Dinner Date

Dinner Date

“Oh my God, Toshi.  Look at the girl in the hat over there.  Is that…”

She gasps and hushes her voice.

“It is!  It’s Burn-chan!”

Matsuko giggles uncontrollably into her hand while her friends look at her, one slightly annoyed, the other confused.

“Burn-chan?  Who are you talking about?  That girl in the hat over there?”

“Oh my God, Kami, haven’t we ever told you about her?”  She takes a moment to suppress some laughter.

“She’s some deformed girl from our middle school,” Toshi interrupts, a little annoyed at her friend’s enthusiasm.  “She was such a social tard that they shipped her off to a special school for katawas, even though she’s just deformed, not katawa.”

“You called her ‘burn-chan’ though?  What do you mean deformed?”

Toshi shrugs.  “Yeah, burned, deformed, whatever.  I think she was in an orphanage fire or something.”

“Something like that,” says Matsuko.  “It was when she was a kid.”

“She doesn’t look deformed,” Kami says, trying to get a discreet glimpse of the girl in question.  From where they're sitting, only her left side is visible.  “And the guy she’s with is kind of cute.”

Matsuko gives a disgusted scoff.  “Oh my God, Kami, he’s probably from that katawa school.  I bet he has plastic legs or something.”

Toshi nibbles on her sushi with a bored expression.  “Maybe he lost his dick in a tragic fire and that’s why he finds burn-chan so attractive.”

Matsuko almost chokes on her food from trying not to laugh.  Kami stares at her with a hint of disapproval, and Matsuko rolls her eyes.

“Oh, lighten the fuck up, Kami!  Why do you have to be such a bitch all the time?   We’re just having fun, it’s not hurting anyone.”

“I think she heard you,” says Toshi, still looking down at her meal.

Matsuko takes a quick glance over her shoulder at the girl in question.  The man she’s with is holding her hand and talking to her, but she clearly looks a little distressed.  She briefly makes eye contact with Matsuko, who instantly turns back around to face her friends, lowering her voice to a whisper again.

“Oh my God, you guys, she totally looked right at me.  Do you think she remembers us?”

“Hey,” Toshi says, “I’ll bet you the tab that she runs out of here crying within 5 minutes.”  Kami smirks and bites her lip.

“5 minutes?  Alright, Toshi, but no tampering with the results.”

“No need,” Toshi says flatly, and Kami starts to snicker to herself.

Matsuko looks over her shoulder again, just in time to see the man that the girl was eating with running out the door.   The booth is empty with a few Yen notes thrown on the table in a hurry, their food half-eaten.   Matsuko glares venomously at her friends.  “You tricked me, you bitch.”

Toshi gives a sly grin.  “Dinner’s on you, Matsuko.”