Work Text:
77°: cos(90°) of Separation
This.
On a Monday night.
At three in the morning.
After a relatively quiet graveyard shift that Tomoko Hirawsawa had spent subtly headbanging to TATAKAI, her stress-relieving old favourite in The Dead Seatbelters' discography.
This had just had to happen.
Her hand hovered over the 110 speed-dial.
Tomoko hadn't even noticed him arrive; she'd simply heard the crinkle of wrappers and looked up to find some imposing punk in combat boots and black face-obscuring trenchcoat devouring half the remaining stale fried chicken from the warmer. Jamming the wrappers into his coat pocket in fervent impatience, bordering on mania, he muttered unintelligibly to himself—occasionally laughing in a way that made her fingers inch towards the call button.
Her only hesitation: the police could, theoretically, make things so much worse. If this mystery meat-mugger satisfied himself and tromped out the door, Tomoko could escape with little more trauma than the most anxiety-inducing minutes of her fifty-odd years.
Abruptly he jerked his head up. She flinched and held her breath.
The man's head turned. Towards her. As if the hood hadn't hidden enough, the brim of his tattered black cap shadowed his eyes. She could see his toothy smirk. Had he...filed his canines?
Tomoko averted her gaze. No eye contact. Maybe he'd sense the weakness in her and walk away. Or maybe he'd—
He strode towards her so rapidly that her hand froze on the phone. Heart pumping, blood roaring, she saw her life flash: she'd spent how many years selling out her soul for corporate wages, listlessly serving customers and eating her konbini dinner alone? The Dead Seatbelters really had saved her, with how many nights she'd fallen asleep to rock pulsating through her skull. And now she would die to that soundtrack.
Without missing a beat, the man dumped a stack of empty wrappers onto the counter. He slapped his hand onto the counter amid the ominous sound of clinking metal: a weapon, no doubt. "Accelerate."
She stared at him, slack-jawed.
He thumped the counter with his palm. "Don't waste my 𝑡-value."
His fingers looked pitch-black with either a skintight glove or a tattoo. She wasn't sure which implications were worse.
If dealing with noisy youngsters, entitled salarymen, and twenty-something yankii had taught her anything, she could keep to her script. And cake on a smile.
"Hello," she said, her voice harnessing the calm of eight years' employee-of-the-month awards.
Tomoko scanned the wrappers one by one. He had at least arranged them in a tidy heap, even if he'd folded them up into bizarre shapes, with the barcodes showing. The fact that he had paid after all of that kept her hands moving where all her other muscles had seized up. He glared through her, his gaze so intense that she had the distinct sensation he was somehow folding her soul—whatever remnants not yet owned by Moyai Mart—into esoteric origami, too.
With any other customer, she would have reminded them of the store policy not to eat until after paying. With him, Tomoko sought to end the encounter without having those tattooed hands around her throat. "You wanna pay using ShibuPay?"
"Ninety degrees," he answered so condescendingly that she strained her already threatening-to-splitter smile further.
"...What?" Ninety degrees of what? The temperature? Some youthful slang for super-hot, like the long-dead mechanko?
The man looked down as if she were walking garbage. "Naturally."
But he swiped his phone over the register in such a wild arc that she jolted back in fear he'd hit her. His arm came nowhere close. He eyed her with an amused sneer.
The ShibuPay on his phone looked nothing like the usual ShibuPay. A coral-pink background with a certainly-not-terrifying-at-all black skull logo flickered before the allotted yen popped up. Except the information for the payment appeared a complete farce, claiming this person as a young woman. Either he'd stolen the phone, or it'd hacked the register, or—
But the screen dinged in acceptance of the yen. Tomoko kept her gaze firmly on the counter. "You're good to go. Thanks. I'll take care of those."
She reached for the plastic pile.
He grabbed her wrist, the sudden painful heat of his vice-like grip killing her words in her throat.
"Don't subtract what's mine." He let go.
