Violet Days - Reunion
by ZoneTheory twt | dsc | fics
“Ohhhhhh, shiitake…” IRyS groaned as she bounced on her feet, waiting for the light to change so she could go.
She whipped out her phone and clicked on the screen, six twenty eight, two minutes until her shift started.
“Who starts work this early… this is ridiculous…” She pulled her hands onto the side of her face, stretching out her skin.
She had decided to stay up the previous night until around three A.M., binge watching anime, something that she had become accustomed to in her unemployed life.
Now she was running on three hours of sleep, and it was not going well. She was barely functional enough to stumble out the door, but she forced herself to do it, she couldn’t mess up her first day at Violet.
The signal changed and she burst into as much of a sprint as she could manage in her underslept state. She ran the entire way until she burst into the little coffee shop, which had yet to open, empty of the impending morning rush of customers when they eventually opened for the day.
Since the store was empty, IRyS concluded that her trainer must be in the back. She hurried behind the counter and into the backroom, which served as both storage and breakroom for the little shop.
Out of breath and exhausted, IRyS barely had time to take in the shape of the person she assumed to be her superior, both because of the exhaustion, and as a sign of respect, she bowed her head and began to apologise, “I’m … sorry I’m late … it … won’t happen … again …”
She continued panting, looking at the floor, her lungs on fire.
There was a pause, IRyS could see the shoes of the person in front of her, but they hadn’t responded. She raised her head to look at them.
“IRyS!?” the person exclaimed in complete bewilderment.
IRyS finally realized who this person was, and a mirrored look of shock crossed her face. Her vision filled with a bright nest of red hair sprouting two oversized rat ears. It belonged to Bae, Hakos Baelz, IRyS’ high-school ex-girlfriend.
“Bae?” was all IRyS could say in response.
The rat-girl’s shock quickly turned into a dark grimace. “What is this, some kind of sick prank?”
“What, no? Do you work here or something?”
Bae frowned and nodded. “Yeah, and I’m supposed to be training a newbie today, so you better get lost so I can get to work.” She turned toward the wall and pulled one of the purple uniform aprons off the wall and began to put it on.
IRyS shuffled in place. “Uh… I’m, uh… I’m the new hire… Today’s my first day.”
Bae turned toward her. “No. There’s no way I’m training my ex.” Bae pushed past IRyS toward the door. “I’m gonna call Ina and get her to hire someone else… Ridiculous…”
IRyS blocked Bae’s escape with her arm. “Bae, please, I need this job. Just… teach me how to do the work and then we won’t even have to talk to each other… please…” She did her best to look helpless, batting her eyelashes and pleading with her eyes just as much as her words.
For a moment, Bae’s stern expression held, leading IRyS to believe that her argument failed and that the old Bae she used to know really was gone. But then she cracked, rolling her eyes with a sigh.
“Fine.”
“Really?”
“Don’t make me change my mind, and speaking of changing, you need to change, let’s go see if we can find you a uniform.”
…
“How is it?” Bae asked.
“It’s, uh… It’s a bit… tight…” She had difficulty breathing properly as the tight uniform struggled to compress down her chest.
“Well, that’s one of Ina’s old uniforms, and you know how she is…”
“It’s just, I can’t really breathe… Maybe if I…” IRyS reached up and undid the top two buttons of the uniform shirt, acutely aware of how the rat’s eyes paid careful attention to her fingers' actions.
IRyS smirked to herself. “Ahh~, that’s better, let these puppies breathe.”
Bae blushed lightly. “That’s… against the uniform policy…”
“It’ll be covered by the apron, so it’s fine right?”
“I… I guess so. Whatever! Hurry up, we gotta get prepped for the morning rush!”
…
“Teabag in, let it sit, stir, give to the customer.”
“Mhm.” IRyS nodded, not at all listening to what Bae had to teach her.
Her eyes followed the adorably active thin red tail that swished behind the rat girl, she noticed all the ways it counterbalanced her sway, or tightened as she enthusiasticly emphasised her explanations.
“Then you’re gonna wanna use this spoon in the ice water here…”
“Yeah.” IRyS’ eyes naturally trailed up the tail to its logical conclusion; she couldn’t help but admire the tight fit of Bae’s skinny jeans. The smaller girl did look good in them.
“And whack yourself over the head with it.”
“Mhm.”
Bae glared at the nephilim, prompting IRyS to snap back to her senses.
“Oh, uh, you can continue.” IRyS gestured.
“Okay, smarty pants, what’s the spoon for?”
“Um, stirring?”
Bae rolled her eyes.
“Right answer, but not what I said, you would know that if you were listening.”
“I was listening, it’s just… got a bit distracted…”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, just listen, alight?”
“Okaaaaaaay~”
… … …
“You’ve still got a nice ass by the way.”
Bae put the spoon back in the ice water and turned to face IRyS. “Workplace sexual harassment. You’re fired,” she spoke flatly.
“Pffffffft— As if you weren’t ogling me in the breakroom.”
“B— I wasn— Ugh, I can’t take it with you. This is exactly why we broke up!”
“Um, no? If I remember correctly, we broke up because you accused me of cheating on you with Reine,” IRyS denied the accusation pointedly, firing back with her own.
