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_ Boiling Point _

My walk from the station was more like a swim, the swampy summer morning air even more overwhelming and oppressive than the metro journey that'd got me there. A journey made up of three trains, two transfers, and nearly an entire hour spent like a sardine in a can...

An ordeal I wouldn't fully escape, even after making it outside.

Even before eight o'clock, the narrow streets of Kosnerka, like those in most other districts of the city, were already packed to overflowing with people making their own ways to work.

The moving Maleni-sized walkways running through those streets suffered just the same, with the sheer numbers packed within its railings forcing me and everyone else to stand rather than walk.

As a Maleni, things were made all the more dismal by the constant shadow of the large, never-ending wall of passing Visoka on the main pavement, the elevated metro line running overhead, and the tall, compacted buildings that loomed above it all.

It all acted as a soundboard of sorts, too, echoing the never-ending racket of snarled up traffic, blaring horns, and so many overgrown Visoka clomping around those grubby, claustrophobic streets.

It was my first time seeing Kosnerka from this perspective, given it was also the first time I'd convinced Tomas, my boyfriend, not to drag himself halfway across the city just to take me to my new job. How he'd been managing to drag himself outta bed way earlier than he needed to, then search out a coffee shop or similar to start working his own job remotely, I hadn't the faintest idea.

I appreciated it, though. And him. As much as it felt as overbearing as this hot, humid morning, having my big badger insist on carrying me too and from work... It _was_sweet of him.

And, in a lotta ways, a damn sight better than needing to battle through these damn crowds alone!

But, somehow, despite so much noise and so little room to breathe, being forced to do nothing but roll along that sheltered, shadowed walkway gave me the time and space... in a sense... to contemplate my workday ahead.

Something that fast sent butterflies fluttering around my stomach.

Over and over, I thought about all the ways I could make a good impression, and about all the things I had to avoid to not leave a bad one.

This latest job had me managing, almost single-handedly, the Maleni side of things at a small, but apparently popular cafe restaurant run by a Visoka family from Kharsia.

Being thrown into a position like that, given so much responsibility, almost drowned me at first.

But time helped me. Enough that after the first few shifts, the training I'd received, and the straight-forward services I'd worked had left me far more assured.

Everything had gone fine... as far as I could tell.

But fine wouldn't be enough in the long run. No chance.

Working at this cafe was the first job of any kind I'd had in months... if you can count two weeks washing dishes before being let go 'cos the motel can't afford you as a 'job'.

What's more, this job was my first in a position as any kinda cook since before I ended up homeless...

In shelters... Then on the streets...

Before I met Tomas.

So, for absolute, one-hundred-fuckin-percent sure, this job couldn't be another false dawn. Another 'two weeks washing dishes'.

This needed to be my return to a culinary career... to what I love.

And I needed to succeed, to thrive in this job. To repay all the faith that the cafe's owners, and Tomas, of course, had put in me, so help me every single god!

It's about then that I realised exactly how tangled up I'd got in work thoughts, past, present, and potential.

Distracted, even.

Enough that I almost transferred onto the wrong walkway on the wrong side street not once, but twice in as many minutes.

After a swerve and a barge through an otherwise impenetrable, now slightly angrier crowd, I managed to get myself back on course, and to keep my focus on the manic world racing non-stop around me.

And soon, I'd managed to use that world to tangle myself up all over again.

Kosnerka. I'd rarely, if ever, travelled there before landing this job, and for sure, I'd need more than just those first few days to get used to it.

The sheer density of the place, its packed-out streets running between tight-knit buildings, okay, that was one thing I needed to get my head around.

But the fact that the further I moved away from the station, the less Velikan I'd see, and hear, was another thing completely.

The signs over shopfront awnings, the voices and conversations that I'd pass and would pass by me: all in Ekrean, and all complete gibberish to my eyes and ears.

Living in a big city like Pilsnec, seeing people and hearing languages from all over kinda went with the territory. Heading to Kosnerka, though... was like leaving not only the city, but leaving Vodaskal and entering a different country completely.

The only saving grace for me, the baffled badger slowly rolling his way to work, was that like the rest of the city, Polcian was present as a second language in Kosnerka, too... Albeit nowhere near as widespread.

No problem. The street name signs were enough to get me where I needed to go. And get there, I did, a few more loud, disorientating minutes later.

A small alleyway connected the street to the side entrance of Bennabi's Cafe. Small to the point that it must've been more like a passageway than an alley to a Visoka. And smaller still thanks to the trash bags and general junk waiting to be removed.

The static walkway fixed to the wall kept me away from the grimiest parts, taking me directly to the rickety, Maleni-sized door a stone's throw from its larger, studier equivalent.

The foreign sounds of the neighbourhood droned on and on, filtering between the alley walls while I had a crack at turning the sticky door handle.

I failed my first try, only opening the door enough to get a better listen at the clanking and clattering on the other side.

Try number two went way better, and with a good, firm barge with my shoulder, I got myself inside.

The doorway led directly into the cafe's loud kitchen. One very much on the cramped side by Visoka standards.

For the most part, that wasn't something that directly affected me... other than the need to stick beneath the wooden overhangs fixed to the counters when things got really busy.

What_did_affect me directly, however, was how the world, in a sense, got turned on its head. See, outside, even with ninety-percent of things being written, said, done in Ekrean, things still kept me, a Maleni, in mind. There were smaller walkways, smaller doors, smaller everything you could think of.

But in the kitchen of Bennabi's Cafe, I'd learned in just a few days of work there that offerings like that were a pipe dream at best.

I made sure not to move too far from the door. A few steps at most. Enough to get me to the sheltered corner of the counter running adjacent to the bead-curtained doorway to the customer seating area.

The same counter that my work area was located atop.

I caught sight of Mr. Bennabi, swinging and juggling a furious blur of knives and pans, already hard and loud at work at the main prep area in the centre of the kitchen.

This brown gecko with a permanently serious face was my boss, and co-owner of the cafe. As far as I could tell, based on the tidbits I'd pieced together during my interview, he and his family had moved to Pilsnec just a couple of months previous to join his brother.

That all certainly tracked... given how he spoke absolutely _zero_Velikan, and not a whole lot more Polcian on top of that.

"Good morning, sir," I called out in the latter, cringing only slightly. 'Sir'... A sign of respect for your superiors and elders back where he came from, apparently.

And as awkward as it felt to call him that over 'boss' or 'chef', my fourth day working in his kitchen wasn't the day to start doing anything other than by the book.

I didn't get a response to my culturally-appropriate greeting, not even so much as a glance my way. Just the ongoing racket of his classic, whirlwind-like approach to prep work.

"Good morning," I shouted. "...sir."

Mr. Bennabi's arms stopped thrashing.

Down went his knife to the worktop. Up came his head. Turning.

To peer back down. At me.

My first reaction was to brace myself for a telling off over distracting him while working.

Not that he'd ever chewed me out for anything like that... I suppose it was hard not to forever fear the worst from him and his ever-stern face.

He rambled something in his harsh, throat-scraping native tongue, just for a second or so.

Then, after a huff, a short shake of his head, and a couple more seconds of thought, he said, "Good morning... you, too... Jiri."

His accent was so thick that at times, even his Polcian sounded like it might've been another language.

Not that he stuck to it for long. Not even long enough for me to follow up with something like a begrudging 'how are you?'.

"Salim!" he hollered, swiftly followed by more coarse gibberish directed towards the beaded curtain.

I didn't need to understand Ekrean to know what he'd asked before diving back into his work, nor was I under any illusion that I should do anything besides stand there and wait...

...Then wait some more.

Like an idiot.

Like I had done first thing each day so far that week.

I refused to let myself start feeling like the smallest problem in the kitchen.

Instead, I glanced back and up at the gap in the protective overhang.

The gap where the counter's standard side-mounted lift should've been...

A lift I assumed had busted ages ago, and had since been ripped out, tossed out, and never replaced.

A likely fact that meant I couldn't just take an easy ride up to my workspace.

No, instead, I had no choice but to stand around waiting for help like a complete berk...

"Deep breath," I mumbled to myself before taking exactly that. "Not the end of the world."

The rattle of the beaded curtain parting came with the beat of approaching footsteps. Judging by their speed and rhythm, I figured they belonged to Salim.

I leaned out from cover to confirm, then watched the younger, slightly lighter brown gecko in a baggy work shirt and trousers come to a stop just inside the swaying curtain.

Mr. Bennabi barked some more Ekrean at his teenage son, pausing his prep work just long enough to hurl a whole bunch of very intense, very expressive hand gestures along with it.

Salim muttered something in return, hinting at complaint in his not-so-thick accent, making sure he'd not be outdone in the passionate gesticulation department.

Waving arms, twisting hands, and flexing fingers went back, forth, back, then forth as much as their half-shouted words did.

All while I waited.

Oblivious.

The oddest of odd ones out in the kitchen of their family's cafe.

I heard some mildly-accented Polcian flow down from above. Just in time to divert me from a useless bout of navel-gazing.

Whatever was actually said didn't quite make it from my ears to my brain, however.

But Salim didn't seem to mind repeating himself. "I said hey, Jiri."

"Hey, Salim. Sorry." I gave him a short wave from not far above his ankle. "How're you?"

"I'm here. Helping Out. Again," he grumbled with a loudness that put absolute faith in his dad's lack of Polcian skills. "Other than that... Fine, I guess."

"That's... something at least."

