Sakura drove Yuzumi, Inuyasha, and Kenshin to Mel's Coffee and Smoothie Bar. She pulled the Tank into the parking lot and opened the door to get out. "Inuyasha-sama, Kenshin, stay in the Tank for a little while. I have to talk to my boss, then we can let you come into the store."
Inuyasha and Kenshin nodded and Yuzumi and Sakura got out of the Tank. They walked across the small parking lot and into the store. The store wasn't much bigger than a Starbucks, and it was set up in a similar fashion.
"Oh, hi Sakura. This must be Yuzumi right?" A dark haired lady asked from behind the counter.
"Yup, Yuzumi, this is Mel. She'll be your boss." Sakura introduced.
"Hi." Yuzumi said.
"I'll leave Sakura too train you. Make sure you fill out this application and clock in." Mel said as she took off her apron, gathered her stuff and left.
"We have the whole store to our selves?" Yuzumi asked.
"Yup. We only have to worry about customers coming in, but it's the middle of the afternoon, so we won't get too many people. The mornings suck. Tips are good, though." Sakura answered.
"What's so bad about the mornings?"
"Picture it. You get here at 5:30 am because the shop opens at 6:00 am. You have to start brewing the house coffee, and setting stuff up for customers, and at 5:45 you have a group of people who work coming to the door looking for their morning coffee fix. Then when you finally do get the store open, you have about 15 orders to fill, and all of them are screaming that you aren't making the coffee fast enough. After the first hour though, things tend to calm down."
"Ahhh. So, why do you have two people working at once?"
"We don't. We work one person per shift. Or, one person all day. It's actually pretty easy, once you get the hang of how to work the equipment. Let's get Inuyasha-sama and Kenshin out of the car. We can have them stay in here." Sakura said as she showed Yuzumi a small room at the back of the shop. In the room was a desk, some folding chairs, and boxes of coffee supplies.
"Looks okay to me. Let's go get them." Yuzumi said as she headed out the door. They took a quick glace around the parking lot, but there wasn't anyone out there. They opened the doors to the Tank and hurried them into the store. They then showed them to the storage room and told them they had to stay there.
"Oh, Yuzumi, we get one free smoothie and two coffees, or tea, for each shift. Would you like some tea, Inuyasha-sama?" Sakura asked.
"Sure." Inuyasha simply replied.
"How about you, Kenshin-san?" Yuzumi inquired of Kenshin.
"Hai." Kenshin replied.
"Kay, I'll show you how to make tea, Yuzumi." Sakura said with a smile.
"I know how to make tea." Yuzumi blandly remarked.
"True, but there's a special way we serve it. I'll show you how to clock in too." Sakura said as she led Yuzumi to the kitchen area of the shop. She pulled down two cards. On one, she wrote Yuzumi's name, and the other she stuck in a big clunky machine. Then she firmly pressed a button on the machine, and pulled the card out. "Your turn. It's so easy even you can't screw it up."
"Just what's that supposed to mean?" Yuzumi heatedly asked as she put her card in and punched it.
"Okay, now for the tea." Sakura said as she led Yuzumi to the front where all of the stuff was kept. She pulled out some teapots that looked a lot like some modern metal versions of Japanese ceremonial teakettles. "To get hot water you press this button on the coffee machine." She explained as she demonstrated. "Next pick out a tea flavor and put it in the top of the kettle. There's a screen so that it won't get in the water when you pour it out the spout. We use these cups to serve it." Sakura picked up two large cups that also looked like they belonged to a ceremonial Japanese tea set. "Lastly, we put them on a little tray and serve it." She smiled. Yuzumi followed Sakura's instructions and got some tea made for Kenshin. The two of them brought the tea to the boys and stayed in the room for a few minutes.
"Isn't there anything to do in here?" Inuyasha plaintively asked.
"I keep a Go board around here, if you want to play that." Sakura suggested. Inuyasha and Kenshin looked at her as if they expected her to explain how to play Go. "Uhhh…..you guys don't know how to play Go do you?" Sakura asked, and both guys shook their heads. "Okay, do you know how to play chess?" Again the response was no. "So do you know how to play any card games?" This time they nodded yes. "Then here." Sakura said as she handed them a deck of cards. "Alright, Yuzumi, time to start your training. Inuyasha-sama, Kenshin if you need anything, just poke your head out the door and we'll come."
