Order Up! [Open]

[Vice Ysal]

The clattering of cutlery was the the most predominant sound one would hear if or when they ever enter the small restaurant. A restaurant that didn't really have a name but the owner was pretty sure that even if it had one, then the people wouldn't really remember it. Thus it had retained its status of being 'that restaurant' whenever the housewives and groups of friends would pass by along their way. It wasn't quite run down, and actually kept in good condition despite the poor lighting at the front door. Mainly made from wood rather than concrete like most restaurants around and in the city, the restaurant boasts a rather authentic feel for the feudal country side. That is not to say that it had creaky floor boards, or grass growing inside the restaurant. They were at least modernised enough to have running water and electricity as well mind you. The insides were as simple as they come, what with the small lot that the restaurant took up.

It had a scant amount of tables that amounted to 4 big ones meant for at least 4 people and 3 other ones that were meant for couples. A bar counter had also been set up to accommodate anyone that went in alone, or was in the mood for some heavy drinking. A few pillars were erected to hold the weight of the second floor while also acting as the support for the building itself. The place, despite not being air-conditioned, was still quite airy and was anything but stifling. It didn't have all the amenities like those top of the line restaurants but if one was willing to ignore the lack of free water and towels then they'd be able to enjoy the cheap food made available from only the most edible of ingredients.

"Healthy food is best food." Was what the owner often said after all.

Finally arriving at the back of the building, his black hair slightly sticking against the back of his head due to the helmet that kept it safe, Vice fished for the keys he had kept in his pockets and unlocked the back door. Upon entering the employee side of the restaurant, the young man felt the sweet aroma of food wash over him, and the sight of some of his coworkers greeting him morning. Doing the same for them, and making sure to keep his hands off of anything before he freshened up in the employee room, the young man then dashed on ahead so he could start working. With the uniform (a simple pair of slacks, an apron, and a black along sleeve) finally on his person, the young graduate then went on ahead to turn the sign outside the restaurant from 'closed' to 'Open.'

[David Moore]

Dave quietly opened the door into the restaurant. It hadn’t seemed like there were too many people inside. He didn’t want to disturb the quiet. He was completely surprised that the restaurant was completely empty. It probably just opened. He went over to a booth in the corner and sat down, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. He didn’t eat out much. Keeping up the act for school stuff was easy, but he didn’t know how to behave in public settings.

He had never eaten here before, but he figured he might as well try it. The place was a bit gloomy, a bit dusty and dim. He liked dim light, but not dust. He let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding. His arms were crossed into his lap and he glanced around the restaurant nervously. I don’t even know what food they serve here.

A little bit of dust had ended up in his nose and he suddenly felt compelled to sneeze. His nose began to scrunch up as he resisted. He didn’t want to break the quiet of the restaurant. That was the worst, being the only noisemaker in a quiet place, even if there was no one there. He desperately pleaded to the unseen gods for something else to happen to break the silence and rescue him from his torture.

[Vice Ysal]

It was a normal scene to behold. The restaurant was a bit dingy so most of the people who cared a lot about aesthetics never really had the chance to enjoy the place. Still, that was fine for Vice since somehow someway the pay was still pretty good. The lack of work required also allowed him to focus on a couple of things that required his attention, like finding out secrets about the outside world and even scheduling his practice sessions with the arnis and his firearm to make sure he didn't rust over. It was always good to know a bit of self defense after all, and it was way better to actually be proficient in the art of ass kicking.

The young man however raised an eyebrow when not too long into the day, the chime of the door rang in the otherwise empty restaurant to allow a customer in. Vice didn't pay too much stock to what the guy looked like, too surprised at the moment of actually seeing a customer around the place. Putting on his best 'welcoming the customer' smile and carrying with him a menu that held all the delicacies the restaurant had to offer, the employee then quietly moved through the area and found himself by the booth that the newcomer had chosen.

"Welcome, Sir, to our establishment."

Vice began as he gently offered the man the menu before pulling out a small note pad and a pen in order to write the order down. Yes, it seemed to be rather quaint to use a pad for just one order but protocol dictated that he at least keep up appearances of professionalism.

