August 2022 Side Story: Roasted

A/N: Hi everyone! This side story was a whirlwind to do. Next month, I'm going to hold the vote earlier to give myself a bit more time with the prompt. I got it done on time, but cut it way closer than I would have liked. That said, I'm pretty happy how this one turned out and I hope you enjoy it!

The bell above the door chimed as I walked into the Righteous Bean. Walked? Dashed, more like it. Seyari had skipped class again today, and Professor Travend had assigned the term project. She hadn’t replied to any of my texts, and her phone had gone straight to voicemail.

The second part wasn’t surprising, but the first was certainly unusual. It typically meant one thing: her boss had called her in for extra hours. Mr. Mordwell was the owner of the Righteous Bean, but he didn’t always act very righteous. Seyari wasn’t supposed to be on-call on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, and it was currently Monday afternoon. Jerk.

My hunch was correct, and I saw a seething Seyari currently topping off some sugary monstrosity for a girl I’d maybe seen around campus. Ardath University (or AU for short) was a pretty small school, despite the variety it offered, and the Bean was the only non-chain coffee place close to campus, so even on a Monday, the place was busy.

The cat-eared-hoodie-wearing girl had her name called out, T-something? and she walked briskly past me then out the door, the odor of cream and sugar following her like a wave. I walked past the line toward Seyari, earning a few angry glares. I glared right back.

I was taller than most guys, and the fact I kept myself in better than good shape (I did track & field), gave me a bit of “get out of my way” power. I was just happy HRT had been kind to me, despite a late start. Crowd successfully cowed; I strode away from the order counter to the pickup counter.

Sey noticed me, got an order started, and dashed over. “What’d I miss?” Her gold (Seyari always wore colored contacts) eyes looked tired and angry. Mostly angry. I was surprised she didn’t scare the customers away, but I guess the coffee here was really that good. Or a force of habit. Maybe both?

I took one strap of my backpack off my shoulder. The little wrath demon acrylic I had attached to it pinged against the countertop when I flipped the bag around to open the zipper.

“Professor Travend assigned the term project,” I said, reaching in and pulling out a spiral notebook and the handout for the project. “You and me are partnered with Aretan—you might remember him from Physics 302 lab—and here are my notes.”

“Great, thanks!” Seyari took the spiral notebook with the handout inside. “Be right there!” she called to the next customer. “My shift’s done in hour, okay Renna? We can talk then.”

“Sure thing, Sey!” I beamed.

Seyari rushed off to finish the drink she’d put on hold and to take the next order. The only other person I saw working today was Sonia, and the boisterous girl was in over her head at her own station. Mordwell really needed to hire more, but then he’d have to pay out more. And there was always a supply of college kids who needed the cash, whatever the hours and benefits.

I walked back and took joined the end of the line. There were easily twenty people in front of me, so I got my Swap out of my bag to play some Celesternal VI. I paused to think about shooting Aretan a text before I remembered that I didn’t have his new number. Something about getting his phone number updated. He was an exchange student, and his old carrier had been wringing him dry for long-distance charges. I was supposed to get his number after class, but I ran off to find Seyari. He should still have my number if he wanted to get in touch, and I’d see him on Wednesday, worst-case scenario.

I flicked the Swap on and resumed my game. I’d picked Angels for this playthrough, at Seyari’s request. She said their story was really good, and “edgy enough for me.” Just because I always pick Demons, doesn’t mean I do it to be edgy, Sey.

I liked the designs of the Demons, honest! Horns and fangs and stuff were cool, and there was always a really fun and difficult redemption path to follow. Right now, I was just training up some new units in the Firmament. The newer Celesternal games were kinder (even with unit permadeath on) because you could repeat battles for EXP and items in a special zone called the Firmament. Characters you missed stayed missed, however.

Seyari and I had actually met last year because both of us had Celesternal acrylics on our bags. She had an inferior Archangel of Fury to my Archdemon of Wrath, but I somehow still fell in love with her. Then the sixth game dropped last month and now I fear she might be converting me.

Devious.

