Notes:Here it is, the first chapter of a multi-chapter thing happening in my mind now. Born around the small-fry joke (that doesn't work in Japanese obviously) and the fact my cute friend works in a fast food herself.

Midosaka is the main pairing and Toumaki appears later as a secondary pairing, but I'm sure some other pairings will be hinted eventually.

More is to come sooner or later. Expect lots of (more or less) romantic and (more or MORE) clichéd moments, because I'm a rotten shoujo trash.

Sakamichi stood on a bus stop. It was something past ten o'clock in the evening and the small city she worked in was shrouded in a thick layer of mist. It was almost scary, but the girl wasn't afraid at all. She was used to going home at night no matter what weather had in store for her, and besides, earphones plugged in her ears supplied her brain with optimistic soundtrack of her favourite show, Love Hime. That alone made her feel absolutely invincible, as if she herself could turn into a magical girl and fight off any bad guys that could possibly try to bring her harm.

„Hiiime hime...," she hummed for herself, staring blankly at the street and passing cars. She still had some time left before her bus would come, and she decided to spent it reminiscing about today's work. So much was supposed to happen today, yet it hadn't and Sakamichi couldn't decide if she was relieved or disappointed.

She started working in the local McDonald's a few months back. Beginnings were never easy and her case was no different, but she got by and now felt like a pro at preparing burgers and cleaning dishes and nearly everything else, maybe with an exception of selling stuff to customers, because she was a really shy girl. There was still a room for her to improve in talking to people in general, she knew that very well.

Today was sort of special, though. A new colleague was supposed to join their ranks and the restaurant's manager, a young man with bizarre fashion sense and somehow iridescent hair, had a brilliant idea to let Sakamichi take care of him. That included showing him around, teaching him how to do things, all the stuff needed to ensure the smooth run of the business.

When she learned that, she had a panic attack followed by something that possibly felt like a slight heart attack and in the end her stomach got attacked by a swarm of bees, not even the oh-so-clichéd butterflies. She was so scared! Yet, she felt quite excited too.

„The newcomer's first name is Akira... That's a boy's name! Akira-kun... I wonder what kind of person is he? It would be nice if he was kind. What if he'll call me ‚senpai'? No one ever called me senpai! Ah... It would be like a shoujo manga scenario!" she kept blushing while cutting tomatoes and the thoughts of having someone to take care of distracted her so much she even cut her finger. However, not even that could stop her from fantasizing.

„If Akira-kun was with me now, maybe he'd lick the cut for me? Now wouldn't that be kinda hot?" she squealed internally when she cleaned the wound under running water.

But, that Akira-kun didn't come. He didn't even call the restaurant to apologise and wouldn't pick up his phone, so they had no idea what happened to him. Sakamichi started to worry and in the end, it was the manager himself who had to calm her down, telling her it was probably just a miscommunication of some sort. She left work a bit upset, but Love Hime soundtrack she'd listened to for the last few minutes was working wonders on her mood. As always.

Despite being lost in her personal dream world, she still managed to keep track of time. The bus that would take her home was late. Sakamichi rechecked the timetable. Maybe she'd made a mistake? She wasn't going home by bus that often after all. Normal she'd go by bike, but it was being repaired at the moment. No, no mistake. The bus was late after all!

Suddenly a bike appeared out of the blue, the blue being the mist surrounding the scene. It startled her a little – she couldn't hear it coming due to the earphones. The person riding it was a tall, exceptionally skinny guy who seemed to be roughly the same age as Sakamichi. There was a little reason to pay any attention to him as he would simply pass the bus stop and she'd never see him again, but instead of riding past the glassed girl, he pulled to the roadside, got off the bike and stared at his front wheel as if there was something wrong with it. His look was a bit frightening. Maybe he was trying to murder the wheel with a mere stare.

Sakamichi kept watching him with a bit of fascination. What a weird guy! He was indeed pretty tall – it wasn't just her imagination as she saw him on the bike. The length of his hands and legs was almost unnatural and he had these eyes of a dead fish going on. He looked really bizarre, not a handsome guy at all, „interesting" at best, miles away from the typical beauty standard girls in Sakamichi's age sought in boys.

He crouched down, touched the front wheel and made an utterly creepy face.

„... Gross..., " he mumbled. At least that's what it sounded like to Sakamichi. Then again, why the hell would he mumble something like that? Unless he accidentally ran through a pile of dog poo.

„Um, excuse me," Sakamichi took off her earphones. The guy turned his head and glared at her with his empty, dark eyes. It stopped her from continuing the dialogue for a brief moment, but she decided to go for it and ask him anyway.

„Is it a flat tire?" she wondered politely, expecting a reply straight away, but he took his time to answer. It felt like a century had passed before he said anything.

