I'm heeeeeeeerrrrrrrre! Okay, so this was a request from AnimeVulpaGirl, so thanks for this! I will get to your other requests, but I do have another AU lined up after this as well (thanks to my friend OtterOuji, who fulfilled my insane need to go ice skating… plus Yuri on Ice is a thing? Haven't watched it yet though). Anyway, I don't own anything, but thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!
Restaurant AU: Cooking Up New Beginnings
"Isn't it awesome? Imagine how many pancakes you could make in here! You could fill up our apartment with nothing but pancakes and we'd have to eat our way through!" Nora danced around the kitchen cheerfully, nearly hitting a pile of pots in her excitement. "Ohh! Imagine the awesome cakes you could make! Ren, this was totally the best idea ever!"
"Nora, I'm cooking for paying customers… not owners." Ren steadied the pots, not bothered by his friend's antics while he looked over his kitchen. "How did you get this building anyway?"
She had never really explained it when they'd been dragged there with this 'brilliant' idea to open up a restaurant… Nora just said that it was theirs now and they could do what they wanted.
"Oh, it was just a little wager with Roman; no big deal, nothing to worry about!" Nora waved a hand in the air carelessly, grinning at her best friend. He would probably be worried -he always was- but Nora knew how to take care of herself… besides, it had been perfectly fair! Even Roman admitted it… after Nora had nearly broken his legs after his minor tantrum. "I mean, it was probably a mob house or something, but Pyrrha had to register herself as a deadly weapon, so we're good! And this means we get to be our own obsess right away, instead of slaving away for someone else! It's like a family-run restaurant, except we're not really family, but we might as well be! And with Jaune and Pyrrha in charge, nothing can go wrong!"
"And what will you be doing?" That was another thing Nora hadn't covered when she'd pulled Jaune and Pyrrha from their graduation ceremonies for this "fabulous business opportunity".
"Well, I'm no good with numbers, and you don't want me in the kitchen, so I'll do some waitressing or something! I can totally talk to customers!"
"Or you could do PR," The amused suggestion came from the entrance, the blonde carrying a box carefully. "Who else would get the word out so fast?"
"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Pyrrha noted, following behind Jaune with a few more boxes. "Nora was always good at advertising back in school."
"That was high school!" Nora reminded them, skipping over with a bright laugh. "I can't do it for professional stuff like this! That would be insane!"
"I think it would work." Ren mentioned, earning a grin from the girl. Insane and Nora seem to get along… Plus, it would keep her out of the kitchen. "Besides, wouldn't your ideas be better than Jaune singing a song about it?"
"Oh yeah!" Nora latched onto Ren's arm, giggling loudly when he raised her off the ground slightly. "Remember when he tried to serenade the girls so they'd come to our booth at the fair? They totally ran away!"
"It wasn't that bad!" Jaune protested, turning bright red. It was a well-known fact among the four that Jaune had worked hard to learn the guitar, something that had become very apparent during his crush on Weiss.
"Of course it wasn't; you played very well," Nora placated the other boy, the grin never leaving her face. "It did come off just a little strong though! Plus, Weiss didn't make it easy for anyone after she publicly turned you down. The coolness of guitar went totally down! Plummeted! Rock bottom of loser-ness!"
"We should probably think of hiring people," Pyrrha changed the subject tactfully, leaning against a nearby counter. "We won't get very far without a staff. Ren, did you want to do the interviews for the kitchen?"
The look on his face indicated that he wanted nothing to do with that, but Ren nodded regardless. After all, those would be the people he was in charge of… and who else would know what he wanted in the kitchen?
Nora hopped onto a counter easily, swinging her legs absently. "We'll want decorators too, unless you like the dark, gloomy, distressed look. I mean, it doesn't quite work for our fun, go-for-anything idea, but someone's bound to like it! But it would probably be a good idea to invest in something besides creating a kitchen!"
"Decorators are already on the list," Pyrrha pulled out her tablet, tapping to get to her plans. Good old organized Pyrrha already had half of their plans made before anyone else could bring them up. "Same with suppliers. We can get flyer and social media to advertise if Nora wants to design stuff, and Ruby did offer to tell everyone she knows about the opening."
"Word-of-mouth is surprisingly effective," Nora took the words from Ren's vocabulary, surprising her friends. "What? It is! People are more willing to take suggestions from people hey trust rather than someone they don't! Like, if Ren told me to go to some new place, I'd go, but if Mercury told me to, I'd avoid it at all costs!"
The other three looked at each other, thinking silently until they just shrugged at the idea. "It does make sense."
"Of course it does! I'm not completely clueless!" Nora pouted for a moment before digging out her phone. "But Weiss does owe me a favor, so I'll have her give out recommendations with Ruby too! She won't even have to make anything up; she's always liked Ren's cooking back in school!"
"Why does Weiss owe you a favor?" It wasn't a question Jaune really wanted answered, but Nora didn't always follow society's rules… and there could be some definite trouble with Nora's favors.
