Thanks again to Maniac Tenshi Makenshi, because without her, this fic would not be more than fifty words. True story.

Also, if you're allergic to pairings you don't ship, here's what's in the fic: KiRona (ikr INSANE RIGHT?), TsuStar, and SoMa will be mentioned eventually.


Kid pulled the key from his pocket and opened the door.

It miffed him, just a little bit, mind you, how neither of his two roommates were able to be there to welcome him into his new home. Honestly, was it so much to ask of someone to just be therewhen he came to the new place? He supposed he'd have to give himself a tour of the place, too. What was his father thinking, just buying Kid a place in the manor without even letting him meet the people there? Who knew what these people would be like?

Kid sighed to himself. It was either this or staying in Nevada for the rest of time.

He ventured farther into his new home, seeking out the kitchen, being a little bit hungry from the drive. From his first impression of the manor, he decided that it was, to say the least, decent. Nowhere near his idea of beautiful, but he could make do with it for a while. At least it wasn't a pig sty…

Oh, what was he thinking? This place needed a serious furniture rearrangement, immediately! Did the people who live here have no idea of the concept of beauty?

Kid stopped himself from acting on his wants immediately. What would his new roommates think if he just rearranged their things without even meeting them? Sure, they had showed blatant disregard for what he thought of them by not even being there to greet him, but he did have to livewith these people for quite a while. He was confident that he could hold out until they got back. Well, he had to, anyway.

He eventually found his way to the kitchen. It was as mediocre (to put it nicely) as the rest of the house, nothing special. As he scanned the kitchen, he found a note on the table. Noticing the large words - "To the new guy" - he picked it up and began to read the hasty scrawl.

As a rite of passage as a new tenant, you must buy our groceries! Hahahaha! By the way, this is a normal rite of passage that we would put you through even if our fridge was fully stocked, not because -Liz- one of us forgot to do the shopping.
-Your fellow tenants, Patty and Liz
P.S. The money and list are on the fridge, keep the change.

Kid noted the doodle of the giraffe laughing maniacally, and then turned around and took the money from the fridge. Sure, they were using him without even knowing who he was or what he looked like, but he was hungry and thirsty and an empty kitchen just wasn't going to cut it.

Still, he was curious to what was in their refrigerator, so he opened the door to find a completely bare fridge, save the lone water bottle. Just to spite his roommates - well, okay, he'd be buying them groceries later, but that's irrelevant - and, yes, mostly because he was thirsty, he grabbed the bottle and took a swig. And with that, he pocketed the list and money, and then went out on his way.


Crona was having a pretty good day. It wasn't a perfect day, sure, but it wasn't as if anything particularly bad had happened. And she was happy with the fact.

Of course, the moment she thought of that was the moment that the angry customer decided that it was time to unleash her complaints onto the relatively harmless-looking teen in front of her. "Do you work here? Did you know there's a lunatic on aisle four who won't let me get my sweet peas?"

"O-Oh. I-I'll take care of that," she said. She got up and started to head to the place the supposed lunatic was. She hoped he wasn't really insane. She didn't know how to deal with insane people.

She was just a couple of steps away from aisle four when she heard the voice of the assistant manager. "Crona, what are you doing?"

"There's a l-lunatic. On aisle four. He's harassing customers."

"Come over here, Crona," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, even though she was a good number of inches taller than him, and acting much wiser than his years. "I wanna show you something!"

He led her to the spot right between aisle four and the cashier, and had them both face aisle four. "What do you see?"

"Th-there's a person moving things on the shelves. And he's saying something… about symmetry?" Crona half-asked. The boy seemed very determined and angry. She hoped the assistant manager would be stop him for her. What good would she be, anyway?

"You know what I see, Crona?" he asked her, grinning widely. He didn't wait for her reply. "I see a person doing our job without a salary! You shouldn't stop him!"

"B-but BlackStar!" she forced herself to reason with him, for her manager's sake. "He's bothering customers!"

"Don't worry about it, Crona!" he said, patting her on the back with too much force. "Don't think too hard about things like this; you'll just hurt your head! Oh, and, uh, don't tell Tsubaki."

"U-um-"

"Actually, you know what? We should hire him! Then you and me won't have to waste all that time rearranging shelves. I can do more important things, like sit-ups and surpassing God!"

"B-but-"

"Hey, Crona, you should ask him if he wants to work here!"

"I-I don't know if I can…"

"Don't be shy, Crona!" BlackStar then pushed Crona into aisle four like the mature, polite assistant manager he was.


"Disgusting! The manor was one thing, but this!" Kid muttered to himself as he rapidly moved around the cans to make the shelves truly shine. "Why is"

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK HERE?"

He turned around.

"...excuse me?" Kid asked.

The girl (well, it seemed to be a girl, but he honestly wasn't sure. However, this was the last thing on his mind at the moment.) squeaked, and nearly whispered, "I was... just asking if you'd like a job... here."

"Well..." Kid began.

"The pay! It's good," the girl added before he could continue, seemingly worried that he was going to turn down her offer.

To tell the truth, Kid didn't know what to think of it. On one hand, she was basically offering him money in exchange for what he did on a daily basis. On another hand, he just moved there; he'd probably be better off getting adjusted to his new life before he went along taking any jobs.

