Trick of fate - Tadashi Hamada x Reader

Trick of Fate

You'd lit upon the institute by a trick of fate.

If you recalled correctly, it had been a Thursday, which meant a lonesome night shift at the local warehouse. You'd probably been in the back room for most of the evening, counting stock, shuffling inventory and writing off faulty products.

Once upon a better time, a minimum of two workers was needed to cover the graveyard shift, during those late nights you'd made some of the fondest working memories you had in your adult life; evenings full of banter, laughter and music.  But the company was going through a stubborn austerity streak, so now you worked late nights by yourself; 'tenured staff perks' they'd said.

That night, you'd been streaming a jazz video on your phone, one of those never-ending 'chill lofi' mixes that played on loop. Alone now, you never worked without music. Just as you'd finished writing off a dozen broken gel pens, an ad started playing.

This was the fifth one in half an hour.

You'd put the clipboard down, picked up your phone and hovered a finger over the skip button. 9 seconds, 8, 7 - "-with twenty new scholarships for application and our brand new lab in the Kanagazawa portion of the campus, more than ever our institution is ready to make your technological visions a reality."

You moved your finger away, letting the ad run it's course. 

The marketing was cliche, superficially motivating, with high contrast panoramic shots of the campus; fresh lawns, students on picnic spreads, professors walking to class. Another shot was done in first person where a drone entered the Robotics and Aviation dome offering the viewer a 360° view of the the interior, another shot without music showed a very enthusiastic professor opening class with the statement :"Who here knows Isaac Asimo?" Several donors; the Frederisksons, Krei tech and Liv Amara gave their piece on the importance of education and innovation.

You looked up, right into the LED light on the ceiling, you let the light tattoo itself into your retinas. Then you closed them. You hadn't noticed the video ending until the jazz music started  playing once more. It didn't matter that the marketing was gimmicky. You'd been praying for an opportunity and here it was, here it was. Heart pounding,  you exited the music app and went onto the web browser, you typed the institution's name into the bar and immediately started scrolling through it's website. 

A new scholarship page had been added. You bit your lip. 

Maybe this was it.

You couldn't count the sheer volume of applications you'd submitted in the past month, you'd probably reached out to at least twenty different universities. These were late nights spent on your clunky laptop filling out text box after text box. Financial aid was out there, but there were numerous hurdles one had to jump through to be eligible.  So far, only one university had been willing to progress your application and you'd almost accepted out of desperation, but the 4 hour commute meant any post- class work was unfeasible and you really needed your job. Your family needed your job. You had declined the scholarship.

So, maybe this was it.

------

You submitted an application.

The subsequent months that followed were a dreary battle of paperwork, with numerous stalemates, the uncertainty of the process stressed you like nothing else. At work, you found yourself obsessively refreshing your inbox, waiting. There were weeks of eager anticipation followed by weeks of waning hope. Several times, you'd been ready to give up, only to be informed days later that you'd progressed to the next stage. There was waiting, a note written to the Dean of admissions. More waiting. A background check submitted. Your mother would ask after the application status every few weeks and you'd shake your head and shrug. This sort of guerrilla warfare waged on for several more months. One particular night, when you were sure they weren't moving forward with your application, she'd come into your room, held your hand and said she'd take out a loan.

You'd wanted to cry then. The both of you hugged and she told you she was sorry.

Sorry? "Mum no, please no." 

How could you put your mother through this, you thought then. Could you not be happy with things the way they were? Did you really want a degree that much? Maybe you could wait. ..Wait, grit your teeth, keep going, that was all you and your mother ever did. When? When would there be a time when you both got what you wanted without having to compromise. 

All at once, you were angry, guilty and hopeful.

"An opportunity will come" you tell her "and some day, I'm going to be so rich, we won't ever have to worry about this stuff."

Two weeks later, your application was accepted. 

Class began the week after. 

Days after the good news you still had trouble recalling the chain of events. Did it really happen? It was as if someone had snapped their fingers and just like that, you were admitted, suddenly transmuted into an official student of Sanfransokyo's Institute of Technology. It seemed to come without foreshadow nor ceremony, though you knew this wasn't true. Somehow you'd gotten the very thing you wanted. There are no words to describe how this news changed your family. How there had been laughter and tears and laughter and tears again. Perhaps any other family would have found it strange, what was so joyous about a simple admission? But not you and your mother. 

You both went out for Sukiyaki to celebrate.