#rwch cafe au

[thatrosewoodwriter]

Explore A New Leaf Pt. 5

Pt. 1 || Pt. 2 || Pt. 3 || Pt. 4 || Pt. 5 

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By now, everyone expected to see the group they dubbed as Banshee daily. Usually they’d come in with their matching laptop bags, expensive keyboards, mouse's and headsets. Binah figured they were on the same team for most - if not all - of the games they played competitively. It wasn’t until they came in with their Nintendo Switch consoles that she noticed that they weren’t professionals in League of Legends.

“Hey, do your computers have HDMI ports?” Sayuri asked. Binah smiled and nodded. “Awesome, that’s all.” The group headed to their usual section and set up their consoles, pulling their headsets over their heads and keeping their faces void of emotion. Jamie eyed them from behind the counter as he stacked the mugs, cups and glasses neatly and placed the fresh goods in the window. Taking out their membership cards, they inserted them into the slot beside the monitor.

“Are you guys good to go?” Wei asked, checking the game cartridge and nodding when he saw the game he wanted already inside. The rest hummed in agreement and did the same, Rio being the only one to switch over the game cartridge. Binah quickly logged on to the computer behind the desk and brought up their screens to view them. She almost laughed when she saw Splatoon 2 on their screens as they hurriedly rushed through the news report providing information on the maps at that time and the minigames available. They all headed to the lobby and selected private battle while they waited for the remaining 4 players to join. She noted that their usernames all began with JP, signalling the country they play for. Ellie peered over her shoulder before pulling up a chair. She was not going to miss this.

The usernames of the second team - when they finally joined - all began with JP. At this, Ellie rose an eyebrow.

“Same country?” she wondered, visibly confused. “Wouldn’t they want to play someone a different country to them?”

Binah laughed, “Japanese players are commonly the best players, so they go against ‘themselves’ in a way for training. I heard they’re rival teams.”

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“Alright, waterfall,” Wei called into his headset.

“Great, I need to pee,” Raphael commented as he walked past, scooping up their used mugs and taking them to Jamie. Everyone watched from Binah’s screen as Banshee annihilated the opposing team, which they soon found out was called Leviathan. 

“Good game, guys. Leviathan, up for some snipe-offs?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Rio turned around and waved Ellie over. “Hey, can you get us a slice of the lemon cake each?” She smiled.

“I can.” Rio waited for her to turn around and get the food, but she didn’t. “But I’m not going to.”

“Ellie!” Lottie scolded, coming over with their order. “Sorry, it was a good game though!” The red-haired boy winked with a grin.

“I know, we’re awesome, huh?”

“Rio, shut up. 31,” Sayuri snapped.

“Alright...” 

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Jamie wiped down his surface and adjusted the apron around his neck before moving from out behind the counter to take the empty dishes from Banshee’s area away for washing.

“Miko, no, that’s a bad move,” Wei chided, taking her controller from her.

“Sorry I’m not a Tetris 99 champion,” she snapped, watching the pieces fly across the screen at lightning speed.

“It’s simple stuff...”

“NO IT’S NOT!”

“That’s because you play Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Club Penguin in between training sessions,” he stated, handing the controller back when the game ended. 

“You guys wanna play Fortnite with me?” Rio asked, leaning over to invade Miko’s personal space, earning a harsh smack to the forehead.

“No, I’m not 12.”

[thatrosewoodwriter]

Explore A New Leaf Pt. 1

Pt. 1 || Pt. 2 || Pt. 3 || Pt. 4 || Pt. 5

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Shambles. Jamie didn’t think there could possibly be a building quite as ruined as this one. Half the roof was caved in, the interior walls were torn to shreds, the cobwebs were insane and don’t get him started on the mould and dust.

Begrudgingly, he pulled his phone and dialled the team. “I found a place.”

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By the time the rest of them turned up, all hope had gone.

Raphael chuckled awkwardly, “When you said you’d found a place, I thought you’d found a place, if you know what I mean...” Jamie shrugged in defeat. Lottie walked through the doors, throwing a miniature fit when a cobweb touched her skin. The longer she wandered around, the more ideas sprung from her mind.

“Guys, I think we can do it,” she declared from inside. They shared confused expressions and joined Lottie inside the rundown building.

“No offence, but how?” Anastacia asked, haughtily looking at Lottie over the top of her sunglasses.

