A/N: my other fic will be on pause for a bit so i can write this one, which will be shorter. as a warning, this fic will get pretty dark. hope y'all enjoy!

i. lemonade.

The convenience store smelled stale.

The cashier was leaning back in his chair, staring listlessly at the ceiling.

Natsume walked past him, intent on avoiding eye contact. It was almost embarrassing how often he showed up here at three in the morning to drink their shitty coffee and buy some snacks or beer or really anything to pass the time.

He used to smoke. That was lovely. It gave him way more of an excuse to pop into the store at ill-advised hours to buy a pack. Aoi and Ruka had got him off the habit though, easily enough, and now all he had as an excuse was food.

He always had trouble sleeping. The chronic headaches would be exacerbated by his fatigue and he spent most of his days feeling like his head was due to be cracked open.

Natsume walked slowly down the aisles-as slowly as he could.

He passed the fridge section, with its cheap half-gallons of milk and juice. The energy drinks-which he wouldn't be indulging in at three A.M., no matter how desperate he was-and the sodas and the-

The refrigerator door right in front of him was suddenly pulled open and a hand attached to a skinny wrist reached in to pull out a glass bottle of lemonade.

He hadn't even noticed that there was someone other than him in the store.

Natsume glanced up to see a girl about a head shorter than him. She was wearing jeans, an unzipped hoodie with a pink shirt under it, and gray sneakers with dirty blue laces. Her brown hair was in two sloppy braids.

She smiled brightly at him and popped off the lid to the lemonade.

Natsume turned to check if the cashier could see, but there was a shelf of chips between them now.

The girl drank the whole lemonade right there, with the fridge door still open and the frost spilling out. She emptied the bottle and replaced the cap, putting the bottle right where she found it, but she kept the door propped open with her denim-clad knee.

She placed a finger in front of her mouth and grinned. "Shh."

Natsume blinked at her.

"Did you want some lemonade?" she asked, her voice sweet and quiet. "This brand is very fancy. Very delicious."

"No, thanks."

"Suit yourself." She pulled out three more frosty bottles of lemonade and shoved them inside her hoodie, propping them under her arms. "Have a nice night. You can keep a secret, right?"

Natsume didn't say anything, just kept staring at her blankly.

"Shh," she said again, her smile never fading, walking backwards a few steps. Then she skipped down the aisle and disappeared from his view.

Natsume waited for the cashier to say, "Hey!" and stop her. That was what was supposed to happen. Instead the bell to the store rang, the door swung open and then it closed and she was gone. The cashier didn't say anything.

Natsume leaned closer to read the label on the bottle of lemonade the girl had chugged and stolen.

It did look fancy-some organic lemonade with limited sugar and no preservatives. It was significantly more expensive than the generic brand lemonade lined up right next to it.

Very fancy. Very delicious.

Natsume closed the door to the juice section. He grabbed a bag of chips and walked up to the cashier.

He was waiting for his change when he said, offhandedly, "So… that girl… She…"

The cashier handed him his change. "What girl?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the replacement fee is non-negotiable," Natsume said in a flat tone over the phone. "There is a waiver available online for lower income families, but since that doesn't apply to you, you're going to have to-"

The woman on the other end continued to scream at him. He held the receiver about a foot from his ear and sighed. When the high-pitched shrieking stopped, he placed the phone back.

"Apologies, ma'am, but I'm afraid we can't be moved on this subject. Please call again later if anything new comes up."

She started to scream something new but Natsume was already hanging up.

Natsume had a government job. That is to say, he had a job for the post office, sitting at a desk and answering phone calls from people who enjoyed yelling at him.

Good benefits, decent pay, the worst customers.

He was running on half an hour of sleep, proof of a terrible life choice to attempt a bit of sleep before he had to get up for work. After tossing and turning for hours, he'd only fallen asleep for thirty minutes before his alarm rang.

His job sucked. His apartment sucked. His insomnia sucked.

All he wanted was one good night of sleep. Just once.

By the time he was off of work, the dull ache in his head had progressed to a sharp pain. Before he started his car, he swallowed some pain killers, a necessity for his neverending migraine. He was chasing the pills with his water bottle when his phone vibrated from his pocket.

"What?" he said, knowing who it was without checking the caller ID.

"Off work?" Ruka asked.

"Yes. Just."

"Do you have a shift tomorrow?"

"No."

"Cool. You wanna watch a movie? I heard it's mediocre."

Natsume considered this. "Getting enough sleep" was a non-issue. He'd never get it no matter how hard he tried. The real problem was whether or not Ruka would have alcohol. If he did, Natsume might fall asleep at eight, which was embarrassing.

He was only twenty-three and had the body of a senior citizen.

Well, whatever.

"Yeah."

"Cool! Come over at six and we'll order take-out."

They hung up and Natsume leaned back in his seat. His car was a rust-pile, nothing special or desirable. It got stuffy very fast, and since it had no A/C, sometimes Natsume was prone to cooking in there. But at that moment, the feeling of frying was almost peaceful.

