Ruby woke up in the morning with an unexplainable excitement threatening to explode her lungs. She was lying sandwiched in a huge, soft comforter on the couch in Yang's living room. Ruby always loved staying at Yang's. There was something special about it. (It may have just been the all-you-can-eat oreos that Yang kept just for Ruby when she was down.)

Her phone was lying on the ottoman next to her, open. She reached out one arm and pressed a button, viewing her texts to Yang. The events of yesterday rushed back to her, and suddenly all her excitement was understandable. She sat bolt upright and ran a hand through her messy black hair, glancing at the phone to see the time. It was seven in the morning, much too early to wake up by Ruby's standards. She didn't remember if she'd had a dream or not, but that was often why she woke up early by herself.

Ruby dragged herself out of the comforter and flopped onto the floor.

This is no way for a working woman to act, she scolded herself, and slowly stood up and trudged into the kitchen. She threw open the freezer door and opened a box of toaster waffles and put them in Yang's microwave oven. (Ruby had learned a long time ago that was not a good way to make toaster waffles, but after an incident involving blueberries, Yang had vowed to never own a toaster again.)

While the waffles heated up, Ruby got dressed, putting on a black T-shirt and a red hoodie, and then thought better of it and donned some more professional clothes. By then the waffles were ready, so she drowned them in syrup and actually had to eat them with a spoon when they disintegrated.

When she went to the single bathroom to get ready, she discovered Yang was had already taken up residence there, tying up her mane of shaggy blond hair in a ponytail. Yang scooted over to allow Ruby passage to brush her teeth, and grunted at her through the hair tie in her mouth.

After Ruby had brushed the liquid waffle out of her teeth and Yang had made her hair slightly less like a messed up sheep, Yang gave her the basic instructions.

"Okay, so the others will show you the ropes, but basically today all you need to do as a server is tell whoever's working as the barista what to make, remember who got what, and try not to dump eight lattes on a six year old."

Ruby giggled, remembering the incident from Yang's first week on the job. "How am I supposed to remember all the orders?"

Yang was turned away, probably looking through her drawer for an outfit. "You can write it down, and the job will be split with someone else, but after a while you'll get the hang of it and you'll just remember." She turned around, smiling triumphantly. In her arms she held a folded up piece of red fabric.

Ruby looked at it in pure horror. "That's not.."

Yang had a slightly maniacal smile on her face. "I get to see my baby sister in a uniform!"

"Nooooo!" Ruby shook her head. "Please don't make me wear a uniform..."

Yang snorted. "It's not that bad. The skirt's knee-length, and you can wear leggings."

Yang was right, it wasn't horrible. The skirt was flowy and nice, probably made from cotton. Ruby decided against leggings, because she was already too hot in the sweater that was part of the uniform, but she did wear a pair of shorts under the skirt to avoid any embarrassing incidents.

"Adorable," Yang proclaimed loudly. Ruby sighed and shook her head.

"So, the café's about four blocks away and we should be there in ten minutes. Do you want to get ready more, or can we go already?" Yang wondered impatiently.

Ruby was all for the idea of going.

The walk to the café was uneventful, mainly because Ruby was too excited to say a word. When they actually got there, Ruby was mildly surprised at how pretty it was. The building was brown, the color of English Breakfast tea, with beautiful green vine designs painted all over. In beautiful red script above the glass door was painted 'Beacon Café'. Cute cartoony coffee cups lined the windowsills and velvet drapes were visible from the outside. A pretty red shingled roof would have made it appear like a little house, if it weren't for the huge windows and very obvious café look.

"Wow, Yang, it's actually pretty," was not the right thing to say, no matter how surprised Ruby was. Yang gave her an offended glance that faded into something like guilt. "It was kind of a dump before I hired Weiss." She pulled out a key and stuck it in the door.

"Weiss?" Ruby inquired. The name was hauntingly familiar.

"Yeah, she's... a character," Yang muttered, opening the door. "HEY EVERYONE!" she shouted unexpectedly, making Ruby's ears hurt.

A face popped out from behind the counter. The face belonged to a very familiar girl holding a mug.

She stared at Ruby. Ruby stared back.

"Crap, no," she whispered, right before Weiss Schnee, heiress to the entire Schnee business, set the cup down and placed her hands on her hips.

"Yang Xiao Long, PUH-LEASE tell me this is not the girl you're hiring. You just CAN'T hire this klutz."

"...Ah. You two have met," Yang remarked. "Weiss, this is my little sister Ruby. Ruby, don't worry too much, she's like this to all of the newbies. Except Pyrrha. Nobody messes with Pyrrha."

Ruby was very confused as to who Pyrrha was or why she had any relevance to this conversation, and also felt a deep regret she couldn't quite place that she thought had something to do with her first impression of Weiss Schnee, heiress to the entire Schnee business.

"Okay, speaking of Pyrrha, you should probably meet the other employees. Weiss, you're just going to have to put up with her. She's my baby sister and I'm not firing her. To the back room!" Yang stated with such enthusiasm that it managed to boost Ruby's mood.

