savethecitydesu | Hark, the smells of coffee beckons to thee!

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Hark, the smells of coffee beckons to thee!

WHO: Niko, Takeo (open, feel free to make threads and hop)
WHAT: Just another day at work
WHERE: Transcend Coffee
WHEN: Afternoon

He'd probably get tired of the smell at some point. For the moment, the smell alone was good for a caffeine fix until he could find time to sneak a cup for himself.

It was routine at this point: dumping his bag and guitar in the back, writing down his shift time and catching up on note tag, avoiding being swept up in their Boss' antics, and sweeping his hair up in a neat, short pony-tail. Same old, same old...

Transcend, being the hipster artsy place it was, was currently having a special of buy a cake slice, get a little flag art work pointing out of it. The art was all donated, varying from intricate landscapes to abstract who knows what to crude stick figures to suggestive topics that were decidedly inappropriate for younger customers and saved for the late night crowd. Having been pestered to add on to the pile, Niko'd folded a mini-airplane and put it in crash fall into a piece of dark chocolate.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ah... thanks," said Takeo, as he accepted the towel that would begin the barista arcana social link. He began to wipe himself, sighing as he tried to get as much coffee off from himself. "Could I have a large cup of latte? Preferably well grounded to the counter, for safety? Thank you so much."

"Safety," Niko repeated, a bit dryly. He stared at the teen before shrugging with the unspoken 'whatever' he would've verbalized if he were allowed.

"Got it. Be done in a minute."

He turned and walked back to the counter. True to his word, it was done in about a minute with practiced ease. He took the cup (a tripping, bipedal cat with moe eyes and cutesy klutz air decorated it) and put it into the carry trays for take out. You'd have to be really clumsy or really unlucky for it to come loose - either way, it wasn't Niko's fault at that point.

At that moment, two highschool girls had arrived at the counter.

"Ee! I love stores like that, with all sorts of nice-smelling soaps! Which one did you buy?"

"Oh, this apple-scented one," the other girl said, holding up a bar. "They even let me try it. It's just really slippery-- Whoops!"

The soap flew right out of her hand, onto Niko's path. Niko wouldn't fall down but the tray went flying-- with an uncanny accuracy in hitting the target.

Niko had that split second of surprise and then he was slipping.

"Fuck-"

He scrambled to get his feet under him and he mostly succeeded. Unfortunately, the tray slipped from his hands in the motion.

He got out one more "Fuck" before he realized exactly where that tray was flying. Then the look on Niko's face clearly read 'Oh SHIT'. He did make an automatic move to stop it but...

Edited 2013-03-19 09:02 (UTC)

The tray was stuck to his face, and was slowly sliding down to reveal Takeo had his eyes closed and looked, mostly, put upon, if twitching with pain at the coffee all over him.

It was a good thing that Takeo was a fire elemental. It meant that he found the heat a little less damaging than most would.

He breathed deep, brought the cloth from before to his face, and began wiping, with saintly patience.

The two girls nearby simply squealed, jumped up from their chairs and ran off. "Kyaa! It was an accident!"

"Kyaa! Let's go buy more soap, then?"

"Kyaa! What a great idea!"

And they were gone.

"'Kyaa' my fucking ass!" Niko snarled, eyes narrowed, burned hand clenching and unclenching.

He had enough tiny shreds of professionalism, or at least common courtesy, though to disappear around the counter and grab two more towels. One he doused with cool water and the second he balled some ice in, before he handed them off to the teen. His tone was still curt,

"Don't just mop yourself off. You're supposed to cool burns, not keep spreading the damage."

"At the moment I didn't have anything to cool it with-- Thank you," Takeo said, looking less hurting and more tired than anything, although his skin was a shade of pink for obvious reasons.

"Tch. Just common courtesy." Niko ran a hand through his hair and breathed. He picked up the tray and the (thankfully) synthetic glass cup from the ground, both whole compared to their target, and carried them back around the counter.

"Still want that latte?"

Occasional giggles floated from Kaori's table as she tried and failed to suppress laughter at the whole spectacle. Oh, wow, things like this really happened? She'd thought luck this bad happened only in anime or comedy dramas.

To distract herself from her impending laughing fit, Kaori turned her attention to the survey. Oh, it was just too funny. She gave up on answering the questions and just wrote the words 'GOOD SHOW' in English at the bottom of the page. She signed her name with a flourish then returned to her cake.

"Yes, please. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Turns out that some boy wanted to get his girlfriend to wake up so they could sneak out, and somehow our phone numbers got mixed up. I spent the whole night wondering who was sending me SMSs and asking if I had 'my tight jeans on' and if I was 'as hot about this as he was.'"

He breathed deep, finishing the process of removing coffee.

"For what it's worth I replied with 'oh baby you have no idea'. Didn't want to break them two apart." A pause. "Just-- um, walk very slowly with that latte. Thanks."

Must. Not. Give. In.

Especially since she had another mouthful of cake. If she started laughing now, she'd either spray cake everywhere or choke and die and neither outcome was the least bit desirable.

Besides, she still had homework to do and those textbooks weren't going to read themselves. Kaori quickly wolfed down the remainder of her cake and began drinking her mocha in earnest.

A small commotion came from outside about then. Laughter and merriment.

A few people were trotting out the street, some of them holding a large and very colorful sign. Of course, in the come and go of customers entering the cafe, you could peek out the door and see a sign:

Regional Frisbee Thrower Rally

"Hey, young man, look out!" a voice from outside called in, just as a flying disc slipped inside, at just the right moment for it to smack Takeo on the back of the head, sending him face first onto the counter.

