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A sudden coolness passed over his belly as the window shade was lowered, prodding him out of his sun-soaked afternoon doze. He grumbled and tried to find sleep again without his sunbeam but a hand ruffling his fur woke him the rest of the way instead.
“Up and at ‘em, Kuro-Kuro,” Fujiko said. “I have to close up early to get things set up at the pier, remember?”
The memory of her mentioning as much floated back to him even as he gave her a disgruntled huff. Fujiko gave him a final bellyrub and an affectionate, “Yeah, yeah, dramapants,” before walking back behind the counter to shut down the register. Nothing for it, he supposed. He stretched all four legs into the air, toes splayed wide to urge life back into his limbs. Straightening his fur with a sharp full-body shiver, he hopped down off of his cushion in the window and trotted after her.
“Good work today as always, Kuro-Kuro,” Fujiko teased, holding her fist out for him to bump as he jumped up onto the counter. He dutifully headbutted it, purring as he received a lengthy ear-scratch as a reward. He liked Fujiko, partially for her innate knowledge of the best places to give him scritches but more for her breezy attitude towards their working relationship. Living scrap to scrap in a city that refused to stop modernizing around him had been no picnic. It had been a one-in-a-million chance to get quasi-adopted as the shop mascot of Le Chat Chanceaux by wandering in and falling asleep in the window when he had nowhere else to go, but he had always been a lucky cat.
“Be sure to give Mr. A my best, Kuro-Kuro,” Fujiko said as she held out the small payroll envelope with his share of the tips in it. He took it in his mouth with an affirmative “mmrp”. Fujiko laughed. “I swear, sometimes I think you actually understand me,” she teased, gently booping him on the nose. He “mmrp”-ed again, slightly muffled by the envelope, and jumped down off the counter to head home.
He let himself into the apartment above the bakery through the cat flap and gave a grateful stretch as he unfolded back into Shouta Aizawa from his day spent as Kurotabi the two-tailed shop cat. He took the envelope out of his mouth, making a face at the gluey taste it left behind. Today had been an especially good day, even by Friday standards; there was enough in the envelope to buy groceries, plus a little left over for takeout tonight. As Shouta picked up his phone to order, however, he remembered with a sinking disappointment what his actual plans for the evening were. His roommate Oboro had helpfully stuck the flyer for the speed dating event to his phone’s screen with a sky blue sticky note that read Pants Not Optional, Don’t Be Late!!
It appeared speed dating wasn’t the only thing the convention center had been booked for that night. A tangled crowd of humans and cryptids were packed into the front lobby as Shouta slouched inside, instinctively keeping their distance as they separated into their respective event halls. Almost as soon as he got in the doors Shouta had to pull his tails in tight as a young woman in a well-tailored suit nearly tripped over them in her hurry to get where she was supposed to be. She looked over her shoulder to see what had tripped her; Shouta could see the wheels turning in her head as her eyes slid over the tail-less dark-haired man with no reason or means to get in her way that he appeared to her as. The incident was quickly dismissed as uneven flooring and the young woman hurried back on her way without a second glance. More carefully than before, Shouta made his way through the crowd to the folding table next to the entrance of the hall marked “Speed Dating”.
“Here for the event?” the small white-furred Nue manning the table asked brightly as he eyed Shouta’s flattened ears and bristling tails. Shouta held back from replying “unfortunately”, settling for a curt nod instead. “Fill this out and make sure it’s somewhere visible,” the Nue chattered on, handing Shouta an adhesive name label and a permanent marker. “Green name tags move during the rounds and red ones stay at the tables. Each round is half an hour long, three minutes per date. Any questions?”
Shouta looked down at the tag he’d been handed; the “Hi, My Name Is” stripe at the top was a faded emerald green. At least he would get an occasional change of scenery, he supposed. “I think I’ve got it, thanks,” Shouta replied. He scribbled his name and pronouns onto the name tag and stuck it to his sweater.
“Good luck!” the Nue said as Shouta handed him back the pen.
“Thanks,” Shouta said again, not sure he had such high hopes.
He wandered over to the small pod of tables that was closest to the door and dropped into the first empty seat he saw. The tall dark-skinned woman with white rabbit ears poking out from her pale hair already sitting there glanced up from her phone, gave him a quick nod of greeting, then went back to whatever she was watching. Shouta couldn’t help thinking her polite disinterest was an ominous way to set the tone for the evening. He didn’t have to find his soulmate in the span of the next two hours, he tried to remind himself as the buzzer sounded and the first round began. As Oboro was quick to say whenever the subject came up, even if you didn’t click romantically with anyone it was a great way to meet people. That was exactly the problem, however; Oboro, unlike Shouta, was the type who met people.
