Work Text:
Your manager hates it when people order it. ‘Screw you for knowing you can get this for free instead of buying an overpriced plastic bottle from the cooler below the pastries.’ You can only imagine what he might think of you independently giving an ice water away, which is why you’re thankful he’s in the back using what remains of his little lima bean of a brain to come up with next week’s schedule. He’d probably rip your head off for wasting a cup and lid—for a refresher! an iced latte! iced coffee, even!—on a cute guy.
You’ve had your eye on the manspreader at the corner table, surrounded by at least a dozen shopping bags, for ages now. The sunlight filtering through the lightly tinted windows behind him gives his hair an almost angelic glow. The fact that he actually managed to nab a table (albeit one with only a single seat) during rush means he must actually have God watching over him.
And he’s really cute, and you’re a fifteen-year-old girl. Sue you.
The real problem arises when your fingers touch. But before we get to all that, let’s backtrack to the first moment you saw him.
It’s two weeks before summer break.
You barely managed to get permission to get a job, and your homeroom teacher likely signed off on it only because she was trying to be one of those caring, involved ones from those American TV shows she loves so much. You had fudged the paperwork a bit to make yourself appear a year and a half older than you actually were. You’ve been working at this job for about four months now, and every time you clock in, you think to yourself, ‘I wanna quit.’
It’s a Sunday, and people have nothing better to do with their free time than to get a sweet, sweet cavity-inducing drink while waiting out the Scramble, only a few meters away. A busker with a makeshift drum set plays and sing-speaks loudly outside. You can’t hear him, but you can tell from the wide berth people are giving him that he’s being obnoxious.
Facing the blenders as you clean, pour, pump, and scoop at the speed of light, you don’t see the three of them come in. Twenty minutes later, your coworker announces that she’s going on lunch, and you leap at the chance to take her place at the register. The trio bickers as they step up to the counter in unison. Really, like they all step forward with their right legs at once.
The tall one with the dark hair orders first, and your little internal ‘ooh, pretty customer’ gets drowned out by your judgment at his quite boring drink. The girl adds six different things to her white mocha latte, a recipe you just know she found online somewhere. And then the third guy, carrying three bags (UNIQLO, Hikarie, and ZARA, same as when you first touch) slides a juice box over for you to scan.
‘What are you, like, six?’
He pays, using the shopping bags to muscle his companions out of the way, and for a moment you feel a little bad for being so mean, even if you hadn’t said it out loud. You hand him back the juice box and the trio moves off to the side to wait for their drinks. You don’t speak to them for the rest of the day, as the line remains endless even after you clock out. Closing is at 4 AM, after all.
The second time you meet, he orders the same drink as the girl did previously. You get his name then, Yuji, and you ask which characters he uses in a flirtatious manner that flies directly over his pretty head. He doesn’t notice because he reads his order directly from his phone, but he smiles at you when you hand him his change, and that makes your heart flutter. You walk over to the espresso machine with his cup and the shift lead rolls her eyes at you. So much for obeying the play-caller.
“Bye, Yuji,” you tell him when you slide his drink over to him. He must finally hear the lilt in your voice, because he pauses, glances down at your chest, and then thanks you by name.
“You should just ask him out,” your coworker had said as he left, and so that’s why you’re now handing him the cup of ice water.
Instead of an actual drink that you paid for using your discount, which would… really have been the proper thing to do, now that you think about it.
With your apron draped over your arm, you double-check in the breakroom mirror that your zipper is up and that you’re not covered in syrup stains before you make your way across the busy store to him.
It’s July now, just shy of three weeks from when you first laid eyes on him, and the most interaction you’ve had is Yuji waving at you when he passes into the bookstore with his friends. The dark and broody one doesn’t always buy something, which is why they often duck in and out without getting drinks and why it’s only now that you’ve gotten Yuji alone. And on your lunch break too, no less. Maybe it’s a sign.
“Hi, Yuji,” you say eloquently, heat rocketing across your cheeks when his head snaps up at the sound of your voice.
He’d been dozing off, his chin drifting closer and closer to his chest over the past fifteen minutes. That he’d perked up at all was a good sign, right? Unless he was always this nice, which is still a good thing, but you’re allowed to be a little self-absorbed.
“Hey,” Yuji says. He scoots the bags over and leans across the way to ask a family of three for their extra chair, dragging it over to the other side of his too-small table. “You just got off work?”
“I wish,” you huff as you sit down. You almost set your apron down on the table before you realize it’s sticky on your side, and you fold it in your lap instead. “I’m just on my lunch. Four more hours to go, woo!”
“You’ve got this,” he laughs. “You look like an octopus when you’re on the back line.”
It’s not the most flattering creature to be compared to, but you grin at him nonetheless. You cast a glance around for his friends. You hadn’t seen them at the bar, and they weren’t with him on the second floor, so they could really be anywhere in the basement or the four floors above you. Point being—it would take some time for them to get back to him, so you’re effectively alone, at least for the next five to ten minutes. Perfect time to shoot your shot.
You extend your legs, crossing them at the ankles. If you had any idea how to reach him outside of work, you definitely would have picked a cuter outfit for this occasion. A black polo, black pants, and awful, beat-up sneakers don’t exactly scream ‘date me!’ Plus, even a quick glance into the bags at his feet shows that he’s close to at least one fashionable girl.
Oh, shit, it didn’t even cross your mind—does he even like girls?
