"I am mostly scared by passing time,
The world it seems, is more unkind."
- It's Okay I Wouldn't Remember Me Either by Crywank
The air-conditioning was damp and just a bit too cold as Karkat plopped wetly down into the booth at the back. He ran a hand through his matted wild hair, shaking off the drops of water as he grimaced down at the soggy lump his backpack had become. His notebooks inside were probably ruined, just like everything else in his life these days. Karkat glowered at the rain that continued falling silently on the other side of the glass, biting down on his lip in an effort not to curse aloud. It was quiet here, and the other patrons didn't even glance his way as he arranged his things to dry on the back of the seat, no need to make a scene. This coffee shop was open at odd hours, making it the perfect stomping grounds for local artists, drifters, and haggard college students. It was a lair for the city's eccentrics and weirdos, and Karkat himself was no exception. Though where he fit into the culture...he wasn't entirely sure. Karkat frowned bitterly again, feeling his ire rise. Stupid, he could be so stupid sometimes. And right now he'd rather be anywhere than back at his apartment.
Forcing himself to briefly leaving his damp nest, he made his way up to the counter to order a black cup of coffee. The girl at the register smiled back at him blandly, her blue beanie bobbing briefly as she rang him up. When asked if he wanted anything to go with it, Karkat waved her away let his gaze drift as Beanie moved on to fill his boring request. As his eyes slid over the tops of the other patrons, they caught briefly on one in particular in the corner. Or more accurately, on the bright red hoodie they wore. Karkat hadn't seen them at first when he'd come in, but the color was a muted crimson that seemed to stand out from the worn down suits bohemian clientele around him.
"Sir? Your coffee".
Karkat jumped like he'd been burned, unaware he'd been caught staring and feeling like a creep. He mumbled his thanks and awkwardly grabbed fistfuls of napkins from the dispenser near the drink stirrers. Then he returned to his booth on squeaking sneakers, wishing he could just melt through the floor and be done with it already. He now sat in the rear-facing booth now drying himself off as best he could as he fought to relax, socially drained and wondering why the hell he thought it had been a good idea to come here. He felt on edge from the fight earlier with his roommate, and completely out of sorts in general. But he viciously forced it all from his thoughts once more as his fingernail picked restlessly at the cracked plastic lining of the table. Maybe he'd try to get some writing done and clear his thoughts. Feeling about in the sodden bag next to him, Karkat pulled out one of his spiral notebooks and a laptop. Thankfully both were in far better condition than he feared, and while both did look a bit battered, that was his fault. Mostly.
Ten minutes later and he started to sink in degrees into the booth he'd claimed. His laptop glowed faintly in the dim lighting of the coffee shop, reflecting some of the hazy glow of the sky beyond the adjacent window. The sky outside was marbled with a deep grey and black as the rain showed no signs of slowing. Trails continued to run down the glass next to his shoulder, like beads of glass. His coffee cooled in its cheap styrofoam container, only half-drunk as Karkat paid it little mind. He put in his earbuds, and let his fingers begin clacking quietly on the familiar keys.
"You just don't get it, do you. I'm sorry but I don't think I can help you anymore, maybe you better go."
Karkat flinched at the unbidden memory, taken completely out of the zone he was trying to enter. He frowned, brows furrowing. "Damn it…" He felt about on the laptop, and the music cranked up a little louder. Desperately drowning out anything but electronic rhythms. He blankly stared out in the direction of the street outside, but the bubbled surface of water on the glass obscured on the view and turned the empty shops beyond into little more than dull smears of color. It felt like being isolated inside a little box, the fogged walls noise-canceling earpieces forming a tiny world of escapism. He wouldn't think about it right now, he wouldn't. Fuck Terezi and her superiority complex. She didn't understand, and she never would. Blinking again he dazedly looked back down at the notebook that was open on the table. It rested right there next to his cooling coffee cup, both equally useless to him. The bitter flavor wasn't improving his mood, and his trash journaling wasn't getting any better. This was all so pointless, who was he kidding…
The music oozing out of his headphones perfectly drowned out any atmospheric sounds he might've had to brace against, turning the other coffee shop patrons into mute marionettes as they occasionally lined up to order or milled about to other tables near him. Karkat sighed, picking up his pen again in a feeble attempt to pull himself out of the slump he was in. The lofi beats in his ears were hypnotic and kept him disconnected, free falling in his own body as he silently stared at the blur of words on the white screen before him. He was feeling more melancholy than usual, a trick of the weather probably. It had been raining for damn near two straight days already, with no clear end in sight. Karkat glanced down at a crumbled admissions form soaked and stuffed at the very bottom of his bag. Yeah. Just the weather, that was all.
