Work Text:
Ferdinand von Aegir was not walking into a Jollibee on a fine Friday afternoon, thank you very much. In fact, he was gliding. Gliding like a swan atop the freshly polished tiles in this fine establishment. His loafers skimmed over the tiles that alternated between cream and light pink, a truly subtle color combination that brought out the nectarine orange benches with their matching tables and, of course, the bright ginger tresses of his own hair.
How wonderful! What a comforting, lightly greasy scent that permeated the restaurant. The perfume of his childhood, the cologne of nostalgia.
Ferdinand von Aegir was the young, handsome heir to the von Aegir’s premier shampoo brand, Sunmilk. So, it was obvious from the start, was it not, that he’d grow up to have such noble tastes?
It was his personal tradition to treat himself to a light snack on Friday afternoons, right between lunch and dinner. This time, it was no different as he glided in, ready for a scrumptious meal.
“Yes, sir, may I take your order?” the woman at the register asked. She smiled a soft smile at him, and he was glad to spot a familiar face. Her nametag read “Mercedes.” Like the car.
He had one of those. Perhaps he could procure a second model…?
“Ah! I shall partake of a most splendid feast! A two-piece Chickenjoy—with double rice, of course—a Coke, and, to crown this masterpiece, a peach mango pie!”
The woman giggled. “My, my! You certainly do have quite an appetite. But you have made wonderful choices, sir.”
“Naturally.”
She hummed a jolly tune as she entered the order in then glanced up at him when she was finished. “And who might this order be for?”
Ferdinand puffed out his chest. “Ferdinand von Aegir.”
“Perfect. You can pick up your order right over there,” she said as she gestured to the bend in the long counter with a red sign with the words “PICK UP” hanging above it.
He paid for his order and, like any good, upstanding citizen, stood out of the way near the pick up counter as he awaited his food.
It just so happened that as soon as he began the arduous task of waiting for his meal as it was being meticulously prepared (because a Jollibee meal was always made with the utmost love and joy, as the most noble food in the world ought to be), the bee himself appeared. The Jollibee.
An elderly person nearly slipped on a puddle of pineapple juice that had yet to be mopped up.
A small child screamed.
It was with mounting horror that Ferdinand finally noticed the very large, pink, sparkly, Hello Kitty banner plastered on the far back wall of the restaurant where there was the most space. Hello Kitty and her Sanrio friends decorated the banner, all posed in various states of awe and delight, and every single one of them wore a pointed party hat. Dead center in big, bubbly letters, the banner read: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRETTY GIRL!”
It was a child’s birthday celebration today. Right at this moment.
Unfortunately for Ferdinand, he wasn’t sure if “pretty girl” was a description or if Pretty Girl was a name.
And, even more unfortunately for him, he had not planned on a midday snack and a show.
Jollibee himself was a giant red-and-yellow bee with a grin on his face that reminded Ferdinand of the impossible, unstoppable giddiness of someone who had never experienced a bad day in their life. Dressed in a shiny red blazer, cartoonish white gloves, oversized shoes, and a tall chef’s hat, the person parading around as Jollibee, the perpetually happy mascot, looked less like an insect and more like the chef-turned-mayor of perfectly breaded fried chicken. His very aura exuded confidence that guaranteed that every bite was delicious and that there would indeed be sausages in the sweet spaghetti (or else).
A woman with short light hair and a substantial…chest in an unbuttoned bright red employee polo danced into the room along with her sour-faced, green-haired colleague. They both wore red baseball caps with Jollibee’s face on them. Jollibee swaggered in between them, looking quite pleased with himself.
“Oh my, everyone, please give a warm welcome to Jollibee!” the woman exclaimed, holding a microphone to her lips. “I’m Manuela, and this is Seteth. We’ll be lending Jollibee a hand today, so try not to work us too hard, hm?”
“Must I truly be subjected to this?” Seteth grumbled.
Manuela covered the microphone with her hand and hissed, “Oh, honestly, don’t give me that look. You’re the manager.”
Ferdinand was sure no one was supposed to hear their whispered conversation, but he heard them very clearly.
Manuela uncovered the microphone and opened her arms. “Aaaaand without further ado, happy birthday, Pretty Girl!”
Ah, so Pretty Girl was a name.
“Turn the music on, Mr. DJ!”
Seteth deflated. “Ah. Yes…music. I had nearly forgotten that deafening noise was considered essential to celebrations.”
Completely and utterly ignoring the manager’s rumblings, Jollibee took an enthusiastic step forward. “Worth It” by Fifth Harmony started blasting through the restaurant’s speakers.
Jollibee began his dance routine with his back to the audience—the audience being mostly a whole horde of children and their parents. He assumed that somewhere in the throng there existed a child called Pretty Girl. Then, like an uncle who had three espresso shots and an indeterminate number of beers at his godchild’s wedding, his whole body started sexily swaying side-to-side, arms rubbing along his chest and legs as delicately as if they were teasing the lace of lingerie.
The bee turned his head, touching the back of his head as if he had Sunmilk-washed locks as silky as Ferdinand’s, and lasciviously lowered his eyelids.
Jollibee turned around with such skill and gusto that the children screeched. He felt his plushy body with more sex appeal than any idol.
He shook his bee-hind. Shimmying forward, shaking out his well-clad chest, and ending on a series of flourished twerks.