It wasn’t like Shouta had some kind of moral opposition to having a conversation with the double-denim Nightcrawler who diagnosed his split ends as the product of hard water and had an encyclopedic knowledge of which products would fix them, the dainty dark-haired succubus who made it clear before she’d even introduced herself that she was here as moral support for a friend and for the free drinks (“Not that you’re not cute, hon, I’m just not feelin’ it”), or even the chatterbox Kuchisake-onna who punctuated all of her terrible jokes with loud peals of hyena laughter. He could just think of at least a dozen other things he would rather be doing that evening, most of them including solitude and sleeping. One could only smile and run through the same litany of small talk so many times before it started to feel sarcastic.
Socializing would be so much easier without people involved, Shouta thought with a sigh as he made his way over to the second set of tables. He found a seat at an empty table on the far end of the room.
Most of the other dates seemed to start up immediately as people met around the little tables but time dragged on with no sign of anyone coming to join him. He scanned the room to see if the occupant was planning to come back for their half-full plastic tumbler of wine or if he could finish it off instead.
A sound like huge wings came from somewhere nearby, sending a frisson up Shouta’s spine. His eyes caught on a huge smear of shadow on the nearby wall that he hadn’t noticed a moment ago. Shouta squinted at it, wondering how there was a patch of shadow like that directly under one of the light sconces mounted on the wall. As if it had noticed him looking, the shadow shimmered into motion and resolved into the gangly shape of a long-limbed man precariously perched on the chair rail. Large moth-like wings, dusty grey rimmed in white with red eyespots, fidgeted and fluttered to keep him balanced as he worked diligently to dismantle the wall sconce. Finally the man tugged the sconce’s glass shade off the base, exposing the trio of light bulbs beneath. They were the flickering kind, Shouta saw, presumably to bring some ambiance to the otherwise utilitarian conference center room. The man’s wings fluttered triumph as he leaned in to lock his large reflective red eyes on the lightbulbs.
“Three bulbs, three patterns. Huh. That’s pretty clev--” The man caught sight of Shouta between the bulbs and broke off his muttering with a screech of dismayed surprise, almost dropping the glass shade as he scrambled to regroup. One hand on the shade and the other clinging to the sconce to keep himself from toppling over, the man straightened up and flashed Shouta a broad, if sheepish, grin.
“Er. Hi!” he said.
“Hello,” Shouta said, face straight but unable to keep his flicking tails from giving away his amusement.
Going a shade of red almost as deep as his eyes, the man shoved the shade haphazardly back onto the sconce. He became indistinct around the edges for a moment, his shadowy form slithering down off the wall to appear fully formed and attempting to seem casual in the chair across from Shouta a moment later. “I was just, uh. Ahem,” he stumbled, clearing his throat. “Hizashi Yamada,” he said instead, extending a hand. “Sorry, what was your name again?”
“Shouta Aizawa,” Shouta replied, nodding. “Having trouble with the light?” he added with a slight smirk.
“Just killing time,” Hizashi said with a shrug, as if killing time by dismantling light fixtures was just a thing one did. “So, uh, Shouta. What do you do?” His head cocked slightly to the side as he spoke, eyebrows knit together and his eyes narrowed with unfocused intensity like he was trying to see something behind Shouta by looking through him.
“I work at a bakery downtown,” Shouta said, a little unnerved by the unblinking scrutiny.
“Baking, huh? That’s cool. I can’t cook to save my life.” Seeming to have not found what he was looking for by staring down Shouta, Hizashi glanced out of the corner of his eye at the other tables around them.
“I mostly help with sales, actually,” Shouta said, wondering if he’d actually managed to bore Hizashi within three seconds of knowing him.
“Still.” Hizashi’s expression flickered into a confused frown before clearing as he turned his attention back to Shouta. “There’s only one cafe that’s still open when I head to work most nights, I’d live there if I had the chance. Which bakery is it that you work at?” There was a renewed amiable patter to his voice that both reassured Shouta that things weren’t actually falling apart already and twigged a familiarity in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite place.
“Le Chat Chanceaux. It’s downtown near the shopping district,” Shouta replied.
