Chapter Text
The familiar chime of the cafè entrance bell has Jude fighting down a groan, already sick and tired of an interaction that hasn’t even happened yet. He can hear Magic let out a gentle snort from where she’s fiddling with the espresso machine and shoots her a look before schooling his face into a more PR friendly expression.
He just has to survive for one month.
If you pay attention, Craft Cafè tries its best to be charming. It succeeds judging from the number of customers, Jude thinks begrudgingly, but maybe that’s just because the place is located right in the middle of 4 separate universities.
There’s long, winding plants hanging from the ceiling that sort of look like they’re planning a slow but steady escape, splaying leaves and flowers onto the accompanying walls. The chalkboard menu that sits on the front desk is decorated with pastel doodles, no doubt from Magic and Jude’s new boss Lizzie, swirly handwriting that probably took longer to write than it does to make any drink exclaiming about the season’s specialties.
Technically, Jude’s job was just to be ‘assisting’. See, the prankster had a reputation for quote on quote ragebaiting his peers, sometimes even professors, but it took just one prank that went a little too far to get him called into the Dean’s office. Dean TDM is not scary, Jude rather would die before he admits anything like that, but he had a certain edge to him.
Usually he was tolerant, but because Jude’s little mishap may or may not have put a couple of teachers in a sticky position so he was obliged to do something for once. His idea of punishment came in the form of working tables and taking obnoxious coffee orders.
So, Jude was meant to be assisting. Wiping down tables, bringing people their orders, and - ugh - working the register. And he did, at first. But he soon found out that one, if someone drops enough plates, they stop asking you to carry them, and two, making coffee is fun.
The work isn’t bad, to say the least. The constant scent of coffee beans in the air, the warmth provided amidst a chilly autumn day, the monotonous buzzing of overlapping voices and the clicking of keyboards from overworked university kids creates an atmosphere that is somewhat peaceful against all odds.
Jude could even call it fun - Magic is surprisingly good company and Parker is always around somewhere, inputting unnecessary judgement every so often. Despite being put to work against his will, Jude quickly discovered that he enjoys making coffee.
Working the morning shift, the café wakes up slowly, like it’s stretching his arms and preparing for the busy day ahead. The grinder rattles the quiet mornings, releasing the rich scent of ground coffee into the chilly autumn air. As corny as Jude thinks it sounds, coffee really does smell different when you’re the one making it.
It’s become a ritual, an autopilot default setting for him to hear the name of a drink and have the recipe down in an instant. Initially, he asked Lizzie to teach him because she made it look like breathing but when he commented on it, Magic said it took experience - and Jude has always been one for a challenge.
Like most things, brewing coffee came easily, and Jude had learnt how to make a simple cappuccino within the first 20 minutes.
There’s structure to it; the steps became easy and familiar. The scoop of beans. The steady tamp of the grounds. The soft click of the portafilter locking into place. The espresso machine hisses like it knows Jude is here as a form of punishment, like it’s telling him to leave, but Magic just gives it a gentle pat when it starts to sound dangerously close to combusting, like it’s a pet. Jude knows it has a hidden agenda.
What he doesn’t find fun is running the register. There’s nothing more depressing than having to stand still and take the order of a bunch of depressed, burnt out students who forget that service workers are actually people.
It’s been 5 days since his sentence, and he’s beginning to view this as less of a punishment. Sure, he was a dick when he first got here; dropping plates, stealing cookies from the free samples that he was given express orders not to steal from and even scaring off customers with his piercing, glow-on-command eyes.
But he’s starting to like this place. Making coffee is fun, but his colleagues are just as fun and Judelow ‘I hate authority’ Sassoo is even warming up to his boss, who is probably made of sugar, spice, and everything nice.
Lizzie is like a fairy, she’s wacky and weird and very whimsical - she’ll crack inappropriate jokes with such a poker face that Jude can’t actually tell if she realises the connotation of what she’s saying, until she wiggles her brows suggestively and they both dissolve into fits of childish laughter.
