Dead Hours — The Third Apron, Page 2
By Suha · Published
Transcript
Panel 1. Kaito leans over the counter and lifts folded cloth out of the cardboard crate. KAITO: Aprons. Panel 2. Overhead view of the counter. Three folded striped aprons lie in a neat row, crisp and new, with no name tags on them. Kaito's hand rests beside them. KAITO: One. Two. Three. Panel 3. Kaito straightens and turns his head toward Rin, deadpan. KAITO: There are two of us. Panel 4. Rin sits on her stool behind the counter, half-lidded and bored, phone loose in her hand, not looking up. RIN: Maybe one's a spare. KAITO: Supply has never once sent a spare.
Image description
Four panels: Kaito lifts folded aprons out of the supply crate, counts three of them laid out on the counter, and turns to Rin, who says one might be a spare.
About this chapter
3 A.M., rain on the dead-hours store. The monthly supply crate lands on the counter and Kaito unpacks it to find three fresh folded aprons where there have only ever been two people. Unable to let a count stand that does not match the room, he declares quiet war on a single number and spends the whole dead shift trying to establish how many people actually work at this store, spiralling over what it means that a supply system which has never once been sentimental has decided there are three of them. All night he holds the third folded apron up at eye level, dead-eyed, and mutters the same '...three.' The count refuses to resolve: head office puts him on hold, and a ladder of night regulars deliver flatly contradictory verdicts nobody can verify. The tracksuit regular says a shop has as many people as it needs and it has never once needed three. A drunk salaryman swears the replacement always arrives before the announcement does, because that is exactly how he found out about his own. A cheerful jogger insists everything comes in threes now, it is a packaging thing, and it means nothing at all. Kaito counts the two stools, the two time cards, the float, everything countable, and none of it settles the number. Rin films the whole vigil as 'How Many People Work Here', dropping the answer in the first minute — Toma asked her what size she wears, last week — which Kaito does not hear, and she has one flicker of near-sincerity late on, asking flatly whether he would still count her if she were not on the roster, and refusing to explain when he cannot answer. Near dawn, hollow, Kaito finally gives up, slides all three aprons onto the shelf and holds one up a last time with a small settled almost-smile: '...two.' A spare. That is exactly when the delivery doors slide open onto grey daylight and Toma walks in, cheerful as ever, in his own jacket, to collect the apron head office told him would be in tonight's crate — his trial ended a week ago, the roster has said three since then, and nobody thought to mention it because nobody had to. Kaito gets the correct number six hours late and from the wrong person; Rin, beside him, says nothing at all and raises the phone. Dawn light fills the store from exactly the angle the night began: three aprons, two stools.