“Taki, do you know what you want?”

Prompted by Tsukasa, I stop dissecting the café and let my eyes fall to the heavy, leather-bound menu.

“…! I—I could live for a month on how much these pancakes cost!”

“What era are you from, again?” Takagi laughs.

“Umm…”

I stress about it for a little while and then remember: Oh. Right. This is a dream. Well, in that case, why not? It’s Taki Tachibana’s money anyway. I’ll just eat whatever I want.

Ahhhh, what a great dream…

The pancakes are the heavyweight kind, a fortress solidly flanked by things like mango and blueberries. After finishing them, I sip cinnamon coffee, deeply satisfied.

Tweedle.

The smartphone in my pocket chirps… Huh. There are an awful lot of angry-vein symbols in this text.

“…Agh! What’ll I do? It says I’m late for work! Somebody who’s probably my boss is mad at me!”

“Wait, you had a shift today?” asks Takagi.

“You better hurry and go, then,” says Tsukasa.

“Right!” I hastily stand. Oh, but…

“What’s up?”

“Umm… Where do I work again?”

“……Say what?”

The two boys have soared past disgust. They seem about ready to snap. Gimme a break. I know absolutely nothing about this guy!

“Excuse me—isn’t our order ready yet?”

“Taki! Go take table twelve’s order!”

“This isn’t what I asked for.”

“Taki! I told you, we’re out of the truffles!”

“Is our check ready yet?”

“Taki, you’re in the way! Move!”

“Taki, you idiot, do your job!”

“Taki!”

The place is a dauntingly ritzy Italian restaurant.

It’s a two-story building that’s open all the way up, atrium-style. The ceiling is hung with sparkling chandeliers, and there are big propellers up there, too, spinning slowly. I’ve seen something like them in a movie. Taki Tachibana is a bow tie–wearing waiter, and at dinnertime, the restaurant is hellishly busy.

I’m being swept this way and that by a muddy torrent of confusion, getting orders wrong, serving them wrong, getting tsked at by customers and yelled at by the chefs. Come on, people, I’ve never worked here before! Actually, I’ve never worked a part-time job before, period! This is a total nightmare! Waaaah, seriously, when am I gonna wake up?! This is all your fault, stupid Taki Tachibana!

“—’Scuse me. You. Boy.”

“Huh? Uh, yes?!”

I’ve already gone a little ways past the customer who flagged me down, and I turn back hastily. How am I supposed to know to respond to “boy,” huh?

Wow. The man’s an obvious thug, complete with open-collared shirt, gold chain, and lots of clunky rings. Still, if you go to the next city over from my town, there are a lot of guys like him hanging out in front of the station. His type feels a little more familiar to me than the celebrity-esque luster of the other customers. When he speaks, there’s a thin smarm in his voice:

“Listen. There was a toothpick in my pizza.”

“Huh?”

Mr. Thug picks up the very last slice of basil pizza with his fingertips. There’s a toothpick sticking out of the edge where it was sliced, basically screaming that someone jabbed it in there after the fact. Maybe he’s joking around with me. I’m bewildered, unsure how to respond, and Mr. Thug continues with a seemingly fixed smile.