Tomoko snapped her arm to her chest. Her skin burned as though branded. Her skin looked fine, just slightly reddened from unnatural heat. Had he burned his hand on the warmer's metal coils?
"Need 'em for my arts 'n' crafts time." The man scooped the wrappers back into his coat pocket. "These vibrations are zetta stylish." Without another word, he twisted around on his heels, stalked behind another aisle, and...left, probably, although she never observed the door open.
It only occurred to her at shift change: of all the fried chicken in the warmer, he had eaten nothing except the dino-shaped nuggets meant for kids—but he had eaten all of them.
𝅘𝅥𝅲
By the time her next evening shift rolled around, with the dinosaur nuggets back in stock and the redness around her wrist having faded within minutes, Tomoko had convinced herself that she had either hallucinated the entire encounter or that the bizarre man had surely gotten arrested for something. Nothing to worry about.
Another graveyard shift. Today she had looped a much maligned classic: Junk Garage. The repetitive lyrics may have not won over many fans, but she appreciated the driving beats that broke through her sad, stagnant everyday life to move her very heart.
Certainly better than putting on Brief & Trunks' so-called 'classic' Konbini over Moyai Mart's speakers for the five-billionth time. Because people only requested the funny convenience store because they laughed sooo hard about it playing in the convenience store. But the customer was always right, so Tomoko caked on that eight-years'-straight-award-winning smile and set Konbini melting her ears over and over during the day.
Not during these night shifts, though. Now Junk Garage could set the counter rattling and anyone entering would presume that the local radio had selected a terrible pick. Never did she feel more alive than when those riffs and drums rock-and-rolled through her.
So: a quiet shift. Three in the morning. Just herself, Junk Garage, her headbanging, and—
—that dino-devouring maniac shovelling chicken again, having seemingly apparated in with no warning whatsoever.
Except this time, the warmer only coughed up a few sad dry dino nuggies. Tomoko watched him out of the corner of her eye, both for safety's sake and to see whether he'd leave early or swap to chicken intended for adults.
He polished off the last nugget and immediately backed up into another aisle. Where was he... The sweets aisle?
Tomoko blinked as the man tore into every confection on the shelves, ripping the plastic off each one, taking a single bite, huffing angrily, and throwing the remainder over his shoulder. Somehow every confection landed perfectly in the wastebin despite him not bothering to look. Impressive, if not for the food waste.
Would he pay this time? If he wasn't even finishing the food?
After finishing the aisle, the man spun and stomped over. The wrappers crackled where he deposited them.
"Hello." Smiling politely, Tomoko instantly reached for the first wrapper before he had a chance to start snapping at her to hurry up. The tidy heap of wrappers took less time to scan than shopping carts bristling with items she fumbled through for labels. All while her customers acted as though her brain tissue should emerge from the womb fully-formed with the knowledge of all possible barcode locations. "You wanna pay using ShibuPay? All righty!"
The man swiped his phone again. Once more with the unusual background colour and the incongruent information. Her superiors hadn't yelled at her last Monday, so it didn't matter to her how he paid. She didn't get a high enough wage to worry, much less bother reporting.
After setting the plastic down, Tomoko took care not to touch them again. He swept the wrappers into his coat pocket, then studied her.
She trained her gaze onto the counter. He'd leave. Right? He'd left last time.
Heck, he could've been one of those mystery shoppers who appeared to come into existence solely to give her a bad review. So Tomoko dredged up the first words that came to mind. "Everyone's got their own reusable bags these days, huh." Perfect. Those would work just swell as her last words on an obituary. He didn't even have a bag. Though his trenchcoat looked like a trash bag.
"The set of all food with a high glucose fraction is garbage." His irritated tone belied the utter gibberish he'd said.
Still, she couldn't exorcise his breed of malevolent spirit by ignoring him. "Come again?"
Frowning, he crossed his arms over his chest. The ominous clinking of metal again. A knife? A gun? A—bracelet on his wrist, visible where the motion had pulled his sleeve up. "The desserts. They're trash. Add some terms of higher quality."
