Chapter Text
Kenma always considered himself a handheld games kind of guy. He also always wanted to live alone, and nothing sounded like a better coming-of-age gift to himself than a small, quiet studio with just enough room for a wet bath, a bed, a dresser, and a hotplate. But if moving deeper into the city for university taught him anything, it’s that suburbs money gets you nowhere in Tokyo proper. And that taking the hit of at least one roommate was going to have to become a reality.
Fortune either favored him or pitied him in his job-search wandering and gave him a twenty-eight square meter studio with plenty of space for two twin beds, a kotatsu table in between them, a bathroom that actually accommodates the arm span of someone closing in on a hundred ninety centimeters, an admittedly cramped but functional kitchen, and space left over for a dual-monitored TV stand alphabetically lined with plastic game cases, two consoles, and wires wrapped and color-coded with electrical tape. All of that, and—
“Shred them bloody.”
—this guy. Red hair pushed back from his face with his headset, wired eyes nearly missing pupils though they’re calmly lidded when he’s not in a game, still wearing his blazer and tie from his assistant professor day job, neat freak, germophobic, and surprisingly domestic: Tendou “Don’t Call Me Satori” Satori. Kenma’s first impression upon moving in two days late and meeting Tendou in the doorway: nocturnal, the lovechild of Pennywise and The Rake, and chill with an occasional sadistic streak. He was wrong about none of those. When he couldn’t think of what to say first to his new roommate and stupidly, anxiously asked, “So does your hair naturally do that?” Tendou just smiled, tilted his head, and said, “Guess.”
Kenma blows a strand of hair out of his eyes and glances at the disinfectant wipes perpetually on the TV stand. When they shut off for the night, Tendou will take two or three and hit every centimeter of controllers, consoles, and screen. His sadistic streaks are therapeutically channeled toward bacteria and dust, and the kitchen and bathroom are always spotless—even after the rich boyfriend visits from the countryside.
“I told you guys we’re supposed to be going west,” Yaku says in their headsets. “You led us right into enemy territory, Lev. And stood there flailing your arms.”
Lev’s frantic voice: “Jeez, I’m sorry!”
“Then we mow them down,” Tendou chirps. His tongue darts out and licks his upper lip, bloodthirsty. “And we take one hostage for good fun.”
“That’s not even in the mechanics,” Kenma says.
“Oh, god, we’re gonna get slaughtered,” Lev moans.
“What time is it?” Tendou asks, unblinking eyes glued to the screen in the dark even as he angles his face towards Kenma to ask the question.
Kenma brings his avatar around a broken concrete wall to avoid the bullets Lev invited over from his and Yaku’s place in Yokohama, and he turns to look at the digital clock on their microwave. “Almost eleven,” he says as Yaku says the same.
Kenma should be going to bed soon, but who is he kidding. And anyway, Lev and Yaku both work transitional shifts at their hospital from three to eleven a.m., so they just woke up recently as it is. Their schedules match with Tendou’s sleepless nature and Kenma’s irresponsibility.
Tendou’s lips curl upward at the corners. “Then we’ve got reinforcements coming in soon.” His avatar—female, disproportionate, not enough body coverage—chucks a grenade as Lev sighs in relief into his mic. But then Kenma watches Lev’s character snap backward and he hits the ground motionless with a clean headshot. Lev wails.
“Jesus,” Kenma mutters, pulling up sights on his gun and looking around.
Tendou pauses at the death of his teammate, and his eyes narrow. “I’ll break you in two.” He digs his fingers into his controller and Kenma can hear the creak of plastic even through his headphones.
“Avenge me,” Lev says dramatically, and Yaku says, “Just respawn.”
“So.” Tendou sits up straighter and smiles brightly. Kenma glances at him searching his inventory for something. “Any word on that waiter thing?”
“Yeah, dude, how’s that going?” Yaku asks.
