Decaf Paradise [Ruka/open]

[Nitro!]

Fridays.

Oh, how Ryou loved them. They brought the end of the weeks' school, and therefore a free evening for the local troublemakers to run around and make mayhem (at least, the ones who didn't just skip). For the rest of the school who weren't so troublesome, they had the free time to do whatever they would with their lives -- so long, he'd guess the teachers thought, as they didn't bother their senseis for the weekend. He supposed that if he were a teacher, he'd feel the same. Who would want to deal with a room full of brats on the weekend? It was a veritable form of torture, especially for one who had to spend the rest of the week with them, too.

No matter. Ryou was not a teacher, and did not plan to ever become one.

He did plan to spend the day lurking at the boardwalk and exploring the shops, however. It wasn't somewhere he went often, and he was feeling too restless today to just sit at home, feeling very unproductive and useless. He'd decided to go wandering, and when he'd wandered to the boardwalk, it had seemed like a good place to see what was to be seen.

Humming quietly, he passed up most of the shops in favor of people-watching. Tokyo was the home of many...fascinating people, and it happened that many of them were prowling the boardwalk. He saw several pre-teens who looked like they were trying to start new trends (God help 'em), adults who looked like they were straight out of the 70's, a couple older teens who looked like they were trying to pull off the "cool" look (Posers, he thought, almost rolling his eyes) -- it was like a bunch of western cliches all mashed together in one place. It was amusing, if nothing else, though Ryou admittedly pitied some of the poor souls who looked lost in the philosophical sense.

He looked at the stores and signs, too. He glanced to his left, taking in the sign of a little cafe -- Cafe Paradiso. He raised an eyebrow ever so slightly and slowed in front of it. Yes, it was a cafe, and it had a sign, but... It looked like they'd taken a freaking paradise island and stuffed it into a little glass building -- or like it was supposed to look like that, maybe -- with fake, super-short palm trees in one of the front corners with the name printed on the same window. He could see a few tiki decorations, bamboo on the counter... They'd really gone all-out, hadn't they?

The decor was cheesy -- the name was cheesy -- but...why not? It was a chilly day, and he figured he could use some hot tea and maybe sit down for a while. Shrugging lightly to himself, he diverted from his path, turning and humming as he walked in. To his right, he saw a man laughing lightly and ruffling a young boy's hair. Father and son, Ryou presumed, and smiled lightly.

When he turned back to the front, he realized too late that he was on a collision course with an older man who appeared to be totally inattentive. "Don't--" was all Ryou got out before stumbling to a halt, automatically reaching out to stop himself and the man's shoulder the only thing within reach -- the shoulder of the same hand holding his coffee. The man looked at him in annoyance as Ryou cringed.

"Watch it, kid," he warned, completely unaware that the coffee in his hand had just splashed on Ryou's forearm, and shoved his way out, leaving the boy to clean up the mess.

With a grimace, he rubbed his arm -- he was lucky that the drink hadn't been especially scalding, though it hurt. He approached the counter and looking down at the hot red mark left behind. He glanced back at the small patch of coffee on the wooden ground and said to whoever was behind it, "Green tea and some napkins, please."



[Edited for fail. I made an error while editing the first draft. ^^']

[¡El Bandito!]

She was finally starting to get the hang of this whole thing.

Truth be told, Haruka didn't have the best luck when it came to jobs. It was hard enough to find one with obnoxiously bright hair and studs through her face; on top of that there was always the problem that she didn't take to authority or being told what do do particularly well. Her last job had ended with... a few actions she probably shouldn't talk about considering the amount of property damage involved.

But, when she had been hired at the little cafe on the boardwalk, no one really seemed to care that she had a face with a few too many holes in it and that she couldn't even remember what her natural hair color was - it was almost expected of baristas to be wild and crazy. As long as the girl (or more rarely, guy) could serve a double-tall vanilla latte in a timely fashion, no one really seemed to give a damn who was making it.

The tips were nice too, even if carrying around that many small bills made her feel like a stripper.

