Mirto: Misfortune's Fool Gets No Favors from God

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AYC
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Mirto: Misfortune's Fool Gets No Favors from God

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I had no internet for a week so I was cut off from civilization had nothing better to do but finish this up.

Date: Fall, Pre-RP

Call it unfortunate, but it doesn't occur to Mirto that she has more things to add to her monthly bill until after she starts her final year at the high school.

The pang of realization is particularly jarring, but not so much so as the dead weight that drops in her stomach when she also realizes the implications.

Oh. She's graduating this year.

Which means.

Oh. It's about high time she starts applying to universities.

It's practically synonymous. With that in mind, Mirto takes a brief moment out of her time to marvel at how mind-bogglingly stupid she must be - honestly now, how could she have been so absent-minded as to forget? Hasn't this point been the one she's been practically working for all these years? Hell, isn't this why she had moved miles away from home to come to this discreet little seaside town in the first place?

For the entirety of that brief moment, her face goes completely blank in an shameless display of her stricken state. It's a good thing she's currently sitting alone in her bedroom while contemplating her obviously degenerating brain and how she must've fallen so far, because Mirto realizes that she must look quite deranged. Or at least, very stupid.

Great.

Shock aside, there's a new dilemma that needs to be addressed. At this thought, Mirto grits her teeth and cycles through all her options available to her at this point, only to come up pathetically empty.

Dammit.

Well, almost empty. She doesn't quite like it, but her pride regarding her future is greater than her aversion to maxing out her schedule and shooting her irritation through the roof. Even if it means she'll be going through even more hell than she had undergone during the summer.

University applications cost money, after all. And to get money, you need a job.

Or rather, one more job.

Date: Fall, Pre-RP

Although the owner of The Velvet Tea Room is awfully surprised to see Mirto in front of his desk again not more than two weeks after the end of her summer employment, it doesn't mean he's completely unwilling to take her back into his line of prim and proper waiters and waitresses. In fact, Mirto notes with a raised eyebrow that the man in question actually looks quite the opposite. Rather than distraught, the giddy, bloodshot-eye expression on his face seems to indicate that he's absolutely delighted, because if there's anything he likes more than young people dressed professionally in collared shirts and clean aprons, it's young people dressed professionally in collared shirts and clean aprons that are competent.

Perhaps that's why Mirto herself had decided to come to the meeting dressed in uniform, though she does cringe slightly when the man on the other side looks just about ready to have a heart attack as a result of it. Seriously, the man's obsession with youths in uniforms is borderline fetish material - that, or his family life must be severely lacking, if he takes joy in dressing up random, unrelated teenagers in the cafe's blue and black uniform.

It's almost as creepy as the long, dangerous-looking appendage fastened to the center of the owner's face. Or else just plain pitiful.

But paying no mind to the salivating boss in front of her, at least she gets the job again.

Date: Fall, Pre-RP

It takes Mirto the entire first week to realize that a number of the staff with which she had worked during the summer had been replaced with newer, fresher-faced individuals. Many of which looked to be other students from the high schools, judging by the naive, childishly bright gleam in their eyes.

Joy.

She resists the urge to roll her eyes at the repeated sight of scatter-brained waiters hurriedly dashing through the kitchen doors to return misplaced orders, or the familiar clink of glasses sliding into each other on their trays from waitresses struggling to balance the drinks.

Amateurs.

Mirto hates to admit it, but she really has done this for a long time. It's only been the first week, and she's already lamenting her situation and missing the days when she had had only one part-time job.

... Really, it's quite sad. Hopefully if these kids are anything like their predecessors, they'll have enough working, functioning brain to being able to pick up the skills needed to survive in this line of work quickly. Anyone under thirty usually do, don't they?

...

But apparently she's given the newbies more credit than they deserve.

At the start of the second week, Mirto is hit with a minor stroke of bad luck.

Maybe a bit more literally than she'd like.

