Ok, so as you can probably see, this is my first story on so for the first few chapters, I think I'm going to need your help. Please tell me if you would like the chapters to be shorter or longer. That would really help me a lot . Once you're done reading the chapter, tell me what you think of it, ok?
Naminé's father squeezed her shoulder before she stepped through the door and took her place at the counter. For several hours she took orders and money, remembering to smile and thank the customer for their business. When she looked at the clock she saw that she'd worked overtime. In fact, she almost missed the beginning of her favorite show. After she finished serving her current customer she rang a bell. Some of the people in the cafe shot her a curious glance before going back to their food, conversations and computers.
Her father took over and she went into the back room, took off her paint splattered apron and grabbed her book bag. After emerging from the back room one more time, she walked out into the cafe and sat in front of a television. Using a remote from her backpack, she turned the television on and flipped to the newest episode of The Bachelor, her guilty pleasure. To some she looked, and acted as if she owned the place, the way she had one television set all to her self, and to some extent she did.
As they gave a recap of what happened in last week's show, Naminé pulled out her laptop and looked over tomorrow's schedule and menu for the umpteenth time. Everything was perfect.
Halfway through the show, the smell of freshly baked pastries and freshly brewed coffee wafted through the cafe. She looked over and saw that her father and Hayner, the part-time employee, adding fresh food to the display counters. Once the line of customers died down a bit, Hayner brought her several different scones and some tea.
"You're friend's late, Hayner. Not that I mind but I am getting kind of tired." Naminé said without taking her eyes off of the television screen.
"I know, but she just texted me and she says that she'll be here in less than ten minutes."
There was an almost awkward silence between them. As usual, Hayner was the one to break it. "She goes to our school."
Naminé's head snapped up and she let out a shaky breath. "Is she nice?"
Hayner smiled warmly and had a slightly far away look on his face before nodding. He gathered the dirty dishes and his arms were covered in soap by the time Olette ran in.
"I'm really sorry about being so late," Olette apologized as she set her stuff down. Naminé nodded and bit into her last scone.
"So are there any final touches that need to be addressed?"
Naminé shook her head and pulled out the work schedule for the next day. She handed it to Olette and discreetly turned her attention back to the television.
"So if there are any changes to the schedule, I can call you right?"
"Of course. I'll have my phone on me the whole day tomorrow."
Olette got up and shook Naminé's hand, as they'd done many times before, and walked away. After she finished watching her show, she shut the TV off and began to help her father and Hayner lock up. They stacked chairs, moved tables and cleaned the machines and floors. By the time they finished it was nearing 11:30. The two teens yawned as they sat in the last two unstacked chairs.
"As you both know, tomorrow's going to be a long day... so go home and get some rest. I'll leave the speeches for tomorrow morning. Be here at seven-thirty sharp," Naminé's father instructed before unlocking the door to let Hayner out.
"Naminé, I'm going to drop Hayner off at his house, you'll be ok right?"
The blond girl nodded and walked into the backroom. She could feel her eyes growing heavy and for a moment she wondered if her father would mind her sleeping on the couch at the far end of the room. Deciding against it, she walked towards another door and got a key from her pocket.
After opening the door and locking it behind her, she trudged up a narrow spiral staircase and ended up in her living room. Even in the dark she knew where every thing was. To the left of her was an orange couch that faced an entertainment system and a glass coffee table in between. To the right, was the ever so rarely used kitchen with granite counter tops and wooden drawers. There was also a hallway that led to her father's studio and bedroom.
Her mind was fuzzy with sleep and she wanted to get to her bedroom. All she had to do was take a couple of more steps forward and she was home free. Though her legs felt as if they were nailed to the hardwood floors, she made it. She fell forward, onto her bed and was in deep sleep once she hit the mattress. Morning came too quickly for her and she felt incredibly tired. She looked up to see that her father was trying to shake her awake.
"I'm up, I'm up daddy," she yawned. Her father had been nice enough to pull the covers from her as she tried to salvage five more minutes of sleep.
"Naminé," he began using his deep father voice before he lost his composure and acted like a sixteen year-old on sugar. "Come on sleepyhead, we've got a birthday party to work on!"
She groaned and headed to the shower. As she stood half-awake, she could hear Hayner and her father already working on food downstairs. She put on a white tank top and white shorts before running downstairs. Once inside the cafe, she saw that Hayner was already hard at work, moving tables, cleaning plates and cooking food. She smiled at him and checked the schedule, the food and her phone. After seeing that every thing was in check, she began helping Hayner with the dishes. No words were exchanged between the two and Naminé was thankful that Hayner wasn't the type of person to engage a conversation. At least not with her.
