Diner AU - Sugary Jalapeno Pancakes
I'm glad people found the Diner AU interesting :>. As a token of my appreciation, have a drabble feat. Kokichi, Shuichi, and Kaede in the diner (that's admittedly unnamed for now lMAOAO). Also, I would've added more interactions with the other protagonists, but this became much longer than I thought... I'll be making separate posts for those instead (i.e. Komahina antics and some other shenanigans).
Kokichi taps against the table. Where’s Kaede? He wanted his soda already. She’s always super nice about his very particular tastes, even though she gets annoyed at him really easily (although that's really not surprising nor undesired). He even made the effort to visit today of all days, because today she’s usually here to get him it.
He hears a pen tapping. Ah, finally.
He lifts his head up to come face to face with messy dark hair and deep eye bags, coupled with long lashes framing silvery verdant eyes. Pretty.
“Um, hi.” They smile, and wow, they’re timid. This might be fun. “What would you like?”
He grins, as charmingly innocent as possible. “Well, I come here, like, all the time and I just LOVE the jalapeno pancakes, extra sugar. Can I have that?”
They hum. Their pen (blue ink- so boringgggg) nearly touches paper, but their hands stop mid-air. They furrow their eyebrows, purse their lips. Oh, it’s always good when people make that face. It means they’re not idiots.
“Ah, I’m sorry,” They ask incredulously (appropriately, he’ll admit). "jalapeno pancakes? With sugar?”
His grin turns wolfish. “Yep!” He says, with a pop! on the p. “Jalapeno pancakes! They’re an absolute classic, I always get them here. Pairing it with sugar makes the combo so amazeballs.” Haha, he died a little inside saying that.
A flurry of emotions flip through their face, and he almost feels pity for just how easy they are to read. The waiter leans forward, grabbing- oh yeah, he forgot he had a menu with him. They thumb through the pages. Got 'em. Quickly, he replaces his devious smile with a frown. "What's the hold up? Is something wrong?"
He nearly laughs when they lower the menu, exposing their wide, oh-so worried eyes. “Sorry. Um. Where is that on the menu? It's not on here, and I would definitely remember something so… eccentric if it was one of our specials.”
Aw, their rationalization is so cute. “Yeah, it wouldn’t be.” Kokichi easily waves off. “It’s a code phrase for my order. Me and the cook go way back, we’re the best of pals, you know! Has he really not mentioned me?" The answering shake of the head has him bawling. "WAHHH! I CAN'T BELIEVE MY B F F WOULD ACT LIKE I DON'T EXIST!" He expected them to immediately start panicking, but instead they just look a little concerned with their tilt of the head, a little overwhelmed but not overcome. They're not even looking around self-consciously! He's a menace and he knows it! But no, they're just staring intently at him. Huh. He blinks the tears away and says, just to really bring it home, “Rantaro will definitely know what I’m talking about.”
They clearly look conflicted, biting their lip, but nod anyway. So they are a pushover then? He figured that’d be the case.
They smile at him with a nod. “Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”
As quickly as they came, they speed walked away. Man, that worked absolutely perfectly. The poor server’s going to be so embarra-
“KOKICHI!” A voice booms from the back. Stomps echo against the tile of the diner, and yep, there she is. Kayayday. Didn’t expect that to happen.
She stands in front of him with a pout and crossed arms, directing a particularly scathing glare at him that he hasn’t seen in awhile. He sticks his tongue out at her with a grin. Serves her right for not getting his order.
“Kokichi," She starts, and he knows he's in for something good, "please don’t harass the new server. It’s very lucky he’s smart enough to detect that you were lying- like seriously, a secret code for your order? Although I can see you doing that-, he’s just too polite to call you out on it.”
He hums. That’s interesting. “It was meant to be an outlandish lie, easy for him to figure out!” Lie. He didn’t expect to be found out, not with being mostly sincere and actually trying to be normal- read: trying-, just for that flavour. “I was initiating him for the future!” He doesn’t even have to confirm that one.
She tilts her head. “Huh, really?” The blonde frowns. “I don’t know if I believe that…”
“Pft, I can tell he was new! You know I’m a regular here, so I was actually surprised to see someone else on shift that isn’t Makotoes.” He shifts his gaze to his nails as nonchalantly as possible. “Sooooooooo… who’s the pretty boy?”
“Pretty boy?” She raises an eyebrow at him.
Well. That was overly stupid. Don’t blush, don't blush, don't blush. He did NOT mean to say that.
Her face doesn’t change. Good. The slip of the tongue went unnoticed. “He’s one of my best friends that started working here a few days ago. I won’t say much else though.” She explains.
He shrugs nonchalantly. “Okay.”
Internally, he screams.
Lilac eyes narrow at him. “For some reason, I feel like you would’ve questioned me about him just so you can tune me out and mock me for it, but the fact that you’re not makes me think you want to hear about him. Am I right?”
Damn. He forgot Kaede can be really perceptive when she wants to be. Kaede’s smirking though, so his expression clearly isn’t as neutral as he wanted it to be.
She laughs lightly. “Well, I’ll have him bring your usual this time- you do still want that right?”
“Absolutely not! I don’t want anything after all this-!”
“-wonderful, got it, one Panta coming up!” She interrupts, already walking away. Rude.
As Kaede promised, the navy-haired server from before appears with his can of Panta.
"Here you go." The waiter greets him, setting down the delicious grape-y goodness right in front of him.
He takes a glorious sip of bubbly blandness. "You're 'too polite' to call me out, huh?" Kokichi starts with a smirk.
"Ah, I'm not really that polite..." So humble. "I would've called you out then and there," Wha-? "but it was kind of funny to see Kaede go off on someone. I've never seen that before." Grayish green eyes meets his purple, and his lips quirk upward. "I've heard a lot about you, Kokichi, so it really was only fair."
Huh.
"WAHHHH!" He cries again. He's gonna need to drink a lot more than usual after this... "You're so mean! What kind of server are you, bullying the customers?!"
"Ah! Sorry! Please keep it down." He frowns. "You really are so confusing..."
"Well, I'm sure you could figure it out, Detective." He purrs.
Saying that has every muscle of the other's tense, his ahoge on high alert (which he's going to gloss over right now, but he sees Kaede's do the exact same thing which is WEIRD, even for him). "Detective? How did you know?"
He was just referencing one of his favourite fantasies as a personal joke, but he can 100% work with this. "It's pretty obvious." in retrospect, anyway. Observant, logical, although he is really anxious. Like, really. Practically an open book. "Does said Detective have a name? I need to let my subordinates know who they need to watch out for."
"Shuichi. Shuichi Saihara."
"We're gonna have a LOT of fun Shumai~!" He grins.
