Transmigrated into a World of Reversed Roles
Chap51

The opening of the Game Club wasn’t as festive as I had hoped. After Ms. Mizu left, all we did was clean the clubroom and rearrange the leftover furniture to make it more comfortable for us.

As a result, since lunchtime passed by so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to try out Ms. Mizu’s computer with Yuri afterward.

The sky quickly turned to dusk, and I had arrived at the parking lot of the restaurant where I worked.

Happy voices from a family who had just visited reached my ears as I tried to close my eyes against the glare from the car mirror reflecting the sunlight.

I quickly made my way to the back of the restaurant. A faint stench of rotting food from the trash bin wafted into my nose, even though it was quite far from here.

My hand reached for the doorknob and was about to turn it when suddenly I heard the voices of two people talking inside.

"Is that... the Manager and Hina?"

Since the voices weren’t very clear, I could barely make out what they were saying.

But one thing for sure, I could hear the Manager’s faint yelling, likely scolding Hina.

Didn’t this feel a little déjà vu? Hina was also scolded harshly the first time she worked here, wasn’t she?

I had a bad feeling... It might be best not to open the door right now.

However, fate is such a troublesome thing. The more someone tries to avoid it, the more excited fate becomes to entangle them.

Just as I was thinking of stepping away, the door suddenly opened from inside. It nearly made me fall since my hand was still holding the doorknob, and it got pulled.

The Manager, with her long blonde hair, stepped out from behind the door. Her expression was full of frowns, and thick smoke from her cigarette covered most of her face.

Hina... What kind of huge mistake did you make while I was on leave yesterday?

The Manager I remembered was patient and tolerant of any mistake her workers made. This was the first time I saw her this angry.

I hurriedly greeted her.

"Go-Good evening, Manager. Today is... a beautiful day, isn’t it? I’m sorry for taking sudden leave yesterday."

"I don’t care about any of that."

Dropping her cigarette, the Manager stared at me sharply as if she had turned into a demon king meeting a hero. That look scared me even more, and I started stepping back.

Fortunately, that scary look only lasted a few seconds before she let out a sigh and roughly scratched her hair, looking exhausted.

"... Sorry, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You had a valid reason to take leave yesterday, and I really don’t mind it."

She sighed again for the second time.

"The problem is... Hina has been messing up a lot since yesterday. I thought she had gotten better because she rarely made mistakes lately, but it seems I judged her too soon. She’s completely helpless unless you're the one teaching her, Ren."

I knew it... I really shouldn’t have trusted her words. Didn’t she say yesterday that she wouldn’t mess up? And now what? I almost got chewed out by the Manager too because of her.

"... Wasn’t there anyone else helping her? When she just started working as a waitress?"

"I did assign a few people to teach her the basics and help her if she made mistakes. But it was all useless. Her head is like a rock that can’t absorb water. Even after being told how to do things and given direct examples, she still doesn’t understand."

Manager, just hearing your story already makes me doubt whether I can even help Hina.

I get that I helped her with dishwashing before, but something as complicated as serving customers? I feel like I’d faint before getting her to understand everything.

Still, I probably won’t be able to avoid this fate, especially as I saw the Manager begin to speak again.

"So, would you be willing to help Hina again? I might be able to raise your pay a little and... you’d be free from shift work until she understands things properly."

At this point, wouldn’t it be better just to fire her? That might sound harsh, but I’m genuinely curious why the Manager is going so far to keep Hina.

Well, since the offer was quite good, I just nodded. And besides, who doesn’t like extra cash? Game shop, wait for me next week!

"I’m not too confident in my skills as a server, but... I’ll teach her the best I can."

"Thank you. Hina’s still inside, I don’t know exactly where, though clearly she’s not working right now. I’ll stay here for another smoke."

The Manager motioned for me to go in. After that, she took out another cigarette from her pocket and closed the door.

"Alright, now where should I look for Hina?"

The back door of the restaurant led straight to the staff break room. Since it was still work hours, I didn’t see anyone around. Only the faint noise from the kitchen could be heard from here.

...I better change into my uniform. The Manager said I didn’t have to take a shift, but it still feels weird being the only one wearing a school uniform.

Heading to the male locker room, I walked casually and greeted a few people I knew while thinking about how to teach Hina.

This is going to be a tough job... I was just a kitchen helper in my previous world, and my experience as a server is less than a month. Even now, I still make plenty of mistakes, since most of what I learned was just from watching my coworkers.

"Maybe I should ask Hina directly what she doesn’t understand first. Teaching her one step at a time would probably be easier for her than dumping a bunch of things she might not remember."

I put away the school uniform I had taken off and finally finished changing into the maid uniform.

...Since I’ve worn this outfit so many times, I’ve somehow gotten used to it. Though, from any angle, isn’t it weird for a guy to wear a girl’s outfit with a skirt like this?

I mean, even outside, I rarely see any guys wearing skirts. Most still wear normal pants like in the world I came from.

Or maybe... this restaurant is just weird?

Leaving the changing room, I was ready to look for Hina. But my feet stopped when I heard a door open behind me.

Turning around, I saw the girls’ locker room. And standing at the open door was Hina, staring at me with eyes that looked teary and red, as if she had just been crying. She was holding her phone in her hand.

She was wearing the usual maid uniform. But what was different this time was a white bandana on her head. Just like mine.

Hina’s eyes became even more teary, and her cheeks flushed. Without warning, she leapt toward me.

"Ren-san, aitakata yooo!"

"I don’t understand what you’re saying!"

With all my strength, I tried to hold her shoulders, stopping her from hugging me.

Is she seriously a dog?

I wanted to complain about how right Alice was about her little sister.

But just as I mustered more strength to push Hina back, my eyes accidentally caught a glimpse of the screen on the phone she was holding and read the writing there.

[..."If there’s a messy table, clean it immediately. Try to read the situation of the table better, duh." – A note from Senior yesterday. But what does ‘read the table’ mean? Tables don’t have writing, right? What am I supposed to read? Ugh, confusing! But I’ll try to remember this for now!]