A/N: I will be honest and admit that this chapter isn't my best production.

[The Popular Spot]

Picture an unimposing little restaurant sitting comfortably in along a road that observed decent foot traffic and was served by fair public transport. The shopfront itself was nothing very special: the name of the restaurant was written in cursive and a silhouette of a woman in a sexy pose with guns in both hands sat above the door. A small piece of paper was taped to the glass window of the door, informing diners of their opening hours and a polite sentence begging for diners to be patient if a wait to enter the restaurant proper was required.

Inside, red tiles on the floor and faded brown wallpaper gave an unexplainable type of warmth to the place. Above each wooden round table at each stall hung lamps that gave off soft yellow light. The general lighting of the restaurant was dimmed along the corridors, meant for diners to focus on only their meal and their partners instead of other patrons. The seats were comfortable –and some stalls were bigger than others to cater for bigger groups. The corridors were big enough for two to walk side-by-side without squeeze, and the tables were formed in a general U-shape, pointing towards the counter and reception at one side of the restaurant. The counter/reception table was simple; a cash register stood there along with a phone meant for collecting reservations. A stack of menus sat behind the counter, ready to be passed to patrons. A small jar was left on the counter for tips.

The empty wall to the left from the counter hid a door that swung inwards to a small kitchen. This was where the food would be made, where the magic would be put together by two capable ladies. They might be a little bit undervalued at times by diners, but the employees of this small restaurant knew better. Without either of the ladies, the restaurant would have fallen to shambles by now. Nobody else in the small family could cook, much less make food deserving of second, third, and subsequent revisits. The kitchen itself was not remarkable either –clean, neat and generally ergonomic enough for work.

But it was not the physical environment of the restaurant that made the popularity of the place. It was the people that worked there that made the place revisited constantly. To be very fair, it was the employees who served the patrons directly that constantly brought back the customers. It was a profitable business model: attract the patrons, and keep them with the food.

The door opened with a small twinkle, announcing the arrival of new diners. The pair of diners that had come swinging by after hearing positive reviews from their friends, and so far, the impression had still been good.

The impression was only going to get better, as a young man with short-cropped white hair with carefully messy hair-style approached them quickly with an embarrassed smile. It appeared as if he felt that the smile was unnatural on his face, but his effort was the drawing-factor as the pair of female diners could not resist smiling at the young-boy aura that he gave off.

"Any reservations, ladies?" He enunciated clearly, but the uneasy expression on his face seemed rather oddly charming instead. His escaping of eye contact like an embarrassed boy in front of his crush certainly had its way with the ladies, and their smiles unconsciously drew across their faces as they view him through kind, forgiving eyes as they replied to his question with a negative.

"Right this way, then." The Waiter whose name was identified as Nero by his tag turned to lead the restaurant's newest diners to their table, and the ladies began admiring more than just his face as they followed after him. He had a body that clearly did not look like he did waiting tables as his main job, but his height and broad shoulders pulled off his uniform very well. He filled in his waiter's coat nicely, and though a tiny apron was tied at his waist, it did nothing to reduce the masculinity of his body shape.

The pair of ladies were barely aware that they had been led through the crowd of the restaurant until they stopped in front of an empty table, Nero gesturing for them to take their seats. He hurriedly announced that he would be back with the menu before escaping the tableside, where the newest diners began to realize that they were not the only ones keeping their eyes on him.

Back at the front door, the bell twinkled again, and this time it was not Nero who attended the couple who had appeared at the door.

"Welcome." The word was spoken in such a sultry tone that the couple immediately felt uncomfortable –the man looking as if he were starting to feel hot under the collar while the woman looked as if she had found her natural enemy. "Any reservations?"

"U-Uh, y-yeah." The man swallowed, unbelieving that he was being reduced to a stuttering mess. "It should be under the name Glass."

"Glass?" The Waitress leaned to the side against the counter where the couple now realized that a Cashier stood there, already checking for the reservations list. The Cashier was less attention-attracting than the Waitress, but it did not mean that she was not attractive herself either, because the man who went by the name Glass wetted his lip unconsciously.

"Table for 2 at 7 o'clock for Glass." The Cashier announced, looking up with a brilliant business smile at the couple. "Please enjoy your meal with us today."

