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Day 26/²
Time : 1:³⁰ pm

I sank into the corner booth of the restaurant and sighed while watching Childe polish the counter of the bar. The last couple have days were pretty awkward ever since him and Janet intruded on me and Thoma being a little too physical, and that ginger was especially bummed out. Even now  the utter horror that was carved into his face was pretty clear he was more offended than disgusted over the situation. He did not even look at me when we talked about his contract two days ago, heck he was probably even glaring at me for the whole hour of our small meeting. In the end I managed to convince Janet into changing the waiter's outfit into something more modest, however she seemed to have been absentminded half way through the conversation.

***

I took an aggressive sip of my latte as I waited for the new chief Janet had told me about to arrive. Looking back at her file I flipped through it again sluggishly.

Name: Xiangling
Occupation: high-school-student
Age: 16
Position applied for: Head Chief.

Apparently she had won several competitions against master chiefs in live tv shows and scored the first among the students at Lyiue's Culinary Art School. She has some experience at restaurants since her father owns a small place near Lyiue's Harbor, which was interesting considering that State was famous for its historical sights and being the nation's center of trade. Currently, she was searching for a temporarily job, and that was good enough for me at the moment.

I shifted my attention back to Childe as he finished up with cleaning the dusty glass slots for the wine bottles, before Thoma walked in from the dining room's entrance with a box of  wine, followed by the delivery man who walked up to me instantly with clipboard in hand. Childe eyed him with disgust and did not even try to hide his displeasure. "Ma'am can you please sign right here?" The delivery guy shifted my attention; he was tall with silver white hair and in brown oversized pants accompanied by a white top with the words Angel's Share written over it, perhaps he was in his mid or late thirties. " Ma'am ?"

Snapped out of my thoughts I signed the corner of the clipboard, before watching him scurry out and back in repeatedly while carrying boxes of several beverages. However, when the door opened again it was not the delivery guy again with his towers of cardboard. Accompanied by a lovely woman in a long and deep purple dress that spilled down her perfect frame like liquid, Kaeya walked in with a perfect black eye-patch covering his left eye completely and standing straight as if he was not the same guys  strapped to a hospital bed  just a few days ago. The older lady next to him had her arm hooked to his as if he were some rich aristocrat, which was really odd considering the way our first meeting turned out. The woman's mossy green eyes settled on me curiously and god she was unspeakably drop-dead gorgeous. She caressed the bow pinned to her long hazel hair, that lightly rested on her bare shoulders , before making her way to me

   Kaeya however, was just in leather pants and an oversized ocean blue shit unbuttoned all the way down to his pecs, offering a teasing peek of what's under that shirt . . . And that's where I stopped. I tore my eyes away and sank deeper into the booth hoping to disappear, but the pretty lady only walked to me with a scary-looking smile on her blood-red lips. " I'm Lisa ~ pleased to meet you cutie ~" she elbowed Kaeya in the side, shooting him a knowing look, before slipping next to me and getting a little too close for comfort. " I'm actually a really good friend of Kaeya's and he filled me in on how you helped him out."

" Please to meet you ma'am, um, how did you find me?" I shook her politely outstretched hand, and had a million questions about how her boobs still managed to stay in her dress despite the collar of her dress hanging by two straps that connected to the flowery purple choker on her neck.

She was totally matching Janet's taste when it came to dressing me up.

The chills I was getting from Kaeya staring aimlessly at Childe, who was silently eyeing him suspiciously while ignoring Thoma who was trying to get him to step away from the slots where the wines were meant to be placed, did not ease the day's tension off my shoulders.

Lisa dragged him to sit down with us, hissing something into his ear to make him straighten up and look directly at me with a forced smile. "Right, I actually didn't get the chance to thank you and Miss Janet properly for saving me . . . ." he glanced half-heartedly at Lisa, before continuing. " I'm a bit in a tough situation and I desperately hope you have a job for me ."

"You don't sound thrilled at all," I scoffed, setting the chief file aside. " Let me guess Janet sent you to me? I swear that lady . . . God knows what she's expecting. I'm not high on money you know, I already have two waiters to help out around."

"Okay we tried, time to go!" he stood up in a rush only to get dragged back down by Lisa, who pulled out his resume from her handbag and handed it to me while shooting Kaeya a warning look, before turning back to me.

" I'm deeply sorry for his behavior, but he isn't used to this you could say . . . going from being a board director to an underpaid employee is not what he had in mind. You however can benefit from his managing experience," She put on her most convincing smile, but one look at that pretty boy and it was obvious he was having none of this.

"You want me to make him the manager?" she nodded as if expecting me to be convinced. " He was fired from this company he worked at? Which company is that?"

She only gave me a coy smile and pointed at his resume," It's right there."

Angel's Share.

I stared at the two words for a good whole minute, trying to stop myself from smiling and having my eyeballs fall out from the shock. Deep breathes. Stay calm. It's too good to be true. A professional employee familiar with the wine market? Now that is something worth more than the average paycheck of a manager. "Why did he get fired?" she seemed to stiffen at the question and glanced at Kaeya as if urging him to answer. " Was it your attitude? seems to be the issue here."

The corners of his lips twitched slightly before he let out a long sigh and forced himself to look at me as I tapped at his impressively pretty profile picture on his resume, back when he had two eyes instead of one. " Me and the owner had a little personal conflict," he ran his hand through his smoothly combed hair, god it looked silky,  before narrowing his eyes and looking at me pensively. " Do you have anything else you're curious about? I'm not married , no kids, experienced. . . "

A malicious glint flickered in his eyes as he forced on a smile and rested his chin playfully in his palm, elbow planted on the table. " Nope . . . But I'll put you on a temporary contract for a month, if you get along with the staff and the business booms I'll extend your contract for a year. Sounds fair, no?"

As if satisfied with the offer, I could spot Lisa pinching the man's inner thigh in warning from under the table as he tried to retort with a smart-ass response. "I-It's perfect," he choked out, stiffening to hide the pain. " C-can't wait to get started."

Just as the words left his lips a wet towel came flying at light seemed from across the room and smacking him straight in the face, followed by Thoma and Childe's shouting as the two boys strangled each other against the counter, with the blondie pathetically using the water-filled spray cleaner as a gun against the raging ginger. Lisa giggled shamelessly, not even the slightest bit of pity washing over her face as she watched the towel slowly slide off Kaeya's dumb-struck face. " Better start working now than later," a smirk tugged my lips as I watched his eye twitch slightly in irritation at my words. " Good luck, Captain."

He was already on his feet and pulling the two men apart, only to get pulled into their endless squabble. " Can't wait till this place opens," I chuckled, watching the three fight like hopeless children.

" You don't seem concerned at all by their . . . violence?" Lisa questioned curiously as she ran her hand over the fabric of the booth's cushions. " What if they break something?"

"It'll come out of their paychecks," she hooked her arm with mine upon witnessing me smile with no concern at all. "Janet was right, I really like you. Honestly, if you didn't hire him he was going to work for that strip club at the end of Brightcrown Street. He'd have given me a real headache then."

My thoughts froze at the mention of Brightcrown Street. There was only one strip club located there, Boar Canyon, named after the old boar hunting grounds that once resided in the area long ago. . . I knew that because I gave it that name. " You seem to be familiar with it?" Lisa asked, worry and curiosity flashed over the beautiful lady's soft features at my reaction .

My gaze shifted, back to the blue-haired man getting pinned down by Childe while Thoma tried to get him off. "Unfortunately, I am," I took in a deep breath and then sipped my latte nervously. " More than I wish I did."