Shouta Aizawa has inherited his parents' teahouse and is having trouble finding new staff. Y/N has quit her job and is about to end her life, when she sees the poster about the open position and decides to give life another chance.
TW: themes of sui...
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Y/N felt nervous. There was nothing bad happening, but for some reason the prospect of going out into town, among people, together with Shouta was making her really nervous. It had been such a long time since she had done something like this. Thinking back, she actually had barely left her apartment after she had moved out. While living with her relatives, she tried to get out of the house as much as possible, but it wasn't easy most of the time...
But after she had moved out, she just started losing all energy to go anywhere. She had been going out after work at times, but soon she was working herself half to death and she just didn't have any energy for that anymore. Y/N felt like she hadn't had any energy for years, until she started working at the teahouse. Thinking back to that time sent a shiver down her spine.
But today would be different, right? That's at least what Y/N's plan was. She wanted today to be different. She wanted to have a good time, she wanted to enjoy her time with Shouta. And she didn't want to get distracted by stupid things. But it was just so easy to get distracted...
Y/N wondered when she had started getting so anxious about everything. She couldn't remember if she had always been this way or if it only started after her parents died. It didn't feel like she had always been this way, but then again she could be wrong. Despite how good her gut feeling was in some situations, she still didn't really trust it. It felt weird to just decide things on a hunch.
She quickly shook her head and took a deep breath. Now was really not the time to be thinking about this. She glanced around, seeing all the people around her. It wasn't that Y/N was afraid of crowds, but she'd always get this overwhelming feeling of being lost or about to get lost somehow. She really hated that feeling. Being in a large crowd of people was just so disorienting.
There was so much to look out for, so much to be careful of - not to walk into people, watch where she was going, not lose sight of Shouta, see everything that people were selling in the little food stalls, see all the decorations, but also make sure she didn't get lost. And it was also pretty noisy, which just added to her feeling disoriented and lost. Big crowds really weren't her thing.
Without really noticing what she was doing, she grabbed Shouta's hand, feeling a little more secure. At least she didn't have to focus that much on where she was going anymore. And she wouldn't have to worry about accidentally losing him somehow. Now all she needed to worry about was not bumping into someone and not falling over something. And it meant she could take a good look at everything around her. And somehow holding Shouta's hand made her feel safer.
"Y/N?" she heard him saying and only then she actually realized that this was basically her boss (and at the same time landlord) whose hand she was holding. She hadn't even really thought about it, it was almost a reflex to take his hand. Y/N remembered how she would have taken her mother's or her father's hand when she got scared or overwhelmed by crowds around her as a kid.
But this was Shouta. This wasn't one of her parents, but Shouta. Y/N gasped and quickly pulled her hand away, looking down at the ground in embarrassment, hoping that Shouta wouldn't see her face heating up. She couldn't believe that she had just done this without even thinking.