“Look, the building is massive, some of you guys have money to spend, Binah can help do financing, and we can have this building be two storeys high, a big skylight in the middle of the building with a sunken in sitting area right underneath it, and balconies can keep the second floor from blocking light onto the ground floor and they can also see the people on the ground floor, too! We could have different themed areas for different groups and have Jamie do his barista thing and we can also have a cafe service! It could work!” she rambled. Unsurprisingly, Binah found the idea endearing.

“That could definitely work! Jamie, how much is the building?” she asked. 

“Cheaper than everywhere else we looked,” he replied.

“Then it’s time to explore a new leaf!” Ellie said, draping an arm around Jamie and Lottie’s shoulders.

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By the time the building had been ready for decorating, the group was divided on how they wanted to decorate the interior. Currently, everything was white except for the wrought iron balconies on the inside of the second floor and the rainbow stained glass skylight of a leaf.

“We should have it just rustic,” Ellie suggested. “Or black, like Jamie’s soul.”

“Enough...” 

“How about we do different sections different themes?” Lola wondered.

“How are we gonna make them flow with each other then?” Micky asked.

“There’s something kind of nice about having sections be different, isn’t there? And people can pick whichever area they prefer most for their own personal comfort,” Saskia commented.

“OK, how about we do different areas different colours of the rainbow and make it like a pastel rainbow gradient on the ground floor because it will make it seem brighter when the skylight doesn’t cover the whole ground floor, and the top floor can be a darker version, since the skylight covers all of the top floor?” Ellie proposed.

“That’s a perfect idea!”

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IKEA was sick of seeing them after 3 consecutive days of seeing them. They came in three groups. First, Jamie, Ellie and Lottie came through, scoffing down all the meatballs they could, and the trolleys brought way too much joy to these teenagers and they tried every gaming chair possible at IKEA. Next it was Lola, Micky, Percy and Binah, the group who bought all the tables they possibly could in white and black for both floors. Anastacia, Saskia and Raphael went to IKEA and took some decorative things for Lottie’s macrame hobby. This continued for a week of straight buying things before they started fully decorating.

Lottie, Anastacia and Binah went to the paint shop to get all the paint with the help of Jamie and Saskia for carrying purposes. A paint war was bound to happen. Fortunately, the same group that bought the paint stopped them.

When they finished, the euphoric feeling that overwhelmed them stayed with them for a whole week. By the time they’d sorted out a menu, cafe area and every minuscule detail there was only one more thing to decide on.

“What are we gonna call our internet cafe?” Lottie wondered.

“Chip Off the Old Block?” Raphael replied, unsure of his own idea.

“No, that makes it sound like we’ve copied other cafes,” Jamie noted.

The longer people thought, the worse the ideas got. Eventually, Percy’s face lit up. He hurriedly signed to those who knew sign language. For the first time in forever, Jamie smiled at the idea.

“Percy likes the idea of something Ellie said,” Micky translated.

“And what did I say?” Ellie asked mischievously, hiding her own confusion.

“Explore A New Leaf.”

[thatrosewoodwriter]

Explore A New Leaf Pt. 3

Pt. 1 || Pt. 2 || Pt. 3 || Pt. 4 || Pt. 5

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Everyone knew Jamie and Raphael bonded over 2 things. K-pop and running. Ellie forgot about 8-year-old Jamie’s obsession with DDR until that morning when she saw him and Raphael competing against each other to Stray Kids with an array of food and water on the ground beside them. Sneakily, she took her phone out, recording the pair going all out to My Pace.

“What on Earth?” Anastacia mumbled, her heels clicking lightly on the white tile. Ellie shushed her harshly and kept her phone camera trained on their friends.

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After the DDR battle was over - finally - they could open the cafe. It seemed as if word had gotten out, as their turn-out that day was almost double what they had the day before. A thought occurred to Lola as she helped Lottie and Micky bake some cinnamon scrolls.

“We don’t have a uniform, do we?” she asked as she mixed up the cinnamon filling.

Lottie continued to kneed the dough, “No, I don’t think we do,” she replied.

“Should we?” Micky wondered, sprinkling a thin layer of flour over the bench.

Lola shrugged, moving onto a different recipe while Lottie and Mickey constructed the cinnamon scrolls. “I feel like for the waiters and waitresses we could possibly hire, our customers might confuse us with other customers.”