"Please take your time choosing as some of the meals may take a while to be prepared."

[David Moore]

Dave was shocked out of his self-induced torture by the approach of his waiter. With the coming social engagement, Dave immediately felt the urge to sneeze give way to a sense of dread. He hated new people. He opened the menu and quickly scanned the selection. But the waiter was standing right there. He didn't want to keep the guy waiting. He tried to focus in on an item, but the lines began blurring as he began to panic on the inside. There was only one thing to do. He dramatically shut the meu with a smack on the table before handing it to his waiter, he who he barely registered the appearance of. "Surprise Me!" He said, which was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing a picky eater like him could say in the situation. "And, uh... water." Crisis averted.

[Vice Ysal]

Usually, people who went into restaurants wanted to eat and try to at least get some form of relaxation before the events of the day began or after a stressful day at work finally finished. Apparently the customer this time around wanted to be different from what was considered mainstream and instead decided to be all fidgety instead. It was like he was stressing himself out just trying to find something to eat--the way he blurted out his answer and the overtly annoying way he added the last part had led to Vice to a conclusion that this guy either didn't know what the hell he was doing or was really just that bad at talking with other people. It wasn't weird, no not really, just more of a hassle than anything else.

Vice disliked having to things on his own because the other end was incompetent but then again, this was his job and in exchange for wages and salaries so it was something he had to suck up. At the surprised order, Vice simply nodded and took the menu away from the black haired customer before writing over on the pad he had with him.

"It'll only take a bit, Sir."

And with that, the young man turned around and headed over to the counter before slapping on the paper with the order and ringing the bell in order to alert the guys who were in charge for these kinds of things. With that over, all Vice had to do then was move over to the back of the counter and got himself a glass, poured ice and water in it, a couple of tissues along with a pair of chopsticks to go along with it. Returning to the booth, Vice then carefully placed the glass of iced water and the chopsticks on their appropriate places in front of the customer before bowing again.

"Are you okay, Sir? You seem to be a bit under the weather?"

[David Moore]

Dav reached for the glass of water and began to bring it to his lips. Then the waiter asked a question and Dave froze, with the glass a few inches away from his face. He glanced at the waiter, then at the wall, looking for a window to dive out of (of course there wasn't because Dave didn't like window seats), then responded. "Uh, no I'm fine, really?" It came out more as a question for some reason. Dave's voice had cracked on the last syllable and he flushed in embarrassment.

He raised the glass to his lips and began to drink at a controlled, moderate pace trying to figure out what he was going to do. Waiters didn't usually engage in small talk. Dave wasn't much of a proponent of small talk with people he had never met, or at all actually. He figured the waiter must have just been bored if he was trying to make a conversation with some freak butler-dressed kid. That was usually the only reason people talked to him. They were bored. He suddenly found that the glass was empty and that his mouth was burning from the continuous onslaught of cold water. He set the glass down and rested his hands in his lap, sitting uncomfortably straight in the seat.

[Vice Ysal]

"Aye."

Vice sounded off, his voice a bit blander than before as he turned around and made his way back to the counter. Once more, until the food was cooked, there would be nothing else for him to do. Aside from periodically refilling the customer's glass with water, he was more or less free to do whatever he wanted to do so long as it didn't interfere with the client. Soon as he had been able to sit down, stretch his legs, and actually get comfortable, an amazing amount of 10 minutes had past. Just as he was finally enjoying the relaxation he was getting, the door from the kitchen opened up and out came one of the guys to deliver the plate to Vice who, at this moment, had half a mind to fry the guy up with his looks.

Unfortunately, since Vice did not know how to perform said technique, all he gave was a slight grumble to which the other employee just laughed off. Having been handed the plate, Vice then stood up, wiped his face with a spare towel he had for personal use, and proceeded to glide along the floor and in-between the tables before carefully placing the dish over in front of the customer.

"Chicken Ala King, Sir. We hope it suits your palate."

