Chapter Text
Chikara practically falls through his front door, dropping everything on his person without any regard to his belongings or his feet, which proved to be a fatal mistake when he drops one of the heavier grocery bags directly on his toes.
“Fucking-” He grabs at it, holding it tightly like that'll actually fix anything. He leans back against the wall, hitting his head against it over and over to keep himself from bursting into tears.
Across the hall, his jacket pocket starts vibrating. Scrambling over, Chikara grabs his phone just in time to see the call from Kinoshita Hisashi fade out of existence. Almost immediately he gets a message from the group chat.
KinoSHITa: hey u alive?
EnnoSHITa: unfortunately
EnnoSHITa: have you ever wanted to disappear?
Posh Spice: what
AkaASSHI: was that a fucking fall out boy lyric?
EnnoSHITa: so what if it was?
AkaASShi: the hell do you mean, so what?
Posh Spice: why is everyone asking questions?
KinoSHITa: u just asked one babe
Posh Spice: damnit
AkaASShi: guys, we need to focus on Ennoshita’s midlife crisis
EnnoSHITa: piss off
KinoSHITa: yeah boobear, tell us what's wrong
Posh Spice: y o u c a n t r u s t u s
EnnoSHITa: trusting you guys was the worst decision I've ever made
AkaASShi: fucking rude
EnnoSHITa: look I've just had a shit day is all
KinoSHITa: kare 2 shar?
EnnoSHITa: not if you type it like that I don't
AkaASShi: but seriously, what's wrong? You texted fall out boy lyrics.
Posh Spice: I'm starting to get worried
EnnoSHITa: Kazu don't worry
Posh Spice: tOO LATE
EnnoSHITa: guys seriously I'm fine
AkaASShi: Chikara.
EnnoSHITa: Shit.
KinoSHITa: See here, my friend. Either Akaasshi will kill you or I will kill you and one of us is closer to you than the other
KinoSHITa: remember that
AkaASShi: So talk.
In reality, Chikara is just sitting in his entrance, clutching his phone and trying ignore the fact his shoe has gotten uncomfortably tight around his throbbing foot.
In his head, however, he's in a dark hole of self pity, and he would like to stay there for at least a little bit longer, but two of his best friends are standing at the mouth of the hole with guns.
“Come out of the hole, Ennoshita. They say. “We have guns.”
He glances at his phone's clock and marvels at how late it's gotten.
He only has one option here.
EnnoSHITa: so everything was normal right? My day was normal, and coffee was normal
EnnoSHITa: and then he walked in
Earlier that same morning
Ennoshita Chikara is just a film student trying to pass his classes without passing out in the middle of the street and getting run over by a semi-truck that will then blow up leaving nothing behind of even his clothes for his family to bury. And he might have had to critique and dissect a Michael Bay film just before setting up shop in his favourite cafe but that's besides the point.
What is the point, is that he has a final project for his film theory class due in two weeks and if he doesn't start it right now, he may have to choose which limb he likes best.
It's not his fault his professor is an old misogynist who constantly belittles the female students in his class and recently went on the most homophobic rant to end all homophobic rants. Who would want to do work for a person like that? It doesn't help that the man’s projects barely make sense.
Make a short film that visually and auditorily shows the emotion of your choosing .
What kind of open ended bullshit is that? Okay, maybe he's just upset that his skill set is polar opposite to what this project is asking, and if there's one thing Ennoshita Chikara does not enjoy it's being pushed out of his comfort zone.
“Maybe I could do anger?” He writes it down on his laptop, ready to brainstorm the many ways he could show anger on screen when- “No, that's way to obvious, plus I'm rarely ever angry enough to properly put it on film.”
He deletes everything he just wrote off his document, and mentally crosses all forms of anger off the list.
Chikara repeats this process for a while, going through every base emotion he could think off until he was left with two, love and happiness.
“Ah!” He pushes away from the table, his head hurts and if he doesn't eat something he's going not going to able to do more than stare at his laptop in frustration and make weird grumbling noises.
'Maybe I should try frustration and all I do is record myself trying to do this damn project.’ He laughs at his own terrible joke, going to the counter and getting himself a sandwich and maybe a coffee or ten. Standing now, he tries to appreciate the atmosphere of this place. It’s almost unbearably cute, but in a cozy, homely sort of way. The lights are warm yellow and every color is some kind of warm brown or rich gold, with the walls being a pale blue. It would be a great location if he wanted to showcase home, but home isn’t a goddamn emotion according to professor ShitBag.