Kenma sighs. His job-search wandering has led him down multiple dead-end paths so far, each of them reported to his friends in pitiful earnest. As the two people who have known him the longest, and who understand why his disposition is the way it is, why a literature major in university was such a good fit, and why neither his job search nor anything else in his life—even video games—have ever been all that ruthless, Lev and Yaku are always supportive of him, even through the countless rejections. Even Tendou—after a minorly but regrettably drunk night in their room with Stravinsky playing as their soundtrack while Kenma spilled his uneventful life story—understands him and has become a true member of their group in-game and in real life. Every dead-end path gets trudged back up, back to the beginning and the classifieds, because the three of them push Kenma to do his best and to overcome himself as he has been doing slowly since he first met Lev back in high school year one.
His latest attempt, after coming to terms with how useless an undergraduate degree in literature actually was regardless of how suited he was to it, has been a serving job at one of the restaurants in the city. He put in his application last week, and honestly picked it because the position was open and there’s a train that will take him really close to it. He doesn’t even know what it pays, but at this point, three months after graduating and with the dark at the end of the savings account tunnel closing in, he’s a beggar, and he really doesn’t have the time left to choose. It required a résumé, ID photo, and two letters of reference from a professor and his boss from the library where he worked part-time during uni, and not much else was asked for. Plus, the words no interview. immediate hire. at the bottom of the application guidelines weren’t exactly off-putting. It probably just means that if he does terribly on his first day, he’ll get dusted out without an hour’s worth of pay. Considering how upscale this restaurant is—three Michelin Stars and what he hears is a nationally-recognized founding executive chef—he imagines the turnover rate for the most menial job offered there could be pretty high.
An article or two, when he looked the place up, mentioned something about a decline in the restaurant’s popularity over the past some months, especially in relation to a rival restaurant (Was it called Blue? The Blue? Deep Blue?) hardly a five-minute drive away in the same ward. But he got tired and figured he was going to apply for the job regardless, if only to just get Tendou off his back for being on his back so much. He’ll probably have better chances of getting hired if the place isn’t the absolute number one.
With literally no experience working at a restaurant, maybe he won’t cut it, maybe he will. The bubble he’d been living in during school burst a while ago. He might as well try anything—push himself to do so.
If he gets hired in the first place.
“I’m still waiting on an answer,” he tells everyone. “Acceptance or rejection.”
“I keep telling him to apply to more than one place at a time,” Tendou says. “Since he’s totally mooching off me at this point.”
“You know how much I’d give to have a solid teaching job like you? You’re salaried for four and a half million yen a year,” Yaku says. “And it’s still weird having Thursday and Sunday off.”
“Try Thursday and Monday,” Lev says. “I never get a weekend.”
“The pay differential is nice, though.”
“That’s the truth.”
Kenma can hear the two of them high-fiving in Yokohama.
Tendou snorts. “You guys hated school. And patient care suits you.” He pouts out his lip. “Man, I really thought I had a rocket launcher somewhere.”
“Good luck though, Kenma,” Lev says. His avatar is back up and running. “Tiger’s Eye is supposed to be, like, mega.”
Yaku: “Yeah, you’ll probably make more than any of us. Even Satori. You could totally ditch him.”
Not Satori, calmly: “I’ll punt you into the sky.”
An enemy avatar appears on the screen and hits Lev over the head with a shovel.
Lev yelps like it happened in real life, then says, “Aw, come on!” At least he didn’t die this time.
Yaku growls out, “Chto za khuynya? Idi syuda.” His accent is best when he’s angry. He pulls out a handgun and starts firing.
“What was that?” Tendou asks about what Kenma understood, after years of friendship with both of Lev’s halves, to be What the fuck? Come here.
“You’re getting better, Suke!” Lev says. “Defending my honor!”
“In our latest development of learning Russian by cohabitant osmosis,” Yaku explains, “swearing.”
Kenma laughs, a little puff of air.
An icon pings up on the screen and Tendou clicks him in. A deep voice comes into the chat: “Enemy camp—target acquired. Duck and cover.”
“Make ‘em suffer, babe,” Tendou says, a manic grin on his features.
As Wakatoshi releases a massive IED somewhere in the distance and bullets stop hailing down on them, Kenma’s phone lights up next to where he’s crisscross on the floor. It’s a call from a number he doesn’t recognize.
