#kintsugi au

“Like Ma always says, nothin' lightens the heart quite like a good meal n' good company…”

@searchin4arealitythatdoesntexist

The CRTV outside of a cafe sees a woman with dyed blonde hair walking towards the entrance. She’s mumbling to herself, and although it’s hard to discern what she’s saying, it’s clear she’s frustrated. She is also attempting to cover her right arm. 

The camera switches to the CRTV inside the cafe. It’s a slow evening. The woman, Squig, gets in line waiting for the one person in front of her to finish ordering before her.

The camera shows another blonde lady in a worker’s uniform behind the till, getting the order for the customer at the front of the line. 

The previous customer grabs their coffee and leaves, leaving Squig to stand there awkwardly staring at the menu with zero excuse to not talk to people. With a sigh, she walks up to the register.

"Uh... Howdy. Never been here before.... What... cakes, do ya recommend? I need a pick-me-up..."

The blonde lady at the counter tilts her head. There was something familiar... Wasn't there someone online who told her about getting a cake at their workplace? 

"Well, our weekly best seller for now is the Matcha Vanilla Cakes. They've been selling well, due to the whole TikTok trend about it, I'm sure. But if you don't fancy any tea-related cakes, our Velvet Chocolate Cakes are just as swell."

The barista answers the customer, Squig, donning the usual tone needed in the workplace.

"Yeah, pal," the other blonde says, "I'm just gonna go with the cheaper of the two..."

She produces a credit card, placing it on the counter with her right hand, which is now revealed to be covered in three or four strange, bloodied markings.

The worker’s teal eyes immediately lock onto the marks on the customer's wrist, brows furrowed in concern. However, she doesn't seem to voice any words about it. It isn't her place to ask. In fact, she asks a different question.

"May I ask you a question?"

Without missing a beat, Squig responds.

"It was a goose."

As if that explains anything.

The employee blinks in surprise before giggling in response to Squig's sentence.

"I wasn't going to ask about that."

She smiles, though more genuinely this time than the usual professional facade.

"I wanted to ask if you have Tumblr. I vaguely recall talking to someone over on the platform who wanted to come over to the café to get some cake."

Squig stared at the other woman before the lightbulb behind her eyes flashed, and she flicked her own forehead.

"Fuck! I'm stupid! This cafe, it's [REDACTED], isn't it??? God damnit I JUST paid for the cake!!!"

The barista, Robin,  chuckles at the woman's response.

"It's okay. You haven't scanned the card yet. I'll pay for the cake for you. You don't have to pick the cheapest either. Which one do you really want?"

"I just... It's really..."

Squig checks behind her; no one else has entered the cafe. She turns back to the clerk, voice a little less frantic now.

"Listen. I just failed a job interview. Again. Then I decided to walk around the park to clear my head, opened up a granola bar I had saved in my bag, a goose scared me, and I dropped it, and then I physically fought the goose for my granola bar before remembering, ‘OH YEAH! It fell on the SIDEWALK.’ “And then the goose ate it, and I walked into the first cafe I found."

Her voice had raised again as she told her story, something she apparently realized as she lowered her voice again with a sigh.

"I don't... I don't think geese can even eat granola bars. Like. It's bad for them. Or something."

Squig turns to the barista again.

"So, in brief? I don't care what cake I get. I just need some comfort food."

Robin’s face slowly went from smiling to concerned for Squig as she listened to the small tale.

"Oh. That is… one shitty day. I'll just... get you the chocolate cake then. You can go sit at one of the tables. I'll bring the cake slice to you."

Robin clicks some buttons on the order terminal.

"Do you also want some bandages for the injury? We've got a few kits in the back for emergencies." 

Robin offers to Squig, waiting patiently for her answer.

"Well.."

Squig scratches the back of her neck with her left hand.

