The teenager with a mess of purple hair breathed in the stench of rotting vegetables that always seemed to fill the battered grocery store. A filthy tag bearing the name "Jason" in block letters was pinned to his apron, but at the moment, what had to be the crappiest grocery store in Brooklyn was empty, tiled floors soiled and littered orange peels. Heaving a sigh, he drummed his fingers against the counter, turning the music up several notches louder.
Jason was the ordinary high-school drop-out with a single mom who worked the fourteen-hour shift at an old clinic as a nurse, the sort of guy who decided that, after his continuous flunking of tests, that attending school was a waste of his time. He wasn't particularly loud and brash, just the sort of boy who was quiet and liked to keep to himself.
It was one of those dreary fall days, where the sky was a bleak gray and crackling with dark clouds, the promise of a storm in the air. The spindly tree branches swayed unsteadily in the howling gusts of wind, sending tornadoes of crackly brown leaves tumbling down the sidewalk. Outside of the run-down apartments, jack-o-lanterns were placed on the stone porches, their broad smiles mocking him every time he walked past.
The world truly was a cruel place. He watched enviously as a couple of younger boys skidded recklessly on the sidewalk with their shiny skateboards. Why did God force him to work in a grocery store when he could have been exploring the world, finding a new canvas to paint on? Why did his mom have to come home at two in the morning, crabby and exhausted, downing a mug of cheap instant coffee before flopping onto the old, worn couch? Why did his father have to be a crappy no-show? Why couldn't he have defeated the odds by receiving perfect grades and somehow in the future manage to find a way to support her? Find a way to live in a place other than their inexpensive, dingy little apartment? Why couldn't he have gone farther than that mapped-out destiny?
A pretty girl with magenta hair burst through the doors, the bell hanging on the doorknob jingling merrily with her arrival. Jason corrected his abysmal posture immediately, pulling the buds out of his ears. "Hi, how can I help you?"
She was wearing a plaid skirt and a button-down shirt despite the chilly autumnn weather, giving off a certain air of confidence with her set shoulders, prominent chin, and the glint in her teal eyes. "Two Snickers bars, please."
"Alright." He gave her a half-hearted grin, tossing a couple of medium-sized chocolate bars in her direction. "That'll be $2.50."
"Thanks." She gave him a nod, before holding up a handful of brightly colored flyers. "Mind putting these up for me? I'm Candace, head of the church youth group- you know, the one a couple of blocks from here? We're having a fall festival in a couple of weeks, and we could always use the extra advertisement."
"Well, I guess that would be fine..." he trailed off.
"Wanna come? The name's Jason, right? It'll just be some fun. Games, stories, food...stuff like that," Candace asked, hands on her hips.
He hesitated, tilting his head to the side. "Is there an admission?"
Candance waved her hand airily. "Nah, don't worry about it. What kind of church would we be if we charged a ridiculous price for a little celebration? I personally believe in God's will, and that we need a little bit more love and selflessness in this world..." She looked horrified, wringing her hands out. "Oh God, I'm probably boring you with my religious talk. Don't want to shove my beliefs down your throat, you know. Sorry about that."
Jason gave her a broad grin. "Nah, it's not boring. It's really nice of you guys to do something like that."
"So...guess I'll see ya around, Jason!" She winked at him, handing him the stack of flyers. "Thanks a lot!"
"No problem," he replied, watching wistfully as she skipped out of the door, giving him a little wave over her shoulder.
Pocketing a flyer, he gazed out of the dusty grocery store window and watched as her magenta hair disappeared around the corner of a brick building, It seemed that the universe wasn't such a cruel place after all, if it could offer a slice of apple pie and comfort to a useless idiot like him. Perhaps this God's will that she was going off about wasn't as impossible as it first seemed to him, but he supposed he would never know for sure.
a/n: noda and yuri, ladies and gentlemen!