Chapter Text
The first time Pomni ordered at the local Starbucks, she was served by Ragatha.
But he didn’t notice her.
The denture man was afloat above his office chair, which really, why have a chair if you're always gonna fly mid-air? His bubble assistant offers him a tobacco pipe upon its head, he takes it between his teeth.
The cigar’s apparent to a bubble blower—bubbles coming out of it instead of smoke, making a variety of popping sounds. “You’ll have to write a Special Message on every cup. Gets the excitement going!” He states like an announcer. “Make it nice messages, coffee puns, anything you got in that noggin of yours.”
“Bu— I don’t… I don’t wanna.” Jax complains, desperate and outright frank. He couldn’t come up with anything better to say to him in this state.
Caine opens an eye, which is just… there, inside among his teeth and gums. “You don’t wanna ruin our sales now. Be a model employee, Jax!”
He just stares at him like they both know what he’s thinking: Jax is anything but, and he always will be. Before a comically sized set of retractable, springy hands come out to push him out the door. “Now off you go now! And don’t forget about what I told you.”
The hands pat Jax on the head with his ears instinctively going down, before it slams the office door shut behind him.
“A mocha cookie crumble frappuccino, got it!” Ragatha acknowledges the order with a thumbs up, before turning to a shout towards him. “Jax! We still need order 43.” She’s got a long line ahead of her.
His eye twitched and he groaned, snapping back into work mode—albeit somewhat. “I’m on it, I guess.” He shouted back, putting his hands in his pockets while taking a big step forward.
And towards the counters for drink making. He looks at all the cups set out with receipts on them to find number 43, assuming they’ve been waiting awhile. That’s on Caine, not him for once. He scoops in the ice, pours some coconut milk, and adds strawberries into the cup before he tops it off with a lid, just like the receipt requested.
When he goes over to deliver it on the counter among the other drinks, a bright blue and red sign with lightbulbs flashing on and off comes down right in front of his view, flashing the words ‘DON’T FORGET’.
It’s Caine. Who else.
Jax runs a hand down his face with another groan, taking his time to sluggishly walk back and find a black sharpie. He takes the cap off using his mouth, his grin growing as he scribbled down on it.
The sign goes away as soon as he slides the drink over onto the counter, calling out to the customer. “Order for number 43, come get it!”
And he does, excusing himself from his seat to pick up his drink. Jax watches from behind the freezer full of pastries, peaking up from it snickering to himself.
Ragatha turned to look at him, skeptical as soon as she heard those snickers. “What did you do?” She asks in an excusatory tone.
The customer looks down at his drink, the words ‘Hope to NOT see you a-latte :)’ written on it with bold sharpie.
“Is this a good or bad thing…” The customer muttered to himself as he walked away, staring down at the cup bewildered. Jax’s smile grew mischievous. Scratch that, this could be fun.
“I wrote a little message.” He crosses his arms, pleased.
Ragatha’s eye widens, just the overreaction he expected from her. “Jax! Why would you do that??”
“Whaattt? Caine said we had a new rule or somethin’ to write on every cup from now on. Honest!” He dismisses with a wave of his hand. While his tone is always one that’s hard to read, she knows best not to waste her time confirming that. Not with a line of people waiting for her.
She sighed, facing back to the register. “Write better things!” Her voice is distant now as she serves another customer. He rolls his eyes and scoffs, as if. He goes back to the row of empty cups that need finishing, eyes skimming over the order of the numbers as he muttered them under his breath.
Until they stopped on one specific grande cup. Order #44, Gangle.
He’s never had a better work day than today. He quickly tosses the drink together, putting it in the blender and shaking it up before he drizzles syrup along the edges and pours it back in, topping it off with whipped cream.
He slides it over the counter, condensation dripping down from upon it and onto the surface. He cups the side of his mouth to call out, joy evident in his tone of voice. “Order number 44 for Gangle!”
As she got up to take her order, she had a smile on her face thanks to her happy mask still intact. Jax just looked at her while tapping his finger to the counter, watching her take it out of pure bliss.
