After his needed rest, Atreus dazedly pushes himself up and off his bed to redress and prepare for his approaching shift at Crown, along with a quick lunch of leftover orange chicken and steamed broccoli that had been sitting in his refrigerator for a few days. After the hastened meal, he uses his remaining time for a rather liberally lengthy brush of his teeth, something he had decided against doing when we woke up in the morning in order to hurry to the Asano office.

He arrives at Crown at 5:06 PM. It's rather easy for the bouncers to get away with a tiny lack of punctuality, since their duties are extremely limited before the club opens to the public for the night. The same theoretically goes for the girls, but they typically prefer to get dressed and doll themselves up after arriving instead of before. As usual, Atreus cuts through the club floor, where clerks are doing last-minute cleaning, and enters the employee-only area in the back. Anticipating seeing Max, he peers into the break room as he's about to pass it, and lo and behold, she's there, in the same spot she was in the day before, drinking the same type of steamy, misty-watered tea.

In a slightly modified outfit from yesterday, she's wearing an unzipped blue track jacket with black stripes – again with pushed up sleeves – over a black tank top, a short, black lace skirt, black thigh-high socks, and a choker studded with stainless steel spikes. A noteworthy difference is her shoes; unlike the boots she wore in the last couple days, she's actually in black sneakers. She peels her eyes away from the television on the wall to look at Atreus with a welcoming smile.

“Hey, machine man,” she greets him with a lighthearted tease.

A small smirk crosses Atreus's face. “Are you going to always greet me with those nicknames?” he asks as he walks into the room and approaches the table and sits across from her. He notices a second mug of hot tea sitting next to her own.

“I'm sure I'll run out of them eventually. Oh, and I made you tea ahead of time,” Max pushes the untouched cup on the table forward.

“Thank you,” Atreus accepts it with no reservations and takes a modest sip. As his mug is covering the lower half of his face, his eyes are drawn toward Max's neck, and he gives a prolonged gaze at her choker.

Max notices the pronounced stare. “Do you like it?” she asks, poking the tip of one of the spikes on her accessory. “I have a few different types.”

“I do,” he confirms as he sets his mug back down. His eyes then narrow slightly as he hesitates for an instant to continue. “This might be odd, but I've been wondering; do you have any tattoos?”

She smiles, and exhales sharply out of her nose, “I do look like the type who would have a few, huh? But, I actually don't have any at all.”

“Do you not like them?”

“I love looking at good tattoos on other people, and sometimes I consider getting my own, but I don't think I can commit to a design enough to want it on my body until I die. I have a strict rule for myself that if I have a something in mind, I let it stew in my head for six months. And if, by the end of those six months, I still want it, then I'll get it. But nothing's been able to stay.”

Atreus nods and the corner of his mouth curls up into a smirk, “That's probably for the best. I've seen my fair share of tattoos on people who would've definitely benefited from being that picky.”

“Do you have any tattoos?” Max asks teasingly, clearly aware of the answer, given her knowledge of Atreus's 'occupation.'

“Why, yes, I do,” Atreus answers in an equally facetious tone. “And it's on the spot you likely think it's on.”

“What is it of? A dragon? A tiger? Koi fish?” Max starts listing off fairly common animals featured in irezumi tattoos.

“Nope,” he denies with a firm shake of his head. “A wolf. A black one. I considered a dragon once, and even a bear, since I like them, but I don't think that would've suited my personality or even my looks.”

She gives an approving nod, “I think I can see how a wolf could suit you. Does it only cover your back, or does it spread to your chest, too? I've seen a few pictures of dudes whose entire bodies are covered in ink – head to toe – save for that blank strip of flesh down the center of their chest.”

“Just the back. I considered expanding it to sleeves, but, well...” he lifts his arms for a moment, quietly admitting that his goal of getting tattoos for his arms isn't possible anymore.

“Well, if you want sleeves that badly, you can wear the synthetic skin. They're tattoo-friendly.”

“I thought about it, but I really feel that if the ink is not on my natural flesh, then the purpose of the tattoo is gone,” he looks down to his tungsten-plated limbs once more. “I might expand it to my chest instead at some point in the future, but for now I'm content with just the back piece.”

“Okay. That's fair. You got it done here, right? In LA?”

“Yeah. There's a really skilled horishi here; he designed it himself and tattooed it on me. It was a really, really slow process, since it's done by hand with a wooden handle with needles at the end. It took a year of regular visits to complete, and that was after a four month reservation in advance. But I'm quite proud of it.”

“I hope I get to see it soon, then,” Max remarks with a delicate smile and a strong, implicit gaze from her slightly narrowed eyes.