"What do I have to learn how to do?" Yuzumi reluctantly asked. They guys had decided on playing poker since it was about the only game the two of them knew, and they were using some coffee beans as betting chips. Yuzumi wanted to watch them play, not start training.
"First, you do the dishes." Sakura said as she handed Yuzumi a tub of the customer's dishes.
"What?! Why me?" Yuzumi wailed.
"Because you are the new person. I had to do the dishes when I was being trained. Think of it like this, you're the white belt and I'm the black belt. You get the menial tasks to do until you become a black belt and have to train your own white belt." Sakura said as a way to console her friend. Once you're done with the dishes, then you can learn to make coffee. Oh, there is a special way we do the dishes. I'll show you." Sakura led Yuzumi to the kitchen area of the store and showed her three sinks. "The first one is to wash them in, the second one has bleach in the water. You have to soak them in that for a few minutes. The last one is for the rinse. Make sure to leave the dishes in there for at least 5 minutes. We don't want the customers getting sick from the bleach. Then you dry them, or if there's room, and we aren't low on dishes, you can put them on the rack above the sinks. We aren't low on dishes at the moment, so you can put them on the rack without having to dry them. Have fun now." Sakura encouraged, as she weren't back to the front of the store.
"I'll get you for this Sakura." Yuzumi grumbled. There weren't really that many dished to do, so she had them done in a few minutes. She walked out of the kitchen and joined Sakura. "Now what?" She peevishly asked.
"Now's the really fun part. I've been burned making the coffee, so be careful." Sakura warned. "Here is a list of the ingredients for making the various drinks. First, you have to learn how to make the house coffee. That's pretty easy because you make it like you would regular coffee." Sakura explained as she showed Yuzumi where the coffee grounds were and were the coffee pot was. "Not many people ask for house coffee. They usually ask for a cappuccino, macchiato, espresso, or something."
"This sounds just like Starbucks." Yuzumi commented.
"That's because despite what Starbucks wants us to think; these drinks weren't invented by them." Sakura said as she showed Yuzumi how to make an espresso. "You have to serve this immediately or it gets biter. Don't let it sit."
"Okay, can I try?" Yuzumi asked.
Sakura nodded and cautioned her that it wasn't as easy as it seemed. "The trick is in how well you pack the coffee grounds. Pack them as tight as possible."
"Will do." Yuzumi confidently said as she tried. Her first try resulted in an espresso cup full of water. It took her five tries to get a decent espresso. "Ugh, this is a bit harder than I thought."
"Yup, don't worry thought. Everyone has trouble on there first week. Next, I'll show you how to steam the milk. After that, I'll show you how to make the various drinks." After about another half hour of working on making drinks, and after Yuzumi had burned herself while trying to steam the milk, Sakura announced a break.
"Grrrrrr, my hand still hurts!" Yuzumi whined.
"You do realize that it does have a big, bold, black arrow indicating which way is off, don't you?" Sakura innocently asked.
"Shut up." Yuzumi growled as they walked into the back room where they'd left Kenshin and Inuyasha. The two of them were still playing poker, and it looked like they'd really gotten into it. "Hey you guys want to take a break from that?" Yuzumi asked.
"No. He's ahead of me by three beans." Inuyasha grudgingly announced.
"We're having fun, that we are." Kenshin smiled.
"Okay, you guys continue with your game then." Yuzumi said.
"Do you guys need more tea, or want something to eat?" Sakura asked.
"No." Inuyasha and Kenshin said in unison.
"Ahhhh, it's almost time to close." Sakura sighed.
"Almost time to close? And what's with the sigh? Do you like it here that much?" Yuzumi fired off at Sakura.
"We close at 5 because it's kinda pointless to keep open since no one comes in after then. I sighed not because I like it here, but because we have 15 minutes until 5 o'clock so we'll end up having a small rush. For some reason we always get a rush around now; but if we keep the store open 'till 6, no one comes in." No sooner had Sakura said this, then a little bell chimed.
"A bell?" Yuzumi looked a little puzzled.
"Yeah, it's our indicator that we have a customer. C'mon out front." Sakura said as she waved Yuzumi out of the storage room. When they got to the front there wasn't just one customer, there were about 15.
"Ummmm, exactly what am I supposed to do?" Yuzumi nervously asked.
"Do what I say and don't ask questions." Sakura said in a very business like tone. Things went well for the first three customers, but Sakura told Yuzumi to take the fourth customer, and things went into chaos.
