Homra's Stray

"Here."

He wasn't going to dump it on her but it would be convenient if she would hold it for a moment. Eric waited until she accepted the bird all the while reminding her to be careful. As soon as the bird was safely taken into her hands, Eric made a flicking motion with his finger for her to follow him and he led her into the Petite Menagerie store. 

"Wait."

He left her by the door and quickly disappeared into the back to pull on his work shirt, a regular polo shirt with is name tag attached to the front breast pocket. He hurried out to meet with the girl and struggled to remember something. He wasn't sure what it was yet. The blonde once more motioned for her to follow him and he stopped abruptly in the bird section and pulled out a bird cage.

And she’d saved a poor, unpaid for bag of chips in the process. 

If she’d made somebody who didn’t deserve to be sad sad just because of a comment made carelessly, she wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. 

"Yeah, you just started at the pet shop so I’m not surprised you don’t know me yet," she answered with a chuckle. She’d been allowed a quick break from work to focus on college applications and that was around the time he’d been taken in.

"I eat meat skewers at this cool stall nearby! They’re the absolute best! Really good and hearty, and they don’t skimp on the servings either,” she stopped herself before she could scare him away with the meat enthusiasm.

"I’m Chie, by the way. C’mon, let’s go pay for these things first!"  

"Oh. The Pet Shop." 

He'd almost forgotten about that place though it was more so from having a bad case of nerves. Eric didn't do well around strangers so the entire time his first day he'd kept his eyes strained to the floor and repeatedly ran into everything. He did enjoy playing with the animal's there. 

"OK.... Chie."

There was a slight pause as he repeated her name out loud.

"Eric."

Maybe she'd already gotten his name if she worked at the same pet shop but he repeated it all the same. The blonde nodded his head in agreement and moved slowly down the aisle leaving the mess he'd created behind and headed for the nearest line. The way she spoke about the meat skewers with such enthusiasm elicited a low rumble from his stomach to which he attempted soothing by rubbing tenderly at.  

At the first open lane they approached, Eric eagerly jumped at and dropped his bag of chips onto the belt to be whisked away to the cashier. He quickly handed over the cash that he had folded in his pockets and slipped the change back inside and waited for Chie to pay for hers with a betrayed look of excitement.

"How many can I get?"

That made him absolutely pissed. However, he decided to let it fly for now. He’d find the guy later and reprimand him for it. For now, he was probably going to get a scolding, probably would have to pay a hefty fine for damages, and fix the entire display, something that would take a while.

After going through all of the technical things, Yukine was now off to find the boy. Judging by the time frame and the lines in the supermarket today, unless the person had shoplifted, he would still be in the check out line. 

"…..Huh? He just….. disappeared….."

 Whatever the reason the lines were moving at a turtle's pace. He opened the bag of chips and began eating until his eyes spied the blonde from before.

"Ah."

When she looked over her shoulder at Eric, he was…sulking? Did she say anything wrong…? Oh. The way she worded her excuse must have set him off. She did have a tendency to run her mouth off at times, saying things without meaning it, and the telltale pang of guilt meant she had to say something to right it.

'Oh.' He thought, wondering if she had picked up on it. His shoulders squared and he stood by, nodding at her offer. He no longer looked sulky but there really wasn't much change to his expression other than a sort of spacey look as he regarded her silently.

"Meat skewers..."

There was a little more light in his eyes now. Meat skewers sounded really good. The thought made him almost drool as he reflected on her words.

"Huh? Help people..?"

She was about to suggest putting these back was the right thing to do when a voice interrupted her and before she knew what was happening, Eric had scurried to stand behind her, totally not looking suspicious at all or anything. “Huh? Wha-”  

She blinked, assessing the situation for a second before finally catching up.

"Oh…oh. Y-yeah!” she addressed the bewildered employee, shaking a  hand holding a popsicle nonchalantly. “Some kid probably bumped into it, or something! You know how kids are these days, always running into things and getting into trouble! Not very useful members of society if you ask me!”

"Uh, thanks a ton!" She had recovered from her initial dumbness and was back to her sunny self, beaming at the other. Mostly it was because she now had two of her favorite snacks safe in her arms. 

"No.. It's fine."

Eric had no intentions whatsoever to clean up the mess. He knelt down to snatch up a bag for himself after carefully considering which of those that lay there were top shelf only, how he was deducing this was a mystery. The blonde chanced a peek at her from under his hood.

"What happened here?"

A voice from behind him startled him into spinning around to stare right at one of the uniformed employees of the supermarket. As they assessed the situation, the staff's eyes fell upon the two and Eric shuffled backwards to stand behind Chie.

". . . It was like this when I got here."

The martial artist had been walking through the chip aisle, looking perfectly content with a popsicle in one hand and on the hunt for a specific variety of chips when a blond guy knocked down a bunch of bags in his valiant effort to reach for one that was obviously out of his range. Chie, being the epitome of  finesse, stopped in her tracks and stared. Realizing he was talking to her with a somewhat intimidating look,  she jolted.

". . . Oh."

Perhaps he'd been a little too quick to judge and throw icy stares at. Without looking at her, Eric picked up the bag of spicy hot cheeto's that he assumed was one of the ones belonging to the higher shelves and after getting to his feet, he held it out for her.

"Here."

And when he saw the shelf start to give in, he screamed “Look out!” but to no avail. The man was buried in a heap of bags. Once the person managed to rummage his way out of the pile, he gave a cold stare in Yukine’s direction.

". . ."

He picks himself from off the ground and dusts off his green hoodie without sparing so much as a glance towards the other person's direction.

"You tell me. You're the one staring."

As he says this he moves past the boy just as someone on staff rushes in to assess the situation and throwing quizzical glances from one blonde to the next. Nonchalantly, Eric shrugs and points his thumb at Yukine.