Chapter Text
The place was supposed to be haunted according to legend, the shifts lasted six hours and your sleep schedule would be fucked up beyond repair, but money was money, a job was a job and you really needed both. And of course, the words "help wanted" and "13,500 yen per week" and "no experience required" never hurt either. One phone interview and a bus ride later and here you are, standing in front of a large concrete building at 11:20 at night, armed with a simple bottle of Tiovita 2000, staring at the image of a large smiling bear above the entrance and wondering whether dropping out of University was really such a good idea.
"Hey!" You're jolted out of your reverie by a rather annoyed voice coming from the entrance. Hanging out the doors is a man made up of thinning hair, ruddy cheeks and a pinched look on his face that made it clear that all he wanted to do was go home for the night. "You the new guy?"
"Yeah." You reply, stepping forward. Might as well be polite. "Arataka Reigen." You say as you stick out your hand. He gives you a once-over, eyes lingering on your stained shirt and worn slacks that have seen better days before turning around and heading into the restaurant.
"Won't last the first week…" You hear him mutter before he turns around and addresses you directly. "Well come on, I gotta get you through basic training." You stand dumbly for a moment, hand hanging in front of you, before you sigh and stride forward. So the co-workers leave much to be desired. You'll still get that weekly paycheck in the end. Whats-his-face leads you through the vestibule and the hallway and into a small room that is obviously a security office.
"This here is the security office." He says and picks up what looks like a tablet. "Cameras are connected wirelessly to the monitor." He continues, turning it on. Immediately the image of three still… things… standing on what looks like a stage appears on screen. In the bottom corner of the screen are several squares labeled things like "CAM1A," "CAM2B" and so on. Whats-his-face continues. "The monitor here is connected to the security cameras. If you wanna switch between the cameras-" he cuts off as you reach out and tap the square labeled "CAM2B." The image switches to a hallway, much like the one outside.
"Tap the boxes in the corner, that switches the cameras. Make sure no one gets in and steals the uncooked pizza or something." You reply, standing up. Seriously, does this guy think you don't know how to work a damn tablet? "Thanks for the training, I got this and I'll see you tomorrow." The guard just looks at you in a way that suggests he would love nothing more than to just leave you there without anything else.
"There's more to it dipshit." Whats-his-face growls and he switches the monitor off. He saunters towards the open doorways and gestures sharply for you to follow. "These here are the doors."
"Door frames more like." You reply, eyeing the empty outlet skeptically.
"I'm getting to that.." Whats-his-face replies impatiently and comes to a halt beside a set of buttons beside the doorframe, one red and one white. "Now, the doors are in a bit of a blind spot and don't show up on the cameras. So from time to time you might want to check outside with this light here." He presses the white button on the bottom and the hallway outside lights up.
Okay...You think to yourself as you continue to peer at the light through the frame. That's different... Whats-his-face keeps going.
"If you see anything out there you don't think you can beat to death with a flashlight…" And with a swift mechanical whirring and heavy THUD, a sheet of metal appears inches in front of your nose. You leap backwards, letting out a rather undignified yelp and wind up falling on your ass, staring up at the now full doorframe. Shaking, you turn your gaze towards the guard, giving you a rather nasty grin with his thumb still on the red button. You sigh and do your best to stand on legs that have suddenly been turned to jelly.
"Alright." You say, still trying to convince your heart to vacate your throat. "Ok, I didn't see that coming." Whats-his-face chuckles, presses the red button once again and the door slides back into the ceiling with an audible clunk.
"So those are your doors and cameras, and that's pretty much all you can really do from here." He continues. "Now, the entire facility is run on limited power during the night, these things don't run on static you know, so you don't wanna go closing your doors left and right. " He pauses to give a small laugh at his own joke and you interject because this was not discussed in the interview.
"Limited power?"
"Yep." He responds. "Doesn't kick in until midnight, that's why the place is still lit up now, but apparently once that clock hits 12 it gets real dark in here." He lets out another cruel chuckle at what must be a very panicked expression on your face. "Oh relax." Whats-his-face says as he waves his hand dismissively. "It's only the doors and the monitor that use a ton of power. Don't keep the doors closed, don't stare at the monitor for too long and you'll be fine." He gestures and your attention is drawn to what looks like a pair of digital clocks on the desk. "This right here," He points to the one on the left "tells you how much power you have left."
