[log] Niou Masaharu and Tachibana An

[dontgiveafox]

Who: Niou Masaharu and Tachibana An
What: Just a regular day at work :')
When: Some Friday a while ago
Where: Second hand bookshop 
Rating: G


A happy sigh escaped An’s mouth as she neared the faintly worn down entrance that was her part time job. It was Friday and out of all her shifts today was probably her most favorite. Mainly because her peculiar co-worker actually was himself on that day.

At first, An hadn't realized that Niou Masaharu had a strange hobby or act? She still wasn't quite sure which one of the two they were but when she began to work with him did she start to notice that something was off when Atobe appeared to work at the shop. Only in a strange alternate reality would that ever be a thing. Now it was common practice that she found herself dealing with a few personalities during the week. Fridays involved Niou being Niou and she found him to be fun and clever to talk with during her shift.

Opening up the door to the shop, a chime sung and announced her presence. Looking to the counter she found her peculiar co-worker lounging, not that it bothered her really.

Smiling to Niou, she walked over to him and placed her bag under it.“How long have you been sitting here?”

Normally during the slow shifts by himself, Niou worked through the exorbitant amount of work from university, or caught up on watching dramas on his phone, but in the holidays, with all too much free time to himself, he liked to just read random books that caught his eye in the store.

Which explained why he was lounging behind the counter, eating his way steadily through a bowl of fruit candy today. He was also building up a pile of the wrappers on the counter as he flicked through a novel, some buxom young lady wrapped in the embrace of a man on the cover.

“Hi Tiny Tachibanana,” he said, folding over the corner of the book and resting it on his chest. “I’ve been here since opening, it’s been rather dull. The only exciting thing that happened was a sweaty man giving away his pile of dubious pornography from the 90’s.” Niou paused and tossed a piece of candy at her. “It’s in the adult section if you want to sort it.”

Tiny Tachibanana. The nickname made her smile falter. Ever Since she started working the name had become the norm but she did had hope that one day he’d actually call her by her actual name.

An was quick to notice the cover of the novel and raise an eyebrow as she caught the candy. “Are you reading one of his dubious drop offs? It looks pretty cheesy.”

Sorting 90’s erotic literature didn’t sound like a bad way to start her friday, if anything she’d get a laugh out of it.

“Did you lick this one too?” She asked while unwrapping it and plopping it into her mouth. It was strawberry and An was okay with this.

“Nah, this was from a few days ago.” The dubious 90s drop off had been magazines in surprisingly good condition and books with much less brazen covers than the one he was reading. “It’s pretty good,” Niou said, turning it around to look at the cover. “The girl’s making excessively questionable life choices.” He grinned at An. “Reminds me of you, Tachibanana, but with moon sized tits.”

He casually unwrapped another piece of candy, smoothing out the wrapped to lay it on top of his growing pile. “No, I rubbed them all in my hair this time. I took inspiration from your hair grease chocolates.”

The need to roll her eyes at Niou’s comment overtook her, “I still question why I still am working here about to sort through funky 90’s pornoraphy.” Most days she did sort through other less questionable subjects.

Walking past Niou to the adult section she stayed close enough to continue on with their lovely conversation. “ Moon sized breast does sound quite uncomfortable but I’m sure in the end she’ll find no other way to end her relationship with her cover man but smother him in them and call it an accident.” She said mindlessly as it was the first nonsensical thing to pop into her head.

She picked up a magazine and looked at the cover. A crucified jesus with an erection and a spread eagle barbie doll looking up at him in a bow dress. Yes, the 90’s were a really weird place to be.

Biting into the hard candy she began her work “ No wonder it was so shiny. Hopefully my stomach can take it.”

Well at least now that An was there, Niou had to put down his book, tucking it carefully under the counter. He also left the candy wrappers on the counter, to clean off at a later time. Instead he got out the giant feather duster, to vaguely flap around the books and stay close enough to An to talk to her.

“Don’t spoil the ending for me, Tiny Tachibanana,” Niou said, prodding her with the end of the feather duster before he started on the topmost shelf. “I want to be surprised. Right now she’s entering his seaside villa for the first time and I’m pretty sure he’s going to eat her or something. I’m so excited for the cannibalism.”