The Waitress nodded in acknowledgement, and met eyes once more with the man named Glass. "Right this way."

She spun around to lead the way, and Glass hesitated for a long moment before deciding to brave his steps that were beginning to get a little awkward now that an involuntarily muscle was beginning to rise.

It was not to say that the Waitress was dressed indecently. She was covered up in the areas that were supposed to be covered, and was even covered up in areas that some women might like to expose. But it was exactly the fact that she was dressed in long sleeves and long pants that left some space for imagination. The clothes stuck to her well, and accentuated her cat-like walk.

Like the many other males who had come visiting this restaurant, the man named Glass never let his eyes waver from the Waitress as the couple followed her to their assigned table, where a small card with his name written was put on display.

"I will get you two a menu." The statement was a very standard one to make in the food & beverage industry, but somehow, she managed to make it sound like she was promising something else entirely as she left the table.

"Got another one?" Nero asked when he met his fellow employee at the counter where they collected their menus and prepared the right number of utensils sets for their respective tables.

"The guy's been staring at my ass since I started walking." The Waitress rolled her eyes, slipping her hand into her pocket and drawing out a bill. "Wanna play bets? I bet that the guy on my side is going to break up with his girlfriend by the end of today's meal."

"You're going to get into trouble if the reputation of our restaurant turns into a break-up spot, Trish." Nero answered lowly, but did the same as his colleague as he drew out a bill himself, both of them sliding it underneath the stack of menus standing on the counter.

"Nothing but a little drama to keep my days entertained." The Waitress named Trish answered happily as she sashayed back to attend her newest guest.

"I'm on the lady's side." The Cashier informed Nero, sliding the bills out from underneath the menu stack and adding another bill on her own. "Would you like me to help you with the odds? The register is bursting with money today."

"That's embezzlement and you will have your head chopped off. Almost literally." Nero warned as he grabbed his own sets of utensils. "You're going to be less of a lady without a head, Lady."

"Oi, Pretty Boy." An exclamation nearby made both of them turn around to find a familiar face poking her top-half out of the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, balancing a plate expertly in her hands. "I didn't want to have to tell Kyrie this, but if you leave me waiting here with the pizza in my hands, I'm going to have to report that you were flirting with Lady."

"I was not!" Nero protested hotly, rushing over to retrieve the pizza. "And stay in the kitchen, Nico. Your loud voice disturbs the customers."

"Please, they've never seen a fast-talking beauty like me before." The woman grinned ferociously at him, but ducked quickly back into the kitchen to start on the food-making. The kitchen was always a war-zone when the dinner crowd came in, and Nico knew better than to let her fellow chef suffer alone in the fight.

Not like Kyrie would have complained –the woman was too nice to make any noises.

"Back to work." Lady ordered, and Nero could offer no complaints as he returned to waiting the tables.

He could barely remember the times before he was asked to work in this restaurant. Those days of demon hunting was like a history of long ago, though if Nero was forced to give a solid duration to his time working here, he would have given the answer of three short years. But life working as a waiter in this restaurant was so eventful that thoughts about the days of demon hunting was far flung into the wind.

It had initially not been much of a choice at all. Ever since the legendary demon hunter and his brother returned back into the world of the living, they had gone around stealing all of his jobs in a bid to 'rediscover their brotherhood'. That excuse was bullshit, however, because Nero had once watched them kill demons, and it looked more like they were trying to kill each other, but accidentally killing demons as a side effect.

It didn't matter if they were trying to kill demons or each other; the two madmen had stolen Nero's jobs and income, and when there were very little demons that dared to come up to the Human World anymore, the Sparda twins had disappeared for a while. The effect was not instantaneous, but he had taken notice of it rather quickly. For the two weeks that the Sparda twins disappeared, there was not a single demon in sight. Nero had quickly been put out of job -he could not even try to take up the low-paying, tedious jobs anymore.

And in the end, when the madmen returned back to the Human World, they had brought a declaration with them: they had destroyed all the gates from the Demon World, and when they returned to the Human World, they had destroyed the last gate as well. In essence, they had cut off all connection with the Demon World. The madness that the two men spilled from their lips was hardly believable, but it was difficult to refute their words when no demons appeared anywhere at all. It took a whole month for Nero to accept that the men had done exactly as they said.

