Please Talk To Me, Weird Girl!

Hinoka tapped her fingers along the counter as her food slowly heated up in the microwave, spinning around like a very slow ballet dancer—if the ballet dancer was a mouthwatering beef bowl.

She watched the clock tick by, her stomach growling impatiently as she tried to not glance back at the adorable girl sitting at the table across from her in the break room.

It'd been several hours since Miyami Nozari had shown up at the store, and she had yet to make any sort of conversation again after what the old guy had told her. Instead, the girl just sat at the counter and worked the register, her cheeks still a bit flushed and her eyes a little red. The only sounds that left her mouth were soft murmurs of gratitude and polite greetings to customers.

Despite that, however, Hinoka couldn't help but notice how the girl's presence seemed to lighten the atmosphere of the entire store somehow.

It wasn't anything obvious, but rather something subtle and intangible. Her quiet and wet-cat-like demeanor just did something to her. Maybe it was her long, silky hair, or the delicate, pale skin, or the way her soft brown eyes darted around nervously—but the more Hinoka looked at her, the harder it became to not stare.

It didn't help that she looked so small and frail either. Well, Miyami was a little taller than her, but she looked like she might topple over at the slightest breeze or accidentally break her bones if you squeezed her too hard.

Hinoka sighed, shaking her head. No. Miyami was a coworker. That was it.

She shouldn't be thinking about hugging her, or how nice she might smell, or how cute her nervous smile was. She was not about to start making the same mistakes that had gotten her middle and highschooler self into so much crap before.

"Ah. Um, Amahara-san?"

The sound of Miyami's voice startled Hinoka from her thoughts. She turned around to find the dark-haired girl standing behind her, looking up at her with those adorable, teary brown eyes of hers.

"I-I…" she trailed off, as if unable to complete her sentence. Instead, she frantically grabbed for a pen and paper from a nearby organizer, quickly jotting down something and showing her the note.

Hinoka's eyes narrowed at the cute—but also annoyingly inconvenient—use of paper, before glancing at the message on it.

"…My beef bowl is—SHIT!"

It took her a moment to realize that the microwave had been going for quite some time, and she immediately scrambled to grab her lunch out of the device, nearly burning herself in the process. The beef bowl was hot to the touch, and the scent of the dried-out meat and crispy sauce wafted through the room.

Damn it! She'd gotten distracted. That stupid, malfunctioning thing could only heat up things in intervals of five minutes and five minutes only. And now her food was ruined. All because of Miyami—

Her lips migrated upwards as she banished the thought.

"No, it's not her fault. It's yours, Hinoka."

She didn't deserve to get angry at Miyami. She was just a shy girl trying to help.

"Sorry about that, I got a bit sidetracked," Hinoka apologized as she carried the tray over to the table and sat down, staring at the desiccated corpse of her meal. "Thank you."

Miyami's face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she quickly scribbled down another note.

> You're welcome! (^_-)-☆

Hinoka couldn't help but snort in amusement at the sight. Holy crap, what was she?

She cleared her throat and started digging into her food, trying to ignore how the meat tasted like a piece of sandpaper and how the rice was stuck together like a brick—okay, no, this was disgusting.

"Damn it all," Hinoka sighed, sliding the tray to the side. "Well there goes my meal for the day."

"…" Miyami looked a bit sad, her expression falling.

"Not your fault," she reassured. "This microwave has been broken for a while now, and I always forget to get more cash so I can just walk to the convenience store"

"…" Miyami tilted her head to the side, a small, anxious smile forming on her face, before rushing over to the fridge in the corner of the breakroom. A few moments later, the weird girl came back with a bento box in her hand, carefully placing it on the table.

Hinoka blinked.

"Are you giving me half of your lunch?" she asked, looking down at the neatly packed lunchbox in front of her. It looked delicious: rice, vegetables, chicken katsu, a fried egg, and more. She could almost feel her mouth watering.

She got no response. Instead, Miyami just pushed the entire thing toward her.

"…" Hinoka raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Miyami's face went beet-red as she nodded frantically.

"Are you sure? It looks really good, but… don't tell me you eat like a bird too?"

She immediately regretted the words as they left her mouth. Shit. Miyami was just trying to help, and she was being rude to her. Again. She could already see Miyami shivering from the comment, and her own cheeks started to redden.

"I mean, um. I appreciate the gesture, but… you need to eat too. You're so small already, and if you don't eat anything, you'll probably collapse," she stammered, trying to correct herself.

Yes, that was it. Smooth recovery.

Miyami's eyes widened slightly, and her trembling stopped. Then, her face scrunched up in an adorable pout, and she quickly wrote something down on another sheet of paper and shoved it at her.