He was right to be worried. A grin promising pain and destruction appeared on Nora's face, sending a chill down Jaune's spine. "Oh, I just got her out of a sticky situation. Nothing she couldn't handle, but since I was there…"
It's a good thing Nora's on our side… we'd be dead if she wasn't!
()~~()~~()~~()~~()
"So… no empty tables on our first weekend open is a good thing… right?" Jaune scratched his head, sitting across from Pyrrha as she went over numbers. "Everything ran smoothly out there, but I think some of our wait staff got scared off. There were a few girls crying back there."
"Nora might have done her job a little too well," Pyrrha admitted, but she wasn't worried. They could handle it, even if it meant getting out and waiting a few tables themselves. "But if we stay efficient -which shouldn't be hard giving our new staff- there's nothing to worry about. Besides, it's sure to slow down; it's just the first week excitement bringing everyone here."
"Yeah, but…" Jaune decided not to mention the girl in the middle of a breakdown after their rush that night. She'd be fine… probably. "Can we even handle it until it slows down?"
"Of course!" Ever an optimist, especially whenever it came to encouraging Jaune, Pyrrha looked up from her papers with a smile. "If things get really bad, we can have Nora call in a few more favors."
Jaune shuddered, despite how warm the upstairs was. Nora had always been frightening, especially with all her energy, but something about how easily she seemed to accumulate favors was even worse. And somehow, despite her terrifying reach and insane amount of connections, Nora hadn't done anything illegal for it…
They had definitely underestimated their friend's abilities all this time.
"Oh Pyrrhaaaaaaaaa! Jaaaaauuuuuuune! Are you still working on those papers? Stop that and come down here to celebrate!" Nora called from the stairs, interrupting Jaune before he had the chance to say anything. "We're all waiting on you!"
The pair sent each other an amused look before silently agreeing to go down. Not only would they avoid an inevitable headache from the numbers, they'd also avoid Nora coming down to literally drag them downstairs.
There was no way for them to lose.
"There you are!" Nora pounced as soon as the pair was in sight, grinning cheerfully. Normally she wouldn't intrude when Jaune and Pyrrha were alone together, but this was a special occasion! This was the beginning of their ultimate success… it was the beginning of a whole new life for all four of them! "Ren made food and it's time to celebrate with the best crew that anyone could ever ask for!"
Well, except for the few who quit… some crying, some angry, others who left for some unknown reason. They were just gone. They weren't part of the awesome crew.
Ren appeared with two glasses of champagne, offering them to his friends quietly. There had been a few problems in his kitchen, but nothing truly horrible to ruin the night… although he wasn't sure he would be able to explain exactly why he'd stabbed a knife into the cutting board.
Nora beamed at their success, linking arms with Ren as soon as he was freed. "I told you we'd do awesome! And you all wanted to work for other people first!"
"That is how things normally go before people jump into their own restaurants," Ren murmured, not even trying to move Nora off his arm. It might not be the most professional behavior, but throughout training and renovations, all the employees had learned that their bosses were not the most normal of people… with strangely undefined relationships.
"But when do we ever do things like normal people?" Nora pointed out reasonably, still not moving as she waved towards some of the waitresses, amused to see them flirting playfully with the kitchen staff. "I mean, you're this sneaky ninja cook with awesome knife skills, I'm me, Pyrrha can kill people with a finger, Jaune is… Jaune! Pyrrha has all this fame factor that lets her skip the normal steps, you were top of your class… Jaune!"
Ren sent the other boy a look, earning himself a shake of the head. There was no point in fighting it -it wasn't easy to live up to the accomplishments of their other friends, and if it was hard to find something to brag about, it wasn't a surprise.
Besides, it wasn't a secret that Nora adored Pyrrha -maybe because neither of them had particularly close girl friends in the past- and there was no questioning her love for Ren… although the extent of that affection was still a subject of debate. And while Nora cared about all of them, and she wouldn't ever really play favorites, it wasn't as if she and Jaune were particularly close either.
"She has a point," Jaune sighed, slightly disappointed that after all these years, he didn't have any noteworthy accomplishments for Nora to rant about. After all, she seemed to find something to rant about on any subject.
"Well, Jaune is the dependable one! It's hard to talk about that when he's always helping everyone else out with their stuff!" Nora hissed to Ren at the look she received, knowing that her habit of speaking without thinking could lead to some hurt feelings. "He's just Jaune! How am I supposed to explain that?"
Pyrrha chuckled, thinking she probably knew what was going on in her friend's heads, taking a sip of her champagne. It had been a long road; not as long as it could have been, but those years of schooling, away from each other… even though they'd all kept in touch, it wasn't the same as being together.
"Hey, I think you two should go talk to everyone! They want to talk to the bosses too, and since Ren and I already did our mingling, we can do what we want! Have fun!" Nora tightened her grip on Ren, dragging him away from their friends with a laugh. "By the way, I noticed you didn't make pancakes!"
"Pancakes aren't on the menu," Ren didn't protest when Nora handed him a plate, piling the food on without thinking. She was bound to finish all of it, including the steak and crab and bread and the cake she was piling on… it might not feel great on the way home for her, but she would at least sleep easily.
