Strawberry + Kiwi = ??? || Private || Looshi

[Anonymous]

“Have a good night~.” He called out as the last few customers made their way out of the Lucky Loon’s doors. He waved to them as they left and smiled happily and they seemed pleased by that. People really could be made happy with just a smile, a wave and someone wishing them a good day or something. He was really happy that he could make people happy that way. Thinking about people’s happiness though suddenly made him think about his mother back in Aedolis. As quick as that thought came on though, he started to busy himself with clearing the dirty dishes and things off of the now empty table. He had to keep his mind busy when it started to wander like that. Of course he loved his mother but thinking about her all alone and not being able to see her made him depressed.

He spun around on his heel, causing the skirt he was wearing to flare out at the ends a little. Yes…he was wearing a skirt. It was the waitress uniform that he was wearing in fact. Why? Simply because he was mistaken as a girl when trying to get a job here in the first place. He really didn’t mind it though. The outfit was cute and he liked wearing cute clothes. Of course he was wearing what looked like black tights underneath the skirt though because it wouldn’t be nice if someone suddenly decided to let their dirty hands wander. That would lead to that poor person finding out that he was actually a male rather than a female. In turn that would cause trouble, something he didn’t like at all.

Nephie practically skipped back to the kitchen with the dirty dishes. He was always this happy and excited at work because he enjoyed what he did. The people were very nice as was the manager and the other people that worked there. Speaking of which all of them were gone, leaving Nephie to close up on his own. Actually the manager wasn’t there. The poor woman needed some time to herself and Nephie had insisted that she take the rest of the day off and get some relaxation in. He was left in charge of closing everything up because of that. The other people who worked there were gone as well since there had been only one table left, he had told them they could go ahead and go and that he would handle it.

As he got back to the kitchen he stuck the dirty dishes into the washer and pushed the little headband he had on his head back up as it started to fall forward, causing the ribbon on the side of it to tickle his cheek. “Okay..let’s see…dishes done. Everything but the door is locked up and everything is counted for…uhm…let’s see…all I need to do is….” He wandered back out into the dining area, a finger to his lips as he thought of everything else he had to do. “Clean the tables off, do a quick sweep, the kitchen has been swept and mopped already…and…wow I think that’s all.” He smiled happily to himself and he grabbed a wet cloth from a nearby table that he cleaned earlier.

Nephie quickly got those small tasks done and put everything away where it needed to go. He put his hands on his hips as he stared out at the dining area, his golden orbs looking everything over to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to do anything. “Everything looks great~!” He clapped his hands together once and smiled happily. “Now let’s see…where did Mrs. Ophelia leave the keys to lock the doors up at…?” He went back into the kitchen and looked around for anything shiny that could possibly be keys. There was nothing. He frowned a little, almost pouting when he didn’t see them. “Oh Mrs. Ophelia…please don’t tell me you took the keys with you today..”

He thought back to when the woman had left and tried to remember if she had left the keys with him or not. “…Hm..” Yes…she had left the keys with him, he remembered that much. He couldn’t remember where he had placed them though. “Oh this isn’t good..” He frowned a little more before leaving the kitchen, quickly checking the dining area for the keys. “I know I had them somewhere…” Nephie looked just about everywhere in the dining room. He even got to the point where he was crawling around on the floor, looking underneath the tables in case he had been carrying the keys and dropped them somewhere. “Oh boy…” No keys. He hopped back up to his feet and blinked when something in his apron pocket jingled. “Hmmm?” He stuck a hand down into the pocket and pulled out everything in there. Among the few objects were the keys he was looking for. “Oh! Here they are! How silly of me.”

Nephie laughed a little and shook his head. He had probably been day dreaming or something and placed them in his pocket and forgotten they were there. It was actually a normal thing for him to do really. He often lost quite a few things that way. With keys in hand, he quickly did a second check of everything to make sure it was all in the right order for the next day. “And I’ll just drop these keys off at Mrs. Ophelia’s before going home since it isn’t really late. Mrs. Ophelia needs a way back inside after all.” This was not actually the first time he had been left in charge of closing in fact. Whenever he thought the lady needed a day off or something he would try and persuade her to go relax or at least get out for a few hours. That meant he was in charge of the keys and instead of hiding them somewhere outside the door he would always return them to Ophelia. “Okay~ All done.”

[Anonymous]

The sky was generally something Janus wondered about. Of course he knew what a sky was, but the fake one in Teinar at times made him wonder how different the real one looked like, if it was any different at all. Certainly, the city had built skylights to let in artificial light, but those..Those were too hard to see through from the fact of them being  high up. Nevertheless, he had once tried to get to them. Which ended in failure, for many reasons he did not want to visit again. But, still. He still wanted to know. And so was the trail of thought of Janus Walker as he made his way down the streets to his mother’s restaurant, the Lucky Loon.  Unfortunately, he spent most of his time looking upwards barely noticing anyone in front of him until he walked into them. More than once. With a few apologizes he was off again, not quite learning from his mistakes however.

