Love and Beasts

Chapter 5

After a long day at work full of double checking the documents, talks with Rebecca, stupid self-praises of her boss and gossip about Ivan from other female coworkers, Iza was finally done with her duties and tiredly looked at the clock on the wall. It showed 3 pm. 'Oh well, I think today I will eat some of the street food.' she thought to herself.

"Hey Iza-senpai! Why don't we go out and eat something together?" Iza turned around and saw her other colleague.

A few meters from her stood Akira. He was a young Japanese man. He was 24 years old man and he was around 183 cm tall. He was well build and had pale skin. His eyes were bright, sharp and green. His hair had the color of burned orange. He had prominent cheekbones, but when he smiled or laughed, then his dimples would show.

"Akira! It's been a while! Sure, why not!" the girl exclaimed and invited him to her car. When they entered and buckled their seats, the girl started the engine and then left the parking lot.

"It's been a long time since I saw you in this part of department. They also don't let you take a breath, huh?" Iza said. "Yeah. Not long ago, exactly a week ago, one of the building sites was completely destroyed." The male said, worried. "Yeah, I heard about it! Many say that it was a beastman's doing." "Do you believe it, though?" "Not really. If it was a beastman, then they must have had a valid reason to do it." "How come out of so many people I know, only you don't resent beastmen?" "Because I have no reason to hate them. None of them have ever done anything to me, and they also are people. And you know way too well, that nobody is perfect. Both humans and beasts make mistakes. That should make us equals, not inferior or superior to each other."

The male glanced at Iza, whose' gaze was headed on the street in front of her. "... Strong words coming out of you. I'm actually surprised, because you've always been a diligent and hard working person. You're also quite amazing since thanks to you, even the laziest of people do their job." "Hahaha... Well, it's because at home I was taught that way. My grandma raised me with a heavy hand. And now, I'm doing the same with my teammates, because blood boils in me when I see those lazy asses caring about their nails or hairstyles, rather than job. Of course, I prefer to refrain myself to scolding and threats like sending to manager than using worse methods."

"Don't you think that you could go a little easier on them?" "Akira, you know way too well that if I won't keep some strictness towards them, then the work of the rest of the team will be meaningless. That's why sometimes I have to 'motivate' them to work. Thanks to that, we don't have any left for the last minute work to do, we always do everything earlier before the deadline comes, and everyone, even those lazy ones, are happy about it. Also, we have more free time after work. " "You're actually right." the man said, turning to look at the changing scenery behind the car's window.

After a while, Iza finally found a good parking spot and situated there her car. Both her and Akira stepped out and headed together towards high street, with many stalls serving different types of cuisine from across the world.

...

"Wow, it's so delicious!" Iza exclaimed, as she took another bite of her food. "What is it again that you're eating?" said Akira. Iza looked confused at him and said "Pierogi of course!" "What are those 'pierogi'?" the guy said. "Well, those are Polish dumplings. The ones I took, contain cabbage and mushrooms. I love these the most~." "Oh, now I get it. So you come from Poland then?" "No. I'm from USA, New York." "... Now I'm confused. You like polish cuisine, you have a polish name, and, you can speak Polish. And you're from here?" "Yes." "... I don't understand." the boy said, while looking at girl with disbelief in his eyes.

"That's because I was born in America, but as a biracial person." The man looked at her, gasped and then said "Aha! So you're a half Polish and half American person. Now I get it! " Akira made that 'I knew it!' pose.