He glanced down at her and peered at the cover of the magazine she was holding. Fascinating. “I’ve already eaten like 10 of them, and my stomach’s fine. If you vomit, I’ll hold you hair out of the way.”

She pouted lightly at the prodding before lifting a hand up and poking the older boy’s side, “ I’m not trying to spoil you, my mind powers can’t help it sometimes. Should that book go in romance or horror then?” Cannibal boyfriend and romantic sunsets were an interesting mix.

Picking up another magazine, An wrinkled her nose, There certainly were a few that could be thrown out.Who wanted to read about tentacle porn being the next big thing in erotic literature. “ Oh, that’s very kind of you, Senpai. Maybe I should throw up on your shoes in that case.” The thought crossed her mind and she shuttered. An was grossed out at even herself vomiting. “ Let’s just hope my stomach is fine.”

Niou makes an unhappy noise at the poke in the side and prods An back with the duster. No. “Probably horror.” He paused and thought about it, prodding her again in the meantime. “Maybe we should put the horror and romance sections side by side, so we can cater for this very specific subgroup of romance.”

Romance horror, Niou was up for this.

He snorted and shuffled past An to wave his duster around the new piles of books there. “If you vomited in my shoes, I’d still wear them,” he said, keeping an eye on her - maybe she’d start turning green if he said the word ‘vomit’ enough. “They’d be nice and warm at least.”

“Are you going to keep doing that with the duster? “ The feathers were slightly ticklish and it made her want to sneeze. Either way it didn’t stop An from poking Niou a second time but choose his cheek this time. “I’d be interested in that sub group. You’d never know if they fell in love and lived or killed one another by the end.” Yes, she did enjoy horror and she actually did read horror even if some nights she found herself getting to paranoid at her door.

Now Niou seriously was trying to make her vomit. She shut her eyes for a moment and then gave him a disgusted look. “ You’re so gross. You should try to be nice to once and a while and not try to make me sick. No one would want to buy anything from this section if I do.”

“Just until I finish dusting,” Niou said, prodding her again. It seemed to be their usual trend, just poking at each other in various ways, either figuratively or literally, all through the shift. He grinned at An’s description of a Romance Horror genre. “That just sounds like your relationships in a book,” he said, laughing to himself.

He just flapped the duster around her hair in response to her calling him gross, and then turned back to his job, changing the topic. “I got permission to decorate the store a bit more, by the way. So we’re going to be painting figurines later,” he said cheerfully. As if the random things scattered around the store already weren’t enough of a decoration. “I think you’ll really like the ones I’ve picked.”

She decided to not continue with her onslaught because she doubted Niou would stop with the duster if she continued to instigate. Instead she chose to raise an eyebrow at him and shove the group of odd magazines near the end of one of the shelves , she doubted anyone would really want to buy any of these. “ What do you know about my relationships? Been stalking my dates as of late? ” She said flatly before grabbing a book and waving it. “ Do you mind putting this one up on the top shelf?” An wasn’t all to bothered by her height but it did annoy her that she couldn’t reach things half the time.

The tickle of his duster made her sneeze finally and An made sure to sneeze in his direction because..why not? Karma. “ Really? More decorations? This place already looks like it came out a ghibli film.” She countered,rubbing at her nose to get the feeling to stop. “ Are they little dog figurines? Maybe a cat?” An was never sure with Niou considering he enjoyed poking fun at her half the time. Maybe he was actually being thoughtful? At least painting figurines sounded like more fun than sorting.

“I’m very curious about your personal life,” Niou said in a similarly flat voice, though he took the book and glanced at it before tucking it onto the top shelf. As much as they did make half an effort to organise the store, there were also random piles of books and the shelves weren’t that great… it was on his to do list, one day.

“No the cat ones are for next month.” And he wanted to line the whole store window with them, all in different poses and coats. “Hang on, let me get them,” he fluffed the duster one more time in her face before he trotted off to the counter, rifling around under there for a moment before he pulled out the box of figurines. “Ta da,” Niou said, pulling out the first one. It was a white clay frog, disturbingly realistic. “And this one’s wearing a hat,” he said, pulling out a second one to show An, it’s face stretched into a grin. “I wanted to make the hat pink, I think it’ll bring out the eyes.”

