"So. . . Xanthous."

"Yes."

Xanthous stares at the customer in front of him, a young woman, with long, pale blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, a baby blue hoodie with the words 'reach for the sky' printed on it in black, oxygen font, all lowercase, and a pair of black tights, printed with little gold lightning bolts.

He immediately finds himself disliking her, and that strange glint in her eyes.

"You work at a café."

"Yes." Like it wasn't obvious already.

"Why don't you work at a restaurant?" She waves a hand, gesturing towards the display of pastries. "Your stuff is delicious."

"I can't cook," Xanthous says blankly.

She blinks. "But-"

"I can't cook," he insists. He drums his fingers against the counter impatiently.

"But you made those." She points to the display again.

"That's baking," he explains. "Not cooking. There's a difference."

"Is there?" she asks. She raises an eyebrow, daring for him to continue. "You know, I'm free later today; maybe you can teach me?"

Holy shit, is she flirting with him, a gay man? He continues to stare at her. There is no fucking way this is happening. She has to be joking, right? Right? Her smile turns flirty. HOLY FUCKING SHIT, SHE'S NOT.

"Um." How is he supposed to let her know that he is, infact, a gay man? "I'm gay." Ah, yes, that'd be it.

The woman's face morphs into one of shock, before she sighs, in an almost sad way.

"It's always the hot ones," she moans, handing him $5 and scurrying off to find a seat.

Xanthous stares blankly after her, holding the money, before slowly turning around to face his employees, each of which are attempting to stifle their laughter in different ways.

"Maybe I need to wear a sign that says 'gay'," Xanthous says. (Ryan doubles over, wheezing. Robin's shoulders shake.) "'Cause, y'know," he eyes the small pride pin attached to his apron, "it's apparently not obvious enough already."

Eloise chokes on her spit.

0-0-0-0-0-0

"How have you made it this far in life without knowing how to cook."

"One," Xanthous holds up a finger, "I have no idea what I'm doing. Two," he holds up another, "I can make easy foods."

"Yeah, that's fair." Liam nods in agreement, as he wipes the counters down. He wrinkles his nose as he picks up the dirty cloth, bits of dried liquid and little crumbs stuck to it.

Suddenly the doors slam open, shaking the walls, and a man walks up to the register, a tired, stormy look about him. Liam and Xanthous find themselves gawking at him.

"Hi," he says, voice raspy and deep. It sounds like he just woke up. "Can I get a 'Fuck You'?" He stands there in silence for a minute or so, before seemingly realizing what he just said. A horrified expression slowly forms on his face, and his eyes widen. "Oh, I messed up. I messed up badly."

Liam ogles for a moment more, before bursting out in laughter, voice shrill. He collapses against the counter, dropping the rag, visibly shaking, and Xanthous has to crack a smile at the near-childish action.

"Of course, sir," Xanthous says, turning back to the man. He is staring at Liam, a baffled look on his face. "That will be $3.75." He smiles, warm and cheekily.

The man, soundlessly, hands over a fifty dollar bill.

"Keep the damn change," he says to Xanthous. Liam sinks to the floor, hands covering his face and legs kicking against the ground. Tears stream down his face, and he furiously wipes at them with shaking hands, though the grin on his face is bright.

One of the other customers, an asian teen with blond highlights named Aki who regularly comes in, stares at the three of them from his table, face comically blank.

"What the hell," he says. Aki pauses for a moment. "Does this mean you'll make me a 'I've Pulled Five All-Nighters', or a 'Help I Have Finals This Week' if I asked?"

Xanthous slams his hands on the table, shoulders shaking, and Liam's cackles turn into wheezes as he rolls on the floor.

0-0-0-0-0-0

"Sloshes oogishly and boogishly into the room."

"Mmm, don't like that.

"Sloshes oogishly and boogishly towards you at immense speeds-"

Ryan shrieks as Sheila madly dashes towards him, a wild, manic grin on their face. The taller of the two scrambles backwards, arms flailing.

"Oh my God," Paige says, giving an exasperated sigh and covering her face with a hand. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

"Yeah, but we're your idiots!" Sheila shouts to her as she tackles Ryan to the ground.

"'Ohana means family'," Xanthous quotes seriously, nodding. "Family means you're stuck with us for life, asshat."

Sheila snorts. She's sitting on top of Ryan, keeping him trapped on the floor. "Okay, who taught you to verbally shitpost?"

"Daniel," the other three chorus immediately. Sheila rolls their eyes, and leans back, now laying on top of their coworker. Ryan makes a betrayed sound, half-heartedly trying to shove them off. It half-works; she's now sitting on his feet.

"Uhhh." They all jump at the new voice, four pairs of eyes darting to meet the face of their new customer. "Should I ask, or. . . ?"

