It's An Emergency!

On a Thursday morning in the school cafeteria, all five of the gang were just chillin' on their seats when Tanaka Ryo's facial expression suddenly changed, as if he remembered something important all of a sudden.

"Hey guys, I almost forgot. I won these four one-day use VIP tickets online to this famous maid cafe in Shibuya, and immediately thought of inviting you all to experience dining in an exquisite cosplay cafe. How does that sound for a Thursday night, huh?"

Tanaka Ryo looked hopefully at his friends and waved the ticket in front of them, but as expected… he turned to face Yuna and her face right now is beyond outrageous.

"Is this from that online draw on this sketchy site that I told you not to waste your money on it?" she asked, her eyebrows knitted together.

Ryo avoided her gaze and whistled nervously as he replied, "No. It's definitely not from that Otaku site that I've spent 2,000 yen at, pfftt."

Hearing him spill the beans from his own mouth somehow made Yuna extra mad and throw Ryo her infamous death glare.

Ryo quickly added, "Oh, come on! I actually want to win that manga set as their grand prize that I am looking forward to having for free! Who doesn't love getting free things anyway?"

"You don't actually call it free if you've literally paid for the draw, you idiot!"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry! Now, spare my life, please?"

While the two of them are busy playing cat and mouse like what they usually do with each other, Hayashi Sakura can't help but be so nervous that she started sucking her fingers in horror.

Ryo mentioned something about winning four VIP tickets from a maid cafe! In Shibuya! It can't really be their cafe he's pertaining to, right?

Yuna was just beginning to strangle Ryo right here and then when Sakura decided to get in between and turned to face Ryo.

"I'm sorry, but what cafe is this actually?"

Ryo was able to breathe normally once more when Yuna finally let her go.

The former plasters a wide smile and responded casually, as if Yuna didn't just tried to end his life earlier. "Oh, it's called the La la land Cafe."

He reveals the ticket to his friends once again, making them all astonished except for Ken, who literally went down to the cafe a gazillion times already, and Sakura, who happens to work at the said maid cafe.

Sakura leaned in a bit closely and stared at those tickets for too long, as if she wanted to burn it right away with just her hot stare.

She wasn't even aware that La la land Cafe is giving away a one-day VIP ticket to random strangers as part of a promo! How can she miss this?

Sakura could hear her teeth chattering and her legs a bit wobbly, but she still managed to hang in there and forced a smile similar to Ryo, only a bit creepier that is.

"Wow, La la land Cafe!" Sakura barked a nervous laugh while pretending to be enthusiastic about it. "Sounds such a weird place to go to, don't you agree, folks?"

Sakura clenched her fist that was lying on her lap and silently prayed, "Please, reject Ryo's idea! Please reject Ryo's idea!"

Yuna looked as if she's with Sakura on this one and draped her shoulders around her friend's shoulders.

"You know what, Sakura is right. This place is lame, not to mention cringey as well. Most of their customers are a bunch of old, lecherous businessmen who can't even have their own girlfriends to begin with."

As Yuna made a laugh, both Sakura and Ken turned away from her and pretended that they hadn't heard it just now.

La La land cafe might probably be the place where she works now, but she can't just blow her cover up to prove her friend wrong and defend the cafe', right?

Alright Sakura, you've got this. There has got to be a way for them not to set their foot inside the cafe during her working hours later in the evening, or else she's doomed!

Sakura tried to squeeze out some ideas inside her head that can get herself out of this awkward mess.

Aha! What if I'll just take another leave?

Seconds right after that idea popped up, Sakura had to immediately oppose that. In the past few weeks, she has already taken more leaves than what is really necessary.

Even if she's a top-notch maid in this cafe, it doesn't mean she can just literally do what she wants to do and abuse her boss' kindness.

Sakura turned away from her friends, narrowed her eyes and rubbed her chin as she tried harder to come up with another option that totally makes sense.

Come on, useless, usually empty brain for these kinds of serious situations! Think of a way to save myself and my dignity!

"What about you, Hayashi-san?"

Blinking her eyes, Sakura was snapped back to reality and realized that Ryo is now waiting an answer from her.

She turned around and hunched her eyebrows as she asked, "Wait, what are we just talking about now?"

"The maid cafe, Hayashi-san. Others have already agreed to accompany me to the cafe, it's only you who hasn't made a decision yet."

Yuna clicked her tongue in annoyance. "More like, you forced us to come with you in this cringey cafe!"

Seeing the hopeful expression in Ryo's face, there is no way Sakura can decline his invitation or ditch him!

But she also has to work at the same time!

Sakura smacked her face inside her head. What is she supposed to do at this point? This was surely not discussed on the first-day orientation the other day for situations like this!

In the end, to avoid hurting Ryo's feelings and being suspected by her friends, Sakura was left with no choice but to agree to go to the cafe' with them later after classes.

At the girl's washroom several minutes later after their lunch break, Sakura was still panicking inside and couldn't make up her mind on what to do at the moment. Her friends had already gone to their classrooms, leaving her alone to go to the toilet.

Should she just call the deal off, pretend to have some diarrhea or something, or just pray to the heavens for the ground to swallow her up alive any minute from now?

After thinking about it for a few moments, Sakura had finally come to a conclusion on what she should do to deal with this matter as soon as possible.

Sakura washed her hands first before getting out of the washroom and applied some hand sanitizer after.

Then she wipes her hand clean on her handkerchief and immediately fished out her cell phone inside her bag.

Once the dial tone came in after typing in her boss' phone number, Sakura waited patiently for her to pick up while staring at her phone hard.

Please pick up! Please pick up! Please pick---

"Hello Hayashi-san?"

A wide smile emerged from her face as she heard Ms. Cookie's voice on the other line.

"Ms. Cookie, what's up?" Sakura greeted in a whisper-like tone.

"Fine, I guess? What made you call at this *yawns* hour?"

Oops, looks like Sakura woke up her boss in the middle of her afternoon nap. Her bad.

"Miss, I need your help. It's an emergency!"