Under The Veil of Night

Noodle Store (Kanae’s Workplace)

"You come early today, Kanae," the Old Man greeted the girl with a smile on his face.

Kanae smiled back. "Good morning Old Man. There’s no class today, so I can come here today."

"The store is more likely to be empty. There’s a lot of fight on the street lately," the Old Man said with a sigh.

"It doesn’t matter. I’ll still work hard," Kanae grinned.

Taking her equipment, she started her work and move around the store energetically. Before long, customers started to come and ordered dishes. Kanae continued to move around the store and delivered each of the dishes that they ordered. Most of them are the same: noodle.

"You work much more today," the Old Man commented when the customers started to reduce.

Kanae nodded her head. "I don’t feel like going home now."

She had just clashed with Sakura not long before this, so she didn’t feel like staying at home. Sakura continued to create a ruckus and she might not be able to hold herself if she were to saw Sakura again. After all, the threat from yesterday was still clear in her head.

When they are talking, the door opened and a customer-no a gangster came in. It was easy to guess that he was a gangster because he wore a torn shirt with jeans. In addition, he came in with a huge pipe on his hand.

"Welcome, what do you want to order?" Kanae tried to keep a polite smile as she greeted the man who came in.

The gangster looked towards the Old Man with a glint on his eyes. "I finally see you again. I never thought that you were going to be a simple seller."

The Old Man watched the gangster in front of him carefully. Truthfully, he didn’t remember this man at all. However, it seemed that this man was hell-bent to give a lesson to him.

"Old Man," Kanae called softly when she saw the Old Man was in a trance.

"Move back, Kanae. Don’t get involved in this. A little girl like you shouldn’t bother herself with matters about gangs," the old man waved his hand as he walked to the front. Despite his old age, he still walked straight and looked towards the man before him calmly.

Kanae did as the old man says and moved to the side. Her eyes were watching the movement of the old man calmly. Although the old man said that she shouldn’t involve herself, she couldn’t let the old man get hurt in front of her.

"Who are you?" the Old Man asked the gangster.

The gangster’s eyes glinted with fury. "So you really don’t remember about us? Very good, I guess I just need to remind you of what you do to me and my gang!"

With that, he started to swing his huge pipe towards the Old Man with the intention of knocking the Old Man. Unfortunately, the Old Man walked one step to the back, avoiding the attack cleanly.

When Kanae saw that, she moved to the side and kicked the nearby chair towards the light switch. When the gangster saw his attack didn’t connect, he tried to swing it once more, but the switch was off at the very moment. Because the sky outside has darkened, he couldn’t see anything inside the store.

His attack once again didn’t connect and he couldn’t even see the Old Man in front of him. When he was trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, he heard the sirens from outside. He was stunned.

"What the F*ck!" he turned to the direction he thought was the way out when he tripped on something and fell down the floor, the pipe on his hand accidentally stabbed his own feet.

Feeling the pain, the man wailed and screamed loudly. From the side, Kanae was dumbfounded, what kind of gangster scream when feeling a bit of pain?

...

For the next hour, Kanae and the old man told the story of this man breaking into the store. Although they hadn’t planned for anything beforehand, the two of them didn’t say anything about the things that happened when the light was off. It seemed that they already know that there was no use talking about it to the police.

In the end, the police took the wailing man to their office. They still needed to interrogate this man, but from the way it seemed, they knew that it was not going to be easy.

When it was finished, the old man slumped on the chair. "It seemed that the incident today would make the store famous."

"Um..." Kanae stood nervously. "Sorry for acting without telling you."

The one who called the police was obviously Kanae. When she saw a gangster coming in, she made an emergency call to the police. There was a certain number to tell the police about a gangster coming, so only by calling this number was enough.

Kanae called the number using her hand with her body blocking the phone from the gangster. The police would not answer the phone when this number was called, rather they would trace the location and send officers immediately. This system was implemented because there were many cases that the one who called couldn’t make any sound.

"It’s fine. Rather, you did a good job," the old man smiled.

"Is it true?" Kanae asked worriedly. She was afraid that the Old Man didn’t agree to her action because from the way the Old Man moved, she knew that he was not an amateur. She was sure that the Old Man was a decent fighter and knew how to fight very well.

"You did great. Normal person would not be able to think that fast," the old man gave her a thumbs up.

Kanae smiled wryly. "Thank you Old Man."

"There shouldn’t be any more customers because of the incident. You can return home first," The old man waved.

"Okay, take care of yourself, Old Man."

Kanae bowed politely before taking her bag and walked outside. Her real work time was still not ended yet, but the old man already wanted to close the store, so she didn’t want to bother him anymore. There were things that couldn’t be said to other people.

After Kanae disappeared from his sight, the Old Man looked towards the misplaced chair. Previously, Kanae kicked the chair to hit the switch for the store. Given that she had worked in this place for weeks, she obviously knew the location of the switch.

Taking the chair, the Old Man inspected the condition of the chair. To his surprise, the damage to the chair was almost none. It seemed that the power behind the kick that Kanae use was only enough for it to turn the switch and didn’t damage the chair any further.

"Is that because women strength is lower or because of high precision control of power?" the old man shook his head.

He offered the job to the girl because he found her looking for a job here and there. He thought that she was only an ordinary poor girl, but it seemed that there were more to it.

Although neither one of them voiced it out, the two of them were suspicious that each other were involved in the underworld. However, at this point in time, there was no need to point it out. Pretending that they didn’t know each other secret was the best option here.