"But pancakes are delicious!" Nora plopped herself into a seat, grinning cheerfully at one of the cooks who approached. He took a moment to smile back, nodding respectfully to Ren before retreating back towards the rest of the staff. Not concerned at his hasty retreat, Nora beamed up at Ren with a laugh. "And who doesn't want breakfast for dinner? It's amazing!"
"After how many times we've had pancakes, I don't," Ren teased lightly, sitting across from Nora. No doubt the staff thought they were a thing, but Ren didn't think so deeply about it; he cared about Nora -more than anyone else honestly- and he didn't want to lose her in any way. They were together pretty much all the time, and no one else ever got between them… but it didn't Ren appreciated other people trying to flirt with Nora either. She didn't deserve to be treated with anything but respect… and when someone serious came around, Ren wouldn't intrude.
He still wouldn't like it, but Nora would do the same for him… probably. Things with Nora were never quite clear.
"But pancakes! And bacon! And all good things that are awesome! After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day… so we should have it twice!" Nora bit into her steak, ignoring the knife she could have used to cut it. "Orfweetmes!"
Ren raised an eyebrow, waiting for Nora to finish chewing. "What was that?"
"Or three times!" Nora translated with a happy hum, offering the plate to Ren simply.
"We are not having breakfast foods all day long," Ren murmured, taking a piece of Nora's crab.
"Yeah yeah, you've said that before, but it wouldn't be all day! We have breakfast, second breakfast, and elevensies can be something else, and we have to have cookies with tea, and a filling lunch and…"
"We are also not hobbits."
Nora stuck her tongue out in disappointment, but continued digging into her food, shifting closer to Ren. He was clueless, like he always was! Sure, she wanted to still be with Jaune and Pyrrha -they were pretty much family- but who else would she go to these lengths for? She'd bet with Roman... which had required talking to Roman to get this building! She had sat down to help with the interviews -she had sat down and kept calm for meetings! And he never ever acted any different!
Sometimes she felt like holding a big sign that said 'Notice Me!' but Nora wasn't quite sure that Ren would even realize what it meant if he'd read it. Maybe one day, Ren would get a clue, or Nora would flat-out tell him how she felt, but for now, they'd keep going the way it always went… together.
()~~()~~()~~()~~()
Ren, always one to start working early, chopped the vegetables in front of him efficiently, if not a bit absently. A mindless job, but one that needed to be done, and the more prep that he could do before his crew got here, the more smoothly the whole shift would go.
Besides, he had soups to start, and there were the desserts to get going, plus Nora was distracted by Jaune and Pyrrha, so what else could he do but work?
He could have gone along with whatever plan Nora had, but it looked like her plan was mostly to embarrass Jaune and Pyrrha into dating, and that wasn't exactly his idea of a good time, no matter how obvious the other two were about their feelings.
When had Nora gotten so interested in dating anyway? Ren slowed his cutting without noticing, his body moving on auto-pilot so that he didn't cut himself. She had always had what seemed like a healthy interest in their friend's love lives, but never to this extent…
Was she interested in someone? At the thought, the knife stopped moving, Ren freezing in place. He'd always said that he would step back if Nora was interested in someone, but seriously thinking about it… he wasn't altogether sure that he liked it.
Shaking his head, Ren got back to chopping the vegetables. There was no point in thinking about it at the moment, not while it wasn't interfering with them and their lives right now… and Nora would never keep something that big from him anyway. Nora never kept any real secrets from him.
Relieved at that knowledge, Ren sped up on his cutting, shaking his head internally at his own thoughts. It was just Nora's natural curiosity and desire to make her friends happy… that's all it was. And even if it weren't, Ren was more than capable of watching over Nora… and anything else that might try to get in their way.
()~~(A few weeks later...)~~()
Nora skipped through the restaurant, humming cheerfully, leaving people wondering about her good mood behind her. It didn't matter that Jaune and Pyrrha were still refusing to admit they were perfect together romantically, or that business had slowed down after the first two weeks. It didn't even matter that Roman was coming in every few days just to bother them all.
What was important was that Ren was being more protective than normal, and the only reason Nora could think of was that he did not like the increased amount of males in her circle. And even if she was wrong, it was a heartening thought after years of being in love with her best friend.
Skipping into the kitchen to pick up another order -a waitress just had to call in sick- Nora leaned over to peck Ren on the cheek with a happy laugh. It wasn't easy, and Nora enjoyed it more as a challenge, but at the end of the day, everything was fun, and everyone she loved was in one place.
What else could possibly make it better? Nothing!
So, that's that! Now, my extent of restaurant work is serving pizza at Chuck E Cheese… so not much. And owning a business? None there. So, my apologies if it isn't quite accurate… and who caught my RWBY Chibi reference? I nearly DIED when I saw that episode…
Anyway, before I go into a RWBY related rant (OMG SEASON 4), I'll just head out now (though if you wanna go into a RWBY rant/fangirling with me, my inbox is always open!). ANYWAY, thanks so much for reading, drop a review if you saw something you liked or think I need to work on, and I'll see you in the next chapter!