Chapter Text
On the perfect day of May 30th, less than a year before the corruption of the Sages at the Akademiya and subsequent overthrow of all but two heads of major research branches and requiring her to step back in and manage the Akademiya much closer than before, Nahida raises her short, tiny arms up to the glittering sunset sky, one hand gripping tightly on the new keys the estate agent handed over. The other has a fistful of dozens of new licenses she didn’t realize she needed to sell food. On her left, her ward sighs and puts his head in his hands, groaning slightly from her expressions.
“You don’t need to be this dramatic about starting a new job.” Kuni says, although based on what Nahida has learned from living with him for just over a month now - and caring for him for just as long - that twitch at the corner of his mouth means that he’s basically jumping with joy. She shifts her shoulders to adjust her pale green vegan purse onto her collarbone while she smiles with glee.
Getting these few things was such a hassle, especially when she’s as baby faced and short as she is. Every single time someone thought of her as a child, Nahida would contemplate visiting Rukkhadevata’s grave and complain about how she stole all of her height and age. Except, Nahida would then immediately feel bad for thinking poorly of her dear dead older sister.
Nahida tilts her head at Kuni, her eyes locked on the beautiful building that would soon be their new workplace and home away from home.
“Hehe, Thank you for coming with me for all of the process. I know you don’t enjoy being around strangers much, so to simply have you here with me was like… if the rain was to fall on a drought-stricken land, the earth would sprout up plants and flowers in thanks.” She says, delighting in the way his face turns red, and Kuni turns around to grumble something about how he only did it because Nahida wanted him to. She’s glad that he’s here with her. It’s not often that someone willingly stays long enough to deal with all her analogies and lack of wisdom, much less without a definite end, the way Kuni is.
She lowers her hands and pulls out a small pocketbook from her purse. Attached to the bookmark is her favorite Aranara-stylized pen, the Sumerian fairytale reminding her of her childhood, listening to Rukkhadevata as she tells her stories.
Ah, I should probably start getting the adjustments done . Nahida thinks when the creaking of the door opening snaps her out of her high. Kuni scowls at his place on the floor holding open the door, and Nahida hurries up to enter, thanking the younger as she does so.
First things first - shortening all the doorknobs to a comfortable height . Nahida writes down. There’s nothing inside save for cream-colored walls, just like how it was two weeks ago when the realtor toured them through for the first time.
Next, painting the interior a nicer color than neutral tones. Perhaps a nice pale green will do.
Kuni flicks a small traditional Inazuman fan from one of his many pockets around, and a thin layer of dust gets blown away and out the large window he opened when Nahida wasn’t paying attention.
She bounces over to the ceiling to floor length glass, and smiles as she’s reminded of why she chose this place, situated near the edge of a mountain, in particular. There’s so many windows, all just about surrounding the front of the place, giving her a view of the parking lot in front and a view of the scenery on their right.
The side window has a magnificent view of the grand forests surrounding Sumeru City. If she squints on the horizon, she can even see Inazuma’s Grand Narukami Shrine. If she focuses near the southeast, that’s the section of forest where she partnered with Tighnari to study the rishboland tigers. If she follows her fingers towards the west, there’s a small section of the Wall of Samiel in view.
Nahida’s joy increases when Kuni walks up behind her, gently kicking her heels in his own way of letting her know where he is. Not that she needs it - his reflection is perfectly visible on the glass.
“Well, I was thinking of installing some nice green curtains here so that if we want we can have privacy, but a guest could also see this amazing view if they want.”
Kuni’s reflection nods, and Nahida beams in his direction.
“I suppose installing a higher floor around the kitchen would be simple. Perhaps concrete for now, then we can get a beautiful wooden platform.” She muses, putting a finger to her chin. “And if we can’t find any doors in short notice I could place a small stool near each.”
Kuni rolls his eyes at the mention of her height.
“If the customers sit on them then?” He asks, rubbing his chest in what Nahida assumes is some kind of nervous tic he developed.
Nahida points at the trunk of her old green (as well) car, where an extra supply of foldable stools lie.
“Point.” Kuni concedes.
…
Two years after that fateful day, Kuni scowls as the local girl from the Akademiya falls asleep in her chair. Again. For the third time this week. And it’s only Tuesday. How does someone fall asleep at a loud cafe/restaurant (even if it is less busy than normal because the new school semester hasn’t started), where servers are rushing this way and that, people (with a little too much Inazuman sake) are chatting about as loud as they can over each other, and he rubs a hand against his chest because Archons, could anyone around here have any situational awareness! He’s a waiter, not some sort of superhuman that flies over all the bodies blocking the path from here to his table!