The man had gone through the entire sweets aisle, after all. Maybe he was a mystery shopper. "You don't like the sweets? If you'd like to put in a request for stock—" She slid a white card across the counter. "—you can note it there."
He snatched the pen she offered. A few wild flourishes later, he dropped the card. "At least your vibrations are zetta stylish again."
She said nothing, unsure if she could pick up the card yet or not, or if he'd grip her wrist again.
"Your vibrations," the man repeated as though talking down to a five-year-old. Then he drummed his finger on the counter. Did he expect a reply? How could—
No. She knew that rhythm. The identical rhythm to what woke-up-this-morninged over the speakers. The words jumped to her tongue before she could hear herself saying them. "You like Junk Garage?"
The man grinned from ear to ear, wide enough to unnerve her further. But if he'd liked Junk Garage when he talked about her vibrations, then he'd meant the same compliment when he'd talked about TATAKAI, right? Which made him a potential Beltie. "Ninety degrees."
What? She opened her mouth, bewildered at the second time she'd heard the non sequitur, but he absconded without another word.
The man had pressed down hard enough with the pen that she could make out the characters scraped into the cardstock with or without ink. But making out and reading were separate matters.
Tomoko gave that card her honest effort at deciphering the looping, dashed scrawl. But handwriting this bad, she could only call handwronging.
Oh well. The man could suffer without his sweets. Maybe then he'd stop showing up.
𝅘𝅥𝅱
She feared the unknown. She didn't fear a habit. So she stopped fearing the maniac who got the munchies just after...not exactly at 03:08 in the morning, but a handful of seconds before 03:09. Every day. Without fail.
He'd snacked intently on whatever dino nuggies remained. He'd peruse the sweets aisle, only to scowl. Maybe if he'd spent less time flourishing his words and more time learning to write legibly, she could've gotten him what he'd wanted.
Who was she kidding? As if management ever read suggestions.
Then he'd stride up to the counter, dump the wrappers, stamp his boot until she'd scanned, pay, say something about her vibrations, and leave.
No one else had ever commented on her music, except to request a song while they loitered. So she'd tried a variety of her favourite genres, and he'd complimented all of them: grunge, death metal, chaos core, neoclassical, trance, punk, even eurobeat. Maybe he was trying to butter her up. Some customers tried, even though she couldn't even offer discounts.
One day, curious to know if he really just complimented everything, she put on Konbini when he arrived. "Hey there."
He glowered as though she'd mortally injured him. "The helix is this trash?"
"Oh, not feeling it?" Tomoko asked civilly, stifling her laugh.
"I'd sooner square a circle than listen." He jerked his hood up higher. "Plug in a different number, now."
Smiling, Tomoko spun in another song by a little-known band: Teenage City Riot, controversy having nearly gotten it canned.
She'd heard his boot tapping on the floor first, and then the rest of his body, as the lyrics transitioned to the English verses: darkness will bring you back to life. The man pushed his hood down, as though to listen better. He looked—much younger, like this. A scruff of messy brown hair held back by a red bandanna under his hat. Tacky fang earrings. Whiskers tattooed across his cheeks. Like a caricature of what a little kid would find cool. "I zetta dig this style."
Tomoko scanned the wrappers thoughtfully. "If you have a sweets request—"
"I already solved that problem." His eyes narrowed. "But the turnover rate's negative. I'll be waiting yottayears for better desserts."
"Well... Which desserts do you like best?"
"Heh. Cutie✰Pies' fluffy pancakes." She ogled, baffled that those words had emerged from this grungy black-cloaked guy. "The extra sweet ones. That's a unique global maximum. And your vibrations are zetta stylish. Any sound could shake the air. This music...shakes the heart." He jabbed his finger at her. It made her flinch back, but he only laughed. "You've got zetta good taste."
Tomoko stared at his back when he turned. "Thanks a lot." She heard the incredulity in her own timbre. "Be back soon."
𝅘𝅥𝅰
He wolfed down the packaged pancakes from Cutie✰Pies. Especially the fluffy ones.
