Chapter Text
Cheap laptop? Check.
Stanley water bottle that I only drink from because it makes me feel like I have my life together? Check.
Extra mouse batteries, because my paranoia is stronger than my faith in technology? Check.
Bone conduction headphones that were way too expensive for someone with my salary? Double check.
Name tag I impulse-bought off Amazon to feel more professional? Triple check.
I stared at my reflection in the dim apartment mirror—shirt collar a little too stiff, tie sitting slightly crooked, hair doing that annoying thing where it refuses to cooperate no matter how many times I fix it.
“Persephone Nieman,” the name tag read in clean, engraved letters. Official. Adult. Trying way too hard.
I adjusted it anyway, tugged my tie a little tighter, and exhaled.
"Okay," I muttered to no one. "Let’s not screw this up."
The Gatlin Realty office wasn’t quite what I expected.
A little too warm, a little too quiet, and smelling faintly of old coffee and dry-erase markers. The kind of place where printers are always jamming and no one ever changes the communal soap dispenser.
I clutched my laptop bag like it was going to shield me from awkward small talk and possible printer-related fatalities.
"Hi! You must be Persephone!"
A woman with bright eyes, perfect curls, and the sort of smile that felt like it was holding up an entire collapsing emotional dam approached me with an outstretched hand.
"I'm Rachel, but most people here just call me Ragatha." She was already moving like she had six things to do before noon but had paused just for me. "I'm your supervisor! So happy you’re joining us."
I shook her hand. "Thanks. I’m… excited to be here."
(Lie. Mostly nervous. Definitely over-caffeinated. Borderline ready to run.)
"Let me show you around real quick before you get settled," she chirped, already walking ahead. I followed, gripping my bag tighter.
We passed a hallway of identical cubicles and peeling motivational posters. One caught my eye:
“Teamwork makes the dream work!”
Someone had scribbled “lies” underneath it in blue ink.
"Over here is the breakroom—avoid the microwave after Jax uses it. Trust me." Ragatha’s smile twitched like she was trying not to remember something traumatic. "And that’s Kinger’s workspace, though he sort of… floats around."
"Kinger?"
"Our general manager. He’s… a lot. You’ll see."
We turned a corner and I saw a guy tapping furiously at a laptop surrounded by what had to be insect guidebooks and one live praying mantis in a glass jar.
He looked up. “New blood?”
I blinked. “Accountant.”
“Cool.” He nodded at the mantis. “This is Gerald.”
Gerald waved a single spindly leg.
I nodded like this was fine.
Normal, even.
Definitely not the weirdest Tuesday I’ve had. (Though it’s climbing the charts.)
The man behind the bug terrarium stood up with a kind of gentle ease that didn’t match his towering height. Taller than Ragatha. Way taller than me. Great. My fight-or-flight response was definitely voting "flight."
“Oh, let me introduce myself,” he said, brushing non-existent dust off his sweater vest. “Keith Ingram. General manager.”
His voice was soft but clipped, like someone who'd once led meetings about synergy and quarterly revenue but now mostly spoke to spiders.
“And you’re…Persephone, right?” His brow furrowed for just a second before he nodded like something clicked. “Pomni. I’ll call you Pomni.”
There was a pause—long enough for me to consider whether I should correct him—but honestly? I’d been called worse. And Pomni wasn’t bad. Kind of cute. A little strange. Fit the vibe.
So I nodded. “Sure. That works.”
I reached out for a handshake. His grip was light—careful. Like he was used to holding things that could break if squeezed too hard.
I was starting to get the feeling he didn’t just collect bugs. He understood them.
Then a loud thunk came from the next room, followed by the unmistakable sound of something hitting the floor and a very enthusiastic string of profanity.
“OW! Dammit!” a voice shouted. “Dollface, can you get me the replacement PC tower from my office? Red sticky note on it!”
Ragatha didn’t miss a beat. She was already halfway to the door, muttering “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” under her breath like a mantra as she disappeared around the corner.
