Soak up those bad decisions with some pancakes!

[elementalherodragonlord]

credit: original post

It's late. Like, 3 A.M. late. You're hungry as fuck, but nothing's open.



Except Denny's.

RULES

1. Post to the meme.
2. Find somebody to eat with. Figure out why the hell you'd do this to yourself.
3. Or get it delivered. This is what Postmates was made for, dude.

YARNTAILS ADDITIONS

1. Where's your Denny's? Subliminal space? Panfandom OU jamjar? San Antonio, TX?
2. What's your Denny's vibe? Spooky? Silly? Super casual?
3. Idk I just wanted to give some suggestions for Denny's existences

Comments

[gnashingjaws]

[Shark doesn't want to be here, and he's just kinda stabbing his eggs with his fork wishing he didn't have to sit here and wait for someone to come pick him up like a kid from elementary school, and by "someone" he means Kaito, his...friend. Still a weird word for him to get used to.]

[Basically this is the "kids who need to get picked up from the field trip" corner and at least they're getting fed, it's so late. It took forever for someone to take him seriously that he doesn't have parents, just a twin sister who can't come get him, even if they'd let a minor sign off for him. So, instead, he had to call Kaito, feel incredibly embarrassed about it, and now he has to wait however long it's going to take Kaito to find someone to take care of Haruto while he comes all the way to another town just to pick him and--]

Goddammit.

[He shoves a mouthful of eggs into his mouth. This sucks. This sucks ass. At least his company isn't annoying.]

[getoutoftherobot]

[Working from the very beginning here: Shinji's father can't be bothered with coming to get him and has assigned a coworker (hi Misato) to come get him, but there was some kind of emergency at work and now Misato is extremely late. He doesn't have Misato's phone number and his father had hung up on him when he called him.]

[In pretty much any other situation, he finds Shark extremely intimidating, but they've been sitting at this booth at Denny's watching the sun go down through the windows for a while now, and the sense of solidarity is starting to set in.]

[He makes a soft, wordless noise of agreement when Shark swears. He hasn't eaten much of his own food, too embarrassed and hurt to be very hungry. The teacher's glances their way started out friendly but they've been getting more and more frowny, which is honestly mostly concern, but Shinji sure is reading it as annoyance.]

[There's a long moment of silence save for the noises of the kitchen and an older couple three booths down, and then Shinji sighs.]

You want one of my pancakes? I'm not hungry.

[gnashingjaws]

[Shark looks rolls his eyes up to look at Shinji from his lowered head position as he chews his eggs. He probably looks as menacing as a kid eating eggs can look in this moment. He swallows and sits back up, huffs, and stabs a fork into the top pancake of Shinji's stack and hauls it over to his empty pancake plate. He's not even hungry. He just needs to destroy something with his mouth.]

Thanks.

[He glances over the at the teachers. He's also reading annoyance off of them; they probably want to go home, not baby-sit the two kids with issues. He's close to barking at them to just leave and leave them by themselves, but he knows that would just land him getting scolded so he doesn't bother.]

[Shark reaches for the syrup.]

They should just go home.

[But you know who can't give him detention if he voices his opinion? Shinji.]

[getoutoftherobot]

[Shinji has a brief, terrified moment where Shark glares at him and he thinks he did something wrong, but then the pancake offering is accepted and the ice stops spreading in his chest.]

[His heart's still beating a little too fast, but he 110% agrees with what Shark's saying.]

Yeah. It's not like we can go anywhere, the only things open for three blocks are a laundromat and a 100 yen store...

[It's a very specific feeling, of being a burden and also feeling babied, because seriously, what mischief do they think two worn out and vaguely humiliated teenaged boys are going to get into? He resents his dad for putting him in this situation and resents himself to how much trouble he's causing for the teachers, although the blow is softened somewhat by not feeling alone.]

[gnashingjaws]

[Shark snorts.]

Plenty of mischief to get up to there.

[And so he keeps eating for a bit because there's nothing else to do, mostly. Rio's probably going to fuss over him when he gets home about if he ate at all and he's going to have to insist he ate plenty at that American place and she's just going to have to believe him.]