"I have a first aid kit in my bag, but I might be out of a few supplies. I'll check what I have first, then I'll ask for any extras or whatever... But also, don't go out of your way for me. I'm the one who physically fought a Canadian goose over a granola bar I couldn't even eat. I... should be the one to clean up my own mess."

Robin smiles softly.

"It's okay. I don't mind, I normally look out for everyone that I consider nice. And you've been treating me well so far, so-"

She shrugs.

"Just go and sit, yeah? Get yourself comfy."

Robin grabs her own wallet and places some money in the till.

"I..."

Squig stops herself, more so out of being tired than thinking she deserves it.

"Thank you. I'll, uh. Yeah."

The woman then proceeds to find a booth and sit, taking her backpack off and rummaging around inside before producing a small raccoon plush and her first-aid kit. She places the toy raccoon in her lap, then she begins to disinfect the goose bites.

Robin heads to the kitchen, where she takes a slice of Chocolate cake that's been refrigerated. But she pauses at the sight of her other co-worker before walking up to him. They seem to have a conversation, along with a fist bump, before grabbing the plate of cake again and heading to Squig's table. Said coworker replaces Robin at the counter.

By the time Robin brings the cake, Squig has already bandaged her wounds.

"Howdy. Uh, I had enough stuff for the goose bites. Just enough. I'm probably gonna need some more disinfectant after this... I'll just swing by a gas station or something and get it on the way home. Actually, I gotta check the bus schedule real quick..."

Her ramblings become murmurings as she opens her phone, lost in her own world again, not even sparing a glance at her cake.

Robin places the dessert on the table, the fork making a metallic noise as it clinks against the ceramic plate. She moves the chair to take a seat right across Squig. They're seated right next to the window. 

Her mouth opens to call for Squig’s attention, but pauses, instead poking at their uninjured wrist to refocus their attention.

"I can give you some disinfectant. I offered a kit earlier, didn't I?"

"EH!?"

She jolts at the touch, snapping back to reality, remembering, 'Oh yeah, there's another PERSON here. Err... Character? Is she in-character right now…?’

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry. I'd argue against it, but... It might be more favorable in my budget at the moment to take some. If... If you don't mind, I could take a bottle if you have one."

Squig pinches the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses.

"Sorry, sorry... I'm not... I forgot you're probably on the clock, or whatever. Either for the game or the cafe. Maybe both? I don't know. I was planning on stopping by tomorrow for the LARP portion of the game here, the uh, thing with the video. I haven't even had the chance to rewatch it again..."

Robin pauses. Right. Character. Mhm. She almost forgot for a second that Squig thinks she's a part of some elaborate ARG. She wonders if there's ever been an ARG on the internet presented the way Squig believes this is, before, it would make more sense why Squig thinks that. A little bit. Maybe.

"It's alright. I don't need a detailed retelling. Just something to tell me what's in the video, that's all. And, uh, I guess I'm on the clock for both, if that makes it easier for you?"

She sounds confused as she says that.

"I don't know. I'll go get the bottle. I'll be back. Enjoy the cake."

She stands up, pushes the chair back into the table, before heading to the back room.

Robin leaves before Squig can make a comment. Her mouth opens, then closes, before turning back to her phone and pulling up another tab on her browser. She takes a forkful of cake in one hand, keeps her phone in the other, and rewatches the video as she eats and awaits Robin's return.

Robin comes back with a bottle of disinfectant in hand. She reclaims her seat and offers the bottle. "Here you go."

"Oh, uh, thank you!"

Squig says, looking up from a napkin she's been writing on.

"Don't mind me, by the way. I'm transcribing the exact words from the video here. Well, I'm trying to. The actor for 25 Cents took my good pen the other day, so I'm making do with a pencil. Really should have expected I wouldn't get it back when I gave its character a quill...."

Robin hums in response, thinking.

"Well, they could just have forgotten. Or maybe they like the quill, who knows. I think it might be because the quill represents their, uh, partner? I have yet to check out their blog fully."

