Paris Café

Late

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE AND TRANSPHOBIA/HOMOPHOBIA

   I woke up still on Kenjii's couch. At first, it didn't set in that I slept over at someone's house, then an electric pulse of fear and surprise shot through my spine. This happened for a number of reasons.

1: I have work so what time is it

2: I slept over at Kenjii's house who is a MAN

3: Aunt Amy is probably worrying about me

4: I can't get ready in time if I'm late for work. I have to run AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL the way back home for that.

   I sat up and looked around. "Kenjii?" I called out for him, but I got no response. "Jesus what time is it?" 

   I sprang from the couch and ran to my bags still filled with my new items from yesterday. My phone was in one of the bags, and when I took it out, I saw almost...let's see... A BILLION texts from Aunt Amy, ONE TRILLION texts from Al, and the time was 11:00 A.M. I was an hour late for work! 

   I fumbled with my phone for Kenjii's contact, and messaged him that I was going to leave my stuff at his place and pick it up later. With that, I ran out to door in my old clothes, disheveled hair, and smeared makeup.

꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡꘎꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡꘎꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡꘎

   Once I got to the café, my boss was standing behind the counter next to Al. I knew this meant I was probably going to get fired, so I took a deep breath, attempting to emotionally prepare myself.

   "Scarlet, I know you're a good employee, but you've been coming in late too many times. This is your final warning, okay? I really don't want to fire you.", said my boss. She had a sad expression on her face, like she really meant that she didn't want me to go. She wanted what's best for the café, which meant letting people go.

   "I know I'm sorry. I'll try not to be late ever again!", I responded, trying to sound optimistic. 

   "Good to hear it. Now go clean yourself up you look like a mess.", said my boss as she snickered. She walked away into the employee's only room, leaving Al and I by ourselves. Today was less busy, so we had more freedom to talk. 

   "What the hell Scarlet you're an hour late! What happened yesterday?", asked Al with a concerned tone. There weren't any current orders, so I had Al's full attention, which I didn't really want. "So?"

   I took a deep breath before explaining my wonderful day with Kenjii. I finally ended explainging to him about how I fell asleep on his lap.

   "WHOA REALLY?? DAMN GET IT BESTIE", exclaimed Al. He seemed really excited for me, but when his expression faded away, I could see a hint of jealousy in his eyes. That seemed odd to me. Al wasn't the envious type. If Al was jealous, he would whine about it constantly. Maybe there's something he wasn't telling me?

   "Well what about you? Any luck on your love life yet?", I asked. Al turned to snatch a scone from the glass display that was built into the lower part of the counter.

   "Nope. Nothing yet. Mostly weird, straight, homophobic men telling me to kill myself for being trans and a pansexual. Guess you can't trust dating apps to keep those people away, huh?", responded Al with a sigh. Ouch. That must sting.

   "Ouch I'm sorry Al. I'm sure someone good will come along, I know it!", I exclaimed, putting a hand on Al's shoulder. I removed it once I saw another person walk through the door: Kenjii. I gasped in surprise. I didn't even fix myself up yet!

   I noticed Al's face brighten in a mischievous way. Not just for "greeting a customer", but something more. Maybe I'm just looking into it too much.

   "Hey Scarlet! Hey Al!", spoke Kenjii as he approached the counter. "How are you guys doing?"

   "Well, thanks!" Al responded faster than Adrien could say "She's just a friend." He leaned over the counter in a very "friendly"(but more flirtatious) fashion. This made something in my angry, but I don't know why. Was I getting jealous?

   "Yeah I'm doing good too.", I said answering Kenjii. "Did you get my text?"

   "Yep! We can go back to my place together when you're done if you want. Also sorry for not waking you up! I didn't know you had to work today heh-" Kenjii scratched the back of his head, letting out little spurts of nervous laughter.

   "Don't mention it! Just give me a sec to clean up." I walked to the bathroom to attempt to finger comb my hair into place, and hopefully wash off some of the smeared makeup I didn't wash off from the night before. I also finally responded to Aunt Amy's messages.

   I walked back out of the bathroom to see Al getting all smitten with Kenjii. He was placing his hand on theirs, and acting all cute by brushing their hair behind their ear and giggling to whatever he was saying. 

   I felt my blood simmering, but I had to calm down. Al was just being friendly. He wouldn't try to get with someone he was hyping me up for already, right? 

   Right?