She's cutting tomatoes into slices for an order of sandwiches when disaster strikes in the form of a rather bulky waiter with an equally bulky tray of food. Apparently the employee doesn't quite seem to know the connection between his center of mass and his axis of rotation, because he wildly spins on his heel from the counter of complete meals, and ridiculously loses his balance in the process.

And of course, Mirto just so happens to be in his radius of pain.

And of course, the teenage boy in question just so happens to be falling towards her in her blind spot.

And of course, she's too busy slicing the tomatoes with such fine, almost programmed precision to notice the boulder of impending doom coming her way.

And so of course, Mirto's shoulder takes the impact head on, and the force of the shove to her knife-holding arm leaves a rather painful looking remainder on her opposing finger.

Ouch.

It's a good thing the blade is far from dull, otherwise that would've hurt a lot more than it needed to be. Upon closer inspection, however, damn, it really isn't much of a shallow slit. Nowhere near the bone really, but it is a ways into the flesh, ow.

And the blood, it's getting all over the chopping board.

...

Mirto ignores the repeated apologies of her attacker, because dammit, there are more important things to worry about. Like how, for instance, is she supposed to tell what's blood and what's tomato now?

ARGH.

Date: Fall, Pre-RP

Her injury hasn't fully healed by the fifth week of work, but by this point, many of new employees have evolved into better, less clumsy and more fluid servers, and for that, Mirto is thankful.

After all, the relationship of idiots to her level of workplace trauma is directly related - the less, the better. Of course, that doesn't mean that the possibility of serving mishaps have been completely eliminated from the perimeter of The Velvet Tea Room, however, but at least the number has been greatly reduced.

Because the more Mirto has to make up for the slack of a couple of idiots, the more irritated and higher her blood pressure gets. Though thankfully, as of late her annoyance radar has been fluctuating on the lower end of the spectrum most of time. Or else she's just gotten better at controlling her temper.

... Or alternatively, it's just the calm before the storm.

It starts off innocently enough:

A waiter expertly carrying a small tower of freshly cleaned dishes passes by just as Mirto turns away from a nearby counter, and her eyes follow the colorful dish towel that slips from top and floats towards the ground. Maybe she's too nice, or maybe it's just that she's so used to these little things that she doesn't think twice about it anymore, but she quickly stoops down to pick up the fallen cloth.

Mirto doesn't really consider her action a dire mistake, but the loud crash to her left and looming shadow shrouding her position on the floor makes her realize that something was just about to go downhill.

Something... in the form of a waitress with unusually large breasts toppling towards her after tripping over a nearby broom. Which would not be so painful-sounding, if not for the fact that she was also holding a set of freshly cleaned dishes in front of her that strongly resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa. With more leaning.

. . .

Thankfully the waitress falls very ungracefully a few feet away from Mirto's position, and judging by the small oomph the younger girl makes with the ground, her oddly poofy apron managed to break her fall with little injuries.

Yay.

The dishes however, make a crash landing close to ten inches away, and though Mirto considers herself grateful that at least the porcelain didn't fall on her, the fact that it's a little too close for comfort is rather unsettling. Especially with the way one of the broken shards is actually embedded in the exposed skin of her thigh.

...

It's silent in the room as Mirto pulls out the ceramic swiftly, painfully, and without any remorse. The still atmosphere makes it impossible to ignore the small hiss of pain she makes as the glass is removed.

... Ow. And ew, gross. I don't think I should've worn shorts today.

She eyes the extracted chunk of broken dish with a faint look of distress and a soft, resigned sigh.

And I guess I'm going to have to clean this up too, don't I?

Date: Winter, Pre-RP

By the final week of of her temporary employment, Mirto is nothing short of tired and relieved it's about to be all over. Seriously, she can't help but consider herself very fortunate for being able to avoid accident after accident - even after that injury to her leg, the number of close calls she'd had to face... can't even be counted with all the fingers she has on her hands. Actually, it probably couldn't be counted on the fingers of all of her co-workers' hands combined either.

