Geheimnisse der Nacht

[Kane]

Kane placed the single plate of bratwurst on the table before the two customers. She looked up at the man and asked, "Will that be all?" With a nod, he sent her away. She walked over to the spot she normally stood when she couldnt be of any help, by the window, looking out the glass at the people passing the Beer Hall on the walk in the rapidly darkening evening. She cast a last glance at the rather deserted seating area before watching the sun slowly fade behind the clouds. She sighed and let her thoughts wander for a minute.

She'd had a surprisingly good first day of college. She'd met two people...both boys..and actually gotten along with them. Their names were Alfons and Edward. They were both nice. Edward had stuck up for her in a nearly disastrous Calculus class. The professor had tried to call her out in front of the class when she slipped in after being late. He'd been silenced with both their efforts, and her day had continued fairly smoothly. She'd had lunch with the two young men, and then Advanced Physics with Edward. The professor had been off his nut, and he had them do a rudimentary lab as an introduction. Simply tossing a tennis ball back and forth. She had disliked both the simplicity of it and the fact that he required them to use an angle, making her climb stairs more than she'd previously elected. Aside from that, she'd had a decent day...she even found herself looking forward to seeing Edward again...a bit more than she'd expected. She blushed at the thought and shook her head, getting her mind to another subject. Glancing around, she gave a small smile.

Its strangely quiet...and rather empty here tonight... she observed. Only one more customer and I'm off, probably...hopefully before the late drinkers arrive. Her lip curled slightly at the thought. The late drinkers were the worst, and she was more than happy to leave before they started to trickle in like strained water of a spring in the sparse woods around Munich. I still need to get home and read my Astronomy textbook to find all of the constellations for this time of year... she thought. She figured that made her sound obsessed with schoolwork, but she had nothing better to do with her time...especially since she wanted to read the textbook and it wasnt even required.

"Serafina!"

She blinked and looked up to see her manager striding across the room towards her. She looked up at him silently and let him speak. "A young man just walked in, take care of him and finish up with the couple and you're free for the night." he gave a small smile "Glad to see you've been able to work a fair bit rather recently, even if theres not many people every so often. Hopefully this trend continues...the fall festival is just three weeks away. I hope you're looking forward to it." He turned away with a nod before walking back to the kitchen. Biting the inside of her lip and suppressing a sigh of relief, she ran a hand through her hair, pulling her bangs slightly to the side and out of her eyes before walking over to the table.

She stared at the ground as she walked forward, watching her dress ripple a bit as her legs moved beneath it. She swallowed and absently brushed a bit of fuzz off of the apron around her waist. Reaching into the pocket, she pulled a small pad of paper and pen from it and flipped through the pages until she got to a blank page. Placing the pad on an empty table, she quickly scribbled the information required on it before walking slowly over to the table, keeping her eyes on about knee-level ahead of her. Swallowing, she stopped in front of the table and busied herself with re-reading the information she'd just wrote. "Good evening...welcome to the Munich Beer Hall...I'll be serving you tonight..."

[Ed Elric]

There was a bit of a bite to the evening air, it was almost October after all, and Ed hurried his pace somewhat as the pub came into view. He could feel the blush spread over his cheeks from the chill and his hair stuck to his forehead from a short spurt of rain earlier in his walk. The particular bar he was headed to was located almost completely on the opposite side of town from his grungy hotel, but the beer was better than anything on his side of town and didn't get rowdy until the late evening instead of starting in mid-afternoon. Besides, literal miles away he had less of a chance of running into someone that lived in his building and wouldn't be forced to sit a talk relatively politely with one of his drunken neighbors just so they wouldn't start filing complaints and get him kicked out of the one building he had managed to work a decent pay-schedule out with. Besides, a surprisingly good day deserved to be followed with a good beer.

Smiling to himself a little, Ed pushed the door of the Munich Bar open and stepped inside, shivering a little at the drastic change in temperature. He looked around and was pleased to note there weren't many patrons this evening, actually, there were very few. Ed wondered why in the back of his mind, but whatever the cause he wasn't complaining. After a moment of scanning he picked a long table on the right-hand side of the bar that only seated one other customer and made for the opposite end. The proprietor, or at least the shift manager, acknowledged him with a slight nod and told him there would be someone with him shortly.