Of course, work meant a uniform most places, but this one wasn't nearly so bad as that stupid thing she had to wear for school - black pants and a charcoal grey button-up covered by a black apron was much more palatable to the girl than pleated skirts and white blouses. At least it wasn't something ridiculous that 'matched' the decor, like a grass skirt and a coconut bra, right? Having a job meant more money to pay for clothes so she could wear them less; how messed up was that? Of course, clothes were hardly what the majority of her budget went to, but that was really beside the point.

It wasn't particularly busy today, but it wasn't dead either, just the way the new barista liked it. Haruka had only been working for a little while - hell, she was barely out of training - but she already liked this job more than her last. It would be amazing, she had decided one night as she waited for the bus home, if it weren't for the customers. If all she had to do was make drinks, it would be amazing... it was the other people that made the job a hassle, with their ridiculous requests and condescending advice and outright rude actions. But, such was a job in the service industry - it sucked. She had long ago come to the conclusion that slaving away after all this grunt work would eventually pay off and give her something to laugh at derisively when she was a music god. It might even show up in her split-second life flashback before she died her ultimate rockstar death.

Her partner was in the back room organizing, leaving Haruka to both prepare drinks and run the register herself, which the green-eyed girl didn't particularly mind. After all, it meant she didn't have to do nothing but smile blandly at people for hours on end like she was usually forced to do, or stuck cleaning after the slobs out on the floor.

She was too busy cleaning the steam spout, and the music was up too loud, for her to hear the commotion as customers ran into each other; or perhaps she just didn't care all that much. If people weren't paying attention and got their ridiculous triple-short half-caff zebra mocha splashed all over themselves it really wasn't any of her concern, except for the likelihood she'd be the one cleaning up the mess later. It was her Friday after all, and she only had two more hours of this shift before that party everyone had been blithering on about like idiots was going down. And what was a party without Ochi Haruka attending?

'Lame as hell' would be one acceptable answer.

It took the barista a moment to register the slightly timid-sounding voice from her standpoint behind the espresso machine. "Napkins are on the condiment bar," she said automatically, her subconscious dislike of repetitive, silly questions bubbling to the surface. Really now, she was trying to make drinks here, and people were perfectly capable of taking those five steps over to the little table where they could kill some trees to clean up after their sloppy asses.

She set the steam wand rag back into the container of disinfectant and poked her head out from behind the machine, giving the customer the usual bland fake smile she offered to every vaguely annoying person she had to deal with on a regular basis. But, this annoying customer was no regular annoying customer. This kid was the one she had glared at menacingly when she was skipping in the boys' bathroom earlier that day in an attempt to make him realize that she would personally kick his ass if he mentioned that she had been in there to anyone. Her bland fake grin quickly gained a vaguely sinister tint as the recognition became apparent in her apple-green eyes, and she tilted her head to the side as she looked the kid up and down again.

"Green tea, huh?" she said almost-innocently, raising a single eyebrow as her grin widened slightly. Truth be told, she rather liked green tea; it was one of her favorite flavors of ice cream (or, rather, Rice Dream) in particular. But that didn't mean she couldn't give the boy a little bit of hell, right?

[Nitro!]

"Napkins are on the condiment bar," Ryou found himself being informed by a gruffish but feminine voice. He didn't bother to look for its owner, instead turning to find the glorified paper. Huh. The fact that there was a good-sized counter with various condiments, straws, and, of course, napkins had somehow failed to process in his head. Well then, he supposed all that was left now would be to walk over there and get a few...

He frowned slightly, keenly not looking directly at the bar like it would accuse him of all sorts of heinous things if he did. He'd do it in a minute...as soon as that little family made it out the door...and with the kid stubbornly insisting on reaching for one of the tiki decorations, desperate to have one before they left, that might take a while. Also, a passerby might happen to clean up the spill for him. He kind of hoped so but kind of didn't -- if his mother ever found out he left without cleaning it up (even if, by some mysterious miracle, it was done for him by a random human, a particularly humanoid alien, or any other life form), she would lynch him, disown him, and condemn him to the neighbors' house to babysit their demons...er...children.

...No, demons was right.