She rolled her eyes lighty, “I’m sure you are.”

A huffed escaped her when Niou attacked her with the duster, “Can you quit it?” No, probably not was the only answer she’d ever receive. As Niou was off finding the figurines, An took her time to finish placing the last few spare books that were in the box. There. That would do for now.

Placing the last book in it’s place she looked back to Niou with what at first was a smile before it transformed into this look of shock and possible horror. They weren’t real. Either way An didn't find herself enjoying his little joke, “You should have brought the cats this months.”

Niou just kept grinning as her smile vanished and he waved the frog figurine at her a bit. “I’m thinking we could try a different animal every month,” he said, putting the hat wearing one to the side to pull out a third - stretched into a dramatic yoga pose. “Maybe the month after, I can find some camel figurines.”

An absolutely hated frogs and Niou seemed to be enjoying exploiting this. One day she would have her revenge. “ Camels are boring..” She said raising an eyebrow at the yoga frog. Okay, That one was slightly more amusing than the first two. “ How about bears next month, or maybe some turtles.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind turtles,” Niou said, dragging out a bag of paints and paintbrushes too before dumping them on the counter. “This one’s for you,” he said, holding out a paintbrush. “I think you should go for the yoga doing one, it makes me think of you when I see it. Or maybe this one,” he pulled out a frog reading a book and then paused. “No wait, this one’s mine.”

Rolling her eyes she took the frog and brush from his hand and made her way closer to the counter, “ Do you see me doing much yoga in the book shop?” An asked as she look at the paint colors. There were quite a few, she would definitely not paint it the traditional green. Looking to the book reading frog she looked up to Niou with a grin, “I can see the resemblance. You are kinda gangly and do say Kero.”

“You could start doing yoga in the store,” Niou said, turning the book reading frog around in his hands and inspecting it. “We could clear out the New Arrivals area and make that your yoga zen zone.”

It was all rather organised actually, as he got out some water and paper towels, and Niou settled into the seat behind the counter. “I can’t help that I’m stuck in a pubescent body,” he said, already opening up the green paint. “One day I dream of filling out and becoming as muscled and manly as Genichirou.”

“I'm sure setting up a Zen zone will attract plenty of more customers.” She said sarcasm apparent in her tone.

Playing with the end of the brush she watched as Niou pulled out some pink paint, “I'm definitely making her pink and her name will be pinky.” An was original like that but it did remind of Pacman.

“Hm, I mean you could get some muscles.. but I can't exactly picture you with raging biceps.” An said without a thought as she opened the pink paint and started on her posing frog, adding color to its body.

Her eyes slid over for a moment to his hands and then to his face before shrugging. “ You look pretty fine for being kind of gangly.”

Niou squinted in concentration as he painted carefully around his yoga frog’s eyes, listening and vaguely nodding along to An’s comments. Yes. Pink frog, customers doing yoga in the store… he paused at An’s…. compliment? “Thanks Tiny Tachibanana,” he said, reaching out to poke her on the face with the paint end of his paint brush.

“You look pretty fine too, for being a weedy frog girl,” he said. He painted a smiley face on the back of his frog before he covered it with paint. A secret smiley face now. “Maybe you should get the raging biceps instead.”

She puffed out the cheek that Niou had poked and feigned annoyance, “Weedy? And a frog? So suddenly I hate my own kind?”

Putting her paint in water she cleaned it and deciding to add some details in white. “I could drop tennis and become a body builder.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty weedy,” Niou said, prodding at her upper arm - with his hand this time, because he was thoughtful like that - as if to prove a point. “And your face when it’s annoyed looks like a frog.”

He grinned and opened up the yellow paint. “Maybe you should be a pro wrestler, crushing people’s necks between your muscular thighs.”

“I could try punching you in the face and we can see how weedy I really am.” She said half joking. An did try and keep her arms toned for the most part especially since she still played tennis competitively.

Adding white to the eyes she inspected her work. “So if I looked happy would I not look like a frog?” An had a feeling that either way she'd still look like a frog.

