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The uniform is stuffy compared to what he normally wears, the high collar itchy against his neck. “Diluc,” Childe whines, draping himself over the counter. “How long until the shift is over?”
Diluc doesn’t even look up from where he’s cleaning the coffee machine. “Eight hours.”
“You said that five minutes ago too!”
Diluc rolls his eyes. “Seven hours and fifty-five minutes, then. Go wipe the tables.”
As Childe takes his moping to the cafe seating, the bright sunlight of the early morning beams in through the windows. It’s his first day on the job at Dawn Brewery and the cafe is completely empty at 7:30 AM on a Saturday.
Childe himself would still be happily in dreamland if Diluc hadn’t kicked him out of bed, forced him into a uniform, and then hired him, all within the span of one bus ride to the store. He’s pretty sure he has negative the amount of credentials needed for this job, but they are apparently desperate and short-staffed, the previous employee quitting an hour before their shift. Childe doesn’t know why anyone would ever want to leave a job that involved getting paid minimum wage to be yelled at by angry customers on a Saturday morning.
The door opens, bells jingling softly, and Childe hurries back behind the counter. “Welcome to Dawn Brewery,” he says, smiling widely. “What can I get for you today?”
The first customers of the day are a family, a dad and a son. The little boy seems more preoccupied with cooing over the cakes in the display, so the father answers Childe’s question instead. “Hello, what would you recommend?”
Childe has known of this shop’s existence for approximately twenty minutes and does not know what any of the fancy words on the menu mean. “Uh, coffee,” he tries. “Any coffee. They’re all good.”
“Well, this is a coffee shop,” the little boy mumbles under his breath.
“I will take a coffee, then,” the father says. “And some chicken nuggets for Venti, please?”
Childe stares. “What?”
The child named Venti elbows his father in the side. “Zhongli, this is a cafe. They don’t have chicken nuggets.”
Zhongli looks crestfallen. “They do not?”
He looks so sad that Childe scribbles down his order anyway. “One coffee and pack of chicken nuggets for Zhongli. We’ll have it out for you right away, sir,” he says, and very pointedly pretends not to notice the incredulous look Venti is shooting him.
Zhongli looks delighted. “Thank you,” he says, and then drops a couple coins on the counter that are definitely not enough to cover the costs. Well, no sweat, he’ll just pay the remainder from his own pockets. Granted, he hasn’t received his wages yet, and he’s pretty sure he won’t be receiving anything if Diluc finds out, but that’s for future Childe to worry about. “Come, Venti. Let’s go sit down and wait.”
Venti is still loitering around the counter after Zhongli goes to find a table, so Childe smiles at him. “Why don’t you go find your dad?” he suggests.
“My dad?” Venti laughs. “Zhongli’s only two years older than me, you know. What, I don’t look like a grad student to you?”
Childe stares at him with increasing horror. “You’re older than me?”
The door to the back room opens and Diluc steps out. “Oh, customers,” he says flatly, watching as Venti skips over to the table Zhongli is sitting at. “What did they order?”
“Coffee.”
Diluc stares at him. When Childe offers nothing else, he raises his eyebrow. “What kind of coffee?”
“Uh. Any kind. You know, the usual.”
Diluc is looking increasingly more irritated, so Childe opens his mouth to come up with a totally reasonable explanation that doesn’t just boil down to he gave me the puppy eyes when Venti calls across the cafe, “Good luck finding those chicken nuggets!”
Diluc stops. Opens his mouth. Stares for a bit. “The what,” he finally says, and the two words exude such a threatening aura that Childe physically recoils.
“Er, nothing!” He spots two suspicious individuals loitering at the other side of the counter. “Oh look, those two customers need service! Luckily for them, I’m about to give them the best service they’ve ever seen. The most professional of services.”
“Hey Childe, wait—” Diluc starts, but Childe’s already moseying over.
There’s a guy with blue hair glancing around the cafe and a girl wearing dark clothing poking around at everything, but they both turn their attention to him when he approaches.
“Hey there, Childe,” the guy says, reading from the name tag. Or at least that’s what Childe thinks he said, but it’s a little hard to tell given how badly he butchered the pronunciation.
“Uh, it’s pronounced child, actually—”
“Can we ask you a few questions about the store, Childe?” The guy grins, and somehow the attempt at the pronunciation is even worse than the last try, so he has to be doing it on purpose. “I’m Kaeya, by the way. And that’s Fischl over there. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, same.” Childe blinks. “Go ahead. It’s only my first day here though.”
“That’s fine,” Kaeya says smoothly. “We’d just like to talk about your coffee for a bit.”
“Oh. Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Kaeya says, a strange look in his eyes. “What ingredients do you use for it? Just out of curiosity.”
Oh god, hell if he knows. Why is Kaeya starting with the difficult questions? “Beans. Cream. Milk,” he says, glancing around at the different things he sees under the counter. “Grape juice.”
