Chapter Text
Kunikuzushi stared at the records in the bins, occasionally glancing up at a vermillion sign across the street merely illuminating the word “Wandering”. The window on the left had a new, what seemed to be, advert, showcasing a new addition to the presumable menu variety: Boba milk tea.
It was Kunikuzushi’s daily routine of working at the local music shop, Sonitus Fatui Saltare, but commonly referenced as Fatui, where half the store was littered in cd’s, records, films, tapes and miscellaneous supplies for listening, whereas the other half showcased a heterogeneity of instruments and production equipment. The indigo man's dazed thoughts were disturbed when he heard snaps close to his ear and a strange, yet (in Kunikuzushi’s opinion)annoying voice echoed off the foam coated walls.
“Hey man, are you about to throw up or something?”
Tartaglia, another employee that normally goes by Childe and who was temporarily playing boss, asked. He pulled a white and green box from his back pocket and a blue electric lighter, lighting a cigarette and pressing it seamlessly against his lips.
“Ugh, why the fuck do you smoke?”
Kunikuzushi asked, making his way over to the display guitars and sitting on the floor, adjusting the settings on an amp connected to an electric guitar he was fiddling with earlier. Childe only snickered, glancing at the smaller boy for the broken facade of innocence and inquisition.
“Well, Kuniku, my good friend. My brother in musical arms, my comrade if you will-”
“Get on with it. And don’t call me that.”
“Fine, fine. No need for all that aggression! But anyways…uhh.. Well, it’s like if I asked you why you played guitar! Why do you do it?” The mindless strumming of scattered chords halted as the boy pondered his word choice. “Uhh…I guess because it kinda helps relieve stress and makes me forget all the horrible bullshit that goes on in all corners of the world. Music is an escape, both playing or listening, I guess…”
Kunikuzushi’s face added a faint light hue of red to its colour palette, embarrassment kicking in at the realisation of how vulnerable and honest he had seemed to get when rambling about his admiration for music. In a trance of humiliation, he didn’t realise Childe had made his way to loom over him on the floor, and a random string was plucked with a secondary snicker.
“And that is why I smoke.”
That caused the indigo man to look at the ginger with slightly widened eyes: key word, slightly. Normally he would be teasing, playful, way too immature and foolish to mutter out a response as such. The mind of a ginger was truly inconsistently horrific.
“But anyways! Hey! Little Kuniku has been the absolute best today and since you definitely want to keep being the best, you should go across the street and get us treats!”
“Stop fucking calling me that, Ajax!”
“And you need to stop being so formal and up-your-own-ass, Scaramouche. Yeah, that’s right. Busting out the name tag name since someone just has such an issue with a friendly nickname! Back to the topic at hand though…Good people get good sanctions! Basic sociology!”
Kunikuzushi sighed, his hand covering his face. “Have you been listening to the Smiths, because all day you’ve been talking like a prick.”
Childe, of course, paid no mind to what the indigo man said as he continued rambling. “Say you met a guy who robbed a bank. Would you take him on a dinner date and eat cakes and sweets galore, or put him in jail?” Kunikuzushi continued fiddling with a second guitar, tuning it by ear before humming, figuring he should humour the taller.
“Take him to jail, I guess? Unless he was on death row and as his last meal he wanted me to re-enact the French Revolution! No dinner to be had, just cake. It’d be a waste, though, unless he likes breakfast.”
The last line caught Childe’s attention, a smirk staining his lips and his arms now crossed as he drags another breath of smoke by the opened window. “Oh really? Why so? Cake isn’t exactly the same as a platter of eggs and bacon.”
Scaramouche stopped tuning the guitar, giving the strings a final strum before turning to the amp, working with the settings.
“Well, as portrayed and quoted in multiple modern day shows, movies, novels, you name it, the phrase let them eat cake! symbolises sweets and regular cakes. Like the cake I could go across the street or to the grocery store and get. But, it’s merely a common misconception. Cakes back in the French Revolution days were what we call pancakes. The queen and nobles, ‘round the same time of Louis the sixteenths death, hosted a gala. That part’s true. There, the royal class ate a shit ton until one of the high class chefs brought a platter of pancakes and the queen supposedly shouted that famous one liner. However, the working class were hell ridden poor who struggled for a proper meal and had to watch behind royal closed gates while the clergy got so full and basked in royal eats. Yum!”
He drew out the last few words, slurring the vowels to showcase annoyance, huffing as he went back to adjusting his amps settings. Childe was stunned, how his friend knew so much about history, it was incredulous. Truly gave Mr. Peabody a run for his money.
“Wow. How about next time we go get breakfast, I scream Let Them Eat Cake! When the waiter brings our food. I’ll get pancakes solely for the cause, even if I am a waffle guy!” Kunikuzushi sighed, shaking his head before looking up for a brief moment.
“You better have the balls to do so.”
With a couple more tweaks and plugs, accompanied by a slight static, his amp was fully adjusted to how he liked it. He began to strum soft chords and hum along, creating a haphazard melody off a whim. The ginger put his cigarette out on the ashtray by the window before lighting a candle and turning on a diffuser in an attempt to rid any lingering scent of the smoke. Before anything else could be done, another tall figure walked through the door, one that the two men knew well.
“Hello Ajax, hello to you as well, Scaramouche.” The man said, adjusting the collar of his shirt. The indigo man didn’t know or trust the man enough to tear down his facade, but that was another case for the ginger.
“Zhongli! Hope everything went well at the library today!”
Zhongli, a double history and geology major at the renowned Liyue University who, on his less crowded days, works part time at the local library. Also the boyfriend of Childe. Why? Kunikuzushi couldn’t say, let alone fathom how someone could tolerate him in such a sense.
“Everything went well as always, Ajax. Are you ready to leave? Remember, we have that reservation at the Pavilion at 6.” The eldest murmured, walking through the aisle littered with vinyl records in bins and scouring through them kindly. At the remembrance of the date, the ginger's seemingly lifeless eyes were resuscitated and shot with joy…or a late kick of nicotine.
In a matter of seconds, a grey coat adorned his torso and a pair of keys sat on Kunikuzushi’s amp. “We gotta go, Ku-Scara! Be a gem and lock up? Thanks!”
With that, Zhongli’s arm wrapped around the ginger's shoulders as he muttered: “Take care, Scaramouche. See you later.” and the couple vanished, leaving Kunikuzushi alone to groan.
He messed around mindlessly with his guitar for another hour before doing some basic cleaning and closing tasks. He grabbed his black coat and umbrella from the back rack and locked up the quaint little store, heading toward the apartment complex where he called home.
That’s how it’s been for the past two, almost three, years. The cycle started when Kunikuzushi was eighteen, now awaiting his twenty-first birthday later in the year. Zhongli would appear occasionally and the indigo male was forced to close the store alone, both giving him peace of mind but a lingering sense of lonesome. Even in that downtime, though, he caught himself staring at the Wandering sign dressed in vermillion, wondering if and when he should venture to try.
That day, after closing up and preparing to walk to his complex, across that very street and coming out of closed doors, stood a man that looked like the feeling of the fall breeze and the warmth of apples and cinnamon. He was too far for any genuine details to be made out, but from what Kunikuzushi could see, he was intrigued, almost blindly intoxicated, yearning for another dosage with proper recognition.
Infatuation. Inquisition.
Every step on the pavement, every click his keys made in the hole to open his apartment, every purr his cat mewled at warm contact, every train and trace of sound balanced out the indigo thoughts of vermillion mystery.
But the more Kunikuzushi’s mind blended and basked in the colour red, the more he realised a specific callback:
He would soon need to go through his own personal renaissance.