The cashier at the till stands a stark contrast to literally everything around him. The bright and welcoming colors lay a backdrop to what has to be the most calculated cool he’s ever seen a person wear. He has blonde had stuffed under a beanie, headphones hanging around his neck, and- was that black nail polish. Black nail polish. Chikara can’t judge, it looks good on him.
“Hello, Welcome to Crow's Roast, how may I help you?” The cashier rattles off in monotone, looking and sounding like he's reading off a script even though there's nothing in front of his face other than Chikara.
“Um, a turkey sandwich, and a small coffee, please.”
“Would you like anything in it?”
“No, I'm fine.”
The cashier reaches for a cup, grabbing a sharpie to write down his name even though Chikara is literally one of three people in the store.
“Ennoshita-san, right?” Chikara starts, snapping his gaze away from the TV screen with the menu’s changing animations. .
“Yes, but how did you know my name?” He is almost certain he's never seen this guy before. He thinks he'd remember someone with eyes that gold and dead.
“Kenma-san told me you'd be coming by before he clocked out. Told me to look out for a sleepy looking guy grumbling at his laptop.”
“Wow I need new friends.”
He scratches the nape of his neck and lets loose his best carefree grin, though he feels like it comes out as more of a grimace. “Yeah, yeah that's me,uh-.” He glances at the cashier’s name tag.
Tsukishima.
“Tsukishima-san”
Tsukishima couldn't look less bored. “Well, okay. Do you want your sandwich heated or shaken?”
Did he hear that right? “Heated or what?”
Tsukishima rolls his eyes and asked again. “Heated or shaken?”
What the actual fuck .
There's a voice in Chikara’s head, the part of himself that he never listens too because last time he did he ended up without clean underwear for a month and having to explain to his landlord how he manages to overflow his washing machine twice in one week.
The little devil voice tells him to say shaken. Urges him to find out exactly what that means and why it's even an option.
“Do it Chikara. You know it's going to keep you up at night wondering what the shaken option is. The sandwich was only five bucks. Come on, you can blow five bucks.” The voice pffts and waves its arm in front of it’s face, because voices have arms and look vaguely Kenma’s boyfriend.
“I can blow five bucks.”
Tsukishima levels him with a deadpan stare that makes Chikara feel guilty of crimes he is sure he didn’t commit. “What?”
“Oh, sorry about that. Shaken, please.”
‘I’m going to regret this.’
Tsukishima reaches under the counter, brings up a plastic container, inside which sits a perfect turkey sandwich. He then turns around and dumps it into a weird sphere, which he then turns on and stares at the wall as it makes the most horrifying noise Chikara has ever heard in his life. It’s like all the voices of the damned screaming out for salvation from the depths of hell.
“Your total is 8.90.”
Three minutes later, Chikara is sitting down at his favourite table, a deep brown one right next to the window, coffee with added sugar on his left, and a blurred plastic container holding- something, on his right.
The bell to the front door rings, and he turns to sees a girl go up to the counter, looking down at her phone impassively, and she says, “Hi, yes, I'd like to order a Shook Sandwich; extra heated, and hold the 100 emoji.” She thinks, “Oh! And one milk shake.” Tsukishima nods, rings her up, and gets to work immediately.
'Why do I come here?’
KinoSHITa: when do we get to Mr. Mysterious. I bet he was hot. He was hot wasn’t he?
EnnoSHITa: this is my story and you can shut up while I tell it
Posh Spice: Someone’s got their gay panties in a twist
Back at it again in the Cafe
Fast forward a couple hours, and Chikara is still in the same place, both physically and mentally.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” He's about this close to just smashing this laptop and then hitting his head against a wall until he either comes up with something or dies when a strong hand touches his shoulder.
From above him comes a rough voice, and the only thing Chikara can think about it is Nice. “You doing okay? You’ve been here talking at your laptop for a couple hours and I got a little worried.”
Chikara looks up, and realizes that not only does the sound match the drapes, he couldn’t create a better match if he worked at it until he died. Standing next to his chair is a delinquent looking guy with a barely there undercut, toothpick in mouth and wearing the whole ensemble. Ripped jeans, leather jacket, criminally tight white shirt. On the jacket looked like there was some kind of symbol, weather a family crest or something else Chikara couldn’t tell. Suddenly a thought occurs to him.
