Work Text:
All throughout middle school, Ochako worked at the coffee shop near her house. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a chain location serving an insane variety of different eternally sugary drinks that she could pick up shifts at after school and on the weekends.
It helped keep her family afloat, however little her contribution actually was, and that was all that mattered to her.
It did mean, though, that her weekends were always packed full. When she had a spare moment at work she was either cleaning or doing homework, leaving her with little time to have friends or do anything else social. Becoming friends with her coworkers was thus her greatest priority at work.
Minus the fact that almost all of the other employees were in their late thirties and old enough to be her parents.
There was one exception, though, Himiko.
Himiko was her age as far as Ochako could tell, but didn't seem to go to school and worked almost completely opposite shifts to her. As such, she hadn't ever actually met the girl, only hearing about her through some of the coworkers who worked more random shifts.
That all was true until a random Monday that Ochako had off from school for a local holiday and thus had picked up a morning shift.
She was just setting her things down in one of the cubbies in the back when a blonde girl with twin space buns and a large variety of red jewelry came barreling into the back.
The girl set her small backpack down in the cubbie next to Ochako before seeming to process her presence. “Who are you?”
“You can call me Ochako,” she offered, holding out her hand for the girl to shake. “I'm normally on night and weekend shift, I just have off school today.”
The girl glanced down at her hand, almost seeming confused for a moment before shaking it. “Himiko. I didn't know we had any other kids working here.”
Ochako just shrugged. “I try to stay out of the store gossip, it's not surprising you haven't heard of me.”
Himiko just shrugged, her energy seeming to immediately pick back up. “Well I’m happy to have you here!”
Ochako smiled, attempting to match her energy. Hopefully when she was out of school for break they would be able to work with one another more. Himiko’s vibes were good thus far and that was practically half the job, so she wasn’t worried about meshing well with the girl.
Checking her watch for the time since she didn’t get there very long before her shift was due to start, Ochako quickly put on her apron, Himiko doing the same next to her, and they both grabbed a tablet to clock in.
They thankfully had the same start time, so they went together to find the manager on duty and figure out where they would be assigned for the day.
Yamikumo, the manager, gave them both a look up and down as they stood in front of him. “Uraraka, right?”
She nodded.
“How are you on cold bar?”
Ochako shrugged. “That’s usually where I go at night, so I’d say pretty good.”
The manager nodded and glanced at Himiko briefly. “I’ll put you both on cold bar together, then. One of you put on a headset for drive through, I don’t care who, and make sure you keep up with the car line. Send Natsuo on his break when you get over there.”
They both nodded as one and moved over to the bar, Himiko speaking quickly with the man Ochako assumed was Natsuo, taking the headset directly from him.
The cold bar was already flagged at 20 by the time they got over there but she knew it would only get worse since it was a holiday.
It was warm out and the UV index was high and as such everyone in their town seemed to want a cold drink.
Himiko, thankfully, was incredibly fast and competent at the bar as the drinks came through. She was both parsing through whatever drive through orders she heard and relaying them to Ochako while also making all of the fruit coolers so that Ochako could focus on the smoothies and blended drinks.
It was quick work prioritizing both speed and accuracy between the sheer amount of customizations that each drink got. Their peak time, at least according to corporate, was three hours long from 7 - 10 that morning. Their store was open 24/7, though, and as such it was rare for them to actually be well and truly slow. Just in order to keep up, they had to maintain 4 people on staff at all times of day not including the manager. Their peak time had nearly 10 people depending on the day of the week and even that wasn’t enough some days.
Even after peak was over and they were split up out of their flow together on cold bar, they remained near each other with Himiko remaining on the cold bar and Ochako moving over to hot bar.
Since they both got on at the same time, she also got out at the same time as Himiko. Their work only gave shifts in 8.5 hour increments to ensure that their relatively few employees would always keep the place staffed.
Taking off their aprons in the back, Ochako glanced over at her partner for the day. “It was really nice meeting you!” she expressed.
Himiko glanced up from her bag. “Yeah you too!” The girl hummed for a moment. “Do you want to grab dinner with me? I think we could both use some junk food after that demon shift.”
Ochako laughed, smile bright. “Sure!”