#021: Onegaishimasu!

“If you’d please…”

“If you’d please…”

“Sir, would you like to…”

“Akihabara’s newest maid cafe! Would you…”

23 people. She had counted them exactly, partially out of desperation and partially out of a need to keep score. Each one had rebuffed her without a single word. 1000 yen an hour and there she was freezing her thighs off in the middle of the night to an indifferent mob of nobodies she wouldn’t have spent a second glance looking in any other place. Good lord. What’s to do in this country? Graduation was still a year away and that PSP wasn’t going to buy itself!

“Hi there, would you..”

He took the flyer. Success. If only a small one.

“Thank you so much, would you like me esco-..?”

He walked on. The second part of the game was to get them into the store itself. That there was the trickiest part AND the best. To get them in meant that you could go back inside and let some other unlucky sap stand outside in the cold. God, she was ready to get back inside, serve some tea and get back at that Achika. Then she would be in the cold and would warm, sneaking bites of the fried chicken they had in the back room. Not to mention sneaking a sip of the draft beer. That would be all in good time, but for now…

“Would you like to…”

“Please, if you’d be so kind…”