Ed took a seat on the far end of the table but didn't bother to pick up a menu, instead he pulled the glove off of his right hand and began to trace circles on the notched wood of the table-top, frowning as his finger instinctively began to slide over the table in the shape of Al's blood seal. Biting the inside of his lip and giving a quick shake of his head Ed pushed the thought of Al and home away, those were easier to handle after a drink anyway, and instead turned his thoughts to the day behind him.

He thought of Alfons, but what was there to think of Alfons? He was this world's doppelganger of his brother and were it not for the fact that he liked the look-a-like he would think it simply another cruel joke this dream world was playing on him. Were he religious, he'd think God had an evil sense of humour. At first, he had thought maybe this world's Al being a nice guy could end up being worse than if he were a bastard, because the more Alfons made him think of Alphonse the more it hurt...but, he wouldn't want to see his brother's image sullied by an assholic personality...Ed managed to laugh quietly to himself at the thought of Al's 'twin' acting like Mustang.

And then there was Kane, thankfully not another familiar face, but not an unpleasant one. He hadn't expected to talk to anyone unless absolutely necessary at the university let alone actually enjoy it. But both Kane and Alfons had been a surprise...Kane even more so. Because he could see himself being somewhat more open with someone so much like Al..but with a complete stranger in every sense of the word, well, that wasn't really the sort of thing he had ever done, let alone in this alien world. Besides that odd fact, though...he really did enjoy her company...and remained curious about the way she treated her right arm.

"Good evening...welcome to the Munich Beer Hall...I'll be serving you tonight..." The voice brought Ed from his thoughts and he opened his mouth to greet it back but closed it again when he looked up.

Well...that's a coincidence.

After a moment of surprised silence, Ed found his voice again. “Uhm...” he started a little awkwardly. “Hi...Kane, didn't really expect to see you here...”

[Kane]

Kane’s eyes didn’t leave her paper for the few seconds between her words and her customer’s response. Though the brief moment was just that, brief, it seemed like an eternity to Kane. Not because she was bored, but because she disliked talking to strangers more than the average person, and any silence seemed to be so much more than it should be. She read over her few words on the paper for the third time. ”Table 5, 7:35 PM, 29 September, Server: Serafina”. In her opinion, about half of the information they were required to write to keep a record was rather extraneous. She didn’t see a need to record the table number and time. Its not like it would be remembered and documented, would it?

She bit back a sigh and felt her stomach churn a bit with hunger as she shifted her weight from her right foot to her left. The only reason she wanted a job in the first place was because she felt like such a burden to her uncle. She wanted to be able to buy food and water for herself without her uncle having to leave her money whenever he went on one of his frequent business trips. She had used the line ”I’m sixteen, I should be able to hold a job and school to prepare for the road ahead...” (or something to that effect) to convince him to let her get a job. If she’d told him the real reason, she wouldn’t have heard an end to his response. He was already, in her mind, a bit over-protective as it was. ”No need to add fuel to the fire...” she’d thought.

She understood his worry...or rather, why he was worried, but she didn’t want him to. Its not like I’ll break... she thought. He had reason, she knew, but she could take care of herself. It wasn’t anything horribly abysmal...-

”Uhm...hi...Kane, didn’t really expect to see you here...” She blinked and was pulled out of her few seconds of thought at the familiarity of the voice. She’d only just become acquainted with it, but it stuck in her mind as though she’d been hearing it for so much longer than just one day. Swallowing and picking her eyes from the floor, she looked into Edward’s eyes. ...Edward..? she thought. Though it wasn’t uncommon for college students to come to the Beer Hall, she hadn’t really expected to see him again today, either.

She felt a bit of color spread over her pale cheeks as she tried to find her tongue. ”O...oh...Edward....” she began, stuttering a bit nervously. Great job on that one, Kane...really nice...stuttering, of all things... ”...I uh...didn’t really...expect to see you, either...h...how are you?” she figured she may as well ask, to be polite. If anything it was fairly obvious, in her opinion, by now that she worked here. Otherwise, she was mental and simply posing as a waitress. She tried to force some of the color off her cheeks mentally, but could feel by the unchanging temperature that she was failing miserably.

