Despite being colloquially known as "Little Russia," for the longest time the Inner Richmond district of San Francisco had surprisingly few Russian restaurants with actually good food. There were some bakeries and grocery stores that supplemented this dearth of dining, but if you were looking for something to eat past 4pm on any given day, you'd be out of luck. That is - until Alexei's opened about 10 years ago. 

Seen mostly as an easy-to-miss mom and pop shop with sub-par menu options and even worse seating, most people avoided Alexei's for the first few months of their opening. It wasn't until they started catering to the late night crowds of drunk 30 -40 year old Russian migrants who were yearning for comfort food that they really started getting off the ground. Now, this little yellow building with cracked-leather cushioned chairs became the only real place to go for food in the evening. It became not just a restaurant, but a social club, a game hub, and a living room all wrapped into one. 

Dante started working there about 2 years ago, well after it had become ingrained in the identity of the Inner Richmond. Getting the job wasn't easy - he wasn't Russian, nor did he look like he could even pretend to be. His hair was dark and curly which deviated from the typical pin-straight Russian locks, and his light copper skin did not blend in neatly with the typical pale Eastern European archetype. It didn't matter much to him, but at the time, he worried it would make the application process more difficult. People usually try to hire other people that match them, especially at these smaller businesses that were community staples. But he was desperate, and the worst they could say was no. 

On that day two years ago, Dante sat nervously across the table from a tall, burly Russian man with his arms crossed. His skin was pale to the point where he could see his blue veins on his temples clearly, and he noticed how much those veins matched the bright blue of his eyes. His blonde hair had seemingly been buzzed down at some point, but had since grown out and given him a small halo around his head. His gaze was stern, authoritative. Dante could see how some would interpret it as scary or disapproving, but to him, it seemed more cautious. 

"You Kazakh, or what?" the man asked. It was the first question. Dante wasn't too fazed; he was unfortunately quite well-rehearsed in these situations. 

"I don't think so, no." He shook his head, and kept his calm and warm smile on his face, "I was adopted and my mother didn't know where I came from, so we're not sure what ethnicity I am." There was a pause. The man mulled it over, and analyzed Dante up and down without trying to hide it even a little bit. 

"So you're saying you could be Kazakh," he responds. His expression barely changed, to the point where Dante couldn't tell if being Kazakh would be good or bad. 

"I..." he shrugged, "I guess?"

The man nods slowly, "But you could also be Russian," he continues. 

"I guess that's true, too," Dante says.

The man nods again, and slowly, his face brightened, "Excellent. Excellent!" He un-crosses his arms and holds them out around him, as if he were asking for a hug without standing from his seat, "I am Alexei, of Alexei's. I run this restaurant with my wife, Mariya, who is in the back making borsch."

"I thought it was borscht?" Dante questioned.

"Borscht is what it is in Yiddish. In Russian, we call it borsch.  Both are good, both are correct. We just have it on the menu as Borsch." Alexei responded with extremely expressive hand gestures. Dante nodded genuinely; even if he didn't get this job, at least he learned something new. "Have you had it?" Alexei asked. 

"Yes, many times. I grew up in this area, and my mom brought it home often from stores nearby." Dante skillfully left out the part where he said he never really enjoyed it. Dill was nasty, in his opinion, and he had never gotten how people could enjoy it. Plus, borsch is famously sour, which had never really been something Dante enjoyed. 

"Excellent! I will get you some, wait here." Before he could be stopped, Alexei erupted from his chair and walked back to the kitchen in a few confident strides. He returned not too long after, with a big red kiss mark on his cheek, and a bowl of borsch in his hand. Dante smiled. It didn't seem as if the other man knew about the mark on his face, and Dante didn't really want to tell him. It was cute to look at. 

Alexei handed Dante the bowl, and gave him a spoon. Tentatively, Dante dipped the spoon into the soup and gave himself a small portion to eat. Looking back at this now, Dante would acknowledge that when he went to this interview, he was absolutely starving. He hadn't had a real meal in days, because he just couldn't afford groceries after he paid his mortgage and bills. As Jem always said, Hunger is the best sauce. And boy, in that moment, she was damn right. 

"Oh, my god," Dante said beneath his breath, frantically going for another spoonful. Between bites, he managed to pause for long enough to say,  "Alexei... this might be the best thing I've ever eaten." He couldn't stop wolfing it down. It was, in fact, euphoric, and definitely unrecognizable from the other kinds of borsch he had been eating. He didn't understand how this and those could even be categorized as the same dish. 

As he watched him eat, a smile spread wider and wider across Alexei's face. "Boy, you say you don't know what you are," he began, leaning forward onto the rickety table, "But I do. You, my friend, are a Russian. If you weren't before, you are now." He clapped his hand on Dante's shoulder and pet him a few times, and with that, Dante had finally gotten a new job. 

The door lock clicks definitively as Alexei turns the key on a darkened restaurant. The burly man turns and rubs his hands together, exhaling a slow sigh that is visible in the cold night air. His nose has already turned a bright red, despite only being outside for maybe a total of five minutes. 