Bae forcefully put the lid onto the cup of coffee in front of herself. “Well maybe I wouldn’t get that idea if you didn’t spend so much time with her instead of your own girlfriend!”
“I spent time with you plenty, you were just jealous!”
“What’s wrong with that!? I wanted to spend even more time with you!”
“I—”
“I loved you, IRyS!”
“Bae…”
“Just… nevermind, forget it. Look, we’re opening in a couple minutes, first customer in will be Kronii, she always orders a hot chocolate, can you get that ready?”
IRyS felt a little dazed by Bae’s outburst, she had only intended to tease her ex a little bit, not reignite an old argument. Nevertheless, she pressed on past it, if Bae wanted to drop it, she would acquiesce. “Uh, yeah, sure, I can do that.” She nodded.
“Good, I’m gonna quickly make sure all the tables are clean because I doubt Ina bothered to clean those before she closed last night.”
…
IRyS gripped the sides of the register as she stared back at the tall cream-colour-haired girl smiling brightly down at her. “You wanted a… large… vanill-uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
“—chia decaf latte with almond milk, topped with low-fat whip cream, dusted with cinnamon, three pumps of caramel, and add shot of espresso for funsies!”
“Um. Okay… Latte… Large… add… stuff… I think your total comes to five… thirty?”
“It’s usually six fifty.”
“Oh, that’s what I meant!”
IRyS took the girl’s money and started to get to work on preparing the drink.
Unfortunately for her, she was woefully underprepared. She held a cup in her hand and looked at all of the different machines and containers of ingredients.
She approached the pot of coffee, and flicked her eyes back to the customer, who stood looking at her phone.
“This… I probably use coffee… Was it… decaf…? No… she wanted an espresso shot, nobody would order that with a decaf… But, I thought she said…” IRyS flicked her eyes back and forth between the two pots, her mind was running wild and she was starting to panic. This was her job now, she was supposed to know what to do, but it was all so much. Her hands trembled holding the cup and her eyes started to water.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, now.” Bae ran over and put her hand’s onto IRyS’. “It’s alright. IRyS, look at me. Don’t panic, okay?”
IRyS started back with a torrent under her mismatched eyes.
“It’s okay. You’re new, I don’t expect you to understand everything, lean on me for help, okay?”
“O-okay…”
“Now… Do you remember what the order was?”
“A… a latte, large, decaf I think… but with an espresso shot? That doesn’t make sense.”
Bae rolled her eyes. “Sana. Yeap, I know her order, she insists that decaf tastes better, but she has no idea what she’s talking about. We put up with it because we charge more for the decaf.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Yeah, anyway, let’s walk you through the steps, first the coffee…”
…
“Thank you! Come again!” IRyS waved to the customer as they accepted their order. “Next!”
“Hold on a second,” Bae interjected herself. “Just a minute,” she told the customer.
“What’s up, Bae?”
“Your shift’s over.”
“Huh?”
“You were scheduled to work six hours today, you’ve worked your six hours, you didn’t even take a break.”
“Eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, so, I’m done for the day? But I thought I was just getting the hang of this!” IRyS pouted.
Bae smiled back. “You’re doing really well, but we’re done for the day, Suisei showed up and is ready to swap in.”
“Can I just do this last customer?” IRyS pleaded, she had finally found her groove after a hard day of work and wasn’t quite willing to give it up yet.
“Sure, but that’s the last one!”
…
IRyS stepped out of the store into the warm afternoon sun, she raised her hand to shield her eyes and looked around as they adjusted to the light. Eventually her vision focused and she realized that Bae was standing outside waiting for her.
“Oh, hey,” IRyS greeted her.
“Hey.” The rat girl sipped a cup of coffee. “You did good today.”
“Thanks.”
“Um, listen, IRyS… about this morning…”
“It’s alright, Bae, really it’s fine.”
Bae took a step forward. “No, really it isn’t. That was, unprofessional, and honestly downright rude, the way I treated you when you came in this morning. I guess I just… seeing you again tore open a lot of old wounds.”
IRyS remained silent, staring back at the smaller girl.
“I… I shouldn’t have brought all that old drama back up, it’s been years, we’ve both changed a lot since then, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
“So, um, I was just… I was thinking… You know… Because of that… we could…” Bae shuffled her feet and stared at the ground, her tail tucked between her legs.
“Yes,” IRyS affirmed.
“Eh? I haven’t even said anything yet.”
“I know, but when you look all sad like that I couldn’t possibly say no.”
“B-but…”
“It’s a date then? Any ideas?”
“W-what? A date!? That wasn’t what I was gonna say, I… I… I…”
“Oh, you don’t wanna go on a date?” IRyS tilted her head, eyes gleaming devilishly.
“W-well, not exactly, I, um, I… yes… a date would be nice…” Bae replied quietly.
IRyS smiled back brightly. “Let’s go then!”
“Right now!?”
“Yeah!” IRyS grabbed Bae’s hand and started to pull her along.
“H-hey! Let me go! I can walk on my own!”
But IRyS just hummed and continued pulling her along, hands firmly clasped together once more.
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