In my defense, I’d gotten her to try Demons. She’d surprised me so far by going down a really vicious story path for them. Something about “being evil if you’re going to be evil.” Hmmph. I was going to stay the course on my forgiving Angels playthrough. Maybe.

Eventually the line shortened, and I put away my Swap. Seyari was busy with a customer who wanted so many substitutions they might as well have been ordering a different drink. They were short and unusually tan, with a mop of dark curly hair and an excitement that had manifested in the ability to project their order into everyone’s mind through volume alone.

The amount of sugar in what they ordered explained a lot of things. If that girl with the cat-eared hoodie from earlier ordered something overly sugary, this person had just ordered liquid candy. Seyari took their name down as Nelys and they bounced off to the waiting area for to-go orders.

The dark-haired and dark-eyed employee in front of me, Sonia, coughed.

I blushed in embarrassment for spacing out with so many people in line behind me. “Oh, sorry! I’ll have a cappuccino—just a normal one—eight-ounce.”

“Gotcha!” Sonia chirped. “Oh, I recognized the music and your acrylic: Demons best faction.”

I giggled and nodded.

Sonia smiled, but waved me along. I walked away to go try to find an empty seat. I didn’t know Sonia played the series! Maybe she was new.

“Respectfully, Sonia, I disagree,” Seyari said in the middle of taking another order and in a tone that was clearly not respectful.

“Aren’t you behind on three orders?” Sonia replied, her cheer gaining a wicked edge.

Seyari didn’t reply, but I could feel her grumbling. Someone was going to get a coffee slightly darker than what they’d ordered.

***

My drink was fine enough. I wasn’t big on coffee (I like tea, okay!), but I had to admit they made it well here. Or had good ingredients—I didn’t know enough to know. I drifted around the Righteous Bean until Seyari got off from her shift.

She plopped down next to me with a very large cup of what I desperately hoped wasn’t straight espresso. “Fuck meeee.”

“Later, okay?” I flashed her a smile.

Seyari almost choked on her drink. “Horny much?”

I shrugged. “A bit. You know my roommate is out for the semester, so my place is always open.”

“Yeah, I know. But Mordwell’s been working me right up to the edge of ‘part-time’, and now Lorelei’s out sick.” Seyari put a hand up to her forehead. “I don’t even know how getting ‘overtime’ when you’re part time makes any sense at all!”

“Shoot.” I sighed. “That sucks. Do you know when she’ll be back?”

Seyari shook her head. “Not soon. Markus just came in for his shift and delivered her doctor’s note. I don’t know what it is, but he seemed kinda worried.”

“I hope she’s okay.” I looked down into my empty mug.

“Me too. She might have a stick up her ass, but Lorelei works hard.” Seyari took a gulp of caffeine juice. Dhias please let that just be really black coffee with an unusual amount of foam. “This term project looks like a ton of work. I really didn’t expect there to be a group paper and presentation for an atomic physics course.”

“It is a grad/undergrad course.” I looked over my own copy of the syllabus. “And there’s only one test all semester—besides the final.”

“Aren’t the papers usually only for the grad students though?”

“Depends on the professor, I guess.”

“Why’d I let you talk me into taking this course!” Seyari grumbled.

“You were the one who brought it up to me because we both needed the elective,” I chided.

Seyari took another gulp of hopefully-normal coffee and grimaced. “Yeah, fine, whatever. We should pick a topic. Do you have this Aretan guy’s contact info?”

I checked my phone for texts—I had none—and shook my head. “No, but he has mine. Anyway, he said he’s fine with anything as long as it’s mainly about electrons.”

Seyari pulled out her laptop; a sleek light gray model with an orange missing a single slice that lit up when she opened the lid. “Did you bring your laptop?”

“That old behemoth? No way.” I stuck out my tongue.

“Why do you even have it, if you can’t bring it places.” Seyari tossed up a hand, then pointed it at me. “And it’s not like it’d be too heavy for you miss track star.”

I pouted. “You know I usually place outside the top three at meets, in all my events.”

“’All my events’ says enough,” Seyari huffed, her fingers moving across the modern keyboard in silent strokes.

“Fine,” I reluctantly agreed. “Yeah, I should probably get something practical to carry around, but a mechanical pencil and paper work for taking notes, and my giant laptop can play games.”

