First request, YodoChou! (if you want to req something the rules are in the end notes!)
YodoChou - Modern au
Chouchou sucked in the cool night air like she'd just been drowning, and, in a way, she had.
The room was tiny, packed full of – by-now utterly wasted – partygoers, several bain maries, which were still radiating heat even though the food had long-since been served, and a blasting music system that was probably causing global warming all by itself with how much needless shit was plugged into it.
And she still had to finish carting leftover food and empty trays back to the kitchen and clean down, before she could finally escape and collapse into bed, hopefully not having to move an inch for at least two weeks.
But she had a few precious moments now to hide by the vents and flap the hems of her stuffy uniform to get some cool air circulating around her.
The smell of smoke still lingered here, but it was apparently too cold for any of the customers, in their thin shirts and short dresses, to bother walking out to the designated smoking area, instead loitering a few feet from the doors; she had briefly considered directing them to the right place, but if the managers and front-of-house weren't gonna bother then she didn't see why she should either.
At least it gave her a little time to let the exhaustion pull at her limbs and her face fall from its forced smile for a few minutes.
God her head was killing her, she slammed it – way harder than she'd intended – against the cold metal air duct beside her, the jolt it made shuddered and rang, shocking her migraine away for a split second of relief and the cold soothing it once it tried to return.
"Ow."
It took a few moments for her to register the tiny voice, blinking at the dark metal in front of her eyes.
She glanced around, hoping that she hadn't just been caught looking unimaginably unprofessional by a customer, but there were no dark shapes of a person hiding against a wall anywhere.
Was she just hearing things? Feeling more than a little stupid, she called out softly, "Uhh… hello?"
"…Wassup."
Ok, that sounded very close, where the hell was this voice coming from? Maybe if she kept them talking she'd be able to locate them and work out if she should be apologising or calling the cops. "Not much, working, you?"
"Y'know… Stuff."
There was a tiny cough, one that sounded weirdly… echoey. She stepped back from the duct warily, eyeing the grille at the base of it – or rather, the black space that was supposed to be a grille.
One hand already sliding into her pocket to unlock her phone, she glanced around for any potential weapon, even as she crouched down, but, unable to find anything, she decided her fists would probably be good enough if it came to that.
Chouchou took one last deep breath, before leaning over, bringing her phone to the opening and turning the torch on.
She didn't quite catch the string of curses that were hissed at her, focused on scrutinising the face before her intently. A woman, young, dark skin, mess of short, curly hair that might've been blonde, or might just be dusty from the vent, the blue of her eyes just visible as she squinted at the blinding light.
Well, what the fuck now?
At least she wasn't making any move to attack, the stranger just slowly blinked until her eyes adjusted, looking over her the way Chouchou just had been.
"…Hey girl, do all angels glow so bright, or is that just you?"
She honestly didn't know whether to raise an unimpressed eyebrow, or snort; she settled for both. "I dunno, do the police know that the world's most inept sweet-talker is on the loose?"
The woman winced, but she still managed a wide grin. "Ouch."
Shuffling into a slightly more comfortable position, Chouchou examined her a little further, moving the light to try and see a little further than her annoyingly cute face, but she couldn't see very far before her body disappeared into pitch black. She could see enough to tell that she was wearing some kind of formal suit though.
"So. What the fuck. Are you with the wedding?"
The tiny hands squashed awkwardly between the floor of the duct and the lady's chest waved in a way that was probably supposed to be dismissive, but just looked ridiculous. "Yeah. Ok look, 'm not actually a thief or anything, if I was then I'd use the wide-open door fifteen feet thataway-" one hand tried and failed to point in the direction of the kitchen Chouchou had just left "-or, y'know, use the unlocked doors in the bar."
"Uh-huh, for someone who's not a thief you've sure put a lot of thought into this," she said, not quite sure why she was still here and not running for a manager, or security, or something.
Now that she was getting used to the light, she noticed that her big, clear eyes weren't so much blue as green, with maybe a bit of grey in there too, it was especially obvious when they rolled like that. "Yeah an' here I am, lying in a vent instead, so clearly I'm not a thief."
"So what are you doing in there?"
It was a little hard to tell in the bad lighting, but Chouchou was sure she could spot a little blush on those freckled cheeks. "Uh… I was gonna… play a prank on someone…"
Her back was starting to ache a little from being bent over like she was, but the longer she was down here the less and less inclined she felt to get up and go get help. She couldn't help grinning as she tried to make herself a little more comfortable; almost certainly getting enough dirt on her trousers to have the hotel's food hygiene rating knocked down at least two points, but she'd deal with that problem later, right now she had much more interesting things to focus on.
"What, were you gonna wait for someone to wander past and leap out or something?"
The woman's snort was loud, but she didn't seem at all embarrassed by it. "Or somethin', waiting for my uncle to come out for a smoke, I'm gonna grab his ankles and scare the living shit outta him!"
She could picture it in her mind already, skinny, clawing hands reaching out of a dark vent, it probably would be terrifying to the poor victim. "Sounds funny, but I'm afraid all the guests are just smoking by the doors. How long have you been in there?"
"…Uh, I dunno, can't get my phone out of my pocket."
Chouchou was trying so very hard not to laugh. "You're stuck, aren't you?"
"No, I can get out any time I want!"
"Prove it."
Well, that glare of hers was deadly alright, but on such a cute face, Chouchou couldn't find it in herself to be scared off by it.
Her laugh was very poorly hidden. "Do you want me to call… someone? Who do you even call for this shit? An ambulance?"
"Oh-eight-hundred-hey-babe-I'd-love-to-get-stuck-in-your-vent."
It took almost four minutes for her cackling to die down enough to accept.
Rules:
No abusive ships of any kind
No smut (implied or pre/post intimacy is fine though)
No male characters, this is all about the girls so I'm not writing any genderbent ships (trans headcanons/woman-aligned nbs are totally cool though, e.g. trans girl Ino, nonbinary lesbian Tema)
Light angst is ok, but no heavy subject matter please
Poly ships and rarepairs are MORE than ok!
I'll be doing this throughout the rest of Feb, so there's no rush and there's no limit on how many prompts one person can send, just separate them into different asks so it's easier for me to write them one at a time!
oh and dw if you want a ship but can't think of a prompt, I've got loads saved so just send a ship name and I'll pick one out for ya!