A brow lifts as he says, “Are you okay?” and you feel like an even bigger idiot than you did before. So much for thinking you’d perfected your customer service face. That one businessman who wants this much soy in his drink probably realizes that you think his requests are this much of a pain in the ass but is too polite to complain.
“Yeah, I just… forgot if I hit submit when I clocked out or not,” you blurt, waving your hands in front of you. The ice in your cup rattles at the motion, a couple droplets of water swishing out of the strawless lid to dot the junction between your thumb and forefinger. “No biggie, just me being… duh, again. Ha.”
“You wanna go and double-check?” He’s trying to get rid of you.
“No! No, I’m—I know I did it. I got it. It made a little ding noise, I remember it now.” Smooth. Real smooth.
Yuji tilts his head, almost puppy-like. “If you’re sure… I just don’t want to get you in trouble.”
After all the trouble you went through to get this job as a high school first-year, he’s right to worry. But here’s the thing—you were lying. And few feelings are worse than someone taking a one-off white lie and running it into the ground, whether they’re trying to suss you out or are actually concerned. Yuji’s consternation seems genuine. That may be the worst part.
“Don’t worry about me,” you insist.
You have nothing else to say after Yuji nods. It’s so, so awkward.
Clearing your throat, you take an exaggerated look around you, back towards the bookstore and then out the window behind him. “Is your girlfriend around? Or… boyfriend? The one with the crazy hair?”
His eyes go comically wide. “They’re not my—they’re just classmates, that’s all. Dating Nobara…” He shudders, actually full-on shakes in hypothetical fear. “No thanks. And I’m not really sure if Fushiguro’s even into that sort of thing. We’re just friends. Do any of us look like a couple to you?”
“Nah, more of a throuple,” you tease. You laugh as he shakes his head vehemently, patting his forearm. “I’m messing with you. You look like good friends. I just didn’t want to overstep when I asked you out.”
Oh. Well that just sort of slipped out of you, didn’t I?
To his credit, Yuji recovers quickly. His face is tinged pink, but he acts like it isn’t there. Not like you, trying to cover half of your face with your hand in an attempt to appear mysterious and suave and not at all mortified. “Well,” he says, lips twitching, “for your information, I am single. So.”
“Good.” This is the part where you say something else. “I, uh, got you something. ‘Cause you looked a little tired.”
“You didn’t have to,” Yuji protests, leaning back in his chair. His shoulders float towards his ears as one hand reaches back to scratch absently at his undercut. It isn’t like you went out of your way or anything; it’s freaking water. You dug some ice out of the bin and stood in front of the faucet while your coworker was waiting to make more lemonade, that’s all there is to it. But he’s certainly behaving like you got him a dozen roses or something.
“I insist.” You thrust the ice water at him, sloshing some more onto your hand and onto the table. Half of the ice is melted, and it clacks pitifully against the plastic. You chuckle, more out of pure instinct than anything else. “Consider it a courting gift.”
Yuji laughs. Gosh, you’d love to hear it again. Every day, if possible. For the rest of your life. Wouldn’t that be nice? “Cool. My dowry is water and solid water.”
“Dowry is for marriage,” you correct with a snort. “This is my equivalent of picking you up in a limo for a night out at Makudo. Which, by the way—the Mega Mac? Perfection.”
“Are you allowed to advertise other restaurants at work?”
“Probably not, but I’m off the clock anyway.”
As Yuji reaches out to take the cup, his fingers close over yours. It’s an innocent touch, though it has your heart racing nonetheless. Electricity crackles through you—
But not in the good way.
Terror creeps into your every pore as your mind is flooded with images and sensations from over a thousand years ago.
Scratch grass beneath you, long hair spilled across the ground as you lay next to a stable boy with big dreams. Heavy makeup on your face and even heavier clothes on top of your frame as you looked up at a man fifteen years your senior, your hand promised to him the moment you were born. Agony, your lower half splitting apart, tears, the smell of iron in the air, and then two little tiny babies placed into your arms, their cries still ringing in your ears. The stable boy’s body warm against you as he promised he’d never let anyone hurt you again. His laughter as your father called him the King of Curses. Your husband’s fury and your sons pressing themselves into your arms, your pleas for him to believe you, that you had been faithful and that the boys were his. Your father, still bearing scars from his fight with the Two-Faced Specter, saying that he has no daughter.
The unnatural bend of your arm at the bottom of the ravine, numbness gravitating up your legs. You look over to the left to see your shoulder a stump, splintered bone sticking out of the gory mess. Your boys are no longer whimpering for you, no longer begging for their father’s forgiveness. They are silent and still against your sides, like broken dolls. They were only eight years old.
The King of Curses hovers over you, bloodlust radiating out of him. You beg him not to do anything rash. To take that rage inside of him to turn it into good, the good you knew he once possessed, the good he just had to strive for—good he was capable of. Your last sight, one of his four hands reaching to close your eyes for the last time.
Whose memories are these? you wonder. They have to be yours. How else would they come so vividly?
You come back to yourself and find Yuji staring at you with concern. One of the markings at the corners of his eyes cracks open, and a red orb swivels to bore holes into you. Goosebumps appear over your arms. It’s almost 29 degrees, and the AC does nothing with all of the bodies packed into the building.
You must be in the sweltering pits of hell, as evil itself sees you and remembers you.
Pure malevolence cracks a sly grin, its vessel none the wiser.