Stupid, pointless, boring. Those were the only thoughts going through Mikasa's head as she listened to the man in front of her ramble on about soggy fries. She knew she should be listening. After all, she was only one more incident away from being fired. However, as the man continued on she found herself caring less and less.
'At least my shift is almost done. Just 10 minutes more'. That's when she noticed that the man had stopped talking. He must have been done complaining.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, please wait a moment". The words came out automatically, having said it too many times to count. As she prepared more fries thoughts about how she ended up in this dump came to mind.
Working at a fast food restaurant for minimum wage wasn't at all how Mikasa thought her life would be. Throughout her life all the way up to her last year of highschool she never once thought about her future. After graduating, college was the obvious next step. With no specific major in mind, majoring in Liberal Arts was the only option she could think of. It was supposed to buy some time until she figured out her major. However, this proved pointless as no major ever came to mind. Soon, the classes became too boring to deal with, and getting good grades seemed very unlikely for how little she actually studied. It all ended with her dropping out and working here. In this pointless, extremely uninteresting dead end job that barely made her enough money to pay the rent on her shitty apartment.
She went back to the front to give the man his fries, which he grabbed forcefully while glaring at her.
'This isn't worth the aggravation' Mikasa thought as she stared back with what everyone she knew called her trademark expressionless dead look. After the man left, she just stood at the cash register waiting for the shift to end. It was 11:55pm. Having the night shift was beneficial, as there were always less assholes to deal with than in the morning. Right now there were no more customers in the place, and Mikasa was thankful for the silence.
Just as Mikasa thought she was done for the day, the doors opened and three people walked in. If it weren't for the fact they were making so much noise she would have made more of an effort to ignore them.
"Give me back my fucking money you fatass!"
"Ymir! Language!"
The noise bothering her, Mikasa decided to pay attention to the noisy trio. The tallest one, who she now assumed was called Ymir, was glaring intensely at a girl who was hiding behind a short blonde.
"I just wanna buy some food, I'm gonna starve if I don't." The girl whimpered.
Ymir looked like she was going to say something else, but the blonde glared up at her and showed no signs of backing down. "You know Sasha doesn't have any more money until her next paycheck. Let her keep it" she said, and with that walked up to the front of the counter.
"Hi!" she said cheerfully.
The sudden change in mood shocked Mikasa, but she managed to keep a straight face. She nodded slightly in response, too tired to care if it came off as rude.
"Sorry about that, I'm still training her on social skills. Oh, my name is Krista, that's Ymir and that's Sasha." She said, while pointing to the others as she said their names. They weren't paying attention to anything Krista was saying, as they were now too busy arguing about something else. Mikasa just stood there, wondering why this information was being shared with her.
"What would you like to order?" She asked. Getting away from these people seemed like the best idea at the moment and they were holding her up since her shift was now officially over. The faster they ordered, the faster she was able to leave.
"One number 6 and two number 4's" Krista replied with an unbelievably bright smile.
'I think I'm going blind' Mikasa thought as she put their order in. As she went to the back to get their order, more noise erupted from where the three were in the front. Eyebrow twitching, she sighed and got their order together as quickly as she could. When she was finished, she went back to the front. What she saw was not what she expected in the slightest.
Sasha was running all over the place, jumping over chairs and climbing over tables in a desperate effort to get away from the one chasing her. The one in question was Ymir, who was shouting at the top of her lungs. Krista was sitting on the counter, recording the whole thing on her phone.
That was it. Mikasa wasn't getting paid enough for this bullshit. She walked up to Krista but before she could say anything, Krista turned towards her and smiled.
"Ymir would never actually hurt Sasha, she's all bark and no bite. Besides, nice moments like these would be good to look back on in the future. It would make a good laugh."
'Nice moment?' Mikasa thought bewildered. As she watched Ymir trip over a chair and tumble down to the floor while Sasha laughed loudly at her, she wondered how any of this could be considered nice. Simply put, it was downright annoying. Ymir quickly got up and started towards Sasha again. In a last desperate attempt to save her life, Sasha ran right up to Krista.
