An Employment

As I sleepily blinked my eyes open, I found that my right arm was outstretched, like it was trying to grasp something. I quickly retracted it, using the tips of my index finger to brush away the residue of tears from the corners of my eyes.

“Hey, you all right there?” I heard a voice from across the room.

Sitting up, I found myself lying on Martha’s old sofa, covered by a scratchy blanket. I gave a stretch, and looked back at her. “Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Well, it's just that you were muttering and tossing and turning a whole lot in your sleep.”

I groaned, rubbing my temples. I hadn’t had those flashbacks in quite a while, and I thought they were gone for good before last night. Maybe it was reawakened by talking too much about my past. But the dream did bring something back to my attention. “Yeah, I’m good. But, um, tell me… are you really okay with all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying…” I furrowed by brow. “Martha, I’ve seen people die and I’ve killed people before. Mostly in self-defense, but that doesn’t change the fact of the matter. Are you sure you’re fine with letting me stay here like this?”

Martha seemed taken aback by this comment, and she set down what she was holding in her hands. There was silence for a moment, before she opened her mouth again. “Mm. I know the circumstances were different in your world, so there’s no telling what could have transpired there. Things would be different for a lot of people if they were born in your world, I think.”

“So, you accept it?”

“I can’t say it makes me extremely comfortable, but yeah. When I first met you, I said that I’d do my best to provide you with adequate food and shelter, right? When I make a promise, I don’t just back down.” She huffed, and picked her tools back up. “Jeez, put a little more faith in me, will you?”

“… Yeah. Sorry.” I scratched my head. Martha’s words made me feel kind of awkward, so I decided to change the subject. “Smells surprisingly good in here. You cooking something?”

“What’s ‘surprisingly’ supposed to mean?” She stirred something in a pan. “Yeah, well, I felt pretty bad about making yesterday’s dinner such a downer, so I decided to compensate by cooking breakfast.”

“You know, compensations only work if they can actually make up for what was lost.” I eyed the pan suspiciously. “Right now, I’m not too sure about that.”

“Do you really have to counter my every sentence with a wary comment?” She flipped something and turned the heat off the pan. “I might not even give you breakfast, then.”

“Wait, no. Apologies. I want food.”

“That’s what I thought.” Martha scooped a pile of yellow stuff onto a plate, and set it on the small wooden table in the middle of the room. “Get up. I’m not serving you breakfast in bed.”

Pushing my body off the creaky sofa, I found the floor cold, so I moved quickly to the table. Sitting down on a chair, I rubbed the soles of my feet together. “Is it always this cold?”

“I can’t afford heating all the time, so I mostly just live through it.” Martha looked somewhat proud of this.

I let out a long breath of air. Once again, regretting choosing to live here.

“I do have slippers and bathrobes and stuff, but they’re all for me. I don’t have extra for you, since I’ve never had a boy–” She caught herself. “Because, I don’t have guests over often.”

I poked at the plate of yellow goop. “Is this the boxed Ma-krony stuff?”

“If you mean macaroni, then yes.”

Bringing a spoonful of stuff to my mouth, I actually found the goop quite tasty. This I found a little weird, considering it came from a tiny box, and was cooked by Martha of all people. Must have been some foul play involved. But it tastes fine, so no complaints here. Before long, I had finished the plate.

“You finished that quick. Wonder if it’s because you need more energy to heal yourself?” Martha herself wasn’t even halfway finished with her dish. “By the way, how are those injuries?”

“Oh, they’re basically all good.” I lifted up my shirt, and showed her where the bloody hole had healed to a faint pink scar. “Told you I was going to be fine.”

I found Martha had covered her face with her hands again, as her face burned red. “We really have to fix your problem of stripping in front of people!”

“What? How is it my problem this time?” I asked, scowling. “I mean, you were the one who asked about my injuries in the first place.”

“A worded description would have been fine!”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” I pulled my shirt back over my body. “But I guess I do have to eat more, considering that food can be turned into Manalite energy.”

“Well, there’s more in the pan, if you want.” Her face was still formed into a little pout, as she glanced away.

“Don’t mind if I do, then.”

I stalked over to the counter to grab the pan, but my foot nudged something soft. I looked down, to see the cat monster crouched down. I shot back, and snapped my head to Martha. “It’s docile to you. You get the pan.”

This seemed to be incredibly amusing to her, but I couldn’t see why. Martha chuckled into her hands, and grinned at me. I didn’t like the glint in her eyes. “Are you really that scared of little Chestnut?”