  As much as he did not like being out in public, he needed to venture out of the hole his parents called  room for a reason by now he had forgotten. Wonderful. He honestly should keep notes stickied to himself to avoid such problems. But then again, he’d probably forget to do that. However, he did know his destination, which was where he was headed. To his distaste. Why was it that he could remember where to go, but not why he was going there? Ridiculous, he mused as he bumped into another person. Apologized. Then moved on. He needed to stop looking up.

  Over the course of time he had somewhat gotten used to stares people gave him when he wandered outside. Naturally, he couldn’t expect every person in the city to have seen a humanoid such as himself frequently or at all. Still, all of it put him a little on edge, and caused the fur on his tail to fluff up in a way that was saying ‘stay away’. He didn’t like when people stared; he didn’t know what they were thinking, or could even imagine what was going through their minds. Which was more than true, it was a complete lack of comprehension of other people’s feelings. Or gestures, or words. Or anything really. He took things far too literally, it wasn’t entirely his fault. Something was wrong with him.

  His pace slowed as he turned onto a more familiar street; one that turned up more in his childhood memories than in his recent ones. It had been a long while since he padded his way down to the Lucky Loon; weaving, usually although not today, past people. Janus hesitated. He could see the restaurant sign swinging its hinges sticking out from the front on a grey bar. It was a ‘old fashioned’ restaurant, in a way. His mother had once worked as a historian, and had taken a liking to a design from hundreds of years ago, and put it into practice when she settled down and started up the business. Honestly, he couldn’t see why she had gotten bored of her past profession. Oh well. Not that it mattered.

  Why was he here again? Oh! That’s right...His mother wanted him to meet someone. But as he looked onwards he noticed the light in the restaurant was dimmed, and the neon ‘close’ sign had already been turned on in one of the large front windows. He was late. This was not good, for him at least. More than likely he would be chewed out by his mother later. And so was the circle of life.

  He made his way over to the fine grained wooden door, and place a hand on the knob. His mother was no doubt inside waiting for him. Janus paused, and took a breathe. Even though he had heard the whole routine before, it quite frankly bored him to death and he didn’t feel like going through it. At all, really. He could live quite happily. But as he opened the door, finding it still unlocked thankfully, he didn’t find his mother sitting with one leg over the other on stool over at the bar on the far wall. Instead, one of the workers filled his field of vision.

A waitress? His mother left closing duties to a waitress? How..Irresponsible of her.

  “Did...Mrs Walker leave already? Or has she just inconveniently stepped out?” He was thoroughly relieved. However, where was his mother then? If not there? Certainly she wasn’t home, or else he would have seen her walk- No, he wouldn’t have actually.

[Anonymous]

Nephie looked over everything once more again. It was a habit of his. Especially if he was left to close. He was not very particular about where things were and where they weren’t. No it was nothing like that. He just felt that things needed to be neat and tidy for the next morning. That way when Ophelia opened up she wouldn’t have to do so much to get ready. Plus it was his job anyway to make sure everything was cleaned up. Well not just his but still…

Just as he was about to get to the door, he stopped and stared at the knob as it started to turn a little. Well that usually meant someone was going to come in but who it was, he wasn’t sure. The closed sign was on so no other customers would be coming. Unless…they hadn’t seen the sign. No that couldn’t be possible. The sign was in plain view. It couldn’t be Ophelia either. Unless she was deciding to drop by and make sure everything was okay. But if so why would she come when she of course knew he would be closing up at that time? He shook his head at the thoughts because the only other thing he could think of was someone was coming to try and rob the place. Oh he hoped it wasn’t that.

Just in case though he stepped away from the door so that the person could open it and so he could tackle the person if they were a robber or something. Not like that would do much but it would at least be an attempt. When the door finally opened and the presented themselves, he blinked and automatically his golden orbs went right to one of the things that seemed out of place on the person if they were human. Their tail. He didn’t even have time to see if the person was a girl or boy because of that. Poor Nephie and his obsessions.

It wasn’t until the person spoke that he swallowed dryly in an attempt to keep himself under control so he wouldn’t attack the poor person just so he could cuddle their tail. His staring enough was probably a bit unnerving for the person or something. How long had he been staring anyway? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Quickly he tore his eyes away from the tail and looked at the person directly. He was then transfixed on the person’s hair. Red and gray…or white was it? Not something he saw every day. He was taken from his thoughts though when the person’s words sank in and it was then that he found that the person was a guy. Finally he was paying attention.

“Mrs. Ophelia?” he said, slightly dumbfounded due to his zoning out. It was different for him to hear Mrs. Walker coming from someone when he heard himself calling the woman Mrs. Ophelia. The reason he did that though was because Ophelia had sort of conditioned him to do it. After working there for a while she insisted that he just call her Ophelia. He wasn’t able to drop the Mrs part so he always added that in front of her name. It was a start so she didn’t seem to mind and continued to let him call her that.

“Mrs. Ophelia left earlier today.” He said with a smile. “She won’t be back until we open up tomorrow. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” He thought for a second before something came to mind at how he could help this person out at least a little bit. After all..he didn’t know if they had come a long way to see Ophelia or not and had just caught him as he was closing up. “But if I can get your name, I am going to go see her real quick, I can tell her you dropped by.” He tried to think of something else. “Or you could stop by tomorrow?” Nephie rubbed the back of his head nervously and smiled nervously as well since he wasn’t sure if those were all good suggestions or not.