Work Text:
Akaashi liked his new job. The bad thing about moving to a new city due to coven matters, was that he had to find somewhere to work. He was lucky, and managed to find a place that was looking for waiters. The restaurant looked small from the outside, but it was bigger than it seemed. The decoration make it seem like it was Halloween all year round, with fake spiders and fake skeletons.
Mostly fake spiders and fake skeletons. Akaashi could bet that one of the spiders was staring at him. Following him with her multiple eyes. Also, when his new boss was introducing the rest of his co-workers, she pointed at one of the multiple skeletons and named him. “Lieutenant Washio” Shirufuku told him, “a great hero who served in the skeleton war, and now he works on the morning shift.”
There was an awkward silence. Akaashi was not sure if it was meant to be a joke, or if it truly was a skeleton soldier. Normal humans didn’t knew much about the supernatural underworld, but due to sarcasm and jokes people sometimes made comments that could be interpreted as a sign of someone being part of that world.
“It’s an honour to meet you, lieutenant. I worked with second lieutenant Komi before he was drafted to the skeleton war five months ago.”
Lieutenant Washio then turned towards Akaashi, proving that the restaurant was more than a normal human restaurant. “I know lieutenant Komi! He just received a promotion. A good man both on the field and out of it.”
“I will need to send my congratulations then.” Akaashi liked working with Komi, as he was specialising on necromancy and Komi was a skeleton. The reason why he had moved to the city was mainly because he needed to be in the central base of his coven in order to carry on with the level of research he was doing.
His new boss smiled. “Can I safely assume that you are part of the underworld?” she asked, her eyes shining.
“I am a witch under the East coven.” He explained, confirming her assumption.
“Well, as you know an establishment is not allowed to refuse to serve people, so we need to accept uninitiated humans. They bring a lot of revenue, so it’s good. That is why we were looking for a ‘normal’ server, but if you are able to both serve normals and supernaturals, it would be even better.”
Akaashi nodded. As a human witch, he was able to serve normals and they wouldn’t suspect that the establishment had anything unusual. Except for the décor, perhaps.
And as days passed, Akaashi could say he liked his job. He had most of his shifts on the ground floor, where humans were usually seated. It wasn’t different than waiting in any other restaurant. Maybe a lot more ‘no madam, the spider is fake and can’t be staring at you’ than in other establishments. But people liked it because of its spooky ambience and low prices.
And then sometimes he had to wait on the underground floor. That was more interesting. The first thing was to ask if someone needed the special menu. A large amount of supernaturals could eat human food, but some had particular diets. In other words, they couldn’t put ‘3 kilos of raw meat’ on the normal menu, so they had to have a second one.
Akaashi was on the lower floor at the moment, as it was lunch hour and no one really went to a thematic restaurant for lunch on a weekday. The restaurant was almost empty, with only three tables being used.
Three new customers came to Akaashi’s floor. They looked completely normal, and there was a second in which he thought that Onaga made a mistake and sent normals to the supernatural floor. It was only a brief moment, as Akaashi managed to see that there were only two reflections in the wall mirror, but three customers.
He approached them, and asked them where they wanted to seat. The reflectionless man chose one of the booths, and his friends followed.
“Hello and welcome to Shadow Night. I am Akaashi and I will be your waiter for today. If you need a special menu please ask and do not hesitate to mention any dietary requirements.”
“Two normal menus and a special one.” Asked one of the boys, with a bright smile. Akaashi nodded and left to get the menus. Neither of them looked particularly different, apart from their apparent horrible hair style. But not everyone could have an extra pair of ears like the maneki-neko he had on table 3, or the girl with tentacles for hair who was asking for more water.
Before moving to the new city, Akaashi hadn’t met with that many supernaturals. Of course he knew quite a bunch of witches from his coven, and he was friends with many soldiers serving on the skeleton war; but the few weeks working at Shadow Night had put him face to face with more supernaturals he had ever met.
He gave the menus to the costumers and then went to the kitchen to collect the order for one of the other tables. When he returned to the table with the three normal looking friends they were ready to order.
The first one to talk was the reflectionless one. His pale skin contrasted with the mess of black hair he had, but what called more the attention was his t-shirt with a large ‘Team Jacob’ written on it. “I want the soup of the day please. No garlic, no onion and no pepper. I really hate pepper.”
“Any drinks?”
“A large glass of blood. Do you have veal?” he asked. Akaashi shook his head and muttered a short apology. “Then make it pork please.” Akaashi wrote it down on his notepad and looked at the small boy next to him.
“Chicken nuggets and chips.”
“Any drink?”
“Strawberry milkshake.”
Akaashi nodded and wrote it down. The variety of food served in the restaurant never stopped surprising him. One of the first orders he took was ‘100 crickets’ and he was surprise not only because they actually served that, but also because it was a best seller.
“And for you?” he asked the last boy. When he got a good look at him, he was stunned by how cute he was. And how hot were his arms. It looked like he could make a watermelon explode with them.
“A raw rabbit!” He said with a smile, like he had just asked for a hamburger.
“Fur or no fur?”
There was a bit of confusion as the cute boy answered ‘fur of course’ and the other two said ‘no fur please’. There was a stare down between the two tall boys. The one with a Cruella de Vil inspired hairstyle made puppy eyes, but the other only repeated himself.
“Come on, it will be okay.” He pleaded to his friend.
“The last time you had fur you were sick for a week.”
“But bro, it won’t happen again.”
“And guess who has to take care of you when you are crying on the floor.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
“Bro, it’s for your own good. Even Kenma is with me on this, and his life mission is to oppose everything I say.”
The small boy nodded and added a quiet “true”.
