Chapter Text
July 3, 20XX
Monday 8:50
Chris begins her daily internal questioning in the coffee shop on how on earth did the ‘adult’ close to the door live to adulthood without dying.
Honestly, who is the adult here?
The female at the door is the owner of the coffee shop ‘Bland Blend’, and now she is making her way into the store while carrying glassware that will be used in the shop as they are about to start. The owner, Kim, has a lean body that is taller than average, black hair with strips of white and blue highlight, and a pair of sunglasses that never comes off. She gives off that impression of a nice person and distances herself from people, but never to a point that makes you think that she has social anxiety. Overall Kim feels like a cold stream of running lake you feel where you hand out during summer to kill the heat, nothing too troubling because of the weather, but Chris wonders what it will be like if it was winter instead.
‘Carrying 4 boxes of plates and cups is a bad idea.’ Chris thought to herself, looking at the person making her way across the store desperately in a weird balance, and decide to put down the phone and the LinkScreen in her hand. “Um, do you want help?” Chris said, making her way to Kim and reaching her hand out to be ready when things fall.
“No, I am doing fine, isn’t scrolling on your phone and screen more important, keep working on that.” said Kim, still in that awkward position. Chris looks at Kim, trying to see where she could take off some weight without breaking the entire balance, but she is unsuccessful with that.
“It’s my first summer after going to SolarEclipse, I finally have people to contact on LinkNet…” Chris said, awkwardly.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t, I remember how crazy it is to first go to the magic school. I’m saying just not be on it all the time. And how old are you, 13?”
“14”
“It’s the same thing, and remember that this is a non-magical zone, we are 10 minutes till the open time, people are going to start walking in soon.”
“Who came in right when we open? First of all, we are not that popular. Second of all, you never followed the open time you wrote on the door, we are supposed to be closed today, but here we are. Finally, remember the ‘incident’ from last week? I think most people, at least in this town, know something supernatural is going on there.”
“Thank you for the remainder of last week, I do not need to remember it, and honestly, do you really believe people in this town don’t know something fishy is going on, they are not blind. But too many weird things had happened to this point, and they were already used to it. Give it two weeks and they will find more interesting things to focus on…HEY WATCH OUT!” unsurprisingly Kim trip over something, and the whole pile of things starts falling forwards. Chris freezes, her wine-coloured eyes widening as she watches the things falling becoming bigger in her eyes. Kim flashes past the things and body shields Chris, but the pile, instead of falling towards both of them stops midair and begins to collect itself and float towards the storage room.
“That’s some terrible reaction time.” Says Kim, with a hint of a smirk, and Chris explodes.
“How old are you? Do you never get tired?” Chris says, still breathing heavily from the shock. Chris can be certain there is a moment of Kim actually being concerned, but everything else is unreadable and the bit of concern disappears just as fast as it appeared. Chris sighs and looks over to the storage door that just closed after all the glassware put itself into the shelves.
“I never get tired, I tried to scare you every day and you keep falling for it” Kim looks amused, “And honestly, the opinion of the people in this town doesn’t really matter. I know most of them already, and most of them will probably be chill. I’m more worried about the tourist that is coming in increased number, some of them are, quite rude.” Kim signs.
“Go to the workstation, people are about to show up.” Kim walks toward the door, pushes the half-opened door open and puts a door stop over. She turns over and grabs the blackboard that wrote today’s special and puts it beside the door. In a distance, a young man not more than 15 runs towards the shop waving merrily.
“Good morning, Ms. Grayson!” the boy stops in front of Kim and smiles at her.
“Good morning, Reid. We are just about to open, come on in.” Kim steps aside and makes out a path for Reid to enter the shop. They walk towards the counter where Chris is standing.
“Morning! Reid, you catch us when we are just opened. The chocolate croissant, like usual?” Chris smiles as she saw Reid.
“Yes, please. Is that new pink highlights? Looks great with your white hair!” Reid says taking out some change for the croissant.