Robin shrugs.

Squig sighs, agreeing with Robin.

"It was probably a mistake, yeah. I'm gonna try meeting up with her again since we also accidentally swapped cameras, so I'll try to get it back then as well. And yeah, I'm on a similar boat. In between the shitty job hunt, the freelance work, and the folks on The Website encouraging me to figure out all of the nitty-gritty clues for the ARG instead of focusing on the fun lore stuff, I'm also a tad behind..."

She pauses the video, puts down the pencil, and rubs beneath her glasses again.

"Which is a shame! Y'all are such good actors... I wanna support everyone in this ARG. But no. I'm out here getting rejected by entry-level job positions and fist-fighting geese. God, I'm pathetic..."

Robin puts a hand on Squig's head.

"Don't say you're pathetic."

She replies, suddenly serious. And like she's touching a hot stove, she immediately gets her hand off, blushing.

"Sorry, don't know why I did that."

She chuckles awkwardly.

"But yeah, don't say that about yourself. The economy sucks nowadays, and employers are difficult to deal with. I'm sure you'll find a stable job one day. Took me a bit to get this one-"

She falters a little. She looks like she's thinking about something before she shakes her head.

"Yeah... took me a while. You'll get there, Squig. And you can do what you want. Sounds like the people on this, uh, Website, are pushy."

She scratches her neck. Hopefully, she didn't overdo the words there.

It takes her a moment to compute the hand that was on her head, a mental blue screen of death causing her to mentally reboot before shaking her head and snapping back to consciousness. 

"Ah. Yes. Thank you, Robin. Or, whatever your name is. Well, no, you probably can't tell me your real name..."

Squig shakes her head again.

"Sorry, sorry. I ain't used to touch. But also... Thank you. Genuinely. Things have been... hard since I moved here. I picked this town at complete random, so I have zero connections to anyone in the area, and that's made an already rough situation rougher. Not that I would have had an easier time anywhere else, if I'm gonna be honest..."

She picks up her pencil again, rewriting a misspelled word on the napkin.

"I'm used to it, though. And once I win this game and get all that money, I won't have to worry about this for... A while, at least~ I just... gotta win first."

"...Yeah."

Robin looks down at the napkin Squig's using as substitute paper. She can't convince Squig otherwise about the whole... reality of this all. Many have already tried—and failed—on Tumblr. She just hopes it doesn't hit Squig too hard once she realizes.

"We could... be friends. If you'd like. Outside of… of what you think I'm acting as. I don't know many people, and having friends would be nice."

Her voice is soft and hesitant as she speaks the words, a little nervous as she says them.

For a moment, Squig smiles. It's slight, genuine. But as soon as it comes, it goes, then returns as something a lot more sheepish.

"I'd love to, but also... I don't know. Don't ya think it'd.... Get in the way of the game or whatever? The others on The Website gave me clear instructions to... Stay away from actually bonding one-on-one with y'all too much. That and..."

She trails off, gets quiet for a moment.

(Do I really want to do this again?)

Squig cuts her brain off with another bite of cake. She swallows, then continues.

"I dunno. I'm thinking too much again~."

She shrugs. There's no game to interrupt.

"I don't think so. And, well, it's okay if you really don't want to. It's your choice, after all."

She smiles.

"Just do know the offer's out always, and up to you if you wanna follow the folks over there or not." She tilts her head.

Squig pauses, fiddles with her fork for a moment, unconsciously whispering a confession to both Robin and herself.

"I do want to know more people. Outside of... everything."

She puts the fork down, lets herself think, then asks.

"Stupid question, but... Do you play Minecraft?"

Her eyes soften at the quiet confession. She nods.

"Yeah, I do. Haven't.. exactly beaten vanilla yet, but I play it."

Squig smirks.

"Well, I mostly play modded myself, but I play vanilla from time to time~."

(I need to stop.)

"I dunno if you play on Bedrock or Java."

