Chapter Text
Kunikida sighs the deepest sigh he has ever felt as he turns the key in the lock of the restaurant door.
This is it, he thought. This is where I die.
For it was the worst day in the history of fast food - the first day back to school. It means that all of the parents will be bitchy, all of the kids will be screaming, and all of his sane coworkers would be back in school. He looks up after pushing past the glass doors to see that not a single one of his current coworkers, including his fellow shift lead, had bothered to show up yet. He clicks his phone on to read the time.
5:55am .
He rubs at the crease between his eyebrows and presses the green messages button as he throws his bag down on the manager’s desk.
CFA Morning Shift
Kunikida
You all have about 5 seconds to get here before I contact Mori.
Not a single response. He checks the time.
5:57am.
He begins to do everyone else’s opening tasks, putting on a pot of coffee and filling up the ice machines in a methodical manner he’s followed hundreds of times. After all, he’s used to waiting on his insolent coworkers. As he’s unloading the last bucket of ice, he hears the jingle of the door and a purple mop of hair following it. Leave it to Sigma to arrive exactly when it turns 6:00.
“Where is everyone?” Sigma shouts in a panic across the store as he approaches the manager's desk. Kunikida sighs as he puts the ice bucket down. Sigma was a relatively new addition to the shift lead team, so he still thinks their coworkers are trustworthy and reliable individuals. Kunikida lost that hope a long time ago.
“I’m guessing most of them are stuck in traffic since they continuously decide leaving 5 minutes before their shifts is a good idea, even on the busiest day of the year. Could you log in on drive thru?” Kunikida says as he is clicking on all of the monitors. Sigma gives an affirmative nod and disappears behind the half-wall that separates the part of the store containing the drive thru from the rest of the store. Sigma and Kunikida work in a practiced silence from there on until the jingle of the door makes both their heads shoot up. Kunikida checks his phone.
6:05am.
“Sorry I’m late!” Ranpo shouts, although Kunikida knew he wasn’t sorry, and he would do it again. He watches as Ranpo clocks in and then proceeds to stick his lollipop in the trash can that doesn’t have a trash bag in it. Kunikida rubs away the creases in his forehead.
“No problem, you’re just on drinks today,” he says with his head in his hands. Ranpo makes his way over to drinks, starting to mix and set things up.
“Any idea where the others are?” Kunikida yells from the front counter, because he knows the other workers have a group chat without the shift leads. Also, Ranpo typically just knows everything about his coworkers - either they think he is really trustworthy with information, or he is just that smart - Kunikida has not figured it out yet.
“Atsushi is dropping off his sister and is stuck in traffic, same with Kouyou. Yosano probably just woke up, and you already know Dazai is going to arrive 20 minutes after we open,” Ranpo responds while mixing sweet tea (he pours in way too much sugar, but both Sigma and Kunikida are too tired to say anything). Just then, the door jingles as Atsushi runs in.
“Sorry! I was dropping off Kyouka!” Atsushi shouts as he rapidly clocks in. Ranpo smiles smugly.
There was a difference in Atsushi and Ranpo’s apologies because Kunikida knew Atsushi was actually remorseful, although he would also still continue to be late. He looks up to see Atsushi actively brushing his teeth as he reads the staff list. Strange man.
“Who put Dazai on front counter?” Atsushi says with a polite laugh. Kunikida freezes in the middle of wiping down the counter and looks up at Sigma, who is wearing an apologetic smile.
“Me? Is that a problem?” The purple haired man says. Kunikida looks at him with murderous intent. He knew letting Sigma do the staff list for the first time was a bad idea, because even though he is a spectacular manager, he is horrible at reading people. Thankfully, Atsushi responds for him.
“We don’t put Dazai on front counter. It’s an unspoken rule. He can do literally anything else. It’s ok though Sigma, I’ll just switch our names before he notices.”
“Before who notices?” A disembodied voice comes from the kitchen. All four employees go pale and turn towards the direction of the metal kitchen door that is still swinging, indicating a fresh arrival. In the door stands Dazai, an impressive 10 minutes late instead of the usual 45.
Unfortunately, this was the one day Kunikida prayed Dazai would be late. He watches with nothing but fear in his eyes as Dazai walks over to the staff list.
“Ah! You listened Kuni! I’m finally on front counter! This is an incredible day!” Dazai says with the widest, most shit-eating grin Kunikida has ever seen on him. He dances around and balances his hands on the counter Kunikida just cleaned to do spins. Atsushi smiles apologetically at Kunikida, mouths i tried, and runs behind the kitchen door to the break room.
Coward, Kunikida thinks.
“Ah, Dazai, I made the staff list for today and that was a mistake, I apologize. Atsushi will swap with you,” Sigma says sheepishly.
“No take-backs!” Dazai says with the intonation of a child. Kunikida exchanges a glance with Sigma that communicates good luck as he walks over to the drive thru window to escape Dazai dancing around the expanse of the entire store. He leans against the window and pulls out his phone as it dings, hoping the message is from Kouyou (the only other level-headed employee) saying she’s almost there.
CFA Morning Shift
Dazai
your full of empty threats, kuni~!
Ranpo
*You’re
Dazai runs at Ranpo from across the store, rounding the corner past a terrified Kunikida who drops his phone, and causing Ranpo to spill sweet tea down the front of his shirt.
It was going to be a long day.
***
The day was going about as well as Kunikida predicted.
Ranpo was practically throwing coffees at the unsuspecting Kouyou who was working drive thru window. She had arrived at 6:20am looking frazzled and had taken a 10 minute nap against the glass of the window before she had to start handing out food at an insane speed. Yosano was running around trying to get the kitchen to make food faster (an impossible task) and Atsushi and Sigma were taking drive thru orders, where they had both gotten yelled at many times. Sigma could be seen apologetically waving on many middle-aged moms, one of whom demanded a manager without weird-colored hair, in which case Kunikida had to come out and calm her down. This was a somewhat practiced routine because almost every other day some old woman commented on the split dyed man’s hair. Kunikida placated her with promises of free food for her troubles and sent her on her way.