Hizashi frowned thoughtfully. “Rings a vague bell,” he said, nodding. “I think we might have done a feature on it for the morning show, that’s the kind of local-interest fluff piece early birds live for.”
“You work in television?” Shouta guessed.
“Close,” Hizashi said. “Radio, actually. I’m the overnight operations manager for Asahi Radio.”
“Nice,” Shouta said, genuinely impressed.
Hizashi gave a short, sheepish laugh. “Mostly it means I drink a lot of terrible coffee and babysit the computers so that they don’t decide to blue-screen and cut off the overnight playlists,” he admitted. “The higher-ups let me host a pop countdown in the gap between midnight and the morning show but you probably haven’t heard--”
“‘Put Your Hands Up Radio’, right?” Shouta interrupted, Hizashi’s rambly cadence and the name of the radio station finally clicking into place.
Hizashi blinked, taken aback, then his face broke into a huge grin at the recognition. “Yeah! You listen?” he said, leaning forward across the table. His already reflective eyes seemed to brighten even further and his wings gave a flap of sudden excitement. Shouta grinned back, nodding.
“You’re still on the air when I get up for work most mornings, so I can usually catch the last half-hour or so,” he said. “Small world.”
“Oof. Your schedule’s worse than mine,” Hizashi said with a sympathetic wince.
Shouta shrugged. “It is what it is. I thought you sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first.”
“Good ear.” Hizashi grimaced as he said it, seeming to realize too late what he’d said. Shouta let out an amused snort and flicked said appendages at him. Hizashi flashed an apologetic grin. “So, uh--”
Whatever was going to come after that was drowned out by the shrill buzz of the timer telling the green-tagged participants to move on. Hizashi deflated slightly in his seat.
“Three minutes isn’t what it used to be, huh?” he said with a rueful snort.
Shouta nodded, equally disappointed by the unceremonious end. He was tempted to just stay where he was and see where six minutes would get them instead. The dour-looking Tengu wearing an obnoxious red and white polka dot tie who was making a beeline for the table seemed unlikely to give him that chance, however.
“It was nice talking to you,” Shouta said, grudgingly standing. “Good luck,” he added, idly scratching his right ear.
“Yeah, you too.”
The rest of the round was pleasant for what it was, but nothing exceptional. Shouta ducked through the crowd milling in the front reception area between the second and third rounds to get outside for a breath of fresh air. He leaned against the front of the building, debating if he was really interested in finishing the night out or not. He let his attention wander, following the branching lists pros and cons and coming up with no answer at all.
A tingle of warning ran up Shouta’s spine, dragging his brain back down the garden path to present time. He looked up to see an amorphous silhouette idling nearby, caught between the building’s outside lights. The inviting grin and highly reflective eyes gave Hizashi away, as they were the first things to resolve into visibility as he ambled another few steps closer.
“So, coffee?” Hizashi suggested. “I know a pretty good place around here, but we might have to hurry. I think they’re about to close,” he added, checking the time on his phone.
Shouta smirked a little to himself. “I’m sure we have time,” he said, waving his left hand dismissively. He could feel things settling in place to keep the coffee shop open just a little bit longer as they hurried to beat the closing. A chatty regular wanted to show off pictures of their child’s recent wedding; a slightly faulty clock kept showing a few minutes to closing long after those few minutes had passed; all of the crosswalk lights coincidentally happened to choose that moment to synchronize. Hizashi kept checking his phone as they walked, his face twisting in confusion as he looked from the time on its screen to the one on the cafe clock as they walked in.
“Lucky break,” Hizashi said grudgingly.
Shouta made a noncommittal gesture somewhere between a shrug and nod. “So, what do you recommend?” he asked. One look at the handwritten scribble of chaos that was the cafe’s menu was enough to assure him he didn’t dare try to decipher it on his own.
Hizashi followed his eye with an apologetic chuckle. “Depends,” he said, straightening up with the air of an expert ready to bestow knowledge on a novice. “How good is your caffeine tolerance? Their espresso is god-tier.”
“It’s seven o’clock at night,” Shouta said with a disbelieving snort.
Hizashi’s grin only grew. “I am aware,” he confirmed lightly.
“Something decaf, please,” Shouta said, “otherwise I’ll be up for the next week.”
“That’s the fun part, though!” Hizashi protested. When Shouta raised an eyebrow at him he gave a dramatic sigh and relented with a muttered, “Oh, fine .”
