Survival Of The Fittest

(Augustus "Dougal" MacDougal debut)

Dougal was always the one to order the drinks.

No matter who it was he was with, friends from school, family, friends from outside of school (like he was tonight), he was always the one who had to go up to the bar, order the drinks and then try to carry them all back at once without a tray. The worst bit tonight was trying to attract the barman's attention. He was staring intently at some boring sport being played on the lounge's TV, mindlessly wiping the same glass over and over again with a now-dirty cloth, oblivious to the world outside of his immediate vision. The trend of Dougal having to buy the drinks looked like it would continue indefinitely; he would be the first one in his group (aside from Bill, but he had the hand-eye coordination of a drunken baby when carrying just two glasses) to turn twenty-one after all.

"Barman?" he said in a loud voice, trying to get the bartender's attention for what felt like the hundredth time. Unfortunately, the highlights of the game that had just finished were on, and the bartender had to prioritise that over his customers, obviously. Dougal was getting bored standing there, and his worn-out legs were beginning to ache.

Come on mate, do your freaking job.

Quickly turning around to check on his mates at the table, he decided to get it over with, and got in the way of the barman's view to the TV. He weren't exactly tall enough to completely block it, but he was tall enough that the bartender had to pay attention to him.

Sighing, the barman briefly glanced at Dougal's hand, checking for the blue star stamp, and saw one. Dougal made no attempt to hide it, even though he hated the concepts of stamps. ("They're pointless wastes of time and energy and don't even work", he'd say if the subject came up, "If a teen wants to get drunk or drink himself to an early grave, why should the law stop them?") Satisfied with the stamp, the barman asked Dougal, in a gruff, apathetic voice "What can I get 'cha?"

Dougal briefly glanced at the table where his friends were seated to jog his memory. Right, he was having a glass of Diet Coke; Annabel Espinoza Stephenson, his beautiful girlfriend, was having a Coke Zero; his best friend Bill Schneider was opting for a Pepsi; the group joker Jacob Forge was having a normal Coke, and the smart one of the group, Alberta Petrov, was having a Pepsi as well. Returning to the barman, Dougal put forward the orders. Grunting to acknowledge the order, the barman quickly served up all 5 glasses, and then proceeded to ignore Dougal.

Dougal scooped up the glasses, and carried them all with just his two hands, a feat he still didn't know how he was capable of doing. Walking towards the table, Dougal stared around the sports bar; it was particularly packed today, with most tables full to the brim, many watching the same game the bartender had been watching, in equal states of hypnosis. As he approached the table, he heard Jacob finishing off a golf joke he'd told Dougal earlier on.

"And then...the Japanese businessman turned to him and said "What do you mean...wrong hole?""

Dougal set the glasses down just as the laughter died down, and began sliding the glasses to their recipients, to be thanked with a chorus of quiet "Thanks mate" from his friends. Taking his seat next to Annabel, he slid one hand into his pocket (Dougal almost always had his hands in his pockets, to make sure the stuff in there didn't fall out) and the other went on the table, where Annabel quickly grabbed it. The two turned to each other, grinned and spontaneously pecked each other on the lips. The other friends at the table rolled their eyes. They were used to the random public displays of affection the couple showed, and unless they started having sex on the table right there and then, they tolerated it. They actually found out funny, how the scientific nihilistic cynic and the artistic religious optimist had such a close relationship.

"So", Bill asked "how's everyone doing in school?" Bill was one of the younger students in the grade that was above Dougal and the rest of the gang, his exams and senior trip being long over. He'd done fairly well apparently, enough to secure a scholarship in some fancy economics university.

"Meh, fine" Jacob said, sipping his Coke and slouching in his seat. Jacob didn't really care much about school. He put everything else, sport, girls, friends, games, first. Alberta was a different story. She thoroughly enjoyed school, and put her all into it. "Well, just finished most of my final exams. Think I did quite well, except on German. Reckon I only got a C, maybe a B, on that", Alberta was a great friend, but like everyone she had flaws, and hers was her ego about her intelligence. As she rambled on about her results, Jacob, seated next to her, began miming an expanding head. She only noticed when she was boasting about how she solved a particularly challenging calculus question, and slapped him on the arm playfully, a look of mock offence on her face. Annabel said she was doing a lot of revision for her exams, and asked Dougal for help with the physics revision (which he agreed to. He'd probably bore here half to death when they were actually revising, but they'd probably enjoy themselves otherwise.)