Atreus gives a modestly bashful smile in return. He didn't readily accept her flirting when he came to Crown as a visitor two nights ago, feeling that it was too manufactured. However, her current stare strikes a lingering sensation in his chest.

“As soon as I have a day that isn't so busy, maybe I can show you,” he gives hopeful, but vague reassurance of a future date. “I wasn't joking earlier when I said I wanted to have dinner with you.”

Max's grin grows into one of fond anticipation, “Oh, for mouse meat and donuts?”

“For mouse meat and donuts,” Atreus repeats. “Or whatever we feel like at the time.”

“So, I take it you won't be free after our shifts are over tonight?”

“Well, I plan on leaving a couple hours early in order to meet with my boss about something important. I can't really guarantee it'll be short, either.”

She furrows her brows a bit in sympathy, “With working here and having whatever obligations you have to your clan, it sounds like you barely get a moment's rest. I can see why you needed that nap.”

“The funny thing is, I'm actually working here for the clan to begin with,” Atreus confesses with a short but forceful sigh. “I was told I'd be here for only two weeks. I could leave if I wanted, but that wouldn't be the 'professional' thing to do. I just have to wait until Mr. Aiba finds an adequate replacement for me. It's a bit hard to believe he hasn't found one already in the month that I've been here.”

“He definitely seems like the type who doesn't want to change anything that's working out just fine. I heard him to talk about you while he was on the phone once – like a week or so ago. He says you seem to keep people in line by simply showing off those arms of yours. He's probably procrastinating so he can keep you around as long as possible.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He leans back in his chair, unsure of what sort of action to take, “I guess I'll give it one more week, then I'll just say I want to take off.”

“Then who am I gonna hang out with here in the break room?” Max asks while exaggerating a pout. “I don't wanna be forced to make small talk with the girls while they're putting their faces on.”

“I thought you said you get along well with them?”

“I do, but really, it's only professional courtesies and whatnot with most of them. Don't you like being able to talk face to face instead of through text?”

Atreus nods, “Yeah, I do. But, if I'm gonna be honest, I never really expected myself to become so friendly with any one of the girls while I worked here.”

“Oh, you're a 'don't shit where you eat' type, huh?” she asks with a soft giggle. “I don't blame you. I've seen first-hand the outcome of coworkers dating and not working it out. Unless it's super amicable, it makes the whole work environment awkward.”

“Where did you work before you came here?”

“Quality assurance at Zanvus. I was one of those people who made sure video cards didn't blow up or catch fire or simply give you a blank screen when you turn your computer on.”

The gangster lifts in eyebrows in surprise, “Well, I guess it makes sense for there to be some sort of overlap between that and people with robotics engineering degrees. I would've figured you'd be overqualified.”

“I was overqualified,” Max promptly and succinctly confesses with a straight face. “That's why I had to lie about my education; I said I had a bachelor's in computer engineering instead of a master's in robotics. If I were honest, they would've seen that I had better credentials than the QA team supervisor, who was a bumbling idiot the entire time I was there.”

“So why'd you leave?”

“About a year and a half in, they found out I bullshitted and fired me even though they acknowledged I was one of the better QA members.”

“Huh?” Atreus can't help but tilt his head and squint at the response in sheer bewilderment. “If they admitted that, then why let you go?”

“Because they figured I would leave as soon as I got a better offer somewhere else,” Max elaborates with a comical shrug. “Can you believe that shit? They fired me because they were afraid I'd leave. Talk about cutting your nose to spite your face. I was perfectly content working there. If I'm being honest, I think the supervisor pulled some office politics shit since he knew it was just a matter of time before I took his position. Dumbass wouldn't recognize a PCB even if he got smacked in the face with it.”

“I don't blame you for being pissed. If I lost a job I liked that way, I wouldn't be pleased. Admittedly, the clan has its own fair share of politicking, but that's mostly at the higher level, so I don't really have to worry about it.”

For an instant, Max's face twists into an expression of fervent curiosity and inner conflict. She battles with herself over asking for more details about what exactly it is that Atreus does in the Sanada-gumi – what his role is in the yakuza ladder. However, before she can even begin to move her lips to even push out a sound, she sees another person in the break room's doorway.

“Max?” Seina, a petite and beautiful woman with features of mixed ethnicity in a white slit dress and with extremely long, dark hair that reaches the top of her buttocks, timidly calls out in a high-pitched voice.

“What's up?” Max responds quickly.

Seina walks in and approaches the table, “Sorry to interrupt, but could you braid my hair?”

“What, again?” the punky hostess relays her pronounced disbelief with a shocked smile.

“I'm sorry,” Seina pleads with a deeply apologetic face. “But the other girls are still getting ready, and one of my regulars the other night said he liked it braided. We can just stay in here and do it – you don't have to come into the dressing room again.”

