Work Text:
"Shit"
It was already 8:30am on a Monday morning and Kinger had only just woken up. He had about 10 minutes to get his entire morning routine done, otherwise he'd surely be late for work. What a great start to the week that would be. Well, it was evident that he would have to skip some things today. Like breakfast. He was all for starting the day off on a good note, but that had already been made clear it won't be happening. Plus, it was less than favorable to start off the day being late instead.
Kinger quickly jumped up from his bed and rushed through getting dressed and grabbing his briefcase for work. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes. But he’d still need to have no other delays to be on time. Walking to his apartment's front door, he stopped by the mirror on his way by. “Geez, did I look this bad a minute ago?” Kinger had thought to himself. In his haste to get dressed, which he had hardly done properly, he hadn’t noticed how disheveled his appearance was. Apart from his usual sleek black suit, which he was currently quickly fixing to look a bit more presentable, he had gained some quite noticeable eyebags. Most likely due to the overtime he was doing recently at work. Or perhaps it was from all the stress that the lift operator had been causing him.
Kinger isn't exactly sure why the lift operator, Caine, acts so... different towards him than to anyone else in the building. About a week after he had moved into his apartment here, he had noticed that Caine had started paying a little more attention to him than usual. And well, it had only increased from there. Over the past month or so, he'd become increasingly more frustrating for Kinger. It was like the man was completely infatuated with him, for some strange reason. He had thought he was getting the wrong idea at first, but by a week of this behavior, he had come to that as the conclusion. It's not like Caine was trying to hide his interest either. Not anymore at least.
But, there is no need to dwell on that so much. It would only end up giving him yet another headache, and he’d had much too many of those since moving here. Quickly exiting his apartment and locking the door behind him (God knows what Caine would be doing if he ever found Kinger’s apartment left unlocked while he was gone), Kinger quickly made his way to the elevator. However, he found himself hesitating slightly to press the button to call for it. He was already running late, and if he knew anything for sure about how today's interaction with Caine would go, he’d bet it would be the same as every other day. Being stuck in the elevator with him for at least half an hour while he’s taken to about 15 different floors, just for “fun”, by Caine’s standards. He’s not sure he’d ever class wasting time stopping at every floor on the way as fun. In fact, no, he’s very sure he’d never believe that to be fun.
After a moment, Kinger’s gaze flicked over to where the doors to the stairs not too far away from him were instead. Huh... well, for some reason he’d never thought of just taking the stairs for once. Probably because, living over 40 floors up, taking the stairs was practically unthinkable. For anybody else, that is. Because nobody else had to deal with an elevator operator who postponed their what should be a 2-minute journey into a 30 minute one! As taxing as walking down that number of stairs may seem in hindsight, it was a lot more tempting of a prospect than being dragged into harassment from Caine yet again. Surely nothing would come of going a different way down just once, right? Plus, if it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, then maybe he’d consider it for a more permanent solution to avoid Caine in future. Sure, eventually he’d notice Kinger’s lack of appearance, quite quickly too, but maybe he would presume he’d moved out or something and just give up the idea of seeing him again. At least for today, Caine should assume he decided to take a day off and not question his disappearance.
So, Kinger hastily made his way over to the stairwell, opening the door quickly but quietly as to not somehow alert Caine of his new plan to avoid him. Man, was Caine really having an effect on him already? Why should he care if Caine finds out he doesn’t want to deal with his bullshit today? He’s already told him that many times to his face after being taken to random floors in the building, and Caine had done nothing but ignored his protests and insults and continued anyway. It only took himself a second to snap out of any worry he had about what Caine would think of this, and head down the stairs.
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Caine had been working in the elevator since 4 o'clock sharp! He was just too excited to start the day again to wait until 7, which was his usual start time, since no one really used the elevator before then. And, he was also the only person to work here, so he was at least expected to have some time off. And sure, he did! But he loved his work, too! Gosh, there were so many amazing people here! And Caine just loved to talk to each of them throughout the day. Plus, he loves exploring all the floors in the building too. Granted, yes, he has already explored them all... about 15 times, but that wasn't the point! Point is, there was always something new on at least one of the floors. Nothing too interesting, but it was worth a look. Maybe he'd find some left over junk or something someone had decided they didn't want anymore. Caine couldn't help but be interested in everything. It was in his nature! He wasn't entirely sure why, but he wasn't exactly complaining. And besides, what if one day he found something really cool? Maybe then, Kinger would finally be impressed with something he'd shown him! Maybe even... start to like him? Surely, eventually, he'd find a way to get Kinger to see him in a different light. Perhaps, maybe even share the same view he has on him already. In fact, he's sure he's already half way there!