"I would like a caramel macchiato." The customer requested.
"O..okay." Yuzumi nervously said. "Sakura, how do I make a macchiato again?" She franticly asked Sakura.
"Look at the sheet." Sakura instructed.
"Oh yeah." Yuzumi looked at the little recipe sheet and started the espresso machine. She made a decent espresso, but when she went to steam the milk she got all mixed up, and turned the knob the wrong way. She ended up getting scalding milk on herself as well as on Sakura.
"Yuzumi dump that out and refill it. I'll take care of the order." Sakura said.
"Okay." Yuzumi sullenly replied. After Sakura had made the caramel macchiato, she showed Yuzumi how to use the register. Yuzumi got the hang of that fast, so Sakura made the drinks, while Yuzumi rung them up. All was going well until the last customer. That's when Inuyasha had lost all of his coffee beans to Kenshin.
"Arrrrrrrrggggg!" Inuyasha growled. "How could I loose? I had the perfect hand!"
"What's that?" The customer asked. Things might not have been so bad except the customer was a girl that Sakura knew from her church. This girl was also a huge Inuyasha fan. Luckily, Miroku was the character she wanted to date, but still Sakura thought it might not be a good idea if she found Inuyasha and Kenshin in real life.
"Oh that's just my cousin. He's probably playing some card game on one of those hand held poker things. He absolutely hates to loose." Sakura lied. Things might have been okay, except there was a loud bang that came from the storage room. Sakura winced at the noise.
"Inuyasha-donno, you need to calm down that you do." Kenshin said a little too loudly.
"Inuyasha?" The girl inquired with one eyebrow arched. "Dose your cousin like Inuyasha too?"
"Um yeah. He often coseplays as Inuyasha." Sakura again lied.
"And who was the other person I heard?" The girl, who was becoming too curious for Sakura's comfort, asked.
"He's a friend of mine." Yuzumi answered. "He and Sakura's cousin are good friends."
"You know, I think I'd like to meet this Inuyasha fan." The girl said as she took headed for the room the noise had come from.
"Noooo, wait!" Yuzumi and Sakura yelled as they tried to stop her. The girl had just enough of a head start that she evaded Sakura and Yuzumi, and got to the door. She opened it and gasped. When Yuzumi and Sakura looked in they saw Kenshin holding Inuyasha from the back and trying to keep him from destroying anything. Inuyasha was struggling for all he was worth. What had made the bang was the table. It, along with several chairs, had been over turned. The girl looked wide-eyed at the scene before her, and promptly fainted. Inuyasha stopped struggling, and Kenshin let him go.
"Is she okay?" Kenshin asked.
"Yeah, it looks like she just fainted. Yuzumi, get some water and take care of her. I'm gonna close the shop before anything else can happen." Sakura said as she headed to the shop door and locked it. Yuzumi and Kenshin had the girl propped up while Inuyasha was dabbing her face with a towel. Sakura continued to move around the shop and cleaned things up.
"Yuzumi, why don't you take Inuyasha-sama and Kenshin to the Tank? This way if she wakes up we can tell her she was just seeing things." Sakura suggested.
"Good idea." She led Inuyasha and Kenshin out to the Tank and came back to help Sakura. They had just finished cleaning, and were splitting the tip when the girl came to.
"Uh…what happened? Where are Inuyasha and Kenshin?" She disappointedly asked.
"What do you mean? I think you might be coming down with a cold or something. You should go home and take some vitamin C." Sakura prescribed.
"But I was sure I saw Inuyasha and Kenshin." She insisted.
"We wish." Yuzumi commented.
"Hey, I'll clock you out Yuzumi, then we should head back to Rei's." Sakura said.
"Okay. Are you going to be alright?" She asked the girl.
"Yeah, too bad I didn't really see Inuyasha. Oh well, maybe you're right and I am getting sick. Oh I hope not."
"I'll let you out." Yuzumi said as she led the girl to the door.
"Thanks, I'll probably see you again. Bye." The girl waved as she left.
"Bye. We ready to go? I don't want anything else to happen." Yuzumi asked Sakura.
"Yup, let's get to Rei's before we have any other problems." Sakura said as she led the way out the door.
Author's Note: Well that's the next chapter. It's not as funny as I had intended, but I got a bit busy with Christmas, and I couldn't think of anything really funny to have happen. It's a bit late, but Merry Christmas, and have a good New Year's everyone. ^^