Such skill, such beauty, such—
“Order for Ferdinand von Aegir!”
Ferdinand swiveled around. “I am Ferdinand von Aegir!”
He quickly took the tray where his meal was set and somehow, some way, discovered a tiny sticky alcove at a table in the center of the birthday crowd where he sat right beside a boy kicking his slippers off his feet while sticking an entire dirty finger up his nose.
“How does Jollibee control his eyelids?” whispered a little girl wearing a hot pink Hello Kitty dress to the snot-picker boy.
“Eh? Jollibee’s body is just like that! He blinks like we do!”
“But there’s a person in there, right?”
“Jollibee is real!”
With a sigh, Ferdinand finally took his first bite of Chickenjoy. What a spiritual experience it was. The sublime crunch, the tender flesh juicy with flavor—
“Is not!” yelled the Hello Kitty girl.
“Is to!” shot back the boy.
He drizzled on some gravy and took another bite. Oh, how gorgeous the taste was!
The bee arrived at their table, ducking with a sultry dance move to look Ferdinand in the eye as he scooped a spoonful of rice into his mouth.
“Is not!”
“Is TO!”
At that moment, three things happened at once:
- The booger-picking, truth-denying, filthy-fingered boy stuck out his leg.
- Jollibee tripped over said leg.
- In a desperate motion that would prove to be Ferdinand’s undoing, Jollibee latched onto the side of their table, fat, cartoonish fingers grabbing onto Ferdinand’s tray, all in a final attempt to save himself.
You’d have to trust him when Ferdinand said that he had never screamed so loudly in his life.
His precious tray of food went flying. His entire order. His Chickenjoy, his double rice, his Coke, and even his peach mango pie. It all went splat onto the floor.
And amongst this monstrosity of an event, Jollibee’s head also flew right off the head of the poor human wearing it.
“See!” yelled the Hello Kitty girl. “I told you he wasn’t real.”
The boy started wailing.
“Boy!” cried a parent. “Boy, ay, get ahold of yourself.”
Ferdinand wasn’t sure if “boy” was a description or if Boy was a name. He was too busy crying himself.
The man in the ruined illusion of a Jollibee suit stood up, revealing a long-haired man with light brown hair and a ponytail who looked much like Mercedes. He sighed.
“Hush…child,” the man said in a deep voice with a strange, drawn-out intonation. “Do not weep. If anyone here should be crying…It is I.”
Ferdinand bent over to pick at the remnants of his meal, brushing back tears in the process. He scraped chicken skin from the Jollibee man’s shoe.
“Customer…I offer my apologies for your loss.”
Ferdinand let out a sob. If only his noble family could see him now…crawling on his hands and knees for want of fried chicken.
“What am I to do, I ask you, without my Chickenjoy?!” he lamented. He stared into the huge, rounded, expressive eyes of the fallen Jollibee head, then at the man behind it all who hovered over him. “This is no trivial matter of hunger—it is a matter of sustenance, of dignity. Of Ferdinand von Aegir. A man cannot simply function at the peak of excellence without the proper fuel for his boundless ambition! And yet…here I am, bereft of my Chickenjoy.” He looked back at the fallen head, despondent.
A pair of perfectly white sneakers cut into his line of sight, blocking the Jollibee head from view.
“I am terribly sorry, sir!” Mercedes’s familiar voice said. “I will make this right, right away. I’ll bring you a fresh new order to replace it, and I’ll even make sure you get unlimited rice refills, okay?”
Ferdinand sat back on his haunches, the silk of his expensive three-piece suit like water on his clammy skin. He hiccupped. “Unlimited rice, you say?” He nodded, watching as Mercedes bent over to pick up the Jollibee head. “Very well, I shall accept this arrangement.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” Mercedes replied, smiling. Then, she looked over the Jollibee head she now cradled in her hands, and back to the man who was once behind its face. In an instant, her expression changed from satisfied to shocked. “Oh my…Emile? So, it was you under that mask the whole time? I had been so confused…I kept wondering what Mother meant when she said you had taken on a part-time job.”
Ferdinand stood up, trying to ignore the children now fighting behind him and their parents yelling colorful profanities. He brushed himself off.
The so-called Emile leaned forward, pouting. It was all Ferdinand could do not to run from this conversation. In fact, he did not leave his table as a matter of principle alone. At least that’s what he told himself as he sat back down. A noble man did not give up his place to frivolity and ridiculousness.
“Mercedes, my sister…It seems you have uncovered my secret at last,” Emile replied, a petulant frown on his face. “However, I must ask you to call me Jeritza in public. I am…incognito. I must be one with the bee.”
Mercedes chuckled. “How silly.”
Ferdinand cleared his throat.
Mercedes perked up. “Of course, your order! I will get that right away!”
He watched her skip away, and Ferdinand sighed in relief.
“Manuela, I must ask you to do us all a favor and turn off this infernal music at once!” the manager shouted.
He hadn’t even realized that “Worth It” was still playing.
The bass switched off, and somebody yelled about not having enough rice. He was served a new tray of food. Emile-Jeritza donned his Jollibee mask once more. Pink and white party balloons popped.
“Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira started playing, and Jollibee gave a grandmother a lap dance while Manuela acted as a backup dancer.
All was well.
And dare he say, worth it.