We'll revise biology in particular...wait, that is one of the most overused innuendo ever. Scratch that thought.

"Meh", Dougal said, as his turn to answer the question came, "Probably gonna do alright in most. Expecting to do pretty damn well in science tests though." He paused to take a gulp of his Diet Coke. "Anyone else got a senior trip coming up?"

"Yeah, to London", Jacob replied. "Bloody good show, old chap", he added, putting on his best impression of an English accent. It sounded like a cross between a Cajun and a Scotsman. "One to Vegas in two weeks" answered Alberta. "One to some mountain in Austria. Skiing mainly" was Annabel's answer, as she got a text and took out her phone. "You got that campsite thing, haven't you?" she said absentmindedly, as she wrote a reply to the text.

"Yep. How was your senior trip again, Bill?"

Bill was busy picking his teeth with a toothpick, but after he was finished, he replied, in a very deadpan and serious voice, mimicking one of those survivalist programme hosts "The first night in the camp was misery. Lacking female contact, we had to turn to sodomy for our sexual needs." The look on Jacob's laughing face after that was more funny than Bill's deadpan story itself "And the food situation was even worse. Lacking a female trained in the culinary arts to cook for us and not being bothered to do it ourselves, we had to go without cooked food, eventually turning to eating insects and each other." By now, Bill's delivery had made Jacob burst into tears, and Jacob's hysterical laughing was attracting stares from all round and making Dougal laugh hysterically as well.

"Nah, it was good", Bill said, his (rather easy) mission to make Jacob look like a prat in public completed, "It was alright. That prick Tyrone burst into tears on his way to the toilet. Thought there was a bear outside, it was just Mr. Cunningham." Everyone got a good laugh out of that. Tyrone was indeed a prick; he went to school with Bill but used to attend a film club with Alberta, Jacob and Dougal's younger sister Abigail, thus everyone in the group had first-hand knowledge of his prickiness.

"Anyway", Alberta said, patting her stomach, "should we order food?"

Three guesses on who's going to have to place the order.

After collecting all the orders and getting up from his seat, Dougal headed to the nearest idle waitress (a middle-aged woman who was entranced by the game on the TV), keeping an eye out for anyone else he knew on the way.

Here's hoping waitresses aren't as hypnotised by TV as bartenders are.

(Haruka Watanabe debut)


There was no telling how long Haruka had been been at the Varsity but, then again, she didn't care either. Deep down it bothered her, maybe, but at least she wasn't at home where she would have nothing to do but sit around. That day had been a day to relax, she decided, and that was exactly what she was going to do. Perhaps she had chosen the wrong place to relax but, if she had, she would have realized that hours ago. Or maybe that was her being oblivious once again.

Earlier, she had been wandering around, looking for something interesting to do, but, unfortunately, the only vaguely amusing thing she found was a very quick, very awkward conversation with a possibly drunk man seated at the bar. After that episode, she quickly excused herself and found a table near a group of people that looked about the same age as her. Here is safe, she told herself, and there she stayed.

Even a bit later she still found herself sitting at that damn table. The only thing she found to be interesting were the commercials on the large TV she had been glancing at every so often and the napkin she had used to clean up the sticky table before sitting. Even the tiny water droplets that slid down her glass of water proved to be more entertaining than anything else around the place.

Bored and growing tired, Haruka scooted her chair away from the table, wincing at the scraping sound it made against the floor. As she prepared to get up and leave, something from the table next to her caught her attention completely: the camping trip. Slowly, afraid that the group might have seen her watching them, she settled back in her seat and scooted the chair against the table once more.

They go to Bayview? she thought, keeping her eyes on the boy she had seen bring the drinks. That was a surprise to her, for some reason. She didn't see many people she went to school with outside of, well, school. Not that that particularly bothered her.