"Good work again, Dante. Thank you for staying late when that fool Alexander called out," Alexei shakes his head dismissively, "I'd fire him if he wasn't my cousin's son."

Dante laughs, "You should probably fire him, anyway. It's not like him calling out is any different from when he actually comes in. Same amount of work for the both of us." He shoves his hands into his jacket, letting a small plastic bag with some leftovers containers inside dangle from his wrist. Alexei nods with a knowing smile, and looks at the apartment on the second story across the street from his restaurant. The light is on, and he can see his wife beckoning him to come home with her own kind of knowing smile. Dante watches the exchange, and turns back to see Alexei's whole face turning as red as Mariya's lipstick. 

"Looks like you're needed at home," Dante continues, raising his eyebrows in awkward acknowledgement, chuckling a bit. 

"God, what a gift it is to love," Alexei mumbles, "I should hurry home. And so should you, oroshaya moya." He had been calling Dante that a lot more recently than he ever used to. Dante looked it up once - and it looked like it meant something like "my son" or "my good one" or "my dear" or something like that. It made Dante feel weird in a way that was warm; like he had gained a family against his will. "You seemed more tired today than usual... Are you doing alright?" 

Dante shrugged with a cheeky grin, "Yeah, same as always. Just busy." He starts walking backwards slowly in the direction of his apartment, "I just gotta make it through this week, and it'll be fine. Goodnight, Alexei. I'll see you next Wednesday." 

Alexei nods cautiously, as if he doesn't believe what he's been told, "Alright, Dante. I'll see you next Wednesday," and the two part directions. 

Dante's usual walk home from Alexei's is brief. He's lucky he was able to find additional work so close to home; Busses in this area were becoming increasingly unreliable, and taxies are far too expensive when you're saving every penny to stay alive. Usually, the fifteen minutes go by in a flash thanks to Dante's quick steps and the distraction of his music, but tonight, it felt excruciating. His head just kept filling with more and more ridiculous thoughts, to the point where he couldn't pull himself away from it all for even a moment to just put his headphones on. 

It feels so.. stupid. to be affected by this guy. This rando.  Dante thinks, head facing forward, but with eyes that are too unfocused to really notice anything in front of him, I haven't let these kinds of men get my hopes up before. I've been able to do this before without feeling so afraid, without believing in it for a minute. How is he any different? Dante presses his lips together. He knows logically that it's the same as it has always been, and that Virgil will jump at the chance to screw and avoid even going on the other two dates, but his heart still pangs at the thought of that. I just have to get it out of the way. Keep it brief at whatever event he has planned for this date, and find a hotel as soon as possible. I'll get it out of his system and maybe he won't come at me with this destiny bullshit anymore. Yeah. He doesn't even know me. I just have to show him that he doesn't actually want that to change. He doesn't want to know me. He doesn't. His jaw clenches, making his temples protrude clearly out of the sides of his head. They never do. Even when they think they're different.

Dante sighs, bringing his head up to notice that he finally made it to the bookshop door. Swiftly, he unlocks it and glides inside, securing it behind him as he practically sprints to the back door of the shop to get to his apartment. 

As he skips every other step of his staircase that lead to his home, he feels his lip tremble. Stop being dramatic, he chides himself, You're just tired. You just need to rest. Just go to sleep. He opens his fridge to put his leftovers away, and notices just how desolate it looks in there. He's got three beers, a jar of pickles, and an old block of cheap cream cheese - but there's no time to over analyze that. His thought are right. He's exhausted. 

He trudges through his bedtime routine - showering, brushing his teeth, moisturizing - and slams himself into his bed so he can finally get some respite from his own mind. His eyes shut slowly, flutteringly, and leave behind two simple spots of moisture on his pillow. 

The next day passes quickly; Dante finds anything and everything to fill the minutes as the clock ticks by. The shelves of his store are all impeccably dusted, the floor is immaculately clean, and his register till is perfectly balanced. He even managed to make it part way through a whole-store inventory, which he had been putting off for months. Who knew that all it took to get started was an avoidant attitude and a desperation to be distracted?

However, distractions could only take Dante so far. As he starts a new shelf of books, he glances at the clock. It's 5pm. The store usually closes at 7pm, and Dante has never strayed from it in the past. Never. Not even when he was desperately ill. He knows the consistent and reliable store hours are necessary to a successful business, and if he wants to maintain healthy relationships with his customers, he had to stick to his guns. 

However.

However...

I mean... he is paying for a date. It's just bad practice to show up freshly out of work, sweaty, disgusting, disheveled... Dante ponders, his scanner beeping as it scans the exact same book for the third time, Nobody's been in for, like, 2 hours. It won't hurt to close a bit early this one time and just... take some time getting ready. We didn't really decide a time, either, and the logical next step would be to just come when the store closes. He bites his lip, and lowers the scanner, nervously rubbing his finger tips together on his free hand. It won't hurt this one time. Just this once.

Dante goes behind the counter and writes a quick ad-hoc sign that reads:

Closed early, back tomorrow at 8am!

and tapes it to the inside of the glass window on the front door. He figures people can't fault him if he doesn't supply a detailed answer. Swiftly, he turns off the lights and locks the cash register, before bolting up the stairs.