To a certain point, she enjoyed the silence. In it she found safety. It was peaceful in a word. Hayner, on the other hand, hated the silence. Silence was the sound of no fun or joy or life. It literally hurt his ears to hear the sound of silence. He was just dying to talk to the blond beside him but he knew that she would either give him short, choppy answers to his questions or none at all. She'd been like that ever since she started working there a couple of weeks ago. With nothing else to do, he turned his thoughts to the party later that day.
He grinned to himself as he thought of how surprised his friend, Roxas, would be when he walked into The Art Deco Cafe to find all of his friends wishing him a Happy Birthday. Hayner gave himself a mental pat on the back. He'd been working here for six months which was by far the longest he'd ever held a position before. He added a mental high-five to that pat on the back and went back to washing dishes with a smile on his face. He was in such a state of happiness that he barely heard the girl beside him speak.
"It's lunch time."
"Huh?"
"It's time for lunch, Hayner." She had on a sort of nervous smile and refused to look him in the eyes. She unstacked a chair for him and went back to washing and drying dishes.
"Hey Naminé, why don't you have lunch with me?"
It looked as if it hurt her to answer. Her eyes darted here and there, avoiding his face but in the end she nodded, went to the back room to get her food and came back to sit next to him. He'd already unstacked a chair by the time she returned and she timidly sat down next to him. Her heartbeat raced when she noticed he was staring at her. Think, think, think. He's clearly staring at you... so why don't you just calmly ask why? She rolled the thought around in her head and tried to see if she could approach the situation any other way. After realizing that there was no other way to deal with this she asked him.
"Um, why are you staring at me?" she said as her eyes darted from the clock to the hardwood flooring to the red wall behind him.
He laughed and heat rose to her face. "I was actually a little jealous of you."
She shot him a quizzical glance before looking at what he had for lunch. He had a sandwich, an orange and a bottle of water. She, on the other hand, had pasta, Jell-O, fruit roll-ups and a juice box. She nodded and pushed her lunch towards him.
"I can't eat your lunch Naminé. It's for you, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't mind tasting the pasta. Can I?"
She nodded and watched as he tried to shake some noodles onto his sandwich. After watching him struggle for a little while, she grabbed the Tupperware and used her fork to gather an generous amount of spaghetti for him. Naminé opened her mouth to say something but ended up biting her lip.
"No, tell me what you were going to say," Hayner said after grabbing several stringy noodles.
Naminé shifted in her seat and looked down as she answered. "I was just wondering what your school is like." In reality, Naminé wanted to know what Hayner's friends were like. Part of her wanted to be friends with Hayner and friends with his friends but the other part told her and kept reminding her that she shouldn't act like a leech and have the same friends as Hayner. It was selfish of her to even think that she could take Hayner's friends. At least this way, she would have an idea of what to expect tomorrow without imposing.
He shrugged and began explaining the inner workings of Traverse High. After a couple of minutes she realized that her new high school and her old one were pretty much the same. Friends stayed with the same bunch of friends, everyone hated the principle, and there was that one teacher who couldn't teach and the other one who could jam three lessons in a day. Her insides squirmed at how similar the two schools were. It probably would have been easier to have counted the differences.
By the time Hayner had finished ranting about the lazy faculty Naminé realized exactly how long their lunch break had been. By then, her father finished setting tables, removed food from ovens, and got the drinks and cake. All that was left for him to do was to get dressed.
She gasped and ran off to finish her job or what was left of it. Once she realized that her father had done nearly everything tears began to pool in her eyes. She was the one who was supposed to have everything under control. He was just supposed to supervise. A knot formed in her throat and words crisscrossed in her brain and stained it black. She clutched her head and shut her eyes. Knowing that her father was standing right in front of her she felt no need to scream the words that wanted to free themselves from her mind. Her voice was barely a whisper as she spoke.
"Why do you make me feel so worthless?"
"You know that wasn't my intention, sweetheart. I just saw how much fun you were having talking to Hayner and I didn't want to interrupt." He said, just as soft.
She shrugged and walked up the spiral staircase, feeling hollow. Ghosting through the house, she found herself getting dressed and putting on make up robotically. After doing her hair and applying a clear coat of nail polish to her nails she emerged from her room. Her hair was brushed perfectly and there wasn't a wrinkle in her white button up shirt and knee-length shorts. Her blue tie was knotted correctly and her black Mary-Janes were polished. To an outsider she looked like a cute schoolgirl or waitress. Despite her appearance Naminé wasn't satisfied with herself.