“It is new, Kim help me with it yesterday evening, we got into a huge debate on colour, but works out in the end. No drink? It’s a free small drink for students as long as they get sweet along with it, what about some tea or milk if you don’t want coffee?” Chris’ smile brightens as she tugs her bangs with highlights behind her ear. Reid is warm and bright as usual, like the morning sun of the northern hemisphere, bright but not blazing.
“No, just the croissant, I got water with me.” Replies Reid.
“Okay! Here’s your croissant, watch out the chocolate inside is kinda hot.” Says Chris, and Reid took the bag with the croissant. The two chat a bit more, catching up with what happened during the weekends, and for a few moments, Kim watches them in silence. This peace is quickly disturbed by the other customers walking in, Kim turns over to look at the people walking in and walks towards the workstation as well.
“Okay, I’ll wander over to the seat over there so you can do your job! It’s good talking to you, let’s hang out more later.” Reid says and starts to walk towards a seat at the corner of the room.
“Okay, talk to you later!” Chris says, waving a bit, and Kim smiles to herself. Kim peaks at the entrance and see no one other than the old lady that just walked in, and drops her smile. Chris hands the order paper to Kim, turn over to the counter, peaks back again, and quickly turns her attention back to the counter.
Once people begin coming in more, Chris is busy with the order while Kim is making them, there are not many people that came to the coffee shop given that this is a small town. After the initial rush had died down, and most customers had left with their food, given that there isn’t much room in the store, it is a better option to walk to the beach that’s just 200 meters outside.
“Hey, I think I’ll be good for now, why don’t you go take a seat and rest for a bit.” Said Kim as she finished pouring water into a mug and handed it to Chris.
“I’m not tired yet, I barely do much,” Chris says looking at the cup of water in Kim’s hand. Chris hesitates, look into Kim’s eyes, and took the cup. Kim smiles and walks to the counter. Chris looks at her cup of warm water with a tea bag in it, and she walks out of the workstation. She looks around and sees Reid smiling and waving at her, and she walks over and took a seat at the table next to his. Once Chris sat down, she saw Reid continue reading his book, and Chris look at the mug in her hand. The tea bag had begun to paint the water green, but not completed yet. Chris thought that maybe she should have grabbed a spoon or something to stir, but she doesn’t want to stand up again, so she drinks the tea anyway.
People that normally came are mostly familiar faces, with one or two exceptions being tourists that are passing by. However, due to ‘the shining incident’ from not more than a week ago, more unfamiliar faces had been showing up. Not that having more customers is a bad thing in Chris’ mind, it’s just that the atmosphere is slightly off, and given credit, Chris is really good at reading this kind of detail because of her unique abilities. She is able to read the emotions radiating from people, making her good and understanding people, but there are limits to her ability.
‘But something is off’ Chris thought, she could feel the slight change of atmosphere in the room but cannot locate the exact source that is contributing to the problem. Reid is still bright and warm as always, like the sunshine of a relaxing afternoon, comforting and not too blazing. ‘So, the only option left is…….’ Chris looks over to Kim, who is talking to a customer that Chris does not recognize. Chris looks at the stranger, who seems slightly awkward speaking in public. The person is wearing a black cap, with shoulder-length white hair, and looks way thinner than Kim but definitely taller. Chris looks at the person’s hair and touches her own pure white hair that's dangling in her vision, this is definitely not normal for regular people.
‘But it could be bleached too’ Chris thought, her hair is naturally white, and a lot of people in her family have white hair or other colour mixed with white. ‘Kim had said that coloured hair is not uncommon in the magical world, so it could be just a mage of some sort that happened to wander in. But given what happened last week……’ Chris is unsure of what to make out of this, she does not want to wrongly accuse someone, but her thoughts are torn in two directions. The confusion and awkwardness radiating out of the stranger are starting to make Chris feels uncomfortable, so naturally, she looks over to Kim for any hint of support, but Kim seems calm and is trying to wait for the stranger to explain herself.
“I’m looking for this person.” said the girl as she took out a business card, and Chris thought she cannot get more confused.
‘When do we start giving out business cards?’