“Maybe I should just go blonde again,” Sigma joked in a self-deprecating tone once she was gone. Kunikida found the notion that Sigma was ever blonde extremely weird, and knew Sigma always got like this when one of the customers poked fun at his appearance. Kunikida found that this self-deprecating tone of voice was getting worse now that he was a shift lead.
“I like your hair,” Kunikida replied without thinking. Sigma looked stunned that he got any response at all, and the two stood staring at each other for an unknown period of time. Atsushi stood behind them, curiously eavesdropping and not working at all. The moment was ruined when a woman blared her horn because no one was taking her order, and Kunikida slipped back inside, completely confused at what had just occurred.
Then, Kunikida heard the terrible, grating sound of Dazai flirting with a customer and lost it.
At about 8:32am, Kunikida grabbed a styrofoam cup full of Coca-Cola from Ranpo’s stash and flung it at Dazai’s head.
At about 8:30am, unbeknownst to Kunikida, Mori Ougai walked into the store.
At about 8:33am, a cup of Coca-Cola broke on top of Mori Ougai’s head.
You could hear a pin drop in the normally rambunctious store. The silence was broken by the guffaw of Dazai’s laughter. Both parties ignored him.
“Sir… I’m so sorry…” Kunikida muttered. Mori wiped the soda off his hair in a particularly dramatic fashion.
“I need to see you in my office,” he replied.
***
Meetings in Mori’s office are often said to be an end-all.
cfa NO LOSERS ALLOWED ❌
Ranpo
You guys Kunikida just went back to Mori’s office
Ranpo
He threw coke at him like a dumbass.
Atsushi
What???
Atsushi
Like the drug??
Yosano
lmao good luck to him, last time i saw oda was before a “meeting with mori”
Ranpo reply to Atsushi
No you idiot the drink
Dazai
deserved!!! he was trying to throw it at me!!
Ranpo
I wish it hit you.
Dazai
:(
Kunikida stepped into the glass office that resided in the back of the kitchen, feeling as if he was walking to certain death. He watched brown droplets fall from Mori’s hair and sink into the tile of the kitchen and only had one thought.
I’m fucked.
He sat down in a leather chair across from Mori’s desk and locked eyes with the man. They sat in silence, Kunikida waiting for him to start the conversation. After a few moments, it was obvious Mori was not going to start. Mori seemed as if he did not want to give Kunikida the upper hand.
“Sir, I’d like to apologize again, I was out of line, I did not mean for that to h-”
“You’re fired.”
“What?”
“You’re fired.”
Kunikida hung his head low and stared at the grout of the floor. He had failed at yet another job. He could feel weight piling on his shoulders again. Always too much, too stressed, too quick to anger.
“Understood,” he said. As he was getting up to leave, he saw a purple flash of hair bolt by the glass doors, the door handle creak open, and Sigma step into the room.
“I did it!” Sigma said, panting as if he had just run a marathon. Kunikida turned around to see Mori raise an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Sigma, I apologize, but I did see Kunikida clearly throw the cup at my face,” Mori stated.
“No, what I mean is, I dared him to! It was my fault!” Sigma replied quickly. Kunikida cringed. It sounded like something a middle schooler would say.
What are you doing, Kunikida mouthed with his back turned to Mori. Sigma ignored him. Mori looked between the two of them with bewilderment, which is probably the most emotion Kunikida has ever seen on his face.
“Fine.” Mori simply said. Sigma looked at him, eyes wide, then back at Kunikida with the same expression. Kunikida looked lost.
“You’re getting a written warning on your account, Kunikida,” Mori stated, pulling out files. Kunikida nodded as fast as he could.
“Ok. Understood. (It was not understood). Thank you, sir,” Kunikida said, profusely nodding. Sigma had to grab him by the arm and take him out of the office. The minute they were around the corner and behind the grey walls of the break room, Kunikida broke away from him.
“What was that?” Kunikida glared at Sigma.
“Sorry, Atsushi told me you were in Mori’s office and I just… I didn’t want to see you get fired for a stupid reason,” Sigma said sheepishly. He looked like he just got caught for something illegal, even though the only thing he was caught doing was being nice.
“Well… next time come up with a reasoning that doesn’t sound like a child taking the fall for another child,” Kunikida states. He was going to really yell at Sigma, but softened when he saw the look on his face. “Mori probably thinks we are insane now,” Kunikida mutters.
“No offense, but I think everyone who works here is a little insane,” Sigma says with a light smile on his face. Kunikida laughs lightly.
“Yeah, I suppose,” he says. A brief moment passes by before Kunikida turns to walk out.
“Wait, can I ask… why was Mori so quick to fire you?” Sigma asks softly, like he’s scared of asking the question. Kunikida releases his grip on the door handle and turns back around.
“No idea. That man has had it out for me since the beginning. I am still a shift leader only because I was promoted before Mori’s reign, and well… he doesn’t like any of the managers that remained from Fukuzawa’s days. He gets all uptight when people even bring him up. Some weird drama no one knows about,” Kunikida replied. He tilted his head. “You were just promoted, right? You used to work nights?” Sigma nodded.
“Do your best to stay out of his way. Basically, don’t do what I did,” Kunikida said as they both chuckled.
“Uhm, Kunikida?” Sigma said. Kunikida’s heart lightly fluttered.
“Yeah?”
“We left the staff alone.”
“Shit.”
A mess of purple and blonde hair could be seen running out of the kitchen.