"Yeah." He took the two large steps needed to make it to the corner of the counter. I couldn't miss his huff before he asked if I was, "Ready?"

"Uhm, sure... Thanks."

I quietly waited for him to bend and reach down to offer me a lift in place of a literal one. For sure, I'd have preferred being able to use the latter. They tended to come without the irritation or inconvenience... For both Maleni _and_Visoka.

Once I'd settled into Salim's padless hands as much as I could in palms that didn't belong to Tomas, my helper spoke up again.

"How are you doing?"

It wasn't a tricky question, but I suppose the speed, angle, or whatever it'd come from knocked me off-balance. "You mean, how am I doing in this lift you're giving me?"

"No, like... How are you doing? Today."

I needed a second to consider how to answer that. And to decide how much to give away. He'd lifted me beyond the protective overhang by the time I said, "Tired. Another long, cramped metro ride to get here. Other than that... can't complain."

"Why not?" Salim puffed a short laugh. "Not like my dad'll understand whatever you gotta say about this place."

"I ain't about to complain over having a job to do. Trust me."

"Pfft. If you say so."

The front of the counter soon gave way to the countertop. In turn, Salim set his hands down to let me stand up and jump out onto it.

Chips, scratches, and a bunch of other imperfections in the countertop poked and prodded the soles of my work shoes. This thing had seen far better days, no doubt.

But that didn't matter, because the countertops that _did_matter sat just a few uneven steps away. All part of a smaller kitchen area, in size and stature, that had been installed with protective panelling on all sides except its open front.

I might've taken some time to admire and appreciate it. The duration of a slow walk over to it, at least.

If Mr. Bennabi hadn't barked words of some kind behind me.

I heard Salim cry back in their language. Then I turned to see him hurl a few more hand twists and flicks along with it.

Given how much they liked using their arms, a part of me wondered if you actually needed _words_to speak Ekrean.

Salim sighed as he looked back at me with bored eyes. He managed a hint of a smile, then mumbled, "Work, work, work."

With that, he slinked off back through the curtain and disappeared into the seating area out front.

That left me to take that casual stroll over to my work station.

If I were being objective about it, it'd be fair to say this little kitchen (kitchenette?) was kinda... basic.

But looking on the brighter, more optimistic side, a side not often available at 7:30 on a Thursday morning, it had a whole lot going for it inside its casing.

It had a well-sized prep island complete with built-in ingredient containers, not too dissimilar to Mr. Bennabi's. Beyond that, against the kitchen's back 'wall', sat a polished stove, a large-capacity refrigerator, and, most importantly, my brand-new set of knives that Tomas, bless him, had helped me pay for.

All of those, plus enough of the other little and larger things, came together to form something of a proper work kitchen.

_My_proper work kitchen.

The pride and joy that came with that thought left me hopeful. That day was gonna be a good day.

With my apron on, hands washed, and mentally ready to go with the prep work, the morning started off as smooth as I could've hoped.

As usual, it'd be me and Mr. Bennabi working the kitchen to begin with, while Salim took on the task of waiting tables once we'd opened.

For the first time that week, however, Salim's sister was nowhere to be seen, leaving him to deal with the front of house all alone... Rather him than me, that's for damn sure.

As for his uncle Adel, my _other_boss, he'd no doubt stroll in somewhen around lunchtime. As would a couple of the full-time wait staff ahead of the lunch rush.

Even for a relatively small cafe, they, _we_sure did like working on a knife's edge when it came to manpower.

Gods knew how things ran before I'd arrived to handle the Maleni side of the kitchen. Everything I'd seen that far had been fast-paced at best, and barely-controlled chaos otherwise.

All that said, even after our constant flow of breakfast-time customers started trickling in, it never became too much to manage. Even with a menu full of items that I needed to learn and stay on top of not only in terms of cooking, but for prepping their ingredients, too.

There were the traditional mint teas and spiced coffees, of course, offered alongside breakfast dishes like eggs poached in an even spicier tomato sauce, bean, barley, and lentil soups, fried pancakes... And that wasn't even to mention all the different regional breads and spreads that were _always_in demand, at all times of the day.

Despite that all, as I pushed through service ticket after service ticket that morning, I didn't once get a dish sent back by a dissatisfied diner, and not once did I get Mr. Bennabi marching over to correct my cooking methods.

Not only that, but the customers themselves let me know how well things were going with all their loud, passionate, joyful yet unintelligible conversations filtering into the kitchen.

Man, my day _was_gonna be a good day, no question!

Once the breakfast service did finally start to slow on the Maleni side, that wasn't time for me to slow along with it. No breaks, no brief pauses to chat, screw around, or anything like that.

Instead, that'd be the time for me to step away from the stove and turn back to my prep area. Getting a headstart on lunch would only help make the service less demanding.

It might've been made for two or three, but I needed the whole of my island unit for prep work.

See, my first few days at the cafe hadn't just involved putting what I knew of Kharsian and other North Ekrean cuisines into practice. No, those vague chunks of knowledge weren't enough for Mr. Bennabi, and under his keen and watchful eye, he'd spent every moment of his limited free time getting me up to speed on his standards.

Standards that I'd made enough notes on to fill my prep area with.

Under their guidance, those sheets and scraps of paper told me the precise details behind chopping this or seasoning that.

And precise I absolutely, positively _had_to be, considering how he quality checked _everything_I served before sending it out to the customer.

As overbearing as it might sound, honestly, I appreciated his stop-start, off-the-cuff on-the-job training methods a lot. A whole fuckin' lot!

Being able to watch and learn the finer details of how to 'authentically' prepare our menu... After so long away from a kitchen, a _proper_kitchen, he'd helped me start feeling like a real cook again.

Even if his teaching methods also involved a lot of groaning and grumbling, occasionally in Polcian, whenever I'd done something wrong.

Having all that going on, on top of the frantic pace of the kitchen itself, definitely added an extra element of pressure and then some. Pressure cranked only higher by the fact that I was basically handling the Maleni side of things solo...

But I could do pressure.

This wasn't my first time in a kitchen, I reminded myself as I picked up my knife to start chopping some vegetables. It'd been a while, sure... a year or two, but I'd been an assistant cook before!

Maybe not running a whole Maleni section alone...

But I could do this!

I absolutely could. No matter how tough and awkward it might seem up in my Maleni-sized kitchen area...

The only Maleni-sized _anything_there, set up within throwing distance of the beaded doorway curtain and the customers and their demanding demands beyond.

But screw all that! The difficult customers, the challenging kitchen, and everything else.

This job was the opportunity I'd been working and waiting so long for, and I was gonna make the most of it, so help me-

"Jiri," Mr. Bennabi bellowed, saying my name like it started 'juh', rather than 'yuh'.

Like usual...

Not that I had the space to care too much that time around, what with his ice cold glare grabbing the rest of my attention.

"Too much think," he grumbled, lifting his knife from the salad vegetables he was chopping to point it directly at me. "Do. Yes?"

"Yes, sir." I stood up straight, nodded, and simply stared back up at him. A badger caught in the spotlight. "Sorry."

I sucked in a lungful of air and shook myself free from the freeze he'd put me into.

Being yelled at by your head chef was never fun...

But as I was finding out, when they're a damn Visoka, big enough to almost overshadow you from halfway across a kitchen, then it becomes a different fucking story entirely.

Good gods...

Once I'd warmed up and calmed down again, I found my paring knife and began to follow my boss' lead. I cored some tomatoes first, then peeled some onions, getting them ready to be chopped along with the other salad vegetables.

Salad plates were a big part of the lunch menu, and the absolute last thing I needed would be to not have the herbs, vegetables, meats or what have you ready to go.

So then, imagine my joy when I noticed a white-shirted wall forming at the edge of the countertop outside my kitchen.

"New order," Salim muttered, hand on hip, glaring at his order pad like it owed him money.

Compared to his dad, Salim cut a way less imposing figure, even with his natural Visoka talent of dominating your view.

He was a pretty quiet guy, bordering on distant, even...

The same thing some have said of me...

But altogether, Salim seemed mellow, and that morning, he carried the unmistakable aura of someone that'd rather be anywhere else than there.

"Table, uh... three," he said with the least energy imaginable. "One white bean soup... one honeycomb pancake with almond butter... oh, and, uh... a pot of mint tea... For two."

I wrote that all down in my own order pad, thinking nothing of it.

Until I made it to the word 'pancake'.

"Salim," I called, stopping him halfway to the doorway. "I'm outta pancakes."

The skinny gecko didn't reply. He didn't have to. His vacant stare broadcast his thoughts on the matter loud and clear.

"I'll needta make some completely from scratch," I explained as calmly as I could while my head and my heart started to pound. "They'll be waiting a while and I still gotta finish the lunch prep."

He shrugged. "That's what they ordered."

"It ain't long 'til 11," I said, the groan in my throat cutting through my 'calm'. "The breakfast menu's all but over... Can you go tell them we're out? Ask if they'd like something else?"

"But they've ordered what they've ordered."

"Yes, but-"

"Plus..." Salim turned to look at Mr. Bennabi. "Dad would totally say 'the customer is king, and we are their servants'."

Servants? Screw that!

I glanced over to Mr. Bennabi myself, finding the older gecko thrashing and smashing through his side of the lunch prep, totally oblivious to us and our conversation.

Would he _really_say, believe, in nonsense like that?

I wasn't brave enough to ask directly. What's more, in the circumstances, I wasn't sure I trusted Salim to properly translate.

"Just mix some batter and fry it up," he said. "How hard can it be?"

