purple berries

You make a beeline for the staff entrance by the bathroom and it absolutely reeks of things you’d rather not think about in the moment. No doubt you would be the one dealing with the clean up later when the rush dies down.

You greet your coworkers with a brief ‘hello’ before walking up the narrow steps to the second floor where the changing rooms are located. You walk in and try to pick the cleanest locker you can find, all of them dirty from years of use and what looked like spilled, dried up soda. You set your bag down before beginning the change into the iconic WcDonald’s uniform, black slacks accompanied by a black button up and a belt with a big rusty golden W on the front. You style your hair into a braided ponytail, put on your name tag and your work mandated black shoes.

It’s 6:57 pm, you start in three minutes. You take the time to fiddle with your bangs to make sure you don’t look like a complete egg head. You nod st your reflection in satisfaction and begin the descent down the stairs and wait by the iPad where you check in. The bright white numbers turn from 6:59 to 7:00 and you punch in your employee id before pressing the check in button. This is gonna be a long day.

—

Beep beep.

You almost let out a yelp and clutch your headset, two beeps indicated that someone had driven up to the speakers on lane 2. You groan and rub your eyes before letting out a long yawn. You almost dozed off while wiping down the metallic surfaces of the beverage station, and it would not have been a good look if your coworker had found you in that state. You press down the front button on your headset before heading to the order register to take their order.

“Hi and welcome to WcDonald’s, may I take your order?”

“Ah, hey. Lemme get a six-piece chicken nugget and a mont blanc”

You furrow your eyebrows and sigh, tapping your foot in irritation. All these customers thinking that you serve something simply because it’s popular and ‘why wouldn’t you, you’d make so much money’. It’s not like you’re the one designing the menu, you’re just the messenger. You prepare yourself to disappoint the customer and for him to drive off all angry because you didn’t have that one thing.

“We don’t serve mont blanc here, sir”

There’s a pause, you hear some shuffling and tapping noises in your headset before he drives off. You sigh to yourself before getting ready to cancel the six-piece nugget order before you hear a car pull up to your window. You glance at the window and heave an even bigger sigh before sliding the window open.

A yellow car, an odd choice of color in your opinion, and the man sitting inside adorned dark purple hair styled into a bowl cut of sorts. He’s wearing a defence force jacket which you recognise from the countless posters and news articles you see everywhere you go. He taps something on his phone before looking your way.

“Sir, I already said that we-“ He cuts you off by shoving his phone in your face and you look at him even more irritated.

“It’s apart of yer current promotional campaign, ain’t it?” He leans back into his seat and tilts his head.

You stare at his phone screen dazed, then at him, then at his screen again before you slump down. You totally forgot that a new campaign had started and you look to the side, a bit embarrassed as your face turns a slight shade of red. The bowl cut man looks at you confused before connecting the dots and doubling down laughing. He punches his knee while holding his stomach, infectious laughter coming out of him while you look away abashed.

“Ya totally forgot, didn’tcha?” He says while wiping away nonexistent tears from the corner of his eye. You slightly clench your fists in protest, you didn’t forget! You were just out of your element after dozing off for a while, not that you would tell him that though. You awkwardly cough into your fist before punching in the order into the register while he looks at you in amusement. You grab the payment terminal and adjust the arm so it would face him before muttering the price. He taps his card before driving to the next window, clearly still finding enjoyment in your slight mistake.

That would hopefully be the last you ever saw of him, because you could not take that embarrassment again.

—

Soshiro sat in the parking lot, still gleaming of delight at what had just happened. He unpacked his mont blanc before digging into it, leaving bits of cream on the corners of his mouth. It had been a rough day for him, being a proctor for the day and having seen kaijus returning to life for no apparent reason other than the strange one that Shinomiya had mentioned.