soft-spoken [a sonnyban fic]

I. cold hands, a beautiful stranger

Who was Sonny Brisko?

To the cadets of the VSF, Sonny Brisko was their captain, their strong, incredible commander who was without a doubt, a subject of admiration. Each and every raid he led ended successfully, and his skill in weaponry remained unmatched. His commandeering voice had the power to make your body move, even before realizing it. If someone asked the cadets what kind of person Sonny was, they would answer with no hesitation: "The man of all men. A commander we're proud of and would follow until our deaths." The moment Sonny exits the VSF headquarters, however, it's as if he's a completely different man.

If you were to ask the tired college student always manning the cashier at the grocery store two blocks from the office, "who is Sonny Brisko," they would call him the "handsome negi man," because he made it a point to all of the employees there that negi is a necessity in his household. If the same question were to be asked to Sonny's landlord, to his high school classmates, to the residents who regularly visited the park Sonny goes to have his morning jog, they would all have different answers.

Sonny Brisko: the admirable commander, the handsome negi man, the perfect student, the polite young lad... he was a man of many faces, and so no one truly knew Sonny Brisko besides his good friends, two of which included Uki Violeta and Fulgur Ovid, who just invited the blonde to eat dinner together.

After getting the call earlier that day from Uki that him and Fulgur won four coupons for a hot new restaurant that's been the talk of the town, Sonny worried that he would be intruding on the couple, but Uki reassured that they both wouldn't want to waste the other two coupons anyway, so Sonny would be more than welcome. "The more the merrier," Uki had told him.

As for the fourth coupon, Uki informed Sonny that they would be inviting a colleague of Fulgur but hadn't mentioned what their name was or if Sonny knew them.

Walking to his apartment after work to get ready for the dinner, Sonny wondered who in the world managed to befriend Fulgur AND be invited to dinner with them without incurring Uki's (terrifying) jealousy, but that told him more than enough about this mysterious person: that he was a genuine guy that he looked forward to meeting.

And so, two hours later Sonny arrived at the restaurant five minutes earlier than the agreed time—the usual Sonny.

The breeze cast a chill down Sonny's spine as he stood near the entrance, but it wasn't anything he didn't mind, with his body so conditioned thanks to his work in the VSF. He stood long enough to have zoned out, gaze lost as his vision blurred images of people and lights in a beautifully blended backdrop, sprinkled with a light trickle of snow that made that winter cold just a little colder. Although his attractive appearance along with him just standing—like a mannequin—attracted eyes from people who passed by, it was quiet, tranquill. Sonny liked that kind of peace.

A snowflake landing on Sonny's eyelid forced him to blink, taking him out of his zone. He took his phone out to look at the time. He had been standing for five minutes, and it was now the agreed time. But Sonny wouldn't put it past Uki and Fulgur to be a little late, so he continued to wait. While waiting, a breeze had been particularly harsh, so Sonny closed his eyes for a moment to shield them, until he heard subtle footsteps slowly close in on him. With his job requiring him to constantly stand on his toes, Sonny's reflexes caused him to sharply whip his head in a relatively intimidating manner, making the person who had walked up to him jump with a shriek.

Sonny slowly blinked his surprise away, while the mysterious person gained their bearings. "I'm sorry, you just startled me there," Sonny explained, softly chuckling as he did so. He didn't mean to seem rude or anything by (not very subtly) laughing at the scare he gave the stranger, but he couldn't help it when they pouted ever so slightly and furrowed their eyebrows, as if silently complaining: "You're the one who surprised me!"