My hackles rose into stabbing points. I didn't dare say or do anything before biting my tongue, forcing down a growl, then finally, against my better judgement, croaking out, "Fine."

Salim left through the curtain without so much as a 'thank you, Jiri'.

I tried my damnedest not to be too pissed at him. After all, the guy was a kid- ten years younger than me, at least- and honestly, I doubt he realised how much he'd screwed me over just then.

That said, I couldn't resist returning to Velikan for moment to grumble, "Pretty hard to do _quickly_is how it can fuckin' be."

"Jiri," Mr. Bennabi cried, not a second after I'd finished.

For the rest of that second, I panicked that he'd miraculously learned Velikan.

"Fast, fast," he demanded... in his basic, super-accented Polcian.

Of course he hadn't understood me and my moaning. Fact of the matter was no-one else there spoke Velikan but me-

A weighty thud and a fierce clatter echoed through the kitchen, and in my twitching ears.

I noticed the huge pot Mr. Bennabi had dropped upon his stove.

Then I saw his steely glare shooting my way.

"Jiri!" He clapped twice, somehow looking and sounding even more serious as he yelled, "Work!"

Reeling away from that verbal rocket up my backside, I jolted into action.

Salim might've inconvenienced me right the way through to annoyance, but the only thing I could do right there, right then, was to force as much of my focus as possible on his latest order.

All while trying my hardest to put the lunch prep still left to be done onto a mental backburner.

_And_while fighting my hardest to ignore Mr. Bennabi banging and clanking yet more of his giant pots and pans around.

My Normaliser did a good job of dulling the metallic racket ringing through the kitchen, but it couldn't do a damn thing about the faint but noticeable trembling of the countertops both beneath and ahead of me.

In spite of that all, I managed to get my head down and throw myself deep into my work.

First up came mixing some batter for more of those honeycomb pancakes...

Correction: before that, I needed to dig out my notes on how to make a proper, 'traditional' version of the pancake batter.

A version that'd be both customer _and_Mr. Bennabi-approved.

The first thing my notes reminded me of was the need to add, at most, three parts sugar for each single part of vanilla extract in the mix. Doing that would, apparently, ensure the perfect, authentic balance of sweetness and creaminess.

Secondly, but just as critically, Mr. Bennabi _demanded_we use yeast instead of baking soda to get that extra sponginess. A sponginess that couldn't be found in most honeycomb pancakes made in Vodaskal...

According to him...

...Via a translation by my other boss, Adel.

I shook off the temptation to start sulking over the tangled lines of communication in the kitchen.

The last thing in the world I could afford to do was slow myself down. Not when we were fast approaching a lunch service I still had so much prep work to get done for it.

And that last breakfast order that'd become my number one priority, of course...

...Fuck me.

Even after double, triple checking my training notes, I got the batter mixed in record time. Usually, that would've been the time when I'd pour pancakes into a skillet and allow them to cook for a few minutes. Easy.

Except this, and most ways of doing things in this kitchen, were anything but usual.

No, see, thanks to the yeast, I absolutely, positively _had_to cover the batter and give it a good twenty minutes for said yeast to do its thing.

If Salim were there in the kitchen, that would've been the point where I'd have stabbed a finger at the bowl and screamed something like '_Here's_how hard it can be!'.

Doing that, thinking that, wouldn't and didn't help. I had to do things the right way.

Because if I didn't, Mr. Bennabi would let me hear about it in no time flat, that's for damn sure!

So, with the batter covered, I set the bowl to one side, shifting my focus to the rest of that late breakfast order.

The other items wouldn't be anything like as tricky to ready up and serve. We had plenty of the white bean soup ready to be warmed on the stove, and no North Ekrean cafe worth its salt would be anything but well-stocked when it came to mint tea...

Gods, had I _really_just thought that?

...Day four, and already I was repeating the cringey expressions I'd heard from my bosses.

With their words in my voice still ringing in my ears (or my mental, internal ones, I suppose?), my attention returned to the long-delayed remainder of the lunch prep.

Never mind the noise, and regardless of the trembling, I forced my vision to go the way of a tunnel; total focus on the meat, vegetables, garnishes and more that I had to start cutting as fast as my knife would move.

No slowdown, no pause. Just chopping.

Like the old days, the good days, as a real cook in my former kitchens.

My thoughts weren't as willing as my vision to stay narrow, though.

The longer I spent chopping, the more those pancakes came to mind.

Pancakes that'd be even longer overdue if I sliced the rest of the onion I had in hand.

Yes, yes, the proper, Mr. Bennabi-approved approach _demanded_that I give the batter twenty whole minutes to rest before cooking it.

But the idea of my customers waiting, and waiting, getting more and more irritated, entered my head and refused to leave.

I resisted it, then chopped the rest of that onion.

I had to do things the right, authentic way. That'd be the only way of keeping _everyone_happy.

Or at least, of avoiding their disapproval.

At the same time... we couldn't seriously expect a table to wait nearly half an hour for some soup and some damn pancakes.

No cook worth their salt would allow that to happen.

Godsdamn it, Salim...

I glanced up from the prep area and the rest of the onions, vegetables, and everything else left to work through.

The batter remained resting on the counter beside the stove.

Above it, the wall clock told me I'd given it ten minutes... Half of its resting time.

Its_minimum_resting time.

I doubted the yeast had finished its job in that sorta window...

But ten minutes... That was nine-and-half minutes longer than I'd give batter mixed with baking soda to rest.

What's more, the lunch service had started and table three were still waiting for their damn breakfast.

Screw it. Ten minutes would do.

What difference would it make? Seriously?

With the batter, hopefully, ready, I tore myself away from the lunch prep I'd been rushing through, wasting no time in getting to work and pouring out a triple-stack of pancakes into a skillet.

To my relief, at that point, they looked absolutely fine, complete with that beautifully doughy consistency that good, chewy honeycomb pancakes demanded.

My call was spot-on. Ten minutes had been plenty of resting time, and after a few more spent on the stove, they'd be ready to go out to the customer.

A few springy steps carried me over to where I'd been preparing the rest of table three's order. Those extra few minutes I had were more than enough to serve up the soup I'd been heating, the tea I'd been brewing, and the almond butter that'd accompany those pancakes.

Finally, I finished off that spell of satisfying clockwork by scooping the cooked pancakes onto a plate, then carrying them over to my serving window to complete the order.

Perfection. Absolute perfection.

I finished my figurative backslapping a moment or two before Salim stepped through the beaded curtain.

He spotted the order ready to go, then noticed me inside the window. "Table three?"

"Table three," I confirmed, taking a deep, contented breath as I made one last scan of the serving tray.

The soup and the tea all looked good, and still, the pancakes looked great. All nice and honeycombed, cooked to perfection on the underside only so those 'honeycomb' air holes could really develop, as per 'tradition'.

Although... during that scan... I tried to ignore it, but couldn't help noticing...

The pancakes weren't quite as spongy and fluffy as usual.

Damn. Maybe ten minutes _wasn't_enough-

In one swift move of his oversized finger, Salim slid the tray off the shelf and into his other palm, leaving as fast as he'd arrived to march the order on over to his dad.

I stood there, motionless, holding my breath as I just... watched. Waited.

Mr. Bennabi leaned away from his prep work, peering down at my efforts with his piercing, studious gaze.

Those pancakes might actually be good enough, I thought to myself.

They might not've been as spongy as they could be, granted, but... maybe they'd get the green light to go-?

"No," Mr. Bennabi snapped, shaking his head almost as forcefully.

That moment of Polcian must've been for my benefit, because no sooner than he'd shot my dish down did he break into a punchy, hand-swiping tirade meant for Salim's ears only.

Gods, I wanted the floor and the counter beneath it to open up and swallow me down.

I wasn't sure what hurt most: the failure itself, or the fact it'd keep the customer waiting even longer.

Salim started his way back from Mr. Bennabi's section, shoulders sagging and eyes rolling with an indifference I both hated and envied at that moment.

His dad meanwhile stood there watching, arms folded, casting an accusing glare over the both of us.

No question which of the two geckos I preferred to have walking towards me.

"No good," Salim said, reaching into my kitchen to set the tray and its contents down onto my centre prep island. "The pancakes need to be remade."

"Okay..." I moved from the serving window to meet him and ask, "Why?"

He sighed, finding a way to sag his shoulders even lower.

His silence sent a hot pulse of rage rushing through my head. One that couldn't be kept inside. "You kinda haveta tell me so I can make 'em how your dad wants."

"I know, but man, there's so many tables and orders to-" Salim cut himself off, squeezed his eyes together, then, finally, explained, "Dad says the consistency is wrong or something. The batter needed more time to rest. Before you cooked it."

"Thank you," I said with a huff, slapping a paw down on my prep station while grabbing the plate of pancakes with the other. "A little feedback's all I ask for 'round here."

"And now you got it," he said as he scooped the tray back up and started towards the curtain. "Make it speedy on the new ones. It's been a wait already."

'And whose fault's that!?' I so very nearly cried as Salim disappeared back out front. Instead, I took a second to push my anger down and get into a position to fix this mess.

As luck would have it, I had some batter leftover from my first attempt at serving this order. An accident, possibly, or maybe just severe pessimism that _something_might go wrong...

Or that Salim would somehow sell _more_fucking pancakes.

Time for optimism, I demanded of myself. If more time was all that it needed, then as unsavoury as it was to wait, it'd be a simple issue to fix.

