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Monday. You hated Monday. The hustle and bustle of workers picking up breakfast before going to their boring 9 to 5 jobs, kids skipping school and hiding out in the corner booths of the shop, annoying white moms coming in and yelling at you because her son was going back to school today and you forgot to put sugar in her coffee and now her son was going to be late for class and you were ruining his education and you DID put sugar in her coffee she was just too dumb to see it—it was a whole thing. Annoying, tedious, stressful. Maybe except for one thing, though.
There was a diner across the street from your café. Fennel Fields, the sign said. The counter where you took orders faced outside the window and towards the diner, so on slow days, when you were bored out of your mind with nothing else to do, you took to staring out the window and watching the workers across the street wait tables and talk amongst themselves. You always drew the ones you found interesting, though only when you had a pencil on hand.
There was a girl with big curly hair who was fun to draw, a guy with short, cropped hair who looked dead out of his mind (you found it funny to draw him as a zombie. He looked like one anyway,) and a short blond girl with the dumpiest ass you had ever seen who just seemed happy to be there. Those were the regular staff. But your favorite? The brown-haired busboy. Or you assumed he was a busboy; he was one of the only ones who ever cleaned the tables. He was the light of your life. The apple of your eye. You had no idea what he sounded like or looked like up close, but he was so, so fun to draw and so very entertaining to watch.
He was very unaware of the ongoings around him. Bumping into tables was something he did on the regular and you could count the number of times he had poked himself in the eye while adjusting his glasses on two hands (which was getting dangerously close to three). You didn’t even know his name and he was your favorite person in the whole wide world. It was like watching a sitcom with the TV on mute. Like a character in a show that you love but can’t watch because you aren’t subscribed to the streaming service the show is on.
But then one day, on a Thursday evening, he saw you. He looked out of the window after coming out from the kitchen and you could swear you locked eyes with him. You both stared for a second before you gave a hesitant wave, which he returned. God, holy fuck. Your sitcom character from another streaming service looked through the TV screen and smacked you in the face. Would you have to turn off the TV now? To stop looking at him? No, you couldn’t. He was too funny. Too skrunkly. You wanted to keep looking and the knowledge that he would look back now? Exhilarating. You both waved at each other whenever you locked eyes, which eventually evolved into enthusiastic thumbs up and now your most recent development – signs in the window.
You liked to think your manager was in approval of your new-found long-distance no-talking friendship, ‘stop putting signs in the window, just ask for his number. Get a grip on yourself, you’re desecrating my shop. Go back to work, I don’t pay you to do nothing,’ she would say. You couldn’t help talking to him, he was so very, very funny, and cool and he got you giggling and kicking your feet and shit. Reduced you to a high school girl with a crush on the nerdy kid. You paused. Crush?
Man, you really did have a crush on this guy, didn't you? Whatever. This was definitely something you didnt want to contemplate at your job. You shook your head and got back to work.
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Vigilante was a… strange creature. You liked him, don’t get it wrong, but the way he talked, all stiff but fluid, emotive yet apathetic, and how nonchalant he was about killing people- it threw you off. He was a good guy; he was trying to do a good thing with his life, and you couldn’t help but give him the benefit of the doubt. But this?
“Trigger! Hey, Trigger! Look!” He held up the emasculation of a paedophilic priest, “This is so funny. Bitch won’t be putting his dick in anything but the ground from now on.” Yeah. This might be going too far.
You groaned, “come on dude, I don’t wanna see that.”
“I get it. But you gotta admit this is funny. I’m thinking of cutting the balls off and using them as stress toys.”
“V,” he swung the penis around in a circular motion, “dude, put the dick down. That’s gross,” The armor-clad mercenary sighed in annoyance, paused for a second, and tossed the phallus into one of the church pews. You couldn’t see his face, but you could tell he was disappointed, “let's bounce. I’m not sure if I wanna face the wrath of God’s whores.”
“You mean the nuns?”
“Yuh-huh.”
“That would be sexy though, wouldn’t it?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Hey, don’t kink shame me,” you shook your head and grabbed the door handle, “wait,” God damn it, what now? Did he wanna get found out? Was he sexually aroused by being caught killing people? (probably). Did he have a prison kink? You spun on your heels to face him.
“What?”
“Let’s go in the confession booth. Roleplay good churchgoers and all that.”