Despite seeming air-headed, she runs the place like it’s a navy when she needs to, demotes Jude to the register when he’s slacking off and allows Magic to pretend she’s texting the Dean when the hybrid pisses off either of them. Jude marvels at her abilities when he finds out that not only does she run the café with minimal staff, but she also runs several other businesses that she is extremely shady about when it comes to divulging information.
‘It takes a while to master the Craft.’ She sighed, looking around coolly when Jude expressed curiosity over the topic, abruptly making him snort from the terrible joke.
Magic is cool too, she’s chirpy and peppy enough for the both of them, especially when Jude comes into work on 2 hours of sleep, spending most of his night copying Parker's engineering notes messily into his own beat up notebook. She makes for good conversation when she isn’t forcing Jude to work the counter purely because she gets the urge to watch Jude struggle to keep his composure.
Presently, Jude looks up to where two customers have just entered and are already causing a racket, PR smile ready and definitely not reaching his eyes. But then he realises who the said new customers are and even he can’t keep the fake smile on his lips when he comes face to face with possibly the two most annoying people in the universe, bar Sharpness Conexion.
Tai waves as he walks up to the counter, his face looking extremely punchable, and Spongs who is dressed like Adam Sandler has a shit eating grin that makes Jude’s eye twitch involuntarily.
Fuck no.
“Hello, Judelow!” Tai enunciates each word with a terrible lilt in his voice, the one that Jude knows immediately means trouble so he turns rapidly and clutches at Magic’s shoulders, who by the way is watching the scene with an amused look on her face and not even pretending to make coffee.
“You’re taking the register.” Jude commands, the sentence sounding more like a plea in his desperate state trying to escape any interaction with the two.
Magic looks unimpressed as she tilts her head, with a smirk that looks almost like Tai’s. “Sorry, I don’t take orders buddy.”
“Please take the register and let me make coffee, Magic.” He groans in pure misery, widening his pink eyes and hoping Magic would take mercy on him for once. He’s running on chocolate milk and an hour of sleep and can not handle dealing with Spongs or Tai without punching them once or fifty times.
Magic hums thoughtfully, but ultimately caves because she hasn’t seen this side of Jude yet and it’s starting to get interesting. She pushes Jude towards the plotting espresso machine and wipes her hands on a towel as she moves easily to the count.
“Good morning guys, what can I get for you today?” She chats back and forth with Spongs for a bit while Tai takes a millenia picking what he wants and Jude watches in pure confusion. Magic is friendly, but she isn’t this friendly. She cracks jokes with Spongs like they’re familiar with each other, like they’re friends, and it strikes Jude as odd.
Spongs is a frat guy - the annoying kind. Probably everyone hated him when he first rushed, except for his frat brothers, and even then they only kind of tolerated him.
So he goes through all the possibilities as Magic tells him their orders and his hands start moving on autopilot; they could be friends but as far as Jude knows, Magic doesn’t go to Strength with them so it’d be kind or weird, maybe lovers but the thought makes Jude break out into a cold sweat so he immediately moves past it. Well, there isn’t any point in losing sleep over it, he concludes as he hands Magic their drinks, still against the idea of talking to them.
“You know, Jude, the difference between us is that I like my job, and you’re here because you have to be. So maybe, you should do your job instead of having me do it!” Magic speaks in a saccharine tone but her actions completely contrast it as she pushes Jude out from behind the counter, drinks in hand. Magic is evil.
The rabbit groans, making a show of rolling his eyes and sagging his shoulders but he accepts that she is unfortunately right so he has to lock in when walking over to Spongs and Tai’s table.
“So it’s true? You’ve been forced into manual labour?” Sponge fucking leers as he reaches for his mocha, Tai alreadying having got his mouth on his obnoxious pumpkin spice latte.
“Yeah dude, I guess I’m not immune to punishment.” He sighs, omitting the fact that he’s starting to enjoy it here.