[Ed Elric]

Kane looked startled to see him, Ed couldn’t blame her, after all he was extremely surprised to see her as well. For some reason, he hadn’t thought of her as working in a place like this, but maybe that was just an odd sort of prejudice. He’d been around drunks; he didn’t think any person needed to be around their sort, and especially not a teenage girl. Nonetheless, here she was and though the recognition and slight shock had registered on her face, she had yet to say anything. For a few moments Edward looked at her but he felt a strange warmth sneaking over his cheeks and he looked down, instead gazing at the coaster his right hand had begun fiddling with.

When she did start talking it sounded as if she was having trouble getting words to come to her and Ed allowed himself to look up again. ”O...oh...Edward....” She stumbled to find it and for a second he wondered if maybe it was because she hadn’t remembered his name at first, not that it was difficult but it wouldn’t have been the first time a girl forgot his name. ”...I uh ...didn’t really...expect to see you, either...h...how are you?” At the question Ed’s inner-monologue popped up with an immense list of adjectives, almost none of them were good, but instead of going into the list he told the voice to shut it and settled on a simpler answer.

“I’m fi-…” he broke off mid-sentence, tilting his head a little looking at her. She’s blushing? A small scowl crossed his face but lasted only a split second. Why do I care? He thought to himself, but whatever he was thinking a dusting of red made its way over the bridge of his nose anyway. Clearing his throat quietly, he went back to speaking. “..I’m fine, thanks…can’t exactly say I was expecting to see you either. How are you?”

When he fell silent he heard a sharp snap and glanced down, this time he scowled for real. His less-than-reliable makeshift automail had cracked the already overused cork coaster down the middle, when he dropped it at the sound it fell onto the table in two pieces. He looked back up at Kane after staring at the coaster for a long, frustrated while. Again he felt colour rising to his cheeks, but it was more due to annoyance from his lack of control but he masked it in a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that, I guess…sometimes I just don’t know my own strength.” He hoped she’d buy his nonchalant air, at least on some level, that was the truth of it.

[Kane]

Kane waited in silence for him to respond. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, supressing a small frown. This was the longest she'd worked for a while yet. She'd forgotten what sort of wear it could present on her. I'm going to be sore tomorrow... she thought, biting back a sigh. I'm fi-" Edward had started to speak, but then stopped, looking at her. A slight scowl crossed his face after a second. Damnit, Kane... she thought in annoyance Stop blushing! And stop stumbling over your words! You sound like an idiot! Given the opportunity, she probably could have yelled at herself. Why was she even blushing. The last time she'd blushed was because her brother had gone and made her feel indescribable...something he got very good at towards the end of their time together.

Girls blush around guys, I know...but only if he's their boyfriend, or they like him....right? She thought, managing to push the color off her cheeks with what felt like tremendous effort. "I'm fine, thanks...can't say I was exactly expecting to see you, either. How are you?" She couldve said any number of words at that point to answer truthfully. Tired, bored, unenthused, cold... she thought, keeping her teeth together to block off a flow of words from making a connection between her brain and mouth. She sighed silently, only a bit of a relaxing roll forwards from her shoulders indicating she had.

Quietly, she spoke. "I'm...alright..." she responded, truthfully. She could be better, but she could be alot worse, too. Shortly after she answered, silence met her, only to be split seconds later by a rather sharp snap penetrating the quiet of their small conversation. She turned her blue gaze downwards to the table and blinked a few times. The well-worn cork coaster he'd been fiddling with had broken in half. She bit back at the small grin that had been making its way across her face, trying to replace the look with a poorly-made surprised expression. “Sorry about that, I guess…sometimes I just don’t know my own strength.” he said in a bit of an excuse.

Relenting to her amusement, she let a small smirk make its way across her lips as she responded "Dont worry about it...my manager was getting ready to replace them, and they were ugly, anyway..." she held the smirk and set her pad of paper and pen down, picking the two peices of cork up and pocketing them. She did find it strange, though, that he didnt realize how close he was to breaking the cork while he was fiddling with it. Blinking and shaking the thought aside, she picked up the pad of paper and pen again. "Anything I can get for you?" Hell...may as well do my job... she thought.