“What?” Kaeya narrows his eyes.
Honestly, it does sound like a weird combination, but since it’s there, that must mean it’s contributing to the coffee cause. “Okay, I promise it tastes a lot better than it sounds. The sweetness from the grapes balances out the bitterness from the coffee, or something.”
“This youngblood knows not of what he speaks!” Fischl says. “The delicacies of the revival tonic cannot be—what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Childe says, pouring a bottle of grape juice and copious amounts of sugar into the coffee machine. Upon the skeptical looks he receives, he amends his statement. “Despite what it looks like, I know what I’m doing. Just trust me.”
“Hm, no thanks.” Kaeya smiles cheerily, which is kind of a rude thing to say just because the drink is a weird color and bubbling a little.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but then Diluc comes over and gives his best angry caveman impression, so he changes his mind. “Let’s go, Fischl. We can come back tomorrow.”
“I daresay investigating is no longer necessary,” Fischl whispers, except it’s so loud that Childe’s pretty sure the whole store can hear. “They are sabotaging their own forces with low level troops.”
“I’m sure he’s trying his very best,” Kaeya simpers. He gives a wave to Diluc, who scowls back, and then the two of them exit the store.
“I hope you didn’t tell them anything of importance.” Diluc crosses his arms. “They work at the coffee shop across the street and they’re always snooping here for secrets.”
Childe’s eyes widen. “Oh no. I told them our secret ingredient is grape juice.”
“What? No, those bottles are for me.” Diluc frowns. “You don’t seriously think there’s grape juice in coffee, do you?”
“Of course not!” Childe says indignantly. “How dumb do you think I am? Geez.”
“...do you really think I can’t see you pouring it down the drain right now?”
Against all odds, by the time the last hour of Childe’s shift hits, he’s managed to learn most of the basic techniques. Some of the items are still too hard for him, like the cappuccino with twenty pumps of caramel splenda vanilla breve, or whatever that is. But that’s what Diluc’s here for!
All in all, the day wasn’t that bad. There were some unreasonable customers, sure, and he did have to run to the nearest WcDonald’s just to buy a pack of chicken nuggets, but it wasn’t terrible.
(In fact, his services were so exemplary that Zhongli had praised him and promised a return visit. Though whether Zhongli was referring to the quality of the misshapen WcDonald’s chicken nuggets or Childe’s stellar sprinting job, he’s not quite sure.)
Childe’s busy cleaning the display cases when a customer walks in five minutes before the store closes. The woman rattles off a grocery list of an order, and he’s never heard of half the ingredients before, but Diluc nods stoically and jots it all down anyway.
She makes herself at home at one of the tables despite the store closing in three minutes. A quick glance at the cup tells him that her name is Signora, which is kind of weird, but to be fair none of the other people he knows have modern day names either, so he lets it go.
Diluc manages to whip something up surprisingly, given that Childe’s pretty sure the store doesn’t actually carry the hacienda la esmeralda geisha beans, or whatever she asked for.
“Here is your order.” Diluc places the cup on the table and bows slightly.
Signora takes one sip and then puts the cup back down. “This is too cold,” she says. “I would like another cup.”
Diluc looks unfazed. “I will have to charge you. Is that okay?”
“What? Of course not.” Signora wrinkles her nose. “This was your mistake. Why should I be expected to pay for it?”
“I am unable to make another cup for you for free,” Diluc says politely. What a champ. What a model customer service employee. Childe’s pretty sure he would’ve just thrown her cup into the microwave and called it a day. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Signora harrumphs. “I demand to see your manager. I won’t be leaving until I do.”
Childe’s pretty sure that’s actually illegal, but Diluc surprisingly acquiesces without a complaint. And so, ten minutes after the cafe’s closing time, a very tired looking Jean is dragged out of her office.
“May I help you?” Jean smiles, somehow not looking like she just worked a grueling eight-hour shift for minimum wage.
“Your employee here is disgraceful. My six-year-old son could do better than this. I demand that he be released from his position,” Signora says expectantly.
Childe’s about to cut in—because even though Diluc probably is worse than a six-year-old, he still pays half of Childe’s rent—but then Jean bows slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that your expectations have not been met. Unfortunately, I cannot relieve him of his job.”
Signora narrows her eyes. “Why not? I’ll have you know I own the world’s most famous food blog and I will be posting about this.”
Jean sighs. “I’m afraid I do not have the authority to fire the CEO of the company,” she says.
There is a long moment of silence.
“Wait.” Childe points accusingly. Given the way all three of them jump, they had forgotten he was even there. “There’s no way the CEO of Dawn Brewery steals my microwavable mac and cheese and makes me pay for his Netflix.”
Diluc doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Oh my god,” Childe moans. “If I’m a sugar daddy of a sugar daddy, doesn’t that make me a sugar grandpa?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”