And as he finished his announcement, the door that led to freedom once more jingled open and a new set of customers, three of them from what Vice could see, entered the establishment. Leading them to a table soon after leaving the guy in a butler uniform, Vice then plucked out the nearby menus and handed each of them one before moving to the back in order to get a pitcher.

At least there were more people in the place and finally something to do rather than waste the day away like usual, Vice mused.

[David Moore]

Dave picked up on the change in pitch. He immediately came to the conclusion that he had already done something to piss off his waiter and quietly resolved to tip much higher than usual. The food came out after a short wait. He glanced over his food, trying to pick out what foods he could recognize. Obviously there was chicken. It sat mainly in larger portions towards the edge of the plate, but several small pieces were interspersed throughout the dish. He recognized several small peppers and vegetables mixed in. The entire thing had some sort of cream used as a way to hold it all together, and Dave was pretty confident he saw some kind of biscuit near the bottom. He supposed it would probably be good. Regardless of how it tasted, he knew that he would have to try and clean his plate as much as possible so that it would be less difficult to wash and also so that the waiter's effort didn't seem like it had been wasted.

He picked up his chopsticks and began to eat. He wasn't used to using chopsticks, so it took a few empty grabs to pick up food. He would have honestly preferred a fork and knife, but he didn't want to trouble the waiter for one. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, he finally got the hang of it and began to eat at a more moderate pace, only messing up every now and then. Every time a crumb or drop of food landed on the table, he made sure to clean it up using a napkin. The food itself tasted alright, Dave wasn't particularly crazy about it. Then again, he wasn't crazy about most foods. In as few as 10 minutes he had completely eaten the entire dish and was doing his best to scrape bits of the what was left of the food (crumbs mostly) into a portion sizable enough to pick up and eat. After a few more minutes, he felt he had eaten it as much as possible and downed his glass of water. He sat straight again with his hands in his lap, waiting for the check.

[Vice Ysal]

"Wooooah Maan. Just wha'cha call THIS dump??! I mean look at the floor boards and shit!"

Vice's ears perked up at the tone of annoyance as he carefully grabbed the pitcher that was currently half full with iced water. The conversation between the group of friends escalated from demeaning the restaurants rather old design and into how the food would have probably sucked. Some guy even said that the prices of the food for such a dinky place was way off the charts that it wasn't a surprise that they didn't have any customers to begin with. More and more insults were thrown about even when Vice had already reappeared by the table that the group had chosen to sit in, and patiently (with a pretty damn bored look on his face) did Vice wait for them to notice this fact.

"Oh, look it here. Pretty boy's still waiting for an order? Man are you deaf or something! We just spat on your damn restaurants name! Man, this place is full of pussies yo! Let's go guys."

With a few more shared chuckles between the group, one of the guys even dared to kick the table down like it was some kind of plaything. Vice's expression never changed as he saw the wooden furniture crash down to the floor with a resounding clunk. With a sigh, Vice simply turned around and walked towards the entrance of the restaurant. The douche bags, actually surprised by what Vice just did and was doing, simply opted to stare for a minute.

Then they heard the sound of shutters being closed.

"Yo man, what gives? The hell you doin'?"

Turning around, patting his hands as if he was trying to take some dust off, the young man then pulled onto the two wooden sticks that were hanging by the entrance. He twirled the weapons once, twice, thrice before relaxing them in his hands.

"Customers are not allowed to leave until they've paid for what they ordered. Restaurant policy I'm afraid."

One of the guys was enough of an idiot to actually ask what the hell it was they ordered.

"An asskicking, I suppose."

[David Moore]

Dave watched the scene unfold with a distant interest. He wasn't used to the vulgar attitude of these customers. The restaurant he hosted at was high class, so rude customers were typically never an issue, if ever at all. The most customers at that restaurant would do is make a passive-aggressive comment or something. Then the waiter blocked the exits. That was weird. Then the waiter got a weapon. Was he seriously planning to fight these guys? Dave figured he was. That was unfortunate. He shifted father back into the corner and pretended not to be paying attention to what was happening. He took out his wallet and slapped a 50 on the table. His food couldn't have been more than $15. That didn't matter. He had bothered the waiter and he had to make up for the trouble he had to go through for all 4 of the customers. That's the way things were.