There wasn't much to the back room. There were a couple wooden chairs and a futon, a tiny kitchen in the back, and a gray table with a few lawn chairs. A guy with long black hair and a pink streak was sitting at one of the three lawn chairs. Another was occupied by a girl with choppy copper hair who appeared to be excitedly playing cards with the black haired boy. The third chair was filled by a girl with wavy black hair absorbed in a book. A girl with a long red ponytail was leaning against a wall talking to a tall scruffy blond boy, who was fiddling around with his phone. The first to look up at Yang's cheerful call of "Y'ALL, MEET MY LI'L SIS RUBY!" was the girl Ruby dubbed Red Ponytail. (Creative, huh?)

The blond boy she was talking to yelped and dropped the phone, which seemed to make an indignant noise. What kind of phone gets angry at you for dropping it?

"Ruby, meet my friends!" Yang gestured to the boy and girl playing cards. "Those two are Ren and Nora, who are opposites. Ren barely ever talks and Nora never stops. She would be proud of your breakfast choice this morning. They deny that they're dating, but we all know it's true."

Nora squeaked defensively, but quickly returned to her conversation with Ren after greeting Ruby excitedly and enquiring as to what her breakfast choice had been. Ruby reluctantly told her about the liquid waffles.

The girl who was reading looked up at Yang as if to scold her. "Yang..." she sighed.

"And that is my Blakey Wakey, who everyone knows is madly in love with me," Yang joked, wrapping her arms around Blake from the back. Blake sighed again, muttering "Get off..." quietly, before she waved to Ruby and said, "Nice to meet you. Sorry you have to deal with her as a sister," and promptly went back to her book.

Yang then introduced Red Ponytail, who turned out to be Pyrrha, and Jaune, the boy she was talking to. Pyrrha stood right up and walked over to Ruby to shake her hand. The redhead stood at maybe 6 feet tall, and Ruby couldn't help feeling a bit intimidated, but out of everyone Pyrrha had been the friendliest, so Ruby tried her best to return the firm handshake. Jaune, however, seemed to miss the introduction completely, until Pyrrha walked back over and waved a hand in front of his face.

Yang snorted. "And that's Jaune, our own personal failure."

Jaune glared at Yang. "I resent that. Nice to meet you, Ruby."

"You already know Weiss," Yang continued, gesturing to the glaring heiress. "And this is Penny."

Ruby worried for a moment that her sister had completely lost her mind. Yang appeared to be gesturing to the empty space between Pyrrha and Jaune.

"Um... who?" was her intelligent response. In answer, Jaune picked up his phone and walked over to them. He held it out. "This is Penny."

Ruby stared at him incredulously. Okay, so JAUNE was the crazy one. "You named your phone?"

Pyrrha chuckled. "It's an acronym. It stands for Personality Enhanced something or other, nobody can remember the entire name."

"Siri ripoff," Blake explained, "but better."

"But Personality Enhanced whatever is like the most BORING name ever, so we call her Penny! She's actually really awesome, you'll like her," Nora chimed in.

"She has a personality," Pyrrha elaborated. That explained the indignant noise when Jaune had dropped it. Her? It? Her.

Ruby just stared at everyone open mouthed.

"Yang, you have the weirdest employees ever," she stated quietly.

Yang nodded. "That's true. Okay, all, we open in 10. The shifts are all messed up, so first three hands in the air get the shift with Ruby!"

Nora's hand shot straight up, and Ren's followed suit, accompanied with Pyrrha's. The latter gave Ruby a smile. "You're probably on server duty for your first day, so I'll be your partner and cover you if you... "

"Fail?" suggested Yang and Weiss at the same time, Yang teasingly and Weiss meanly.

"I... was actually going to say if you need help," Pyrrha finished. "I'll show you what you need to do."

"Yeah," Yang chimed in. "Pyrrha's perfect for your partner on the first day, she's our best server. Actually she's our best in general. Pyrrha's just kind of amazing."

Pyrrha flushed and Weiss coughed loudly.

"You can stick around till noon if you want, but I'll call you if it's your shift. Ren, Nora, you two are behind the counter. Ren, don't let Nora drink the coffee that's meant for the customers. Peace out!"

And with that, Yang saluted and left. Blake followed, giving Ruby a pat on the shoulder. "You'll do fine." Ren and Nora walked out into the café section to get ready.

Weiss sneered as she stalked out the door. Jaune remained sitting.

Pyrrha led Ruby over to the now unoccupied lawn chair. "Seriously, you'll do fine. On my first day I dropped a tiny spoon in someone's drink without realizing it and Nora actually brought it to them."

Ruby was about to reply when Jaune stood up and walked over.

"P, you know that spoon thing was my fault. One of the like three hundred mistakes I make in a single shift."

Pyrrha tried to reassure Jaune that he wasn't that bad, but he adamantly insisted he was.

Ruby felt rather awkward just sitting there, so she mumbled quietly to Jaune, "Aren't you leaving too?"

Everyone was quiet.

"No then?"

"He usually waits for me on my shifts," Pyrrha started, but Jaune cut her off.

"It's okay. She's an employee here now. I... live here."

Ruby tipped her head. "Where?"

Jaune sighed. "There's a small upstairs. I've got a room up there, and I use the kitchen down here and the café bathroom."

Ruby held back an ew at the bathroom part, because that was probably exactly what Jaune didn't want to hear.

Both Ruby and Pyrrha were about to reassure Jaune that that wasn't bad and that everyone went through tough times with money, but a little bell in the café jingled and Pyrrha nodded. "Okay, let's get to work. Jaune, see you after my shift."

The blond boy sighed again and looked down. "Sure thing, P."