Episode 42: Junior Year of College. My Part-Time Job
—What do I do?
—I kissed her.
—A senior coworker I hate, at that. And a woman, no less.
—I’ll just blame it on the alcohol.
——Right, I don’t remember a thing.
I’ve always been good at getting men to like me. Me — Hanamori Chisa.
A little upward glance, a sweet “ehh, I don’t get it~,” and most things just get taken care of for me.
Someone carries the heavy bags. Someone explains the assignment I don’t understand.
Drag out the end of a sentence with a “you’re so amazing~♡,” “wooow~♡,” and every one of them gets a smug look on their face, practically drooling.
Genuinely, laughably easy. Convenient.
But women, I’m bad with.
I don’t know how to put it, but they always look at me with such cold eyes.
Being the type to say what I actually think, bluntly, I got hated on by the boss girl in my class, and the whispering behind my back started as far back as elementary school. Ever since then, I’ve never been good with groups of women.
My own fault, I know. I barely had any female friends. Not that I needed them, particularly.
—Two years ago—
Back in college, I worked part-time at an izakaya near the station.
Fairly busy, but the pay was decent, and the manager was kind and good-looking. Not a bad job, all things considered.
One day.
Carrying a drink order through the crowded restaurant floor.
I felt a strange, clammy warmth against my backside.
A hand. A hand slowly crawling along the curve of my rear. Fingers gripping into the soft part.
This is… unmistakably, someone groping my ass. And doing it deliberately slowly, like he was enjoying it.
(Eh.)
I turned around, and a middle-aged man sat there, drunk, grinning. Ugh. The worst.
“Nice ass you’ve got. Feels great.”
A low voice, pitched just for me to hear. Breath reeking of alcohol. A lecherous look in his eyes.
Tch. Disgusting. What is with this old man?
But if I made a scene here, it’d cause trouble, and I’d end up bothering the manager. In moments like this, the right words just wouldn’t come out. Pathetic.
“Um, sorry for the wait. Here’s your sashimi platter, and—”
I put on a bright voice, trying to change the subject. Tried to take a step back.
But the man’s hand shot around to my waist, fast. Groping, presumptuous. This time creeping from my waist toward my thigh. Goosebumps rose on my skin.
“Don’t run off. That’s a pretty rude attitude to take with a customer, huh?”
His tone suddenly turned menacing.
The place was packed, and another table blocked my path behind me. Nowhere to escape.
“I’m a customer, aren’t I? The customer’s god, right? A little conversation’s not too much to ask.”
“C’mon, sit down. There’s a spot open next to me.”
He rattled off the tired cliché, patting the cushion beside him. A gross, wheezy laugh, all heavy breathing.
Disgusting old pervert.
“S-sorry, I have other customers’ orders to—”
“Huh? Other customers matter more than me? After I’ve paid this much?”
His tone turned overbearing. This was, unmistakably, straight-up power harassment, sexual harassment.
“If you’re gonna apologize, do it properly from the start. C’mon, come here.”
He grabbed my arm again. A greasy hand. Strong grip.
All I could manage was to keep a fake smile plastered on.
Inside, I was on the verge of tears. Furious at myself for not being able to say anything. Pathetic.
What do I do, what do I do?—
That’s when it happened.
CRASH!
With a spectacular sound, a bottle of beer went spilling all over the man’s arm and knees. His probably-expensive suit, soaked through with beer.
I scrambled free from the man and rushed over with a towel from the kitchen.
A slender young woman stood beside him. I recognized her — she’d been sitting across the table a moment ago.
Looked like a new hire, her suit still carrying that fresh, first-year newness.
But her back was perfectly straight, and there was something, I don’t know, dignified about her. Beautiful, I thought. Cool.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing!?”
The man shouted. The woman bowed her head.
“My deepest apologies. My hand slipped.”
A flat, even voice. The man’s face went red as an octopus in seconds.
“Do you have any idea how much this suit cost!? And what’s with that attitude!?”
“P-president! I’m terribly sorry, sir!”
“I can’t do business with a company like this anymore! I’m tearing up the contract!!”
The man kept shouting.
A man at the same table, apparently her superior, was bowing frantically. The woman bowed along with him, apologizing too.
President… an important client, then.
The man — the president — grumbled and complained the whole way out, and eventually just left.
Her superior glared at her, face pale as a sheet.
That person’s definitely getting yelled at later.
I went back with an oshibori in hand, but something in my chest wouldn’t settle.
A little while later, passing through the hallway toward the restroom, I crossed paths with that woman.
“Um…”
I found myself calling out to her before I could think. She turned around.
“Earlier… thank you. Really.”
The woman blinked, startled, then gave a small laugh.
“Ahaha, I spilled that on purpose, actually. Watching that old guy sexually harass a staff member, it pissed me off.”
Eh.
Saying it so casually. Laughing about it.
“That president stormed off mad, though. Guess the deal’s dead now.”
She scratched her head, giving a troubled, wry laugh, but there was something breezy about her too.
“You okay?”
She looked me in the eye and asked. Kind eyes.
“Ah, um… y-yes…”
“Good, then.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly and smiled. That smile was, somehow, warm. When she laughed, a snaggletooth showed, the corners of her eyes lifting slightly, like a cat. I thought, somehow, that her laugh was cute.
Different from every other woman I’d ever met. Kind eyes. Just genuinely worried about me.
What is this person. Breezy, and yet warm, and cool. She seemed to have everything I didn’t.
I want to be like this person, I found myself thinking, just a little.
She gave a light wave and disappeared into a private room.
Later, carrying the bill over, I caught sight of the business card the man had left behind — “her” card.
Huh, so she’s from that company. The card read… Asami.
(Asami-san.)
About a month after that, job hunting season began.
The day the season officially opened, students all flooded the job-hunting sites, applying to companies in a rush.
Honestly, I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted to do with my future. I just drifted along with the wave because my classmates were doing it.
I’d dyed my hair a bright milk-tea beige, but went back to black for job hunting. I’d liked that color, actually.
Job hunting’s such a hassle. I just wanted to keep goofing off at college forever.
Lying on my bed, idly scrolling job sites on my phone —
—”her” face crossed my mind.
Before I knew it, I was searching for “that company” on the job site.
And I hit the apply button.
I want to be like her. That’s all it was.
Just admiration. Nothing more, nothing less.
*
…Because there’s no way I could ever fall for a woman. That’s what I believed, back then.