For someone as uneducated as Nero who had no certificates or anything to prove his capability in any other occupation other than demon hunting, he had struggled to find a proper job. His poor girlfriend had been forced to go out taking on odd-jobs while Nero struggled to find employment.

And then, the madmen duo had come back around and given him another ridiculous proposal: they were tired of lazing around now that the gates were closed, and were planning to set up a restaurant. They were hiring helping hands, and what better helping hand to find than to recruit a family member to make it a family business.

Nero had obliged in the end because of his desperation for money –and with much less enthusiasm about working with the pair of madmen that he was still having problems accepting being blood related to him. They had hired him at first as an odd-job boy around the restaurant, and when he proved to be useless with a knife in front of the ingredients, he had been kicked out to serve in the hall. Kyrie and Nico had been volunteered as a chef after they joined hands to cook a family meal, and that was how all three of them had been sucked into this restaurant, working underneath the madmen who had sealed all entrances to the demon world and then decided that they were bored of demon hunting.

Yet now, after 3 years, Nero could not remember the days where he wielded a sword instead of a business-like polite smile.

And speaking of the devil...

The man who liked to consider himself the mascot of the restaurant burst through the door with a proud grin and a familiar hat sitting on his dirty white hair. The dirty-looking, faded red coat that the man wore everyday somehow did not smell, and that in itself was one of the biggest wonders of the world –at least according to Nero. Nero breathed in deep and resisted sighing explosively when he saw that the man had a single stalk of rose tucked between his lips in an effort to make him look attractive.

"We're closed for business. Please get out." Lady greeted with a smile, but the sarcasm that hid behind her actions only bounced off Dante's frame.

"Is that how you greet our dearest customers? I'll have your pay cut." Dante asked, leaning against the counter.

"You're forgetting the fact that without my money, this restaurant wouldn't be here in the first place. If anything, I should be the one cutting your pay." Lady answered, tearing the thankfully skinned stalk of rose from Dante's lips and throwing behind her counter. "Make yourself useful and get your ass out of here."

"I am the mascot of this place. What I say goes." Dante declared happily, fast fingers grabbing the rose again before Lady could prevent it from his grasp.

"I am the biggest shareholder of this place. What I say goes." Lady corrected, pointing a slender finger to the door. "Out."

"Leave him be. He knows better than to make a mess today." An intruder into the conversation made Lady aware of the fact that Vergil had slipped into the restaurant behind his brother, looking as smartly dressed as always. Ever since the Sparda twins had started this business, Vergil had given up the hunting attire and adopted the look of a sophisticated businessman despite the fact that the restaurant's biggest selling menu were the pizzas and generally undeserving of his business suits and dress shoes.

"Fine." Lady answered her business partner –the reliable one of the twins –as she handed over a board where she had recorded the sales already made for the night before the arrival of the Sparda Twins. "As long as he stays out of Trish's and Nero's path. And stop stealing food from the kitchen before they're served."

The warning was given a little too late, because the man in topic had already wandered away from the counter with the rose back between his lips, his grin regaining its strength as he made towards where Nero was currently recommending items on the menu for the ladies.

"I recommend the pepperoni pizza, without pickles, extra cheese." Dante's interruption of Nero's explanation made it particularly hard for Nero to resist rolling his eyes at the man who was technically his boss, his uncle and basically his elder. Unfortunately for the both of them, Nero wasn't feeling very respectful for a man close to his fifties and still trying to flirt with the young ladies at his table.

"We're looking for something a little lighter today." One of the ladies explained, accepting Dante's rose awkwardly when he presented it to her with an exaggerated flourish. "We're on a diet."

"A diet must have their cheat days." Dante countered quickly, grabbing the menu from the ladies' hands and shoving them to Nero. "Pepperoni pizza without pickles and extra cheese. On my tab."

"Excuse me, Sir, you're disrupting business." Nero bit out sarcastically, returning the menu to the two shocked ladies. "If you are not helping with sales, then I suggest you sit yourself behind the counter."

"Shouldn't you be talking to your elders a little more politely, Nero? I think you're beginning to forget who the one who hired you is." Dante crossed his arms proudly.