Take a deep breath and calm down before something happens that you’ll regret. He tells himself.
Thankfully, the short guy with long thin braids over dark wavy hair and lime-green eyes (probably Kuni’s age, definitely weaker - stop it. Stop categorizing everybody you meet on if you can beat them in a fight) stops leaning back as far as he can and starts up some sort of intense conversation with the even shorter guy (who looks older than the first - what are they, some sort of trans-graduate friend group? (Not that Kuni and Nahida are any better)) with white hair and red eyes as their food lies forgotten. Kuni can finally take a breath and go serve the sleeping girl . (Whose sleeping right next to the loud TV. How does she do that.) (Why did she have to choose the best view to sleep in front of? Does she think no one else wants to see?)
Who doesn’t even wake at the sound of her pudding being slammed on the table right in front of her, which even Nahida must somehow hear it all the way in the kitchen, because she comes out to shake her head at him slightly from the doorway to the boiling hot room. Seriously, it’s like she can read minds out there.
Now, to wake the sleeper or not…
On one hand, if he does, she’ll probably leave faster. On the other…
Yeah, Kuni can’t see any benefits to letting her sleep. He needs to get back to the kitchen to deliver the next order, if the high-pitched ding from his phone is of any indication.
“Hey.” He says, tapping the pudding spoon on the rim of the bowl. The girl snores softly through the din.
“Hey!” He says a little louder. She shifts slightly, putting her ear against her arms.
“Hey!” Kuni basically screams at her. Finally, she wakes, looking around her frantically.
“Yes Ms.- Madame Faruzan!” She calls, her blue hair sticking up weirdly in a restaurant-version of bedhead.
“Wait… I’m not in class.” She realizes. “Class ended.”
“You sure aren’t.” Kuni says, and hears another high-pitched ding. Better hurry this up. “You fell asleep. Better get some sleep tonight, and not at a table.”
“Huh?” She mumbles, laying her head back down.
Kuni sighs. Whatever, at least he tried.
A third ding sounds, and Kuni groans loudly, peeking an eye to see if she woke at that. She doesn’t.
By the fourth ding, Kuni’s already growling faintly at her before hurrying back to pick up the food.
Nahida’s already near the entrance to the kitchen, four dishes all arranged neatly on a tray, each with a small tag telling him which table each goes to.
Kuni hefts the entire thing, balancing it carefully in his hands and begins to head to table four - the table with the two short men who blocked his path earlier. There’s a third man at the table, this one seems to groan at every word the white-haired one says.
“An Inazuman-style rice porridge for table four.” Kuni says in his best, sickly sweet customer voice.
The third raises his hand while scolding the white-haired one for…puns?
Whatever. Not Kuni’s business. He leaves soon after to drop off the other three plates, and once he returns, all three of the guests seem to be staring at Kuni. From personal experience, this seems to not be anything good.
“Er, how may I help you all?” He asks, tray held flat against his chest to hide the small ball of trash he took from table 12.
“What’s your name?” The white-haired one asks.
“Um- my name’s Kuni.” Kuni says. The others are still staring at Kuni.
“Stop creeping the poor waiter out Cyno.” The green-accented third man says, lightly slapping Cyno upside the head. Kuni kinda wants to offer them the check and get them out.
“How is asking someone their name creeping them out? Even if you’re always in the trees Tighnari, I’d think you knew that.” Cyno, it seems, asks.
“Ugh. Do you have no idea what you were doing?” Tighnari’s voice seems to get a little too loud. “We’re here for Collei, so don’t scare off her coworkers!”
“Hey hey! Kuni, we just wanted to ask if you went to the Akademiya!” The last says in an effort to drown out the other two.
Kuni blinks, then shakes his head.
“Well, you look just about the age. Are you going at the start of the school year?” He asks, his green eyes weirdly intense as he stares at Kuni. “I’m starting next semester - well, I applied, but still, hopefully I’ll see you there!”
Kuni can only nod, and pretend that he has another order to deliver. Honestly, who asks someone you’ve never met before for their personal information. That’s basically saying that you're a stalker out loud.
Inside the kitchen, Nahida and her assistant for the next few weeks work three woks and two pots. Kuni nods at Nahida and they swap jobs for the next three hours. Honestly, for someone so short, she does both cooking and waiting much better than Kuni. And Kuni has the advantage of being able to look customers in the eyes and see what’s in the pan.
He takes a quick glance at the orders, and drops in a handful of chives into a bowl and spoons in some soup before placing it all on another round dish.
