#tscosimb2021

[unless-otherwise-stated]

TSCOSI Mini-Bang Fic 3 Release

A Perfectly Normal Totally Typical Cafe

The Rumor Cafe is opening on Milky Way and the crew was not prepared. As they struggle with maintaining and running the cafe due to their unexpected influx of customers, they look to hire. Enter Violet Liu, she needs a job so she goes in for an interview with her extensive resume. Violet gets hired and starts working at The Rumor, but she soon finds that The Rumor and its staff may be hiding more than meets the eye.

@tscosi-minibang

Written by:

Rayan - @unless-otherwise-stated

Beta read by:

Vi - @starshipviolet

Hec - @drumkonwords

Coming to AO3 soon!

Read Chapter One below the cut.

Chapter One

The Rumor Cafe had been open for an hour and the coffee machine was on fire. Krejjh was still serving coffee, the line in front of the counter stretched across the crowded store and out it. They juggled coffee cups between their four hands filling up cups and shuffling the order papers. Brian is huddled in the corner by the order receivers and trying to write down as many orders as he can. And though Brian is a linguist, studying languages isn’t going to do you much when fifty different people are telling you their orders, about five of which may have asked you a question. At this point, he was writing down as much as he could make out before frantically moving the order papers to the basket by Krejjh.

As soon as Krejjh had finished an order they would speedwalk over to the pickup counter and leave them for Arkady or Sana to deliver them to the customer. Sana was currently in a seemingly one-sided argument with a customer that kept insisting that “if this is a coffee shop why isn’t there a bowling alley?”

“Sir, I apologize for any disappointment, but we don’t have a bowling al—” Sana tried to reason with him, but he interrupted her.

“Okay, okay. Maybe the bowling alley was a stretch, but you at least have a giant python that grew legs giving out tango lessons.”

Sana was prepared to commit many crimes.

Arkady was left to wait the tables by herself, she would sprint to the counter, balancing as many drinks as she could safely carry on her tray and a few more. She would then blindly sprint out into the customer crowd shuffling the order papers, trying to figure out which drink goes where while dodging the mildly annoyed and confused customers.

All in all, despite their short-handedness and heightened probability of many accidents (and crimes), they were managing the flow of customers. That is, until the staff of the other coffee shop across the street, If Gnomes Ran, decided to pop in and check out the new (temporary) competition.

If Gnomes Ran was your classic ‘Large Corporation-Run “Local’’ Coffee Shop’. They worked under In Good Running (IGR for short), which also owned I Give Rup, I Gave Ryouallmymoneywhatelsedoyouwant, and I Got Radishes, a grocery store, clothing store and pharmaceutical respectively. The most important thing to know about them is that if you see them do anything morally wrong or illegal, no you didn’t.

It was in this rush that the employees of If Gnomes Ran entered the coffee store, skipping everyone else who was waiting in line to enter and orderly shuffling in through the door. Worker McCabe was left to hold the door open for all of them. What the staff of If Gnomes Ran didn’t see while scouting out the shop was Arkady sprinting right towards them carrying her tray filled to the brim with drinks and pastries. In fact, neither Arkady nor any of the recent visitors saw each other. And so, as Arkady was attempting to find table five she instead ran right into the entire group of visiting foreign employees.

The entire shop turned silent and turned to look at the group of sharply dressed If Gnomes Ran employees soaked and covered in many different kinds of coffee and pastries. A few of the customers didn’t notice and continued chatting for a few seconds before noticing the sudden silence and becoming quiet themselves.

The crackling of the coffee machine fire stood out against the shocked silence and it was only then that Brian realized that the coffee machine was on fire. He bolted over to Krejjh and motioned wildly at the coffee machine, completely silent as to not disturb whatever was currently happening. Krejjh was still frantically completing orders as Brian rushed over to the nearby fire extinguisher and put out the fire. There may have been a bit of foam in the orders Krejjh was making at the time.

Arkady looked up from the order papers she was still holding and stared blankly at the steadily glaring group of soaked If Gnomes Ran staff. Sana rushed over, steadily apologizing and rushing to hand them all towels, but the collective group simply turned and walked right back out of the door.

