Awks. ✓

Chapter 5: You're A Walking Hazard To The Nation!!

Why are colours named the way they are? I mean, why is green called green? What if green wanted to be called yellow? Or grey? Or magenta for crying out loud? And they're such weird words, the actual names of colours. Like blue, what on earth is b-l-u-e? Why are we restricted to seeing a certain amount of colours and their shades only? There has to be more colours out there somewhere.

The only theory I can come up with is that no one could actually see colours before. Life was dull, blank. People would go on with their days normally, until someone would bump into something, injuring themselves. In a cry of pain, they'd yelp a random word: 'Green!' for example. And bam, everyone could see green. Slowly, every colour became noticeable to the world and we all...

*CRASH*

Suddenly everything went white for a moment. My eyes were open but I couldn't see anything. The voices around me were muffled, I couldn't make out a thing. I tried blinking my vision back to normal and slowly, blurry images began to appear. Something, hovering over me.

"Marianne, are you alright?"

I have a massive headache.

"Ria?"

Ew.

I sprung back to life at the sound of that cringe-worthy nickname.

"Don't call me that." I mumbled, rubbing my temples.

Now my vision was clearer than ever. I was lying on the ground and Thomas' grinning face was the UHO 'Unidentified Hovering Object'. He was kneeling, his hands on the ground on either side of my head. I noticed a couple of bystanders and realised how some might get the wrong idea of what was happening so I quickly shoved him aside and sat up.

Pain gushed through my vertebral column like water being released from a dam. I groaned, grasping my back.

"I think you should probably get that checked out."

"Well I'm probably in this situation because you threw me to the ground." I snapped, still rubbing my back.

"Excuse you. You're the one who came out of nowhere and practically walked into me before crashing into the pavement." He got up and dusted himself off. "If anything, you can blame yourself for this."

"Blame me for normally and innocently bumping into a stranger?! I don't think so mister. You're built like a freaking tank! You're a walking hazard to the nation!!"

I brought my hands to the ground in front of me and began pushing myself up, ignoring the stretched out arm ready to assist me. I checked my wrist watch, praying that I wasn't late.

"Just peachy. Thanks for making me eight minutes late." I said before grabbing my side bag from the ground and hurrying past him.

Geez, that guy.

***

"Mr Ramirez, I can explain."

Eight plus twelve equals twenty. I was twenty minutes late and the always-on-time-never-late-himself manager was giving me a hard time about it.

"Give me one good reason why I should not fire you right now!"

I swallowed, trying to moisten my ever so nervous throat but that didn't seem to help. "I... Um.. You see... Well... It wasn't..."

"Her fault."

Everyone was looking passed me to the source of the voice. I turned around and saw him, of course, standing at the door.

"It wasn't her fault. It was mine. I was the reason for why she was late this morning."

Someone gasped at that, probably Bethany. He then shot a glance at me and I couldn't meet his eyes. Even though what he was saying was true, he shouldn't be taking the blame. He doesn't even know me.

Mr Ramirez kept looking from Thomas to me before speaking. "Marie-Annie, is this true?"

It took all the power invested in me not to roll my eyes. Why do people have a hard time just saying my name correctly god damn it. Afraid to let my tongue slip away with what was on my mind, I replied with a nod.

"Then in that case, I guess we can let this all behind us."

Phew. I live to serve coffee another day. Not that I'm looking forward to that or anything. Woah, thank goodness I wasn't fired today, I wouldn't have heard the end of it when my mum would've found out. Just thinking about that gives me the heebie jeebies. Is that even a thing?

"Well don't just stand there," Dylan said, shaking me back to reality, "go to the backroom unless you really want to get fired."

"Sir, yes sir.... Dyl." I raised my hand in a salute before marching to the backroom, clearly ignoring his negative feedback on his nickname.

I've known Dylan ever since we were kids. We weren't exactly considered besties throughout our school years but all I know is that I've always called him by that nickname. Come to think of it, I don't even know how it came to start.

When I got back to the bar, I was still tying up my apron. Bethany was giving me one of her renowned death stares which scared me to the point of no return. I tried to avoid making eye contact with her, strategically focusing on grabbing a notepad and ballpoint pen from next to Dylan.

"Marianne, could you get table twelve please?" He asked, fiddling with the buttons on the cash register.

"Sure thang sweet thaaang." I elbowed him, just for the cherry on the top effect. "Hey isn't that table on Bethany's side?"

At Maroon we have a system, a democracy if you may. The cafe is split up into quarters. Each quarter is controlled by its master (waiter or waitress) of the day. With a total of five employees, one being the conductor of les cash register, we all have a certain place with a certain job to fulfill.

"Erm yeah, but.." He was hesitant for some reason.

"Spit it out, we don't have all day."

"He's asking... For you."

He? Me? Who on earth would specifically choose a.... Wait. No. Please. Please don't be who I think it is.

"Ria, I'm ready to order."

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A/N:

Freedom is a lovely thing, isn't it? My midyear exams are done for and I'm currently spending my holiday watching tons of anime yay :)

The opening "daydream" about colours was based on an actual debate a friend and I had a couple of days ago xD So I'm dedicating this chapter to her. To aneezaosman for listening to all my weird thoughts and being a top notch reader of my lame stories, arigato ♡

Feel free to comment, vote, follow, whatever :')

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