit and saw a familiar face. “Fujimura-sensei.”

A woman with brown hair, riding a scooter grinned at me. “Akihiko-kun! You can call me Fujimaru, since we're outside of school, plus you already graduated anyway!”

This cheerful woman was my English teacher last year, and also Shiro’s guardian, but frankly I think it's the other way around.

Because Shiro is way more mature than this adult woman.

The said adult suddenly glared at me. “Are you thinking something bad about me?”

‘Shit, how sharp is this woman’s intuition?’ Thankfully I had plenty of experience of how to avoid escalating the situation.

“No, not at all. I'm just wondering where are you going early this morning.” I lied and deflected the subject to another, perfect way to avoid destruction.

Thankfully, she wasn't too bright and immediately believed him. “Oh, well. I'm buying groceries for Shiro, I can't believe that girl forgot to buy some yesterday, that girl is completely hopeless without me.”

Hearing that ridiculous statement, I let out a strained laugh of how inaccurate that claim is. “Haha, I suppose..”

Shiro of all people would be helpless without her? It's the other way around.

“Anyway! I think this is the first time I've seen you jogging around the neighborhood, is there any special occasion?” Taiga asked curiously.

I shook my head and replied. “Nothing really, I just woke up earlier than usual and I thought I should jog for a bit before taking a bath.”

“I see, I see…” Taiga nodded, then said. “By the way, I heard from Shiro yesterday that she visited your place a few days ago.”

Technically it's my family restaurant she visited, but it's not totally wrong to say that she visited my place as I lived there too. I replied with a nod. “She did, I was honestly surprised that she even bothered to visit me, not to mention early in the morning.”

While I'm familiar with Shiro and all, I don't think we're close enough to visit each other's houses, which is why her visit a few days ago was unexpected.

But of course, it's not that I mind. After all, who wouldn't want a beautiful girl to visit me?

There's literally no way I'd be displeased by that, not to mention it's Shiro, one of the most popular girls in my former school, she's definitely as popular as Rin Tohsaka.

The so-called school idol, despite being just a first year, she quickly gained her fame due to her looks, grades and personality.

Although, I feel like there's something going on with Tohsaka, she's beautiful and all, but isn't she too perfect?

It feels like her entire persona was crafted rather than being genuine, but there's no way I could prove that.

Then suddenly, I noticed Taiga was giving me an odd look. “And you don't find that strange..?”

I blinked at her weird question, I mean I do find it odd but from the way she says it. It's like it's something more. “I mean, she just wanted to visit a friend?”

She was looking at me like she couldn't believe I just said that, then she muttered. “I can't believe there's two of them…”

What does she mean by that..?

“You know what, nevermind. Anyway, mind telling me what happened between the two of you when she visited your place because she's real tight, not mentioning what occurred that day.”

Well, there's no harm telling her what happened that day. It was like it was anything special anyway.

And so I started retelling what happened that day.

—

I finished jogging later than I predicted, but then again there's no way for me to know that Fujimaru-sensei started talking to me in the middle of my exercise.

But regardless, talking to her did land me a promise that she would visit my restaurant later, and she might become a regular too.

Who knows, she might bring me some of her friends to try my restaurant after she tried my food.

But then again, she has a personal chef in the form of Shiro Emiya, that's why I'll do my best to surpass her.

After I finished taking a bath, cleaning and arranging anything within my restaurant. It was time for me to open my establishment.

—-


While waiting for a customer, I started at my ‘quest’ progress.

[ Total number of customers: 12/20 (In-progress) ]

[ Total revenue: 1,000,000/1,000,000 (Complete) ]

Thankfully the total customer also applied to the customers who aren't from another world, but overall customers in my world and others.

To be honest, when I saw this goal, I thought the customer was the first to be filled after all, a million yen isn't exactly a small sum.

But unexpectedly it's the first one to fill, thanks to that elf yesterday, she was loaded and didn't care about money.

Then again, she's a completely different species from me, which is why her value is completely different from humans.

—

It didn't take long for customers to appear, most of my parents regulars in the past coming back for nostalgia. It seems that news is starting to spread about my family restaurant reopening.

It was good, and thanks to that I managed to get 3 new customers or old, because those 3 were previously regulars of this restaurant a decade ago.

