Chance wasn’t really one for pizza.
He didn’t even have time to visit the pizzeria, anyway. Amongst all the daily gambling he was compelled to do, along with the daily flees he had to preform to outrun the angry Mafia members on his tail, he hardly found time to even eat, let alone sit around & order.
That was the main reason why he never even entered his local pizzeria. It was an underfunded building, really, as the government didn’t really bother rebuilding it properly from the last time it had burnt down. It was a notorious hotspot for wannabe exploiters to target & to try to set on fire, & after the fifth time that had happened, the district stopped caring about the old building so much.
After the fifth fire, Chance had decided to have a little goodness in his heart. He’d went over to the building in person to donate some money the establishment had been hoping to get from the government, & that was when he had met Elliot.
Elliot was one of the only, if not the only worker at the pizzeria. He didn’t care about pay checks. He didn’t care about raises or promotions. He really loved his job, serving people all day. It was a great working environment, from what Chance had heard, just Elliot & his boss, dued1.
But there was something else about Elliot that stood out to Chance.
Maybe it was his pretty eyes? Or how he held himself, so brave yet so humble at the same time? Or perhaps, it was how he managed to look effortlessly good even when he was rushing around the pizzeria, jotting down everyone’s orders & managing to cook them all up at the exact same time?
Chance didn’t know. But what he did know, was that this little pizza boy was very special to this pizzeria. .. & he wanted him to be special to Chance himself, too.
Now, there was this thing about Chance. He didn’t just flirt. He did it as weirdly as he possibly could, as unexpected as he could do it, just to further blow his to-be date off their feet.
& so, Chance really wanted to impress Elliot. Like, really blow the pizza boy off his feet in how Chance showed up on him to make a move.
So.
Chance knew Elliot’s exact break times—he’d stolen it from the bulletin board out the back once, & Chance also had a …rabbit. Yeah, a rabbit. A massive continental giant… well, not really that massive, just about as long as Chance’s forearm. To him, that was massive.
The rabbit’s name was Spade. Chance’s plan was that he’d let Spade loose out the back of the pizzeria, let the friendly rabbit bound up to Elliot, & slide across the ground as he tried to catch Spade in a position just so just to woo Elliot.
Yeah, Chance’s idea of flirting was terrible. No wonder he had had absolutely no luck in getting any girls during his high school years.
Anyway, he decided to go through with this insane flirting plan that he knew was guaranteed to steal Elliot’s heart.
So, the plan was put into action. One late Tuesday afternoon, Chance arrived at the pizzeria Elliot worked at, but didn’t go in. He held Spade in his hands, no matter how heavy the rabbit was, & set it free just around the corner of the pizzeria, allowing the bunny run free round the back where he knew Elliot would be on his break right now.
A few seconds after he let Spade run free round the back, Chance broke into a chase after the “runaway” rabbit, & he grinned to himself as he saw Elliot in the corner of his eye as he rounded the corner too, practically throwing himself onto the concrete ground in false pursuit of Spade. He didn’t even get close to catching the runaway rabbit, but he didn’t care, because he was already content with where he’d ended up—
Sliding on his side, on the hard ground, stopping directly in front of Elliot.
His head propped up on his hand.
One knee hitched up, his other hand resting on said knee.
& grinning up at the bewildered pizza boy looming above him with a smirk that he hoped would make him swoon on the spot.
“Hey there, pizza boy~”