Chapter Text
During weekends, the mornings offer a slower, leisurely feel, without the stampede of sleep-deprived college students who consider StellaDolla caffeine fix their breakfast— this means, Desmond’s shift starts a little later, something Damon has long gotten used to.
Damon is cool with it, but he’s NOT cool when a pretentious, loud, pink-hair, clearly Liberal Arts affiliated individual chooses this particularly serene morning to make a fucking entrance in a tank top that conspicuously displays his collarbones and shoulders.
So, the pink hair was just an opening act, then?
“Are you trying to see how close you can get to public indecency?”
“Public indecency? Oh my god, the scandal!” Kai gasps exaggeratedly, “shoulders have been spotted! You sound like my grandma's Republican book club!”
Yeah, there’s no way Damon is putting up with this. It isn’t even 10AM yet, and this guy’s exposed shoulders are already pushing his limits.
Customer service employees are simply severely underpaid for all the crap they have to deal with on a regular basis.
Well, those were nice shoulders, though---somewhat rounded, soft in appearance, and rather alluring, especially with the... vine? Tattoo winding down his arm. Not that Damon would know, he wasn’t looking. Nope.
Not anymore.
“Uh, hello?! My eyes are a little higher!” Chimes Kai’s voice. “And last time I checked, staring at someone's shoulders wasn't exactly five-star customer service.”
Damon rolls his eyes, completely disregarding Kai’s comment, and robotically recites his standard greeting, “May I take your order.”
“I'd like a venti frappucino—no wait, make it a trenta, okay? Double blended, with six pumps of dark caramel–no, make that seven. And three pumps of white mocha, but only stirred at the very end, don't blend it!”
—for the milk, can we do half oat, half almond, but steamed to exactly 147 degrees Fahrenheit, and then let it cool for precisely 12 seconds before you add it? And can you line the cup with Nutella, but only on the bottom half?”
“And a sustainable straw, please! Gotta think about the planet and the animals! I was, like, totally on board with saving the turtles, and I'm totally up to date on the PETA Fashion awards!”
Damon mutters a silent prayer to Rex Lapis as he notes down the order, praying for the immediate termination of his StellaDolla employment contract.
As Desmond clocks in for his shift, he notices a regular with bright pink hair leaving StellaDolla, clutching a sizable Frappucino— the customer greets him with a, “hey!” and Desmond, ever courteous to familiar faces, greets the customer back.
What spooks Desmond however, was Damon’s vigorous scrubbing of the blender, a habit he knows Damon only exhibits when he’s frustrated, and well, the likely origin of which isn’t hard to imagine.
“Come on, be nice. He's one of your regulars, dude.”
“Yeah, a regular pain in the ass.” Damon’s sigh is longer and more exasperated than the last. “Liberal arts majors just have all the time in the world.”
“Woah, aren’t you jumping to conclusions a bit?” Desmond asks. “Pink hair doesn’t automatically put him in that category, and there’s nothing wrong with it if he is.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Damon really isn’t convinced. “But his instagram says otherwise. All those daily updates and the constant thrifting trips.”
Desmond’s brow raises. “Hold up. How do you know all that? Just how much were you looking at his profile?”
“It’s just a post from 30 weeks ago,” now that Desmond asked about it while also looking at Damon in utter perplexity, Damon realizes it was bordering on stalking. “...That’s hardly stalking.”
Desmond shifts with a puzzled look on his face. “Uh–”
“Forget it,” at the very least they seemed to be both on the same page with the uncomfortable shift, Damon lets out a sigh. “I don’t want to talk about that guy.”
“O..kay?” Desmond is even more confused now. “Sure, dude.”
Before Desmond could even bring up a different topic, though, Damon blurts,
“I’ve already stated that I have zero interest in wasting my time on him further, but that man is the most egregious example of—”
Damon learns, in college, that the stereotype of perpetually underfed college students is true. Almost everyone in here is surviving on minimal food- and they're often lacking proper meals.
But he learns that time is also a culprit. Yes, time, it's not just money, both are the culprits, particularly during midterms— when Damon is swamped with research for his Political Science, unlike those in LESS demanding majors.
And perhaps, Damon thought too hard of the time-consuming vortex of Political Science and dwelled too much on the downtime other majors had that his thoughts screech to a halt, and it almost sounds like the wheels of an old, supermarket shopping cart.
As soon as he enters, the bell above the last open 24 hour KFC glass door chimes, and then, his line of sight is violated by pink hair.
Pink. Hair. In the dead of the night. In the land of so claimed original recipe and extra crispy,
Kai Monteago.
He has to catch his jaw-- the nuisance works here? Were the archons playing cruel jokes on him again? Because, WHY does he have to confront the pretentious, pink-haired purveyor of ridiculously customized Frappuccinos in the most natural habitat of a college student eating at a fast-food establishment?
Well, he supposes Kai maybe has more than enough time to spare. His pink hair is a far louder declaration of 'LIBERAL ARTS MAJOR' than his complicated coffee order.
And Kai isn't even working! He was leaning against the counter, and, would you look at that, he was reading a book.
A book.
Pride and Prejudice.
At 2 a.m.
Damon stares impassively. The cognitive dissonance is almost painful.
And then, emotions stir over Damon instantly; confusion, disbelief, and the most prominent: hunger.
Screw it.
He's hungry, he's tired, he is surrounded by the aroma of greasy, fried, deliciousness. He's not going to let some pretty, pink-haired literary anomaly deter him from obtaining sustenance.
After clearing his throat, his gaze involuntarily drifts to Kai's shoulders - momentarily distracting him from his hunger. He wonders what is going on with the dress code at KFC, or why was Kai wearing a sleeveless tank top, and more importantly, why was he, Damon,
LOOKING?