[He doesn't care, necessarily, but he doesn't want long gaps of silence. Okay he might care, he's curious, like whose schedule had to be uprooted to pick up a teenager from a school trip that they weren't responsible for, because that's clearly the same situation Shinji's in, too.]

Who's picking you up?

[He might ask the server for more meat of some kind. He needs to rip into something. Also, just for an added bonus, his phone's dying so he can't even answer his texts from his other...friends, god what a word to get used to. He should at least check it soon for updates from Kaito.]

[getoutoftherobot]

[Shark cuts right to the core of the issue, doesn't he? Shinji actually winces a little and drops his gaze firmly down to his pancakes. It takes him a moment to respond, because he has to cycle through a lot of very bitter things before he finds something he's actually willing to say out loud.]

My dad's coworker. She... probably got caught up at work. They work a lot of overtime.

[It isn't a lie, but it isn't the whole truth. It certainly doesn't account for the fact that he's only met Misato maybe twice, and doesn't even have her number to check if she's on her way. Or that his father is unlikely to even know that today was field trip day. Hell, he doesn't even know Shinji's birthday.]

Y-You?

[gnashingjaws]

[Shark has a feeling that Shinji's got some shit adults on his side. He notices things Shinji does but he doesn't really know what they mean; Rio would know. He just knows how to read between the lines and take the more cynical approach to things to come to less than positive conclusions.]

[He considers all his responses, decides they're all too mean-sounding and as per Yuma's advice and Kaito's warnings, figures he shouldn't say anything at all in response.]

[Then, well, he should've expected the question to be turned back to him. He just needs to figure out how to respond. How the fuck does he explain Kaito to people? He doesn't even know how to categorize him in his own life. Granted, he's still getting used to the concept of having friends and is only willing to admit he has two of them--Yuma and Kaito (not counting Rio, she's his twin so she's Special). Yuma is just a year younger than him and Kaito is...out of high school. How are they friends? The web of connections is wild. It's Yuma's fault. It's always Yuma.]

[But Kaito is his friend and he is dropping everything to come get him as soon as he finds someone to babysit his little brother for a couple of hours (probably Yuma). Yuma would do that for him, too. if he could. What the fuck are friends. He rejected people for so long, even Rio to an extent, then suddenly Yuma was showing him how to use LINE and spamming him with stickers at 1am and he was...okay with it?]

[Point is, it sounds like Shinji's ride is worse than Shark's. The worst Kaito is going to do is call him Ryouga and not by his cool nickname. He doesn't have parents or guardians, but he does have like three people he can count on to not be dicks.]

...A friend.

[Out of sheer fucking embarrassment he wolfs down whatever he has left on his plate.]

FUN FACT apparently the car driving age in japan is 18 yes i googled this

[getoutoftherobot]

[The silence goes on just long enough for Shinji to start getting that cold anxious feeling in his chest again. Did he somehow offend him by mentioning Misato? Oversharing is definitely a possibility, but--]

[Shark finally replies and Shinji relaxes a little. He's really riding the edge between "social anxiety" and "general misery" tonight.]

Oh, you have a friend that can drive? That's cool.

[Shinji doesn't really have cool older friends. Or... friends in general, actually, as this is from before he lives with Misato.]

extra fun fact in zexal shark, at 14 y/o, drives a motorcycle car thing just. casually.

[gnashingjaws]

[Shark has a lot to chew and swallow before he can respond since he stuffed so much into his mouth before. He pauses for a moment, staring down at his plate. Well. Yeah. He does have a friend.]

Yeah. He drives this two-seater, so he has to get a baby-sitter for his kid brother.

[He knows Kaito's working on getting a van since the two-seater vehicle was a thing he just built but he's not going to do that again with a whole fucking van. Also Kaito does have a dad but he's...busy. With science or whatever. Kaito can't trust him to do jack shit.]

[Shark checks his dying phone and sees a text from Kaito. Oh thank god.]

He should be here in a while. Looks like he got Yuma to look after him, like I thought.

[He meant to just like. Think that. But oh well.]