The coffee shop was silent and the closing door rang the bell and knocked slightly against its frame. Sana and Arkady were still stood right where they were as Krejjh continued pumping out orders and Brian tried to access the damage caused by the fire. Many of the customers were shuffling around silently trying to leave as to not get caught up in any issues with In Good Standing. One of the customers stubbornly waiting for their order coughed slightly, while not a loud cough by any means it stood out against the silence.

The cough seemed to bring Arkady back to the situation and she hurried over to the fallen mugs and pastries and began to clean up. Sana rested the towels she intended to give to the If Gnomes Ran staff on a nearby counter and knelt down beside Arkady to help. This broke the silence in the coffee shop and the chatter rose up from the customers once again. Brian abandoned his station taking orders to quickly deliver the orders steadily piling up on the counter. Krejjh had run out of space and was now attempting to precariously balance orders on top of each other.

The crew served the considerably reduced amount of customers left after the incident before beginning to close the shop early. Arkady and Sana returned the extra chairs and tables they’d brought out and straightened out the original tables and chairs. Brian and Krejjh were cleaning up the counters and general area around the coffee machines while discussing the dangers of fire and physics. After they’d restored The Rumor to its original, clean and orderly, state, they all sat around in the staff breakroom to discuss today’s events.

“So…” Sana began sitting at the head of the table, “That didn’t go as…planned, I suppose… but this is only the first day, and it was clearly an accident. The most we can do at this point is attempt to make amends with If Gnomes Ran and just continue with our plan.”

“This isn’t just any business we’re talking about here, Boss,” Arkady states simply from the other side of the rectangular table. “This is the IGR, everyone knows what they’re capable of.” The group sat silent around the table contemplating the possible repercussions from today’s incident, the only sound being the soft sounds of commotion from outside leaking in through the window.

“There’s nothing we can do about that. All we can hope is that whatever the IGR decides to do, it won’t interfere with our primary mission.” Sana says steadily, looking everyone in the eyes. “But something I think we can all agree on, if we’re going to continue this we’re going to need a few extra hands.”

“Not unless the IGR shuts us down,” Arkady mumbles under her breath.

“We could always put out a sign in the window and a few other flyers and ads, we just need to make sure we don’t…attract the wrong people,” Brian suggests.

“I could make the flyer!” Krejjh says enthusiastically, raising two of their hands.

“Arkady brings up a point,” Sana declares with a slight tone of finalization, “if business continues at these levels we’ll put out an ad for employment and we’ll see who applies.” She smiles at everyone and stands up from her chair, “until then, we’ll see how it goes.”

Everyone else follows suit and stands up from their chairs shuffling around and gathering their belongings preparing to head home. Arkady lingers by the table.

Brian waits by the door, arms covered in coats, sweaters and handbags. After a minute Krejjh walks up to him and takes their stuff from him.

“Bye!” They say as they follow Brian out the door. Brian manages to empty one of his hands and waves goodbye.

Arkady turns to Sana and asks, “do you need me to close up the shop?”

“Oh, no, you go ahead, I’ll close up myself,” Sana smiles. Arkady lingers for a second more before hesitantly leaving. Sana walks around turning off all the lights and watching the beams of noon sunlight sneak through the cracks in the window blinds. Although it had been a short one, it had been quite a day. She walked out the door and locked it behind her, strolling into the lunch crowd, and mentally preparing for a nap and an important phone call that she’d been expecting.

The next day a sign was put up in the window of The Rumor. Written in large, flowing letters in shiny dark purple ink, it sat in the window declaring to the street: NOW HIRING :), and below the main text in smaller printed letters in dark blue ink it added: apply at therumor.com/hiring. Many other signs and flyers were seen around the street and a few were spotted in further places in the city. It would be much harder for the If Gnomes Ran employees to ignore them than to acknowledge them. And so they did acknowledge them officially, in their company required daily logs.

More To Come Soon!

[bluereadingdolphin]

Here’s the art I did for @drumkonwords’ fic for the @tscosi-minibang!! You can read the fic here: https://href.li/?https://archiveofourown.org/works/31292648/chapters/77362745

[ID: A digital drawing of two people inside a storage cloest. On the left, Sana is hunched over and holding her hands to her stomach. There’s blood on her shirt and she looks in pain. On the right, Violet is leaning against the wall and looking stressed End ID]