With a sigh as the child whined, his father desperately attempting to placate him without stealing or damaging the store's property, he turned back to the counter, glancing up in time to see an employee appear from behind what he thought might have been an espresso machine. She gave him a smile that was obviously forced and fake, looking like she didn't really want to do that and preferred doing whatever she'd been doing to attempting to come across as friendly. He didn't take but a moment to recognize her -- she was a rather unforgettable person, with a myriad of piercings and shocking red hair that couldn't be ignored. She seemed to recognize him, too, her expression changing to one that was rather reminiscing of sneering and grinning at the same time.

How is she an employee here? he wondered rhetorically, unsure what to make of this development.

"Green tea, huh?" she remarked. He leaned on the counter, wondering absently what she'd been expecting.

"Yeah," he confirmed, though he doubted she'd really been wondering. "I don't really like coffee..." He trailed off quietly. Honestly, he hadn't actually tried coffee since he was four and took a sip of his brother's cappuccino, but the likelihood of him enjoying it in the slightest was slim, to say the least. He looked over his shoulder, kind of hoping the family had cleared out. No such luck, although they were a few feet farther than before, and the child seemed more reasonable as the mother kindly explained why, no, he could not have the decoration, because that would be stealing, and stealing is wrong, no matter what Jimmy-from-school's dad does. He faced the employee again, wondering absently what the policies were for loitering at the counter and disruptive children, then forcibly focused his mind back on the topic at hand.

...Hm. Maybe he could get out of the semi-conversation if he turned it around? He doubted she would keep him around if he made it hard to screw with him.

"I guess you probably drink it, working at a cafe and all," he remarked with a nervous half-smile, feeling a little jittery. So what if he was actually attempting conversation? Didn't make him any less nerved by it.

[¡El Bandito!]

Briefly, her granny-smith eyes darted over to the family that seemed to finally be making their way to the exit. What the hell was up with that, people bringing their whiny brats with their grubby hands into this place? What, did it look like it was family friendly?

Well, she could change that real quick, if she needed to. And right now, she felt like she needed to.

"Fuck yeah, I like coffee!" she yelled loudly as she desperately tried to hold a serious expression on her face and not laugh. She might have to run into the side room and put some nice angry anti-establishment music on too, just for added effect. After all, the less customers there were around, the less work there was for her to do, and the less crap she'd get from the new manager about her decorations mysteriously disappearing.

And To be honest, as cheesy and lame as it was, all the tropical tiki island-themed decor was starting to grow on her. After all, if she was stuck on an island, whatever messed up island that had inspired the current floor layout was the place to be. Maybe she'd even have a Gilligan to make her an espresso machine out of coconuts or some crap.

Her batman gambit seemed to work perfectly as the mother and father of the sticky-fingered child both looked at her as though she had grown a second head and ushered their brat out hastily; she was a little surprised they hadn't tried to pull some bullshit about 'having a nice chat with her manager'. Of course, she wouldn't stop them if they were willing to try, but Megumi had far too much to worry about, trying to juggle night school and a newborn child with her vaguely deadbeat boyfriend to give a fuck about a pair of uptight yuppies complaining about one of her baristas. The owner would probably care more, but the woman was crazy and honestly how much could someone care if they didn't even bother to run the shop they owned themselves?

With a slight grimace, she shook her head in an attempt to get both situations out of her mind. She didn't want to end up with a kid at twenty-three, still working at a cafe and trying to work her whole life around it, and she didn't want to ever become so unattached from her life that she didn't take a hands-on approach to it. Of course, if everything went according to her plan, she wouldn't live long enough to have to worry about being a disenchanted business woman.

The barista yawned audibly, not bothering to cover her mouth. It was a shame she wasn't going to have time for a nap before this stupid party thing, but, on the plus side, she was in the second best place to deal with being tired. "God, I hate people like that," she muttered to no one in particular, and about no one in particular, really, as even she wasn't really sure who the target of that little statement was. But honestly, did it matter?

