Chapter Text
"Have a good day!"
You call out after someone who had come to collect their takeaway, two white bags hanging from their hand. They wave in farewell, gone before the last word even slips from your mouth, and you sigh, used to the dismissive attitude of most customers. They were here for food, not for pleasantries.
Still rude, though.
The takeaway you worked at - G eneric Chinese Takeaway - was a small front room for waiting customers filled with cultural paintings and peeling wallpaper. The illuminated board of the menu flickers every so often, but never actually threatens dying, despite being years old.
It was a nice work area, all things considered, and the pace of work was erratic, but never overwhelming-
"heyy! I hear you're the best place around!"
-Though sometimes it could be incredibly tedious.
The man who had just walked in was tall. Absurdly so. He had white hair, as if he were incredibly old, but he was wearing sunglasses, and looked early twenties, at the oldest. He had a wide, playful grin plastered onto his face, his clothes mussed and stained, probably from a long work day or something.
"Well, it would be rude to deny the claim, and prideful to accept it. It's all subjective, really, you like what you like."
You explain, shrugging, too deep into your shift to kiss a customer's ass as well as the food's ass mindlessly, not wanting to claim something false to appease the customer. If he liked it, he liked it. Simple as.
Your words, however, made the man raise an eyebrow, a faint peek of sky blue, bright, bold, utterly infinite- hidden behind those sunglasses. He shrugs, something between mourning and fond - nostalgic - flashing on his face as he watches you, turning to the illuminated menu board again, thinking for a moment.
"Alright. Guess I have to try a bit of everything then to make sure it really is the best"
… huh?
The man rattled one or two items from every section of the board: a rice dish, a noodle dish, a curry, picking seemingly at random from every neatly organised section of the board. He looked over, a smug grin, somehow innocent and evil at once, sitting on his face.
You tapped frantically on your screen, trying to keep up with the items, watching the digital list of things the man was buying increase and increase, gaping at the cost as it grew beyond the average order price, and grew past even the most expensive orders you had seen before.
A couple hundred quid on food? How many people was he feeding?? Goodness-
Printing the ticket was easy enough, a few buttons pressed and the printer spat out a ticket long enough that it could probably span the entire length of your arm if you measured it.
"uh, may I please have a name to put to the order?"
"Gojo. Satoru Gojo"
You nodded, jotting down the name closest to what you heard and folding the ticket in half, taking it to the kitchen with something between an apologetic and still shocked look, grimacing as you saw the chefs pale at the sight of the complex, vast order.
The wait was longer than most orders you had taken before, especially for a walk in, and the man stood in the corner, scrolling on his phone as you took various phone orders, wiped the counters down, all under the watchful, semi-present eye of your boss coming and going from the kitchen.
After what felt like an eternity, the several bags of food were done, taking up multiple of the waiting boxes. It looked like far too much, and the freebie drinks and crackers just added another two bags to all the weight the man would have to carry out the door.
The amount felt wrong on your tongue, far too large for an order, and yet it was the one on the ticket in front of you, stained with oil and some kind of sauce from the kitchen.
The man - Gojo - rummaged around his pockets for his wallet, pulled out a wad of cash and handed over several yen notes to make up for the stupidly high cost. In turn, you nodded, moving to the till to receive the proper change for him as he gathered the stupidly large amount of bags set onto the counter-
"hey, just keep the change. Don't want it"
He had given almost double what the food had cost, and the rest was yours? That was more than several shifts worth of money!
"that's really sweet, but this is so much, I don't know if I can take it-"
You did your best to gather the change as fast as you could, to give it to the white-haired man, but by the time it was in your hands, the man was at the door, grinning, one hand full of bags raised in farewell, his foot holding the door open, somehow, his tone lighthearted, but something genuine in the tilt of his head.
"Nah, keep it. I don't hear enough people speak their minds. Have a good one !"
And he was gone, before you could even wish him a good day in return, like a phantom, the only proof of his visit being the stupidly long ticket you had folded to fit it onto the pierced pile of tickets for that evening.
The tip remained to the side for the rest of your shift, and was unmentioned by your boss, which was lucky on your end, considering he could have asked to keep it if he wanted.
But even as you took your own meal home from work, personal bag at your side as you walked, you couldn't shake that stupidly wealthy and cheerful man from your mind. Who even had the kind of wealth to spend hundreds on takeaway?
Satoru Gojo, huh?
You would make sure to remember his name, even if only to wish him a good day first if he ever showed up again.