Max heaves an elongated sigh, “Alright, pull up a chair.”

Seina grabs a vacant chair that's been tucked under the table, adjacent to Max, and faces the back towards her. She shits down and Max scoots forward enough that her knees are almost pressing against the backrest of Seina's chair.

“I'm sorry,” Seina meekly apologizes again, this time to Atreus as Max begins to take long locks of her hair and weave them over each other starting at the upper back of her head, “I hope I didn't interrupt anything important.”

“It's fine,” Atreus reassures her in a calm voice. “We were just making some small talk.”

“You know, since I have you here, Atreus,” Seina begins to nervously bring up a new subject, “I was wondering if I could ask you something about prosthetics.”

He nods, “Sure, go ahead.”

“My, uh, older brother is going to have a leg amputation below the knee,” she begins to give context, furrowing her brow in uncertainty as to how much detail she should go into, “because of a pretty bad infection he got after an injury that keeps spreading no matter what they do. And, well, he's been wondering if he should stick to a normal, cheaper, non-cybernetic prosthetic or an expensive cybernetic one.”

Atreus takes a deep inhale to momentarily consider his words, and begins his answer, “Well, practically speaking, an amputation below the knee is the least life-affecting amputation you can possibly get, unless he's an athlete or something. If he's not, then he won't lose any sort of basic functionality he wasn't already using with his normal foot. Personally, unless he plans on putting a bunch of gadgets inside inside it, which I doubt, I think he should just save his money and stick to a non-cybernetic prosthetic.”

“That makes sense. Thank you,” Seina expresses her appreciation with a clear, cute smile. “I feel kind of rude just bringing up such a topic in the first real conversation I've had with you since you started here. Sorry about that.”

“It's fine, really,” Atreus quickly lifts his hand to stop her from continuing her train of thought. She had already apologized multiple times in the one minute or so since she had entered the room; he didn't need to hear another. “Some doctors won't tell you about how an amputation below the knee isn't usually a big deal, because they want you to spend the big bucks on functioning cybernetics. A lot of them are in Atmos's pockets like that.”

“You know,” Max begins as she's still braiding Seina's hair, “back in high school and the first couple years of college, I used to have super long hair – like, almost past my butt.”

“Really?” Atreus wonders aloud. “I would've figured you kept your hair somewhat short your whole life. Why'd you cut it?”

“Honestly, I was tired of the upkeep. It was fun having it so long for a bit; I liked playing with it and pulling it over my shoulder and braiding it myself, but when I entered the world of independent adulthood, it just became an extra source of effort I didn't really need to deal with. So I chopped it. If I were to regrow it to its longest length starting now, it'd probably take about four years.”

“Short hair suits you so well, I can barely imagine it,” the gangster confesses with a slight squint and a smirk, as if trying to picture her with long hair and failing.

“I'm sure I have an old picture somewhere that I can show you.”

“Do you like girls with long hair, Atreus?” Seina suddenly interjects.

He looks down and tilts his head for a brief moment of reflection, “I can't really say I have a preference when it comes to things like hair length.”

“Hmm...” Max smirks and narrows her eyes in transparent suspicion. “I don't know, that sounds a little like a cop out to me. Are you just saying that so you don't upset one of us?”

“He's just being diplomatic,” Seina joins in on the playful teasing.

“Okay, okay,” Atreus forfeits to their lighthearted prodding. “Sorry for not being picky about hairstyles.”

“How about color?” Max switches to a different trait. “Any hair color you prefer on a girl?”

“Well, I know what colors I don't prefer. I tend to not like hair that's dyed in some obnoxiously bright neon. I feel like you want to add character to your head, you're better off with some tastefully sparse highlights. Like yours,” he points to Max's dark blue highlights that blend into her naturally dark hair – so much so, that in poor light, you'd have to almost squint to see them.

“Oh, you think my highlights are tasteful?” Max, not expecting such a comment, raises her brow in pleasant surprise. “Guess I'll be sure to keep that mind.”

“I kinda want to see you as a bleached blonde, to be honest,” Seina thinks aloud.

Max contorts her face into sheer disgust, “Don't piss of the person who has a fistful of your hair in their hand.”

“You're really that against the idea?” the shy hostess asks, caught off guard by the hostility.

“Let's just say that I tried bleaching my hair once before when I was younger, and the result was disastrous. I'll never try again for the rest of my life. We'll leave it at that.”

Seina falls silent at Max's strong and blunt shutdown of the idea and becomes visibly fearful of asking for more details, which she clearly wants to do. Atreus simply smiles, tickled at the thought that Max had a bad hair bleaching experience when she was young to begin with.