Our Loved Creation

Insight

"Todoroki?" Vesper asks, completely surprised.

He'd never seen anyone he knew from college wander into this store, that's precisely why he chose this store. It was in a nicer area than where he lived, which meant that he didn't have to worry about thieves, because the people that lived and frequented this area had more than enough money to pay for their stuff.
She was also wearing a lot less than she usually did. Even when she'd been drunk she'd been wearing a huge flannel shirt that covered most of her anyway.
But now he can't stop staring at the tattoo on her chest, because Vesper had never seen a tattoo in person before, and Todoroki did not seem the type to have one.

"Hi, Wani." She greets shyly, shifting on her feet a little, uncomfortable.

He can't even blame her, because he keeps staring at the stupid tattoo, and it being on her chest is the worst place she could have possibly chosen because now he looks like a pervert and he's not.

"You work here?" She asks, still sounding a little on edge.

Vesper tears his eyes away from the tattoo to look at her directly, kind of blandly at her. He's standing in front of her in uniform, holding games that he'd been midway putting into the shelves because he'd resigned himself to the fact that no-one was going to come in with it getting close to their closing time.

"Yeah." He says simply.

"Can you help me?" She asks, glancing over at the counter at the back of the store.

Now, Vesper never says anything about what he sees, but he is observant.
He'd noticed that she was comfortable around Keiko and Hana, but was always a little edgy around Akito and him. She was getting better, but still hated it when Akito tried getting a little too friendly with her sometimes, it was written on her face and clear with how her body locked up a little whenever he tried slinging an arm around her shoulders.
Vesper kept his distance anyway, not wanting to upset her when she didn't seem to trust men anyway, never mind someone like him.
It's not really a surprise that she would rather deal with him than his manager.

"What's wrong?" He asks, hating the stupid hiss that always comes whenever he says a word that has an 's' in it.

She immediately digs in her bag to pull out whatever the issue is, and Vesper takes the chance to turn again and put the games he'd been holding a little more haphazardly into the display.
When he turns back she's shyly holding out a beaten up Nintendo Switch towards him. He blinks a little in surprise. The model is old, nearly ten years old, if not actually older than that.

"I wanted to play Legend of Zelda, but it said the game card is corrupted?" She questions, as though she's doubting herself.

He takes the console from her carefully in his taloned hand, trying desperately not to scratch it because he definitely was overdue his talons being dremeled down.

"Corrupted?" He asks, trying to load the game.

"That's what it said, yeah." Todoroki replies, seeming to ease up now his attention was on the screen.

Sure enough, the warning screen comes up announcing that the game card is corrupted.
It's been a while since he'd had to work with one of these, so his interest is immediately piqued, and he hums a little with his intrigue, trying to get the game card out as carefully as he possibly can.
Todoroki watches him, her eyes filled with her own interest at what he's doing as he holds the game card up to the light to try and see if there are any defects on it.

He hated being stared at as a rule.
He was used to it for the most part, after all, he was a giant reptile heteromorph that looked scary but he wasn't scary.
If he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps, he probably could have done a good job as a villain. He was strong, huge, and 'blessed' with his dad's quirk, which was his father's wording, not his.
He was used to kids grabbing their parents in fear, he was used to hushed voices and fingers pointing and eyes staring, but he hated it all the same.