Not all that bad, really, after all was said and done...

Aside from the fact that table three would be getting their order in separate parts.

And the fact that I _still_had prep to finish for a lunch service _very_much underway by that point.

"Jiri," Mr. Bennabi called, not even trying to hide his exasperation on his march over towards me. "Come, come."

And, to round off my screw-up in such a perfect way, I'd shaken my boss' confidence in me so severely that I'd forced him to come on over to tell me personally.

"See, yes?" He jabbed a finger down towards the leftover batter on my counter. "Wait. More minutes. Like I show."

"Yes, sir," I said with force in my voice and in my nod. Force that faded as fast as I took to mutter, "Sorry. Again."

Finding myself on the sharp end of a lecture as humbling and deflating as that left me and my head hanging, wanting nothing more than to wallow there in the middle of my kitchen.

So much for the good day I was chasing. Godsdamn, why did I think cutting corners like that would end anything but badly?

Stupid badger. I hadn't been there long enough to take risks like that.

"Come on," I growled deep beneath my breath, physically dragging myself away from my self-pity and back to my prep area.

Wallowing wouldn't help me. Right then, the only thing that would help fix things was to cook.

The batter needed a few minutes more to rest? Fine. A few minutes would be plenty to work through more of that lunch prep.

I threw myself back into chopping, challenging myself to get through as much as I could in those few minutes I had spare.

If I went fast enough, _really_fast enough, I reckoned I might get somewhere close to complete.

With my head down, my knife moving like a blur, and my goal held firmly in mind, I said a silent prayer.

Please...Please, don't bring me any new orders for the time being...

A couple of those few minutes I needed to wait passed. I'd managed to keep my eyes and attention locked firmly on my work, not letting any noise, bump or otherwise distract me from chopping my way through onion after onion after pepper after more.

It was hypnotic. Addictive. In all the right ways.

Fast, fast, Mr. Bennabi had demanded, and fast, fast, was what he was getting.

The bowls of veggies I had to slice my way through were dwindling by the second.

Nothing could slow the roll I'd got myself on...

Not even the twitching of my ears towards someone clattering back through the doorway curtain.

Wooden beads slapped and cracked together. Like a jar of marbles raining down and scattering across the tile floor.

Please, I hoped, begged, don't be another order. Not _that_quickly.

I lost the rhythm in my chopping for a split second.

Then I dared to take a peek away from my prep station.

A frantic Salim darted across the kitchen, heading my way but with his head turned towards his dad.

I couldn't fail to see the tall stack of Visoka-sized plates in his arms.

And I couldn't fail to be threatened by it as he shoved them down onto the countertop.

Hard.

Right outside the open front of my kitchen.

The floor beneath me shook. Like the whole place had been picked up and dropped again.

Everything, all around, moved, bounced and rattled.

The pots and pans atop my own counters almost made music, while the utensils and cookware hanging from hooks hammered at the walls.

It only lasted for a second or two, but my gods, that was time, noise, and chaos enough to send my heart racing and my hands rushing to cling to whatever they could.

"Salim!"

He hadn't heard me.

I waited for the shuddering to fully subside before unwrapping myself from around the edge of my prep island. A fast, stomping march took me to the opening of my kitchen. The side of it _not_beingblocked by a head-high stack of used plates.

"Damn it, Salim!"

That time, he stopped in his tracks, halfway between me and his oblivious father.

"Watch where you drop these things," I roared, backhanding one of the plate rims.

Salim blurted something I couldn't understand. He then adjusted to squeeze out an uncertain, "Sorry."

"Unless you fancy taking over while I deal with having a buncha giant plates chucked at my fuckin' head!"

He stayed quiet, mouth gaping.

But that didn't stop me shouting.

"Godsdamn, if it ain't enough I haveta play catchup while remaking these damn pancakes _you_sold, I gotta deal with all this size shit while I'm at it-!"

"I said sorry!" he cried, looking away while folding and rubbing his arms. "Man... it's... legit slammed as hell out there-"

A loud burst of abrupt applause sliced through the tension.

I peered past Salim's side, finding Mr. Bennabi watching us with the fiercest frown.

He yelled out something, the anger in his voice heightened by the rough throatiness of his native tongue.

I wasn't sure if I would've preferred to understand him or not.

Salim, of course, did understand.

He held up his hands and pushed them out towards his raging dad. Whatever he then shot back in reply that ended any potential three-way, two-language argument before it could get going.

None of that much mattered to me. My concern only revolved around the pancake batter on my counter, and my hope that it hadn't spilt in all that havoc.

I left father and son to scratch and hack out their conversation, storming over to check the bowl and decide if I should get even more annoyed.

As luck would have it, the shudder Salim sent through my kitchen hadn't hurt the batter at all. No spills, no mess, and in fact, unlike the mixing spoon and spatula that _were_right beside it, the bowl hadn't moved an inch.

The anger, or, well, _some_of the anger, slipped away through a sigh of relief. All looked good, and in a couple minutes more, I'd be cooking up some acceptable-level honeycomb pancakes.

I looked on back at Salim, expecting him to still be going at it with his dad. Instead, he'd already turned himself towards me.

He stood there with that classic vacant stare of his, rubbing his neck with one hand while awkwardly hefting his belt with the other.

I'd expected to shout at him over the clanging and clapping of Mr. Bennabi's work some more...

But, I suppose that sigh had taken enough of my anger away.

He'd done no harm, really.

Plus... after getting a dressing down from his dad while being rushed off his feet, he didn't need me chewing him out any harder.

With another, softer sigh, I took the couple of steps back to my prep island. Paw raised towards Salim, I smiled my sympathies, then said, "Sorry for snapping."

He swiped out his own hand, dismissive, but soon told me, "No probs."

Salim wasted no time jumping back into work. He raced on over to gather up a three-plate order waiting to be served out of the main kitchen, only to be grumbled at, again, by his dad.

Poor guy. It was bad enough to be chugging on alone in the kitchen, but this kid had to deal with the very same, all while facing the customers directly.

I figured I ought to lay off him. At least until the full-time servers who'd be working during lunch had finally arrived.

"Hey, Salim," I called as he started back towards my kitchen area. "Where's your sister today, by the way? Shouldn't she be out there helping?"

"She escaped," he mumbled back, barely breaking stride.

"Escaped?"

"Farah's hanging with friends today, so lucky her, she doesn't need to waste another day of summer vaca here like me."

"Gotcha... And what about your uncle Adel?"

"He should be in soon, thank the stars." Salim stopped just in time for me to still see him past those dirty plates he'd left. "Oh, uhh... I'll shift these in a second. Okay?"

"Appreciate it," I said with the cheeriest smile I'd managed in some time.

Salim vanished behind that pile of plates, rattling the bead curtain again as he dove back into the loud, rolling murmur of what sounded like a packed-out front area.

I might've spent a second or two thinking about and appreciating the positive note our set-to had ended on. And the potential falling out we'd avoided.

If not for work being work.

"Jiri!" Mr. Bennabi yelled, all but muted by a thundering, fur-raising clap of his own hands. "Go, go. Fast!"

After that unexpected check of my reflexes (and my heart!), I leapt back into action in the hopes I could keep myself in my boss' good books.

My first step in trying to pull that off would be to finish cooking up a second batch of honeycomb pancakes. Pancakes that I plated and sent out of my serving window not a second before Salim returned, as he promised, to clear away the dirty dishes dumped outside my workspace.

Finally, after far too much stress and effort, Mr. Bennabi gave my pancakes his seal of approval; the green light for that last, delayed breakfast order to leave the kitchen.

It'd have been nice to take a moment to catch a breath after that. To cut myself loose from all the tension and move along at less than several miles a minute.

Instead, I settled for being able to pour all my unstable energy into getting back on track with the lunch service. Ideally before the midday rush_really_started to wind up into a frenzy.

Part of that rush would be all the 'local faces' as referred to by the others. The sort that came in for a nice, relaxed meal, and to chat the ears off any server, chef, owner or otherwise that so much as veered towards their table.

Another part would be the crowds of local workers on their lunch breaks, sitting down with the demand for a way more hurried experience.

Both groups created pressure in their own way, and I absolutely had to be up to speed and ready for them all once they started to arrive.

Time wouldn't offer me much, racing faster and faster towards noon as it did.

Despite what felt like forever getting caught up on the ever-lingering prep work, plus the increasingly rapid number of orders flowing in from the now three-strong waitstaff team covering lunch, I somehow... coped.

Sure, I might not've been perfect. Between gods knew how many different requests for all sorts of soups and salads, baked goods and beverages, mistakes happened.

A few, actually.

Some severe enough for Mr. Bennabi to push back on after I'd thrown the orders out through my serving window.

Those mistakes were unavoidable, in my humble, and very rushed, opinion. A result of having to work no slower than 110% just to keep my head above the proverbial water.

And, Mr. Bennabi agreed with me.

I think.

At least, that was my takeaway from the relatively calm tone in which he explained what I'd missed or done wrong.

Either that, or he was far too busy trying not to drown himself to give me a proper telling off.

Thankfully, after that loud, tense, frantic phase of moving, cooking, and serving mostly on instinct, the mid-afternoon slowdown arrived almost as fast as the rush that preceded it.

Adel, too, finally made it to the cafe, bringing the promise of calmer times ahead, sometime approaching 2pm.

Gradually, carefully, I let the idea that I might be able to lift my foot off the gas into my head. The thought that, maybe, I could soon ease myself down into operating at a smooth, gentle, easy, 100% effort.