“Do you play games on it?”

“…no.”

“I win, then.” Seyari smiled over the rim of her computer.

I glanced again at her cup. “Are you drinking straight espresso? You’re unusually hyper.”

“Nope!” Seyari lied. “Anyway, I think we could probably do something good on radiative decay. We can talk about its applications and use history.”

“I know you found that on the first paper—”

“Third paper.”

“—third paper, but I think that’s a great idea.” I smiled. “See, I was agreeing with you.”

Seyari took another long drag of definitely espresso. “Yeah, sure. When’s this thing due?”

“End of the semester for the paper—the presentations are the last two weeks,” I replied with a shrug.

“It’s only the second week of class right now.” Seyari tapped a finger to her chin. “Want to call it for the day?”

“My place?” I raised an eyebrow, and my heart rate picked up.

“Yeah, your place,” Seyari replied, closing her computer. “I copied a few links we can use to get started. Do you have Aretan’s email?”

I shook my head.

“Well then, we really can’t do any more today then, can we?”

I put my hands up defensively. “Hey, I wasn’t suggesting we work all day today. We should just get a good start in so we’re not swamped when we need to study for exams.”

***

One Week Before Presentation Date

“Lorelei’s out sick again?” I said hurriedly into my phone, dread creeping into my voice.

“Yeah,” Seyari’s voice came back through the line. “She’s in the hospital, and I have double shifts all week.”

“Crap,” I replied elegantly. “Crapcrapcrap. Will you have any time to work on the project this week? We’ve all only met twice and all we have are sources and an outline!”

“Yeah, I know that! But I can’t—shoot I gotta go help Salvador, a big group just came in off the last bus.”

Beep.

I stared at my phone for a moment. This was bad. We wanted to get started last week, but I’d been out for a track meet (I did my usual great but not excellent—I had long legs but was a little heavy for distance running). The week before that, Aretan had been doing something with his debate club.

We still had a whole week left and no exams, aside from one quiz Seyari had in a class we didn’t share. But we’d have to write most of the paper this week, too. My last meet was the next week, and then we’d need to study for exams. There’d be time, but not a lot of it.

And we basically had to have most of it done before the presentation. Professor Travend had said he wanted both parts of the project to match and we’d lose a lot of points if they didn’t.

I fired off a text to Aretan updating him and jogged over to the Bean. There was a work van that said “Ned & Jacob’s Roofing” that blocked most of my view until I got close.

The Righteous Bean was packed—more so than usual. Wait, we were hosting the regional meet next week… Oh no! There’d be even more people—friends and family and such—in town shortly, if not already.

I walked in at a brisk pace, careful to stay away from the intense-looking line. I glanced over everyone and saw Seyari working with Salvador and… Mr. Mordwell!?

If he was in and working the counter, things were bad.

Seyari caught my eye, but didn’t have time to do more than nod at me. I got in line and waited, grinding more in Celesternal VI to try to distract and/or calm myself. It… kinda worked?

Once I got to the front of the line and in front of Seyari, I made my decision. “Hey, can you ask Mr. Mordwell if I could work this week to help out? He can pay me under the table or something.”

Seyari waved at her boss.

“What?” Mr. Mordwell snapped.

“Can my friend Renna work this week to help out?” Seyari pointed at me, then took the order from the person behind me. I stepped to one side, toward Mr. Mordwell.

“She your friend from AU?” Mr. Mordwell excused himself to a customer and walked over to look up at me. “Do you have any experience, miss…?”

“Renna,” I answered, “And I spent two summers working at a chain coffee place during high school.”

Mordwell looked at the line, then back to me. “Good enough. Pay’s—” Seyari shouted an order name, but I caught what the old man had said and it was fine enough. “—and Salvador will train you. You’ll be on call this week, but expect to work mornings and afternoons.”

“Understood, sir.” I nodded.

“Good, now get back here and get a uniform. Salvador!” Mr. Mordwell turned to the dark-haired, quiet young man.

“I’ll get right on it, sir,” Salvador said quietly enough that I could barely hear him over the din of the busy coffee shop.