Kinger—sorry, Keith —sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with a tired smile.
“That would be Jax,” he said. “Our IT guy. Don’t take anything he says personally. Or seriously. Or literally.”
I offered a weak smile. “So… basically don’t engage?”
He chuckled—a warm, raspy sort of laugh that sounded like it didn’t get let out too often. “If you do, just make sure you're wearing metaphorical armor. Or actual armor. Whatever’s handy.”
He glanced back at Gerald, the mantis, who had climbed onto a plastic leaf like he was judging us both.
“You’ll be fine,” Keith added, turning back to me. “You’ve got a steady vibe. Just… don’t let him scare you off.”
“I don’t scare easy,” I said, instantly regretting the lie.
Keith raised an eyebrow but didn’t call me out. Instead, he nodded like a proud dad who just watched their kid try Brussels sprouts for the first time.
“Good. That’s a useful trait around here.”
Not a moment later, Ragatha came rushing down the hallway, hugging a PC tower like it was a swaddled baby.
She ducked into the office next to Keith’s and set it down with a soft thunk .
“Here, Jax,” she said, already brushing imaginary dust off her blazer. “And you’re sure this was wiped properly?”
A groan erupted from somewhere under a tangle of cables and snack wrappers.
“Yes, yes, I may joke and mess around,” came a muffled voice, “but I don’t screw around with data wipes, Rags. I used DBAN. Triple pass. No survivors.”
There was a clatter—maybe a wrench hitting a keyboard—followed by a very dramatic sigh.
“Now go get the new girl. Guy. Whatever.”
He sounded irritated. Short-tempered. Maybe Keith was wrong about him. Maybe Jax was just another office jerk with too much screen time and not enough patience.
I was mid-thought when the man himself emerged, squinting like the overhead lighting personally offended him.
Disheveled hoodie. Mismatched socks. Hair that looked like he styled it by fighting a box fan. There was a ring of caffeine under his eyes and a look that said “I haven’t blinked in 48 hours.”
Then his eyes locked onto me.
Something mischievous sparked behind them.
“Oh,” he said, like I was a cat that wandered into the server room. “You’re the new Excel jockey.”
I opened my mouth to correct him, but he kept going.
“Name’s Jackson. Last name’s not important—probably not even real. You can call me Jax.” He gave a crooked grin. “Pom-Pom.”
“…Please don’t.”
“Ohhh, we’re feisty. That’s good. I get bored easily.”
I glanced at Ragatha, who was very pointedly pretending to check her phone. Coward.
Jax crossed the room in a few long, lazy steps and started circling me like a shark with Wi-Fi.
“So, Pomni, huh? Cute. You look like the kind of person who keeps their desktop icons in little grids by color.”
“I don’t have icons on my desktop,” I replied, because I was that kind of person.
“Terrifying.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Keith said you’re in accounting. That true, or just a cover story for a cult?”
“Accounting. And no cults.”
“Damn. That’s what they all say.”
He crouched down to yank a cord out of the back of the old tower, then waved at me with the plug still in hand. “Well, welcome to hell. Lemme know if your login breaks, your Wi-Fi drops, or your soul starts leaking out through your eyeballs.”
“Thanks… I think?”
He winked. “Anytime, Pom-Pom.”
I didn’t have a comeback, which was rare for me. I just turned and followed Ragatha out of the room while Jax started humming something vaguely threatening behind us.
She waited until we were a safe distance down the hallway.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “He’s… a lot.”
“Is he always like that?”
“Yes. But weirdly dependable. Just don’t let him near your coffee, and don’t tell him anything you don’t want thrown back at you sarcastically three weeks later.”
“Got it.”
"And… he likes nicknames. They’re his way of being friendly, in his… weird little language."
I tucked that away. Noted.
Maybe Keith wasn’t wrong about him. Just optimistic .
Despite everything, Jax didn’t slack off.
My new workstation was up and running in what had to be record time. The man moved like a goblin possessed—grumbling to himself, tapping out commands like his fingers were made of caffeine and spite, muttering things like “registry values are a myth” under his breath.