It didn't stick around for long...

Midway through plating up potato fritters and a chickpea salad for table five, my ears pricked to the raised voices coming from the front of the cafe.

Raised_Ekrean_voices.

Voices of that sort weren't uncommon around busier times... Especially when those 'local faces' were having their loud, passionate, apparently good-natured debates over a pot of tea.

But these voices... They were loud, sure, but they didn't sound anything like good-natured.

I finished plating that order, ears still upright, dusting the fritters with a pinch of pepper and a handful of garnish. For the life of me, as I carried the plate over to my serving window, I couldn't get my mind off the increasing irritation from our front.

Had we charged someone for something they didn't order?

Was it a mistake with someone's food?

Had_I_made a mistake that'd been missed?

_Another_mistake?

I set the fritters down next to the salad on the serving tray, leaving it for Salim to pick up on his return...

...and got real damn frustrated over not being able to see anything through the beaded curtain.

I tried to put those voices out of my mind, aiming my attention instead on the used Maleni-sized plates stacked next to my sink, waiting to be washed.

If only I had a dishwasher to help me out... either a machine or an assistant.

But, neither the washing, nor the wishing were enough to tune out those battling voices out front.

One of which, on closer mental inspection... Sounded like it belonged to Adel.

The beaded curtain rattled.

I jumped, turned and stepped away from my sink in one rapid, automatic motion.

A few quick steps whisked me back to my serving window, from which I could see a tired, slouching Salim shuffling into the kitchen.

"What's up out there?" I called up to him, hands planted to the base of that window, leaning so far forward that I was almost climbing through it. "What's with the shouting?"

"Uncle Adel's handling it," Salim replied bluntly, not so much as glancing my way as he carried on walking.

Weird...

But his entry through the curtain gave me the chance to peek through the waving bead strings.

The front area still looked busy, with most tables of both sizes occupied by customers.

As the beads settled, I caught sight of Adel crouching beside the balcony that was the Maleni section of the dining area, just in view beyond the doorway.

He was talking to a pair of yellow-spotted lizards, older, maybe a couple, sitting at a table close to the balcony's edge.

They were deep in a frank and fiery conversation, arms flying and flailing even harder and faster than what I'd got used to around the kitchen.

Those lizards were really giving Adel what for, unmoved by his soft-spoken, gentle-handed charm, and uncaring of the fact he was still in the jacket he must've worn to the cafe.

"What's the deal?" I turned away from the curtain, and my window. "What're they complaining about?"

"You don't want to know," Salim replied, keeping his back to me while over at the serving section next to Mr. Bennabi's prep area.

I considered that for a second, the dispute out front still striking my ears. "...Yeah I do."

He said nothing, standing perfectly still while watching his dad plate up an order.

Well then. If Salim was gonna be like that, I figured I might as well turn my attention back to the dirty dishes...

That is, until I spotted a sneaky tilt of Mr. Bennabi's head towards the front of the cafe.

I stopped myself from shifting towards the sink, choosing instead to watch my boss along with Salim.

He worked so fast yet so attentively when it came to plating. Speed and accuracy, all at once. His masterful display began to suck me in. Almost to the point where I might've missed him muttering something to his son in Ekrean.

The younger of the geckos shrugged in response, then gave an equally impenetrable and worrisome reply.

"What's the issue?" I asked, insistent, all but sure I knew the answer already. "Is it something I'vedone?"

Salim, finally, twisted around, batting a dismissive hand down towards me. "It's nothing."

"It's_something_."

That statement was met with silence.

Not exactly reassuring.

I figured that'd be that. That I'd have no choice but to get back to work in the dark over whatever was going on our front...

Until Salim groaned, shook his head, and then admitted, "They're complaining about the lentil soup. They're saying it's tasteless."

"Salim!" Mr. Bennabi slammed a palm onto his prep station. Clearly, he didn't need to understand Polcian to know his son had said something he shouldn't.

Salim flung a complaint of some sort back at him, mouth twisting before he told me, "They're saying they're here for... proper North Ekrean food. Not the Vodak substitute." Up raced his hands in defence. "Their words, man, not mine."

Mr. Bennabi grumbled something to himself, finishing up his plating before wandering off to start work on the next order.

Good for him. Walking away from this wasn't a luxury I had.

"That's crap!" I snapped.

"Totally," Salim replied.

"I've made the lentil soup _exactly_as your dad's instructed all week." The air started to warm. My clothes got tight. I stomped over to the open front of my kitchen and yelled, "It's authentic!"

"No doubt!"

I grabbed the top of my apron with one hand and snatched its ties loose with the other. "I'm giving my best!"

"Uh... I know, man-"

"Fuck's sake!" With both arms, I yanked my apron clean off over my head. "What more d'they want from me!?"

That was the point where Salim followed his dad's lead, slipping away to gather up the serving tray they'd been loading.

With that latest order in his grasp, he hurried towards, then right past me, slinking off through the curtain without so much as a word or a glance my way.

He left me standing there at the exposed outer edge of my countertop kitchen, apron scrunched up in hand, slowly noticing the sting of the friction burn it'd left on the underside of my snout.

This day was going from bad to worse to worst.

Five minutes. Just five minutes' peace from problems and mistakes, that's all I wanted.

The Ekrean cries of complaint out front shifted. Changed.

They'd got stronger, louder. Like they were being directed into the kitchen.

I lifted my hanging head high enough to turn it towards the curtain... and quickly wished I hadn't.

Through the swinging and swaying bead strings Salim had left behind, I had a better view of those Maleni-sized lizards _still_complaining to Adel at their balcony-edge table.

In turn, they had a better view of me, too.

Even at a distance, the man at the table had an icy glare that left me frozen, his gesticulating somehow going up in force and speed, and now, directed squarely my way.

The lady sitting with him meanwhile kept her unintelligible complaints directed at Adel, throwing in a few shakes of her head while her raised, open hands gesturing... in despair.

Despair? Over some lentil soup!?

Talk about an overreaction and then some...

But, at the same time... It was a reaction, and negative reaction, to _me_and_my_work.

All the tightness and tension from when I'd been throwing my own complaints at Salim had eased.

The air had long since cooled. Turned cold.

That feeling of wanting the ground to open up and swallow me whole came rushing back from that morning.

With my heavy head slumped back down to my shoulders, I retreated into my kitchen, casting an eye over all the food that I'd prepped, and the dirty plates still to be washed.

My mind started to wander, and wonder...

Was my skill, my cooking, really good enough...?

Or was it just being accepted. Tolerated... Because I'm Maleni, maybe.

I mean, who else in that kitchen wanted to deal with the hassle of cooking up small-scale portions of food, really?

Gods... Was I _really_doing a good job? Should I really have been back cooking in a kitchen again after all that time away?

I wasn't sure I could tell any more.

Back to my sink I plodded, tossing my apron onto the countertop next to it.

Washing some more dirty dishes would be an easy job to throw myself into. Something to build me back up again. Something to stop me waiting for my next mistake.

Unless, I thought, I found a way to screw up dishwashing, too.

Maybe I'd let a plate slip clean out of my hands, smashing the damn thing all over the floor. That'd really lock in the downward spiral my day was on.

Huffing, I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of all that negative nonsense.

Mistakes happened, I told myself. No sense in crying over spilt milk or badly-seasoned soup. I had to pick myself up, dust myself off, and go again.

I slipped my apron back on and got busy scrubbing, flying through most of those dirty dishes and leaving them nothing short of immaculate.

Salim would make his return to the kitchen a short while after, his quick, floor-clapping steps zeroing in on my section.

I saw his brown hand appear in the corner of my eye, holding another stack of dirty dishes between his thumb and finger, which he duly placed onto the ledge outside my serving window.

A part of me wanted to complain about the extra scrubbing to be done.

But the rest of me couldn't escape the sound of complaint _still_droning on our front.

"Now, I don't speak Ekrean," I half-said, half-shouted, making sure Salim wouldn't miss it. "But, judging by the looks I got from that table when they saw me, that word I keep hearing them say... I'm gonna guess it means 'badger', right?"

Salim responded with silence.

Only a second or two's worth.

His snout soon sneaked into view outside my service window, shortly followed by his face, then an eye, peeking into my kitchen. "Uh... Yeah, it does... If you're meaning the same word I am."

"...Either way, you saying that means they _are_saying 'badger' at some point."

"Uh... Huh. Good point."

"Nice to know I was dead-on," I spat, dropping another clean dish onto the drying rack with a clatter. "Hard to know if I prefer dealing with speciesism or sizeism in my workplace."

He... chuckled at that.

It was only for a split-second, but he chuckled all the same.

Anger quickly sparked inside me, but extinguished just as fast.

It left behind... indifference.

Salim's eye went wide, his pupil growing. Then, he closed it tight. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," I mumbled, waving it off, even if he couldn't see it. "Just being facetious."

"Ah, uhh... Heh, right. Fashecious."

He pulled away from the window at speed, leaving just that dirty stack of dishes behind. Great.

I sagged back against the counter, gazing down at the shine of my shoes.

I'd only have a moment for brooding, I thought to myself. Any more than that, and I'd have Mr. Bennabi yelling 'fast, fast' at me some more.

But, to my surprise, it wouldn't be Mr. Bennabi who'd start barking at me.

Salim rushed back into view, white shirt filling the open front of my kitchen while he bent down towards me. "My friends here call me Slim, by the way."