I slipped behind the counter, got an apron, washed up, put my hair into a ponytail, and soon Salvador was training me. Some drinks I’d have to get the other person working to make until I could get more training, but by the end of the rush, I was slinging caffeinated goodness out like it was high school again.

At the end of my shift, I updated Aretan to let him know what was going on. He agreed to stop by around when our shifts ended so we could work on the project. The Bean had a couple semi-private booths with outlets and plenty of space for computers and papers. We’d use one of those, or, failing that, take the short walk up the hill to my apartment.

***

“Victor and…” I struggled to read Seyari’s scrawl on the second cup. “…Astro-dach?”

Two guys, one tall and imposing, and the other thin and hidden in robes despite the fact it was spring wove through the crowd to pick up their drinks.

“Astrodach, really?” the larger of the two, Victor I presumed, said, taking his caramel latte.

“I’m not giving them my mortal name!” the smaller guy in robes hissed back. He took his cup of black coffee and looked up at me. “T-thanks.”

The two quickly walked off, but I caught Victor’s loud voice trailing off. “You know LARP’s not until…”

“Lilly and Meri?” Seyari shouted the next order and took my place as I left.

A well-dressed woman with conventionally attractive features tailed by her grumpy-looking teenage daughter came and picked up their order. “Izzy said this place would be packed, but it’s really—” The woman was cut off by a hiss of steam from one of the machines.

Izzy? Wasn’t Professor Travend’s first name Isidore? …Nah, couldn’t be.

The crowd started to thin out soon after, and our shifts ended, predictably, right after the rush. I’d had to skip both of my classes today, which I always hated doing. I guess skip was a strong word: I told the professors I’d have to miss them and the next lecture ahead of time, so I got some of the materials to study when I was off work. Not that I’d have all that much time to look them over, but it made me feel better.

Today was my second day working at the Righteous Bean, and I was already tired. I’d need the weekend to recharge ahead of the track meet, which I wasn’t sure I’d get. Ugh. At least we got one of the Bean’s study booths to work at today.

“Not a bad shift.” Seyari plopped down on the bench next to me and set her coffee down on the table—a normal coffee this time. Black, of course, but I made it so I knew it wouldn’t give her an arrythmia or something.

“What about that Malich guy?” I complained. “Dude acted like an entitled brat.”

Seyari sipped her drink eagerly. “You worked in a coffee shop. You know the rich assholes who always manage to have something wrong about their order.”

“Yeah, but that guy was something else.” I sipped my own coffee—one with plenty of cream in it.

Seyari shrugged. “Assholes will be assholes. Anyway, you ready to work?”

“Yeah. Aretan texted that he was running late, but he’ll be here any—”

“Zarenna, Seyari!” Aretan himself interrupted me, jogging over to our table. “Apologies for being late. I had to return something to the historical martial arts club room.”

“Don’t tell me you accidentally took a sword home?” I scooted over to let him sit down.

“Oh no, nothing like that! I forgot I was still wearing my baldric after practice in the morning.” Aretan sat next to me and pulled out his own sleek notebook PC.

“What’s a baldric?” I asked. I pulled my fat laptop out of my backpack that had strained to even fit the thing’s bulk, and hefted it up onto the table.

“A belt that goes over the shoulder and holds a scabbard,” Aretan replied. “Did you finish that figure?” he asked me, then turned to Seyari, “my table should be done and we can integrate it into your section.”

“I did,” I answered, letting Aretan scoot his laptop around so Seyari could see. “Do you want anything? I get an employee discount.”

“I should not have anything, but…” Aretan looked over at the menu. “I’ll have a latte. Nothing fancy.”

“Gotcha!” I replied cheerily. “Coming right up!” I hit the button to wake my computer out of sleep mode and Aretan let me slide out so I could dash over to make the drink.

When I returned, my two partners had updated the presentation in our online folder. I helped work my piece in and we spent the rest of the afternoon polishing the sections we had finished and working to bulk out our report outline which was quickly turning into a first draft.