He smirks. Finally, he can ring the bell today.
Soon, Nahida’s fifth and newest employee, a small green-haired girl who will attend the high-school section of the Akademiya that Nahida pushed for and definitely can’t beat Kuni in a fight (stop that), darts in and grabs the soup.
“Careful, that’s hot!” Xiangling, the other cook, calls out to the little green haired girl. What was her name again? Cauli? Cori? Collei? Whatever. Kuni focuses on the Inazuman dishes that he needs to cook.
Nahida had taught Xiangling all of the dishes when she arrived, and the girl took to cooking new foods like a fish to water, which was probably expected since she called her childhood teddy ‘the God of the Stove, Guoba’.
She smiles and hums to herself as she grabs a handful of cayenne chili peppers and sprinkles it into the roast chicken, effectively using up the rest of the pepper and forcing Kuni to leave his station to go grab some more for his grilled fish, trying but failing at holding back the dirty look. At least he can claim that it wasn’t directed to her - he wasn't looking at anything in general.
…
Finally, his kitchen shift ends, and all the workers at Verdue’s Sumer-Inazuman delights come into the kitchen to share the extra stew leftover and clean up.
It’s chaotic - Kaveh, the volume-blind and annoying person that he is, insists on making his presence known by doing whatever task assigned to him as loudly as he can. Even Xiangling’s wincing slightly at the noise, and she’s the second loudest here with her chaotic giggling when she discovers a new technique or ingredient.
The new girl slips on some soap and Mr. Evenings-only-please-oh-wait-I-didn't-mean-that-I'll-work-whenever reaches over to help her up. Kuni sees her facial expression change rapidly, and her wide purple eyes change from tired-but-relaxed quickly into fear.
She quickly shoves Kaveh’s hand away and pulls herself into a sitting position in one quick motion, her hands holding tightly on the plate that she grabs in front of her as a shield. Her pose reminds Kuni of a time long ago, and his chest pangs faintly in memory.
Deep breath in, don’t blow up at anyone…
Out…
Kuni stalks over and presses the on button on the washing machine on his way over, dragging Kaveh away from the girl while shoving him towards the dishwasher in one quick motion.
“Turn around everyone.” He says loudly through the din of the washing machine. From the corner of his eye, he sees Nahida hurriedly distract everyone else with her emergency radish (a small white vegetable Kuni carved into the shape of a roach. It’d seen many uses whenever there was an issue too large to hide, effectively granting them privacy).
Then, he crouches down until he’s just about under eye-level with her. From what he and Nahida discussed before choosing to hire the girl, it seems she was another one whose life the Fatui had completely messed with, and was just now, one year after the arrest of a certain Fatui experimental branch, regaining her footing.
And if they’re right, Kuni knows that lowering himself so that he has to look up to meet scared purple eyes is something that most other Fatui would do with an experiment.
“Hey.” He says, trying his best to keep the loud angry guy out of his voice.
She blinks at him, her head tilted down towards Kuni’s face as one of her hands releases the death grip she has on the plate to begin picking at a dark scab Kuni can see on her other elbow.
“How about you take the rest of the day off? We can handle the clean-up tonight.” He says, a little too fast. Sue him, he’s not the best at comforting anybody. Half the time, he can’t even calm himself down.
The girl looks at the rest of the employees, now too busy chasing after a fake roach to be listening to their conversation, and then seems to steel herself, and shakes her head quickly.
“No?” Kuni asks. He almost blurts out a barb about her inability to handle touch, but reels it in at the last minute. The last thing she’d need to hear is his unhelpful thoughts, tempered by his personality from his own time in the Fatui. “Then how about you tell me your name. I’ve forgotten it over the course of dealing with people.”
She blinks at him, but it seems the fear is melting out of her frame, so admitting his own failure was a good move. Then again, it’s mostly because the Fatui were self-centered enough to never admit personal failure that probably sets him apart from her memories.
“Um- It’s Collei. My name.” She mumbles, looking away, her hands tapping out some rhythm on the slippery-tiled floor.
Kuni nods. Collei. It’d probably be best if he didn’t forget it again, in case more episodes like this happen. It also reminds him of something, but Kuni decides it’s best if he doesn’t get distracted right now.
“I heard you’re going to go to high school at the Akademiya?” He asks, to make conversation. “What’s it like?”
She nods, mumbling about how it hasn’t started yet, that she’s just graduated middle school, that he probably knows more than she does about it.
Kuni thinks bringing that up was a bad idea. Perhaps time for a change of subject.