"...Right." I pushed away from the sink and started past my prep station. "And that... Do you want _me_to call you that, too?"

Shrugging, he said, "Figured I'd mention it, that's all."

"...Okay."

He rested his elbow on the counter outside, looking as relaxed as I'd ever seen anyone mid-service. "Sounds super weird having peeps other than family calling me 'Salim' at this point, that's all."

"Huh... Alright." I stopped where my kitchen met the countertop, not far from a planted forearm as wide as my knee reached high. "Is it... 'cos you yourself are slim, or... 'cos it sounds like Salim?"

He shrugged again. "Both? ...I think."

"Fair enough..." I snorted, something that Salim... Slim... didn't seem bothered by. "'Slim' it is, then."

For those brief moments spent speaking with Slim, I forgot all about the front of the cafe, and about the customers, happy or otherwise.

That is, until I heard, then turned to see his uncle Adel, upping the volume and enthusiasm in his voice and hands on the other side of the curtain.

The lizard couple had calmed right down. Or at least, they'd started talking, rather than shouting at him.

Impressive. Even with all of Adel's soft, smooth talking, I hadn't expected him to rescue a situation that bad.

A fact that left me more than a bit curious.

"Hey." I nudged Slim's arm with a knee. "What did your uncle say?"

"Like earlier, you don't want to know."

"Like earlier, I do."

He grumbled. "Fine..."

"...Well?"

His arm and elbow slid further past me while the rest of him slumped harder against the counter. "He told them that you're the new cook."

"...And?"

"Stars above," he mumbled almost low enough to be missed, rubbing a finger over his brow as he said, "And, that you recently finished training at a top Ekrean cooking school."

"What the-!?" I damn near hit the roof of my kitchen, coming down long enough to ask, "Why'd he say that?"

"C'mon, it doesn't matter."

"For gods' sake, my last job was washing dishes at a crappy Good Night Inn downtown."

"Maybe don't let that table hear you say that?"

"But it's bullshit!" I stormed away from him, back under cover, back to the front-side of my prep island. There, I slammed one paw down and threw the other to my forehead. "I can cook North Ekrean food just fine, and I don't need no crazy lies like _that_to 'prove' it."

"Jiri, chill." I heard him lower himself even further behind me. "Man, you're lucky. I don't think those two speak Polcian-"

"If they want so-called proper_North Ekrean food," I stormed at him, at me, and at anyone else who'd listen. "Why don't they fuck off back to Kharsia, somewhere else in Ekrea, _wherever,to go get it?"

My paw balled into a fist on the worktop. I could hear the heaviness of my breathing.

But I couldn't hear a sound from Slim.

I looked back over my shoulder. Found him watching me...

Then, I turned completely, finding his mouth twisted up like something stunk.

Or someone...

Damn it.

I threw up my paws. "Wait, I didn't mean it like that. I just..." A frustrated grunt of a sigh slipped through my lips. "What do they want from me? How many 'proper' Maleni-sized cooks from Ekrea are there 'round here?"

Slim's face softened back towards its laid-back usual. "...I think we interviewed a couple. At least."

"What? Really-?"

"Seriously," he said, frowning, but otherwise relaxed. "Chill out. Adel and my father gave _you_the job, right?"

"...Right."

"So, like... Just do it, man. For real."

Slim eased himself away from the counter a second or two before his uncle Adel strode on into the kitchen.

The older yet fresh-faced gecko wore a wide smile, humming a tune while he greeted his nephew, then me, with a wave and a nod.

"Calming down customers," he sang, his accent all but local, save for the faint trace of his native Kharsian in his throaty 'c's. "What a delightful way to start the day."

Good, I thought. His accent wouldn't be a barrier to understanding exactly why he'd lied about me like he did.

"Jiri," Adel said, perfectly pronouncing my name as he stopped to peer down at me with a frown full of curiosity. "Is everything good?"

My mouth dropped open. He'd caught me totally off-guard while I stewed in my annoyance.

I noticed Slim, just behind his uncle, hands subtly gesturing a reminder for me to 'chill'.

That moment in the spotlight helped me vent some heat from under my collar. Enough to stop me from losing it completely, anyway.

"That Maleni table," I said. "What were they so unhappy about?"

"Ahh, it's nothing, nothing," he replied, swiping a dismissive hand through the air. "Don't worry."

"Hard not to... It was _my_table."

"No, no, listen." Back came his big, gleaming smile. "These people, they are, as we say in Kharsia, those you can gift gold to, but receive only complaints that it wasn't silver. Understand?"

"...No."

"Heh, it sounds better in Ekrean, in my opinion."

"...I'll take your word for it."

"Forget them," Adel insisted, the force of his words not threatening an otherwise sunny disposition. "Please."

"I'll... try?"

He'd started over to an ever-busy Mr. Bennabi, offering his brother a short wave and an Ekrean greeting before he added, "They will be back, Jiri. They always are."

And just like that, our conversation was over.

He'd disarmed me completely. Denied me my chance to kick up a fuss and call out how he'd handled that table with lies.

Probably for the best. Screaming and shouting at my co-boss before he'd even got his jacket off likely wouldn't have ended well.

Benefits like that were reserved, of course, for only the most entitled of our customers.

"He's right, man," Slim said, taking his own leave to head back out front. "Stay chill."

With that, I'd been left silent and alone in our loud, busy kitchen.

My annoyance over that table had lost its edge. Like my subconscious had chosen to follow Slim and Adel's advice without my input.

What else could I do from there, aside from get back to my work, the dishes, the orders... and forget?

The remainder of the lunch service passed without further incident.

At least, we didn't get any more customers in with expectations so inflated they demanded a formally trained, Ekrean-specialist chef at a backstreet cafe in Kosnerka...

No, nothing like that kinda nonsense incident came my way.

I had a few big orders to balance, but most of those were made simpler by the prep work I'd slogged away over that morning. The breads and pastries were all made and ready. The soups and salads just needed serving and plating.

And those orders were the trickiest ones. A level above those from customers who'd stroll in for a tea or coffee to have with their relaxed, mid-afternoon chatter. Chatter that often involved Adel, and even Mr. Bennabi whenever he got a few minutes spare to head out front.

That slower spell offered a chance to recharge and recuperate, and to find a few minutes myself to take a seat and grab a quick snack before things picked up again.

A few minutes 'til 4pm arrived faster than I anticipated that afternoon, leaving me an hour or so before I'd get done with my shift.

That idle chatter out front had tapered off, replaced instead by the rising droning that came with a steady uptick in customers.

Mr. Bennabi had returned to the kitchen for good, while Adel began bouncing between out front and out back in the 'head-waiter-slash-kitchen-assistant' role he'd carved out for himself.

Slim meanwhile had escaped the cafe, bailing at high-speed through the back door not long after the lunch rush had ended. He'd eventually be replaced by a couple more of our wait staff team once they arrived for the evening shift...

If they hadn't already arrived before that...

I didn't have the chance to keep proper tabs on the precise comings and goings around the cafe. Not once the pace really picked up again, anyway.

My final hour would be another exercise in juggling an ever-increasing number of orders, and yet more prep work to be done before the dinner service. The latter of those held added importance, given I'd be handing responsibility for the Maleni side of the kitchen over to Adel once I'd left for the evening.

No way could I leave him too much work to pick up, what with him being a boss... and what with a Visoka doing Maleni prep work probably being as difficult as the reverse.

How he had the finesse, the dexterity, not to mention the sheer damned_patience_to work with Maleni-sized foods and portions, I hadn't a clue. But I wasn't about to start questioning it, if only for the fact I had_zero_intention on sticking around to do overtime. Not after all the crap that'd already gone down that day.

In a manner suited to how my day had gone that far, it became real clear, real fast, that the end of my shift would run anything but smoothly.

Our growing army of wait staff brought more and more orders from the front, pulling me away from prepping ingredients for longer and longer stints. To the point where whenever I _could_pick up a knife, pan, whatever, it'd only be to make something for an order there and then.

Something that I possibly, probably, should've already had prepped.

That wasn't a good look.

I'd fallen behind.

Should I have started my prep work earlier? Had I got complacent during the slowdown while taking some time to recover?

Those questions meant as little as the answers. Whatever the case, the fact of the matter was I had to play the cards the day had dealt me.

I needed to get my head down, drive through those orders as fast as I could, then get myself back to prepping.

My kitchen became a home for tension and hyper-focus. A place where my shoulders could never loosen too far away from my jaw.

Whenever an order arrived from a waiter whose identity I didn't care to confirm, I threw back food or drink as fast as physically possible.

Whenever I had a moment spare, I picked up a knife and started chopping meat, vegetables, herbs, anything, and everything that'd be needed that evening.

Front of house faded from my conscience, soon followed by the kitchen outside of mine.

I had only one thing on my mind: cook, prep, cook, prep.

Again, again, again.

As the minutes ticked on towards my finish time, and the dinner service not long after, I insisted to myself, and was determined to prove that nothing else would go wrong that day.

Nothing. At all.

"Jiri?"

Past the clapping of my knife on the chopping board, I think... No, I _did_hear someone call my name.

They sounded unsure. Like it wasn't their first attempt.

"Jiri!"

That call came louder. Seemed less... fuzzy.

A white and brown blur came into view beyond my chopping board, and my prep station, too.

"You_are_there."

I tore myself away from my work to find Adel, partly-crouched outside, his work shirt a far better fit than the one Slim wore.

Only then did I realise that he'd been the one calling me.

