Contempt

I stood there, looking in the mirror discontent with what I had. The dark circles under my eyes were droopy and seemed plastered to my face with stories of sleepless nights. My hair was unkempt and beyond fixing for the day and the skin on my face was beginning to look pasty and fragile. I inhaled and exhaled deeply, running my hands up my face and through my hair.

Throughout all of my life I always thought I was a stronger than everybody else. The way two people can view one thing so differently is also astonishing. There is not one set definition of love, some people love artificially, some by lust and other by natural soul-bound attraction; but my definition of it, as the same with everything else, is by jealousy. If anyone else had done something I hadn’t, I needed to do it last and better than they did. It isn’t necessarily a healthy motivation, but it gets me through my days and to where I am today. My mind works in strange, maze-like ways, and you might claim that it’s weird, or I look strange when I’m thinking, but that is okay. By certain people I’ve been described like a rock; I like to seem rough around the edges, but you can stand on me and I can’t do anything about it and I won’t. Frankly, I could care less about what’s good for me. This is why I’m happy with the grumpy, angry and secluded-self I am today.

I heard footsteps padding down the hallway near the bathroom. They stopped right in front of the bathroom door, interrupting my train of thought, but the person still seemed unsure of where they were.

“Hey, are you ready yet?” The deep voice called out. Without giving me 2 seconds to respond the same person yelled out, “Kyo! Get out of there, we need to go! Toshiya is already getting really squirmy; I don’t know how long he’ll last.”
Since he didn’t give me any time to respond before, I just opened the door as a response. Kaoru immediately flicked his head of black hair in my direction. “What on earth were you doing in there Kyo? You look exactly the same as when you went in there.”

I stared at him blankly.

Kaoru sighed while giving me a look telling me to hurry up. He wafted down the hallway towards the rest of the group. I heard Kaoru mumble, “Kyo should be out of there soon, I just found him; so we know he’s in the building at least.” I followed his old steps down the hall towards everyone else.
“God, you’re finally here. I’ve been waiting forever. Why can’t you even be on time for my birthday?” Toshiya whined.

“Actually,” I started, “I was just thinking about staying home for this.”

Toshiya’s eyes were full of devastation and confusion. “What are you talking about?” Toshiya questioned, as if I haven’t pulled things like this before.

“I don’t feel like going out tonight. I was going to stay in and compose anyway.”

It seemed like everyone, except Toshiya, saw this coming. Kaoru and Die rolled their eyes at me while Shinya stayed quiet in the back of the group, as usual. Toshiya exhaled loudly and thought for a moment. Deep down inside, I always felt a little bad for putting so much stress on the guys. I never really went out with them; and when I actually did, I was usually in a bad mood because they forced me to go. It was his birthday; I figured they would have a better time without me anyway. So, in a way, I was doing them all a favor. If only they knew how nice I was to them.

“It’s getting late; we should just go without him.” Die looked around the group, and there was a unanimous agreement.

Kaoru gave me his old ‘don’t-do-anything-stupid-while-we’re-gone’ look as he followed the rest of the group out of the apartment. Sometimes the guys just don’t know what a favor is.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

“Are you okay, Audrey? You seem a little down.”

I sighed and looked down at the keys in my hand. Slowly clicking them into the door lock, I replied, “Yeah, Charlotte, I’m okay.” I forcefully pushed the door open and waited for my friend to follow me inside.

“I can tell when something is bothering you.” Charlotte stood there and examined me for a few moments. I could see her eyes looking me up and down.

“Look, really, why don’t we just get to work.”

Charlotte gave me a concerned look, and then shrugged it off a few moments later. Turning to me, she said, “Audrey, why don’t you go and get the silverware to set the tables? I’ll make sure everything else is running and that everyone is here on time.”

I slowly nodded. I walked to the back of our small restaurant to go to the supplies closet. I had to dig through plates, various condiments, and extra chairs just to find the damn silverware. The restaurant we owned really wasn’t anything special. It was about the size of one of those French cafes you see on the corners of sub-urban cities. We don’t really get an influx of many customers; me and Charlotte only opened it a month or two ago. Since not many people come here yet, we really only have a few employees and are only open for dinner. But, being such a small little restaurant isn’t always a bad thing. I am close with all the people I work with, don’t need to work much, and I get good hours. Sometimes I wish that life was as easy as working here.

I shuffled back to the front of the restaurant with a clump of forks, spoons, knives, and cloth napkins in my arms. “Audrey!”

I sighed and turned around, looking for Charlotte, who wasn’t even there anyway.

“We’re going to open soon, get the tables set!”

“Sure thing.” I said in a slightly more sarcastic tone than I meant to imply.

While I was still setting the tables, I heard the bells on the top of our front door jingle; which was odd, because nobody ever came into the restaurant this early. Usually we only had a few people come in a night, and it most likely before we were about to close.

Four men came in through the door; all of them were laughing and looked like they were generally enjoying themselves. The tallest man out of the group with short dark hair approached me.

“Yes? Can I help you?” I asked. “If you want, you can just seat yourselves. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

The man smiled at me, nodded, and then walked away to his group of friends. He said something inaudible, and then pointed to a table in the front of the restaurant near a window.

“Hey, Charlotte!” I called as I ran to her general direction. “Where are the menus? Somebody is always moving them around.”

“Why do you need the menus?” She asked as she came walking out from the kitchen, “You only need to put them on the table when a customer is here.”

“I know. Somebody is here.”

Her facial expression looked more shocked than I had ever seen it before. “Really? Is it somebody important? Maybe we’ll actually get customers now!”

