Rough Day

It had been a rough day for Serin. She had spent the night up late playing games with her friends, most of them being on the other side of the ocean from her, and was now quite exhausted at work. Timmy turned his attention to her after she almost spilled a drink, yet again.
	“Are you sure you do not need to go home?” He chastised her. With a quick jerking motion of her head back and forth and a swift fluttering of her eyes, Serin answered in a way that only those half asleep can, “I will be fine Timmy. Thanks for asking.”
	Timmy did not buy it for a bit. He knew Serin far better than she knew he did. He had been watching her as she worked for a while now. The subtle nuances of how she carried herself were quite familiar to him. Timmy knew it was wrong to have a crush on a coworker but it did not bother him at all now since it was her. He wanted to know what she was like and how she carried herself when she was not busy waiting tables at the Lion’s Eye Steakhouse.
	He went up to her and grabbed her hand while she was on the way back from successfully giving the people at table 5 their drinks, unspilled. Without hardly batting an eye lash, Serin jerked her arm away from him and did a riveting spinning kick which met its target and hit Timmy right in the face.
	He was down and so was the majority of the food on the table that was beside him. “Oh my god!” Serin screamed as the rush of adrenaline in her body quickly laid waste to whatever vestiges of sleep her mind was still clinging to. She knew she was not supposed to use her combat skills away from the docks. She was still in training. Exhaustively, she knew the long list of all of the things her sensei had been telling her to be mindful of outside of the sparring sessions and now in her mind she was checking off every single one of these things that she had missed.
	Always be mindful of your surroundings. Never strike until you have confirmed that your target is an enemy. Always commit to every action that you take and do not mentally commit to any action hastily. Be mindful of those that you serve. Always set a good example for others that surround you. Treat your body like a dojo; one that you never leave and in which you are always training.
	Her sensei would be so mad at her, but for now all that had to wait. She dipped down onto her knees and grabbed a few napkins from the rubble of steak and beer that was on the table by her side. Blood was flowing from Timmy’s head now. All she could think about was making sure that he was alright. It surprised her so much when she heard what he said next. Later she would imagine that the air had been knocked out of her lungs then just as much as she had knocked the air out of his.
	“I never saw you so beautiful.” Timmy half said and half grunted, as Serin inched towards his head with the napkins. She winked at him for a moment; yet another action that had slipped her mind, as she dabbed his cranium with the paper.
	The place was being stormed with other employees and the shocked gasps of the patrons of the Lion’s Eye were subsiding now. No one knew how Timmy had gotten onto the floor and no one would have to know.
	Serin whispered to him gently, “This will be our little secret, okay?” And then she stepped up and away from the table, leaving Timmy on the ground to think about what had just happened and how he had been rattled so suddenly from her kick. “Time to clean up this mess.” Serin sternly called as she pointed her fingers towards the other staff. Being a shift manager definitely had its advantages.