Sheila rolls off of Ryan, leaping to their feet, and Ryan swiftly picks himself up, shuffling his feet in an embarrassed manner.

"Welcome aboard the Enchanted Corner Café," Xanthous says, without missing a beat. "This is your captain speaking-"

He breaks off in a snort at the customer's bewildered expression.

"Can I just get a coffee?" she peeps. "Or. . ." She glances up at the menu, and then, just as fast, to Xanthous' face. She stares at him, and without breaking eye contact, says, "One cup of warm cow juice with a dash of bean liquid in it?"

Sheila gapes at her, before turning to their boss, a pleading expression on their face. "Please hire her."

"Do not!" Paige howls, whirling around, a panicked expression on her face. "We do not need another Sheila here!"

Ignoring her, Xanthous asks, "Would you like to work here? I can set up a job interview for you if you'd like to."

The teen simply grins toothily in response.

0-0-0-0-0-0

"So you're saying if anything weird happens, don't question it?"

"You'd be surprised by the amount of strange interactions I've had over the years," Xanthous tells her.

Kelly nods solemnly. "The customer is always right."

"One time I called out an order for some guy named Wrenn and this woman comes up, picks up the drink, takes a sip out of it, and says it's not what she ordered." Siren makes a face. "I asked her if she was Wrenn. She said no and threatened to get me fired when I told her that she should have known that it wasn't her drink because I didn't call her name."

"The customer is usually right," Kelly amends.

"Sure." Xanthous glances up as the bell above the door tinkles. A familiar teen walks in, accompanied by a pretty blonde-haired woman with sparkling blue eyes.

"Welcome back," he greets Conner.

"You remember me?" he asks, shock evident on his face.

"You came in and slammed $20 on my counter," Xanthous points out. "How could I not remember you?"

Conner's cheeks fill in with a burning red color. "I, uh, sort of forgot about that."

"What is a 'frappuccino'?" the woman with him suddenly asks, frowning. Daniel has a bemused expression on his face.

"It's. . . Uh. . ." Daniel blanks. "A. . . Milk drink. . . With. . . flavoring and caffeine?"

"What's caffeine?"

Xanthous internally groans. He is not awake enough for this shit; come and get back to him back in a week or so.

"It's a thing that. . . Wakes up your brain I guess?" Daniel shrugs helplessly. "I just work here, ma'am. And I'm kinda stupid. So."

Conner hisses something to the woman that Xanthous can not hear, and turns back with an apologetic smile. "Sorry 'bout that. She's. . . Never been inside a café before. Or had coffee."

"Never had coffee?" Kelly's eyes widen comically.

"She's more of a tea person," Conner explains. (Xanthous has the faint feeling of being lied to. Why, he has no clue. He shrugs it off. His nerves have never quite been the same since the robbery a few weeks ago.) "Can we get, uh, like 50 grande vanilla-flavored milk teas, please?"

Xanthous splutters. "50?"

Conner winces. "Um, yeah? How much is it?"

". . . $112.50."

". . . Oh no," Conner peeps weakly after a moment. He stands there, before giving a moan and handing over his credit card. "Mom's gonna kill me."

Xanthous gives him a sympathetic look as he takes it. "Name?"

"Conner."

Xanthous swipes the card and hands it back to its owner. "Hope whatever you're doing with them is worth it."

Conner snorts. "I'm the one who suggested it and I'm not even sure if it's a good idea."

0-0-0-0-0-0

It takes a while for them to make all 50 teas (Xanthous still does not know who would want that much tea), but when they do, they hand them over, carefully put inside a couple of bags.

"Thanks for all the money," Kelly says, as Conner takes the two bags she's holding from her. "I can finally feed my pet couch now," she adds somberly.

The woman-Red, they'd learned her name was-tilts her head to the side in a confused manner. "'Pet couch'?"

"Joking," Kelly quickly says. "It was-I was joking."

Red, the poor thing, still looked hopelessly lost, but followed Conner as he strode towards the door. He leans against it, opening it, and allowing his friend (mom? Xanthous isn't sure) to walk outside. Conner looks back, and his mouth twitches upwards.

"Thanks," he says. "I'll tea you later."

The door swings shut before any of them can say anything.

Kelly, Siren, and Daniel stare blankly after them, each of their expressions slowly changing into varying degrees of disgust at the bad joke.

"That's not even one of the weirdest interactions I've ever had with a customer, if you'd believe it," Xanthous says into the silence, leaning against the counter. Kelly makes a sound like a strangled sort of squeal.

"Wha-What kind of customers are you getting here?!"

0-0-0-0-0-0

Quick everyone reading this give me an object that the FG would use as a portal but would accidentally sell it bc she forgot or something idk