“I think I just met the happiest person in the world,” Levi grumbled, slumping back in his chair. Maria, his roommate, glanced up from the coffee she was stirring with surprise.

“Yeah? Who’s that?” She asked, handing him a cup. He nodded curtly to her in appreciation and took a sip. The liquid burned hot against his tongue, completely washing any flavor away. He grimaced and drank anyway before answering her question.

“My new colleague. In my job. He’s far too…happy to be working retail.”

“Oh, those kinds,” she sighed as she took the seat across from him and sipped from her own mug. “It’s just the novelty. He’ll probably burn out in like, a couple days. Give him time. He’ll be as just as miserable as you soon.”

For some reason, the thought stirred something…odd in Levi. Usually, the joke about making someone miserable would make him laugh, but when it came to this particular someone…

Maria seemed to recognize his internal frustration, and smirked. “What, he was that much of a sunshine? I gotta meet this kid.”

“You’d get tired of him soon,” Levi warned. He dumped the rest of his coffee down the sink with a sigh. “I…honestly don’t know if I should even go into work today. Dealing with him…”

“Do you like him or do you hate him?”

“What a stupid question.”

“The fact that you’re not answering is concerning.”

Levi tied his work apron around his waist in a sad, drooping knot. He grabbed his keys, spinning them around his pinkie absentmindedly. “I’ve got to go in.”

“See you,” said Maria, not looking up from her glass. Levi shut the door behind him as he exited the apartment.

The cold wind blew his black hair in his face as he trudged to his car and started it up. Winter was the most tolerable season, but it always was a pain to get to work.

The scenery flashed by as he tapped on the radio, choosing a random station and letting it play on the lowest volume. He navigated the road to work as if in a daze, his hands activating years of muscle memory and doing it for him.

That was, until he saw a short figure waving his car down from the window.

With a jolt, he stopped the car in his tracks. The figure ventured up to the window, tapping lightly on the glass. Snow frosted his nose and cheeks, like white freckles that glowed in the high noon sun.

“Hello? Someone in there? Oh, it’s you, Levi! I was starting to wonder when someone would find me, of course it had to be you, you always go on this route…”

“Leo-“ he cut him off. “What the hell are you doing on the sidewalk? It’s like, 25 degrees.”

Leo gestured to the big puff of a white jacket he was wearing. The smile adorning his face was wide enough to bridge oceans. “I’m all covered!”

The warmth simply exuding from his being was a little too much to handle. Levi dropped his head into his hands. “Do…you need a ride?”

“Yea, that would be amazing,” he beamed. “Do you have food, by any chance? I haven’t been in your car yet.”

The way he said yet seemed to insinuate that they were close friends. Levi glared at him.

“I don’t have food.”

Leo pouted, and it was so adorable it made Levi’s heart miss a beat. “Alright…can we stop by somewhere or something?”

“I’m not your dad,” Levi growled at him, looking pointedly away from Leo’s warm eyes. “Get in or stay out, I don’t care. Snows getting in my car, and it’s getting cold out.”

“Awwww, you really do care!” Leo cooed. “There is a heart underneath that big grumpy-“

Levi abruptly shut the door and drove off.

If Leo showed up fifty minutes late with a sullen look on his face and if Levi snickered to himself for the rest of his shift, the spirits would be none the wiser.

Happiness wasn’t meant for a world like the one they lived in. Maybe, one day he could finally work up the nerve to tell Leo that.

But, for now, he would be content watching from the shelves as he watched a little piece of sunshine light up his dark and dreary world.