LAUGHTER REFERENCE

Kaori sputtered when the frisbee connected with Takeo's head, spitting out some of her mocha. She burst into laughter, unable to restrain herself anymore. Oh, this was fantastic. She couldn't make this up if she tried. Tears were springing to her eyes and she doubled over holding her stomach but the laughter continued.

After about half a minute, it dwindled into noises halfway between a giggle and a hiccup that lasted a few moments longer before finally fading into silence. Her grin afterward was a lot more wholesome than one would expect after the previous, slightly crazed outburst of mirth.

And so when Niko turned around with the latte (this time a cutesy-/klutzy-moe-dog adorning it), the first thing he saw was the teen's face smacking into the counter.

Unlike Kousaki - who had broken into a full out ojou laugh - Niko looked less amused and more stunned (if not exasperated). Did this guy have a freakin' chaos magnet? Third thing already-

Niko put the latte down in front of the guy with care. He asked (even if the answer seemed pretty damn obvious), "You alright?"

Edited 2013-03-21 00:43 (UTC)

"Not specially..." said Takeo, who got up from the counter in a display of angelic grace. You needed something angelic in you not to swear like a sailor, and you needed grace to simultaneously wipe the blood AND pretend to be laying down a napkin as a coaster at the same time. "Thanks for your concern. I seem to be having a bad stroke of luck lately. I suppose the quantum gods must be mad..."

He sipped his coffee, and found it relieving. "Oh. This is nice... really hits the spot. Thank you--" he said, before revealing he had every sign of a building case of PTSD when he jumped (but thankfully didn't spill a drop of coffee), at the sound of a loud voice in the room.

"Dude, did you just put it in the guitar case?!" asked a boy who wasn't there just a moment before. Did he walk in during the commotion? He was sitting on one of the stools by the counter, and wore clothes that were slightly out of date, in term of children's clothing, by about 6 years or two Super Sentai generations, given the designs on them. He looked scruffy.

"I know I told you that you didn't need to take care of it, but who leaves a flower in a guitar case?"

Edited 2013-03-23 10:31 (UTC)

"Right," Niko said dryly to the guy. "More like a trauma congo of bad-"

And then that kid was suddenly there out of nowhere. "When the fu-" scratch that, kid had to have walked in during the commotion. The other train of thought quickly caught up though. "Wasn't just going to walk around with it and how the fuck would you even know it was in there?"

"Because creepy kid," the boy replied. "Holy crap! Put it out under your counter, hide it in the bathroom-- wait," he shook his head, "no, not in the bathroom. Just who does that? Where's all the, the-- you know," he waved his hand, seeming flustered, "kind gestures and 'oh maybe that weird kid was onto something let me just put this in the window sill' or do you live in a closet?"

He paused.

"Can I have a cup of milk?"

Edited 2013-03-23 23:39 (UTC)

"That's not an answer," Niko replied shortly, eyes narrowed. "I'd forgotten it was in there until you brought it up. How the fuck would you know where it was?"

The sudden shift snapped Niko back to where he was. He breathed, clenching and unclenching his hand. Even if it was the last thing on his mind at the moment... He said, tone more 'normal', "Yeah. Coming right up."

He grabbed a cup with flowers adorning it this time.

Edited 2013-03-24 00:10 (UTC)

"Gods. You even forgot? It's like you got no empathy at all, jerk," the boy mumbled, prior to staring at the cup offered to him.

His demeanor changed abruptly, and from his bratty remarks he suddenly looked demure, gaping slightly at the cup.

"Oh, oh-- um, thanks," he said, when the cup was brought up to him, putting his hands around it and staring into the liquid, with a tiny bit of color on his cheeks. "Well, I guess it's... okay. Though you should treat it better, but it's better if you carry it with you, I suppose. Safer for you."

"It's a plant," Niko replied, remembering his surroundings enough not to add 'not like it's going to come out and beat the shit out of me in my sleep for not paying it respect'.

The abrupt shift got a direct stare and the thought '...Weird'. After a beat, he said, "...Leave it at home or carry it around, which is it?"

"It will do its job either way. The protection is personal," the boy said, only to look down quietly. "But if you carry it around, well, I can--" a pause, "nevermind. Just try treating it gently, jerk."

Once the conversation seemingly ended, the boy, like most kids, was distracted and began to look for stimuly. So he slowly turned his eyes over to one of the boys down the counter.

"Huh..."

He looked up at Niko, talking more privately. "You know this guy? Any idea why he got cursed?"

"Right. Got it." Niko rolled his eyes. "Tch. Not like it hasn't complained yet."

Niko was cleaning up some of the canisters when he heard Toshio's next question. It got a skeptic look that read 'really?'. However, he replied, keeping his voice low, "Just a customer. And no. Wouldn't know why anyone'd want to 'curse' the guy, let alone a high schooler."

Edited 2013-03-24 09:37 (UTC)

"Oh, well. He'll live I guess," Toshio said, sipping his milk a bit more. "If I was in my garden, I could help. If I was asked. Probably," he mused.

His eyes then focused on something other than Niko. Not him, but empty space right next to him.

"Yeah," he said, with a sense of airy authority. "Don't toy with him for your job, got it?" Pause. "I don't care. Now let me enjoy my milk."

Edited 2013-03-24 09:45 (UTC)

"You could 'probably' fix a bad streak of luck?"

There was the reference to the garden again. Not like Niko'd been able to forget the place but he'd done a good job brushing it firmly into the 'freak incident/don't care' pile. It'd been weird as fuck, and so was Toshio the Creepy Boy Wonder.

Kinda like right now, when Toshio was talking to the space beside Niko. After a beat, "....What're you going on about?"

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