Work Text:
Working in a grocery store was a fairly mind-numbing task. The only variations in Aoi’s day were the people that he saw. He was a grocery store cashier, working a few hours a day for just above minimum wage. This money would go towards keeping himself and his sister alive. He would set some aside to invest in Cradle Pharmaceuticals eventually and feed his sister, but he often had to go hungry in order to ensure that he would be able to make enough money through the stock market to save his sister.
He was lucky to live in one of the timelines where she hadn’t died in an incinerator. According to her, there were several timelines where she had been unable to solve the Sudoku puzzle, leading to her untimely death. He didn’t know how well he would be able to handle such a thing. The only reason he was alive right now was because of her. He had to recreate the nonary game in the distant future in order to ensure that Akane wouldn’t disappear. He wasn’t lucky enough to live in a timeline where none of this existed.
He hadn’t been strong enough to withstand what had happened to him. As soon as he escaped and wasn’t in the presence of any of the kids he had survived the ordeal with, he had broken down into tears and cried. He had cried for about five minutes before he had to pick himself back up, splash some water on his face, and be strong for Akane. He couldn’t let his guard down around her. The last time he had cried like that was when his mother died, from a shotgun to the head, leaving him to take care of his sister. He was the only person she had left now, other than that schoolboy.
The effects of what happened to him lingered to this day. Often he would have nightmares of the nine treacherous hours he had spent on that boat. He would dream of clovers, of explosions, of drowning, and holding his sister’s ashes in his hands. He’d dream of men in scary suits with scowls permanently etched onto their faces pulling his sister into an incinerator. He’d dream of her voice begging for help, the way his hands swelled after breaking a carpal bone slamming on the door, and the heat that radiated off the door. Sometimes those nightmares would end up with him screaming after he held the remains of his sister only to find that he was safe. He would be drenched in sweat and there would be dampness on his face from his tears, but he would be safe. Somehow, this never managed to wake his sister.
There were more side effects from what happened to him. He somehow ended up with Thalassophobia, the fear of the ocean. Even seeing pictures of the ocean could cause his heart rate to skyrocket and cause him to struggle to breathe. Men that looked like him scare him shitless. He couldn’t listen to children scream without memories flooding his mind. Seeing four leaf clovers made him bite his lip, hoping that he wouldn’t think about Light and how Light had handled the whole situation better than he had. Akane had to practically drag him to a clinic to seek treatment for his extremely broken hand (slamming on the incinerator door had broken bones in both of his hands because he needed to save his sister, god fucking damn it) because he was so scared of hospitals in the first place because that’s where he had first been kidnapped (at least he somehow had health insurance for everything because of something to do with Cradle? That was one good thing).
The reason he had been kidnapped in the first place? He had taken Kanny to the hospital because she had been extremely sick. The CEO or whatever of the hospital had asked him if he would like to participate in an experiment for some extra money and stupidly, Aoi had said yes. Little did he know that experiment would cause him to barely be able to sleep at night because he was so scared for the future. In order for Akane to survive, the nonary game in the future had to be successful. It would literally suck if he was able to spend eight more years with her for her to just...disappear because some fucker picked the wrong door.
In other words, Santa thought, I’m fucked.
“Uh...sir...I need to buy this.”
His thoughts were broken when a white haired ten year old with a bunch of box hair dye and toner caught his attention. Apparently she had been waiting too long, causing her to speak up. “Dying your hair?” He asked.
“No, I’m actually trying to dye my dog's fur,” She remarked, “What do you think I’m doing.”
Santa stared at her. His own hair was the same colour as hers. He had tried this brand when he had first started dying his hair. “I’d actually recommend this brand over this one. This one tends to be splotchy.”
“Oh...thank you.” The girl said, coming back to his till with the hair dye he had recommended. “That will be 15.97” Santa said, ringing up the hair dye.
The girl handed him a twenty and Santa handed her back four one dollar bills and three pennies. “Thanks,” she said.
Santa stared at the girl as she left, wondering why a young girl would be dying blonde hair dye. Perhaps she had just lost both of her parents in the span of two weeks and was trying to cope with the loss. Hopefully it wasn’t the case, but if it was, he would be able to understand her pain.
The next customer Aoi had was a black haired teen his age with his arms full of cat toys. “Will you be needing a bag for all of your cat toys today?”
“Yes purr-lease.” The teen said. Aoi was sure he could hear a tiny fuck after that.
Aoi rang up all of the items and handed the teen a plastic bag. “Okay, that all adds up to 37 dollars and 11 cents. How would you like to pay for all of that?”
The teen held up a debit card. “Debit please.” Aoi pressed the corresponding keys and the teen paid and left. Aoi wondered why someone would ever need that many cat toys,
“Hey Aoi,” A voice said. Aoi immediately recognized the voice to be that of his manager, “It’s time for your break.”
Thank god.