[Vice Ysal]

It was a pretty cool retort, if Vice could say so himself, but apparently all the other douche bags in the vicinity didn't exactly share the sentiment. Hell, they even thought it was humours enough to garner a round of raucous laughter. Once more the young red eyed civilian just sighed as he began walking towards them, the wooden sticks in his hands moving threateningly. All in all though, the customers should've been pretty happy that Vice wasn't using his bladed training set and just opted to use a beat stick for disciplinary issues. He eyed the butler over at the booth, and once more Vice felt a tick mark growing at the back of his head. Today was supposed to be a simple enough day, and even if he was the type to look for fights to join in, having people bring the fight to him was a completely different thing for him.

So that meant they had to be punished.

The three guys shared a look before the bravest, or most idiotic one in reference to one's point of view, decided to charge the Waiter with a battle cry that amounted to a pathetic 'waaah!!' and proceeded to throw a direct punch towards his face. The sticks moved, one of them redirecting the strike downward and into empty space while the second one made contact with the man's face. The figure swayed towards the left from the unexpected strike and had made a move to get inside Vice's guard only to find his stomach stabbed with the butt end of the stick that had been used to redirect the first attack. With the enemy sufficiently stunned and doubling over from the pain, Vice proceeded to kick the guy off to the floor. Raising his beat stick, the young man then aimed for the knee caps before striking down with a clearly lethal swing.

These men weren't shadows, they didn't have an innately stronger body than the average man, and thus the strike was enough to cause the man to howl out in pain and anguish as he looked up his busted knee. It wasn't broken, nor was it shattered, but it was going to be a pretty big bitch to deal with in the mean time.

"You two gonna leave the required amount of cash to pay the bills, or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?"

[David Moore]

Dave watched in detached fascination as the guy was beaten to a brutal pulp by the waiter. He wondered if all the waiters here knew how to do this. Some kind of restaurant gimmick or something. The waiter didn't seem like he was going to back down until he got whatever it was he wanted from the rude people. That was pretty determined of him. Dave was fairly sure that the waiter would win at this point. The way he moved seemed effortless, as if he had been in the Yakazu 4 game. The kick seemed to make it more so like that.

Then one of the thugs pulled a switchblade and Dave found himself getting nervous for the waiter. Maybe more money? The guy with the knife began to move backwards and Dave dimly recalled being extremely uncomfortable with how close he was getting. With a flash he was suddenly yanked out of his seat, the table falling over and the most clean plate crashing into pieces on the floor. At least it was a cleaned plate. Dave felt the blade of the knife pressed against his neck. Despite the situation, he had still detached himself from the situation, so he felt no intense fear, only an ever-present sense of foreboding.

"Sorry," He muttered to the waiter. He was sorry for a lot of things. Getting captured, giving the waiter a hard time earlier, the broken plate, his gaudy getup. They were all his fault.

[Vice Ysal]

"I'll have to applaud you, really."

Vice began as he raised both of his hands in the universal sign of surrender before slowly and deliberately bending down to show off the fact that he was going to let go of his weapons. Leaving the sticks in front of his feet, neatly arranged even, the waiter then raised back to full height and returned his hands back to where they were meant to be.

"You're one of the few people who actually thought of using a hostage aside from the kitchen staff. Then again, most of the time these things happen there's really no one else around."

The red eyed youth continued as he stood still. His eyes and his mouth were the only things that moved, the former sweeping both of the small time thugs and the butler now turned hostage of the scene with the latter continuing to prattle on about the most asinine bullshit one could think of.

"Going through all the trouble of this though, sometimes I don't get what it is you're trying to accomplish."

The young man sighed, shook his head for a moment as he saw the apparent ire of the good for nothing man who couldn't even get a hostage blow up to bigger proportions.

"To do all this, are you trying to be tough? Maybe get some reward for your efforts?"