"Sorry," I said, setting my knife down. "Ploughing through this prep before I go."

"Good work," Adel replied, the formality in his voice at odds with his choice of words.

That's when I noticed the tray in his open palm. Plates full of food, too...

An order I'd sent out... which clearly hadn't made it past Mr. Bennabi.

"This can't go out to the customer." His charming smile didn't soften the blow of hearing that. "Look."

He pointed down at the plate of kebab skewers and a tomato salad. Then did, and said, nothing else.

Whether it was his hand hovering over the other side of my station, or my head still spinning from being ripped away from full work focus, I couldn't find the problem.

That just sent my head spinning faster.

"I- What did...?" I took a breath and gathered everything I wanted to say into order. "...Didn't I season the kebab meat enough?"

"No, no, Jiri, look." Adel reached further into my kitchen area. As his hand overshadowed my prep section, I realised the issue just as he confirmed, "They're overcooked. No good."

He was right. They _were_no good. Hell, a couple of the kebabs were one step from being charcoal in places. Damn. "I... don't know how... I don't even remember sending these out."

"No?" Both his head and hand reeled back. "It was only a moment ago."

My mind drew a blank. All I could process was the clanking of metal on metal coming from Mr. Bennabi across the kitchen.

Gods, at least it wasn't _him_I'd admitted to tuning out to.

"Please, remake them." The charm of Adel's smile had all but faded. "Quickly as you can."

I took the tray from him and set it on my workstation, still trying to kick myself back into gear.

Had I really been so busy, working so hard, that I'd totally blanked on something I'd sent out of my kitchen?

How many orders had I made while running on an apparent autopilot?

How many had gone out with mistakes that weren't so obvious? Ones subtle enough for even Mr. Bennabi to miss?

Was I about to have _another_table start chewing me out by proxy for not being good enough?

"Godsdamn it," I growled through clenched jaws, throwing a paw over my eyes. "I'm better than this!"

I let myself have it with both barrels, cursing myself out for the countless mistakes and missteps I'd made that day.

Everything from falling behind on prep and running out of pancakes that morning, to falling behind on prep and overdoing those kebabs that afternoon.

That's not to mention somehow forgetting about orders I'd made thirty seconds prior.

I'd got in way over my head. No chance was I capable of handling a whole kitchen section alone.

Gods, what chance did I have at a busy cafe when I couldn't even hold a job washing dishes at a crappy hotel downtown?

I'd been outta action far too long.

I'd got rusty. Too rusty.

I'd lost it.

No chance a fuckup like me was coming back from this.

I was done.

"Listen, Jiri, listen," Adel called from beyond the paw clamped to my face.

I didn't wanna listen. The last thing I needed to hear was another request to remake that order. Another reminder that I'd fucked up yet again.

He carried on talking, but every word that made it into my ears was drowned out by the squeezing tension in my head.

How many more mistakes could I get away with at the cafe?

How many more would see me out living on the streets again?

My stomach twisted into a knot.

The kitchen got hot.

So fucking hot.

It left me struggling to breathe.

I'd hit boiling point.

"Jiri!"

Something bumped my shoulder. Hard enough to send me staggering until my hip hit the counter.

"My friend, why are you this upset?"

Stumbling as I had done forced me to catch and correct myself with both paws...

Which left me unable to hide away from Adel and his outstretched, finger-sized arm hovering at shoulder-height.

"Relax," he insisted, exasperated. "By the stars, this is _not_a huge problem."

For a second, just the shortest split-second, a reassuring wave lapped at the outermost edge of my thoughts.

Right before Mr. Bennabi bellowed, forcing the tides to recede all over again.

I tried looking past Adel's opening-filling arm, head, and shoulders, but it wasn't until he himself whipped his head around that I could lay eyes on my other boss.

Hands on hips behind his prep station, Mr. Bennabi didn't have to say or do anything else for me to realise how pissed he was.

Even so, he'd make sure I knew regardless.

Mr. Bennabi roared at us in Ekrean, winding up and hurling out the hardest, most intense hand gestures I'd seen since starting work under him.

His words were harsh, throaty, carrying his rage by the bucketful.

No need to understand them to know how much trouble I was in.

Nor that this'd be yet _another_job that wasn't going my way...

Or, worse, another I was about to lose, right there, right then.

The heat and the tension built again. Faster. Stronger.

Like something was about to give...

And give, it would...

...via a translation.

"Jiri," Adel said. "Karim says-"

"Mr. Bennabi," his brother grumbled.

He scoffed, then restarted. "_Mr. Bennabi_says he wants you to know..."

I clenched my fists, stood firm, and braced for impact. "...Okay."

"He says, and I quote..." The corner of his mouth twitched higher. "He is _extremely_happy with how well 'the boy', you, have done so far today. And so far since starting here."

The heat welling up inside me dissipated.

Relief from tight-wound tension came an instant after.

So fast that my loose legs nearly buckled beneath me as I asked, "R-Really? He... said that?"

"He also says you are cooking so well, despite so much busyness. And slowly, as you learn, more and more authentically, also, all with a passion that he can see so, so clearly. He couldn't have asked for more when we hired you."

I grabbed the counter behind me with both hands, gasping as the world, my world, turned upside down and inside out. "...You're messing with me, right?"

"No, no, it is _exactly_what he said." Adel raised his hands. "I promise you." Then returned his glittering smile to warm the whole of me. "I agree with him completely, by the way."

I didn't know what to say, how to respond, except to blurt, "Holy..."

"Happy?"

"...Shit."

"I will take that as yes."

Mr. Bennabi spoke some more, far calmer and slower than before.

Again, Adel acted as translator for me. "Now, be calm, stop sulking, and, please, carry on your good work."

Everything brightened. Lightened.

The sun flooded in stronger from outside.

And I had to double-check that my feet still touched the ground.

Adel spread his smile to me, with a mischievous smirk taking the place of his.

Mr. Bennabi meanwhile simply stood there, arms folded, cracking the faintest suggestion of amusement.

"Thank you." I nodded at him, then at Adel. "Both of you... very much."

"Okay!" Mr. Bennabi cried over a booming clap of his hands. "Fast, fast."

"Yes, sir!" That brought me back down to earth, to my kitchen, and to the work still left to do with a hefty shudder.

But it wouldn't shift the glow radiating right the way through me.

"Thank you again, sir."

A short, sharp burst of first-class prep work is all that was needed to carry me through the rest of my shift.

I didn't recall much of it, far too busy hanging onto the comfort I found in those supportive words I'd received.

That didn't matter, though.

What mattered was that I'd prepped everything that needed to be prepped, handled the last order ticket that needed to be handled, and handed responsibility for my side of the kitchen over to the ever-smiling, surprisingly willing Adel.

He in turn gathered me up into his own hands, walked me over to the Maleni-sized side exit, then set me down with a warm, warming, "See you tomorrow, my friend."

I left the cafe with a spring in my otherwise tired, aching step, waddling out into the breezy side alley.

All the piled-up trash I'd passed that morning had since been cleared, giving me a full view out to the sun-baked street and the rolling section of the Maleni walkway.

Another busy day had left me exhausted to the point where even keeping my head up was a battle.

At the same time, it'd left me full of contentment, too.

Getting that kinda praise from my bosses... I still couldn't take it in. They'd left me feeling like I was ten feet tall...

Ten_Maleni_feet, anyway.

More importantly, though, for the first time since I'd started, they'd helped me feel like... I belonged at their cafe.

That I belonged in a kitchen, in _their_kitchen, after so long away from one.

That I, a Maleni, a _Vodak_Maleni, belonged in a Kharsian-owned cafe, a few uptight customers be damned.

The babbling bustle of the narrow backstreet hit louder once I stepped out of the alley and into the strong summer sun.

Crowds filled almost every inch of it, roaming around the butchers, bakers, and other small stores to do some late afternoon shopping.

Above, yet more noise floated out from apartments stacked an extra three storeys high atop those stores, filled with locals going about their days beyond their open windows.

It was hot, congested, almost overwhelming... but I couldn't escape the sense of community that came with it. Especially when compared to other, similarly busy areas of the city.

"Hey,badger," someone called above the chatter on the walkway and the surrounding pavement.

The second of those words was said in Ekrean; more or less the only Ekrean I knew.

"Jiri!" They shouted, a moment or so before I realised the voice belonged to Slim.

I searched through and beyond both the Maleni and Visoka-sized crowds for him, towards the station, then in the other direction past the cafe.

And that's when I found him, just about. He stood decked out in a thin jacket and skinny jeans, a hand raised high in the air. Gathered along with him were some friends, I figured, hanging along with him outside the convenience store next to the cafe.

"Catch you in the morning for more fun, man."

He looked, and sounded, even more laid back than he did in the kitchen...

Something I found hard to believe was possible.

The brown raccoon in a tie-dye shirt and the green, windbreaker-wearing lizard had that same chilled air about them. So too did the Maleni fennec with a hoodie, settled back inside the latter's chest pocket.

With how fast Slim fled work, I was amazed he'd decided to hang out right next door. Doubly so considering they all had skateboards and not much space to use them.

"Yeah," I answered once I finally had space amid the crowds, throwing back my own wave and a smirk. "Can't wait for it."

I left the kid to his friends, stepping onto a free space on the moving part of the walkway to start my way towards the station.

For sure, I'd be back there in the morning, bright and early, intent on working alongside Slim, his family, and the others.

Because let me tell you, I wasn't done yet, no sir.