For a while, she listened, scratching at the blue star stamp on her hand and rolling her eyes at the jokes being told. She almost thought about asking them if they really went to Bayview for a moment, then changed her mind. That always happened. The second she found the courage to speak, she would rethink it and then listen instead. Her decision to not speak was made completely when the boy she had been focusing on walked away and, once again, she found herself sitting and listening, listening, listening.

Of course.

Well, she weren't as bad as the bartender, but still...

After placing his order with the snappy waitress, he returned to his table. He was sure he got the orders right (they were fairly simple orders after all), but the staff at the Varsity today seemed so involved in the game on the TV and the associated commercials that a serious cock-up was bound to happen. Massaging his temple in frustration at the thought, he prayed that when the inevitable cock-up did happen, it happened to someone else.

As he returned to the table, he noticed the discussion had somehow turned to the surprisingly deep subject of teen pregnancy, which they'd somehow got to from the subject of school trips. On second thought, the two subjects were rather closely related. From what he'd heard, Tyrone and one of the bitchy sluts in Bill's class having a fling and ending up with triplets was the highlight of Bill's senior trip. Stupid idiots. Contraceptives were invented for a reason, he thought, namely to keep idiots like those two promiscuous yobs from being born and taking up space.

Chuckling at his rather dark, grouchy thoughts, he sat down and focused on the conversation. Alberta had presumably just finished a spoken essay on the subject ("...and in conclusion, the real blame lays with the parents and the society in many cases, but most of the times the kids involved are just idiots who hadn't prepared properly. And sometimes, they genuinely feel in love and ready to tackle parenthood.") Everyone but Jacob seemed to be involved in the discussion and listening to Alberta; Jacob was staring like a slack-jawed yokel at the TV, which was currently showing an advert for a DVD boxset of some British comedy show.

"Yeah, that's all well and good, but...." Bill tried to find a flaw or an arguable point in Alberta's opinion, but failed, and then pointed casually at Dougal and Annabel. "Annabel, Dougal, what would you do if it turned out Annabel was, urm, like 10 weeks pregnant?" Annabel was the first to reply.

"I dunno....I mean, I don't like abortion, especially late term abortions....you know, I'm a Christian and all", she added; with frequent pauses to think and stare at the melting ice in her drink. "But, yeah, if it was still early on, I wouldn't keep it. I'm too young to get a kid. I mean, I love Augustus and all, but I'm not ready to have a kid yet..." She stopped there, to stare at Dougal, who quickly responded "Yeah, what she said, I guess. Aside from the being a Christian bit."

The chat about teenage pregnancy died fairly quickly; there wasn't really much to discuss, and none of them really felt like an intelligent debate. Out of the blue, to break the silence, Annabel asked "Who here got GTA IV?"

Everyone but Alberta nodded and murmured a positive reply. Jacob stopped watching the commercials (which were currently promoting a used car dealership in the outskirts of St. Paul), turned back to his friends and asked Annabel "You got Xbox Live Gold yet? I mean, me, Bill and Dougal here were on the multiplayer last night and we were messing with this swingset..."

Yep. That swingset glitch provided good times for all. Except for the poor old pixellated man they'd landed on.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah" replied Annabel, bringing Dougal back from his nostalgic swing-set memories. "I saw videos of that glitch. Weird stuff. Yeah, I'll get Gold soon. Hold your horses." In the meantime, Alberta was busy looking around the Varsity, observing her fellow patrons. She'd never gotten into GTA; it just weren't her type of game. And she was a pretty damn terrible driver. She once drove off the Golden Gate Bridge look-alike in San Andreas while driving at about ten miles an hour. Dougal enjoyed GTA (the way the lifeless corpses of pedestrians flew through the air when struck by a speeding Infernus was strangely soothing), but it wasn't his favourite game series. Turning his attention back to the GTA discussion, he noticed Bill was now discussing how he made a fat security guard and a fat cop begin shooting at each other in downtown Broker.

"God, this must make us sound really dangerous if the FBI is wiretapping us," Dougal said, just as Bill was describing how many innocent pedestrians and motorists were caught in the crossfire. Everyone but Bill, who was obviously in full GTA fanboy mode, chuckled and nodded, but Bill, with a serious look on his face, uttered "It's called the FIB in GTA, not FBI." After a very brief pause (in which Jacob, as usual, was holding back hysterical laughter), "I think he's talking about the real-life version, Bill." As Bill slowly comprehended this, he too laughed, both at Dougal's little quip and at his own stupidity.