When she stepped out of her room, her phone rang. She answered it and quickly spoke to Olette about the guests that were already arriving. As she spoke to the brunette on the other line she carefully went downstairs and opened the café doors. She took her place at the entrance as the hostess. A smiled formed on her face when she realized that everyone who was invited came, and they came on time which was surprising and lucky. This meant that her job as hostess was done for the night and she could go back to working in the kitchen where no one could see her. It was where she belonged after all; she didn't mind, not one bit. Hayner left a little while ago to get the birthday boy so as Naminé set the hors d'oervs on the serving trays, her father was entertaining the masses; probably with his fantastic skill of juggling or impersonations. She chuckled to herself and lined up the trays. Outside of the kitchen people were being shushed and all sounds of movement stopped. Quickly she moved from the kitchen to the cafe and knelt behind the counter. The front doors opened and closed.
"Hayner, what is this?" It was presumably the birthday boy. Moments after, everyone jumped up from their hiding places. People walked out from behind their hiding places to give the boy a hug and/or ruffle his hair. Naminé and her father went back inside the kitchen and began serving finger foods to the guests.
Her father placed the rest of the appetizers in chafing dishes to keep warm and flashed her a smile of approval. The party was going well; the teens were dancing to an amazing DJ and the adults were trying their best to have a conversation with one another. Pride began to build up from within her. This was her party. She planned it and it happened and it wasn't half bad. She smiled.
Seeing as she was running out of food, she began to make her way to the back room to restock and nibble on what was left. She moved along the outside of the dance floor and was almost there before someone knocked the serving tray upward, sending the sauces and dips into her face and her onto her butt.
She moved the tray from her face and looked interrupted a small group of dancing teenagers with the noise she made. One of them in particular was more surprised than the others. He was spiky haired brunette who was looking down at her with his arms stretched outwards and a shocked expression on his face. Immediately he knelt down and picked the mini eggrolls off of the floor and out of her hair. Naminé, getting over her initial shock and embarrassment, moved from being on her butt to being on her knees and wiped up the sauces with napkins from her back pocket. Embarrassment boiled within her, staining her face red. She scolded herself for getting too close to the dance floor.
"Dumb bitch," Naminé whispered to herself. The boy in front of her moved back as if she'd hit him. His face looked hurt but he shook it off and continued to help her. Once they finished she went to the back room and sat on the floor with her head in her hands. Tears threatened to fall and they squeezed in between Naminé's eyelashes. That was as far they fell because her father hugged her before the tears even had a chance. Before she knew it Hayner was hugging her and thanking her for planning the party. When she moved away from Hayner she looked at him, then at her father and back before she began to giggle. Their clothes were now covered in honey mustard, teriyaki sauce and blue cheese dressing but they didn't seem to mind it.
They smiled and led Naminé outside where she was met with applause. She waved sheepishly and tried to sneak back into the staff room but Hayner and her father were blocking the way. She was unwillingly pulled out onto the dance floor and was surrounded by the other dancing teenagers. Her face went from paper white and arctic cool to fire truck red and surface-of-the-sun hot in three seconds. If there was one thing Naminé couldn't do it was dance. Her insides squirmed with uncertainty. Did the people really want her to dance? To enjoy the party with them?
Her body swayed to the rhythm and she bobbed her head. It wasn't much but it was a start. She smiled to herself when she successfully ninja-ed away from the dance floor. Her legs hurt from standing all day and all she wanted right then and there was sleep. She decided to crash on the couch in the staffroom.
She settled onto the beige cushions and sighed. Despite the noise outside she fell asleep quite easily. When she woke up it was quiet and as usual, her father was shaking her awake
"Daddy?" She wondered sleepily. As sleep pulled her back she wondered how the rest of the party went.
"How did the party go?" she asked as she adjusted her position on the couch so that she would be more comfortable. He chuckled and lifted her up in his arms.
"Come on sweetheart, let's get you to sleep. You planned such a wonderful party today. I'm so incredibly proud of you and..." The hum of her father's voice sent her conscious sailing into the deep waters of sleep.
So there it is! The first chapter of my first fanfiction. What you you guys think? Hate it? Love it? Want to gouge out my eyeballs and cut off my hands for writing it? Leave me feedback.