He ordered himself a triple shot and a decaf Americano for Shouta, pulling out his wallet to pay before Shouta could even offer. As he was ringing up their drinks, the barista perked suddenly and asked, “Would you like to add on a raffle ticket? It’s only 500 yen per draw, and the grand prize is a free coffee of your choice every day for a week!” He picked up the gold and red-decorated shoebox from the counter and shook it invitingly.
Shouta looked at the box, curious to see what his chances would be. Unbeknownst to the barista the owner’s son had forgotten to put any winning tickets back into it, leaving behind a very shiny box full of dull grey duds. He glanced over at Hizashi. Hizashi’s head was cocked to the side as the same slightly unfocused but intense expression came into his eyes as when he’d looked Shouta over earlier. His smirk as he looked back up was a little too rueful and knowing to be a coincidence; Hizashi had seen the box full of duds just the same as he had, Shouta realized with dawning amusement.
“I dunno if I’m feeling lucky today,” Hizashi said, shaking his head.
“You should give it a shot,” Shouta said. Hizashi raised an eyebrow at him. “You never know,” Shouta insisted with a shrug, scratching his left ear with one hand while he made an encouraging gesture towards the box with the other.
“Maybe you never know,” Hizashi replied. Curiosity at Shouta’s surety seemed to win out, however, as he pulled another 500 yen out of his wallet and handed it to the barista. “You owe me a coffee when I lose,” he said to Shouta, half-teasing. Shouta just grinned back.
Hizashi jammed his hand through the slot in the box without much care and pulled out a ticket. “See? What’d I...tell. You.” Hizashi’s sardonic triumph petered out mid-sentence as he held up the paper he’d pulled; it was bright cherry red, with WINNER scrawled across it in gold metallic marker. He stared at it, then at the box, then up at Shouta, who gave him a “well, what d’you know?” kind of look.
“Looks like they owe you a coffee,” Shouta said, unable to keep the snicker out of his voice. “Congrats.”
Hizashi continued to look very confused as he wrote his information on the back of the ticket and watched the barista tack it up on the cork board behind the counter. He kept his eyes focused on the ticket, like he expected it to melt away or burn to ash the moment he let it out of his sight. His frown eased up slightly as he claimed his drink and the two of them left the cafe to let them close at last. Shouta could feel Hizashi’s eyes on him as they walked, more curious than suspicious now. He supposed it had been a bit obvious, but what was done was done.
“D’you want to go down to the boardwalk?” Hizashi asked suddenly, as if the idea had just occurred to him. “The view’s pretty nice, and there shouldn’t be a ton of people around this time of day.”
Shouta just managed to hold in a snort; it seemed he wasn’t the only one comfortable with being just a touch obvious. “Sure,” he agreed.
Between the encroaching night and the coffee Hizashi began to perk up into being progressively more expansive as they made their way down to the pier. He seemed to have a lot to say about just about anything, and to his surprise Shouta found himself enjoying that fact quite a bit. It was like a comfortable silence but in reverse; just enough conversation to fill the empty moments without overstaying its welcome. Shouta mentioned a few bands he’d started listening to after hearing them on Hizashi’s show, and unsurprisingly Hizashi had a thrilling origin story for how he’d gotten each of them added to the station’s roster. He was just launching into his woes at having to fight tooth and nail to give wider play to a heavy metal idol group as they reached the long packed-sand path to the pier's neon-lit entrance arch.
“And like I told them over and over the whole meeting , giving those girls prime air time was a guaranteed slam-dunk for us,” Hizashi said with a long-suffering sigh as they tromped up the concrete stairs onto the boardwalk. “If something was going to go wrong with it I would know. Like, I would know. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t worth it to go full ominous to make sure they really get it when I tell them something’s gonna work or not. Just pull out all the stops mid-meeting, y’know?” He gave an insubstantial shimmer, eyes growing impossibly bright in the otherwise lightless black hole of his form. His wings spread to their full size with a nails-on-a-chalkboard chittering noise that made the coffee in Shouta’s stomach feel like it was boiling against his insides. “Knowing my boss, though, he’d probably still chalk it up to intuition ,” Hizashi went on, shrinking back to himself with an enormous eye roll.
“Right,” Shouta agreed vaguely, nodding.