The boy resign to his fate and sighted loudly to show his discontent. “No fur please.” He asked Akaashi, who wrote it down. It was a good thing that it ended up being ‘no fur’ as he just remembered that they had ran out of furred rabbit.
“Do you want a drink with that?”
“Yes, something that makes me forget all the sadness in the world.”
Akaashi looked confused. He wasn’t sure if that guy was honestly asking for strong alcohol at lunch, or if he meant a large glass of blood. Blood usually did the trick for most supernaturals, and once you got used to it, even humans could drink it and feel good afterwards.
“He means a chocolate milkshake.” The black haired translated. “Can it be with lactose free milk?” Akaashi nodded, they had almost any kind of milk; from the most traditional kinds to weird versions such as semi-skimmed unicorn milk or magical almond-coconut milk prepared by a guy named Hugo.
The Cruella de Vil cosplayer looked offended. “You can take away my fur, you can take away my meat, but you can’t take away milk from me!”
Then, to Akaashi’s surprise, the small boy who had remained silent for most of the exchange turned to his direction, and looking him dead in the eye said in a threatening voice “Do not give him whole milk.”
That finished the argument, and Akaashi left to give the kitchen the order. The rest of his shift finished without incidents. He had to avoid looking at the table with the cute guy while they were eating, as it didn’t mattered how many times he witnessed it, the sight of someone eating a whole raw animal was still very disturbing. Werewolves tended to have that effect on people.
When they left, he assumed it was the end of it. Unnamed Cruella de Vil cosplayer was going to carry on with his life, and Akaashi with his. It was what normally happened. Customers come and go, only the staff staying being a stable addition to the establishment.
But not this time.
Akaashi was on the main floor serving when he saw the guy again. He was alone this time, but his smile was as breath-taking as ever. Onaga tried to get him to go down, but he asked to stay on the top floor. It wasn’t against the rules, but they were not allowed to serve more ‘untraditional’ food on the normals’ floor.
“Hello and welcome to Shadow Night. I am Akaashi and I will be your waiter for today. I am not allowed to give you a special menu or serve anything from it. Do not hesitate to mention any dietary requirements.”
“Hey Akaashi! Do you remember me? I came here some days ago.”
“Yes, I do remember. Do you want any drinks while you decide what you are going to order?”
“Oh, yes please. I want a chocolate milkshake. Whole milk, please.” He added with a smug smile. Akaashi nodded and wrote down ‘choco mshake, lactose free’.
He then left to give the boy some time to decide and to get the other tables their orders. When he returned to ask for the main course and to give him his milkshake, the boy was already waiting.
“Here is your milkshake, are you ready to order?”
“Yes! I want the T-bone steak, what is the rawest you can give it to me?”
“I think it would be rare, but I’ll ask kitchen to leave it as raw as they can for this floor.”
“Thanks!”
At the end they just cooked it enough so that people wouldn’t stare. The steak wouldn’t pass any health and safety enquiry, as it was basically out of the fridge. The boy, instead of looking disgusted by the red piece of meat, looked delighted. He made sure to use cutlery, even though raw meat was best when eaten with fangs and claws.
When he left, Akaashi was a bit sad that it was probably the last time that he would see him. But oh how wrong he was. He started to see the boy everywhere. Once he appeared in his life, he decided not to leave.
Bokuto, Akaashi eventually decided to ask for his name, would come with his friends most of the time. Mostly the vampire, who one day gave Akaashi the list of everything that his friend was not supposed to be eating. But also other friends. One day he came with a human, which was a bit awkward as his attempts to telepathically communicate to Akaashi not to mention anything related to the underworld made him look like a complete weirdo.
That occasion was hilarious for Akaashi as he had to see Bokuto order his meat medium. Medium. The boy looked miserable when he noticed how cooked medium actually was. Akaashi, taking pity on him, decided to add a few drops of blood on his milkshake. Days later, when he returned without human sensitive ears, he would profoundly thank him for that. He would also start asking for his milkshakes with blood from then on.
One day, when Bokuto was seating on the bottom floor, where Akaashi was waiting (he quickly noticed that the boy would always go to the floor Akaashi was working in) he told him that he didn’t saw him the other day when he asked for him.
“Oh yes, I had some evaluations with my coven.”
“You are on the East coven, right? Then you might have seen Kenma! He is the blonde guy with roots. I think I have come here with him some times.”
“I do remember him. He is part of the coven?”
“Yes, he also had examinations and almost kicked Kuroo and me out of the flat. Can you imagine that? Kuroo said that we were probably disturbing his qi or something.”
“Witches don’t use qi, Bokuto. I do not remember seeing him in the coven, do you know what he specialises on?”
“Summoning’s mostly, if I am not wrong. And you? Wait, let me guess! You seem like a curses kinda guy.”
Akaashi looked confused. People usually told him he looked like a witch specialising on potions; this was the first time someone had said something about curses. “You are wrong, but why would you say that?”
“Well, sometimes when you are angry you send this death glares to people. I thought you were cursing them!”
“I actually specialise in necromancy” He clarified, and after a brief pause he added “and I do not send death glares.”
“Necromancy! That is so cool! Have you met any soldier of the skeleton war?”
Akaashi smiled and started telling him about his friends that have served in the war. Then he remembered that he was still working and had to excuse himself. It was not until he was back at Bokuto’s table with his order, that he remembered why the prior conversation had started.
“You said you were looking for me, what do you needed me for?” he asked. Akaashi remembered Bokuto mentioning not finding him when he came.
Bokuto blushed and looked down at the table. He muttered something that would have gone unnoticed by most people. Not for Akaashi, who looked redder than the meat on Bokuto’s plate.
“I wanted to ask if you wanted to go on a date.”