Die A Fucking Legend: Neon Raven

Chapter 2: Average Day on the Job

May has been awake for an hour now, pacing around his room. He feels like a walking corpse and he looks like one too. Part of him wishes he ran away with his makeup kit. The other wants to say 'good riddance' to that thing. He's still unsure which is worse, the novel hell he's getting himself into, or the familiar one he's always known.

Pushing those thoughts out of his head, he walks out of his dorm just as Dante does. "Early riser, aren't you? D'you get any sleep?"

"Kinda."

"Something wrong with the beds?"

"No, nothing like that. Don't worry about it, I'll get used to it." He lies. Dante leers at him with a raised eyebrow. "Is something the matter?" May backs up.

"You weren't pulling my leg yesterday, were you?"

May doesn't know what he's talking about. He looks off to the side, recalling that night. Vague recollections of words pass by his mind. Just wanted to let you know. Finally, it clicks.

"Oh! That! Yeah, I'm a boy."

"Why are you wearing those clothes then?"

May hasn't thought about that before. He should wear boys clothes, but the idea of it also makes him uncomfortable. "I-I just like it this way. You got a problem with that?"

Dante shrugs. "Not really, just curious." He stretches out his back with a yawn. "Lets meet up with those recruits, yeah?"

Dante takes may down into the basement of the building and straight to a huge vault, complete with a needlessly massive vault door. Standing outside the door are the aforementioned recruits. May takes a cursory glance at them. Four recruits. One of them is an obnoxious looking playboy. Hair greased with too much product, a sculpted face. And hanging off his arm like a leech is some blond-haired girl. Are both of them supposed to be recruits? Off to the side are two other guys. A lazy one with his face buried in his handheld console, and a very uptight one wearing a full uniform while adjusting his glasses. The number of guys here is making May uncomfortable.

The moment the others see Dante, they start murmuring amongst themselves. Is Dante actually supposed to be popular? He takes out a note and starts reading out all the names in a murmur. "Jake, Becky, Chris and Kevin. Everyone's here then. Let me get the keys real quick, stay here." He says, leaving the five of them waiting in front.

May hoped the wait would be quiet, but nothing ever works out his way. "Hey, I didn't know there was gonna be another girl joining us! What's your name?"

"I-I'm May."

"Did anyone tell you your name is cute? My name's Jake."

If I had a fucking nickel for every time someone told me that... "No, this is the first time someone told me that."

"I'm Becky. I'm happy to see another girl here!"

The strict looking recruit walks up, stiff as a board. "My name is Kevin. It's a pleasure to meet all of you. I hope we'll all be able to work well together." He says, bow and everything. Afterwards, he shoots a glare at the guy playing his game. "Shouldn't you introduce yourselves too?"

"Why? It's not like we'll be working together much after this mission."

"It's simple courtesy to introduce yourselves. And besides, we will work together on our first mission. We will work more synergistically with one another if we put some sort of trust in one anoth-"

"Ugh, how much can you talk? I'm Chris, lets leave it at that." He says, his eyes never leaving his screen. After an awkward wait, Dante finally returns. "Alright boys and girls, the moment you've all been waiting for. Find whichever weapon doesn't sting you and that'll be your starting today."