Chapter III: Under the Red Carpet

Sylvia patiently sat inside a dark room where the only source of light was the flickering light bulb hanging above her head. It was the room that she had mostly seen in detective movies where the protagonists bring in the criminals to interrogate them.

She had never thought the day would come where she would be kept inside such a room, nor would she have felt guilty despite knowing that she had not done anything questionable in her life.

The door to the room swung open and hits the wall with a bang making her flinch. The red-haired man that had escorted her to the room slowly walked inside with a face that was difficult to read. He now wore a red blazer over a white dress shirt and had his maroon colored hear neatly pulled back. His yellow eyes seemed to pierce through her soul as she met his gaze on her careful observation of the scar that stretched from his jawline to his left cheek.

"Hey, turns out we are actually hiring." he heaved a sigh as he pulled out a chair from the darkness beyond the small circle of light that shone on her and sat down.

"I told you so!"

"My bad."

Sylvia merely glared at the red-haired man with a pout and fixed her disheveled hair that got ruined when she was dragged inside. Her eyes never left the red-haired man who seemed to stare at her with the same intensity.

"Why didn't you just ask your boss first before dragging me here?"

"Can't be too safe nowadays."

The man immediately answered her question as if he was anticipating it. Sylvia bit on her lips as she tried to think of more questions to ask him yet couldn't think clearly from the heavy atmosphere alone. She was currently inside a room without windows and only had one door, with an unknown man, nonetheless.

"Relax. I'm just here to interview you." he sighed and quickly brought out a clipboard that Sylvia didn't notice he had with him when he entered.

"Name?"

"Sylvia Porfirio..."

"Age?"

"29."

"Blood type?"

"Uhhh... A positive? I can't really remember."

"Sexuality?"

"Bisexual."

"... Alright then..." the man whispered to himself as he stood up and tucked the clipboard between his arms.

"That's it?"

"Yeah, you're hired."

"This isn't a scam, or anything is it?" she asked without even trying to hide her skepticism. The interview was much simpler and shorter than expected with the salary that came with the job. It felt more and more like a scam than an actual job to her.

"Look, we're just understaffed right now so we'll take what we can get." he explained before pulling in the string which turned off the light and placed back the chairs to where they came from.

"Are you coming or not?"

"Oh, uh, coming!" Sylvia hastily replied and ran out of the dark empty room that looked more and more like an interrogation room with the solid metal door and foggy black windows that she hadn't even noticed inside.

The room seemed from a different place however as the grey, granite floor immediately got replaced by smooth marble tiles that decorated the hallway just outside it. Walls covered with sky-blue wallpapers which gave the place a more peaceful feel to them immediately calmed down her nerves as she slowly followed the red-haired man as they walked down the hallway.

Several metallic doors that were painted grey lined across the narrow hallway with small circular windows that allowed one to peek inside. She couldn't resist the temptation and snuck a peek inside one of them and witnessed a man with even darker red hair than the man she had met and even darker black spots below his eyes.

He wore a white uniform with the sleeves rolled back to his shoulders as he twirled a knife with his hands before expertly slicing a piece of expensive looking meat.

"Come on now, don't waste time." the man from before whispered from behind him making her shriek from fear and attempt to slap him across the cheeks but was easily stopped by him.

"Violence on your first day?"

"Oh... Uh... Sorry Mr..."

"Drop the formalities, just Salvatore is fine." he waved her off and continued to walk while grumbling something beneath his breath. The more she looked at him, the more he seemed to be out of his element as if he was just forced to interview her.

'Maybe they really are short-staffed'

Normally a kitchen would have three or more cooks at a time, but she had only noticed the man with a mohawk cooking inside. At a first glance, she could say the cafe seemed well off but she would never have guessed that they were short on workers.

"Hey, uh, Salvatore?"

"Yeah? What is it?"

Salvatore looked back at Sylvia who had just caught up to her and opened the door that led to the main area of the cafe that she had seen earlier from outside.

"Oh, it's you!" the familiar voice of the mauve-haired woman reached her ears and she turned to look at counter where she sat.

"Oh, hello." Sylvia giggled as she waved hello before turning back to Salvatore who had his eyebrows raised at her.

"Are you guys really understaffed?"

The question seemed to have placed Salvatore and the Mauve-haired in deep thought as they stood in place while gazing up at the ceiling as if they were asking the heavens above for an answer. When no answer came, Salvatore heaved a sigh and turned towards Sylvia.

"Well, I guess you can say we're struggling with shifts right now."

"Shifts?"

"Yeah... Almost everyone in the cafe works for part-time."

"Ohh! Is everyone here a student?"

"Not... Exactly but I guess you can call them that." Salvatore chuckled nervously while scratching his cheeks, "Is that all?"

Sylvia gazed at the empty tables of the cafe with a layer of dust slowly forming on top of them. She then looked back to the hallway behind Salvatore before nodding to himself.

"Salvatore!"

"Yeah?"

"Where should I start!?"