(I NEED to stop. I can't, I...)

"But if you're on Java, I can certainly teach ya modded stuff if you want~."

(Stop while you're ahead, just STOP.)

"Or... If you just wanna play vanilla, that's fine too~"

(It's not fine, you can't do this again.)

"I recently had to change accounts, so I'm lowkey lookin' for new servers to be on,"

(NO. You are NOT looking for new servers.)

"So if you know any or wanna start one or..."

(STOP STOP STOP, Don't you DARE do this to yourself again YOU ABSOLUTE MORON, don't you DARE-)

Squig raises a fist, which swiftly comes down on her own head, bonking herself slightly harder than she even expected. There's a pause. Then, she speaks again.

"Ah. Yeah. I'm... Rambling again. But.... If you wanna play, I can... send you my details through Tumblr DMs."

Robin looks a bit concerned at the way Squig hit herself, but she can't help but smile, bright and excited, instead of asking. Someone wants to be her friend. Outside of work. A friend.

She takes a deep breath, the smile losing some of its excitement.

(Not yet, still not sure if she'll stay.)

But still, an offer.

"That'd be great! I'll be looking forward to that. It's a little boring to play Minecraft alone, not gonna lie." She chuckles. "Anyway, uhm, how's the video going?"

Squig looks back at the napkin,

"Well... I've transcribed most of it. I, uh... Can't transcribe the ending part though since it's some text-to-speech voice talkin' in reverse. I'm not gonna lie, my video editing software subscription has run dry, so I wasn't able to play it forward yet. But other than most parts? It's here." She hands Robin the napkin. "Can you read this, or is your brain gonna reboot itself or whatever? I don't know how... Clone-robot brains work..."

She grabs the napkin, eyes scanning over the words scribbled on the soft tissue. She can already feel a headache brewing in her head. She sighs, her hand absently coming up to massage her temple. She was hoping it wouldn't trigger if it was a retelling or a transcript of the-

She looks up at Squig when the last few words she said register in her ears. Her face had gone from pained to eerily blank.

"...what did you say?"

…

"Ah. I figured. I mean... I take it you can't read this either?" Squig gives a soft smile, empathetic towards the 'character's' plight, "That's fine. We can figure out a workaround later. I kind of figured that since you're like... All sci-fi adjacent and everything, the entity in control of you would have failsafes to make sure you couldn't read this. I still haven't read that blog either, though, so... Yeah. Sorry."

She scratches her neck, "You are a strange one, though... Kinda weird to have a whole clone/robot/whatever in a cosmic horror story, but... Hey! I'm curious to see how it all plays out~."

She grabs the napkin a little tightly, shaking her head. The headache's getting worse. "I- C-could you tell me why you think I'm a clone...?" She stutters a little. She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. "Fuck." She murmurs under her breath.

"Well, the first words in the video and on the napkin are literally, 'Begin Clone Console' so I feel like that's..." Squig's sarcastic remark dies on her tongue as she looks at Robin. "Uh... Are you... Alright? Is this in or out of character right now?"

"Both?? I don't know- My head's pounding like hell.." She drops her head into her hands, taking slow, deep breaths. "I- I think saying C-" She whimpers in pain, unable to say the word fully without a shock of pain flashing through her mind. "the- the word makes it worse."

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA," Squig gets up from the booth, ushering Robin to sit down instead. "Okay, if it's BOTH, then lemme fix both in a single go. Can you breathe with me? Deep inhale, hold it, then exhale slowly? Forget the napkin, forget the video, forget the acting, just... Breathe? Please?"

She nods, a little bit desperate. She follows Squig's lead as she takes in deep breaths. In, hold, then out slowly. Soon, the headache fades into just dull throbbing, way more manageable than the stabbing pain from earlier.

"..Thanks- Thank you." She swallows, sighing softly.

"Don't thank me yet, you haven't chosen your grounding texture yet~" Squig chimes, taking out several objects from her bag. 

