Shock! Random one shot inspired by a moment at work. This actually happened to me lmao. Kind of.
Some parts were totally altered.
But, well, real enough, I suppose.
There is actually a point to this. Sort of.
Well, enough of me babbling, let's get on with it.
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Six DegreesHave you ever met someone who, on first sight, makes you feel like you've known them forever, and that you still want to know more? Without a word, without any real gesture, just that point of eye contact opening a future that might have been, all in an instant.
It was just a chance encounter. These things happen. The moment of contact is made, then broken, and all is forgotten as two different people who have never met and will probably never meet again move on with their own lives.
Life, after all, is what happens while we make other plans.
Unless, of course, life has other plans for you, as it so often does.
~*~*~
Working in a convenience store has its upsides and downsides. On one hand, there's something sublimely satisfying about a job well done, when everything is exactly where it is supposed to be, employees scurrying around like clockwork, and business running smooth as an oiled flywheel.
On the other hand, there are days where nothing seems to go well, things get stuck, or it's just boring like fuck...
Excuse the language, thought one Takahashi Ai, and then she promptly wondered who exactly she was apologizing to in the depths of her own mind. Just as she was about to launch into a mental digression on dualism and the Cartesian theater, she was brought back into the real world (
what is real? She thought, and then promptly snuffed it before it created a headache) by the scurrying presence of her manager zipping past in front of the counter she was currently presiding over.
A whole lot of nothing, she thought in an answer that was no answer, to a question that was not quite a question. At least, not one that was going to be answered. And if it was, not by someone like her.
Today, Takahashi decided, was a day of both upsides and downsides. Just like any other day, but decidedly more concentrated. On one hand, things were relatively busy at work, which was a good thing. However, some incidents did occur, and anything out of the ordinary was usually bad in her book. Unexpected occurrences were
never a good thing, or so her manager had casually mentioned after her first week there. From what she had observed, he seemed to be right on target.
At least the evening shift was relatively quiet, at least after the mad scramble that marked the end of office hours. Things to arrange, stock to be inventoried, and the cleaning. Always the cleaning. There was always something to do in a convenience store, customers or no.
She had just finished arranging the shelves when the manager stuck on right back on cashier duty while he did his inventory list, since none of the other peons currently on duty were cleared for that yet. The other senior part timer had just ended his shift, and so she had to deal with the aftermath while her harried manager juggled training the new crew along with his paperwork. She pitied him. Almost.
She could see the stragglers to the station streaming past the glass storefront, lines and clusters of them. Harried salarymen in their suits, graying hair clearly visible even in the dim light; office ladies in their scarves and heeled boots, clearly having changed to something more presentable, more fashionable, after office hours. Then there was the odd tourist here in confusion, as if everything was new to them. Their maps and cameras gave them away, even if their looks did not. She had learned to pick them out by sight alone, if only to amuse herself during the slow hours.
Her hands moved automatically even as her mind wandered; straightening the display, tidying up the counter, putting things away. Her body worked on autopilot; she merely had to set a course and it would follow. Experience allowed her that freedom, and she reveled in it. Conditioned responses saved her the trouble of overthinking things, as she was wont to do with just about everything else in her life.
Case in point: the automated door slides open, and the greeting is out of her mouth before she even blinks. In the time it takes for that signal to cross a synapse, her smile is on before she even realizes it, sincere and welcoming. It was a badge of experience she wore proudly, if quietly.
The coat swallows up the figure it encased, as if it was two sizes too large and not cut for the form. It hangs all wrong, and Takahashi tilts her head slightly as she tries to get a read on the latest customer. Only the back is visible as the figure hurries through the aisles, obviously looking for something. Takahashi notes the slightly messed up hair, the jumpy gait, the spark when the customer finds the object she was looking for, and came to a conclusion.
Active, in a hurry, and despite that coat, female. She nods to herself, then straightens into a professional posture as the guest headed over to pay for the purchase.
Viewed from the front, she is surprised that the woman is actually well dressed underneath the ill fitting coat. It was cold outside, which explained the coat's presence, just not the
form of it. Her smile hid all her lingering doubts, a professional mask aimed to put people at ease.
She picks up the items put on the counter, scans them, asks automatically if the lady wanted it heated up, and on hearing a yes, proceeds to do so while ringing up the purchases.
She places the heated up bentou into a bag for the customer, picks up the bills from the tray, and then looks up. And the gears grind to a stop, clockwork no more.
Their eyes meet in an instant; it would have been polite to look away, normal even. It was not seeming to look into someone else's eyes, to
really look. It was...improper.
But she did not look away, could not. That moment became an age in itself, as if the world had stopped all around them, perceptions lengthening and unravelling into myriad threads of past, present and future.
I know you. I have never met you, never even seen you before this moment, but I know you.Words do not flow through her mind, images do. Whispers of things that might be, should be, could have been; a thousand maybe's and perhaps's racing through her very soul, and it all boiled down to one simple fact.
I know you.Or, she felt like she should. Perhaps. Maybe. Or not.
"Your change is 460 yen. Thank you." Her voice is stilted, scratchy, with a hint of an accent she has never entirely erased, merely mutated over the years. It was not the voice with which she serves, and she knows that she has slipped. Mercy above that her manager was out of earshot, and so was everyone else likely to squeal to him about it.
The words, even awkward as they were, ends the suspended moment. Like a touch to an overly taut line, the tension hums for less than a moment, and then it snaps with the jingling of change and the crackling sound of rustling plastic.
The customer merely nods, jerkily, eyes shifting away to anywhere but there, a new tension in the small shoulders dwarfed by that monster of a coat. Takahashi notes it in passing, the tidbit of information lodging itself in between the crevices of her mind even as she moves on to the next customer that had popped in during the miliseconds she was out of touch with reality. The spell is broken, and the world moves on.
It was only until much later, on reflection, that Takahashi realized that it wasn't only just her who felt that extended moment of epiphany. It was entirely mutual, a shock to the sensibilities, and entirely forgotten the moment one of them stepped out of the store as the other continued to work.
At least, for now.
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Yes, there's going to be a part two.
Anyone get the references? Dino cookies for those who do! They have chocolate chip eyes!
Anyone who can guess why this is titled Six Degrees gets a Stegosaurus cookie with M&Ms for the spikes on its back.
No, strawhead, YOU CANNOT ANSWER.
And now I must sleep.
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