Take the order. Make the drink. Call it out. Rinse and repeat. Clean in between. Work always held a certain rhythm, and often it followed something along those lines. Some days the lines would get so wild one would think a coffee shortage were impending on the world. Other days, business remained so slow that the world seemed dead. This particular shift landed somewhere in the middle, a steady stream of customers running in and out. At the very least, Vanitas found relief in the fact he landed a closing shift this time. The morning rush tended to take a larger toll on him, as people seemed far less frustrating during evenings. Students who came in for studying generally stayed quiet enough, and most showed much more respect than the middle-aged assholes whose self-entitlement pissed him off to no end.

Some shifts passed slower than others. Some faster. This one fell in the latter group, and already a few hours had gone by. Thank fuck. He needed to get home and continue his current painting, plus Xion had mentioned planning to come over. He'd debated going out to avoid her visit, but he had nowhere else to be. And she knew that. Once she decided on something, there was really no getting out of it. She could be way more persistent than she looked. He wasn't particularly looking forward to whatever lecture she had in store for him, but at worst he'd just have to pretend to listen.

As another stream of people came in, he turned his attention from cleaning back to the register. After this crowd, he'd take his break, then just a few hours until closing.

           There she was talking to him, again. There hadn’t been another him to captivate her since the last him, and she felt it in her chest the fluttering sensation of her heart. She was leaning up against a prop chair while he sat on the linoleum floor of the set. They were in a typical kitchen that had blood smeared along the floor nearby Axel. They just finished the shot with Roxas Knight playing as the West Coast Killer slaughtering his next beauty. Kairi worked up to an hour making sure the beauty was bloodied and scuffed up enough that would be praised as making the film seem raw and real.

           She pushed a piece of hair behind her ear as Axel talked about his band, and an unknowing grin began to form on her face. “Your band?” She finally pulled the chair out to sit on. “That’s no surprise to me, really. I mean, look at you.” She ended up laughing and she raised her right arm to grab one of her hair bands to pull up her hair into a high pony. “That’s so stereotypical of you with that colored hair, Axel.” Her voice drooled with sarcasm as she worked with the hair that was nearly the same color as Axel’s. It seemed to be a bit brighter, and she wondered how. There was no way it could be natural, but she didn’t want to ask him the same question she got repeatedly.

            “You’re going to make sure I get in to your next show, right?” She dropped both her hands into her lap. They were still caked in fake blood and red powder used for the special effects. It would’ve been a bizarre scene if it wasn’t on set. It would’ve looked like Kairi had torn the beauty in two and was having a friendly little chat. “I mean, I better not have to flash anything to get in.” She continued to laugh. Axel seemed to be having a good time with her, and she hoped she wasn’t imagining things. “We should go grab a drink after this. I think it’s going to be an early wrap day. I know you gotta work with Roxas later, but there’s a bar nearby I like to crash at with my sister.” She then pulled a pen out of her pocket and reached out to snag Axel’s hand. She stretched his arm out so she could scribble her phone number on his wrist.

           She was so dazzled. She might’ve eavesdropped for a moment and understood that he was dragged here almost unwillingly by Roxas Knight. They seemed to bicker a lot, and she always wondered if it was the vodka on Roxas’ beath that stirred something, or if it was something in the past. Regardless, she wanted to take the risk to get to know him. He was someone worth knowing, and she wanted to know him. She wanted to know him in many ways. 

           “Just in case.”

oh