Chapter Text
As the sun shined through the windows of the Cotta-Arc Coffee shop, Jaune entered the building as he did every day to start his shift, he always was the first one to arrive, although some might think that could be seen as a bad thing, he enjoyed the silence that arriving early gave him. It helped him to get everything ready for when the customers started to appear.
So then, he began to set up the tables, cleaning up the floor, checking up the coffee machines. As he did everything, that silence he cherished persisted, engulfing each of his thoughts to perish, except of of them, he couldn't get rid of the thought that he couldn't get to enlist in Beacon Academy just because of his stupidity that made him arrive late and now he was stuck on this job for at least a year and couldn't do something to change that thought.
That's why he felt that necessity to never arrive late, to never fail to get to a place just on time.
After a while, once he got all of the dust off the white brick floor, although it wasn't really that clean it was good enough for the owner, Tera. She never gave him a bad time -being her brother in-law - but she was strict when it came to how the place looked. So when the first wave of customers arrived, not only the floor but the vintage wooden chairs were placed perfectly from each of the square tables that had almost the same wooden color as the chairs, something that most people wouldn't notice but it displeased Jaune.
Then, Jaune stood behind the counter with his light brown overall already on, that still had marks and and coffee marks from the last two shifts, as he could manage to clean his spare one on time for today, he expected that no one noticed that, because if Tera knew, she would probably scold him or worse… she could tell that to her Wife, that for Jaune's dismay, it was her oldest sister, who would probably give him a hard time about that and bother him with a long lecture about looks and keeping a good image when he wasn't at home. Although it was better that hearing how his parents would usually scold him
While he was trying to find a way to clean or at least hide those stains. The first clients started to arrive and while he could manage this shift by himself it could get tiring doing all the work alone. Earlier he received a message from Blake, saying that she would arrive later than usual, something that didn't bother him but now that the clients started to fill the place it made him feel annoyed.
As the hours passed lucky or unlucky for him, someone made her presence feel made in the whole place, it was Jaune's best friend, Ruby Rose, a first year at Beacon Academy that befriended him at a strategy games convention, although Ruby only went there to look at the cool weapons designs, not for the games.
“Hey there Vomit Boy!” said Ruby cheerfully as she approached the counter
“I thought you were going to stop calling me like that” said Jaune as he greeted Ruby as always
“And I thought you stopped staining your clothes with your barf” said Ruby while she looked at Jaune's coffee stained overall
“Are those stains really that visible?!... and they aren't barf!” Said Jaune flustered
“Whatever you say Vomit Boy, how's your shift going?” asked Ruby
“It's mostly fine, although Blake wasn't arrived yet, most clients aren't giving me a hard time”
“Well, It’s probably my sister's fault, she took her on a date yesterday”
“Blake and your sister are dating?!” Asked a surprised Jaune
“Yeah, you didn't know? She is literally your coworker”
“Neither of you two told me!... at least that explains those marks in her neck” said Jaune
“Wow, I didn't need to have that mental image of my sister doing that” said Ruby disgusted
“Sorry, anyway, wanna hear about what customers came today?”
“Yes!” said Ruby, who couldn't resist to hear about some good gossip
“Well, at first in the morning there was this brown haired girl with glasses that came to me and started talking about her ex” said Jaune fruitily
“Wait… Was her name Coco?!” asked Ruby exalted
“Do you know her?” asked Jaune curiously surprised
“YES, she and her gf Velvet broke up recently at Beacon in front of everyone”
“Wait, a long haired girl shorter than her?”
“Yes, did she come here looking for her?”
“Yes! and they kinda made up right here in front of me”
“Wow, probably that’s going to make everything calmer at Beacon” said a relieved Ruby
After that small chatter a moment of silent stood between the both of them
“And?” asked Ruby
“What do you mean?” asked a confused Jaune
“Did nothing else happen during your turn?”
“No… why do you ask?” said an even more confused Jaune
“Because that cute couple that’s sitting there has been giving you glances since i got here” said Ruby as she looked to a table that was close enough to have a good look at whatever or whoever was at the counter
At that moment Jaune realized he was totally screwed.
The “cute couple” that Ruby mentioned were Ren and Nora, those two had come here a month or two after Jaune started to work there.
Nora would usually wear a sporty jacket and cute pink skirt that Jaune couldn’t stop looking at every time she entered the store.
And then there was Ren… There was no word to describe how he felt the first time he saw that beautiful pink strike on that black and long hair of his or the way that his delicate but muscular arms revealed came through the sleeves of his pretty adjusted tank top.
Since they started coming to grab a coffee at the place they would always greet Jaune, although it made him feel flustered because of how distracted he felt looking at them he always made the best effort he could and kept talking to them.
After a while, they only wanted to get service from Jaune, usually the short red haired girl would get into arguments with Jaune’s coworkers because he wasn’t there for the day.Something that Blake really liked to use to bother Jaune with his not so little crush he had on both of his favorite customers.
Ruby touched Jaune in his shoulder taking him back to reality
“Wow, what’s this about?” asked Ruby surprised with Jaune’s pale look on his face
“Well, it’s a long story, but-” as Jaune started to explain to Ruby he was cut short by Nora shouting
“Jauney! come here!” said Nora as loud as she was
“Jauney?” said Ruby as he laughed at Jaune’s embarrassed face
He obeyed like a good boy and went to the table as calmly as he could, trying to keep the most straight face someone like him could.
“Did you enjoy your coffee and your extra muffin?” asked Jaune trying to keep cool
“Why do you always keep asking that, you know that your service is the best thing here” said Ren politely
“Yeah, you always give us extra treats!” said Nora cheerful as ever
“T-Thank you, you two know that i enjoy treating you” said Jaune
“So who was that girl that was talking to you?” asked Ren
“Oh, that was just Ruby, she and her boyfriend are my friends”
“Cool, she has a boyfriend” said Nora without putting to much thought on her words
“Okay, do the two of you want anything else… it’s on me” said Jaune kind of awkwardly
“No, no, it’s getting late so we should probably will be heading out” said Ren
“We could at least bring something home, pleaseeee” said Nora begging for another muffin
“No problem, I will give you two more muffins… although Nora is probably going to eat both” Said Jaune
Jaune gave them a brown paper bag with both muffins and they left just as Blake arrived at the Coffee Shop.
“Hey, Jaune sorry for arriving late”
“It’s okay, I’m probably heading out right now” said Jaune
“Why, Did you finally ask those two out on a date?” asked Blake
“Like you did with my sister last night?” said Ruby interrupting on the conversion
“Oh, you are here…” said Blake ashamed
While Blake and Ruby started to argue, Jaune went to clean up Ren and Nora’s table. Those two always left a really good tip but this time when he went through the table there were only a bunch of muffin crumbs on Nora’s side and tons of used papers.
As he started to clean up the table one smaller paper stood out, it was the only one that wasn’t crumpled and dirty, it had Nora’s Phone number with the caption “Text me later” written on it with pink ink.