In fact, speaking of Kinger, he should be here any moment now! He had so many floors to show him, every little thing of interest to introduce him to. After all, such a busy and hardworking man like Kinger surely hadn't beaten him to finding anything. And Kinger could use a little interest in his life. From what he knew about him, all Kinger did was go to work, get home, and do whatever it is he does at home. Surely nothing can be that interesting in just a small apartment, can it? He's certainly never found the appeal. But forget that for now! Where was Kinger? Is he running late for work? Is he home sick? Gosh, he hopes he's okay. Maybe if he's not better by later, he could pay him a little visit, to make him feel better. He's sure it'll work. But there was still hope yet that Kinger would call for the elevator soon. It was only... he checks his watch, 8:35! There was still time! He'd see Kinger; he's sure of it.
Meanwhile, he'll strike up a friendly conversation with Pomni, who had just called for the elevator herself. As he said before, he still really enjoyed interacting with the others in the apartment building. Just, none as much as he did with Kinger. There was something different about him, something that makes him more drawn to him than he is to everyone else.
After a couple of minutes, the elevator had reached the ground floor of the building, the lobby. With a wave, he said his goodbyes to Pomni as she exited the elevator, with a polite wave back as she left. Caine was about to pull down the lever to close the elevator doors, before he caught something from the corner of his eye. He froze for a second. Surely not, right? But upon turning to look in the direction of the lobby yet again, more specially, the stairwell doors; his initial suspicion was confirmed to be true.
“HUHHHH???”
It was safe to say that Caine was stunned. And admittedly, a little heartbroken. He had been so excited to see Kinger today, but he didn’t expect he’d see him like this. In such an... unexpected way. He wasn’t entirely sure what to think for a moment, and it seems that Kinger hadn’t noticed him, as he just casually left the building.
Caine’s stood in silence for a moment, his right eye giving a little twitch as the scene before him was finally fully processing.
“D-did he just use the STAIRS instead of MY ELEVATOR???? W-why??? Why would he choose that old thing instead of my elevator??? My elevator is better... it’s more advanced a-and efficient...am I hallucinating? Wait, no, this is real.”
Caine was currently running almost a thousand thoughts a minute through his head at the moment, now just very confused on why Kinger had avoided him, taking the stairs instead. The stairs, of all things!
“Was it the floors? Does he not like the floors I showed him?? Did i annoy him too much? Why-... Why would he-?? Am I not good enough? I just want to cheer him up before going to work... what did i do wrong? Does he....”
Caine suddenly froze at the thought that came to him next
“...Hate me?”
Caine’s hand clenched into a fist at the thought, attempting to stay collected, for the time being at least. He was working, he had a job to do, he couldn’t let this... this singular, UNTRUE thought, distract him from that. Because, well, that’s all it was, of course! An untrue, entirely silly thought! Ha! How could have thought of such a thing. Of course Kinger doesn’t hate him. No, no of course not. But he would still have to do something about the stairs. Maybe Kinger had used them once, but he sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen another time. Arghhhh, but what to do? How could he stop that from happening? The stairs were, after all, free to use just as much as the elevator was, even if many people didn’t use them. In fact, no one used them past the first two floors.
Maybe he could lock the doors to the stairwell? No, he doesn't have a key. How about just removing them entirely! Uhh.. right, not possible. How about putting a wet floor sign in front of the doors? Surely Kinger would just walk straight past that, actually. Caine instead just groaned in annoyance. Damnit, why couldn't he think of anything that would actually work!
Before he could get too worked up over his lack of creativity at the moment, which was strange for him, but he presumed to be too distracted by the thought of Kinger not liking him anymore (he never did) to think up any good ideas, he noticed he was being called up to another floor somewhere. Well, at least he has some people using the elevator still. They surely understood how much better it was than the stairs.