Even though she hates to admit it, Mirto has gotten rather paranoid and on edge... it's even started affecting her mindset outside of her working hours. Hopefully she won't have lost her sanity by the time the end of the week has rolled around.

Hopefully.

Although she probably shouldn't be saying this but, it's also rather unfortunate that the cafe is particularly busy today. Not only has the kitchen been mercilessly attacked with a massive amount of orders, but it's busy enough that there's actually a line - and a crowded one, no less - forming around the front of the building.

Mirto realizes that there hasn't been any mishaps yet on the side of the waiters, but she knows better than to expect it to stay that way. Vaguely, she wonders what event there could be anyway, for the Velvet Tea Room to be so packed and popular on this rather obscure day of the week.

It's not like we're having a sale or anything.

Regardless of the reason, however, Mirto has a job to do, and she has no choice but to stick it through and give it her all... and then some, probably. Without so much as a shift in expression, she nonchalantly sidesteps a waiter clumsily rushing in through the door, and just as easily leans back to avoid the series of forks and knives that come flying as said waiter stumbles and trips over his own feet.

A casual glance at the bent ends spearing the nearby wall tells her that they're probably going to need more cutlery now.

Just... wonderful.

But at least some other kind soul goes out of his way to rush to the cabinet of silverware and pull out a few more utensils to replace. In a way, Mirto is kind of proud of how far the other employees have come at the end of three months of employment, clumsiness aside. The amount of headaches she's had has certainly lessened, and she can actually spend her shift doing what she's supposed to doing. Which isn't cleaning up the messes of her co-workers.

It'd almost be the recipe for success, if Mirto didn't know better. She doesn't want to be pessimistic, but her experience tells her something always goes wrong at the last minute, and that's why she's exceptionally on edge this week.

Exceptionally.

That's also probably why it only takes a slight movement from one of the other assistant chefs for Mirto to make a seamless catch when he accidentally knocks over a bottle of oil on the cluttered counter with his elbow, or when she senses doom and kicks a nearby stool clear to the other side of the kitchen seconds before a waiter trips and falls neatly on the wooden seat instead of the floor. It might not be the most comfortable place to drop your ass, but at least it's safer than letting him slide and crash on the floor.

And it's best for the day to run as smoothly and with as little delay as possible. Mirto doesn't care about anything else at the moment. Her paranoia is making it hard to think otherwise.

A little over halfway through the day, however, her obsessive, on-edge mindset ends up shooting herself in the foot.

Badly. And almost close to literally.

It's happening all the way on the other side of the kitchen, and Mirto can see it from the corner of her eye. It's one of the more experienced waitresses, she remembers, and her arms are cradling a tall tower of assorted cakes and pastries, arranged like a wedding cake in tiers. She can't really blame the waitress for stumbling as she heads toward the door, with all of the weight and the glass cups and plates obscuring her vision and stuff, but surely she could've asked another server to help her with carrying that. Or with playing navigator.

On the other hand, Mirto ends up being more perplexed as she watches the small structure of sweets slip from the waitress's grip, and doesn't even know what's happening when less than a second later she's halfway across the room in a haphazard dive, hands out in front of her.

In fact, Mirto doesn't really know what she's done until she feels the heavy weight of glassware securely on her arms, and her elbows and knees hitting the floor with a loud bang. One of her knees doesn't take well to the fall at all, and she just knows she's in a whole lot of pain and agony when she slides out the door and into the main restaurant area, with the entire tower of cakes impeccably undisturbed, flawless, and not a sprinkle out of place.

... Perfect.

But... damn, does it hurt.

Mirto chances a glance behind her in curiosity, and ends up wishing she didn't. Her mind might still be reeling from all the movement and her own stupidity, but that doesn't stop her from cringing at the bloody red streak marking the marble floor, like a sort of morbid skid mark from her knee.

Ouch. And ew, that's really just gross.

