After Senzaemon's group of three left, only four people remained in the small shop: the owner, Kamisaka Yuto, the completely drunk Kasumigaoka and two young men who were eating quietly.
Judging by his appearance and expression, the man on the left had a somewhat dopey look.
His round eyes showed no emotion whatsoever.
He was clearly quite handsome, but his hair was getting a little sparse, which was a true shame.
The man on the right wore a look of melancholy and sadness.
He clutched a beer, drinking continuously, and exuded the pitiable yet exasperating aura of a corporate drone.
"Saitama, are you still keeping up with your training?" Kamisaka Yuto stood before the dopey-looking man.
Ever since Kamisaka Yuto opened his shop two months ago, Saitama had come here to eat every night and the two could now easily be considered friends.
"Yeah." Saitama nodded.
His expression was less calm and more dazed.
He really looked a bit foolish, but fortunately, Yuto was used to it.
"That's amazing. I really couldn't stick with the training regimen you described. Not turning on the air conditioner is truly painful."
Yuto greatly admired Saitama's physical training method: 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats every day, plus a 10-kilometer run.
But those weren't even the key points.
The most crucial part was not being allowed to turn on the air conditioner, no matter the season!
"Actually, it was pretty tough for me at first too, but I kept at it and managed to stick with it. Well, you can get through anything as long as you persevere." Saitama looked genuinely simple-minded when he smiled.
The training regimen they were discussing was something Saitama had mentioned when he and Yuto had happened to talk about fitness.
At the time, Yuto had even tried the method for half a day.
The 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats were no problem; the problem was the ten-kilometer run.
He finally managed to complete it, but when he got home, he couldn't even use the air conditioner to cool down.
It was far too painful, so Yuto chose to give up.
He decided he was better off just being a quiet chef.
"But... Saitama, have you noticed something?" Yuto thought for a moment and decided he just had to say it.
Saitama's round eyes looked at Yuto, a large question mark practically flashing within them.
"What is it?"
Yuto took a deep breath and looked at Saitama quietly. "Saitama, your hair... is getting thinner and thinner."
He finally said it!
Hair loss was always a rather embarrassing topic for today's youth, and Yuto had been reluctant to say anything before, afraid of upsetting him.
But in recent days, Saitama's hair was getting progressively thinner.
At this rate, it would probably be all gone in another two weeks!
Hearing Yuto's words, Saitama froze.
He had been so focused on his arduous training that he hadn't paid any attention to his hair. He tried to recall the last time he had looked in a mirror.
'Ah, it seems to have been half a year ago.' He remembered having quite a lot of hair back then.
"NANII!!!" Saitama stared at Yuto, utterly stunned.
Yuto sighed and produced a small mirror.
"Look."
"!!!!"
Saitama's spirit instantly shattered.
The man in the mirror with hair as sparse as wilted vegetable leaves was him!
He finally realized something was wrong.
No wonder his head felt smoother and smoother whenever he washed his hair recently. No wonder people had been looking at him more and more strangely lately!
"How could this be?!" Saitama was completely crushed.
"How about considering a hair transplant?" Yuto couldn't help but feel a little pity.
He had personally witnessed the entire process of Saitama's hair going from not-so-thick to incredibly sparse.
In a way, it was like witnessing a piece of history.
"A hair transplant..." Saitama muttered to himself.
Yuto nodded beside him in deep agreement.
"This hair transplant you speak of... is it expensive?" Saitama raised his head, his eyes filled with a pitiable expression as he looked at the chef.
Yuto thought about it for a moment. "Probably around 600,000 yen."
Saitama was crushed all over again.
"Well, buying a wig would also work," Yuto offered as another solution.
But Saitama was already burned out completely, his whole being had turned to gray ash!
"Kamisaka, goodbye. I need to cool down."
Saitama stood up dejectedly and pulled a few coins from his pocket, handing them over.
Then, he slowly walked toward the door like a lost soul with no home to return to after losing everything.
Just looking at his back, Yuto could feel a wave of sorrow.
Indeed, going bald is truly terrifying for a young man.
When Saitama walked out of the restaurant, his figure vanished completely.
Yuto watched this scene, his expression as calm as ever.
As a restaurant owner, it was perfectly normal for him to serve people from other worlds, right?
...
"Suzuki-san, you've been drinking beer all night."
After Saitama left, the only sober person remaining in the restaurant was Suzuki Satoru, his face etched with sorrow and grief.
Like Saitama, Suzuki Satoru was not from this world.
Kamisaka Yuto never took the initiative to dig into his customers' origins, as that would be very impolite.
If someone came, he would serve them, this was his creed for running the restaurant.