I'd been good, maybe, but I could get better.

Way better.

Back to my best.

Then I'd prove to any and all supporters and doubters alike that those first few days hadn't been a fluke.

...And, maybe, I'd also avoid any further mid-shift mini-breakdowns along the way.

In the nearer term, however, my goal was to survive the long, overcrowded metro ride home I had to contend with.

Like my journey that morning, the crowds restricted me to standing still on the moving walkway.

Legs after pairs of Visoka legs strode on past, far freer over on the pavement proper.

No matter. It wasn't like I was in a rush to face the station or the train I'd be catching.

I'd just begun to tune out, turning myself to whatever idle thoughts fell into mind... when a certain scent tickled my nose.

I couldn't place it at first, faint as it was amid the countless other scents and smells wafting through the busy street... but it stuck with me.

It overtook all those others competing for the attention of my senses.

I picked out... sweetness through the sour city notes. With a minty tinge, too.

...Tomas' shampoo? That didn't make sense.

I carried on my search, sniffing at the air without a care over how daft I might've looked.

Nothing changed at first. And wouldn't.

Not until I took a sniff back towards the cafe.

That's when the sugar sweet mintiness struck so much stronger.

I searched harder, peering and peeking as best I could through the crowds around me.

It's then that I spotted the unmistakable figure of my bigger badger, deep within the bustle, standing beside the lamppost outside the cafe's main entrance.

What in the world was he doing there!?

He was supposed to be working, at the office, all the way downtown.

Not a chance could he have made it to the cafe that fast after finishing...

He'd spotted me already, offering a small, understated wave, right before I lost him to the crowd.

I squeezed out from my half-a-space on the walkway and staggered onto the static centre aisle, almost stumbling all the way into the crowd on the moving belt opposite.

The few sideways looks that won didn't bother me much. My concerns were far more focused on jumping into the first free spot I could find to get myself back to Tomas.

Maybe a little _too_concerned, given how I nearly barged some fox clean off the walkway once I did find a slot.

After offering him a quick apology and getting a... surly grunt in return, I started the ride back towards the cafe.

I kept an eye out for Tomas, waiting for a break in the Visoka-sized crowd to spot the lamppost he'd been waiting under again. Easier said than done, given the sheer size of it in several senses of the word.

I'd find him though... hopefully sooner rather than later.

"Hey."

Or rather, as it turned out, he'd_find_me.

"H-Hey?" I called back, craning my neck up below the knees of so many moving walls. "Where are you?"

"I'm... over here," he sang with that soft-spoken sweetness.

"Where's_here_?"

I tried craning my neck up higher, but the moving belt below threatened to throw me off balance.

Probably best to hop off, I thought, else I fell into that fox again.

I made that hop onto the static outer edge of the walkway, stopping at the railing separating it from the pavement proper.

Still, Tomas was nowhere to be found, and all my stepping, hopping and searching had the crowds starting to blur.

"Look up," he said.

So, I did.

The tops of his trousers and the bottom of his belly pudge greeted me.

Then, higher still, I found my bigger badger smiling down from beyond his shirt.

"Heya, Jiri."

"What're...? When'd you...?" I wasn't sure what to ask first, still reeling in shock that he was standing here. "Why'd you not say anything?"

"Hmm?" Tomas' head tilted. "I... just did?"

"And not before? Outside the cafe?"

"Oh..." His mouth hung open while he rubbed the back of his neck. "You were talking to that gecko guy... I didn't want to disrupt you."

I snorted a quiet laugh at that. Typical Tomas: conscientious almost to a fault. "How long've you been waiting here? I... didn't expect to see you."

"Not long, really." His paw moved from his neck to adjust his glasses. "I-uh... Just a few minutes."

"And how many's a few?"

"...uh, about twenty?"

"Twenty!?"

"It... It's not that long."

I snorted again, way louder that time, shaking my head to boot. "Did you work remote again today?"

"Oh, no... No, I was in the office today." His paw stopped shifting, coming back down to rest by his side. "But I started and finished an hour early... so I could meet you here."

"Oh, that's sweet of you." A toastiness spread through me, cheeks bordering on stinging from the size of my smile. "You didn't haveta come all this way, mind."

"I wanted to," he said with a bluntness eased by his own warmth. "And... It's not a big deal. Only a case of going in the opposite direction on the metro after work."

"The line changes excluded, sure," I shot back. "And the extra travel time, too."

Tomas waved that off, keeping his tenderness, even while he started lowering himself towards me in the thick of the crowd. "Let me get you up off of there, hmm?"

"Thank you." I waited for his paws to reach the railing, then climbed onto his fingertips. "It'll be nice to get off these aching feet, lemme tell you."

I also thought it'd be nice to get into the paws of someone used to handling me, compared to those at the cafe.

Up and away from the walkway we rose, leaving the crowds below to join the bigger ones passing behind Tomas on the pavement.

They weren't anything to be concerned about once he'd slipped me into his shirt pocket. Especially with him keeping a protective paw in place for me.

"How did your day go today?" he asked with another sugary sprinkle. "Your poor feet aside."

"Good, actually," I blurted, barely even thinking about it. "Great, even. In the end."

"Great, you say?" We started away from where we'd met, walking with a soft, steady bob in the direction of the metro station. "I... wasn't expecting that."

"No?"

"Well... Not based on how tough you've said it's been for you so far, and..." He trailed off into a mutter, then a pause. I shifted forward to see more of his face past his snout, just in time for his eyes to widen. "Oh- I mean- that's good I'm glad. I'm glad to hear it."

"It's definitely been tough, too," I said with a firm pat to his soft chest. "But today, a couple of low points aside... It was brilliant. I got some real positive feedback from my bosses, and..."

Tomas had lost that momentary edge of alarm, calmer eyes asking for me to continue.

"I think I'm gonna do well here... I think this job might actually be the one."

"Oh!" he chimed, long and loud enough that the whole street seemed to brighten. "That's epic!"

"Ye-"

He squeezed his protective paw, squishing me to his chest in his typically tight yet tender fashion. "I'm so glad things are getting better."

Tomas released me from his affections around about the time we stopped at a street crossing. The rest of the Visoka around us came to a stop on the corner, too, towering above where the Maleni walkway descended into an underpass running beneath the traffic-filled road.

Too bad my badger couldn't fit down there along with me.

"Hey, uh..." Tomas trailed off, filling the gap with finger strokes down my chest. "Since we're out... I thought..."

I reached up out of his pocket to run claws through his finger fur, then softly asked, "Thought what?"

"Maybe it'd be nice to go somewhere for dinner... If you're hungry yet? And you're not desperate to get home?"

"I've been running on the bowl of soup and flatbread I managed to grab after lunch service." I craned my neck to smile past the underside of his expectant snout. "So, yeah, I could absolutely go for grabbing dinner."

"Cool!" He bounced with delight, which meant I bounced, too. "I'm sure you'll appreciate having food cooked and served for _you_for a change, after the week you've had so far."

"You have _no_idea," I said, drawing a grin from him. A grin that ended once I added, "One condition, though: I'm buying."

"Oh..." Tomas' face scrunched up like he'd just lost at his favourite computer game. "N-No, you don't have to- Please, I'll-"

"I do," I insisted. "I've got a job now. You don't need to cover everything for me any more."

"I suppose, but... Oh! But, Jiri, you haven't even been paid yet."

The dulcet tones of his pleading were like honey to my ears... but I refused to give in. "Listen, I'm buying, okay? Else I'm cooking for us at home, tired legs be damned."

Tomas hung his head, letting out a defeated sigh. "Okay. _You're_buying."

"Good," I said with a firm nod, reaching up intent on stroking his chin. "Uh, but, also..." That stroking became little more than a paw press as a thought struck me. "We needta go someplace that's not Kharsian or any other kinda North Ekrean."

"Oh? Why?"

"Because I'm all soup, stew, flatbread, and... honeycomb pancaked out!"

Tomas did little more than blink his widened eyes at that. "...I saw a good-looking pizzeria close to the station?"

"Sold!" I clapped my paws into a clasp. "Sounds good to me."

"Unless that's... too much like flatbread?"

"No. No way. No chance."

"Heh, epic." He regained his glow amid the waiting crowd around us. "So... You're all honeycomb pancaked out, hmm?"

"Don't," I said with the starts of a chuckle.

"Because those sound quite nice to me."

"Just..." Then broke the rest of my laugh. "I'll tell you about it later."

"Alright then." The glint of the sun caught his glasses almost as brightly as the shine of his smile. "I'll look forward to it."

Both his gentle voice and the glow he radiated filled me with the warmest, fuzziest feeling. Like a hug without hands.

It was only natural that I went loose and sank back into the doughy cosiness of his chest before saying, "Tell me about your day instead."

"_My_day?"

"Yes."

"You... want to hear about all my meetings? The lack of time to actually code... or do anything else worthwhile?"

"Please."

"Then... sure." His big, soft paw lifted to give me a hug very much _with_hands. "But only over a pizza."

"Lead the way!"

The traffic slowed to a stop. The crossing light turned green.

We crossed the street with the rest of the crowd, then continued down the pavement past where the walkway re-emerged from underground, sharing a moment of peace among the busyness all around us.

My thoughts wandered back to my job at the cafe, to the duties, to the environment.

All in all... it was tough. Real tough. Physically, and mentally, but...

I was tough, too.

At the same time, having so many people behind me, supporting me, in the kitchen _and_here outside of it...

...I knew that I didn't have to be.