Waki's past

Zuina entered the restaurant looking like she just rolled out of bed. Her eyes were also red and had dark circles under them.

"Girl, you look like a wreck. Go back home and get some more sleep," Waki stated.

"No, I'm done crying. It's time to get back to work," Zuina stated as she headed for the changing room.

"Well in that case, you better have a ton of makeup on ya," Waki smiled.

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Zuina emerged in her work uniform and a face covered in makeup as she put on a smile and began serving.

"I'm glad she recovered so quickly. She was crying so much last night, I wasn't sure if she'd be in today," Matcha stated as she watched Zuina.

"She said she was done crying, so I guess she's good. She say anything about Rika?" Waki asked.

"No, though I guess she's choosing to keep things professional between them."

Zuina seemed to be back to normal, though the revelation of what happened with Hinari continued to weigh heavily on her. She was also unsure of whether to truly blame Rika for the entire mess. She had been given the option to take a few days off by Rika, but decided to go to work to try and make herself feel better.

"And what would you like to order?" Zuina asked.

"Give me some of those new Col Masaru's chicken!" a young boy giddily requested.

"Col huh?"

"Oh shit, she came in after we got the menu update," Waki sweated as she ran for the assist.

"Ah, you say you want the new menu item that just came out an hour ago? Well lucky you, we still got plenty of chicken left, but it's running out fast. Would your mother like some too?" Waki asked.

"Oh, no thanks. just some for him," the boy's mother smiled.

"Got it. Now go tell the Col," Waki smiled as she patted Zuina on the shoulder.

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"Thanks for the assist Waki," Zuina said as she took a breather.

"No worries, it was my fault for not tellin you when you walked in," Waki smiled.

"I've been meaning to ask you. The- er one of the managers-"

"Just call her Komachi-san. That's the easy and professional way."

"*Ahem* Komachi-san mentioned that you were an underworld assassin. Is this true?"

Waki paused for a bit before composing herself.

"Yeah, though my reasons for doing so weren't so great. See me and my sis were raised solely by our father. He's not the greatest guy, but has a solid job as a science teacher. Well, one day some debt collectors came to the house while I was the only one home. We were already poor as is, and those guys were being pretty mean to me. Sensing that they only had bad intent, I decided to poison them with some tea."

"Poi-Mmph!?"

"Not so loud," Waki whispered as she removed her hand from Zuina's mouth and continued.

I was only 7 at the time but I killed 3 grown men with a little poison. The only reason I didn't get caught is cause I got rid of the bodies with my sister's help before our dad came home. The only problem, was that I couldn't stop killing afterword. It all started when I found out my sis was doing underworld hit jobs. See she's pretty good at shooting and was able to rake in some big dough even at her young age. Once she found out I killed those debt collectors, I got roped in. I continued doing it for a few years until my sis got caught. That's also when I met Rika."

"What happened?"

"My sis got caught by government agents. Never saw her again. I only ended up avoiding the same fate thanks to picking a fight with Rika."

"A fight?"

"Yeah, she stole a kill and I got mad. She ended up kicking my ass, but didn't kill me and chucked me in a garbage bin. Though that's what ended up saving me. Turns out the target I thought I poisoned had some immunity and wasn't dead. He was weak, but not dead. Rika ended up finishing him off, and thus threw all the suspicion on her. Unfortunately, my sis got caught trying to find me and was taken away. At first I was pissed at Rika, but then I realized I was wrong. Though I never got to see her again until we coincidentally enrolled in Tabemono."

"And how did your father handle the news of your sister."

"Oh, he was over the moon."

"HUH!?"

"Oh, uh guess I skipped a part. See I guess my sis ended up getting recruited by the government instead of imprisoned. Thus she wrote that she got a government job."

"But you said you never saw her again."

"Yeah. Haven't seen her since, but she sends letters. Also spotted her in news footage guardin important folk. Though haven't been face to face with her since that day. I then quite the underworld life and decided to try cooking since I learned it in order to enhance my poisoning. Pretty ironic that's the excuse Rika used to convince her old man to let her go to Tabemono. I did still have to make some kills, though they were all against goons from the underworld that came after me. I also did some cover kills for Rika, though I guess they weren't enough to convince her old man. So yeah, that's my story."

Zuina paused as she digested everything.

"I can see why you two are close. You're idiots," Zuina grumbled.

"Idiots?"

"Maybe it's something I can't understand since I'm not an underworld killer, but why do you keep killing if you don't want to?"

"Because sadly it's our instinct. We kill our foes cause that's the easy way to solve the problem."

"Why not just subdue them?"

"Sure we can, but then what? We can't just turn em over to the cops. They'd probably blab about us and then we'd get arrested. I know I said I continued to kill, but like I said, everyone aside from like one or two guys I killed for Rika were bad people."

"I'm asking why would you kill to help Rika."

"Oh, well simple. She would be screwed if she had risked the mission and got caught. If I got caught, no biggie, I had nothin much goin for me aside from my crush on Matcha."

"You shouldn't throw your life away."

"I wasn't, worse case I would've been jailed, but my timed poison did the trick."

"Would it really be worth going to prison for her?"

"Yeah, she saved me from getting blamed for poisoning that government agent. That likely helped sis too as they would've been harsher on her if I had gotten the kill. All I was doing at Tabemono was returnin the favor to a friend."

Zuina went quiet as Waki simply smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

"No need to sort everything now. Just let it soak. Like Col Masaru's chicken soaking in that fried oil."

Waki then walked away as Zuina sighed and returned to work.