"Vergil hired me, not you." Nero answered, turning quickly to apologize to the ladies and excusing himself before dragging his uncle away. "Now, before you make a mess of this whole place-"

"Get out, Dante." Trish's interruption conveniently helped Nero complete his sentence, and both men were nudged to a side of the corridor as the Waitress bustled by with the pizzas still steaming on the plates balanced carefully on her hands.

"What is up with everyone asking me to get out? Your father allowed me to stay in here today!" Dante's protest was unbefitting of his age. "Ask him if you don't believe me."

What Nero was still finding a much harder time to believe was the fact that this man standing in front of him and protesting like a kindergartener was also one of the two people who had gone down to the Demon World and destroyed all of the Hell Gates, effectively wiping the Human World off any more traces of demons.

"Vergil," Nero called, dragging his uncle back to the counter where Lady and the man were exchanging serious business-like discussion. "Tell Dante to get out of here. He's disrupting business again."

"Go to the employee's room." Vergil dismissed, then remembered a crucial detail in time, turning to meet his brother's eyes before Dante could obey his order. "And do not eat anything from the kitchen."

"I'm hungry." Dante stated, always careful to not whine in front of Vergil. Dante might whine often in front of his nephew and the other family members, but he was very careful not to do it in front of his brother. Vergil hated whiners more than anything.

"Stay there like a nice boy, and maybe I'll get Kyrie to feed you some leftovers after business today." Nero grinned at the look of insult that flashed across his uncle's face, glad that they were in front of the man who ran the business because Dante did not dare to offer any annoying protest. The defeated 'mascot' of the restaurant turned around and dragged his feet shuffling to the kitchen at the back.

"Back to work, Nero." Vergil did not offer any greeting but instead casted a dismissive gaze over to the restaurant bustling with diners, and the Waiter quietly obeyed. The fact that his waiter was also his son did not matter to this businessman one bit.

Left at the counter, Vergil and Lady continued their discussion about the upcoming promotion for the restaurant in relative peace since most of the diners had only started on their meals, which meant that there were not many tables requiring the bill or payment. An agreement was made between the restaurant's owner and biggest shareholder quickly, and Vergil arranged the papers he had brought along with him with the intention to stuff them back into his briefcase.

"Five years ago, I was still convinced that you were dead, and that I would be demon hunting until the end of my life." Lady's sudden comment made Vergil hesitate in his venture to pick up his errant brother in the employee's room.

"Five years ago, I was still aiming to defeat Dante and was struggling my way out of the Demon World." Vergil answered, blinking blankly.

"And look at us here five years later. No demons, and running a business very smoothly. Well, with the exception of when Dante comes around, but Nero and Trish have gotten good at dealing with him." Lady cast her eyes over the bustling atmosphere, at the two waitstaff walking with purpose up and down the corridors, attending to orders, offering refill to drinks and basically being eye candies for the curious souls who had come in.

"No father in the world will rest easy knowing that his son is outside risking his life everyday hunting demons. I had to do something." Vergil's reply was surprising, because while the businessman had acknowledged and accepted the fact that he was a father, he had never truly showed his fatherly side often. It also did not help that Vergil was definitely not the type of person to show the real motives behind all of his actions.

"Normal fathers would actually talk to their sons to convince them to change occupations." Lady answered, eyes tracking the young man in topic as he blushed a little at something the ladies at his current table told him, and the reaction from the diners at the nearby tables was a signal that they would be getting quite some significant tip –as usual.

"I am not a normal father, and Nero isn't a normal son." Vergil admitted, reorganizing his papers since the conversation was still on-going. "There would have been no point trying to convince him to quit the job. So, if I could not remove the man from the job, then I had to remove the job from the man."

"And put everyone else in the industry out of a job at the same time." Lady continued the sentence, crossing her arms. "Never let Nero know that he was the reason why you went down to the Demon World."

"Why else did I hire demon hunters as workers for this restaurant? Excepting Kyrie."

"You have only hired a very tiny fraction of the entire industry that you put out of job." Lady pointed out.

"Would you rather have gone out working every day from 9 to 5 at an office table, then?"

"What makes you think I would have found a job in an office?" Lady's challenge came back rebelliously. "I could have been a kept lady if I went out looking for an old rich man with deep pockets."