“Not scared, but alert to danger. I’m adaptable so that I can survive.”

“Oh, come on.” Martha walked over, and picked the cat up. “See, he’s not so bad. Wanna touch him?”

“Not at all. Stop that.” I backtracked away, as she menacingly drew closer with the beast in her hands.

Martha cornered me to a wall. “I’m sure you two will be good friends.”

“This is why you don’t have more friends, sadist!” I raised my palm. “I will torch you both. This is not a bluff.”

“I’ll put him down if you admit you’re scared.”

“What are you, a kid?”

“I’m a kid with a cat.” She held the cat closer. “Come on, Don.” The cat’s beady eyes seemed to pierce through me, and I again took note of its daggerlike claws.

“F-Fine! That thing is a threat to my personal wellbeing, so I’m naturally wary of it! Now put it down!”

“So, you’re scared?”

I grit my teeth. Bear through this, Donnelius Conqaide, if you wish to return to your old world. Suppressing my voice, I spoke as quietly as I could possibly manage. “… Yes.”

“See, that wasn’t hard at all.” Martha set the cat down, which promptly hissed at me and ran underneath the sofa.

“You know, I’m never forgiving you for this.”

“Oh, who knows.” She gave a little smirk. “I’m a very forgive-able person.”

“I’d recommend you stop talking soon.” With the furry devil out of the way, I walked to the pan and began shoveling macaroni down my throat.

“By the way, Don.”

“What is it now?” I irritably answered, my mouth stuffed.

“I’ve been thinking. What are you going to do when I’m at work?” She asked.

“Not sure. Stay here and think of escape plans, or something.”

“That’s not very productive, is it?”

“I guess so. What’s your point?”

“Recently, one of our staff dropped out due to family problems, so we’re sort of looking for a new member.” Martha glanced over. “So, you wanna try it?”

“Me? I don’t know anything about how things work around here.”

“Don, the bar’s not very high. I mean, the minimum age for registry at the restaurant is thirteen, so I’d say you have a pretty okay chance at getting in.”

“I feel like an insult was buried somewhere in there.”

“Also, I’m sharing my home with you. Don’t expect to live here without making some money of your own.”

“You’re petty.”

“No, I’m not. In your words,” Martha struck a pose, and deepened her voice, “I’m adaptable so that I can survive.”

“Shut up.”

“But, how about it? You’re not getting any better chances, so you should really consider this.”

I tapped my chin. Actively working in this world would give me a better grasp of how daily life was like, and also help me get a sense on the currency system. Additionally, blending in with civilians would make it harder for bounty hunters to find me. They know I’m somewhere around this area, but it’s impossible to lock on to a specific person, so getting a job would camouflage me well.

Rolling my half-healed shoulder, I looked up at Martha from the table. “Yeah, sure. I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Welcome to the team, then.” Martha gave me a thumbs-up, smiling. “Well, after a few short hours of paperwork and interviews.”

###

As it turned out, those few hours were not short at all. I was forced to speak with one or two classy-looking people, which I guessed would be about the equivalent of kingdom higher-ups in this world. They asked a bunch of seemingly irrelevant questions, and I did try to answer as truthfully as I could, but there were things that I had absolutely no idea how to answer. Luckily, Martha remembered to give me a quick briefing beforehand, and so I just answered those questions as we had practiced. They also asked for a bunch of documents that we couldn’t provide, but Martha brought the poster for recruitment from somewhere in her house, and managed to convince them that they wouldn’t be needed in this specific case. Apparently, for now anyone would be fine as a temporary replacement for the man named Markus who recently dropped out, since the local restaurant’s shifts revolved around a set group of people. The higher-ups seemed to agree, under the condition that the restaurant would evaluate my quality after one month, and then decide whether to keep me as a permanent member or not. After several stamps on several papers, it was finally over.

“Ah, that was exhausting.” I stretched my back, and let out a long stream of air. “You know, back in my world you could just hand over a silver piece and be done with it.”

“That sounds awfully disorganized.” Martha filed the stamped papers back into the purse slung over her shoulder. “In any case, that about settles it. I just need to show these papers to the manager for verification, and you’re good to go.”

“Managers, papers, this is all so complicated.” I complained. “Why can’t someone just do what they want?”

“Do what they want, huh?” Tapping her fingers on her sleeve, Martha glanced over at me. “That way of life might have worked back in your world, but you’re going to need to adjust to how we do things here. Here, you can’t just do as you please depending on how much power you hold.”