Deciding that the latter choice had more basis in logic, he answered, "I'm afraid I don't."

"O-oh," she said, "okay."


She turned around, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible, but she just couldn't deal with the uncertainty of what BlackStar planned to do, and gaze fell naturally to the floor. She'd applied for the job because Tsubaki seemed nice, understanding, and predictable… if she'd even seen BlackStar before she started working there, she would've gotten intimidated and ran in a second.

Still, he didn't seem downright mean and the job did pay well… though she wished her shifts were always when Tsubaki was keeping an eye on him.

"Crona!"

Certain someone said her name, she perked up to find the subject of her thoughts whispering her name furiously. "Crona! Crooona!" When he saw he had her gaze, he mouthed Ask him again. Go!

She spun around when she got the commands, and walked up to the customer, who seemed to have abandoned his task of majorly rearranging the shelves. Rather, he was holding two cans of different brand tomatoes and muttering to himself. "…this is cheaper… but the tomato on the wrapper of this one is symmetrical! …I'd have more money if I bought this one… but what about beauty? …I'd have to eat them… I'd be surprised if symmetry didn't taste better… but it is only art… hmm…"

"A-Are you sure you don't w-want the job?"

His eyes darted towards her. "Hmm?"

"T-the job!" she squeaked.

"I'm sure," he said, returning his glance to the cans of tomatoes.

"T-the pay is good!" she repeated. He made a grunt of acknowledgement and she knew he wasn't swayed. BlackStar would know how to deal with this… Why isn't he here? Looking at the cans of tomatoes in his hands, she said, "Y-You could buy the sy-symmetrical ones!" gesturing to them.

At the sound of the most beautiful word on Earth, his head perked up. "Did you say symmetrical?" he asked.

"Y-yes," she said. Feeling his hard gaze on her, she trembled and said, "H-H-"

"Don't tell me you also appreciate beauty?" he asked her, his yellow eyes sparkling.

"I-I like pretty things," she offered.

He cocked his head over this, contemplating what she had said. "I suppose I can appreciate that. However, such a simple fact would never be enough to sway me into employment. Yet, I'll continue to shop here, even if your prices are unreasonably high and your shelves not glimmering with symmetry!"

"Eh…?" But he'll still intimidate customers! …and me. And the shelves won't even be organized! What if Tsubaki is disappointed? …What if BlackStar is disappointed? I won't know how I should deal with him if he is… I don't even know how I should deal with him if he's happy!

And our prices aren't unreasonably high! Are they? I can ask Tsubaki about it… no, he's just cheap.

More importantly, I have to get him to work here!

I don't know how to deal with this.

"Well, thank you for the offer-" He eyed her chest. "-Crona, but I'm afraid I'm not interested in the job and I've got everything on the grocery list. I'll see you again."

And then he strode out the aisle, oblivious to her lack of response.


I suppose that was interesting… They've got rather pushy employees here. Although, to find someone that cared about beauty! But that is a bit of a stretch… "pretty things"… I wonder what she meant by that…

Well, whatever she meant, it is my duty as the son of Senator Tod to support everyone with a passion for beauty! I'll continue shopping here.

"Hey! Next in line!" the cashier - a well-toned and blue-haired teen - grumbled. He seemed determined to scan the groceries in front of him as aggressively as possible. Kid wasn't sure how to respond. "So…" He dropped the bananas on the scanner. "Didn't want the job, huh?"

…Was he blacklisted now? For turning down a job offer? "I'm afraid I'm going to have to work on adapting to living here before I can take any job offers. And I did say I would continue to shop here."

Suddenly, everything about the angry boy softened. A goofy smile played upon his lips. "Hey, that means you might work here, huh? Yeah, guess that's okay. You shook up Crona pretty bad, though." He laughed insensitively.

"I-I did? I don't recall-"

"Hey, don't worry about it. He's - Oh, I meant 'she's', I keep forgetting Crona's a girl. Tsubaki said it's mean to keep calling her 'he' so I'm trying to stop but I can't remember everything, anyway, she's really sensitive. Tsubaki said I overwhelm hi- her and I shouldn't bother her, but I don't get it. I'm really nice to her! I think Tsubaki's just paranoid. But she is pretty sensitive, so you shouldn't feel bad about it."

He didn't seem really nice to her at all.

But he did seem a lot less angry… Kid was beginning to think one of his moods was an act, but he couldn't tell which…

"Total comes out to $65.78. Credit or debit?"

"Credit."

"See you again! The job'll be waiting."

Kid gathered the groceries and made his way to the exit. As he reached the door, a little part of him thought that maybe, just maybe, he should apologize to that pink-haired girl.

Is it dark already? Elizabeth and Patricia will be home!

And then he dismissed the thought and left.


It's finally up! It's my first SE fanfic, so you can attribute the outrageous OOCness to the fact that I'm a noob. Yay for excuses!

Does it seem like I'm bashing BlackStar? I was wondering about this... Anyway, I love BlackStar, he's just hilariously bad with Crona. And this is comedy. Yay.

The author'll shut up now, please review!