She scoffed and tapped her paint brush near the pot of yellow. “ I guess they'd call me the tiny banana crusher then.” It wasn't the most epic name but it would do.

Niou just laughed at the… threat? It really wasn’t that threatening when she was painting a frog statue and they were in a shabby second hand bookshop. He paused and looked at her consideringly before he went back to his frog painting as if he’d never stopped. “I prefer your annoyed face,” he said easily enough. “I don’t like your smiley face, it’s gross.”

He alternated between painting messily and taking his time picking out little details like the toe webbing. “Maybe if you smile when they crush bananas, it’ll make your reputation grow.”

Nious reaction didn’t surprise An at all. She only really said it because it amused her. Dipping her brush into blue she decided on blue for the rather pink frog’s eye color. Blue and pink wasn’t a bad combination. Better than pink and brown. That was for sure. Not turning once she heard Niou’s answer, An tried to give her best impersonation of a psycho smile possible before letting it go with a laugh. “What about that one?”

She watched Niou paint before shaking her head, “They’ll clearly think I’m unstable or out for blood.”

Niou watched An and pulled his own face when she grinned really broadly. “Just smile at boys like that and they’ll flee from you in general. You should definitely do that,” he said, nodding to himself. He glanced at her frog critically and then at his own much more traditionally painted one.

Maybe his needed glitter.

An snorted, “Well that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I’d just smile normally for the ones I want around me.”

“Just don’t smile normally at me,” Niou said. And with a few more touches of colour, he was pretty much done with his frog. “When you smile normally at me, a small part of my creativity dies and at this rate, I’ll just be a boring withered husk by the end of the year.”

Putting down her figure she placed her elbow on the table and leaned her head on her hand before smiling sweetly albeit somewhat fake. “ Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe that’s been my plan all along.” Honestly An wasn’t quite sure what problem Niou had with her smiling but it was one of the mysterious things she asked herself sometimes.

Niou flinched at the smile and mimed vomiting in response. “You’re so gross, Anana-chan,” he said, shoving a hand in her face and pushing himself off the seat so he could start cleaning up. “And if I was a boring withered husk, your work shifts on Friday would be so much more boring. You wouldn’t want that.”

An was about to grin but her face contorted and she wrinkled her nose as soon as Niou had placed his hand on her face. Rude. “I could play immature and say you’re gross but I won't.” She pouted. “I could find ways to entertain myself I’m sure. But please don’t blame your lack of creativity on little ol’ me.” Looking back to the paints and then back at Niou she was very tempted to dab some paint on the older boy’s face but somehow that would most likely involve cleaning up more than necessary. Instead she chose to sigh.

“One of us has to pretend to be the mature one here,” Niou said, laughing a bit as he started putting lids on the paint again. “And that job automatically falls to you, always.”

He glanced at her just in time to see the pout and he threw a clean paintbrush at her. “That face is gross too. It’s also killing my creativity.”

An couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. Of course, “It shouldn’t have to be that way. Maybe one day you’ll surprise me.” That would be the day.

Her pout magnified once Niou had decided to throw a brush at her. An would now do it on purpose. So much for maturity. “ Too bad. Let me suck all the creativity out of you.”

“Gross,” Niou said, pulling at face back at An as she continued to pout. “If you do that to someone who’s uncreative and doesn’t have anything to give you, you might end up sucking away their soul.”

He reached under the counter and grabbed a box of random books, holding them out to An. “Here you go, more for you to organise. You might find some interesting horror books in there.”


An quirked an eyebrow taking in what Niou said. “ Are you saying I'm like some soul stealing demon?” Or maybe a Dementor.

More books? She thought they were actually done. Looking once last time at her colorful frog she hopped off her stool and took the box giving it a look over. “ Put Funky and Pinky out to dry.” Yes, she did give them names.

Looking up to Niou one last time she smiled, “There better be.” That said she turned and made her way towards the horror section.

“Yeah, alright.” Niou looked at the two frogs and… how was he meant to move them to dry? Something for him to ponder while An kept herself busy with book sorting.

He stared at her back for a moment before he called out. “When you’re done, I have afternoon tea for us too.”