"You really like those, huh," Tomoko told him while she rang him up, The Dead Seatbelters' cover of Transformation thumping the walls around them. "I'll make sure we're always well stocked!" And she did. Having personally gotten them from Linda. The management wouldn't ever get around to it.
"So what's this variable defined as?" He gestured rudely at the speakers. "I've heard the original, but this iteration's 𝑡 is exactly three minutes fourteen seconds."
She beamed sincerely, eyes squinching up. "They're called The Dead Seatbelters. You can't find them on most online vendors yet—" Yet! But they'd make it big! She could feel it! "—but they have their own page—"
He scoffed. "They got records?"
"Vinyl records?" Some kid who liked those grooved-plastic relics? "Yes, at CYCO n—"
"I know Udagawa's coordinates," he cut in, paying for the pile of pancakes. "Hmph. Megs's jukebox could use some added terms."
He said nothing else, and she hadn't sought to alienate him by prying. Instead she'd offered a compliment of her own: "Thanks for always being so tidy when you eat in."
"Heh. Simple topological alignment." The man left again.
The next time Tomoko passed by CYCO, she inquired about him, whiskers and all. Naoto rubbed the back of his head: the guy'd swept in like a windstorm and walked away with a full discography.
Tomoko hummed Revelation on the way to work. Let the truth be shared didn't quite buoy her through the marrow-grinding shift, but it made the meddlesome manager-demanding mothers just a little more manageable.
𝅘𝅥𝅯
"Hi," Tomoko said without looking up at 3:08:30 on her watch, already beaming, the last rattled remnants of her soul lighting up where those riffs and drums rock-and-rolled through her. "We were almost sold out of those so I put some behind the counter for you." And by some she meant all.
The man ate his pancakes at the counter now, commenting on the music here and there while she tapped the drumline, piling the wrappers neatly despite reckless movements, each pancake punctuated by his rhythmic stamping. She'd discovered his favourite song yet: Someday, the comprehensible Japanese version. Someday I'll let you see me smile beneath this cloudy sky; I'm searching for the words to shout. That one always got him to bring down the hood to listen in.
"Y'know," she added cheerfully, "The Dead Seatbelters finally snagged an act! They've gotten more popular recently."
The man shrugged. "Radians resonating with harmonic functions in the UG. I've done enough reductions."
Was he talking about them playing more frequently on the radio of late? But he had 'done' something? Did he work as a radio DJ? It would explain the odd hours and good taste in music. Tomoko had never asked him much, but her superb memory recalled the little he had said. "You mentioned using the wrappers for arts 'n' crafts time. What...do you do?"
"Ha! 𝑖 = future Composer."
"Composer?" She looked him up and down. Did he sample the wrappers' crinkling for his music? Use them as inspiration? "Future... You haven't succeeded yet?"
He hmphed. "My series will converge."
Well, he did have 'starving artist' written all over him. Perhaps literally, with how many pancakes he packed. "The Dead Seatbelters could be good inspiration. You've heard them on tape but it's nothing like the electricity of a live performance." She'd practised this spiel the way she'd practised her customer service smile. Even if the conversation had gone differently, Tomoko tried to make something out of the chaos. "They're opening for Def Märch. So... Here you go."
She offered the red and purple paper. He plucked them from her hand, the unnatural heat of his fingers radiating into her palm. He didn't keep his palm on the warmer; he just...was like that.
That accounted for a lot of him. He just...was like that.
The man studied the tickets, then grinned. "I'll converge to that wall of 4. Count me in."
"You'll go?" The Dead Seatbelters had claimed another one. She'd get him a Beltie lanyard. He'd probably like the red one.
He folded the tickets into his coat, the same pocket he used for the wrappers: the...inspiration pocket? "Ninety degrees."
Tomoko couldn't always understand the angle he was coming from. But she understood that phrase and its accompanying all-teeth grin.
Yes. He'd go see it live. With her. Zero degrees of separation.
♪