“Bowing out for a second,” he tells them. He exits, pulls his headset down around his neck, and answers the call. “Hello?”
“I’m calling to reach Kozume Kenma.”
“This is him.”
“My name is Akaashi Keiji. I’m the manager at Tiger’s Eye.”
Restaurants run late hours, Kenma supposes. He blinks, ready to be told no, and starts thinking about what other places he might want to apply to next, that maybe if he just tries a bookstore or something, he might at least appear to have some credentials. In his mind, he’s lacing his boots to trudge back up the path.
He waves a hand at Tendou, points to his phone, and mouths Waiter thing. “Oh, thank you for calling.”
“Of course,” the manager says. “I wanted to let you know that we’re accepting your application. Our executive chef expects you to begin tomorrow.”
Kenma blinks again. Tendou cocks his head at him, somehow managing to continue a melee with a stray enemy onscreen without looking.
“If that would be possible,” the manager adds as an afterthought courtesy.
Possible? Like, as if he has plans tomorrow? Say something. “Oh.”
Tendou tilts his head further, cartoonishly so. He lifts an eyebrow as he says, “Yeah, sic ‘em, Waka. The bigger knife,” into his mic, and offers a questioning thumbs-up.
“It is. What time should I be there?” Kenma asks, and Tendou grins.
The manager says it all at once like it’s well-rehearsed, a block of text through the receiver: “You’ll be working with our senior server for the night. Dress code is strict, including shoes, or you will be sent away. Please see the application for any questions regarding that. Service begins at six o’clock sharp. You’re expected no later than three PM for house prep, and no later carries heavy emphasis. The chef considers punctuality to mean early. If you’re driving, do not park in front of the building. Be prepared to follow all orders given to you and to defer to the chef in any instance regardless of the circumstance.”
Okay…is he getting himself into something? Does it even matter when he’s currently status: beggar? The restaurant must not have three Michelin Stars for nothing.
Just try anything.
“Oh, um, I’m—not driving,” Kenma says. “And two-thirty. Understood.”
“Very good.” The manager takes an audible breath. “The final thing I have to make sure of is that you are prepared to make working at this restaurant part of your lifestyle. Many people in the business underestimate the dedication it takes. If you have other obligations of any kind that require a significant portion of your day, they need to be reconsidered. This includes any second jobs, school, hobbies, relationships, even a pet. Consider what you would have to put aside, and what you’d be willing to give up. We need to know that you have both the time and the capacity available to make this position your priority.”
Sounds strict, but isn’t that how every job works? And like Lev said, Tiger’s Eye is mega. Besides—the whole point of this job, aside from money, is for the sake of doing it. That was the most important thing the high school psychologist told him back in his first year: Keep yourself busy.
In the end, he just wants to do something with his life.
So right now, he just needs to say something that doesn’t make him sound like an absolute deadbeat.
He clears his throat. “I can’t imagine I’d be doing anything else, sir.”
There’s a slight airy chuckle on the other end of the line, barely audible. “Then we’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
Kenma hardly gets out a habitual bow of the head and a Thank you very much before the line dies. He lowers his phone from his ear and looks at his roommate. “I…guess I need some new clothes. And shoes.”
Tendou gets to his feet and grabs the disinfectant wipes from next to the TV, holding his mic in his fingertips. “Waka, you’re taking over. Kenma and I are late-night shopping.”
[Please enjoy my series of random in-story headcanons at the end of each chapter!]
HC: Tendou’s classic work attire is a pair of fitted black pants, a white button-up tucked in, a grey blazer, and a blue tie (think Fukurodani uniform with no stripes and a darker blue). He wears his hair up almost all the time, though he’s seriously considering buzzing it all off but hasn’t brought the idea up with Ushiwaka yet since he knows Waka likes his hair. He holds a master’s degree in chemistry. He’s loved in the physical sciences department and notorious around campus; incoming first years to his class hear about “the red guy” ahead of time from rumors and former students. Students of his often ask to have lunch with him just to get a glimpse into his mind. Last year, he won the excellence award for assistant professors. His waking time before he requires a full night’s sleep is around sixty hours with occasional micro-naps (about eight minutes each).