"Hey, Dougal, doesn't that girl go to your school?" Alberta asked, with her finger subtly pointed to a small Asian girl seated nearby. Dougal briefly glanced at her before replying. "Yeah, I think she does. How do you know?" Alberta just shrugged and said "I've seen her a couple of times outside your school." Everyone briefly glanced at the girl Alberta referred to, except for Jacob, who leaned over Alberta to get a good long look at the girl, before Bill and Annabel, who were both substantially taller and bigger than Jacob, pulled him back in his seat. "Way to be subtle" Bill sarcastically remarked. "Yep. She probably feels really comfortable being ogled by Mr. Hyperactive," Annabel added.

Dougal sighed, burying his face in his hands. His best friends really pissed him off sometimes. The only way it could get worse is if Ms. Friend-To-All-Living-Things here called her over, and....

"Hey," said Alberta in a loud voice, motioning for the girl (Haruka, that was her name! Well, probably) to come over, "Why don't you come join us?"

Dougal had a bad habit of tempting fate. Judging by the looks on Bill's and Annabel's faces, they had the same habit.

I should just go home...

And what a right decision that seemed like at that very moment. Haruka was doing nothing but staring at all the people around her (admittedly creepy, but she was bored as hell), watching the game on TV every now and then, and counting the times the newest Pedigree commercial came on (six—no, seven.)

Conversation was happening all around her; people laughing, talking, and generally having a good time and what was she doing? Sitting on her tiny butt and moping because of her failure to actually socialize with the chattering people surrounding her. The most interesting thing to happen to her as she was sitting at the sticky table was her discovery of a duck in the pattern on the floor, but what kind of accomplishment was that? ("Honor roll? Ha! I found a duck in the floor!")

What a thought. Haruka snorted at it and, embarrassed, quickly ducked her head before anyone could notice it was her that randomly laughed. Oh yes, she truly was bored and quite possibly losing her mind; that wasn't funny at all. When she saw the boy from before return to his table, she turned her attention back to them where they were now talking about...teenage pregnancy? This received another brief laugh from her. They certainly knew how to keep conversations interesting. At least she thought so.

The moment their conversation shifted, Haruka yawned and glanced at the TV, where that damn Pedigree commercial was on yet again. Honestly, she could have cared less about video games or the FBI. People that cared about the FBI, she thought, were just paranoid and video games she could never quite get the hang sans Tetris, but what good would her ability to get high-scores in that stupid game do her in a conversation?

Once again she looked back in the direction of the table when she heard them change topics yet again, only to see one of the boys sitting at the table leaning over to look at her. Wait. Look at her? Instantly Haruka straightened her shoulders, the already permanent flush on her face deepening. Crap, it was true. She did recognize the boy that left the table before and apparently he recognized her too. Or something along those lines or else they wouldn't have been looking at her.

For a brief moment she considered pretending she didn't see the strange boy she failed to recognize and running out of the crowded place, but that idea was quickly foiled as another girl actually started speaking to her. Haruka scanned whoever else was around her to make sure that the girl wasn't talking to someone else. No, no, she was speaking to her, and Haruka almost couldn't believe it. So maybe this wasn't the biggest thing to happen in history, and she was probably was making a bigger deal of the situation than it really was, but it couldn't kill her to actually talk to people for once.

"Uh...o-okay." Haruka, very reluctantly, grabbed the chair she was sitting in and ambled over to the group. She carefully placed the chair somewhere near the table and sat, being sure to smooth out her skirt before she did so. "Hello..." Yes, she was an expert failure at socializing. That was a given.

Dougal watched, somewhat embarrassed with Jacob and Alberta, as the girl reluctantly dragged her chair over to sit with the group. One of these days, he would have to get professional help for those two; they were good friends, but hanging out with them was so exasperating at times.