“Is that really true, though? From my experience, wherever you go, the powerful never have any true restrictions. It might be harder to see in more sophisticated places than in a group of barbarians, but the people in control always find a way to get their way,” I muttered scornfully. “That’s part of the reason I got sent here in the first place. I hated the way the powerful did things, and they hated the way I tried to fight back. That’s why they got rid of me.”

For a moment, Martha was silent. Then, she gave a wistful smile, and spoke. “Is that so? I guess you’re right, in a way.”

“I feel like we’re thinking a little too hard here, and I don’t really enjoy that.” I cracked my neck, sighing. “Let’s just get this over with quickly.”

“Oh, don’t make it seem so bad.” Martha said. “Look, just imagine you’re meeting a group of new friends.”

“How can you automatically assume you’ll become friends with a group of total strangers?”

Martha exhaled. “This is why you didn’t have many friends.”

The building where the interviews took place wasn’t too far from the restaurant, which is why Martha said we were walking instead of taking one of the fancy modern cars. Though that could just have been a quick excuse, as she probably wouldn’t have paid the money to ride a vehicle even if the building was farther away, on account of her stinginess. The air was cool enough to be refreshing but not cold, and we walked in silence for a while. I actually found it sort of relaxing, having to just walk for a little bit without feeling constantly on the run, accompanied by the muted bustling of the town. But it was foolish for me to think that I’d get to escape human interaction for so long.

Martha burst open the metallic back doors of the Lonely Oasis, revealing a large kitchen area, where three figures were sitting. “Hey, everyone.”

“Hey, Martha.” The first person was the tall man Chris whom I recognized from last night, lounging on a foldable chair. When his eyes swept over me, they lit up. “And you! You’re the not-boyfriend from yesterday. What’cha doing here?”

“To everybody who doesn’t know, this is Don.” Martha motioned to me, and I made an awkward little hand gesture. “Chris, I believe you two met last night.”

The small woman sitting next to Chris peered up without saying a word, and looked back down onto her tablet.

“Isn’t this an employee’s only zone?” A skinny man with spiky blonde hair sat atop a metallic table, watching me with inquisitive eyes. “I don’t think you can just bring your friends in here, Martha.”

“Well, I remembered that group four is missing a member now that Markus dropped out, so I decided to make him a temporary member.”

“So, we’re going to be working together, then?” The blonde man dropped down from the table, and walked right up to me. I felt it was hard to accurately describe his face, which was slim and angular, paired with a set of bright blue eyes. Above all, though, he somehow succeeded in looking both regal and scrawny. “My name’s Connor. Nice hair, Don. Where’d you get it done?”

“Uh.”

“He does it himself, at his home,” Martha quickly filled in for me.

“You’d think he could answer that himself, then,” Connor laughed. “You don’t look like you’re Caucasian, either. Maybe a little bit Asian? Where you from?”

“I’m…” Only then did I realize I had no idea of the geographical layout of this world. “I’m from where my mother was born.”

Connor tilted his head. “Martha, you sure this guy’s okay? He could be… dangerous.”

“Connor, stop it.” Chris came over and pat Connor’s head once. “You shouldn’t be greeting our guest by asking excessive questions in the first place. He seems like he’s not from around here, so I’m sure he’s still figuring things out. No need to stress him.”

“Eh, fair.” Connor shrugged, and sauntered over to the woman staring at her tablet. “Jasmine, not gonna say hi to our new work buddy?”

At his words, I turned my eyes to look at the woman seated across from me. She had pale skin and jet-black hair that was pulled back in a ponytail, with piercing dark eyes that looked harder than those of Connor or Chris. And even though she was seated at the moment, I could already tell with a glance that she was quite small in stature. The woman was probably shorter than even Martha, who I towered over.

In response to Connor, the woman pulled out what looked like a small speaker from her ear, and looked up for only a second without ever meeting my eye. “I’m Jasmine.”

I frowned. “Hmm. Cold, isn’t she?”

“Don’t mind her,” Chris assured me. “She’s usually like that to strangers, no matter who they are.”

“Yeah,” Connor nodded solemnly. “When I first started working here, she’d only call me ‘Scarecrow Boy’ for the first few weeks.”

At this, Jasmine turned her head to Connor irritably, but kept silent. I had no idea what a ‘scarecrow’ was, but I emphasized with him.

“Anyway, here are the papers that we got stamped.” Martha pulled out the file full of papers, handing them to Chris. “Here, take a look at ‘em.”