“Bring it up at tonight’s meeting,” Micky advised, spreading the cinnamon paste evenly. “Even if we decide we want a uniform, it’d take a while to design one.”

“I’m sure we could find someone.”

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Ellie stopped wheeling around the bottom floor when she heard obnoxiously loud engines. “We’re famous if we’ve attracted gangsters!” she called. On queue, a group of 4 walked in. For a moment, it took Ellie 20 seconds to register that the first boy was in fact not using caterpillars for eyebrows and the second was not dying, despite his deathly pale skin. The next two seemed to keep to a colour scheme of magenta and blue.

They glanced around the place, taking in the positive energy with the most emotionless expressions possible before approaching the front desk. The girl dressed in magenta slipped her helmet off, revealing red lips, flawless skin and inky black hair that fell down her shoulders gracefully. As they went through the membership sign up process, Ellie couldn’t help but visualise Jamie as part of their biker gang.

The caterpillar boy waved Ellie over, to which she glided over. “Can we grab a food menu?” he requested, winking at her. Ellie scoffed and smirked, coming over to the ordering desk and swiping one from the wooden holder and throwing it to him for him to catch. He smirked and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

“That’s not gonna work!” Jamie warned the male from his place cleaning dishes. The caterpillar boy stopped and scanned the menu, pointing to what he was going to order for the group and Ellie snatched the menu from his hands, reporting the order to Jamie.

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Small talk was made between between the group and after a few rounds of League of Legends, the staff at Explore A New Leaf had found out a lot about the group of four. Rio, Wei, Miko and Sayuri were indefinitely their loudest group yet, as well as the coolest.

“Oh, yeah! Uniforms was what we were gonna talk about wasn’t it?” Ellie exclaimed from across the room.

“Uniforms?” Miko asked, lifting one headphone off of her ear.

“Yeah, we were gonna organise some for the staff so people don’t confuse us with other customers, but we’ve got no idea how to go about that without blowing our budget on expensive clothes Ani wants us to wear,” Saskia responded, bringing their ID cards over.

“I can sketch some ideas and show them to you tomorrow,” Miko offered.

“Would you really?” Lottie wondered.

“Yeah, seems pretty simple.”

“Miko! Hurry up and join the lobby or we’ll start without you!” Rio yelled into his microphone, making Miko wince at the loud outburst.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’...”

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By closing time, all the staff were lying on the ground from exhaustion. That group of four were a handful.

“They were... an experience,” Anastacia commented.

“They were frickin’ banshees is what they were,” Ellie hissed.

[thatrosewoodwriter]

Explore A New Leaf Pt. 2

Pt. 1 || Pt. 2 || Pt. 3 || Pt. 4 || Pt. 5

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At this point in time, everyone working at Explore A New Leaf were computer geniuses after setting up all 120 computers in the building. The final part of the project? Assigning jobs...

Raphael snickered to himself, “The place looks like the set of Baby by ASTRO just came to life...”

“Raphael, get your k-pop ass outta here,” Saskia commented cheekily. “But, guys.” She turned to face the rest of her friends. “Why have we got a little area in the corner by the cafe for tabletop games?”

“We have to appeal to everyone’s preferences,” Binah replied, fixing her hair slightly. “Now, I have a list of jobs that would need doing, put your names down for them and we’ll see what happens.”

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The first customer they ever got was a group of kids around their age, clearly excited by the new surroundings. Walking to the admin desk by the far right, Binah greeted them.

“Hello! How many I help you?” she asked cheerfully, earning a smile from the red-haired boy in front.

“Can we book a session for 2 and a half hours?” he requested shyly.

“Of course! Which section would you like?” She handed him a layout of the building.

He and his friends inspected it for a moment. “Can we have 1B?”

Binah nodded, entering the reservation swiftly, “Can I have your name, please?”

“Uh, Horace Silverton-Smith.”

“Since it’s your first time here, would you like a free membership? This means that you get a discount on your sessions and the options at the cafe,” she explained gently.

Horace turned to his friends, who shrugged, but nodded. “Yes, please,” he answered. She briefly handed them a short sheet to fill out general details before directing them to their area.

“That went well,” Anastacia noted, taking the sheets to the room in the back, inputting their information and letting the machine print out their ID cards.