„No, the rim is a mess," he retorted. A teenage girl like her would surely had no idea what „a rim" was.

„Oh, the rim... that's really bad...," Sakamichi sighed. „I love to ride bikes a lot and I happen to have a puncture repair kit in my backpack, even though I went to work by bus today. There's nothing I can do about a broken rim, though," she smiled apologetically. The guy, however, reciprocated her smile with a nasty frown.

„Do I look like I don't have stuff to repair punctures with me?" he hissed venomously.

„Ah... not at all, now that you've mentioned it. That's a road racer after all. Sorry about that," Sakamichi apologised as if it was something completely natural, even though she'd made no mistake whatsoever. To her, it felt like the smile would somehow protect her even if he started to act rude. She got it, he was angry about the bike. She would be pissed off too if her comfortable grandma bicycle broke in the middle of the night when she was on her way home. In fact, that's exactly what had happened two days ago.

Luckily, he left her apology without any sort of reaction. Other people would find it rude, but Sakamichi was ok with it. She decided to leave him alone in spite of her curiosity about him and his bike. She used to be a manager for a bicycle racing club for her last year of high school and her really good friends and current co-workers were bikers from the very same club thus seeing a road racer brought back a lot of memories and it had a lot of emotional value attached to it for her. It couldn't be helped though, he didn't seem really friendly and she didn't want to annoy him any further, so she opted for waiting patiently for the bus, listening to her music some more.

Meanwhile, the guy took off his rucksack and started looking for something in it. He appeared to be really upset though. Well, it was unlikely he had a spare wheel in his pocket and Sakamichi knew well it wasn't an easy task to fix a cracked rim.

„Gross... so gross...," he kept repeating with a slightly insane expression. Sakamichi wondered if he was ok in his head. He surely was atypical in many ways. Not just his looks, but his behaviour and speech patterns too. Then again, she was hardly a usual eighteen-year-old girl herself, so she supposed she had no right to judge him.

As the boy searched through his stuff in the backpack without any luck of finding something useful, he was getting more and more disturbed and loud in his mindless comments about the situation. Sakamichi was glad she was listening to music, she still heard him, but this way she could at least pretend she did not. However, her determination to ignore him suffered a great blow when a single t-shirt that looked a lot like a part of a certain uniform fell out his rucksack. She took off her earphones again.

„Excuse me, but... do you by any chance work in the McDonald's?" she smiled as if she just found a soul mate for life.

„Don't say that name, it's so gross it makes my insides twist," he scolded her. Oh, he was so annoyed. Too annoyed to hold a normal conversation, the girl was aware of that.

„Sorry... Do you by any chance work in... that place?" she corrected herself. He gave her a really mortifying look. She was about to laugh at him, right? After all, people working in fast foods were so very gross. He was prepared to crush her as soon as she spoke another word.

„What if I do?" he asked, fishing for her negative reaction.

„Ah! That would make us colleagues, sort of! I work in the Mc as well!" she gleamed. „Where do you work? Not in the one nearby, that's for sure! I'd remember you!" He stared at her quietly for a while. Geez, she made it sound like it was an awesome thing, working in a gross place like that.

„I was supposed to work in the one nearby," he replied lazily, wondering what made him admit that. He had no plans to start a proper conversation with the silly-looking girl.

„Really?" she blinked. „But I don't remem... Wait, could you be Midousuji Akira-kun?" she asked, her tension rising by a hundred percent.

„Yeah," he nodded. What was he doing, he was getting so gross, he thought for himself as he saw the girl blush a little.

„Thank god!" she let out a relieved sigh. „Boss tried to contact you to find out what was wrong, but you didn't pick up your phone. I was getting worried something bad had happened to you!"

„Worried? About me? Are you stupid?" he asked her in a sharp tone. As if she offended him.

„Stupid, that's probably right," she laughed. „Why would I worry about someone I've never met before, right? You must think I'm a weirdo."

„I think you're gross," he admitted without much ado.

„Yeah, I guess I'm gross as well," she nodded understandingly. She'd always been like that, apologising for things that weren't even her fault. It was almost impossible to make her angry. „But you see, my boss told me I'd be the one teaching you about everything and at first I was really scared, but then I got somehow excited and you didn't show up so I guess I got quite disappointed in the end," she sighed and took a deep breath to say something else.

„Gross," he shrieked as she let out the very same word, so it happened they said it perfectly in sync. That alone freaked him out.

„GROSS! SO GROSS!" he yelled.

„Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to make you angry! But it seemed to me like you could say that about my worries...," she shrugged.

„Girls acting like smartasses are the grossest," he noted.