“My eyes are up here, dude.”
Damon freezes, then quickly recovers. “I was just observing the unusual dress code of this fast-food establishment.”
“You can't give me a lecture on customer service, you weren’t even wearing a nametag!” Kai retorts.
“Right, because my nametag omission is clearly a greater social ill than your... barely clothed rendition of a fast food employee reading Jane Austen.”
Kai nearly vaults over the counter, his hands hitting it with a loud thud, “No way! You know Pride and Prejudice?!”
“I’ve read enough to know the plot,” Damon shrugs. “The societal constraints, the romantic entanglements… It's just entertainment. Pleasant enough, I suppose. But it’s just a story, nothing more.”
Kai’s enthusiasm plummets. “Entertainment?! Just a story?!”
“The suitable husband plot is ridiculous,” Damon continues, “It’s basically an arranged marriage story, but they dress it up as romance.”
Kai's voice trembles, stepping back from the counter with a frown. “Wha—? It's more than that! It's like, finding real connections and love even within social rules!”
Damon's eyes narrow, a raised brow conveying his skepticism. “You mean finding a rich suitor? It's not exactly what I'd call intellectually stimulating. I’m certain there are far more stimulating topics than fictional marriages.”
“To dismiss the marriages in Pride and Prejudice is to miss the very heart of it!”
Interesting. Damon, a little thrown off, hums.
Is this genuine enthusiasm or intellectual posturing?
“You seem quite passionate.”Damon comments.
“Well, yeah! It's my field of study!” Kai retorts, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Ah. A Literature Major.
“Well that explains it.”
A vein pops from the KFC cashier.“Excuse me?!”
Unfazed by the glare the cashier has on him, Damon prods. “You do strike me as the type who could overanalyze the simplest things. You would probably spend hours dissecting the meaning of a specific shade of curtain.”
Kai snaps back fiercely. “It's about much more than that! We analyze how writers like, Garcia Marquez critique political issues and colonialism! Something that you-- political science tryhards should pay attention to!”
“So, if I'm hearing you correctly,”Damon starts, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “You’re saying that we're the tryhards for studying politics and power from all sorts of angles? And spending hours analyzing every little metaphor and theme in a fictional book isn't?”
“Exactly!” Kai exclaims, “It's all about understanding the art of storytelling, the power of language to move and inspire, the ability of literature to illuminate the human condition! It's like, a journey into the heart of humanity that someone confined to the mechanics of political systems simply wouldn't comprehend!”
“Absolutely.” Damon crosses his arms, a wry smile spreading. “I have no doubt that a brilliant essay on the symbolism of a green dress in a work of fiction will magically reverse global warming and completely revolutionize social structures. Why didn't I think of that?”
“YOU!” Kai points a finger at him accusingly, his neck strains visible. “We're KFC, not some kind of Hot Topic joint for your edgy, smart-aleck remarks! Either place your order, or you'regoing to have to leave, and I mean, now!”
Damon feels an odd sense of deja vu.
Another notable learning in college is that being a pain in the neck has its merits-- slowly, Damon is starting to appreciate the 'art of strategic irritation'. Being a nuisance could actually, surprisingly be exhilarating. (Of course, this has a strict 'not applicable to self' clause.)
This is especially true when the target is another walking and talking menace-- specifically, the Literature major whose hair looks like it's been through the same cooking process as KFC's chicken skin.
“Welcome to KFC--oh, hey there,”Kai drawls with a tight smile. “Damon, couldn't resist coming back for a taste of the real deal, huh? You better not be reporting back toheadquarters on how actual chicken is made! Because, let's face it, nobody does chicken like KFC, Colonel quality, guaranteed.”
“The only kind of benchmark you're setting,“Damon quips back, his gaze lingering on Kai’s…appearance. “Is the kind that fast-food chains will use as an example of the absolute worst employee dress code.”
Somehow, Kai's smile widens.“Ooh, speaking of standards,“ Kai continues. “You're talking about that personality as cold as a McDonald's ice cream machine... or, you know, the complete lack thereof at your establishment!”
Huh?
A confused frown flits Damon’s face, there is an ice cream machine at McDonald's. It's just... frequently out of order.
That's the joke, right?
Kai's personality was hardly something to write home about.
“At least my entire sense of self isn't just a carbon copy of a movie about dead poets.” Damon shoots back coolly.
Kai is turning into a shade of purple.“Well, at least I—!”
But Kai’s retort is cut short when out of nowhere, a... familiar figure barrels into the scene, a figure that well, sent Damon's eyes widening in reluctant recognition.
“Excuse me, do we have a problem?” Damon blinks, his jaw almost dropping. It was McDeranged, the McDonald's Manager Manager, standing before them in the full regalia of a KFC manager's uniform - the same polyester, just in a competitor's fast-food color scheme.
Kai's face drains of color, eyes darting nervously between McDeranged and Damon, he starts shaking his head so hard it looks like it might detach.
“Whoa, no way, sir! Everything's cool! I was just telling this guy, who was asking about our secret herbs – like we'd just give those away! – that it's totally confidential! Because KFC is all about sticking to what we know... and making great quality chicken!”
Damon's eyes narrow in disbelief, seriously, now Kai is just trying to play the innocent victim and drag him into his mess???
Unfortunately for Kai, any further witty remarks have been silenced under McDeranged's ultra micromanaging.
When Damon picks up his order from the counter as his number was called, Kai shoots him a glare that screams, "I'll get you next time!" but in reality, all his wins against Damon in the KFC arena were purely figments of his imagination.