"What about that one?" You ask, pointing at the one on the right.
"It's a clock dipshit." The other man looks at you like you just asked in all seriousness what color the sky was. "It tells time." He glances at it, the little red numbers spelling out 11:35. "Huh, we still got time." He mutters before turning around and striding through the doorframe. "Well come on. You still need the grand tour." You move out, eyeing the doorframe cautiously, and follow him back towards the entrance, whats-his-face still muttering. "Don't know why I gotta show you all this, you're only gonna see it through cameras anyway." The two of you come to a stop in the vestibule and the man launches into an unenthusiastic spiel.
"This over here is the prize corner." The guy says, pointing towards a door off to the right. "It's pretty self-explanatory, kids exchange tickets for shitty prizes, throw a fit when they don't have enough tickets and go back to the arcade over there to try and win some more." With that, he gestures to the door to the left and walks down the hallway by the prize corner. "There's not too much on the left side of the building, just the employee break room, a few closets, that kind of shit." You continue down and come to a stop in front of a set of double doors.
"This here's the kitchen, standard fast food set up, gets cleaned up every night after closing at 10 so that's not really your problem." He doesn't even give you a chance to ask anything before continuing down the hallway and through the door. "And don't try to steal any food from there either, management will have your ass." You want to reply with something witty or sarcastic, but when you walk through the doors at the end of the hallway, you need a moment to take in your surroundings: the high ceilings, the rows of tables and chairs lined up neatly, the stage that almost took up the entire end of the room.
"Oi!." You snap out to see the guard halfway towards the stage, glaring at you impatiently.
"Sorry." You huff as you jog to catch up to him and try to think of a way to explain just why you were staring. "It's pretty huge isn't it?" Whats-his-face rolls his in response and rolls his eyes.
"Forget the first week won't even last the first night. Anyway," He sweeps his arms around as you continue to walk. "This here is the main attraction: the stage and the cafeteria. This place here sees most of the action during the day and almost none at night, lucky for you." The guard pauses in front of the large steps leading up to the stage and turns around to face you. "Again, you don't have too much to worry about here. Now over there are the bathrooms," You follow his arm to the two doors on one side of the hall. "And over here you've got some spare parts and stuff." This time he gestures to a small door next to the stage. As you look over the rest of the room, a smaller curtain towards the hallway catches your eye.
"And that over there?" He spares it a small glance.
"Oh, that's just Kero's Corner."
"Kero?" The man whips around and stares at you as if you’ve grown a second head.
"KaiheiKero?" Your face remains blank. "You've seriously never heard of these guys? Why the hell do you wanna work here then?"
"Money is money and a job is a job." He's still staring at you as if it hadn't occurred to him that someone hadn't heard of these characters.
"Well, now you've got to meet them." He gives you a wicked grin and walks through the curtain. Once again, you follow him and find yourself almost nose to nose with a horrible grinning face. For the second time that night, you fall backwards with an unmanly yelp to the tune of that asshole laughing his head off, leaning against one of the robots for support. "Now," he says once you stand up and he stops laughing long enough to actually talk, "these guys aren't actually attached to anything as you can see, and they are set to a sort of "free roam" mode during the night. Prevents their joints from freezing up or some shit." This is also new.
"Free roam?"
"Yep. They probably just wander around the dining hall or something. Programming probably won't let them go anywhere else. Now, this here is PonPon, our lovely drummer." He says and gives the large, rather round hamster he's been leaning on a quick pat before standing up and continuing. "Right there is TachiTan, not too popular with too many kids believe it or not." He points out a rather demonic looking weasel grinning madly and holding a bright blue guitar. "KaiheiKero's got his own corner over there, been on the fritz lately, and you've got the big man himself, UtaKuma." That much was obvious, it's a dead ringer for the bear on the building, right down to the large smile and microphone. "That's pretty much all there is to the place." Whats-his-face finishes, coming up to hang off the bear's shoulder. "Make sure no one gets in, keep an eye on the cameras, oh, and do NOT let anything happen to these guys if you don’t wanna get on management’s bad side.” He rolls his eyes. “Seriously, those assholes are really fussy when it comes to their “beloved characters.” Just plain weird if you ask me. So, any questions?" Not really. Despite the less than enthusiastic tour guide, there really doesn't seem to be more to this job other than babysitting some robots.