While we worked, I saw another group from Professor Travend’s class come in. Torrez, a big guy who’d come back to finish his degree after serving in the military, led the other two: Elnie and Aarsh. I liked Aarsh: a cheeky irreverent guy with a thing for catboys (I think he played one in some MMO I couldn’t remember the name of). Elnie, however, had some sort of problem with me. She came from a rich background, and had some sort of bad history with Seyari that I guess got transferred over to me.

I waved at them. Torrez nodded, Elnie looked away, and Aarsh waved back. They settled into the booth opposite us. Their project was something about crystal structure: I heard lattice, basis, and moron (from Elnie) tossed around a lot.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and deep into the evening working, talking, and consuming more caffeine and sugar than any young adult ever should.

The rest of the week came and went in similar fashion. Friday rolled around, and Seyari and I were both awake and alive enough to be reasonably certain of the date, though not much else. Our presentation was to be the following Monday, and the weekend would be spent polishing everything with one meeting to practice. Of course, our report was still a disorganized mess, but the content was solid. Probably.

If I never heard of energy states again, I would be happy.

“Ruston!” I called out my last order for the shift.

“Elena!” Seyari called out hers next to me.

A red-haired guy whose look screamed “AU freshman” walked up and took his drink from where I’d set it. He gave a nice smile, and I didn’t have the energy or the heart to tell him that my face would appreciate the gesture more than my boobs.

Seyari’s last drink was picked up by a woman whom I could vaguely remember seeing around the art department. A professor, maybe? Her dress was gorgeous; a conservative cut with daring colors and pattern.

We ended our shift, got out of uniform, and slumped into two of the only four free seats: hard, wooden stools at the long bar that hugged the side wall. I nursed some kind of drink. I wasn’t really too sure what I’d made, but there was coffee in it and that was all that mattered. I really did like black tea more, but Mr. Mordwell had yet to be convinced to add even a chai tea option to the menu. Coffee purist.

Beside me, Seyari took out her computer, then used it like a pillow. A cup of borderline-dangerous concentrated something steamed and burbled next to her.

Aretan found us at some point. He was sympathetic to our plight, and had brought a forbidden treat: outside food. Shawarma; warm and probably from the awesome place down the street that always managed to scrape a pass out of the health inspectors.

I would have worried about getting in trouble for bringing food into the Bean, except the remaining working parts of my mind were focusing on getting the nice warm meal down the right meat tube.

“I’ve put together what you both uploaded last night and I think we might actually be done!” Aretan opened his laptop next to me.

I squinted at it. Bright colors. Neat.

I finished my food, and the drink. Seyari drank her terrifying dark brown sludge and sidled up next to me.

While the food coma and caffeine buzz warred inside me, I remained lucid long enough to confirm with the others that, yes, we had a finished presentation. We had a few small things to do, but they, mostly by Aretan’s working hands, were finished.

There were some typos, and Seyari had a bad habit of adding periods to the end of her slide points (some of which still hung around the project like gnats), but it was done. Only a few hours of editing and practice and we could present on Monday.

Relief.

Shortly after we ran through all the content, the caffeine buzz started to lose out to the food coma. Seyari, having apparently taken enough of the “awake juice” to loop back around until it became the “asleep juice,” started snoozing against me.

I thanked Aretan profusely for all his help, and he excused himself while I dragged my girlfriend out of the Righteous Bean, up the hill, into my apartment, and onto the couch.

I was tempted to let her sleep on Abby’s bed, but that’d be really rude to do when my roommate wasn’t expected to be back for three months. Besides, Seyari looked a little green. I stayed with her until sleep took me as well: right there on the couch, leaning against one other.

***

My mind (and my spine from sleeping bent like I had) took most of the weekend to recover. I placed… averagely in the track meet—a bit below my usual standard, but not entirely terrible. We had our presentation on Monday, and we did well.

The next week Lorelei was healthy and working again. I quit the Bean on good terms, and we had enough time to really get our report together and professional (-ish) looking. By this point in time, the Righteous Bean had become our hangout. Somehow, the place hadn’t been soured by the last week’s madness. If anything, it was more appealing than ever to actually be able to go there and relax.

I had a summer class taught by Professor Travend with Seyari again the coming summer; my only class, actually. I hoped it’d be less hectic than this past semester at AU was.