After those from my world finished their meal, the people from other worlds started to appear in my place.

“Welcome, still the usual dish Mikami-san?” I asked the salary man.

He nodded. “Yeah, the same as usual, by the way do you have an extension for these?”

He took out a PC set in the backpack he brought, and I couldn't help but smile wryly at this. “Yeah, I'll be back.”

He's totally treating this place as a hangout location rather than a restaurant, not that mind, I'm totally cool with it as long as it doesn't disturb anyone.

—

It didn't take long for Subaru, Kirito and Saitama to arrive, and they gathered at a single table where the PC was placed.

I know exactly what they are waiting for, they were waiting for Suzuki Satorou to arrive with the ‘goods’, or whatever that is.

And finally the man of the hour arrived, he closed the door and took his mask off. “Sorry, did I keep you guys waiting?”

“No, no not at all Suzuki-san, you arrived at the perfect time.” Mikami said with an easy going smile.

Despite just knowing each other for a short time, they're already on a first name basis, well considering their similar names.

It wasn't a surprise, in fact calling them by their last name makes it confusing, that's why everyone uses their first name to call someone.

“Here is it.” Suzuki placed a USB on the table.

“Alright, let's plug it in. Are you sure this would work on this kind of PC? I mean, since your world is a hundred years ahead of mine..”

“No, it works perfectly fine. PC’s didn't change much in the future.”

“If you say so..”

Then Mikami plugged the USB from the CPU.

“Holy shit, what's with this file size? If I didn't delete my other existing game beforehand, there's no way this would fit my storage.” Mikami was honestly surprised.

Subaru was also stunned. “What the heck is that game size..?! I don't think any existing CPU in my world could have handled that much…”

Kirito wasn't affected by this. “Eh, I've seen way bigger things.”

Subaru scowled in his direction and said. “It's because your world has entered the Virtual Reality era much earlier than our world combined.”

Kirito could only shrug at that, not minding the bite, hey it wasn't his fault that his world is technology advanced.

And thus the boys opened the game. It took a while to load and after that a heavenly sight greeted their eyes.

“Oh my god…it's too realistic..”

In front of them was a game called Erotic Elves Version 7.

Basically an eroge.

“So…who's gonna play..?” Kirito asked.

“I will!” Subaru was quick to volunteer.

Too quick in fact.

It was probably well-known by this point that Subaru seemed to have an elf fetish.

Not that we judge him for that, I mean it could have been worse.

—

While they were immersed with their gameplay. I finished cooking with the dishes they ordered.

“Subaru! Why did you pick Ella anyway?! She's like a generic innocent girl that you can see in every anime, too overrated!”

“Shush, she's my type of girl, you can choose anyone after I finish my run.”

“Really..? A white hair elf..?”

“Don't judge me! I'm trying to focus here..”

While the two teenagers were arguing, which was Kirito and Subaru.

The adults on the other hand said, Mikami. “Can you guys continue..?! I'm genuinely curious about what will happen next.”

Shaking my head with a smile, I went to their table and placed the tray that contained the food they ordered.

“Here's your food.”

They thanked me and resumed their gameplay.

After a few minutes, finally the plot reached a certain point that there's an incoming sex scene.

Everyone, including myself, was glued to the screen. Interested in what's gonna happen in this scene.

And suddenly the door to my restaurant opened, making Subaru panicked and closed the game without saving.

“Dude what the hell..?! Why did you close the game!”

“Sorry, sorry! It was a muscle memory. I thought it was my parents when I heard the door opened!” Subaru replied in embarrassment and shame.

It was sufficient to say that everyone was disappointed in Subaru, although Mikami was understanding since he could relate to Subaru on some level.

I checked the person who went through the door, it was a teenager with dirty and messy blonde hair. He also wore an eye patch.

Wearing a white t-shirt that definitely looks like it went to a war considering the yellowish color on it, and a brown leather jacket.

However, what was most unusual about this guy was the orange dog-like thing in his arms.

Despite the strangeness of it, I cleared my throat and greeted him with my practiced professional smile. “Welcome to my restaurant, feel free to take a seat.”

—

A/N: It's kinda obvious who this guy is, but for those who aren't sure, take a guess.

Anyway, it feels gay the way I wrote about the file size xD. It was definitely weird to me. I definitely cringed when I wrote the scene.