'Oh my god, what if this guy’s yakuza?’
Chikara tries his best not to, but he can’t help but go into panic mode. It's been at least a full minute since this guy asked him that question, his hand’s still on his shoulder, and if he really is in some kind of gang or yakuza, Chikara could be tied up in some van and dropped into a ditch to starve to death before he could even say pancakes.
Posh Spice: you were really morbid today
EnnoSHITa: just let me finish the story Kazu
Posh Spice: kk
Back at the cafe, a g a i n
“Hey man, seriously, are you okay? Do you want me to get you another one of those.” Handsome guy points at Chikara’s half drunk cup of coffee that’s probably gone cold by now. He also doesn’t know when possibly yakuza member became Handsome Guy but he’s trying not to be upset about it and he’s failing.
Somewhere down the line, Handsome Guy removed his hand from Chikara’s shoulder and put it in his pocket, probably to fight the mountain of awkward Chikara is building between them in this weird little exchange. He hates that he misses the warmth of it.
'You can’t catch me gay thoughts.’
But they do. Because Handsome guy starts leaning over to take Chikara’s coffee cup, he smells really, really good, and Chikara’s internal (eternal) gay meter is beeping so much it might as well be his heartbeat, which is already trying to go fast enough to win the Kentucky Derby.
“I’ll just take that for you.” says Handsome Guy, and just like every ounce of Chikara’s sense comes rushing.
“No!” Chikara grabs the cup before Handsome guy, who leans back, giving Chikara room to stand up for the first time in hours and feel every muscle in his body protest. He doesn’t care, however. The awkward tension is too strong and he is going to soldier on until he makes it out the other side of this one sided conversation with at least most of his limbs.
“No really, sir, I’ve got it. I was just going anyway.” Handsome guy doesn’t look convinced.
“Are you sure?”
Chikara hopes his smile doesn’t look like a grimace this time. “I’m sure.”
He decides it would be a great idea to walk passed Handsome guy so he can throw out his bean water and go home to hide under a rock and die.
It feels like it happened in slow motion. One second he had his footing, and the next he was tripping over goddamn nothing, and Handsome Guy had coffee all over his shirt, making it stained brown and just the tiniest bit see through.
Chikara’s eye’s widened.
'God I should not be enjoying this but fuck he's ripped. He has so much muscle. He has all of it. This is unfair, I'm a good person I've done nothing to deserve this oh shit is that a tattoo?!’
“Oh my god I am so sorry.” Handsome guy looks reasonably shocked considering he was just coffee assaulted, but he’s already trying to grin it off like it wasn't coffee assault. “Dude, it’s fine-” Chikara shakes his head, caught so far between mortification, attraction, and just the tiniest bit of fear he doesn't know where to begin.
“It’s really not- I’m just, Oh god I’m so sorry, please don’t kill me.” Handsome guy stops patting his shirt with tissues to almost glare at Chikara. “What?”
‘I’m an idiot.’
AkaASShi: you’re an idiot.
EnnoSHITa: I KNOW
For tHE LAST TIME
“I just meant, oh god I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry about this.” He grabs his wallet, takes out 500 yen and shoves it into Handsome guy’s conveniently open palm. “Please take this. I’m so sorry.”
Then he grabs his bag, his laptop, his turkey monstrosity, and he runs out of the cafe.
EnnoSHITa: so that was my day
AkaASShi: you spilled coffee on the guy, gave him five dollars then ran?
EnnoSHITa: …
EnnoSHITa: yes…
KinoSHITa: a modern day cinderella story
Posh Spice: if cinderella was a guy in his twenties with a spectacular incapability at flirting
EnnoSHITa: fuck both of you
Posh Spice: we love you 2
AkaASShi: Chikara, you are going to find this guy and you're going to apologize.
EnnoSHITa: better idea, how about I don't do that
He can almost feel Akaashi staring at him.
EnnoSHITa: No, I’m not doing it.
AkaASShi: Fine, live with the guilt. I won’t stop you.
Chikara puts his phone in his pocket, moving to get up when a realization hits him like a bus. He immediately pulls his phone back out.
EnnoSHITa: guys
AkaASShi: What?
Posh Spice: what
KinoSHITa: wat
EnnoSHITa: I left my jacket in the cafe.