Movement from his peripheral caught his eye. A man talking into a cell phone got up and cradled the square brick against his ear as he gathered his things to leave. As he scooted around the table and shoved his chair in with his hip, Karkat's eyes fell on the booth behind him that was now visible. The red hoodie from before was now in view, sidelong to his gaze on the other side of the shop. Karkat immediately flicked his gaze back down to his screen. He hated accidentally making eye contact with other people, it always made him tense. Looking at the few empty paragraphs he'd managed to type, Karkat changed a few words, and added another line. A girl came into the shop and shook her umbrella out by the door before stuffing it into a waiting receptacle by the trash cans. Karkat ignored everything else and continued typing without incident, watching the lines of text grow on the page, before sighing and deleting several of them again. Eventually however, his curiosity got the better of him and before he could really help himself Karkat cautiously peeked upward again.
That red hoodie caught his eye like a magnet, impossible to ignore. With a closer look he saw that the figure inside it seemed impossibly androgynous. The dyed fabric seemed baggie, and their posture was stooped and hunched inwardly. The actual hood of the jacket was pulled all the way up over the person's head and the cord was cinched tight around their face, hiding their hair effectively and looking completely ridiculous. Karkat found himself sneering slightly in baffled confusion. It wasn't that cold in here after all. A pair of black sunglasses obscured their eyes, and completed the portrait for what Karkat now privately titled Unabomber-in-Training. They sat in the booth facing straight ahead of them, giving Karkat a perfectly concealed profile. No coffee or pastry sat on their table, and the other booth seemed to sit in a deeper shadow than the rest of the coffee shop. It was...it was weird. They just sat and stared straight ahead, their glasses and expression blank. Were they some kind of freak? Some nut job that wandered in? Karkat forced himself to look back down at his laptop before he was caught staring again, and pretend to flip through his notebook. Was anyone else getting an uncomfortable vibe?
Karkat glanced about himself, scoping out the other patrons and checking the mood of barista behind the counter. No one seemed to have really noticed, and if they did they were paying it any mind. They all went on about their business, completely absorbed in their own worlds, and leaving Karkat himself feeling the odd man out. Maybe he was getting worked up again over nothing...surely Unabomber over there wasn't just loitering around or someone would have said something. And really was it any of his business any way? Better not to get involved either way, in case he was a serial killer or something. Karkat rigidly forced himself to shut the world back out and picked up his pen to add a few notes to his journal. But as the ball point scratched uselessly over the surface of the paper, he saw the ink had run out. Shifting to dig out a new pen from his bag, Karkat misjudged the clutter about his elbows and sent his coffee careening over the side of his table to burst on impact on the ground and splash the remains of it contents all across the linoleum. Swearing a bit louder than he meant to, he rushed to use some of his napkins from earlier to mop up the mess before anyone came over to help. What the fuck was wrong with him today, nothing was going right. But as he gathered the black drenched mess in his calloused hands, Karkat looked up from his kneeling position and froze.
The figure in the hoodie was staring back at him, unflinchingly. From the front Karkat could make out a rigid nose and pale skin. The squared jaw seemed masculine, but the face was younger. Probably somewhere around his age. Karkat swallowed as the stare kept him pinned, needlelike in its intensity as goosebumps rose on his skin. Forcing himself to stand, Karkat robotically moved to toss his coffee mess into the trash, and ignoring the couple of curious looks he drew gathered his things agitatedly into his still-drying backpack. Using his natural anger and self-loathing as a shield, Karkat drew himself up to his full height and marched towards the door with a glare. He shot Creepo Hoodie Guy the bird with a sneer, and passed out the doors of the shop. Karkat kept his eyes glued to his sneakers as they splashed through sidewalk puddles, a cloud of anger following him.
He didn't need to look back to know that those sunglasses watched him all the way until he rounded the corner.