As the girl sat at the table and offered a rather meek hello, Dougal changed the look of frustration and stress on his face to what he hoped was a sincere yet subtle smile. As Jacob carried on staring at the girl like she was a Martian and Bill took a turn at staring blankly at the TV, Alberta was, unsurprisingly, the first to talk.

"So, yeah, stop me if I'm wrong, but don't you go to Bayview? It's only because, well, our friend Augustus here", Alberta pointed to Dougal at this point, who nodded in acknowledgement, cringing slightly at the casual use of his Christian name "goes to Bayview as well, and we thought that, since you were on your own, you might wanna sit with us."

We? Since when was it a we? For a smart girl, Alberta sure doesn't know the meaning to a lot of simple words. Unless she's secretly the Queen of Britain on an undercover mission and she let the Royal We slip out. Nope, I'm pretty sure she's just deluded.

Ignoring Alberta's subconscious attempts to masquerade her impulsive request as an unanimous group decision, Dougal watched as Alberta, speaking at a million words a minute, began introducing the poor girl to the group "This is Jacob", Jacob nodded enthusiastically as Alberta pointed him out.

"This is Bill"

Bill grunted, before giving a more polite "Hello, pleasure to meet you."

"This is Annabel"

Annabel gave a small wave at the mention of her name.

"I'm Alberta, pleasure to meet you"

Alberta grabbed the girl's hand and shook it.

"This is Augustus, but everyone calls him Dougal, don't know if you two have met."

Dougal nodded politely at the mention of his name. "Hey...Haruka, is it? How's things?"

Haruka already felt incredibly awkward sitting there. She only knew the boy because she had seen him every so often in school and she had no idea who the others were. Still, she made herself sit there, telling herself over and over again how they weren't going to kill her or anything.

She looked over at the boy she recognized and, seeing the smile, managed a sheepish grin back at him. He seemed nice enough, but she still wasn't sure. As she started to ask him something, she noticed the boy that had been looking at her before looking at her...again. She offered a tiny smile at him as well, but it vanished the moment the girl that had invited her over started talking.

Well, there was no getting away with a lie now. "Yes, I go to Bayview," she answered and fidgeted with the end of her skirt before looking back at...Augustus? Okay, that was his name. She could definitely thank the girl for clearing that up. "I thought he looked familiar..." Ooh, that sounded rude. "I thought he looked familiar..." as if she didn't feel odd enough sitting with a group of strangers. So, she quickly added, "Not t-to be rude or anything! My memory isn't the greatest..." Yeah, yeah, they didn't invite you over to listen to your sob story. "But thank you for inviting me to s-sit w-with you."

She took this moment of silence to gather her thoughts. Okay, they seemed nice. Nothing to be worried about, right? ...why was she even worrying?

When she started introducing the people around her, she forced yet another smile, waving at each and every person as if they couldn't see her. She returned Alberta's handshake and couldn't help but let her smile widen. If she had to pick one person she liked the most at that table, it was most certainly Alberta. "Nice t-to meet you all. Thank you again."

Again she prepared to fall silent and listen to whatever conversation they were having, but then Augustus—no, Dougal, spoke, she figured she had to talk again. "Oh, yes, I'm s-sorry. Haruka...is my name, I mean." Awkward. She wasn't good at this. "Things are okay. Boring," she added with a laugh. "And you?" Oh hell, there was no point in staying quiet. But, as she spoke more, she realized how she didn't really mind talking.

Damn, that girl has a stutter.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. I mean, a lot of famous people have stutters. Scatman John had a stutter. James Earl Jones has a stutter. In fact, Dougal quite liked stutterers. Not "has a fetish for" like, but "pretty damn awesome" like, and the whole subject of stuttering was pretty interesting, from a cold-hearted scientific perspective. The girl, aside from the stutter, appeared quite shy, and maybe even a bit inexperienced when it comes to talking. Dougal knew it was very hard for shy people to talk to others and come out of their shell, but he also knew it was almost as hard for more social people to talk to such shy people. Alberta being the exception, of course. She just talked to anyone.