I stood off to the side, clutching my bag like a substitute teacher on her first day, while he booted everything up and ran checks faster than I could follow.
Then he straightened up, cracked his knuckles, and gestured with a flourish like a magician finishing a trick.
“Boom. It’s alive.”
My shiny new desktop hummed quietly, a lot more powerful-looking than the old laptop currently weighing down my shoulder.
“Jackson—”
“Jax.”
I paused. “...Right. Jax. I bought this,” I held up the laptop like a mildly cursed artifact, “because I thought I’d need it. Apparently I don’t.”
He snorted and waved a hand at me like I was being dramatic.
“Nah, you will. Rachel drags the accountants to final walkthroughs like it’s part of some secret ritual. I don’t ask. I just keep the Wi-Fi working and delete malware from the office printer.”
I raised an eyebrow. “There’s malware on the printer?”
He didn’t answer. Just smiled like that was a story I’d earn later.
I sighed and slung the laptop bag onto my mostly-empty desk. It still looked like it belonged to someone else—wiped clean, sterile, waiting to be claimed. The chair squeaked like it hadn’t been sat in since the Bush administration.
Jax lingered, arms crossed, eyeing my monitor as it blinked through a few startup screens.
“You know your way around a PC?”
“Sort of. I can navigate Excel in my sleep, but I have no idea what the difference is between a CPU and a GPU.”
He tilted his head. “One makes your spreadsheets work. The other makes your games look pretty.”
“...I don’t game.”
His expression turned mock-horrified. “That’s tragic. Someone get this woman a hobby.”
“I urban explore abandoned buildings and post it online,” I said flatly, without thinking.
He blinked. “Okay. You’re cooler than I gave you credit for.”
“I never asked for credit.”
“And yet here we are, Pom-Pom.”
I groaned. “That nickname is not sticking.”
“Too late. Already saved it under that in my contacts.”
“I never gave you my number.”
“You left it on the setup form. Rookie move.” He grinned and tapped the side of his head. “IT sees all.”
I buried my face in my hands. “This is going to be a long job.”
“You’ll survive,” he said, surprisingly gentle, before walking off with a lazy wave. “Probably.”
I stared at my desk for a few more seconds after he left. Then I pulled out a little moth sticker from my backpack—just one—and stuck it to the corner of the monitor.
Just to make it feel like mine.
The rest of the day went… about how I expected.
Nothing dramatic. No fires. No emotional breakdowns in the breakroom—yet.
I got logged into the company portal, figured out where to submit reports, discovered the coffee machine makes a sound that’s legally considered psychological warfare. The whole onboarding shebang.
By four, they’d let me go for the day. Apparently Gatlin Realty closes a little earlier than standard. “Work-life balance,” Ragatha had said with a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes.
Honestly? I wasn’t complaining. It gave me time to get across town early for my appointment.
The place was called Blackout Club —a small, tucked-away tattoo studio with an attached dive bar that somehow smelled like lavender incense and stale beer at the same time. A handwritten sign in the window said "Cash preferred, no crying during line work."
I pushed open the door, and the familiar buzz of a tattoo gun somewhere in the back filled the air.
At the front desk stood a person with choppy, asymmetrical hair dyed a few too many colors to count, piercings along one brow, and a "don’t talk to me unless you’re tipping" kind of energy.
They looked up slowly from their phone as I approached, eyes sharp, but not unkind.
“Hey,” I said, keeping my voice polite but not awkward—hopefully. “I have a four-thirty appointment with a Ms. Zoe?”
Their expression flattened instantly. Not annoyed—just tired. The kind of tired that’s bone-deep and permanent.
“Okay, two things,” they said, voice dry as dust. “One, I’m not a Ms. I’m gender neutral. And two, yeah. You’re early. Persephone, right?”
My stomach twisted. “Right. Yeah. Sorry about the—uh. The pronouns. My bad.”
