It was the half Asian's first day at his new job and he couldn't say he wasn't anxious. In fact, he was very anxious. His boss was very comprehensive and she had given him all the instructions and even wrote it down in case he forgot any, still he couldn't help but feel nervous. First days were always like that. Plus, it was his first time dealing with medications in his life. If he fucked that up, the consequences could be fatal.
He shook his head, grabbed all he needed for his first delivery and read the address two times before taking off with the company's car.
Chester Bennington, he thought, that's an unusual name. I've never met any Chester before. He looked at the crumpled paper once more before entering the building and going up the stairs. He went to door #5 and knocked three times.
He stood there while no one came to the door and he frowned before trying to peak through the peephole to see if anyone was home. Of course, he couldn't see a thing since they weren't made to see into people's home.
"Strange." He was pretty sure Talinda, his boss, had told him that Chester took his medicine every day at 10 in the morning without any interruption.
Maybe Chester had forgotten... or maybe Mike had gotten the time wrong.
No, he hadn't. The half Asian had been listening very well to the instructions given to him to make sure he wouldn't fuck up on his first day. Just as he was about to go back to look for a payphone, the door finally opened. Mike turned around to see it was ajar, and through that space, he could see a young man that looked rather frail as two brown eyes settled unto him.
They looked ... startled.
Mike swallowed before taking a step forward and extending his hand, which caused the other man to step back and cover his face with his fists, closed so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Mike was surprised, he hadn't been warned about any of this and now he was just unsure of what to do or say. But once again, that was his first day and he couldn't possibly fuck up. It wasn't an option.
"Uhm... Chester Bennington?," He asked, trying to ignore the pair of scared eyes that examined him before the man nodded slightly, not once moving his gaze away from the half Asian.
"Who are you?" The blonde asked, his voice low and insecure. He wasn't warned that his previous deliverer got fired, now Mike would have to explain it all.
"I'm Mike, your new deliverer." He stretched his hand out for Chester to shake but the latter only looked at it and gulped, not daring to move an inch.
"Where's Samantha?"
"Oh, hm..." Mike retrieved his hand before he ran it into his hair, not looking at the blonde man anymore. He wasn't sure if he should tell him that she got fired or not. She had been stealing from the Pharmacy for months, but they had only figured it out now and they had fired her right away. Talinda had been quick to warn Mike that if he ever did try anything like that, they'd catch him before he could do too much damage. It wasn't Mike's plan though. He had never taken drugs and he had only been happy to find a steady job after noticing that selling his art wouldn't get him anywhere. And the pay was decent enough. "She... she quit."
"Quit?" Chester asked more to himself than to the man in front of him. "Now I won't have to take her shit..." he mumbled quietly, only realizing that he had said it out loud when Mike gave him an astonished smile.
The half Asian didn't hold back a chuckle when he noticed that Chester, too, didn't like Samantha. He guessed she just wasn't the kind of person that you liked to be around.
"Okay, it's almost ten o'clock, time to take your meds. I was instructed to come here everyday so you'll have to get used to my monkey-butt face," Mike chuckled to himself since Chester didn't even move, "I also have to check if you swallowed the pill." He concluded before handing the purple and white pill to the blonde.
Chester already knew that but he still groaned as he took the pill from Mike's hand. "You have to put it in a cup." He said before he swallowed it dry, and opened his mouth for Mike to see.
Just as the half-Asian leaned closer to the blonde man to see if he had really took it, the door suddenly slammed into his face and he took a step back, startled. He was about to say that it wasn't polite to do a thing like that, but he decided against it as he shook his head. He hoped his other costumers wouldn't be like that.
"You still need to pay me, you know!"
He soon saw some bills being slid under the door and sighed before he took them, counting them to make sure everything was in order.
"It was nice doing business with you, Chester! I'll see you tomorrow!"
And at that, the young man left to get back to his car. His first delivery could have been worse. He smiled to himself as he got behind the wheels, he certainly wouldn't let Chester's attitude ruin his day.
*
Chester leaned onto his closed door as he let himself slide against it, sighing.
He hated being like that but he couldn't help it. He couldn't risk letting a stranger get too close to him. What if he was also bad? He wouldn't take the risk, so that's why he never opened his door to anyone and that's why he basically lived locked up in his home.
He worked as a translator from his house, Japanese to English, and with the money he made he could pay rent for a fine apartment and afford his bills. That was more than enough for him, since he never went out he also didn't spend money with useless things and that made it easier to raise money.
He shook his head and made his way to his room. He had about an hour before he had to start working, so he decided to lay down and let his thoughts travel.
His mind wandered around Mike. He hoped with all his might that he would just do his job and not be nosey. For sure Chester had startled him today, he knew that his behavior had been rude but he couldn't care less, honestly. He just wanted Mike to be out and far away from him as fast as possible.
The antidepressants he was taking everyday was helping him, but not as much as he would like to. If he could be able to chase all the negative thoughts away and not be paranoid, not be scared to even step a foot out of his apartment... then he'd be better. Now, he didn't even know if he could say that what he was doing was called living.
No, it was surviving. Day after day and night after night.