The voidling at the table snorts.
“Kinky.”
“Shut up Tai.”
They talk a little more, Jude begrudgingly enjoying the conversation since Parker hadn’t shown up this morning to keep him company, when suddenly Tai lights up in the middle of Spongs’ spiel about how good the cake here is. Jude makes note of this, and it’s becoming more and more apparent that the reason Magic and Spongs are so friendly is because he’s a regular here, usually coming in the afternoons before class.
Tai looks like a kid on christmas, suddenly sitting straight up and staring at Jude with the widest eyes he’s ever seen. Jude shivers a bit, Tai smiling like this is typically a bad omen.
“Wait, Spongs bro, don’t you usually come here with-“
Spongs starts to cough violently before Tai finishes his sentence, shooting him a panicked look and Tai seems to get what he’s trying to convey because he stops speaking and just starts giggling.
Jude decides that he doesn’t want to know.
They talk for a little longer before Lizzie comes over and drags Jude back to the counter, reminding him that it’s rush hour and he, as a convict (“Gee, dramatic much?”), has no time to dilly nor dally.
The pink haired woman takes mercy on both of her workers however and takes over the register, leaving Magic and Jude to fiddle with the concocting part of the job so that they can get double the drinks done - rush hour and all that. He takes the chance to ask Magic about Spongs, just to confirm.
It might seem like Jude is hung up on this, but he just doesn’t like Spongs all that much and is starting to like Magic so it strikes him as weird, and Jude is nothing if not curious. Parker has made it a point to tell him that on multiple occasions, he calls it ‘morbid curiosity’.
“So, how do you know Spongs?”
Magic raises her eyebrows as she messes with the portafiller, humming thoughtfully.
“I don’t really know him as much as I’m forced to acknowledge his presence,” Jude snorts at that and nods in agreement, Magic continues with a small smile on her lips.
“He’s a regular here. Though he usually comes in with a blonde.”
The mention of a blonde makes Jude stop in his tracks, mid scooping coffee beans. Spongs knows a lot of blondes, what are the chances that this particular blonde is that particular blonde? But the thought makes Jude’s throat go dry, his traitorous heart already racing at the mere idea. If Spongs was as regular as Magic said he was, and Spongs usually came with a blonde, then by basic deduction surely that blonde is also a regular?
“A blonde?” Jude asks despite himself, words slipping from his lips before he can stop them.
“Yeah, I’m sure you know him, same uni and all. Green eyes, long hair? Kind of looks like a girl?”
It was Sharpness, no doubt. Jude was working in the cafè that Sharpness just so happened to be a regular at.
If he let himself think about it, it really wasn’t surprising. Sharp has an insatiable sweet tooth, and Jude knows that he practically survives on a diet consisting of bland chicken, red velvet cake and coffee that’s more milk and sugar than caffeine. Distantly, he recalls thinking that Sharp would love Craft Cafè when he initially entered, for his very first shift. Not that he thought about Sharpness a lot, he thought about the blonde a regular amount. If waking up every morning, flustered and red from whatever his subconscious had dreamt up counted as regular.
Whatever.
It was just his luck that the week he started his community service, Sharp was out of state for some fencing championship - not that it wasn’t impressive, but it would have been nice to know what Jude was going up against. Instead, he’s been ambushed by this information and has no time at all to prepare mentally to see Sharpness every fucking morning.
Jude isn’t looking forward to it.
At all.
Would he come by the mornings? Or the afternoons? Most of Jude’s shifts were in the morning, since most of his actual class schedule was in the afternoons, so if Sharp didn’t come in the morning then Jude would probably go a couple days without seeing him. But every other time that Jude’s bumped into him in the mornings, he was carrying a cup of coffee, so the likelihood of him coming in the mornings and therefore Jude seeing him every morning is way higher than not.
Jude isn’t excited at all, and he isn’t looking forward to next week.