SOLAR POWER
prologue ;; wc 0.8k , nerdjo
A record shop isn’t the worst part time job in the world, really. Your boss is super lenient, and the adjacent café means free drinks all the time.
You appreciate the lack of foot traffic, especially as a college student. Whenever it’s not busy, which is most of the time, you can take the opportunity to catch up on some work, or lean against the counter and observe the clientele.
A brunette girl. She never bothers to stub out her cigarette before she enters. You can tell it grinds on your boss’s nerves, but until you get a raise, you don’t care.
A blond guy. He takes up residence at one of the café tables, rents a Walkman, and works for hours. One day you’ll ask him how he can focus for so long without breaks.
A noisy pink-haired kid, and his silent black-haired friend. Despite the noisy tendencies of the former, you’ve never had to tell him off. His friend has that covered.
A white-haired guy. This was your favourite eye candy, by a landslide. His enormous glasses were always slipping down his nose, and he always bundled himself into a corner, surrounded by stacks of study material. From your vantage point, you had noticed that you must share a course or something. You spied familiar professors’ names as you sidled past his desk last week.
He’s phenomenal to look at, and judging by the glances he sends you, you’re sure he’s interested in you. However, whenever you end up serving him, he seems to devolve into a stuttering, blushing mess, and it’s honestly not as big a turn-on as you’d expect.
But this all goes flying out the window the day he musters up the courage to speak to you proper.
You’re at the counter, as per usual, ignoring the teen hooligans sneaking CDs into their comically large hoodie pockets. In fact, you’re so engrossed in painting your nails that when he speaks to you, you jump, sending the nail polish brush over your boss’s stack of illegitimate payslips.
“Oops. How can I help?”
He blinks at you owlishly, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish before he remembers how to speak. “I can’t pick.”
“What?”
“I can’t… pick. Which CD to buy.”
You look at him like he’s sprouted a second head, before you remember you work at a record store and he’s not just asking you if you wanna get out of here and see what he’s working with under that Digimon T-shirt. Bad luck.
“Yeah? Let’s see what you’re working with.” You take the five CDs, assessing each one. Solar Power, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, Brat, OK Computer, and Who Really Cares.
He stares at you intensely, trying to glean your reaction from the complicated expression on your face.
You hum. “Well, these are all good, but they don’t really have a lot in common.”
“Oh.”
“Do you have, like, a particular genre preference?” You look up at him, and you’re immediately distracted by the pretty pink flush drifting down his neck. “... ‘Cause I can’t really help you otherwise.”
“Oh. No. Sorry. I’ll just—” He moves to take them back, but you jerk away, moving all five out of his reach. He stares at you in confusion, and now you’re the stuttering idiot.
“Well—! We can listen to them all now!” You like these albums, and a little part of you wants to believe he somehow reached inside of your head and siphoned out your favourite songs. You're not passing up this golden opportunity.
“What? All of them?”
“Yes! Bring your stuff over here, and we can listen to them!” You smile, thrilled with the mastermind plan your horny brain just conjured up. You’re gonna get in his pants one way or another, even if it means sitting through five albums straight to do it.
He looks like he’s about to protest, but he practically shrivels under the brightness of your gleaming teeth. “Okay…”
Your hawk eyes remain trained on him as he gathers his belongings, relocating to sit beside you, behind the counter.
“We’ll start with Solar Power,” you say, loading up the CD. “What’s your name?”
“Satoru. Um, Gojo.”
“Well, Satoru, I hope you like this one.” You plop down next to him, grinning as the first guitar chords start ringing out across the record store. “The most important thing to remember is that all these storylines are just the author putting a spin on the vibe of the album.”
“What?” Satoru furrows his brows at you, a little confused. It takes Herculean strength to resist reaching out a thumb and smoothing out the crease between his brows.
“What, what? I’m just saying that the author isn’t necessarily saying that her plotlines are the direct plot of the album, just how she wanted to honour her favourite music in her work.”“What are you even talking about?”“What are you talking about? Just listen to the album!”