Chester ran a hand on his face as he decided to get to work earlier. He already knew what he needed to do for the day, so he could set his mind into something else for a while. He got into his kitchen to make some coffee before he sat down at his desk in front of his typewriter and his various notebooks. He needed to translate around twenty pages and he couldn't wait to dig into them since this chapter was quite interesting.
He opened the book to the first page he was supposed to work on and only scanned through the various symbols that covered it at first.
"Okay," he said to himself, "let's get started, Chester." Talking with himself was something he did often. Since he had nobody to talk to, he usually only thought out loud. He didn't mind not having anyone, actually, he found it better to not have anyone to bother him. He hated to be around others and he would always choose loneliness if he needed to.
He read the first line about The Edo period and easily translated it to English, his mother tongue.
When he was younger, he didn't have much to do so he was always around books. He remembered very well the day he had found that Japanese-English book about some fantastic story. He had been so fascinated by the kanji and romaji and that made a strong desire of learning the language grow within him. He managed to get all of the books in Japanese available in the library and spent months studying. Little did he know that it'd help him immensely in his adulthood. In the end, he was thankful for his stubbornness and persistence to learn.
Every time he stumbled upon a kanji he didn't know, his heart started beating faster as he searched in his dictionary as he tried to find the meaning behind the sentence he was reading. He loved learning more about this language, and he hope one day that he'd be able to learn another one, maybe something different only to challenge himself.
He quickly got lost into his work, not seeing the time fly by, but soon enough, his stomach grumbled and he yawned before he stretched his arm as he looked at the clock that was on his kitchen wall. 4 pm. He had forgotten to have lunch, again.
The blonde man looked back at his work, happy to realize that he had only a couple of pages left to translate. He could do them after dinner. He walked toward his fridge, taking a coke out of it before he gulped half the bottle down. God, he had also been really thirsty. It was the kind of things he knew he should be careful about, eating well, at the right hours, but since translating and learning was the only time when he could truly feel happy... he didn't care about the consequences.
After looking through the whole kitchen trying to find any food, he sighed in frustration when he realized there wasn't any.
He'd have to make a phone call. He hated phone calls, he hated talking to people in general and phone calls were also included in this. He took a few deep breaths before dialing the known by heart number of the closest groceries store.
"Hello, this is Trader Joe's, I'm Rob, how can I help you?" the young man on the other side said politely.
"Uhm... Rob... it's me, Chester. I need food again." Chester said quickly, trying to be as fast as he could so he wouldn't have to stay on the call for long. Rob was already used to Chester's odd behavior and it never once had bothered him, so he only smiled and nodded, even though the blonde couldn't see.
"Sure, tell me what you want and I'll be there in a few." With that, Chester provided a list of the basic things he needed and hung up before Rob would have a chance to ask anything. His heart was beating fast against his ribcage and he shook his head before going to the couch and slumping on it with his bottle of coke in hand.
He took the remote control that was next to him before he opened the TV while he took another sip of his coke. His thoughts already drifted back to the delivery guy from this morning. He was half Asian, Chester was sure of it, and he could almost swear that he was half Japanese, but he didn't want to assume too much either. If he was, he wondered if he could speak Japanese. Certainly better than Chester was. He couldn't really practice his speaking so he kind of sucked at it.
His eyes settled on the TV as he noticed some teens kissing in some popular TV show that took place in Beverly Hills or something like that. He couldn't look away as he watched them deepen the kiss and he suddenly clutched his bottle of coke.
He couldn't understand how two people could be so close to one another to engage in something so intimate. Never he would find someone he could trust enough to let them kiss him. Just thinking about it frightened him... they'd only try to hurt him, there couldn't be any other way.
Yet, watching the girl and the boy on TV made it seem... interesting. Without noticing, he ran his tongue on his lips, wetting them as he still watched the young couple making out on the couch.
Once, Ryan had nearly kissed him, but Mark had noticed and-
Chester shook his head as he closed the tv before he took a couple of shaky breath. Thinking back to that wasn't a good idea. He looked at the clock, only hoping Rob would be there soon so he could get back to his work.
Just as he thought that, a knock on the door was heard and he sighed with relief. Rob had not only helped him with his food but also with his unwanted thoughts. The knock had distracted him and made him focus on other things.
He placed the now empty bottle on the counter and grabbed the money before going to the door and looking through the peephole. He knew it was Rob but his paranoia wouldn't let him open the door without looking and making sure it wasn't Mark behind that door.
After checking it was truly Rob, he opened the door only enough to grab the two bags of food, quickly closing the door after, not even looking at Rob's face.
The tall man chuckled and waited for the money to be slipped from under the door, as always.
"Thanks, Rob." Chester breathed in, his voice muffled behind the door, but Rob could hear it clearly.
"Anytime, Chester. Anytime." He said and walked away without even counting the money. He knew how careful Chester was with this kind of stuff. He'd never give the wrong amount of money to him because he wanted to avoid any extra contact with other people. And if he did give the wrong amount of money, that meant he'd have to open the door once again and trade more words and looks with another person.
Sighing with relief, Chester carefully placed the bags on his kitchen's counter and put the food away. He prepared some pasta, an easy meal to cook, and ate silently, thinking about nothing in special.
After finishing the last pages he needed to translate he'd go straight to bed. He could already feel his heavy eyelids when he washed his dishes and sat down to finish the last couple of pages.