> I'm a lot stronger than you think! And I'm not that small!!! (⇀‸↼‶)

Hinoka nearly snorted at the message. So this was how she communicated normally? That was… interesting to say the least. Her written voice sounded way more energetic and bubbly than her verbal one did, and it was amusing to see how she even tried translating emoticons to paper.

Her gaze returned to Miyami, who had her fists clenched tightly and was staring at her with a determined look in her eye. It felt so endearingly bizarre. Miyami was acting tough, yet she still looked like a hamster that'd just choked on a sunflower seed.

"Fine, fine," Hinoka relented, raising her hands up. "But we're sharing, alright?"

Miyami blinked, then she muffled a squeal as her hands started to go for the pen and paper again. However, Hinoka stopped her half-way.

"Nuh-uh. No more writing. If you want to talk to me, use your voice," she chided, pointing a finger at her. "You have a nice one. Don't be afraid to use it."

"…" Her eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at Hinoka, her cheeks still flushed pink.

"Yes, I'm serious. You're a cute girl. Your voice is fine," Hinoka said flatly, rolling her eyes. "I really don't see why—"

*thump*

"…" Hinoka's face elongated as the girl sent her face into the table. Hard.

Crap. Don't tell her that the girl had already gotten brain damage working here.

"Um, hey. Weird lady. Are you okay?" she asked, cautious poking her head to check on her. "You're not bleeding again, are you? Please don't bleed. I can't deal with that."

"…" She got a small groan in response and breathed a sigh of relief. Oh, good. She probably wasn't brain damaged then.

"Come on," Hinoka continued, poking her again. "Sit up. Let's eat, okay? Our lunch break only lasts for so long."

Miyami slowly sat back up, her cheeks still a bright crimson and her eyes watery. "…"

"Okay, that's a good girl. Now come on. Let's dig in—"

*THUMP*

"…Nngh…"

Hinoka sighed, rubbing her temples as she silently judged the face-down, limp noodle across the table.

"What am I going to do with you?" she mumbled. "Seriously."

***

The rest of the day passed by without much incident. A few customers had come and gone, and Hinoka had been busy restocking the shelves and helping people with whatever issues they had. Miyami, meanwhile, had been manning the front desk and checking out customers as much as her strange bird-like voice allowed.

It was a pretty uneventful day, and Hinoka was grateful for that—especially since there weren't any online requests today. The only strange thing had been some guy that'd been loitering around the front.

"Alright, we should probably start closing up now," Hinoka said to Miyami as she flipped the sign on the door to 'Closed'. "I'll do the register. You can go ahead and start cleaning up. Just wipe down the counters and sweep the floors, okay? Make sure to put all the products back where they belong too."

Miyami nodded at her, her face flushing as usual before eagerly shuffling across the floor.

*shuffle-shuffle*

*shuffle*

*shuffle-shuffle*

"…" Hinoka's lips twitched upward at the sight of her awkward shuffle-step walk. If that was how she usually got around, it was no wonder why she'd made out with the ground earlier. Her gait was so stiff and rigid that she looked like a wind-up toy.

She shook her head and laughed softly, deciding not to mentally comment on it anymore. It wasn't like she could really judge anyway, considering her own sharp tongue and prickly way of speaking.

A cactus would probably have a better time of making friends than her. That was part of the reason why she'd flunked all those job interviews right out of university.

Hinoka deflated, shoulders drooping. Well, whatever. Not like any of those jobs were worth working at in the first place. She was perfectly happy doing the bare minimum at the shop here. The pay was still decent so long as she got all of her work done on time, and it was easy to coast by.

She sighed. Right. Time to actually do her job. If they did it quickly, she'd have enough time to go back home and perhaps enjoy an evening jog.

Hinoka punched in the employee number on the computer to unlock the register and began counting the money. Everything seemed to be in order, and she was about to close it when she noticed someone at the front door.

She couldn't make out much aside from their silhouette against the orange glow of the evening sun, but she could tell they were trying to open the door, only to find that it wouldn't budge. They then proceeded to knock on the glass, trying to get someone to let them in.

Miyami immediately paused her shuffling to look, her hands clasped together in front of her chest, and her face contorted in worry as she looked to Hinoka for what to do.

"Just ignore them. We're closed, and they can't see much from outside the glass," Hinoka said with a wave of her hand. "We'd have to turn the lights on for them to be able to see, so they'll leave eventually—"

*RATTLE RATTLE*

"…"

*RATTLE RATTLE*

"…"

*RATTLE RAT—*

"MY GOD! Keep it down, asshole. We're closed! Come back later!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "I'm trying to count here—!"

*CRACK* *thud*

"…" Hinoka and Miyami froze, their eyes widening in horror at the sight before them. A long break ran down the center of the glass door, and the person who'd knocked was no longer there. Only a rock with a note on the pavement.

"…"

Hinoka slowly reached for her phone to dial a number.

Damn it. She wasn't getting that jog in after all.