Chapter Text
The snowy little town of Saint Ivalice was unremarkable in every way you could think of. Nothing here ever changed, nothing happened, and most importantly everyone was content for things to stay that way.
Well, almost everyone.
Bunny works at the Sunny Day Diner, ironically named for the beautiful day it was opened on that just so happened to also be the last time sunshine broke through the clouds in it's 40 years of existence. Mr. Cork is the owner and founder of the diner, but mostly stays in his office now, fighting with a decades old TV for signal through the snow. Llaney is the server who started on opening day and insists that the place will close down if she ever retires. Cash is the cook who took over in the back after Mr. Randell was suddenly dismissed from his position. He's had a few good ideas, but in the place a patron threatened to call the police because the Friday night Meatloaf special was served with Roasted Potato instead of Mashed, there isn't much room to explore them. In all of this Bunny acts as both a hostess and food runner, not being given the space to be a proper server since Llaney runs that show and Mr. Cork believes no woman would ever be competent to work something as complex as a stove- so her kitchen time is incredibly limited. Still the job pays well enough and the work is anything from hard, so Bunny lets herself fall into the routine, swearing to get out of this town the second she saves up enough.
With everything running like clockwork in Ivalice, people coming in on their particular days at specific times and ordering the same things, it’s easy to prep throughout the day. More importantly it made it easier to sneak away from your station, so Bunny and Cash would often be in the back alleyway while he smoked a cigarette and she tried to desperately find anything remotely entertaining on social media and dream about the day she moves.
“Soooo did you ever get any hits for your ad?”
“Not a one, s’gonna be a pretty lame band if all that’s rocking is some greasy drummer.”
“Awwww don’t say that- you’re not that greasy!”
“Yeah thanks Bun, normally people lie and say like ‘oh no Cash, you’re going to sound great no matter what you do!’ or some shit like that.”
“Oh no Cash, you’re going to sound great no matter what you do!”
“....thanks Bun.”
The conversations were always short, just long enough for Cash to smoke and head back inside before anyone knew they were missing. Neither pushed to really get to know the other beyond the surface level information anyone else around would know. Cash wasn’t too worried about leaving St. Ivalice and instead put his energy into perfecting his drums and trying to start a band for the fifth time. But when almost everyone who turns eighteen ships off to college, it leaves a horrendous age gap between the children and elderly, and a very slim roster of potential musicians. Everybody knew him as the cook who works in the diner that’ll never make it, and that was as far as Bunny knew about him. She, on the other hand, was a rarity for a town like this. While most residents were born here, will live here, and die here- Bunny only moved to St. Ivalice to take care of her uncle when she heard he was sick. Unfortunately he never recovered and Bunny was left with his house. At first it seemed like a silver lining to a terrible turn of events, but after a couple of years the quiet of the town, paired with the empty and lonely home began to wear on her. She found out as part of her uncle’s will, Bunny wouldn’t be able to sell the home, and so if she wanted to leave it would be on her own dime. Hence the diner, the aspirations of beachside fun, and a miserable girl in a contentedly quiet town.
Recently, the diner began running into a problem. For some reason, the produce delivery that always arrived exactly on time every week had begun coming later and later. When one thing is knocked out of sync in St. Ivalice, it creates a domino effect, and this one lead to a complaint to Mr. Cork that the burger that was ordered had no tomato on it. As the rookie, Bunny was sent to investigate this urgent matter post-haste. It didn’t take long to wind the snowy roads down to the grocer to try and see if she could learn anything about this absolutely terrible fiasco. Though what Bunny came across she was not expecting. Two men were standing in the alley behind the grocer, one middle-aged and wearing an apron with the company logo, the other was maybe ten years older than Bunny, eyes cast down to the snow. She recognized the man receiving the lecture, Mr. Randell, that scruffy brown hair and choppy goatee, an incredibly unique trait amongst the well groomed men in town. It seemed that the problems he was causing at the diner didn’t stop after being fired from there, now just transferred to the grocer’s and still looping back to vex the patrons. She had gotten enough of an idea of what had been happening, and tried to back up quietly to avoid somehow being sucked into this scene.
The retreat was halted suddenly as backside met a passerby, making her stumble sideways into the snow and send the pedestrian sprawling to the ground with an ‘oomph!’ Bunny expected a loud reprimanding, much like the one she was trying to remove herself from, but when no such yelling comes she sits up confused. She gets her answer quickly as to the why she was spared when she realized the person she bumped into was actually one of the kids in town. Quickly she hops up and does her best to help him, scooping up the books he was carrying and holding them out with a smile.
“Hey! Sorry about that buddy, I wasn’t watching where I was going, are you okay?”
“...s’kay”
“Are you sure? do you want me to help you back to your pa-”
Realization smacked Bunny in the face like a fresh powdered snowball, that she was talking to Mewt, Mr. Randell’s son. This would not be the time to try and expedite bringing him home. Luckily for her sake, Mewt just shakes his head no, squeezes his Teddy Bear before taking the books back, and turns to walk away. The child looked lonely, but with no other way she could think to help in this moment, an irate Mr. Cork was waiting for her report. As she turned though, her head grew fuzzy very suddenly. Bunny’s cheeks began to burn and a dizziness grew over her, world spinning rapidly and making nausea settle in. The next thing she knew she was standing at the back door of the Diner with Cash waving a hand in front of her face.
“-th to Bunny, hey y’in there? Yer really startin’ to freak me out.”
“Y-Yeah uh sorry Cash I just got dizzy for a minute I’m okay.”
“A minute? Bun I’ve been trynna get yer attention for like, ten! Listen, tell me what you found out about the veg then get home. Yer prolly getting sick or somethin, I’ll cover for ya.”
“Really Cash I’m-”
Another wave of dizzy crashes in, making the sentence trail off and convincing Cash he’s right.
“Text me when you make it back, kay?”
“Yeah…. Got it.”
So off she trudged back to that empty house, barely taking the time to rip boots and coat off before landing face first in her bed. She figured that if she really was getting sick, sleep would be the best thing to help right now, and that she would probably feel better in the morning.
If only.