“Well then,” he starts “Collei, would you help us count up the tips? It seems like Kaveh forgot.” Kuni offers, feeling strangely relieved when she agrees. There was no other job that he could think of at the moment that was both repetitive and safe from literally anything.
Collei shifts to stand up, and Kuni gets the message and backs up quickly, giving her the space to reorient herself. It’s times like this when he accepts his own height. For all that he rolls his eyes at Nahida’s height, his own is no better, and even Collei is nearly eye level with him.
She nods to herself and Kuni watches as she gets to the register and shaking hands steady over a few minutes.
Then, he goes back into the kitchen so that he can berate Kaveh for all the wrong ways he handles the vegetables. From the sounds of it, Nahida’s got the radish-roach and has sent the other two back to work. For a guy who seems to do anything for money, he sure isn’t careful enough for it.
…
Xiangling seems to have finally picked up on all the improper ways Kaveh’s been handling the vegetables, (storing the parsley with water in the bag, honestly. Does he want the greens to wither and decay in less than a day?) and took over the job.
Nahida smiles at him from where she’d been scooping out the rice from their giant rice-cooker, and Kuni helps bring in the bowls of extra rice over to the walk-in fridge for storage. She smiles sheepishly when Kuni sees the stool placed precariously on a large cardboard box from where she tried to put up the garlic herself. The garlic in question is currently squeezed between the eggplants and the zucchini, decidedly not at their correct place at the top of the shelf.
“Nahida.” He starts. “You do realize your search engine of a mind will tell you if something is stable enough to withstand the weight of an adult human, even one as short as you, right?”
She giggles, and drags out the height-boosting items from the fridge. Sometimes, Kuni felt like he was the older one in their relationship, even if he was the one who was adopted by the other.
Sighing, he raises the garlic over his head and pushes it back until it's safe from gravity, then moving on to storing the leftover rice. Nahida returns soon after with a tin of candied ajilenakh nuts, and waits until Kuni’s finished to offer him one.
“Ew.” He mimes when the sugary taste hits his tongue. “I’m surprised you don’t know what I prefer after all this time.”
“Hehe. I know that you like bitter things and simple dishes. But isn’t it nice to have a change once in a while?” She asks while popping another of the ajilenakh nuts in her mouth. “I think this would be a nice treat for everyone after the end of a long day.”
Xiangling takes the ajilenakh excitedly, muttering ways she can pair the taste with… slimes? Whatever, Kuni thinks his ears have finally stopped working.
Kaveh acts like this is the first time someone’s ever given him food for free, even though he eats dinner with them every day after the customers leave.
Collei takes hers and rolls it around her hands until they’re basically covered in the sugar, and then eats it.
Kuni drags the curtains someone’s pulled down around all their windows open a bit, and watches as Xiangling and Kaveh go home after they finish. Then, he turns around and meets Collei’s eye and points at a dark green car questioningly.
“Oh! I didn’t realize they got here already.” She smiles for the first time since her incident and dashes out the door. Kuni sees the car door open and the customer from earlier, Tighnari, steps out and wraps her in a coat protectively.
Huh. Guess he must be the work-friend who took Collei in after she left the Fatui. Probably should’ve expected it if they mentioned her earlier. Kuni didn’t know he’d be serving some big-shot Amurta name today. And the other two must also be some major-names in the Akademiya then, if they’re comfortable enough to eat together and tease each other.
Behind him, in the soft reflection of the dim light off the floor-length windows, Nahida steps up behind Kuni and places a small chunk of 70% dark chocolate in his hand.
“Collei’s much more similar to you than I thought.” She says. “She was one of the children involved in the case of unethical human experimentation a couple years back. I used to see her outside the Birmarstan often when I collected research on eleazar with Tighnari after she was placed with him. She’s gotten much better recently, and I’ve come to an agreement with her guardians to let her gain some real-world experience by working here.”
Kuni nods. Outside, their car backs out of the parking lot and drives off down the street. Nahida pulls the curtain back across, blocking Kuni’s view of the dark outside.
“Let’s go back to our house now. I’m sure you’ve got your application to the Akademiya just about ready to send out.” She smiles. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll get in Vahumana. Your ‘new life’ seems to be looking up.”
“And my previous life?” He asks softly.
“Well, we took care of that, didn’t we? And besides, even if they cause problems for you, I’d be able to take care of you.” She smiles, optimistically.
“And the one before that? The one that still affects me?” He wonders, but she doesn’t seem to hear. His heart squeezes out a bit more blood, and Kuni can almost hear the soft keening noise it’d make if it were exposed to the air.
He doesn’t think Nahida realizes just how similar he is to Collei.