Heading up through the different floors, Caine kept thinking of a way, any way, to get Kinger to stop using the stairs. Immediately, preferably. And after about another 30 minutes of still thinking, even though he was still doing his work, he had finally come up with a perfect idea.
“Ah, perfect! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
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About 12 hours later, Kinger had finally arrived back at the apartment building. Geez, work could be so exhausting sometimes, especially with overtime. But he supposed it helped to know that this time, he could just take the stairs and go straight to his apartment today. It was a comforting thought for the oncoming headache he could already feel for the third time today. It was really getting a little concerning. But at least he had avoided at least one, by actually making it to work on time.
“Heh, I still can’t believe I actually made it on time today, even after oversleeping. Maybe I should use the stairs more often.”
Kinger slowly made his way back over to the stairwell doors, already feeling drained from just the walk over there from his car. He really was ready for bed already, and honestly, he could even say he was a little excited to be able to just go straight to sleep for once, instead of having some grand tour around each floor Caine wanted to show him. Once he swung the doors open, and took just a step through towards the stairs, he had halted once he saw what was there, stopping him.
“Wha-... THE HELL???”
Somehow, in the time he had been gone, somebody had gotten a roll of ‘caution, do not cross’ and ‘Out of Order’ tape, and taped up the entryway to the stairs. And not just a little, there wasn’t even a place to go through the lines of tape. It was all he could see! Someone really didn’t want anyone to use the stairs, that’s for certain. But this was surely nonsense! They were just fine this morning.
Unbeknownst to Kinger, a certain figure had been standing just a few meters behind him for the past minute that he had been staring at the out of order tape in confusion. Caine had to give himself praise for this one; it was an expertly made plan. And now Kinger had no choice but to use the elevator. HIS elevator.
Kinger paused slightly when he heard the sound of footsteps coming up from behind him, and before he could have even thought to turn around to inform whoever it was behind him of the mishap with the stairwell, they had suddenly thrown an arm around him! Who in the hell would-... Oh, of course it was him.
“OH NO! Looks like the stairs are PERMANENTLY BROKEN!!”
Kinger had put a hand on Caine’s chest to push him back slightly, muttering a small “Can you back off a little...”, since he had made the effort to lean in even closer to him to speak. There was really no need; Kinger could hear him just fine, and he knew that. But it wasn’t too much of a surprise; Caine had always been extra... clingy towards him. He had hoped he’d get the message by his gesture and words, but either Caine isn’t great at reading gestures, like at all, or he just doesn’t care considering he didn’t move back at all, and even fought to lean in a little closer again. Though, it was probably the latter, being as Kinger had even verbally told him to back up.
“Seems like... You’ll have to only use the ELEVATOR from now on!”
Caine had made sure to keep a very innocent looking expression as he said all this, making sure not to give away that he was the one to do it. But, if Kinger had the time to actually think about it without Caine invading his space, he would probably put two and two together pretty quickly.
Kinger knew that, in the end, he should really have expected something like this to happen. Of course he wouldn’t be able to avoid Caine for that long. He wasn’t that lucky after all. So, he really had no other choice but to just accept it and go along with what Caine was saying. He really did have no other choice if he can’t even get to the stairs. But he was still confused on how they even ‘broke’ anyway.
“A-alright... But Caine, how did the stairs get ‘broken’ anyway...?”
“No need for unnecessary questions, Kinger! Just, use the elevator.” He had said that last part a little more seriously than everything else, which was unusual considering his normal, very cheerful tones. But that didn’t stop him from pulling Kinger even closer to himself for more emphasis. Or perhaps just to be closer to him in general, it wouldn’t surprise Kinger in the slightest. Hell, he was practically hugging him at this point. Kinger had to lean back a bit to even look back at him properly.
“Geez man... alright. I will” Kinger had responded, defeated with an exhausted sigh. Despite how tiring Caine could be, he supposed he could deal with him a little longer. After all, it had been a while since someone had wanted him around so badly... Maybe he’d indulge in it just a little, for now.