❝can you please just tell me where the bathroom is?❞
❝no, but i can tell you my number.❞
or in which college senior vox akuma spends his last holiday break working in the rundown movie theater downtown and goes head-to-toe with a sarcastic cinema-go...
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vox stood outside the silver spoon with his hands feverishly tucked into his coat pockets, his breath muddling into the cold wednesday evening in faded waves. tapping his shoes against the slidey pavement, he craned his neck to get a better look of the block.
it was still crowded despite the late hour, crowds of people strutting past him after a long day's work. it had stopped snowing a few hours ago, but the residue was still piled in chunks around the street. christmas decorations glared at him from every direction like spotlights, bright and blaring.
there were three days left before christmas.
at the sound of the door chiming behind him, vox looked up in time to see y/n walking out of the restaurant, her eyes trained on the ground like she was deep in her thoughts. her steps slowed when she finally glanced up at him, blinking like a deer caught on headlights.
"hi," she greeted slowly as if she was unsure on whether or not it was okay to approach him.
"salutations, miss l/n," vox said before breaking into an easy smile.
she visibly relaxed at this, her shoulders dropping slightly. pulling into a stop in front of him, she looked around before turning back to him.
"were you waiting for me?"
"oh no, i was just milling around," he replied with a shrug. "nothing more relaxing than delving yourself in below zero weather in the middle of the night. in fact, this is actually one of my favorite hypothermia spots. what brought you out here?"
to his surprise, she didn't shoot back an equally sarcastic remark. instead, she stayed quiet and simply offered him a timid smile in response.
vox then brought a hand up to rub the nape of his neck. one of his many personal habits whenever he was unsure on what to say next, which was very unusual for someone like him.
"everything okay?" he asked after a moment, deciding it was best to address the elephant in the room first.
"yeah, i'm fine," she said after a notably long time. the concern on his face was probably more obvious than he realized because she smiled again, this time more firmly. "just got off talking with my manager, that's all."
at this, vox frowned. "what did they say?"
"not much. just yelled at me for a couple of minutes. it's nothing out of the usual." she casually waved it off with her hand.
"i don't think that's fair," vox commented, his eyebrows furrowing. "i mean, did he see that guy earlier? he could have hurt you."
for some reason, she found what he said funny and laughed.
"you may not know this from where you work at full-time, mr. big shot, but the customers are always right in these kinds of establishments," she said. "it doesn't matter whose fault it was. i was supposed to just stand there and take whatever he had to say."