"The only type of Lady you are ever going to be is a demon hunting Lady." Vergil answered, then zipped his briefcase full of papers in a signal that the conversation was over. "Appreciate that you have any income at all."

"I am the main shareholder of this restaurant." Lady reminded before the businessman could walk too far from hearing range. "Whatever this restaurant earns, I do."

"Very well." Vergil turned with the clear intent of ending this conversation, beginning to make for the door just as the very first diners approached the counter to pay for the meal that they had just enjoyed. "Go ahead and run this restaurant on your own. That includes dealing with Dante."

Glad that there was no more space for Lady to shoot back a reply since she had to put on her friendly business personality to the diners who had reached the counter shyly, Vergil pushed through the doors into the kitchen, welcomed to the sight of a pair of women who moved with purpose in their movements. There was a steady smoothness in their actions that had been created over days and months of practice. Vergil could hardly remember a time when Kyrie had been close to a mental breakdown at the overwhelming amount of orders flooding in during the dinner rush.

"Yo, Boss!" Nico greeted loudly, grinning voraciously.

"Did Dante eat anything?"

"He did not." Kyrie answered honestly with a smile. "He is in the back."

"He tried, though." Nico transferred the spaghetti that had been tossed on the frying pan to a plate, then raised the dirty frying pan up. "He has a frying pan print on his face now."

"The pan is meant for cooking food served to the diners. Do not dirty it by applying it to Dante's face." Vergil lectured, but the warning simply flew over Nico's head as the woman's grin did not fade while she turned away to wash the pan.

"She didn't really hit him that hard, and it's not one of the pans she is using now." Kyrie covered for the reckless woman who didn't seem to be bothered her boss's words. While it was not strange to find Kyrie in the kitchen, Nico was still a figure that Vergil had minor troubles coming to terms with being in his kitchen. The woman used to be often caught at the counter set up especially for her within the mobile Devil May Cry, carefully putting together weapons for her business partner to use for his demon hunting sessions. Now, she was standing in front of the fire, tossing together ingredients for meals.

"I shall not disturb you ladies any longer." Vergil announced, moving towards the employees room where he fully expected his brother to be caught in something weird as usual.

He was not disappointed when he found Dante in the climbing out from the pile of dirty laundry left in the corner of the room just as he walked into the room. His brother froze upon the eye contact made, removing the dirty tablecloth from his head and opening his mouth.

"Do not explain yourself to me." Vergil warned, putting a hand up to stop the words. "I don't want to hear it. Get out of the dirty laundry and make sure you don't smell before you leave this room."

"I'm always nice-smelling." Dante grinned the same way Nico had done, and Vergil struggled not to roll his eyes. One Dante was already enough.

"Whatever you say. Once you're clean and ready, we're leaving." Vergil announced, turning back to leave the employees room since there had been no other intention to do anything else in the room except collect his brother.

"We're leaving? Where are we going?"

Vergil checked to make sure that the door behind him was still closed, putting his back to it so that no one could try to enter in the middle of this conversation.

"We're going to make sure what is supposed to be closed stays closed." He answered cryptically, but Dante got the gist almost immediately, brightening up. There was no time for Vergil to warn his brother before Dante summoned his sword to his hand, slinging it across his shoulders.

"Keep the damned sword away." He bristled, locking the door behind him for good measure now. "You're in the restaurant."

"You can bring us out of this place in an instant." Dante answered. "Come on. You know you want to."

Unfortunately, Dante was absolutely right. Vergil sighed as he approached his brother –who had still not bothered getting himself fully out of the pile of dirty laundry –summoning his own sword. Yamato was a familiar weight that greeted him, and though it had been months since he last reconciled with his demonic half, it rose within him in greeting as well.

"We make this quick, or Nero is going to get suspicious." Vergil warned as he drew his sword out of its sheathe, hearing the sweet familiar ring.

"Even if he gets suspicious, I don't think he's going to find out that we're going down to the Demon World to kill demons to make sure that they don't rebuild the gates." Dante shrugged, watching as his brother sliced the reality in front of them carefully, just big enough for the both of them to go through.

"Hush." Vergil warned while he stepped inside the portal. "We're dead if Nero knows."