Notes - Set in the Good Omens universe, based after both GX and Good Omen. This was written because I was annoyed at a lot of fandom drama being dropped on me all of a sudden. Really it was fine last week, and then drama attacked. To get it out of my system I just wanted to write something completely for my own amusement, even if it is unlikely and OOC.
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Ryo was quite all right with the concept of the universe being something that he personally didn't understand. He had no problems with leaving the universe to get on with whatever it wanted to do while he also carried on with his daily routine and didn't think too much about what the universe was up to.
He was considerably less all right with the universe suddenly deciding that it was time for Ryo to be in a completely different universe without an eviction notice. But it wasn't as if it was the first time this had happened to him.
He could remember being sent to another world at least once in the past, although that time a lot of scientists and complicated equipment had been involved. Oh, and magic.
Magic was something else that Ryo was prepared to avoid as often as he could. Not because he didn't believe in it or was afraid of it, but for quite the opposite reason. He was as un-magical as it was possible for a person to be. And he lived in a world surrounded by supernatural goings-on involving people who had so many unusual gifts that you stopped to wonder how close to the front of the line they were when the magic was handed out.
Put simply, if Ryo's life was a story about sparkly ponies with wings and horns that went frolicking over rainbows than Ryo would be the unimpressive brown horse that stood at the end on the field and watched. But he was all right with that.
It took a lot to shock the generally unimpressionable boy, and finding himself stood in a small part of London when he had last remembered being in Japan wasn't high enough on the list to do it. He knew it was London because he'd seen several signs already. Thank goodness Fubuki had insisted to him that learning English looked cool.
He wandered around aimlessly, trying to remember if in the last few years he'd met a transfer student who might have hailed from this country that he could contact. The closest he could think of was France. Couldn't be that far on a boat.
Stopping automatically he found his eyes trailing lazily over to an old, unimpressive looking bookshop. For a moment he tried to figure out why he'd even stopped to look at it, because it really wasn't the sort of bookshop that wanted people to notice it.
In which case, he thought with annoyance, it was probably highly mystical. You could tell how truly mystical a building was by how much it was trying to look ordinary. He had been ignoring the supernatural long enough to pick some things up. A fake magical building advertised with glamour, a genuine one tried too hard to look as if it wasn't there.
He paused for thought. Chances are it wasn't so much the building as it was the person inside it. Really, other than getting a boat to France to try and find some guy he'd hardly exchanged two words with in the hope that he owed someone Ryo knew a few favours this was his only option. But what could he do, go in and say, 'excuse me but I think your shop is radiating an odd aura. You wouldn't be chance know teleportation would you'?
Regardless of how fruitless this idea seemed he walked over to the store anyway, pushing at the door. It didn't open with ease, and after the first few attempts Ryo thought it was locked, but eventually it gave way to let him inside.
There was no one sitting behind the counter, but a voice from the backroom called out to say it would join him in a minute. He made do with looking around the shelves in the meantime. The lack in security was something that surprised him, but then literature enthusiasts are generally not known for shoplifting, regardless of what he'd heard about fans of Terry Pratchett's work in his own world.
What he didn't know was that the inattentive shopkeeper was actually perfectly attached to his books, he just wasn't so eager to sell them. The bookshop was a front. Basically just a room for Aziraphale to showcase his collection, as was the case with many old-fashioned bookshops.
He'd gotten very good at persuading people not to buy his books over the years. His first line of defence, and generally the only one that was needed, was to open the shop at the most awkward hours and usually for a very short space of time. If it was up to him he wouldn't have opened it at all, but not doing so looked suspicious.
Sometimes there would be people who would pass the defence and actually have the nerve to come into the shop, if they had enough motivation to push the door open. It wasn't a bad door really; it was just that Aziraphale sometimes encouraged it to stay where it was. He knew he shouldn't use his powers like that, but as long as Crowley didn't find out he'd get away with it.
The next line of defence was not being there. Even if he was in the front of the shop he'd avoid standing behind the counter long enough to put people off wanting to purchase any book they might have been considering buying. The British were very good at not wanting to bother you if you looked too busy doing something else.
As he did wander out of the backroom he noted that the new customer was probably not British at all. And while, as an angel, it was his duty to see the good in everyone, as a person who'd been around long enough to know what people were really like he could instantly label Ryo as the sort of person he wouldn't get along with.
The dyed blue hair was the first clue. That and he was wearing so much black leather it was if he hadn't noticed it was the middle of summer. He had a funny feeling this kid was one of those 'Satanist' students that Crowley pointedly didn't talk about. The ones who were doing it to look cool.