Charlotte made it sound like our little investment together was run into the ground; which was the least bit true. We may not get the most people in here every day, but she is lucky that I manage the money. I always make sure to cut unneeded costs, and only spend money that was completely necessary. I mean, the interior here wasn’t exactly the swankiest, but I’d rather have a mediocre restaurant and some money than nothing but a giant unpaid debt.

“No,” I replied, “It is just four men.” She looked absolutely crushed. “Sorry to disappoint, but can I just have the menus?”

Charlotte poked her head back into the kitchen door and grabbed the menus from a shelf. I never go into the kitchen; I’m a horrid cook, so I would have never guessed they’d be there. After she handed them to me, I nodded and then walked back to the only filled table here.

I put on a smile as I neared the party. “Hi, sorry to make you wait. We only just opened up.”
The same man that approached me earlier looked up at me and nodded in response. I have yet to see him do anything but nod yet. I placed the menus on their table and waited for them to all take one. “My name’s Audrey, just call me whenever you’ve decided, alright?”

“Okay, thank you.” A very feminine man in the corner said. The rest of the group just nodded their heads. I was starting to favor him out of everyone else. Why isn’t anybody talkative anymore?

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I felt a hand push my shoulder, and then a whisper, “Audrey…” After that, I felt another nudge, but this time more impatient. I groaned as I started to open my eyes. “Hey, Audrey, you need to get up…” The voice was getting less and less faint as I started to wake up more.

I finally raised my head up, and then the voice went from a whisper to yelling. “Get up! You need to tell that table that we are about to close! I want to lock up so we can both leave for the night.”
Finally realizing that I was still at work, I quickly woke myself up and fixed my hair. “Sorry about that Charlotte…” I quickly apologized. I’m not quite sure why I did, even if I set the place on fire, I would never get fired. Charlotte was my best friend; and besides, we both sunk half our savings into this.
I looked around the restaurant, the entire place looked empty. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, I didn’t see anyone in here. We only had a few people tonight anyway. As I was about to turn around towards Charlotte’s general direction, I saw a person out of the corner of my eye; which was quite odd, no single parties came into here today.

I walked over to the table where the man was at. It was the exact same one that the four men from earlier sat at. Now that I think about it, I don’t ever remember giving them their check, or them leaving. I guess Charlotte must have taken care of that while I was asleep.

“Excuse me sir, but we are about to close up. We’re going to need to ask you to leave.”

After he didn’t respond the first time, I looked up at who I was talking to. As soon as I saw him, I recognized who it was. He was one of the men in the party of four. Nobody else was in the restaurant, so I guess his friends must have ditched him. I can kind of see why they left him; this poor guy was one drink away from blacking out. I was surprised he was still able to sit up. Nothing like this had ever happened to me or Charlotte before, so I wasn’t so sure how to act. I just sort of stood there for a few moments, looking at him; while he was just there, not really doing anything.
In a moment of panic, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Charlotte!” She yelled something I couldn’t hear from the other side of the building. “Just get over here!” I really wasn’t sure what we were going to do. We couldn’t just leave this poor guy here, and I didn’t even know what his name was.

“What is it? Didn’t you get him to leave yet?” I felt bad for calling her over, she looked so tired.
“I don’t even know if he is considered legally alive right now. Charlotte, what are we going to do?”
“Why don’t we just leave him here? He’ll be fine by the morning.”

“We can’t do that!” I whined. I looked at her with desperate eyes. “We need to figure out a way to get him home. I won’t be able to sleep knowing there is an almost dead man in our restaurant.”
“Look, he isn’t almost dead. Stop being so over-dramatic.” She walked up to the man, and reached her hand into his pocket. After a few moments of searching, she pulled out a small brown wallet and set it on the table. “Here. Look through this.” She said pointing to it.

I opened up his wallet. It was standard, had his driver’s license, credit cards, receipts and money.
“Well?” Charlotte asked, “What’s his name? Where does he live? I want to get him out of here.”
“His name is Toshimasa.” I scanned through his wallet for a few more seconds, just curious to find what was in it. I pulled out a small index card from behind a credit card. It had someone’s name and address on it; in very messy handwriting, might I add. “Hey, I found somebodies address in here, maybe it’s a relative or a friend’s. Do you think we should take him there instead? We probably wouldn’t be able to take him to his address, in the case that he lives alone.”

Taking the paper from my hand, Charlotte said, “I wouldn't care if we dropped him off at a gas station.” She can tend to be a little insensitive when she is tired. “Here, let me see his wallet,” she said while snatching it from my hand. She scanned his information for a little bit before looking up at me. “Oh, I recognize that name. I saw that band he was in a few months back. Remember that concert that I dragged you to?”

I didn’t remember, but I nodded my head anyway. I just wanted to get whatever his name was out of here. “Yeah, that’s great, Charlotte. Can we please get him to a car and to the address?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, yeah.” Before helping me maneuver him in any way, she shoved her hands down his pants pocket and pulled out his cars keys. “I don’t want him throwing up in the backseat of my car; we are taking his.”

In a group effort, Charlotte and I were able to raise him up to his feet. Like a puppet – and with both his arms over our shoulders – we were able to slowly maneuver him out of the restaurant front door and into the backseat of his car. He has a rather tiny car; he almost wasn't able to fit. We had to lay Toshimasa down in the back, every time we tried to sit him up, he would fall over or I thought he’d hit his head on the window and give himself a concussion.

“Okay, hand me the piece of paper.” Charlotte said, getting into the driver’s seat of his car. She punched the address into her phone and we were on our way. All I wanted was this Toshimasa guy to be home and out of our lives so I could go home and sleep.