„That's right, isn't," she nodded. „I don't know why you didn't come today, but don't worry! Our boss is super kind and extremely cool, I'm sure he will forgive you! So please, come tomorrow! I promise I'll do my best and teach you everything about hamburgers!" she begged him. Her fear of the weird guy was all gone, if there was any to begin with.

He couldn't wrap his head around how gross the girl was. He was acting anything but friendly, yet she was shining like an excited firefly, babbling these super gross things about work he'd decided he wouldn't go to in the end. It pissed him off even more that she seemed indestructible. Maybe she was one of those people that were unbelievably positive when they interacted with other human beings. No, not positive nor friendly. In his opinion they simply lacked a backbone.

„I'm not coming tomorrow. I'm not coming ever. I have no plans to work in that gross place, especially if a gross girl like you is my co-worker!" he told her sternly. Sure, she could ask him why he applied for the position in the first place. It wasn't her problem. He needed some money and decided to apply for the job in a moment of weakness, but now the weakness was gone. No way he'd work for such a gross company! He watched the girl. She opened her mouth, ready to tell him some other disgusting things. She would totally scold him for being irresponsible and selfish. She would laugh that he's stupid. Normally people would do that.

„Oh... That's really bad. I was looking forward to working with you," she sighed and looked so disappointed. „But it can't be he... oh!"

A bus appearing at a corner of the street interrupted her. She took a few nervous steps to the edge of the sidewalk as the bus stopped in front of her.

„It's my bus! I'm afraid I have to go. I'll tell my boss that you're not coming, so you don't have to worry about it!" she said quickly while getting on the vehicle. Once inside she sat on an empty seat next to the window and waved at him cheerfully. He looked back at her, but of course he wouldn't wave at the girl. Why would he do something so stupid? Instead, he stuck out his tongue at her. He found it really satisfying watching her expression sadden a little. The bus pulled off with the girl most likely coming to a conclusion he was not a nice person. Good. He would hate if it was any other way. He wondered if he should pay her a visit as a customer sooner or later to torture her a bit.

Sakamichi was thinking a lot about the unusual meeting on her way home. Maybe it was fate at works that she met him, maybe it was a mere coincidence. However, she was glad no matter what it was. At least she knew nothing bad had happened to him. She had a troublesome habit of worrying about people.

The next day she picked up her bike at the bicycle repair shop stationed in the village she lived in and went to work with plans of explaining her boss that Midousuji Akira wouldn't come. The ride to work seemed much more pleasant than usual. She knew one of her good friends from high school was coming back after a few weeks of being ill on this day and she was so thrilled to see him again! They kept in touch over the phone, but nothing beats chatting about their shared interests in person!

Arriving at her workplace, a somehow busy fast food restaurant in the centre of the town, she parked her bike near the entrance for employees in the back of the building, hurried inside, changed into her uniform in the lockers room and went to search for her boss, because she still had some time before her shift.

As she passed men's restroom, someone opened the door quickly, nearly knocked her out, and walked away in a hurry. She looked behind the person and her face lit up.

„I-Imaizumi-kun! So you're back, I was really... huh...," she swallowed last of her words, as her friend paid absolutely no attention to her. She couldn't see his face, but it wasn't like him to ignore her this way. Maybe something made him mad? Sakamichi's brain filled with worries again. What if their boss told him he was fired? Maybe there was something she could do to save Imaizumi's ass! The boss had a soft spot for her after all.

„Oh, you're really early today, Onoda!" she heard her boss call out her name as he peeked out of his little office at the end of the corridor with his typical grin.

„G-Good morning!" she blushed a little, wondering if she should ask about what happened to Imaizumi right away. No, that will wait. First things first. „M-Makishima-san, I met Midousuji-kun last night! He said that he won't be coming ever, so here I am delivering the message. We should not expect..."

„Mooorniiing," she jumped a feet in the air as she heard a loud, somehow taunting voice right behind her. She quickly turned around to see a really tall guy standing at the door of the restroom.

„M-Midousuji-kun?!" she shrieked as if she saw a ghost.

„Are you talking nasty things about me, you silly girl? What you mean by won't be coming ever? Would you be happier if I haven't showed up? Huuuh?" He stared her down. It sent shivers up her spine.

„No... But you said yesterday...," she tried to talk back, but to no avail. She was rather perplexed by the situation that unfolded in front of her.

„Oh, so you already know each other pretty well, I see!" Makishima sighed. He was relieved. He was no good at introducing people to each other. „Sakamichi, take Midousuji with you and explain him..." His phone started to ring all of a sudden. He looked at the screen and let out a little curse before picking up. „What?! Toudou, what do you want again, I told you I was busy!" he disappeared in his office, closing the door behind him, leaving the girl and the boy alone.

Sakamichi smiled nervously. Little she knew her life was about to change slowly but surely.