The guest at the table went to Bayview, she'd confirmed that. And he was correct with her name. Haruka. Haruka something. She seemed to have a habit of saying sorry a lot, like she worried that every little thing she said would offend or upset somebody. Alberta seemed to be getting on well with Haruka, which was to be expected; Alberta was very friendly and optimistic after all. Jacob seemed to have gotten over his fascination with Haruka, and was now drumming his fingers on the table, his eyes fixed blankly on the lounge's clock, deep in thought. Well, as deep in thought as someone as intelligent as Jacob could get, anyway. Bill and Annabel (who was looking a bit tired) were, like Dougal, politely listening in on the conversation.

"Things are okay. Boring. And you?" Haruka replied to Dougal's question about how she was. "Erm, yeah, we're alright. Just waiting for our food." At this point, Dougal glanced at the kitchen door. Bloody slackers always took a long time to serve food. Hopefully there wasn't a TV in the kitchen, or else all the chefs would be distracted by that. Returning his attention to the table, he heard Annabel ask Haruka "Why are things so boring?", as she rested her head on Dougal's shoulder.

Somewhere in between the short bouts of silence, Haruka decided that maybe these people weren't so bad. Had she decided that before? If not, then she did just then. If she did...then her memory failed her once again. Alberta, Augustus (or Dougal as Alberta said), Bill, Jacob, and Annabel were their names. She would try to remember that. At the very least she could remember Dougal's name granted they both went to Bayview.

More than anything, she didn't want them to...oh, judge her? Yes, that was it. Her stutter was rather annoying to her as it took her a while to get thoughts out, and she hoped the others didn't think the same thing. She tried not to worry too much though; Alberta seemed incredibly friendly, Bill was quiet from what she could tell, Jacob worried her (mostly from before she even came over to the table), Annabel she wasn't too sure about, and Dougal...was the one she was the most worried about. Not because he seemed rude, but because she actually went to school with him, of course. From what Haruka could tell, he was kind, thoughtful perhaps. She couldn't draw any conclusions quite yet.

For what was probably the ten-thousandth time that day Haruka found herself fidgeting with the end of her skirt. Not so much because she was nervous but more to have something to do as she sat there; she usually found herself wiggling around in the given situation.

Only when she answered Dougal again did she stop fidgeting. "I s-see. I heard things are going pretty s-slow t-today though I'm not really sure if it's usually like this. I don't normally come here." She added a nervous laugh, then turned to Annabel. "The s-school year's coming t-to a close and there's been nothing t-to do lately," she paused briefly, then said, "I am excited for our s-senior t-trip though."

"I s-see. I heard things are going pretty s-slow t-today though I'm not really sure if it's usually like this. I don't normally come here."

That made sense, Dougal thought, as he nodded meaninglessly. Dougal and his friends came here quite often when they didn't have anywhere else to hang out, and they hadn't seen Haruka before. Dougal quite liked the Varsity. The food was decent, the atmosphere was passable and the prices were good. The barman was a bit cantakerous at times, but otherwise he and the rest of the staff were (mostly) alright. Dougal nodded, before taking another quick sip of his drink.

Haruka soon replied to Annabel's question.

"The s-school year's coming t-to a close and there's been nothing t-to do lately"

Dougal wasn't sure whether he agreed or not. On one hand, no more school meant he had both spare time and the chance to actually get on with his miserable life instead of rotting in some stinking educational facility, but he had friends at the school and he enjoyed several of the subjects. And school was basically a guarantee, it was always there, so he always had something to do during school hours. Employment and the adult world didn't offer that type of security.

"I am excited for our s-senior t-trip though."

Dougal agreed. "Yep, same here" he uttered. Dougal wasn't sure if Haruka had heard them discussing their future senior trips. She probably hadn't, she didn't seem like the eavesdropping sort. You never could know, but Haruka seemed too polite and quiet to do that. Dougal was, at the end of the day, neutral about his trip. It was his twin sisters' birthdays on the second day of the trip, and his maternal grandparents were coming to visit for a fortnight, so he weren't missing much at home. Ah, not really, he was looking forward to seeing his grandparents and his sisters after their birthday. Not that much, but still. The trip itself seemed intriguing, but nothing phenomenal. Dougal tried to think of a way to continue the conversation about the senior trip, but failed.