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When Ellie rolled over to the group playing Dungeons and Dragons with their orders, she also slid their newly made ID cards across the table.

“On your way out, they’re gonna scan your face briefly so people can’t take these and play anything as you.

“Thank you,” Horace said, taking a bite of his sandwich. Ellie smiled and gave him a high five, rolling away on her heelys.

“Today is gonna be a successful first day,” she stated as another group came in through the doors, marvelling at the decor.

[thatrosewoodwriter]

Explore A New Leaf Pt. 4

Pt. 1 || Pt. 2 || Pt. 3 || Pt. 4 || Pt. 5

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“All by MYYYYYYYYYYseeeeEEEeeelf,” Raphael belted as he sprayed a table with vinegar per Jamie’s request.

“It’s only Corona Virus...” Jamie mumbled through this mask, scrubbing his work bench that would normally be occupied by a tray of food. “It’s just us, if you want, I can play some K-Pop for you.” Never in his life had Raphael been so excited. As Jamie connected his phone to the speakers, Raphael peaked over his shoulder.

“Oh my God, you’re phone battery is 69%,” he noted, cackling at his own observations.

To take Raphael’s mind off of his phone battery, he pulled a megaphone from Ellie’s personal storage. “WIPE, WIPE, WIPE WITH THAT VINEGAR!” he demanded. “Whoever cleans slower than the other has to wear makeup,” he challenged with a playful smirk; a rare occurrence. Swiping another cloth from behind the counter, Jamie and Raphael pushed through the arm cramps. There were high stakes and they were going into battle. When District 9 reached Jamie’s eardrums, he smiled on the inside, cleaning to the beat of the song. While carefully yet thoroughly cleaning the keyboards and computers, he glanced at the dirtiest area in the cafe. “Dirty. Clean that shit.”

“Clean your own,” Raphael retorted.

“You have 3 seconds to-”

“ON IT, BOSS!”

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“I literally dried this surface 10 minutes ago, what’s happening?” Raphael wondered, irritably whipping the cloth from his pocket out and drying the surface once more. He growled at the sight of a trail of clear liquid all along the floor. As he wiped up the substance with a mop, he bumped into Jamie’s back. “Oi-” He stopped and peered over his shoulder. The phone screen was covered in the mystery liquid. “Are you crying?”

Jamie turned around and showed him a photo of Woojin on his phone. “He’s gone...” At his heartbroken tone, Raphael felt the tears come as well.

“Dude... I cleaned the place twice for you...”

“You did?”

“Yeah, man...” In his moment of emotional vulnerability, Jamie ignored the social distancing rule to give Raphael a gentle hug, hiding his face in Raphael’s shoulder. The moment View by SHINee began, both boys tightened their grip and fell to the floor in a fit of tears.

“ARE YOU GUYS CRYING?” Lottie exclaimed, rushing over to the boys.

“Woojin is gone...” Lottie’s face contorted into sadness. “And Jonghyun is gone!” Jamie wailed, clinging to her torso. This was not Jamie-like behaviour, and at first, everyone who had just come in thought he was possessed, but nonetheless, took advantage of his emotional state.

The next 10 minutes consisted of Raphael and Jamie crying, Jamie hugging everyone, Lottie crying because Jamie is crying, Ellie crying because Lottie’s crying over Jamie crying, Saskia was initially crying of laughter but the reality of the situation dawned on her later, Binah was crying because for once, she had no idea what was going on, Lola and Micky are crying because they miss the full Girls’ Generation group, and Anastacia is crying because she’s disappointed her friends - except Lola and Micky - are crying over BOY BANDS and not the fact that Blackpink haven’t gotten their comeback yet.

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Jamie grabbed the mop off the ground, spraying it with more vinegar. “I’m sorry for my emotional moment, I-”

“BRIKTAH!” He paused at Ellie’s outburst and rolled his eyes when he felt her arms wrap around his waist. Snaking his arms around her thin frame, he leaned his chin on her shoulder, wiping the floor behind Ellie while in her grasp. “This virus is affecting everyone and it’s fine to be emotional. You can keep crying like a bitch if you need to.”

“OK,” Jamie responded in an annoyed fashion, clearly over the vulnerability. He turned to do the work he was meant to. “But thanks... I love you guys...” he mumbled.

Everyone froze with their mouth agape. “WE LOVE YOU, TOO!”