As I saw Chris shuffling through the papers, something suddenly came to me. “Hold on, you’re the manager?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I get things organized around here, but I do work as well,” Chris said with a grin. “Say, did Martha tell you about how the group system works around here?”

I turned to Martha, who then glanced away innocently. “No, she didn’t. Care to explain?”

“Well, there are five distinct groups that rotate around and do work at the Oasis. Groups one and two,” Chris pointed to a cluster of around eight people busying around the kitchen, “mostly do all the cooking here. We at groups three to five are in charge of serving the food, doing the cleaning, et cetera.”

“You say that, but why doesn’t our group seem to be doing anything right now?” I asked.

“Right now, it’s only three o’clock, so we haven’t really opened up yet. When we actually work, we swap around so that one group doesn’t have to carry all the burden. The restaurant is open for twelve hours a day, from four at night to four in the morning, and each group ends up only really having to work for six hours. We’re considered the ‘day shift’, since we go home at about ten o’clock and don’t have to work so late.”

“Having late opening hours means there’s no need to stress about sleeping in too,” Connor grinned.

“But, yeah. It looks like you’re all set for the temporary position here,” Chris said, folding his reading glasses and sliding them into his pocket.

“So, he’s actually a new member, then? It’s confirmed?” Connor asked.

“I don’t see any reason why not.”

“Then, are we going to do the thing?” He continued. “The thing that you guys did for me, when I joined?”

“Hold on, hold on, what thing?” I asked frantically, holding up my palms. “Do I need to go through some weird ritual of initiation, or something like that?”

“Well, more of a tradition.” Chris tapped his head. “And I don’t know why Connor is framing it so ominously. It’s nothing too special; I guess you could call it a bonding experience.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that they’re going to bring you to a shopping mall,” Martha answered with a light smile. “Don’t know when the tradition started, but it’s not ending anytime soon.”

I instinctively tried to ask what a ‘shopping mall’ was, but then remembered I probably shouldn’t ask that question in front of all these people.

“Jasmine, you’re coming too, right?” Connor asked, dangling his legs off the side of the table.

“There’s no reason I wouldn’t. Tradition’s tradition,” Jasmine breathed, sliding off the chair and crossing her arms. “Besides, I have things I need to buy there as well. It would be convenient for me.”

“It’s decided, then. Martha, when would be a good time to meet up?”

For a moment, Martha just stood there, peeking at something in the distance. Then she snapped back.

“Oh, huh? Sorry, Marissa was just calling me over. Uh, maybe tomorrow afternoon? It’ll be on the weekend, so there’s no rush.” She smiled bashfully. “Be back in a sec.”

As she darted off, I crossed my arms. “What’s the deal with that?”

“Well, I’m not sure on the details between Martha and Marissa, but they seem to help each other out often,” Connor said, before giving a laugh. “Even though they don’t seem to get along very well.”

“Huh.” Marissa seemed to be in another group, so I didn’t see why Martha would know her. Maybe from before she started working here, but that wasn’t too important to me.

The others were busy making plans for the shopping trip, and I knew I wouldn’t really be able to add to the conversation. Really, Connor was making the plans, while Chris and Jasmine kind of just halfheartedly agreed to everything, unable to stop his impetuous flow. Since I quickly grew bored of this, I decided to head over and check on Martha.

As I approached, I saw a tall woman with dark curly hair seem to finish discussing something with Martha. Martha nodded, and sighed as she turned back to where group four was stationed.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Ah!” She exclaimed a jolt, before she realized it was me. “Don! You know, it’s rude to spy on others.”

“What were you talking about with her?”

“Just some stuff on filling out shifts.” Martha rubbed her head. “Honestly, she’s not a great person, and also a total pain. But I owe her some, so I guess it can’t be helped. I just needed to pay her back.”

“But she isn’t in group four.” I pointed out. “How do you know her?”

“She’s my…” She paused. “Well, I’d hate to say friend, but acquaintance from back when I was in school. We’ve practically been doing stuff for each other since back then.”

I peered back at the woman, who was now talking to a man in a thin leather jacket. Through my experiences, I’d learned how to recognize bits of someone’s personality just from watching them, and I could definitely see Martha’s point on how Marissa wasn’t a good person. She had a cocky, selfish air to her, somewhat like that of Eli’s. I guess this judgement was also what led me to trust in Martha at first, despite myself. She had immediately come off to me as a genuine, if not childish, person.

“But, enough about that.” Martha smiled. “Why don’t we get you ready for your first day at work?”