He closed his eyes to see if he could fall asleep.

He could almost feel himself doze off, his brain just about ready to shut off…

His phone vibrated again.

Don't forget your wallet again, Ruka had texted.

Natsume rolled his eyes and started his car.

"Any screamers today?" Ruka asked as he ate a slice of his vegetarian pizza. They always got one pizza split down the middle with toppings. Natsume liked pepperoni and Ruka liked all the gross stuff Natsume would prefer to peel off: peppers, mushrooms, onions, even pineapple.

"Always," Natsume replied.

Ruka took a sip of some dumb expensive beer. Natsume was abstaining under the guise that he had a doctor's appointment in the morning and didn't want to be hungover-a lie. At this point being hungover was no different from his usual state of being.

"You said this movie was good," Natsume said, just to complain about something. It was easy to complain about this, a dull plot with too many superhero costumes and mind-numbing action scenes.

"No, I didn't. I said it was mediocre."

"Oh."

"How's Aoi?"

"I don't know," Natsume answered truthfully. She was good, right? He thought she was good. They had a call at least once a week and their last call had been uneventful. She'd passed her final. That was good, right? They hadn't really spoken much about important things since she and Ruka had staged that intervention to get him to quit smoking, and that was a year ago. Or maybe they had, but Natsume had trouble paying attention sometimes, running on nothing but fumes and soda. "We haven't had our call yet," he lied.

"Oh."

They kept watching the movie and Natsume kept silent about his migraine.

Ruka fell asleep first. It was only midnight. Natsume probably wouldn't be able to sleep. He tried anyway, laying on the carpet and propping a pillow under his head.

Natsume didn't like having people over at his apartment. It was obvious how much he was paying for rent, or rather how little he was paying. There was only one window and it was no larger than a computer monitor.

Ruka's university apartment was much nicer in comparison, what with it being pre-furnished and air-conditioned and all. A bedroom and extensive kitchen Ruka started using only because he had it.

Natsume's kitchen was the size of Ruka's bathtub.

The TV was still blue. It hadn't shut off on its own and the remote was under Ruka's arm. Natsume would just have to live with it.

He tried not to stare at the screen, keeping his gaze on what he thought could be his jacket in the dark, where he had placed it on one of the kitchen chairs.

He didn't know how his life had gotten to this point, or even what his life exactly was.

He never went to college. Wasn't his thing, maybe. Too expensive, probably.

That wasn't so bad. None of it was so bad. He had a place to sleep, food in his fridge, money in his wallet. He had a best friend and a healthy sister who was doing well in school.

If it weren't for the insomnia, he wouldn't mind any of it.

But he did have insomnia. He stared at the jacket and then forced his eyes to close. His eyelids were heavy but he knew that didn't mean much. He was always tired, always heavy.

After another two hours of willing it, he finally managed to doze off.

"Well, hello again, stranger!" a chipper voice enthused from behind him.

Natsume turned from the convenience store's coffee station to see the lemonade thief.

She was wearing the exact same outfit as she had the last time he'd seen her, maybe a week ago, only this time, she had a pile of onigiri in her arms.

"Lend me a hand, will ya?" she asked in a hushed tone, transferring the pile into his arms. She took the onigiri one by one and stuck them into her sizable hoodie pockets.

Natsume stood still, though he was tempted to drop the onigiri on the floor or alert the cashier just to spite her. He didn't, only because both of those options would probably result in shouting and his head was not in the state to handle any loud noises.

When she was done and her pockets were full, she grinned at him. She was creepy, Natsume decided. Always smiling. Like a clown. Like a horror movie villain.

"Meet you outside," she whispered, winking at him and then vanishing again, just like she had last time. The cashier didn't say anything, hadn't even noticed, just like last time.

Natsume paid for his coffee and left the store. The girl was indeed outside waiting for him, sitting in the parking lot on a bumper. She was eating one of the onigiri.

"Hey!" she greeted with a wave. "Tuna mayonnaise or salmon?"

Natsume sipped at his coffee and stared at her.

"Hey, don't be a grumpy gus. Get over here."

Natsume rolled his eyes but he did. He had nothing better to do at this hour anyway.

He could hardly see in the dark, especially after being under the blinding lights of the store.

"Tuna mayo or salmon?" she asked again.

"I don't want any."

"You're not hungry?" Lemonade Thief asked.

"No."

"Makes one of us." She took another messy bite of her onigiri. "Anyway, I figured since you've been a real pal, I'd offer you some. You deserve it."

Natsume shook his head. "I'm not your pal. I just don't feel like doing anything big and important like serving justice at fucking three in the morning."

"So you come to this store often?"

"No," Natsume lied. It was almost a nightly routine, if he couldn't fall asleep, which was most nights. After all, his apartment was just across the block. He'd leave his apartment with some petty cash in his pockets under the guise of "going for a walk to clear his head" and then he'd end up at the store, buying something-anything-to pass the time, to do something. Coffee, pretzels, beer, phone chargers, keychains, nachos. Cigarettes.

