Setting is a local diner, modern day | Canon: The Booth at the End

[themaninthebooth]

There is a 24-hour diner. A diner that serves a variety of normal treats from coffee to cream puffs to pastrami sandwiches. The waitresses, the cooks, the owner have all lived normal lives and serve normal people.

Today there is a Man in the diner. A Man that you only heard about in rumors. A Man heard of in joking tones, but with eyes that said they were deadly serious. Some call him a manipulator. Some call him a mentor. Some call him an angel. Some call him a devil.

He is The Man sitting in the booth at the end of the diner.

He appears to spend his time writing down things in a large, black, leather-bound notebook. He orders whatever seems to suit his fancy at any given moment, but his attention remains on the book.

He's waiting for you. Waiting to make a deal to help get you what you want. All you have to do is sit down... and ask for it.

Comments

[nakamura_sensei]

She ambles into the cafe (she's so sure it's a cafe) hands in pockets. My plan failed. Peace-kun is in shambles. The device she came up with to lure Shinonome Nano into her clutches had to be fixed.

It wasn't incidental she was still in her lab coat, dirt, scuffs, scrapes and all. She came here without stopping after the paramedics had declared her safe to go.

"Coffee, straight black. No sugar or cream," she says, unable to stop herself from blushing in chagrin at the last bit. Nakamura looks around. Why no open tables?

She curtly thanks the person at the counter and wanders towards the back, cup in hand. She casts unimpressed glances at the empty seats beside other people. No symmetry. I have no choice. I must ask.

Nakamura tries to sound polite. "Is this seat taken?"

[electronic_thumb]

"I heard the pastrami sandwiches are good here."

The latest...client looked friendly enough, but there wasn't something about him that seemed very slightly weird.

Perhaps he was an actor.

[all_onis_are_true]

He's not sure why he's here. Not sure what any of this is going to accomplish. But if the rumors are true, then perhaps this is the only way he's going to find any resolution to his problems. He can't see how things could get any WORSE, anyway.

The man is there, as he heard. Gathering his scarf around himself, he approaches him, feeling like he sticks out like a sore thumb despite the fact nobody else even looks at him as he approaches. He finally gets to the last booth and nods slightly to the man.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" Polite. In control. Everything he wants to be, even though he knows he isn't.

[beingmegucaissuffering]

Look down for a second, and when you look up, a certain strange creature is sitting on the table, as if it had always been there. Smiling.

"I've been meaning to meet with you for some time."

[mirrorofme]

"Are you going to just stand there?"

"As opposed to what, sitting?"

The bell to the diner door jingles softly, signaling someone's entrance. To be precise, it was two someones, both of them so similar in appearance it was eerie. Their hairstyles matched, and their clothes (strange style, like something out of the 1930s) also matched save for the face that one was a woman and the other a man.

"I fail to see the point in this endeavor." Rosalind stated tensely as she entered behind Robert, showing less tolerance than her brother.

"The point is very simple." Robert replied, the slightest bit of humor in his tone. "We're hungry, we're getting something to eat."

Rosalind glowered at him, but went in to take a seat, ending up near The Man. Robert joined her a moment later. "We could have stayed home."

"Home does not have French fries."

"...A fair point."

Yeah, they're going to babble like this for a while, unless someone speaks up.