He turned his head to watch her sit back at her table where her sketchbook was. He stood up straight, leaning over to get a better look to see the look on her face when she notic—
“JAX!!!”
He’s interrupted by a girlish scream. Actually no, wait, that scream came from him.
He had turned around quickly, his hands gripping the counter as he held his breath and his throat out of the initial shock. His eyes were wide and full of evident struggle.
Don’t throw up, don’t throw up.
He swallows it down, the noise his throat made wasn’t pleasant or well hidden. “Ugh, what is it, Zoobie? Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
“Why do you keep doing that to her? She’s just a regular customer, she’s doing no harm.” They cross their arms and squint at him in rebuttal.
“Doing what?” He asks simply, closing his eyes with his brows raised like he’s faking innocence.
“Oh, you always do this, don’t you? You can’t pretend you do nothing wrong forever!” They gesture their arms out, their voice rising above the chatter of the crowded Starbucks.
“Pshh, you take this too seriously.” He rolls his big black pupils, pretending to check his nails when it’s just his yellow glove.
Their anger sounded personal, customers started looking up from their laptops and books to hear the chaos. “You don’t take this serious enough. What’d she ever do to you?”
Ragatha glanced perturbingly between them and her line of customers she was left to handle, some spouting complaints over the wait. “Um… guys? Can’t we talk about this later…?” She timidly suggested with an awkward laugh, but they couldn’t hear her over the sound of them arguing.
The arguing was distant now at one of the seating tables. The disturbance caused Pomni to be unable to focus on her work on her laptop. She didn’t know why it was happening, nor was there anything for her to do about it… this is her first time coming here in forever.
But when her eyes were lingering at the counter to try to find the source of the yelling, she noticed a customer at a table, sighing with her ribbon hand on her chin. She can tell the arguing, or something else is bothering her.
Gangle sighs, refusing to meet eyes with her cup and instead looking down at her sketchbook like something's wrong with it. The noise of the disputing had broken her happy mask, but she didn’t even seem troubled by that in particular. She thinks about leaving, until a voice interrupts that thought.
“Hey! I like your art, what’re you drawing there?” Pomni asks with a small wave, her brows crossed as she offers a soft smile. She didn’t even hear her walking over.
She looks down at her art, but she doesn't seem as sad now, even with the quarreling still heard in the background. “Oh… well, this.. is just an anime idea I had in mind.”
Pomni listens with a smile, her hands joined in front of her. She then glances over at her cup, her expression turning sad once she sees it.
Gangle had expected her to point it out, she looked a bit more ashamed now when she looked to the distance. But Pomni held her hand out.
“I’m Pomni, what’s your name?” She smiled at her.
She looks at her, then takes her hand to shake, ribbons wrapping around it. She has a smile. It’s small, but it’s something. “Gangle.”
“Nice to meet you!” She glances at her table and thinks to herself for a moment. And points to the drink. “May I…?”
Gangle didn’t know what she meant to do, but she really didn’t care at this point, so she nodded. She assumed she just wanted to take her drink off her hands. Until she reached over to gently take it, her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth to focus as she took the inside of her shirt, and rubbed the ink of the marker off.
“Wh…- But your shirt!” Gangle squeaked out, starting to feel bad at all the ink rubbed into the bottom of it. She didn’t seem to care, just set her drink back down with the text all smudged and the inside of her shirt stained.
“It’s just ink, plus I have plenty of other shirts like this one.” She shrugs it off with a smile.
“And now you can enjoy your drink, without having to worry about that.” She awkwardly points to it with a circle of her finger, her movements were pretty constant and jittery at times.
Gangle crossed her brows, smiling at her gesture. “T-thank you… I appreciate that.”
“Of course! You… you have a nice day now!” She gives her finger guns, backing up until she heads back to her table without another word. The argument had stopped quite a bit ago, but they both hadn’t noticed.
Gangle looks down at her cup, smiling at the smudged ink and finally letting herself enjoy a sip of it. She goes back to sketching in her artbook, more at ease.