They shrugged, already motioning for me to follow. “It’s fine. You weren’t weird about it. That’s my bar.”
I nodded quickly, still feeling the heat in my cheeks as I trailed behind them through a narrow hallway. Posters of flash sheets and old band flyers decorated the walls like controlled chaos.
They led me into a small room that somehow felt sterile and lived-in at the same time. A worn-in chair, buzzing machines, a jar of black ink on the table, and a half-finished sketch on the wall of a cat with a sword.
“So,” they said, snapping on gloves with a little too much flair. “You’re here for the touch-up, right? Lower arm?”
“Yup.” I rolled up my sleeve and offered the skin like some kind of weird sacrifice. “It’s starting to fade a bit.”
Zoe knelt beside me to check the fading ink, their head tilted in focus. The sarcasm they wore like armor seemed to slip for a moment, just long enough for something softer to show through.
“You heal weird,” they muttered, pressing their thumb gently to the edge of the design. “Dry spots. You moisturizing like my apprentice told you to?”
I gave a sheepish shrug. “...Define ‘like you told me.’”
Zooble exhaled through their nose—less angry, more disappointed. “Tragic. Absolutely tragic.”
They stood back up, shaking their head like I’d committed a mild war crime. “You’re lucky this isn’t beyond saving.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “You sound like my dentist.”
That got the tiniest grin out of them. “Yeah, well… I’m cooler. And I don’t ask you about flossing or your ‘sugar intake.’”
They snapped on a fresh pair of gloves, rolled over a tray with practiced ease, and tapped a few things on their tablet before setting it down alongside the tattoo machine.
“Oh, and you can call me Zooble,” they added casually. “I go by that more than Zoe. Zoe’s my legal name, but... I don’t really care anymore.”
I nodded, already making a mental note not to mess that up again. “Got it. Zooble.”
I looked down at my arm, where the faint outline of a once-vibrant wisteria blossom curved along the inside. A little faded, but still mine.
“It’s from Demon Slayer, ” I offered quietly, like I needed to justify it. “The flower.”
Zooble glanced over, flicking a brow. “You an anime fan?”
I nodded. “Not, like... obnoxious. But yeah.”
They prepped the machine with practiced ease, wiping down the area and getting the ink ready. “Alright. After this, swing by a place called Spudsy’s . Ask for Gwen. She’s weird as hell, but she’ll talk your ear off about anime.”
I blinked. “Spudsy’s? Like the loaded potato bar?”
“The very same,” Zooble said with a smirk. “Tell her I sent you. She owes me a drink anyway. You’ll get along.”
The machine buzzed to life, and I braced myself as the first prick of the needle touched down—not bad, just sharp. Familiar.
We didn’t talk for a few minutes after that. Just the sound of the machine, the hum of music playing softly through the walls, and the occasional murmur of Zooble adjusting their grip or dabbing away excess ink.
It was oddly peaceful.
For once, no spreadsheets. No nicknames. No pretending to be more together than I really was.
Just someone quietly doing something they were good at, and me letting myself exist for a bit without overthinking every second.
It didn’t take long for Zooble to finish.
I left with a fresh wrap, a care sheet with six bullet points and a doodle of a frowning flower in the corner, and a vague sense of calm I hadn’t expected. The kind that only comes from being around someone who treats you like a human instead of a job title.
The place they told me about— Spudsy’s —was just down the street. I figured I might as well follow through. Worst case, I get fries. Best case, I make a new friend who doesn’t call me Pom-Pom.
I stepped into the parking lot and immediately spotted someone sitting alone at one of the faded red picnic tables near the curb. Legs pulled tight to her chest, red employee hat crumpled at her feet, back hunched like she was trying to fold herself into invisibility.
I hesitated for a second, then walked over, slow enough not to startle her.
“Hey,” I said gently. “You okay?”
She jumped a little, then sniffled and wiped at her face quickly with her sleeve. Without a word, she popped a pill from a bottle in her hand and shoved it back into a worn-out canvas bag like she didn’t want anyone to see.