Despite his best intentions to keep on focus, walking among the rigged carnival booths and ancient ticket-spewing arcade machines made it feel like his attention was getting spaghettified in a hundred different directions at once. His eyes caught on a little girl with silvery blonde hair staring in covetous wonder up at the enormous bootleg Ganriki Neko plush on the ceiling of the boardwalk’s prize booth. Despite the truly monumental pile of arcade tickets she and the slouchy purple-haired boy next to her had piled onto the counter, Shouta could tell at a glance they were going to be short by a decent amount. The same amount, he thought, as they’d been shorted earlier in the evening by a faulty skeeball machine in the arcade. As the boy turned a regretful look on the little girl and squatted down to break the bad news, Shouta reached up and gave his left ear a quick scratch. The boy made the kind of face one would make when something suddenly happened to be in their back pocket where it hadn’t been a moment before and pulled out a large wad of additional tickets. The little girl’s face lit up brighter than the midway lights and she pointed up at the toy as the boy tossed the tickets triumphantly onto the counter with the rest. The rapturous look on the little girl’s face as she toddled away clutching a plush nearly the same size as she was made Shouta chuckle.
“Cute kid,” Hizashi commented. Shouta jumped as he remembered what he was actually doing here.
“Yeah,” Shouta said, smiling in spite of himself. “Sorry, you were saying they didn’t want to hear you out?”
“They never seem to,” Hizashi intoned, rolling his eyes. “Finally I just crammed them in as a ‘new artist’ feature during my show and—shockingly—people started contacting the daytime hosts to request their songs.”
He shot Shouta a sardonic smile as they reached the end of the pier, leaning his elbows on the top fence rail. Shouta followed suit, empty coffee cup dangling over the side. The sky was a musty light-pollution orange reflecting on the grey water under the pier, occasionally spiked through with the bug-zapper yellow of the carnival rides farther down the beach. Unappealing and gaudy as Shouta would have normally found it, he had to admit there was something aesthetically pleasing about the way it outlined Hizashi’s face as he looked out over the water.
“So,” Hizashi said, resting his chin on his hand as he turned to look at Shouta, “now that I’ve given you the nickel tour of my entire life story, how ‘bout you?”
“I’m pretty boring,” Shouta said with a shrug. “I mostly just go to work and come home. It’s why I got talked into going to the thing tonight,” he admitted sheepishly.
“Honestly, same,” Hizashi laughed, wrinkling his nose in a sympathetic wince. “Still, I’m sure you have a treasure trove of epic bad customer stories, huh?”
Shouta paused, trying to think of one. “We run a pretty quiet place,” he said finally. “Most of our regulars have been coming in long enough that they already know what they want when they get there, and the new ones are usually just there for the pastries and ambiance.”
“Sounds downright pastoral,” Hizashi teased.
“We do what we can to keep the peace. There are always problem children so to speak, but Fujiko’s been in the business long enough to know how to deal with them,” Shouta added, grinning a little at the memory of Fujiko using him to send repeat offenders on their way under the spitting, hissing threat of being bitten.
Hizashi nodded with a hum of agreement. His mouth twisted into a frown just bordering on pouting. “I would not say no to a pastry right now, I tell you what.”
“The bakery has a food stand here this week,” Shouta said, remembering his ungracious awakening earlier that day. “Not sure where it is exactly, but we can go look if you want.”
“I am so in,” Hizashi agreed, perking up at the suggestion.
The pier’s “food court” was a small corridor of booths and trailers on the far side of the carnival row. Many of the stalls looked like they had already sold through their stock and closed down for the evening. One brightly lit booth was instantly recognizable to Shouta, however, by the miniature version of the bakery awning hanging above it and the energetic smile of the woman standing behind the service counter.
“Hey, Mr. A!” Fujiko called as they approached, waving emphatically. Shouta raised a hand in greeting as he ambled over. “Great night out, huh?” Fujiko enthused. “We’re making a killing!”
“I bet,” Shouta said, nodding.
“Getcha a candied orange scone for that coffee?” Fujiko asked, nodding to the empty cup Shouta was still holding. “You can fill me on when Kuro-Kuro’s gonna be in the shop this week while I get it warmed up for you,” she went on, the perfect blend of patter and sales pitch.
“Two, please,” Shouta said, gesturing to Hizashi was well.
‘Thanks,” Hizashi said. “Who’s Kuro-Kuro?”
“Mr. A’s cat Kurotabi,” Fujiko said over her shoulder. She slid a couple of scones into the toaster oven behind the counter and hip-checked it closed. “Mr. A lets us use him as a live-in mascot while he’s at work,” she explained. “Isn’t he just the cutest little guy?”