Lazily, Haruka began to punch in the code for the tea, before realizing that the freshman hadn't bothered to specify a size. Rather than bother him with asking, she punched in the code for the smallest with her right hand, while her left reachest for the largest cup size. Call it that little soft spot in her heart she hadn't manage to corrupt and/or cut out yet, but she liked to supersize peoples' drinks without charging them for it. It actually didn't have anything to do with the people at all, she argued; it was a way to stick it to the crazy ass owner - undercutting drink prices and ruining the whole economic scheme, blah blah. But, of course, she couldn't do it too often or someone would actually notice, and of course then her job would definitely be on the line. That was how business worked, after all: no one gave a fuck about your demeanor but god forbid you do anything that would mean an obvious monetary loss.

"That'll be one-hundred and seventy yen, frosh," she drawled, turning her attention back to the boy before her and allowing her vaguely evil smirk to return. "Though, I'm not sure if I'm okay with this no-coffee thing. Might need to fix that at some point." It wasn't really a threat, nor was it a friendly suggestion. It was, at least in her mind, a statement of fact deliberately worded to make the poor kid squirm uncomfortably. If there wasn't a counter between them, she'd have half a mind to do a fingerwalk up his chest while she said it.

[Nitro!]

He flinched and made a point of not looking towards the door when she practically yelled in his ear. She looked like she was belting out laughter on the inside, and he cringed, turning slightly to his right just to disassociate himself. This girl was crazy! Wouldn't she get fired for cursing like that in a family-oriented cafe? He knew he was very red as he glanced back in time to see the family shuffle out the door, the father almost stepping in the puddle Ryou had yet to clean up. He shifted uncomfortably, feeling his back crack in a way that might have been sickening had it been particularly audible. As it was, he twitched and forced himself to relax ever so slightly against the counter, slightly hunched over it. In his mind, he heard his mother's voice, warning him not to slump, it was rude, it was poor posture, it was damaging to the back, it --

He straightened up a bit, guiltily staring down at his hands, until she set the cup down and rattled off the price -- and, as he reached for his wallet in his back pocket, added something that might have been a threat had it been spoken more severely. As it was, it didn't seem like it was her intent to threaten him, but it was making him more than a little uncomfortable. It wasn't likely that this was unintentional. This girl just didn't seem like she would do it unintentionally. He offered the payment with one hand and grabbed the cup with the other, taking a sip of the tea gratefully. Good to occupy his mouth with something, he figured. He murmured a hesitant thank-you, rocking ever so slightly on his heels as he sometimes did.

He glanced over his shoulder at the pooling liquid, refraining from sighing. Not fair. People were supposed to be kind and clean up messes when they passed them. (Not that he had a right to complain...) He figured he'd better get to it before it began to stain; he doubted that the senior (he was guessing she was a senior, at least) would appreciate having to scrub at it to clean it up, and he had little doubt that he would see her again. Probably often, with his luck. It wouldn't do to have her constantly annoyed at him; as a rule, he didn't do much maintenance on his reputation (what little of one he had), and didn't exactly mind what people thought of him, he just wasn't quite willing to deal with the fallout of someone like that girl hating his guts. (Which were nonexistent most days, but that was beside the point...)

And maybe he was just slightly self-conscious of what his class thought of him. He didn't like being looked down on, and it seemed like in a school, if one person treated you poorly, everyone treated you poorly (though that might've just been him). He didn't so much want them to think well of him as not want them to think poorly of him. It was a bad feeling to be put down constantly. He'd never been on the receiving end of mass or long-term bullying, and had no desire to be. He'd seen it happen. In middle school, he'd had a good friend to back him up. In high school, he was much more alone.

And while he hoped this senior wasn't the type to pick on people (she didn't seem like it, but really, what would he know?), he wasn't going to risk it. Which meant that, first things first, he could not leave that mess there for (possibly) her to clean up.

He abandoned the counter, tea still in hand, and swiped a few napkins from the condiment bar as he passed it. The air of "I-will-do-this-now" sort of confidence vanished from him, and the determination from his steps, as a man passed in front of him and out the door. Couldn't have a repeat of earlier, now, could he? He meekly slowed down and wandered toward the spill, crouched inconspicuously to clean it up, and walked back with equal meekness, pausing only to throw away the coffee-stained napkins along the way.