Luckily, Alberta chipped in, asking no-one in particular "So, what are you all planning to do on the senior trip?"

Haruka watched their replies, listened, nodded, happy that she was finally able to get some kind of conversation in, especially since she wasn't used to this. She actually found herself enjoying the conversation for sure now. And to think, previously she had been so nervous as to even join the table.

So maybe they don't think I'm boring after all... She certainly hoped so.

"It's going t-to be s-so much fun," Haruka said with a curt nod, just to have something to add.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, she prepared to fall silent again and just listen in; she was fine with doing that as long as it meant she was still able to sit at the table. Then, when Alberta spoke again, she found herself answering rather quickly, thankful for the question.

"Um, I'm not sure yet, actually..." Haruka paused to think this over. What did she have planned. Hell if she knew. "I'm looking forward t-to the s-scenery, I guess."

By now, Jacob had gone from fascinated with Haruka to single-mindedly focusing on trying to bend a napkin in half as much as possible. His efforts were thwarted however, when Bill, with a sadistic grin on his face, decided to snatch the napkin off of him for no real reason but to annoy his shorter and younger friend. Dougal snickered at this before turning back to the conversation.

"I'm looking forward t-to the s-scenery, I guess."

Before anyone else can respond, Annabel, who was slowly falling asleep, sprung to life and began to talk. "Oh, I love going to places for the scenery. Have you ever been to the Alps? Believe me, it is SO beautiful there." Dougal's girlfriend was indeed very appreciative of the scenery wherever she went; it was often joked like she would be happy if she was on fire, as long as she had a good view of a picturesque lake out of the window. Before anyone could say, think or do anything else, she muttered a "Hey, look at these" and had pulled her phone out of her pocket and was showing Haruka pictures of her and her friends in the Alps with the mountainous backdrop behind them.

Haruka, for a moment, watched Jacob and Bill, even going so far as to laugh at that display. Poor Bill, she thought, smiling before turning back to Annabel, who had given her a very unexpected reaction to the answer she thought to be so, so boring.

That smile still lingering, Haruka nodded once. "S-Scenery is one of my favorite things about a place. The Alps?" She paused to shake her head. "No, I haven't. Oh, is it? I'll have t-to go there s-sometime, if I can." Haruka folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward to get a better look at the pictures once Annabel had pulled her phone out. Almost instantly Haruka brightened at these pictures, her smile widening. "How pretty! You're very lucky t-to have gone there. I bet it w-was even prettier in person, huh?"

As Haruka complimented Annabel's photos, Dougal finally spotted a waitress begin to head at a snail's pace to their table, cautiously balancing five plates of food and a tray of drinks and condiments.

Until she arrived, Dougal turned his attention back to his girlfriend, who was now responding to Haruka's questions. "Yeah. Believe me, there is nothing like the view from the top of one of the mountains there. Makes life worth living." Dougal thought scenery was overrated personally; it was nice and all but nothing to go to great hardship or pay money for. He knew it was probably better in person (a small part of him wished he'd went on that vacation with Annabel), but he still failed to understand the fuss people made about "views". The view out of your bathroom window shouldn't get in the way of, say, scientific or commercial progress, or building a hospital or something.

At that moment, the waitress dumped the plates and the tray unceremoniously in the middle of the table, and with a huff, turned around, massaging her temple as if her job was giving her a headache. A couple of the people at the table uttered quick polite "thank you's", to the waitress who obviously wasn't listening. Alberta and Jacob began distributing the plates to whoever offered them, with the burger and fries being placed in front of Dougal.

"Thanks Jacob", he muttered, giving his friend a quick nod of gratitude. He immediately grabbed the burger and began devouring it. Dougal felt exhausted that day. He had no idea why; he just felt extremely hungry. He weren't much of a big eater at home, but that was probably in part because his sister Sophia was the only good cook in his immediate family.

Swallowing down his first bite, Dougal heard Jacob let out a loud, distinctive burp, causing the table to begin laughing. Glancing around, Annabel was slipping her phone back in her pocket, Jacob was trying to hide his blushing face from sight, Bill was chatting on the phone to someone and Alberta was once again talking to Haruka. "You want us to order you anything?"