He began to smoke out of boredom. To be entirely honest, it had actually helped with his insomnia. The relief came with an entirely new issue-nicotine addiction-but it was still relief. He'd also lost weight and started smelling like smoke all the time, so Ruka and Aoi quickly noticed and then it became a problem. An intervention worthy problem.

But the smoking had given him a reason to leave his apartment (he couldn't smoke inside), to go to the store (to buy cigarettes), to do something (to smoke). It was a push when he couldn't do anything else. He'd relax and exhale and suddenly sleep didn't seem impossible to reach anymore.

"I do!" Lemonade Thief exclaimed. "I love their onigiri." He didn't recognize her. He doubted he'd ever seen her before. "But we're new to town, so I'm just trying to get into the swing of things here."

She stared at him pointedly, like she wanted him to say something, express interest in her. He refused.

"Three in the morning, huh?" she finally said, breaking the silence. "And you're not tired. Just drinking coffee."

It sometimes helped his headache. Sometimes not.

Definitely not as much as the cigarettes did.

"I'm Mikan," she said, even though he hadn't asked and didn't care. "You?"

"Fuck off."

She furrowed her eyebrows and shot off the bumper, dropping the wrapper of her onigiri. Her pockets wrinkled with the plastic.

"You're mean."

"You're a shoplifter."

"We're poor!" she complained. "I don't have a choice."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not telling on you so I don't get what your problem is."

She bit her lip and shook her head. She looked weird when she wasn't smiling that creepy smile.

"I'll find out your name," she declared confidently. "You're gonna tell me."

"No."

"I'm gonna Rumplestiltskin you." She was smirking now, back to smiling, even if it wasn't a Cheshire grin. "No first borns for you!"

"Go shoplift or something," Natsume said dismissively.

Lemonade Thief-or Mikan, whatever her name was-sat back down on the bumper. She pulled another onigiri from her pocket and started unwrapping.

"I bet I'll see you here tomorrow. Same time."

"I couldn't care less."

"Same time then. Tomorrow. Right here." She winked at him. "See ya later, Rumplestiltskin."

Natsume rolled his eyes and walked away, sipping at the coffee in his hand. It wasn't hot anymore, if it had ever been.

His apartment was just across the street from the store. He didn't want the creepy Lemonade Thief to see where he was going, so he went the long way: down the next block, then three right turns until he had to walk down an alley and jump the fence to enter his shitty apartment building from the backdoor.

He was done with his coffee by the time he had to jump the chain link fence. He threw it in the big dumpster in the alley and then crawled up the fence. He landed on the other side with a nasty scratch on his calf but it was worth it, not being seen by the shoplifter.

He entered the door with his key and then took the stairs up the building because the elevator had failed three times that month already. None of the fluorescent lights in the building worked at their fullest. They were always flickering, like none of the tenants were paying rent on time and the landlord was punishing them.

Natsume's apartment was on the third floor. He closed the door behind him and collapsed onto his bed.

Natsume lived in a studio, a cramped space littered with dirty clothes and loose papers. There was a kitchenette-a fancy word for nothing at all-and a bathroom he couldn't turn around in. It was a claustrophobic space, nothing enviable in the slightest. But he really didn't mind it so much.

He'd never tell her this, but most of Natsume's paycheck went to Aoi. She thought it was just a little favor, but it was his financial priority. She was busy with classes and a demanding major and he didn't want her to worry about juggling a job on top of that.

This apartment allowed for the arrangement.

So he really didn't care if it was tiny. He just didn't think it was guest-worthy.

Temporary, he might say, even though he'd been living there for four years already.

Natsume changed into his pajamas without leaving his bed, throwing his jeans onto the floor and falling face first against his pillows.

Coffee never helped him for long. He felt like he was already crashing, already exhausted, and it didn't help that he'd slept maybe ten hours altogether this week.

Sleep, he begged himself. Sleep.

An hour later, tears of frustration were welling in his eyes.

Sleep.

He pulled himself out of bed and turned to his kitchenette, only about a foot away. He opened his only drawer and removed the cutlery tray.

There was one cigarette there, hiding.

He picked it up and stuck it in his mouth. He waited for a moment, weighing his options.

He could light it. He could put it back.

Light. Back. Light. Back.

He could still hear Ruka's voice from the night of the intervention. "It's not like I don't get it," he had said. "But you've gotta stop."

Aoi had been sniffling and quiet until Ruka pulled up pictures of smokers' lungs for Natsume to see. Those had prompted her to fall into loud sobs.

By the end of it, the two of them had stared at him with pleading eyes for a long moment, saying nothing.

"Yeah," he finally conceded. "Whatever you two think is best."

He let the cigarette fall from his mouth back into the drawer. He replaced the cutlery tray and returned to his bed.

He took some sleeping pills instead and spent the next two hours staring at his ceiling waiting for them to kick in until he finally started dreaming.