He glanced up at the probably-senior, not sure why he was here again but feeling the need to do something before either of them questioned it too much. He didn't want to give her the chance to get annoyed and tell him off. (If he had thought much about it, he might've figured that he was, in some way, being drawn to something relatively familiar in an unfamiliar place. As it was, he didn't think.)

"So, um, I don't think I caught your name..." he blurted out, his voice still a good deal quieter than the average 15-year-old boy's, though a little more confident than usual for him. "I'm Ryou..." he added sheepishly, remembering his manners just barely.

[¡El Bandito!]

Haruka took the boy's change and placed it in the cash register, the usual plastic smile that she wore while working replaced with a more natural faint smirk as she watched the boy fidget and flinch, clarly uncomfortable with her actions. She couldn't really blame him, she supposed; Haruka wasn't really something that most people could handle in full force when they first met her. She was okay with this, too - it was an easy way to weed out the people who couldn't handle her intensity and the ones that stayed were the ones that could be trusted. At least this was the theory.

In practice things weren't so easy as separating oil from water and watching the layers separated in a bottle.

But all of that didn't matter right now anyway, she realized after a moment, as she did a quick scan around the espresso bar and ensuring that everything was stocked and in its proper place. Content that everything was pristine and she would get no flack from the girls coming in to work later over a shoddy restocking job. Some of these girls got so prissy over it, damn.

She looked back over the counter, curious as to where the freshman had gone off to. Her search was quickly rewarded by a stooping boy, mopping up some mess or other on the floor with the napkins he had asked for a moment ago. Well damn, she thought, leaning an elbow on the counter and as she watched him work. Cute, and trained, too? She resisted the urge to wolf-whistle while his butt was stuck up in the air like that, but quickly enough he had cleaned up the mess and had walked back over to the trashcan and disposed of the dirty napkins. What a wasted opportunity.

"Haruka," She answered to his question, fingering the nametag pinned to her charcoal shirt. "I figured you'd be old enough to read by this point but, I suppose assumptions really do make asses of everyone involved," she chuckled lightly as she teased. "I suppose you have public education to thank for that, though, am I right?" She laughed again, shaking her head slightly. "Ruka's fine, though, frosh," she explained finally, ignoring the fact that he had given her his real name already. Real names were boring, after all.

[Nitro!]

Ryou blinked stupidly as she poked fun (at least, he hoped she was just poking fun) at his intelligence. His cheeks felt warmer now, and he stared at the little thing for a moment before looking in the general direction of a particular corner of the room, totally abashed. He coughed uncomfortably, feeling like an idiot. "I, err...didn't -- I -- sorry," he stuttered lamely, then reluctantly looked back at her as she gave him a nickname to use instead. Nicknames -- of course. Someone as...unique as this girl probably preferred a nickname to her real name. Interestingly, though, it was just a shortened version of her given name. He would have expected something a little more random and out-there if he'd had much of an expectation at all...although, really, he couldn't think of any specific name that would fit her.

"Nice..." Close enough. "Nice to meet you, Har-- uh, Ruka, sorry," he offered sheepishly. He sipped his tea and toyed with the rim of it almost as soon as the sentence was out of his mouth, then set it down on the counter and stared studiously down at it, toying with the rim of the cup. Absently, he wondered again what the store's policy about loitering was. He didn't really want to wander in the cold -- this sort of weather would be bad for trying to enjoy a cup of tea...

Then his mind worked up a question that seemed to erupt from his mouth before he had the chance to consider the pros and cons of asking.

"What's 'frosh' mean?" He blushed ever so slightly as he unthinkingly asked, feeling more than a little foolish. He usually didn't need to ask things like that, but he was pretty sure it wasn't actually a word you'd find in a dictionary, and those sorts of words were ones he didn't know. He was almost reluctant to find out, but she could be insulting him five ways and he'd never know it if he didn't get over himself and ask.




[Whoo, what an amazingly long post! O: But seriously, sorry... Writer's block. I get it when I'm stressed out -- I haven't been able to write a decent paragraph lately. It's been a weird week. And for the record, I did have to figure out what "frosh" meant by the context. P: *fails at teh knowledge* Hopefully that question will give you something to work with. :3]