From two months ago until now, how many of his customers were actually from this world? He didn't know, but he also didn't care.
Chasing after such inconsequential truths would be rather boring.
After experiencing so much, his mentality had become calm and stable.
Quietly running a small restaurant now was exactly what he wanted.
Although there were many customers whose pasts Yuto didn't know, there were also some who freely shared their stories.
Suzuki Satoru was one of them.
The world he lived in featured a social structure on the verge of collapse.
The gap between the rich and the poor was stretched to its limit, and the natural environment was in an equally extreme state of decay.
Compared to apocalypses where humanity was wiped out, Suzuki Satoru's world could be considered an apocalypse from an entirely different perspective.
But even so, every time Yuto saw him, the man was always smiling warmly and exuding a gentle demeanor.
To see him so dejected tonight was truly lamentable.
"Sigh."
Upon hearing Yuto's words, Suzuki Satoru only let out a deep sigh.
He refilled his beer and downed it in one go again.
Seeing him in such a state, Yuto decided not to press him further.
Everyone has a sorrowful corner in their heart, and even the slightest disturbance from others can be a great offense.
Yuto collected Saitama's used dishes one by one.
Just as he was about to take them away, he heard Suzuki crying.
He turned to look.
The crying was nothing more than a few tears slowly trickling from his eyes, producing almost no sound at all.
However, the sound from his nose and throat as he breathed had become heavy.
Yuto sighed inwardly.
He carried Saitama's leftover dishes to the back kitchen but didn't wash them immediately. Instead, he took out a few sausages.
A single sausage was no more than six or seven centimeters long, so Yuto cut it in half down the middle. Then, he made seven vertical cuts on the meat.
He turned on the stove and poured in some oil.
Yuto placed the sausages in the pan and slowly fried them. Embraced by the hot oil, the red sausages took on a slightly charred, golden-brown hue.
The seven cuts he had made expanded and burst open as the internal temperature rose, making the sausages look exactly like little octopuses.
Yuto slowly flipped them with his chopsticks, then picked up each octopus sausage and placed it on a clean plate.
He carried the dish and walked back over to his grieving customer.
Clink.
The sound of the plate gently tapping the table made Suzuki Satoru, his eyes still streaked with tears, look up.
"This one's on the house."
Yuto didn't like to offer excessive comfort to others.
Rather than consoling someone with self-righteous words from an outsider's perspective, it was always better to push a delicious dish in front of them.
"Thank you." Suzuki Satoru sniffled.
A single tear fell from his eye onto a sausage.
Just as Yuto was about to turn away, Suzuki called out to him. "Boss, could you listen to me complain for a little while?"
A strange, not-quite-a-smile expression formed on his lips, he had just been crying and was now trying to force a polite smile.
The combination resulted in a very stiff look.
"Of course."
...
Suzuki Satoru was a very lonely person.
In his world, the relationships between people were as tense as tightly wound springs.
His only friends were the members he had built a guild with in a game called YGGDRASIL.
The Great Tomb of Nazarick.
It was a top-tier guild built by a group of 'villains'.
Suzuki, who had no friends in reality, found his most important and cherished companions within that guild.
He was very happy during that time, even though he lived in such a terrible world. But good times don't last forever, and the game was about to shut down.
The friends who had built the guild with him had all quit the game, one by one.
Now, Suzuki was once again left all alone.
Listening to him ramble on, Yuto understood completely.
There was a saying that put it well: 'If I had never seen the sun, I could have endured the darkness.' It was precisely because he had experienced true friendship that he longed even more for the days spent with his companions.
Yuto sighed softly. "Suzuki-san, if you can't find your friends, you can always come here for a drink. This place won't be shutting down anytime soon."
Yuto's words made Suzuki Satoru smile.
After voicing the gloom in his heart, his expression brightened considerably; the comfort had worked. He downed his last cup of alcohol and stood up.
"Kamisaka-san, I'll be leaving for today. I'm going to spend one last night in Nazarick. I'll see you tomorrow."
YGGDRASIL was shutting down its servers today, and all of Suzuki Satoru's fond memories were in that game.
Even if it was ending, he wanted to accompany it on its final journey.
After bidding farewell, he left the restaurant.
Yuto shook his head slightly and started gathering the empty bottles from the table to take to the backyard.
These empty bottles could be sold for a bit of extra money.
Halfway there, a sudden thought struck him.
'I don't think Suzuki-san paid...'
'Oh well, I'll just ask him next time.'
Before long, Yuto had finished cleaning the tables and tidying up the restaurant.
Kasumigaoka was still sound asleep.
Yuto sighed helplessly.
He fetched a piece of clothing and gently draped it over her shoulders.
"Honestly, can't a girl like you be a little more on guard?"