Magnus had never been the kind of guy staff got excited about. He was the reliable one, the opener, the closer, the manager who fixed up last-minute shifts when someone was sick or hungover.
Which was why, when Chloe stepped in front of the staff entrance in WcNonald's like a panicked guard dog, Magnus froze.
She planted herself across the entryway, arms held stiff, chin trembling, eyes enormous behind thick lenses.
"Y-you can't go in!" she squeaked, voice unnaturally pitched.
Magnus blinked. Chloe never raised her voice. She barely spoke most days, communicating in nervous nods and apologetic thumbs-ups. Seeing her block his path felt like stepping into someone else's life by mistake.
"…Why not?" Magnus asked. The restaurant wasn't open for another half hour, and he liked getting in early to run the morning checks before the breakfast rush.
Chloe wrung her hands.
"B-because!"
"Because…?" he pressed, frowning. "We're opening soon, and I need to check the till counts. And the freezer order. And-"
Her eyes darted across his face like she was searching for mercy.
"It's... just... please wait a bit!"
Magnus inhaled, counting silently. She looked terrified of him, not him personally, but of disappointing him. That alone felt wrong. Out of place. Before today, he'd been the guy you apologised to, not the guy you were scared of disappointing.
"It's okay, Chloe," he said carefully, lowering his voice. "If there's a problem, we'll fix it. Together. Alright?"
Her shoulders flinched like she thought he'd lash out. It made his stomach twist.
'Do I really scare my coworkers that much? I might be tall, but I'm not scary...'
The minutes crawled. Magnus checked his phone again. Twenty-three minutes before opening.
He sighed.
"Chloe, I really need to-"
Someone knocked on the glass door from inside.
She stepped aside.
The relief on her face looked suspiciously like release, as if her task had been a punishment.
Magnus pushed open the door and walked into the staff area.
All of his employees were inside. Every single one of them. Not taking orders, checking inventory, or taking sneaky early bites of hash browns.
They stood gathered around the stainless steel prep table, backs bent together in a cluster like nervous conspirators. And among them stood Ralph, the regional manager and the man who'd barely spoken five sentences to Magnus outside of performance reviews.
Beside Ralph, another person stood with a wide grin on his face, a sharply dressed man Magnus recognised only from an old inspection day.
What jolted Magnus hardest wasn't the crowd, or the unexpected faces, or even the sweet smell in the air.
It was that everyone was here early.
His staff barely arrived on time for their shifts. The idea of them choosing to come in early, for him, was… absurd.
Chloe hurried past him and joined the circle. A second later someone hissed, "He's here!" and the staff parted down the middle like a scene from an old drama.
He made schedules, defused customer tantrums, cleaned grease traps without complaint.
But he wasn't the type to inspire flowers, balloons, banners, or any of that cheerful corporate nonsense.
He knew that.
His crew knew that.
And that's why the scene before Magnus surprised him.
A cake sat in the centre of the table. A ridiculous cake, tiered, white-iced, and extravagantly decorated. Calligraphy iced in shimmering gold said:
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION!
Magnus stared, utterly at a loss.
"…Who?" he asked.
The smartly dressed man stepped forward. A trim beard, neat suit, posture like someone who didn't waste time. Magnus remembered him walking through once with a clipboard and too-sharp eyes.
"Devon Alman," the man said with a smile, offering his hand. "From HQ. It's been a while since we spoke last."
A lie. They'd not spoken a word to each other. But Magnus shook his hand all the same.
"I wanted to keep this private," Devon continued, "but word got out." His eyes flicked across the staff, all beaming with pride Magnus didn't understand. "Ralph is retiring."
Magnus blinked once. Then again.
"…Retiring?"
Ralph lifted a hand weakly. "Time to hang up the apron. The severance package is also a nice bonus."
Devon clasped Magnus's shoulder with easy confidence.
"So, I'd like to promote you to Store Manager."
Magnus fixed his posture and stood up straight.
"Similar hours?" he asked.
"The same."
"Extra duties?"
"Meetings and paperwork."
"Salary?"
"One-and-a-half times your current."
"Travel?"
"You'll sleep in your own bed, at least."
Magnus weighed each answer like he expected a catch to drop from the ceiling. But there was no catch. Just Devon's pleasant smile. His staff's eager expressions. Their absolute certainty that this was right, logical, deserved.
Even if he felt undeserving.
'More pay means a better lifestyle for me and Lazlo.'
"…Then I accept."
Devon's grin widened. "Good man."
As congratulations erupted around him, Magnus forced his face into something that resembled gratitude. But inside a small worm of confusion wriggled beneath his ribs.
'Why now? Why me? Why did they all come in early... for me? They never cared about anything. I wasn't even trying. None of this makes sense.'
If this was a joke, it was meticulously committed to.
They ate cake. Laughed. Patted him on the back. Magnus nodded along, feeling like he was watching it all through the wrong end of a telescope. Too distant, too quiet, slightly unreal.
He waited for the prank, the announcement that it was all a joke, but it never came.
Before opening the store and getting ready for customers, Devon clasped his hand again.
"Make us proud, Magnus. You've got potential. Real potential."
'Potential? From someone who'd never looked me in the eye until today?'
Devon left with Ralph at his side.
The doors opened.
The shift began.
Halfway through, a woman strode in holding a top-of-the-line holoPC. Magnus recognised the model. One of the newer ones. Sleek, expensive, not something you used for casual training.
'Not good for gaming, though. Better off having a projector than holographs.'
"Magnus, right?"
"That's me," Magnus replied while wiping the cashier counter clean.
"I'm Felicity. Here to train you. This is Gordon," she gestured to the behemoth of a man with an extreme receding hairline and eyebrows as thick as juicy caterpillars. "He'll be managing your team while you're completing your learning modules."
"Nice to meet you," Magnus said.
"Just do what you need to do so I can go back to my store." Gordon grunted.
'Oh, this guy will eat my employees up by the time I'm done.'
"Will do."
Magnus found himself in the office, learning software systems he'd never asked to learn, but which came to him instinctively, effortlessly.
It took six hours, but he completed the modules and Felicity had just spent the entire time on her phone looking as SkillSphere posts.
She occasionally laughed, frowned, and looked like she almost cried once.
"Done." Magnus said.
"Already?"
"Yeah. I'm good at memorisation and this sort of thing is easy to me."
"If you don't mind, I'll go over your work and double-check everything."
"Go for it."
She logged into a different account and looked over the answers and Magnus's attempts to use the software.
She sighed.
"Perfect scores... Usually this training actually takes a couple of weeks. You went on to do every single module. Didn't you see that some had deadlines of weeks and months from now?"
"I did, but like I said, this sort of thing is easy for me."
"Well, I don't have the authority to say it, but once Ralph's resignation goes through, you'll be store manager. I'm sure Mr. Alman will contact you by the end of the week with a change of employment contract."
"Thanks, Felicity."
"No, thank you. I've already been paid for a week of work. Gordon will be happy to go back to his store as well. If you've got the time, I'l like to bring you to a management talk from a speaker at the opera house."
"I'll think about it."
She looked at him for a long moment, expression unreadable, and then shut down the holoPC.
"You'll go far," she murmured.
Magnus didn't know how to handle the praise, so he just nodded in response.
When the doors finally shut that at the end of the shift and Magnus walked home in the quiet, he carried with him a hollow feeling he couldn't shake:
He hadn't earned any of this.
And yet the world was acting like he had.
Something was pushing him forward.
Something he couldn't name.
But everyone else could see it.
Even if he couldn't.