Work Text:
Sometimes, Kuina feels like giving up.
Not like those all-encompassing giving-ups people do, like quitting their jobs, ending relationships, or moving to a different country. Just small giving-ups, like sitting down right where she is, just a handful of steps away from her apartment. Falling face-first onto her bed and not waking up for three days straight. Not visiting her mother at the hospital, not looking after those cats at the animal shelter, not meeting up with her friends. Just … doing nothing.
It's been a few really hard days at work. Days of being shouted at by customers who obviously wanted dairy in their vegan lattes, of over-exhausted colleagues and of screaming children, of spilled coffees and of complaining mothers, of obnoxious teenagers and of bigoted old people refusing her service.
Kuina loves her job, she really does, but sometimes, she just … doesn’t.
She sighs, takes a deep breath, and makes it up the last flight of stairs. Her neighbor is playing his terrible music again, the one with the oomphs and bleghs. She hates it and wishes once again for Niragi to be her neighbor. Her best friend, who lives two floors up and has been by her side ever since high school.
She’s been ranting at him through text messages for the last three days, and he has promised her that they will do something fun soon. Going out, drinking, dancing, being each other’s wing-people so that maybe one of them could stop being the gay disasters they are and actually meet somebody for once.
But it’s only Wednesday, the weekend still so far away, and Kuina already feels like she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Sighing deeply, she searches her bag for her keys. When she finally finds them, she pushes them into the lock, yawning deeply and almost missing the small card that is taped against her apartment door.
Carefully, she removes the tape and stares down at it. It’s a postcard with a smiling snowman decorated in fairy lights and a fluffy red beanie and scarf.
Kuina frowns. It’s July.
She turns the card around. In carefully written letters, it reads:
“Roses are red, violets are blue, Merry Christmas bitch, I love you.”
Underneath it, there are a few words in smaller letters saying: “Sorry, it’s the only card I still had at home.”
Kuina laughs.
She laughs and laughs and laughs, barely making it into her apartment through the tears streaming down her face.
When she does, she sits down on her couch and looks at the card in her hand one more time.
She promptly bursts into laughter again.
She laughs until she can’t anymore. Until her stomach hurts, and her cheeks do as well, until her voice is gone, and the tears have run dry.
Then, she gets up, stepping into her kitchen and pinning the card onto her fridge, with the stupid magnet Niragi had gifted her for her last birthday. The one with the sexy cherry in stockings and heels.
She gets out her phone and calls the number she finds at the top of her contacts.
“Hey nerd”, she says fondly when Niragi finally picks up, “I love you, too.”