Quietly, she laments the work that it's going to take to clean up that mess later, once she manages to get this heavy thing off her arms and once she limps herself over to the nearest first aid kit. Hopefully she has enough gauze and medical tape left in her bag.

The sight of several stunned faces peering at her snaps Mirto out of her reverie. Huh. She's pretty sure those aren't her colleagues, judging from the clothes -

Oh wait -

It takes a few minutes of fast-paced processing for her to realize that she had an audience of customers the whole time. An audience that, for some reason, are applauding her and her pretty pitiful-looking position like it was some kind of surprise performance or something.

What. the. hell...?

Mirto takes a brief moment to gather her bearings.

What is wrong with the people in this town?!

Date: Spring, Pre-RP

After nearly four months of employment at the Velvet Tea Room, she's really just done. A month later, Mirto can't help but be relieved at the fact that she only has a commitment to one job again. As sad as that sounds.

But at least she can sort of breathe easier now. Kind of. Though, as much as she wishes it was so, it also doesn't mean she's completely impervious to headaches, especially with the rather unbecoming scene she's witnessing at the moment.

Usually, most people wander into the aisles of books for the sake of taking a book out of the bookshelves, don't they? Hell, that's what a library is for, dammit.

It's not a playground, and it's certainly not a place for people to be fooling around. Especially when said people are teenagers frolicking and giggling in the next row like they're out in some meadow with rainbows and unicorns.

Man, she feels old.

Her death grip on the spine of some supernatural lexicon tightens slightly when she catches sight of the pair pushing and shoving each other through the gap between the novels. It's worse than she thought, she realizes as she catches sight of the black blazer and dull silver emblem on the uniform. The public school's uniform. Her school.

Ugh.

It's awfully unsightly, but Mirto's more concerned about the increasing volume of their half-muffled laughter and the decreasing level of concern with which the students are pushing each other with.

An eyebrow twitches when the bookshelves in front of her sway ever-so slightly from the force of a one hundred-something pound, fifty-sixty kilogram teenage boy hobbling backwards into the wall of books. Somehow it doesn't seem like quite a good idea anymore, being up on a ladder nearly five feet above the ground. She quickly slides the lexicon into its proper place on the shelf, giving the duo on the other side a brief, pointed glare before promptly beginning her descent down the ladder.

She drops lightly onto the floor just as the bookshelf takes another violent shake - so much so that the very same ladder she had been using gives a quick, rough-looking jerk. Mirto considers herself very lucky that she had decided to get off when she did - otherwise she might've fallen and broken her arm. Or back. Or head even, depending on the angle.

This thought in particular almost makes her shiver slightly in horror. Almost.

The next moment though, there's another loud thump and the Great Wall of Occult Novels tips sharply forward and Mirto scrambles to keep the heavy mass upright. She figures it must look pretty ridiculous though - one person with arms spread out trying to stop one huge-ass bookshelf from knocking over the rest like dominoes. Really. Damn. Ridiculous.

Seriously.

Maybe it's just her imagination, but she's pretty sure that her blood pressure is rising with every equal rise in irritation level. Soon she might just have a coronary. Very. Soon.

But on the other hand, vaguely, Mirto is a little grateful for all the hard work she had put into the countless, countless hours at the cafe. It's good to know that at least her reflexes haven't gotten rusty from her time away, and rather than feeling a bit antagonized, it actually makes her feel a little... happier.

Sort of. If anything, it's a bit of a stretch. A long one.

There's a faint shuffling-shaking sound above, and Mirto catches sight of the small tower of books she had left on the top of the ladder.

Oh.

She manages to read the tough spine of the novel as all 236 pages of it comes falling down: The Irony of Demon Overlords.

Somewhere in her mind she sighs in resignation. Because being done in by a book - no less one she likes - seems pretty tragically ironic. Or just plain laughable.

Her body stumbles backwards. The pain on her forehead is splittingly sharp.

OW.

Personally she's surprised she's not bleeding.

But it's definitely going to leave a mark.

...

In the end, Mirto's not really grateful for anything.



END.
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