You scrunched up your face, “dude, are you trying to fuck me?”
“No! What?” Vigilante’s voice raised an octave at the accusation, “I just wanna see what it's like! I wanted to be a priest when I was younger.”
“Seriously?”
“No. Come on!” He grabbed your arm and pulled you across the tiled floors all the way to the back of the church, where the confession booth stood. V was a lot taller than you, thus faster, and you found yourself stumbling over your feet as he pulled you along with a speed you were physically unable to match. You took a breath of relief as he let go of your arm to pull back the curtain of the right booth. Vigilante giggled under his breath, the sound of a leather seat creaking under his body came from inside and you rubbed a hand down your face. Fuck it, you decided and walked into the entrance on the left.
“Why do you even wanna be in here?”
“I told you, roleplay catholic,” you looked to your left at the window dividing the two of you, but it was too dark to see anything clearly. Vigilante was barely visible, the only thing you could see was the outline of the front of his face, the back of his body hidden by the rest of the wall, “tell me your sins, my child.” He said in a faux old man voice.
You laughed, “man, shut up.”
“No, for real dude,” the masked man shifted in his seat, “You used to be fun, you know? But now you’re like, always in your head and stuff. What’s up?”
“Uh,” were you always in your head? He had noticed that? You never thought of him as observational. Shit, it was so hot in there, you were suffocating, “I’m gonna take off my mask.”
“What?” Vigilante spluttered, “What about your secret identity?”
“It’s too dark to see. And I’m hot. Can’t breathe in this thing.” You grabbed the seam of the mask and peeled it off your face. The clean, holy air you were surrounded by invaded your lungs and you leaned back in your chair as you dropped the uncomfortable mask to the floor. Shuffling sounded on your left and you looked towards it to see the silhouette of Vigilante taking his mask off as well, “Shit, I thought you were all over the place trying to hide your identity.”
“Well, yeah,” you smiled at the clearness of his voice, no longer muffled with the mask that he had been wearing since the day he met you, “if anyone comes in here, I can just kill them. And it's too dark to see my face anyway.”
“Well, yeah. But I can still see your, like, your outline.”
“I can see yours too,” you hummed and stared at his profile. His mouth moved with his words, which was a sight you weren’t used to. It felt like he was talking in the background and some random guy was lip-syncing along with him. That felt like something he would do, actually, “Tell me what’s up.”
You took a deep breath, “uh, ok. I, uh… I met a guy.”
“Shut up! Is he hot?”
“Fuck off!” you laughed, “I mean, yeah, kinda. He’s cute.”
“What’s his name?”
“Why do you wanna know?”
“The name of a guy is, like, their entire personality rolled into one word. I read that in a BuzzFeed article,” You watched as he slid a pair of glasses on his face, the lens shining in the light.
“You wear glasses?”
“Yeah, shut up, don’t change the topic. What’s his name?”
“I don’t… actually know.”
“You don’t know his name? How can you not know his name?”
“I don’t know!” You put your hands on your face and blushed in embarrassment, “he works across the street from me. We’ve never actually met, you know? We kind of like, wave at each other through the window.” Peeking through your fingers at the screen separating you, Vigilante was smiling. You had never seen him smile before. It was nice. He looked over at you, leaning on his knees.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” There was a pause.
“You wanna know what I think?”
“Sure,”
“Go talk to him. Ask for his number. There's really nothing you could lose. Who knows, he might like you back.”
You took a breath, “you know, you’re the second person to tell me that.”
“Yeah?” he chuckled, “who was the first?”
“My manager.”
“Dude, that’s so fucking sad.”
“I know-“ a shrill scream sounded from the church aisle. Fuck, someone was here. Fuck. You knew you should’ve left earlier. Shit. You threw on your mask, Vigilante muttering swears on your left, “dude, I told you someone would fucking show!”
“It’s like 4 AM! How was I supposed to know these bitches were nocturnal?”
“Who’s there!?” you held your breath as the nun cried, the incessant shuffling from V’s booth coming to a standstill, “I’m not afraid! I’ll call the police! Oh, Father, what did they do to you…”
“Shit. We gotta kill her.” You grabbed the edge of the curtain and cocked your gun, “on one?”
“Alright. Ready?”
“Yeah… One!”