After the boy had been looking around the shop for a few minutes Aziraphale fell back on another method - coughing just enough to be noticeable and looking pointedly, but not rudely, at the clock.
But the boy infuriatingly took no notice. His life had been one big awkward cough and he'd gotten very used to ignoring it.
Well, if being an impatient shopkeeper wasn't working than Aziraphale would have to move on to being a creepy one. Which he hated doing, but it was the certain way of getting any nosy customer to leave.
"Would you like to stay for some tea and crumpets?" he called over, hating himself for the fake cheerful, he didn't want to appear so strange but offering to make someone tea was the definite way to get them to leave.
Glancing up from a book and staring with confusion for a moment, Ryo then recovered and said, "All right."
"What?" gasped Aziraphale.
"I wouldn't mind, if you're up to making them," said Ryo, feeling that he was missing out on some sort of joke.
"Yes… Yes, well, I'll go make some then," Aziraphale replied, retreating to the back room. No one had ever said yes to tea and crumpets before.
He couldn't even remember the last time he'd made crumpets for that matter. When he did feel like eating he always prepared the food himself, because calling it into existence felt wrong, but more often than not if he was going to eat then it would be when he went out for a meal with Crowley, which even at the worst restaurant usually didn't involve cooking the food yourself.
Luckily he did have some in a packet at the back of a cupboard. They were in-date too; it was something he was sure to check because even if this was a Satanist poisoning anyone was something Aziraphale generally avoided.
In the front of the store Ryo was watching the door Aziraphale had disappeared into with confusion. That guy couldn't be the source of all the mystical energy; it was impossible. He was wearing a red knitted top to start with! And he looked so much like… a guy who ran an old bookshop. Not a boy who spoke to invisible creatures and had 'hero' painted all over his face. Maybe he'd been wrong about the shop. He knew magical places tended to not look magical, but people who had magic did tend to look like they had it. From his experience at least.
It was a good thing that Ryo's experience was actually more limited than he knew it was.
Looking around the door, Aziraphale hesitantly motioned for Ryo to come through. In lack of a better choice Ryo did so.
Sitting down at the table Ryo took the mug and plate that was offered to him. Trying not to look too put off by the crumpets. He had to admit that he wasn't a great food lover. It wasn't as if he'd been trying to go on some sort of extreme diet but something about most foods didn't see eye to eye with Ryo. The only food he did like was bread. You couldn't go wrong with bread.
At least this crumpet looked, sort of, as if it was connected to the bread family. Though a lot more doughy. Not wanting to look rude at the invitation, Ryo took a bite and decided that while it wasn't the worst thing he'd eaten crumpets were quite far from bread after all. There was too much butter involved. What sort of person would have butter with bread?
Aziraphale watched from the other end of the table, and after Ryo made no attempt to start conversation he offered, "So, do you shop in this area often?"
"I don't shop much at all," admitted Ryo, swallowing the mouthful of buttery dough, "In fact I'm not exactly sure where I am. Apart from in London somewhere."
"Ah, got lost? Don't worry, happens all the time," Aziraphale assured, suddenly understanding why someone as out-of-place as Ryo would hang around a bookshop for so long, "Not to worry, there's a tourist information centre a few streets down the-"
"I don't think they'd be able to help me," Ryo cut in.
"Why not?"
"Because I come from… somewhere different," he felt stupid now it actually came down to it. If this place were unfamiliar with different dimensions than he'd look like a lunatic.
"Different as in different-different?" asked Aziraphale curiously, knowing that if the boy had been implying anything otherworldly than he'd probably know what he meant.
"Different as in another planet. Possibly. The place I'm from is called Domino city and it's in Japan," Ryo confirmed, wanting to get all the crazy out in the open if anything was going to come of it.
"Well, we do have a Japan here, but I doubt there are any cities with names that sound as Western as Domino," said Aziraphale, who certainly didn't look as though he thought Ryo was mad.
"Damn…" swore Ryo, "This sort of thing seems to me all the time. Do you know how hard it is to just sit down and read a good book when the rest of the world is shoving unnatural occurrences at you?"
Aziraphale smiled.
"Yes, I know exactly how hard it is," he said. Perhaps this guy was more on his wavelength than he'd realised. In his dimension maybe well-educated men all had blue hair and wore trench coats, "I'm Aziraphale by the way."
"Ryo, very nice to meet you," replied Ryo, noticing that now they both recognised each other as victims of circumstances that the shopkeeper didn't seem so unusual after all.
"Well Ryo, perhaps I should put on another cup of tea."
It just went to show that even in alien dimensions quietly nerdy people just have a way of finding each other.