"Make Ymir stop!" she cried dramatically, throwing her arms around Krista's waist.
Krista stopped recording and put her phone away. "Okay Ymir, you scared her enough, you should stop now." Mikasa was surprised when Ymir actually stopped walking towards Sasha. Instead she just stood there, now looking unsure of herself about what she should do next. She finally opted for looking at the floor while shuffling her feet. Embarrassment suddenly overcame her and looking at the people in front of her seemed too hard to do at the moment.
Krista smiled fondly at the sight. "You're just too cute, you know that." This only led to Ymir blushing and shuffling her feet more. Mikasa wondered at that moment if there was more to their relationship than just being friends. It would explain Ymir's reaction.
'Who cares, none of this concerns me,' she reminded herself.
"Well, sorry about everything. It might seem chaotic, but it makes life fun and interesting. Brings a smile to your face every day." With that Krista jumped off the counter. Sasha handed Krista the money, who in turn handed it over to Mikasa. By the time she was given the bags of food, Mikasa could see Sasha openly drooling over it.
"Thank you, you're my hero." Sasha said genuinely, looking at Mikasa with an expression that clearly showed worship.
'Insane, they're all insane' Mikasa decided. She never met a group of people quite like this, each one having a completely different personality from the next. Mixed together she could only imagine the torture they put the rest of the world through on a daily basis.
"Have a nice night, um…" Krista dropped the sentence, not knowing exactly who she was talking to.
Many thoughts went through Mikasa's head in that moment. Most of which were giving her reasons on why she shouldn't tell her name to the obvious lunatics standing in front of her. Nothing good would come from telling them. She just wanted to get back to her uneventful life, go home and fall asleep on the couch while watching tv.
"Mikasa. Mikasa Ackerman"
Krista smiled. "Have a nice night Mikasa." She turned around and started walking towards the door. Sasha also smiled and waved goodbye while Ymir stared for a moment and grunted a farewell. As they left it was quiet once again.
'I shouldn't have done that' Mikasa thought. Giving out her name was probably the stupidest thing she could have done. However, thinking about it just gave her a headache.
'Forget it, everything will go back to normal tomorrow.' With that, Mikasa prepared to leave. Dreading the long walk home waiting for her, she considered taking the bus. Then, the amount of money that would use up made her reconsider. Every dollar counted, and that money could be used for food. Putting on her jacket, she started the long walk home. It was dangerous to walk around this time of night alone, but Mikasa felt confident in her ability to defend herself. Aside from the occasional car passing by, it was completely quiet and empty in the streets. There was a slight breeze, and the moon was shining brightly in the sky.
After walking for 30 minutes, the apartment building in which she resided in finally came into sight. It wasn't anything special. The door leading into the building was partially open. The lock broke a while ago, and it never got fixed. Making her way into the building, she walked up the stairs to her apartment. There was no elevator, but that part didn't bother her. She was in good shape, and a couple of flights of stairs meant nothing.
Coming to her floor, she went through the door leading into the hall. As usual, there was graffiti on the wall and some garbage strewn on the floor. Part of the reason Mikasa didn't try and get a better apartment was because she was saving every penny she could. If she could survive just fine in this building, why waste money that she barely had on a more expensive apartment? That money could go to more important things.
When she reached her door she took her keys from her pocket and unlocked it. Opening the door, she was met with silence like always. It was a small one-bedroom apartment that Mikasa made sure to keep clean.
Sighing, she put her jacket on the rack near the door, threw her keys on the table near the couch and got ready for bed. When she was done she practically threw herself on the couch. Turning on the tv filled up the silence. Mikasa never cared about what was on tv, all she really wanted was the background noise. As she felt herself drifting off, the people she met earlier came back to mind. Ymir, the one with anger management issues. Krista, overly friendly to the point of being a little creepy, and then there was Sasha, the one who seemed to love food way more than what was considered healthy.
'Hopefully I won't see them again, imagine how troublesome life would be.' she thought as she fell asleep, the noise of the tv fading away into the background.