"We got a stress ball brain thingy, some old seashells, my raccoon plush (which I now realize was on my lap and is now on the floor), my bear sp.... Actually, no, that's my bear spray. I'm putting that back, you can't ground yourself with... Okay, well, I guess you could? But grounding yourself with bear spray would be an awful idea, I think."

She looks up from her hands, surprised at the items being offered. "Seashells, if that's okay?" She asks, her voice now a little softer.

There's a tug at Squig's heartstrings.

(I should have left them at home...)

She hesitates, just barely, but hands them to her. "I keep debating whether or not I should keep those in my grounding kits. They keep... Chipping a little in my bag."

Robin grabs them gently, fingers running over the surface to feel each groove of the shell. (Pretty.) "They're nice." She continues taking in deep breaths.

"Keep 'em," Squig says, then regrets, then forces herself not to (Stop holding onto them, it'll just make it worse...). "I have plenty at home anyway." (I need to get rid of those too...)

Robin notices Squig's slight hesitation. "...Are you sure? I… don't really need to have these, specifically. I can get my own from a store."

"Take them." Squig flinches at her own words, spoken far louder than she meant to. A moment passes. Squig clears her throat, then speaks again in a softer tone, "It just... It used to be important to me. Now it isn't. So... take them."

Robin hesitates, but nods firmly. "Okay. Yeah, okay then. I'll keep these." A part of her is a little happy. She has an item from someone she considers nice. She's going to cherish this for as long as she keeps them.

Squig smiles at the sight. (They won't be tainted anymore. For one person, at least.)

Squig glances at her phone, still on the table next to her, with mostly-eaten cake. Squig's eyes widen beneath her glasses, "Oh fuck. Is it really that late?"

She shovels a scoop of cake into her mouth before saying, "Wait... Actually, uh, can I get a box? The bus schedule, I forgot, it's... Yeah."

Robin's brows twitch slightly, disappointed that she has to end this lovely conversation. But she's not too sad, because she knows she can meet Squig again. "Yeah, sure. Let me go do it." She pockets the seashells and napkin as she stands up from the chair. She heads to the back to get a cake box for the takeout.

Squig grabs her raccoon plushie off the floor, dusts it off, and then proceeds to organize her things. She puts her remaining objects back into her backpack, including her cake once Robin returns with a box, and then turns to her.

"Sorry that I have to rush outta here! I don't wanna miss the bus. But, uh... Thank you. For the cake and everything!"

"It's okay, you gotta get home after all." Robin starts packing up the cake. "And you're welcome. And also thank you for the company. I'll be waiting for the invite on Minecraft, yeah?" She smiles.

"Likewise!~ See you around, Robin!~" Squig cheers, grabs the boxed up cake, then heads towards the door. But before she opens it, she backs up and speaks with a mock Columbo impression, "But, uh... Just one more thing~ Can I see that napkin real quick?"

Robin pauses before nodding. "Oh yeah, yeah, here." She takes the napkin from her pocket and offers it to Squig.

"Cool, thanks!~" Squig snatches the napkin out of Robin's hand and shoves it into her pocket. Squig winks, "I got the actor out of a panic attack, I ain't letting the character get into another one too~ Don't worry though. We'll find a workaround in due time, ya hear?~"

Robin frowns at her words but sighs softly, smiling. "Okay. We'll find the workaround then. Thanks for looking out for me."

"No prob, Bob!~ See ya around, Sci-Fi!~" And with that, Squig walks out the door.

Out of view of the cafe, the CRTV of a separate building captures Squig outside of a bus stop. She takes out the napkin, flips it over to the final line, and reads it aloud to herself.

" 'No matter how many times you try, you will never be able to escape your past....' Bullshit."

She pockets it once more, staring into the street as she waits for a now-late public bus. With a sigh, she whispers to herself, "Goddamnit, Shelly. What are you gettin' yourself into..."