And finally, a small smile began to appear across Vice's face as he reared his head back just a bit to show a completely smug and conceited expression on his face. It was enough to piss off the guy at the back, carrying the knife and all. He would have also probably stabbed the customer for all the misgivings even his hands were shaking and trembling visibly. At least, he would have had it not been for the frying pan that smacked him at the back of his head with enough force to send him sprawling to the ground. It wasn't a critical strike, that would have gotten the blood everywhere and cleaning those things was gonna be a bitch.

The last man standing turned around for a bit and took his attention away from Vice. Using this moment, the young man nudged the sticks on the floor to roll along their way towards the douche bag who, in his inevitable fate of getting his ass handed, moved towards Vice with an attempt to bash his face in. After all, the waiter didn't look all that threatening without his sticks and he was pretty confident that he could beat the pretty boy in terms of a fist fight. The thug was sure of it, he had been known as the golden boy back in his youth and some of that skill remained! He was muscle man, nothing's gonna get in his way!

Okay, maybe except the floor that had been rushing towards his face.

"Huh?"

Taking the advantage of the panic that had strewn across the guy's face, Vice once more sent out a snap kick that caught the man in the face. Proceeding to beat his face in with a couple of choice stomps, the red youth then gave his colleague, the man who was responsible for directly saving the customer, a thumbs up. When all three intruders had been sufficiently knocked out, Vice bent down and proceeded to collect their wallets. Emptying them of all the cash they had with them, along with the credit cards, driving licenses, information and contacts, the young man then called out for the staff at the back to throw the guys at the usual place.

Collecting the earnings and handing them off to the customer's saviour, Vice then moseyed over to Dave after picking up his two beat sticks on the floor.

"Sorry about that Sir. Didn't think we'd be getting that kind of disturbance today. We deeply apologise to you, and hope that this little mishap will not deter you from visiting our establishment again."

[David Moore]

"No!" Dave said, finally snapping out of his stupor. "I mean... thanks, I guess. You didn't have to do that for me, though." He glanced away. The guy's skills were impressive. There was no point in bothering the waiter any further like he had been. The waiter was probably disgusted by him anyways. Dave didn't help, after all. Not to mention the broken plate and letting himself cause difficulties by being taken hostage.His neck stung slightly. The punk must have a made a cut as a reflex reaction to be hit. It wasn't deep though, it probably wasn't even bleeding. If it was, he should clear out before he made of mess with that, too. "I left your money on the table." Dave said quietly, picking it up off the ground where it had fell. He placed it on a nearby one instead before turning to his waiter and bowing slightly. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'll leave at your earliest convenience." He would have preferred to leave at that very second, but he was trapped by the shutters.

[Vice Ysal]

"It is only right that the employees serve their designated customers, Sir. Any other option shows poor conduct and would reflect badly on the image of the establishment. Although, I doubt getting accosted by a bunch of everyday street thugs to be an enlightening experience."

Vice returned as he too bowed to David, although a bit lower due to his current position in the hierarchy of the situation. Soon enough though, the employee gently made his way towards the table where the client had left the bill and raised an eyebrow at the overly huge sum he had been just landed with. Shaking his head, the young man then made his way towards the cash register first before tapping a few key buttons. With the slightly 'ka-chak' done and over, Vice counted the money and the required change, along with everything else that was required for a transaction that did not unjustly enrich either of the two parties, before placing it on a small container along with the receipt of the meal.

Gingerly making his way towards the customer once more, making sure to again avoid any of the broken china that lay about his path, Vice would then place the exact amount of change unto the same table that David placed the bill on. A slight nod once more and the waiter then proceeded to head towards the entrance of the restaurant. Unlatching the shutters before pushing them up, the young man then went on ahead to lock it in place in order to avoid any accidents in the future. With the door finally unlocked and customers free to once more enter and exit the establishment, Vice then made his way towards the kitchen to go call some of the guys who were better at the whole fixing the mess that rowdy douche bags made, which had effectively led to him leaving David alone in the main hub of the restaurant.