"No. Sounds easy enough." The guy scoffs and heads back through the curtain.
"Must be harder than it looks I tell ya." He mutters. "Seriously. We go through night guards like brats go through pizza here. Most barely last week before they drop from the stress. I mean really. What do you have to be stressed about?" To your credit, you don't miss a beat.
"The fact that they walk around at night." He dismisses your concern with a flippant wave.
"Oh that's nothing. Seriously, me and Banshoumaru get more shit from the damn kids than these creeps. And don't even get me started on the parents."
"Banshoumaru?"
"The other day guard." His face actually perks up for a second. "Oh, that reminds me, wait here." He heads off into the hallway, leaving you alone in the dining hall. You take another moment to look around the place, still trying to take most of it in. After a moment your eyes wander back to the stage and you're pretty sure you're just tired or maybe it's a trick of the fluorescent lights but it almost looks as though the curtain is moving. And then a hand alights on your shoulder and you swing around, coming face to face with the guard. "Here, go get changed." Whats-his-face says, tossing a soft package at your chest. You catch it and eye it for a moment.
"What's this?" You ask, turning it over in your hands.
"You're uniform," He replies. "Now go get changed." Well, there's nothing else to it. You head into the boys room and open the package. It's pretty standard as far as uniforms go; blue shirt, black tie, slacks that aren't frayed or worn, heck they even threw in a belt with a holster in. For a brief moment, you wonder why a security guard for a children's restaurant would need a holster, but then you get to the best part of the uniform and all other thoughts leave your mind. It's a hat. It's an honest to goodness black hat. True it had that damn bear on the front, so the illusion was ruined a bit, but it was still a pretty good imitation of a police hat. You put it on snuggly and catch a glance of yourself in the mirror. Do I really need all this if no one else is here? You think to yourself as you roll up the sleeves. Still, a little smile creeps onto your face as your mind follows its own path to childhood fantasies of pretend and dress-up. Immediately, you stop smiling. Can't waste time on those childish games; you have a job to do.
You stride out of the bathroom, old slacks and shirt wrapped in the package. Whats-his-face looks up from picking his nose and he gives you another once-over. Without a word, he slips the flashlight out of his own holster ( So that's what those are for.) and hands it over in a move that you think is supposed to be reminiscent of the older, more experienced sempai handing the baton off to the young and eager kouhai. "Welcome to UtaKuma's." he says with another off-putting grin. You take the flashlight and holster it. That's it. You're official now.
"Thanks, uh," It suddenly occurs to you that you have no idea what the other guy's name is. As off-putting and sleazy as he's been, the guy has been kind of helpful. You owe him a thank you at least. So you peer at the nametag pinned to his shirt and almost do a double take when you find out his name. "Ekubo?" He gives you a withering look that just dares you to ask about it. You decide not to take that risk and instead straighten up. "Yeah, thanks. I got it from here." Ekubo simply nods and looks down at his watch.
"Right, it's 11:50, I am off." The two of you walk back down through the hallway towards the entrance. Abruptly, Ekubo turns around and addresses you. "Oh by the way, company policy dictates that I lock you in here with the creepy robots. That gonna be a problem?" You shrug and do your best to look nonchalant.
"Stay in the office, don't take food from the kitchen, babysit the creepy free-roaming robots, what's the worst that can happen?" Ekubo turns around and closes the front doors. Once again, he gives you a wicked grin and you can barely feel a shiver run up your spine when his keys turn and the lock slides home with an inaudible click that sounds like an ominous thud in the silence of the restaurant.
"You'll be the first to know dipshit."