Shouta realized his miscalculation a moment too late as Fujiko pulled out her phone. He opened his mouth to protest, ears flattening in embarrassment, but couldn’t think of anything he could say without having even more explaining to do. He watched helplessly as Fujiko scrolled back through several photos of him, all sleeping, all humiliatingly precious.
“Aw, he’s adorable!” Hizashi cooed. “Look at that, he’s even got his little foot up like he’s a good luck kitty.” A tone of realization came into his voice as the sentence finished and he turned a horribly shrewd grin on Shouta. Shouta could feel himself going red and turned his eyes anywhere that wasn’t looking at Hizashi right now.
“Right? He’s so funny, he never sleeps any other way. He’ll just lay in our window the whole day in that one position, completely dead to the world,” Fujiko said with a laugh. “Not that I’m complaining, he’s the best good luck charm we could ask for. On the days he comes in we always make, like, three times as much as when he’s not there. I keep telling Mr. A if he ever moves away the bakery gets to keep his cat.”
Hizashi let out a loud undignified bark of laughter at that. “Seems fair to me,” he said seriously, nodding. Shouta resisted the urge to shoot him a Look, his face flushing a further shade of pink as his tails swished irritably.
He was spared additional gushing by the timely ding of the toaster oven. Fujiko extracted the scones and wrapped them in brown paper before handing them across the counter. “On the house,” she said, holding up a hand as Shouta reached for his wallet. “Make sure Kuro-Kuro helps us with the seasonal menu launch next weekend and I’ll call it even,” she added, winking, as Shouta opened his mouth to protest. Hizashi let out another loud snicker but Shouta did his best to ignore him.
“Have a good night,” Shouta said, flicking both ears in her direction to give the sentiment a little extra emphasis. He handed one of the pastries to Hizashi, who had the constrained expression on his face of someone who was trying very hard to not suffocate from repressed laughter.
“So you have a cat?” Hizashi asked, too conversational to be genuine.
Shouta grimaced, ears flattening again. “Erm.”
“I guess it makes sense that you’re a cat person,” Hizashi continued, tiny snorts of laughter escaping between his words even as he tried to look calm.
Shouta shot him a disgusted look, though it was completely ruined by his own huffed chuckle.
“I’m kind of jealous, to be honest. Finding a job like that sounds like a real dream,” Hizashi pressed on with a faux-disbelieving shake of his head. “I mean, it’s so easy you can do it in your sleep!”
Shouta let out louder and louder groans at each new pun. Hizashi’s expression grew horribly clever in a way that Shouta was quickly learning heralded a new and worse coup de gras on the horizon. “Don’t,” he warned, holding up a warning finger despite failing to quell his anticipating laughter.
“Or should I say--”
“You shouldn’t.”
“While you’re taking a... nyaa-p !” Hizashi finished over Shouta’s sputtered interruptions, complete with hands balled into little kitty paws in front of him.
“ Ugh! ” Shouta laughed out his groan, stuffing the rest of his scone into Hizashi’s cackling mouth. “That was terrible and you should be ashamed of yourself,” he said as Hizashi snorted and wheezed around the pastry.
“You flatter me,” Hizashi said, slightly muffled as he tried to swallow. He shook his head, chuckling in half-disbelief. “Luck,” he muttered. “I should have known it was luck .” He huffed, shooting Shouta an amused look. “So the coffee thing was you?” he asked.
Shouta shrugged one shoulder, a little embarrassed at being so directly called out. “It’s nothing they weren’t going to give away anyway. And they’ll make back double what they give away for free within a few days, that raffle is a genius idea for them.”
“And the kid at the prize counter?”
“No one here’s going to lose sleep over a bootleg plush toy.”
Hizashi laughed, eyes bright. “Well. Don’t you just have it all figured out?” he teased, nudging Shouta with his elbow.
Shouta shrugged. “That is kind of my job,” he said.
“And here you are spending time with a capital-O Omen. What will the neighbors think?” Hizashi asked in mock dismay.
“Maybe I decided to steal a little good luck for myself this time,” Shouta said, nudging Hizashi back.
Hizashi’s steady pace stumbled a half-step at that. Shouta could see a flush coming up in his face this time as he scrabbled for words. Hizashi cleared his throat and gave a sharp flap of his wings as if trying to un-ruffle himself. He turned a thoughtful look over at the game booths as they passed by. “You know,” he said, slyly conversational, “between the two of us I bet we could run this place.”
Shouta barked out a sharp laugh. “Yeah? What did you have in mind?”