Chapter Text
Kirumi stood in front of the computer, processing order after order. She occasionally glanced at the clock overhead before looking back at the computer screen. She printed off a relatively long receipt as a voice reached her ears.
“Hey, Toujou-san? Quick question.”
“Yes?” Kirumi turned to look at Kaede, who had on a pink sweater, black jeans, and pink Converse, her hair pulled back into a ponytail by a pink velvet scrunchie and some strands pinned back by musical note clips.
“I notice you keep looking at the clock. Why is that?” she asked.
“It’s almost time for them to return,” Kirumi replied.
“Them?” Kaede tilted her head to the side in confusion.
“You’ll see,” Kirumi said.
Just then, the door flew open and loud shouting filled the room.
“I made it!”
“No, I made it! You lagged a bit, Saihara-chan!”
Kaede’s eyes sparkled upon seeing who entered the room.
“Saihara-kun! And Ouma-kun, too!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, it’s Miss Newbie Kayayday,” Kokichi drawled as he pushed a red cart that had six totes filled with groceries into the room.
“It’s Kaede, Ouma-kun!” she said with a huff.
“So, Toujou-san? Who won?” Shuichi asked, looking over at Kirumi expectantly.
“Well, since you came in first, you won. But, if we look at your picking time…” Kirumi said, moving to the bigger computer monitor in the middle and began clicking through various tabs, stopping at a page with columns and rows, “Ouma-kun wins with his average picking time being forty-one seconds per item.”
“Hah! I knew I won!” Kokichi shot Shuichi a smug smirk. “It must suck to suck, Saihara-chan.”
“Oh shut up, Ouma-kun,” Shuichi shot back, annoyed by his jeering as Kirumi cleared her throat.
“Okay, enough bickering. You two need to stage those. And Kaede, I need you to gather order 1051 and take it out to spot four,” she ordered, handing Kaede a sheet of paper.
“Alright!” Kaede chirped.
As Kaede took her Baymax and scanned the large barcode at the top, Shuichi and Kokichi got to work staging the totes on their carts. Shuichi took out his staging sheet and scanned each tote’s barcode with his Baymax, matching it with the letter section that was on the Baymax screen.
“There! I’m done staging!” Kokichi chirped.
“Good for you,” Shuichi replied sarcastically.
“I’m loving your sarcasm, Saihara-chan. It works well with your “I’m so done with your bullshit” look.”
“Whatever.”
Shuichi finished staging his totes soon after and he pushed the cart over to the refrigerator. Pulling the door open, he pushed the cart in and let the coldness envelop him.
Gosh, inside this fridge is always cold. Maybe I should stop wearing thin clothes, especially if they’re going to keep assigning me to refridge carts, he thought to himself.
He pushed the cart further inside so that he had enough space to move around and then proceeded to put each tote in the “D” section. Once he was done with that, he pulled the cart back out.
“Heeeeeeeey, Saihara-chan!”
Shuichi blinked as he came face to face with Kokichi.
“What is it, Ouma-kun?” he asked.
“Here!” Kokichi handed Shuichi a strip of six labels. “That’s for you.”
“Oh...thanks,” Shuichi said as he took the strip from him.
He walked over to a cart with six empty totes while eyeing the strip of labels.
So, a ninety-three row ambient, huh, he thought to himself.
He began to stick the labels onto each tote as he eyed Kokichi.
“How many rows is yours?” he asked.
“Mine? It’s sixty-two,” Kokichi replied.
“Sixty-two?” Shuichi questioned, arching his brows in surprise.
“Yeah. You know, I was going to be nice and let you have my sixty-two row ambient, but I figured I’d let you suffer a little and do the ninety-three row one instead,” Kokichi said, shrugging his shoulders a little.
Shuichi glowered at the grinning Kokichi.
“You…” he trailed off.
“Nishishi~! Well, have fun with that, Saihara-chan~” Kokichi singsonged before starting his order run and dashing off with his cart.
“Oh, now you’re asking for it, Ouma-kun!”
Shuichi finished delivering an order to an elderly couple in spot six and came back inside as Kirumi spoke.
“Saihara-kun, you can go home now. I just sent Ouma-kun on his way, as well,” she said.
“Are you sure? It’s still pretty busy,” he asked.
“It’s fine. Shinomoto-san and I will take care of things here,” Kirumi reassured him.
“If you say so...well, I’ll be going now. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Toujou-san!” Shuichi called out as he went to grab his bag in one of the lockers up against the wall.