“I’m fine,” she said too fast, her voice tight, fragile. “Totally fine. Just—y’know. Break time.”
She grabbed her hat off the pavement and smoothed it out like that would erase everything I just saw.
I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t push it either.
“Okay…” I said, softer now. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Just… can I ask you something?”
She looked up, eyes rimmed pink but focused. After a beat, she nodded.
“Zooble told me to come here. Said to ask for someone named Gwen. Do you…?”
Her face changed in an instant. That tight, brittle mask cracked just a little—enough to show wear and guilt underneath.
“Yeah,” she said quietly, blowing out a shaky breath. “Yeah, I’m Gwen.”
She paused, then ran a hand through her bangs. “Just… just took my prescriptions, that’s all. Not anything shady, I swear. I’ve got—uh… bipolar.” Her voice dropped even lower. “Unmedicated is a nightmare. I just—I suck at lying. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I always do anyway.”
I sat down at the table across from her—slow, deliberate. Not trying to fix anything. Just… trying to be there.
Gwen pulled her knees back up, resting her chin on them. She looked like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. Like if she could just fold in small enough, her feelings wouldn’t catch up to her.
“Some days I feel amazing,” she said, voice so quiet I almost missed it. “Like I could dance in public, start a side hustle, write poetry at 3AM, and finally block my ex. And then…”
She swallowed, glancing off toward the street like it might swallow her whole if she looked long enough.
“Then there’s days like today. I cry in the mop closet. I forget my meds. Or worse, I remember them and still feel like I’m underwater. And I try so hard to be the version of me people like, but it just… falls apart. No matter how careful I am.”
I nodded, and something in my chest tightened. Because yeah, it wasn’t the exact same, but the flavor of it? The anxiety, the exhaustion of trying to stay on the rails?
I’d tasted that too.
“Life doesn’t come with instructions,” I said gently. “Just increasingly specific coping mechanisms and an embarrassing number of online self-help quizzes.”
She let out a soft laugh—wet, tired, but real. “Yeah. Mine is fries. And aggressive playlists. Want some fries?”
“Honestly? You had me at aggressive playlists.”
She wiped her nose on her sleeve, exhaled, then looked at me again—really looked this time.
“I’m actually the general manager,” she said with a half-laugh. “This greasy little castle is mine. But we’re short-staffed, and I kind of fill in wherever I’m needed. Fryer, register, pretending to know how to fix the soda machine…”
She trailed off, like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted me to be impressed or pity her.
I smiled anyway and reached out to gently tap her shoulder. Not a pat, not a fix-it gesture. Just… a moment of contact.
“Zooble told me to talk to you,” I said, pulling up my sleeve a bit. “Thought we’d bond over anime.”
I peeled the wrap back a little, just enough to show the delicate wisteria blossom inked into my skin.
Gwen blinked at it. Her eyes lit up for the first time since I’d met her.
“Wait—is that from Demon Slayer? ”
I nodded. “It’s based on the flower path they use to ward off demons.”
She made a small, surprised noise in her throat. “Okay, that’s badass. Zooble never told me you were cool.”
“They didn’t tell me anything, just ‘find Gwen and talk anime.’”
Gwen laughed— actually laughed this time. She wiped her eyes again and gave me a tired smile.
“Okay. That sounds like them. They have the emotional range of a sea cucumber but somehow know exactly who I need to meet.”
A silence fell between us, but it was a gentler one now. The kind that didn’t feel forced or awkward. Just… earned.
After a moment, Gwen pushed herself to her feet, brushing the dust off her apron.
“I gotta head back in,” she said. “Fries don’t fry themselves. But—uh. Thanks. For talking to me.”
“Anytime,” I said, and I meant it.
She hesitated, then reached into her apron and pulled out a receipt slip. She scribbled something on the back and handed it to me.
“Here. My number. In case you ever need fries. Or… someone to talk to. Especially if the talking involves Jujutsu Kaisen headcanons.”
I grinned. “I have so many.”