The waiter returned shortly, pushing a laden cart through the restaurant. As the bamboo basket lids came off one by one, fragrant heat rolled across both tables — translucent shrimp dumplings gleaming like polished jade under the warm light, chicken feet lacquered in black bean sauce, golden custard buns split just enough to show their soft molten centers, char siu glistening under a honey glaze that caught the light.
It was the kind of spread designed to overwhelm the senses before the first bite.
Shintaro didn't hesitate. With a subtle shift of will, he released several dozen Black Sperm, letting them spread across his table in their usual organized chaos.
The effect was immediate and frankly alarming.
Food vanished at a speed that defied reason. Dumplings were there and then weren't. Buns collapsed inward as though devoured by shadows. Plates that had arrived brimming were bare almost before the steam from them had dissipated.
Shintaro had barely lifted a piece of honey-glazed char siu when —
"That one's mine!!"
"Who decided that?!"
Two Black Sperm collided midair over the same piece of meat, grappling with each other with the furious conviction of creatures for whom this is a matter of actual principle.
Shintaro extended a single finger between them.
"Enough. If you keep fighting, neither of you eats next time."
The effect was instantaneous. Both froze, looked at him, then separately seized smaller pieces of char siu and turned their backs to each other, chewing in pointed, wounded silence.
Shintaro nodded in quiet satisfaction and finally ate his own piece.
Current count approximately thirty thousand, he estimated. After this meal, probably thirty-five.
He watched the Black Sperm continue their ravenous assault and felt the familiar mixture of resigned exhaustion and something that had gradually, without his permission, started to resemble genuine fondness.
Raising an army was expensive. Financially, mentally, and in terms of sheer noise pollution.
But their talent for eating was second to none in any world he was aware of.
At the neighboring table, a different kind of performance was unfolding.
After the initial orders arrived, a brief and very specific silence settled.
"Mr. Joseph..." Avdol said, with the careful tone of a man who has committed to a decision and is honoring it fully. His spoon hovered over a bowl of mushroom soup of deeply ambiguous appearance. "This soup..."
"Try it," Joseph said, with the breezy authority of someone who has never seriously doubted his own culinary instincts.
Avdol took a careful sip.
His eyes opened slightly.
"...Unexpectedly good."
A ripple of cautious relief moved through the table. The others began to eat with somewhat less hesitation.
"You doubt me?" Joseph said, wounded. "Fifty years of living in New York and I've learned nothing?"
"Three-cup frog," Polnareff noted, studying a dish with the expression of a man doing mathematics. "That is... frog. In three-cup sauce."
"Don't let the name mislead you," Joseph said, already eating. "Top-tier flavor."
Polnareff looked at the dish for another moment. Then, with the philosophical resolve of a man who has decided this is simply what traveling abroad feels like, he picked up his chopsticks.
Midway through the meal, a chair scraped softly against the floor.
Polnareff stood, swirling the last of his red wine in one hand, his expression carrying the particular warmth of someone who has recently eaten very well and feels generous toward the world as a result. He looked at the neighboring table where Shintaro sat alone with his back turned.
"My friend." He moved over, extending the glass. "Dining alone while traveling abroad is a waste of a good evening. Allow me to offer a toast."
"No thank you," Shintaro said pleasantly. "I don't drink."
"Eh?" The sound Polnareff made managed to convey both genuine surprise and philosophical resignation in equal measure. He regarded Shintaro with the expression of a man confronting a fundamental incompatibility of worldview. "Half of life's small pleasures — simply absent. A shame." He shrugged with theatrical grace. "Suit yourself."
He turned as if to leave.
Shintaro reached for another piece of char siu.
Then —
Clang!
A sharp, slicing report cut through the restaurant noise.
Shintaro tilted his head — not in panic, but in the quiet, specific acknowledgment of a man who had been half-expecting something like this and is now confirming which flavor of something it was.
A slender silver rapier was buried point-first through the char siu between his chopsticks, pinning it to the wooden table. The blade quivered with residual force. Glazed meat juices ran slowly down the polished steel.
The restaurant went silent.
"What?!" Avdol shot to his feet.
"How terribly rude of me," Polnareff said, with a lightness that bore absolutely no relationship to what his eyes were now doing. They had gone flat and cold and completely focused.
He stood a short distance away, the earlier warmth extinguished entirely. A partially manifested Stand hovered at his side — only one arm and its blade visible, precise and unhurried.
He leaned against it with the casual elegance of someone who has rehearsed this entrance.
"I was informed there was a young man at this restaurant commanding small black creatures," he said, voice carrying clearly through the silence. "If I leave someone like that unaddressed, it becomes a problem later. Better to resolve it now."
"DIO's assassin," Jotaro said, from across the room. His voice carried no particular urgency.
"Wait," Joseph said sharply, rising, his gaze cutting to Shintaro with the sudden weight of a man recalculating something important.
Every Black Sperm on the table raised its head simultaneously. They pointed, with one unified, furious motion, at Polnareff.
"HE STABBED THE FOOD!!"
"UNFORGIVABLE!! Main body, destroy him immediately!!"
Polnareff ignored them completely. His eyes stayed on Shintaro.
"My Stand is Silver Chariot," he said, with obvious and unashamed pride. "Bearer of the Tarot card of The Chariot."
He stepped forward, the rapier angling.
"Today, Shintaro Muse — you die here."
"So I'm the specific target," Shintaro said, getting to his feet. His voice was calm — almost conversational. "Demanding a life immediately upon introduction, without so much as a proper greeting. Don't you think that's a little arrogant?"
He paused.
"Mr...?"
"Polnareff," the man replied, with the easy certainty of someone announcing something wonderful. "Jean Pierre Polnareff."
"Thank you," Shintaro said, inclining his head with genuine politeness. "But I don't believe you're capable of killing me."
"Oh?" Something bright flickered across Polnareff's face — the specific pleasure of a challenge that has been offered sincerely. "Silver Chariot can cut through flames."
His eyes moved — briefly, deliberately — in Avdol's direction.
"Silver Chariot!"
The Stand fully materialized behind him. A silver-armored knight, rapier gleaming, every inch of it exactly what Shintaro had spent years reading about and absolutely nothing like sharing a room with it.
A flash.
Faster than vision could track. Faster than instinct could form.
In less than one instant the blade crossed the space between them and stopped — one inch from the center of Shintaro's brow.
He hadn't moved. He hadn't had time.
Puchi.
The sound of steel meeting something rang clear and final through the silent restaurant.
[ today was a shit , no maybe this whole week was quiet shit for me as many of you people know i made this account and patreon account so i can earn some money to buy some headphones i had the money but well i thought i will buy myself a new phone and new headphones why because both are not in one piece literally .
on other note i had to pay my fees by this month so almost all the money i had been saving went there and now i am broke again then but thats ok money comes and goes but the fuckery google and claude did today is making me insane i bought the "pro" version of claude and it was not that special then i thought maybe i can get a refund but google is screwing me over on that front i cant open claude support for some reason
DAAMMMMIT i could have eaten out 4 time with that money these assholes are sprinkling salt over my wounds (╥﹏╥) why am i writing this because i want bitch about my life to people who don't know me so they can't bitch back to me]
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and i do read all the comments even those in other languages (by translating it of course) so you guys can also bitch some as well -- GOD if are please tilt some fortune this way please other than sometimes eating chicken i haven't done any thing wrong ]]
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