Chapter Text
Another day.
Get up, make your bed, take a shower, change, brush your teeth, and head to work. Not a considerably wonderful routine, but it works. That is if you're an adult who can't afford college and is barely making a living off of funds and what little money you have.
Work is close, a small grocery store that surprisingly gets a decent amount of customers despite its looks, every other week that is. This week is another one of those slow weeks, where everything seems wrong, and disoriented.
Working in a grocery store is nothing exquisite. You wait at a cash register, scan, and restock. Get paid in a week, and deal with snarky remarks from customers.
A normal day for most working in customer service.
Today though, you could tell something was off the moment you stepped outside of your front door.
The atmosphere felt… off.
You could tell there was building tension. Either from the significant drop of people roaming the streets, or the posters plastered everywhere. On windows, ceilings, doors, floors, and a couple flying where the wind takes them. A circus from what you managed to get from a flying poster.
Specifically the Freak Circus.
A traveling circus, a horror traveling circus at that. A peculiar name for a traveling circus for certain, but you've seen worse, some vulgar, some ‘normal’. If you had to choose, this one was certainly on the ‘normal side’. If you were being honest though, the posters were annoying, they were ridiculously posted everywhere.(whether you are saying that because one almost made you trip is irrelevant.)
You gripped the handle of the bag slung over your shoulder ungracefully, the new vexation showing clearly through your body and facial expressions by this point.
As you rounded a corner, by a local shop, you could see your work in the distance, and to say you were less than pleased was an understatement.
The windows were covered head to toe in the posters, some even relishing near the top of the roof.
You huffed as you stormed towards the store, ripping off a handful of posters and crumpling them in hand. You could practically feel your eyes twitch as you looked at the rest of them on the building.
Sighing you trudged to the backdoor ignoring the rest of the posters for now. You got ready in the bathroom, putting your apron on, and checking your appearance.
While looking closely though, you noticed your eyes looked so…dull.
You quickly looked away, trying to ignore the ongoing argument starting in your head. If the day was already bad, it was only going to get worse with the echoing whispers and yells in your head..
You made your way out of the bathroom and threw your bag into one of the employee lockers, your name above it in black ink. Before opening the store, you went to a computer shoved in a corner, and signed your name in, showing that, yes you did, in fact show.
You made your way out of the back, nearly slamming the door accidentally. Officially the store was now opened with the sign now flipped over, the words open printed on the front. With one final glance of the place you sat on a stool by the cash register and waited.
And waited..
And waited…
And-
The door to the front door rang softly, announcing a customer.
Immediately you straightened your back, trying your hardest to look professional, if that was even a thing in customer service. Thirty minutes was all it took for the first to come in, the rest would pile in later for sure.
You glanced over at the door, finding a black clothed figure, they wore a Grey beanie, hoodie, sweatpants, and a mask to top it all off. They had dark curly hair that was short, and honestly? They were kinda tall.
If you were being honest though, you couldn't tell whether they were a girl, or a boy…
Skill issue? Sure, but when you've worked in customer service for so long and learned that judging someone by how flat their chest is, and how long their hair is, will get you nowhere..(Maybe you're only saying that because you called a woman sir once and she cussed you out for almost an hour…Karen)
The man– uh human, person.. Girl? Picked a basket up beside the front door and made their way through limited isles in the store.
…
Scanned an item
Set it down
Checked another's ingredients
Put another item in the basket.
By the end of this long monotonous cycle you could feel your lips twitch from the relief of waiting once they came to the register.
Then one by one, you scanned his items, not slowly of course, but only enough to secretly admire his physique and what he looked like.
Up close he didn't look much different, curly dark hair coming in strands that seemed to bounce off his face, face mask still on, clothes as grey as the day he came in, finally to top it off his grey beanie that looked like its seen better days…Definitely a man.
He didn't look much different than anyone else who came into the store, but you could feel how your heart started to race at the sight of him waiting patiently. Sometimes looking around his surroundings- something about it, or maybe him, made your knees weak, made you want him to be around more.
Delusional?
Yes.
Did you care?
No
As soon as he left, your day felt lighter, as if seeing him lifted some tension off your shoulders.
Yeah.. Maybe you were delusional. Very at that.
The rest of the day was slow. Barely any customers came in. like you had predicted beforehand, maybe you were only hoping more people came in..
So you had decided to close up the shop earlier than usual. It's not like your boss would really care anyway, he pays the same amount every other week.
While closing up, you couldn't help but have your thoughts wander to the man this morning
Handsome, mysterious, pretty looking, short, everything a girl would love..
It was a bit selfish though…
For you, all you wanted in life was to have a peaceful death, no family yelling at you for your own life choices. Now that you had that out of your way, why were you obsessing over a guy you had never met?
Maybe it was so you could get happy last moments, but.. How selfish would that be?
Loving a guy, him thinking you were the one and then just.
Dying right in front of his eyes?
Super selfish.
Though, if the option came right to you, surely it wouldn't hurt too much right?
It wouldn't entirely be your fault, it would be his too.
You had been so stuck in thought you hadn't noticed the green clown standing right in front of you, impatiently holding a poster in his hand, his foot tapping on the pavement at a rapid pace.
You blinked a few times, confused as to why you had been stopped by a clown in green, with hearts adorning his attire.
“Uhm, sorry” You squeaked out grabbing a poster, before bowing slightly and speed walking away.
How embarrassing you had practically ignored the circus member! You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment, embarrassment washing over you, as you tightly held the poster to your chest as you passed down several shops that you vaguely remember, before finally getting to the door of your apartment complex.
You burst through the door, quickly shutting and locking it behind you. When the door was safely closed and locked you collapsed onto it, breathing heavy, heart beating through your chest.
After the embarrassment of spacing out in front of one of the circus members in town you had sped over to your apartment in a rush, not wanting to face the embarrassment of people looking at you as you passed by.
You could only help but hope the next day was better.