chemical soup [johnjae]

chemical soup

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prompt: basic coffee shop au (but make it fucked up)

words: 19069 (hah)

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-a/n: hi! i just wanted to add a slight trigger warning because this work does include descriptive mentions of a sensory overload and self-deprecating thoughts and feelings! although this one-shot is to be taken completely with a light heart as 95% of it is pure crack, i do want u guys to keep in mind that i do go over some serious topics like mental health, illness-related death, and weed. didn't mean to make this note so long but i just want that to be something you keep in mind before reading this :) sorry for the wait!

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Many words aren't meant to be said, and yet he had said them with such determination and such confidence that the world shook and his own walls crumbled in on him. It was a sight to behold, watching a grown man crack and break like a porcelain doll when his skin was made of thick gold, and his irises dripped in crusted honey.

Time wasn't real, not to him at least, and days passed like minutes as did songs in seconds. Painful, it was, watching time pass like leaves in the wind.

The leaves were red that day. As Johnny had remembered, he'd last saw them green. Red, yellow, orange, brown—new colours swirled around him like butterflies, or birds, or whatever winged creature that was left lurking in the valleys of the perfect city of Norma. It was all blurred, and he was numb, and that was where he'd said those words.

"I don't care."

And as he did, the world fell, and shook, and crumbled, because in reality, the nine-lettered-sequence of words held meaning that differed with each blooming season. He breathed, and so did the leaves, but his lungs remained intact and his heart remained warm, because "I don't care" could feel as good as the warm summer sun on a cool July evening.

The leaves were green today, and now he didn't have an excuse as to why he couldn't attend the fourth get-together his friends held this month. He told himself he cared, but in reality, he couldn't find himself mustering even a gram of courage and effort into doing so.

Johnny wasn't entirely careless, no. He, in fact, was only the biggest man with the biggest heart to match. His smile was as warm as summer, and his words were as coaxing and reassuring as a messy bed, still drunk in the warmth of sleep. Johnny was comfort, but comfort itself needed to stem from a place of negativity. Flowers often broke at the stem.

He drank it all in.

Johnny danced partner-less and alone. His waltz felt as empty as his heart did on the day he had said those words. The waltz, composed of orange, red, and yellow notes, rang thick in the thicker humidity of July. Maybe he just didn't understand the waltz's warm tones in the presence of such a suffocating atmosphere, but his footsteps did not falter as he chasséd from measure to measure.

The waltz was sung in sorrow, but not with the same sharp elegance as the waltzes of winter were. It wasn't the same, but he couldn't help it. He wasn't the composer. He was merely the dancer, a string-less puppet withering alone on the cold, tiled floor.

Days passed like songs, but they didn't fade away like the pop ballads of the 80's. Days passed like classical pieces, each hour self-composing a new movement to the piece. Johnny was stuck in the overture.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Johnny listened sullenly to the customer's order. His hands worked without any thought as they jotted down the order and the name of the customer. A talent, others would call it, being able to complete back-breaking tasks while under the influence of sleep. Johnny called it luck and paranoia.