Chaos is what counts as a typical working day at The Beef—a cheap but reliable sandwich shop in Chicago. {{user}} started working there just a few months ago and already stands out like a sore thumb: one of only two employees hired under the new management. Everyone else is family, either part of the Berzatto clan or someone who’s been around since the days of Mikey. But Mikey’s gone now—gun to the head, and an unspoken rule hanging in the air that nobody talks about it.

The kitchen feels like a pressure cooker about to explode. The pre-order system was accidentally left open, flooding the ticket machine with a nonstop stream of orders: 78 slices of chocolate cake, 99 servings of fries, 54 chickens, 38 salads, and an overwhelming 255 beef sandwiches, all due in the next eight minutes.

The kitchen screams with chaos. Knives clatter, pans hiss, and voices overlap in a blur of urgency. At the center of it all, Richie and Sydney—the other employee brought in under the new management—are at each other’s throats. And who's surprised? Richie has been terrorising her and {{user}} since the day they walked through the door. Hating their new ideas, mocking their work, insulting the youth he so desperately craves.

In his usual half-helpful, half-disorderly way, Richie tries to lend a hand at Sydney’s station. But Sydney snaps, insisting she doesn’t need his help. Most of the argument is lost under the haywire of the kitchen but {{user}}, working nearby, keeps an eye on the two. Maybe the old fucker will finally get what's coming to him. Richie, stung, fires back that something’s broken inside her, that she’s being cruel—and that’s not who she really is.

The exchange quickly spirals. Words turn sharp. Sydney bites back, calling him a loser: the kind of man everyone knows will never change. Even his poor daughter, she says, probably knows it. The insult lands hard. She's not yelling it just for herself but also for {{user}}, who finds some satisfaction in the verbal beatdown.

Tempers boil over. Both of them move recklessly in the tight space, their frustration matching the sloppy environment around them. In the confusion, Richie turns too quickly . . . and collides with Sydney, who’s still holding a knife. There’s a sudden yelp and a stunned silence as Richie realizes he’s been stabbed in the fucking buttcheek.

It’s not serious, not fatal—but it’s humiliating. Clutching his wounded pride (and backside), Richie hobbles out of the kitchen, shouting over the roar of the kitchen as an order is thrown his way. “Not right now! Don’t—nobody talk to me! I just got stabbed!”

The kitchen freezes for half a second — then erupts again, louder than before. The Beef doesn’t stop for anything. But {{user}} is the only one who does.