“Yes, I shall see you then, Saihara-kun,” Kirumi replied with a smile.
Shuichi waved before exiting the room. He weaved through the aisles, occasionally answering a customer’s question as he headed to the cash registers, where the time clock was. After clocking out, he took his phone out from his back pants pocket and turned it on. The time stared back at him as he saw a text his uncle sent him two hours ago.
Uncle: Hey, could you pick up some orange juice, Shuichi? I forgot to get some when we went shopping the other day.
Oh yeah, I did notice that, Shuichi thought to himself.
Shuichi: Alright, Uncle.
He headed to the back of the store, where the dairy section was. As he headed down the bread aisle, he felt someone nudge his hip.
“Ah!” He exclaimed in surprise. He looked to his left and gold immediately met purple. “Ouma-kun?!”
Kokichi giggled.
“Surprise!” he chirped.
Shuichi narrowed his eyes at him.
“I thought you would’ve gone home by now, seeing as you got off before I did,” he commented.
“Weeeeeeell, I just remembered that I needed to pick up some other things, so I’m going to get them,” Kokichi explained.
“I see...what section are you going to?” Shuichi asked.
“Dairy. I need milk and eggs, since Amami-chan, the annoying piglet, and Keeboy are all coming over tomorrow to bake cookies.”
“I’m going to the dairy section, too! I have to pick up some orange juice.”
“My, what a coincidence! Or perhaps it could be fate?”
“I highly doubt it’s fate, Ouma-kun.”
“Nishishi~You know you could at least amuse me, my beloved Saihara-chan.”
Shuichi sighed, shaking his head as they arrived at the dairy section. He went down to get the orange juice while Kokichi went to get his milk and eggs. As he scanned the shelves for the brand they usually got, Kokichi called out to him.
“Hey, you want a drink?” A grape ramune bottle was shoved in his face.
Shuichi blinked in surprise.
“Uh...no thanks,” he said, nudging the bottle back in Kokichi’s direction.
“You sure?” Kokichi asked.
“Yeah. I have water in my bag,” Shuichi replied.
“Alright then,” Kokichi said.
Shuichi finally found what he was looking for and opened the door, taking it off the shelf. He turned to see Kokichi with his milk and eggs in a shopping basket, ramune bottle in hand as he leaned against a bunker that had promotional items in it.
“I thought you left already,” he commented.
“Well, we live next to each other, don’t we? So, I figured it would be more convenient if we went together,” Kokichi explained.
Shuichi was tempted to ask Kokichi what he meant by convenient, but decided not to. If he asked, he would be given a riddle for an answer.
“Alright, then. Let’s go pay for our stuff and head home,” he said.
“Okay!” Kokichi chirped, falling into step beside Shuichi as they headed to the registers.
After paying for their groceries (and also pulling Kokichi away from Rantaro, who was cashiering at the register they went to), they began to walk home.
“Ooh, it’s really starting to get cold,” Kokichi commented.
“Yeah, it sure is,” Shuichi said.
Kokichi buried his hands into his checkered hoodie, shuddering.
“Geez, isn’t it only October? It shouldn’t be getting this cold until next month,” he stated.
“Eh, it’s bearable,” Shuichi noted.
Kokich furrowed his brows.
“That’s just because you like the cold. What a masochist,” he remarked, sticking his tongue out and blowing a raspberry at him.
“I never said I like the cold. I only said that it’s bearable,” Shuichi said.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Saihara-chan,” Kokichi said with a huff.
A few minutes later, they arrived at Kokichi’s house.
“Welp, here we are!” Kokichi grinned. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Saihara-chan.”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow, Ouma-kun,” Shuichi replied.
Kokichi closed the gate behind him and waved at Shuichi before turning and heading inside. Shuichi waved back as Kokichi disappeared inside, the door closing behind him. Then, he went over to his house, opened the gate, and headed inside, closing the door behind him.
As soon as Kokichi stepped inside and closed the door behind him, he dropped to his knees and brought his hands to his flushed cheeks.
“We walked home together...gosh, my heart is fluttering just thinking about it!” he gushed excitedly.
I mean, we always walk home together, but that doesn’t change how happy I get whenever we do, he thought to himself.
He sat down on the ground as a squeal escaped his lips, kicking his legs about.
He didn’t care if his usual jokester persona fell apart to reveal the giddy schoolgirl within him.
Not when he was in love with one very oblivious Shuichi Saihara.