Chapter Text
February 27th
The day dragged on. It was a rainy, stormy, cold morning. No one would want to leave the house to do anything today, no way anyone was going to come in for a coffee. What was the point of you being scheduled with two other people? They should really let one of you go home - preferably you.
Your coworkers are messing around, creating crazy drinks with almost every ingredient they can find in the small kitchen of the café you work at, the sound of Pieck's playlist playing quietly in the background.
Usually, rainy days never caused you much trouble, you love storms and thunder. Shiganshina wasn't necessarily known for being the sunniest city, so ever since you were a child, your days were spent playing in the mud, making potions in small buckets, and feeding your dolls little mud cakes.
However today the rain was a rather unwelcome nuisance. You've been barely managing to get yourself out of bed in the mornings. Having been going to bed at ungodly times of the night, sometimes even early morning, you've been running on barely four hours of sleep.
Memories from the past sneaking their way into the forefront of your mind rather than staying in the backmost corners of your consciousness, where you'd like them to be.
So as much as you loved cold, rainy and kind of nasty weather, at this time it wasn’t helping your mental state in the slightest.
You've been standing in this café since 8 in the morning. It feels like you've been here for hours on end when in reality only three hours have passed. In total today you've had only seven customers. None of them were memorable enough to think about for the rest of the day.
Usually, if someone who Pieck qualifies as a "sexy babe" walks in, you never hear the end of it from her. Your alltime favorite coworker and very best friend.
You've lived in Shiganshina all your life, never moved anywhere else, never thought about leaving your sacred city. You knew the ins and outs of this place, there isn't a corner of this city you haven't yet explored, and you adored that.
When you were younger, the other three kids that lived in your neighborhood were forced to move away from Shiganshina. You never got to know why, it seemed like they disappeared overnight and haven't shown their face around these parts ever again.
Ever since then you’ve tried finding people you connect with but that hasn’t been easy. Not that you didn’t have friends, you just preferred being alone, at least that’s what you told yourself.
Your parents gave you all sorts of excuses on why they moved away, none of them believable enough. You might've only been five years old but you were never naïve.
And while you miss them a lot, you're twenty years old now, and you've mostly forgotten about them. What even were their names? You need to go look on the picture hung up on your wall, maybe their names are written on the back of it. Your mom would always write on the back of pictures, marking them with the date the picture was taken on and the people pictured in it.
You’re pulled out of your thoughts for just a moment, letting yourself bathe in the atmosphere of the locale. The café smelled heavenly of coffee and caramel. You can't help but inhale deeply as you daydream about the cup of coffee you're about to prepare yourself.
While you're thinking about your childhood and a nice warm coffee, Pieck and Porco are messing around with each other. It was all fun and games until one of them dropped a cup full of coffee and it went all over the freshly mopped floor you just finished cleaning two minutes ago. The sound of the cup falling to the floor startles you and brings you back to reality. Your head snaps back to look in their direction.
“Oh fuck.” you hear Pieck whisper to Porco. They look at each other, eyes bigger than saucers. They scramble and go look for the mop, but you're still holding on to it.
"Heyyyy Y/N, how are you doing today? It's some lovely weather we're having, absolutely amazing and super comforting, right? You should totally let me grab that mop and put it away for you, don't you agree?” Porco comes up to you and puts on his sliest smirk, leaning his elbow on your shoulder.
You look up at him. “You both are such idiots, guys, honestly,” you're trying very hard not to laugh right in his face, "here take this, it'll help you clean up this mess.” Disappointed, he looks at you like he was expecting you to clean it up for him.
Pieck notices his expression and bursts out laughing. She‘s grabbing her stomach and is about to take a nice tumble to the floor as you hear the little bell above the door ring.
“Hi, welcome to Latte Love, what can I get started for you?” You say instinctively, not even having fully turned around to look at your potential customer.
Pieck and Porco are silent as they stare them down, Pieck‘s jaw slightly agape, while Porco looks.. jealous? You're no stranger to the look on Pieck's face, it's her signature "super hottie” look, you know you'll be hearing all about it as soon as the customer leaves. Porco's expression on the other hand is one you've never seen before.
Does he know this person?
Having fully turned around to look at the man that entered your establishment, your breath hitches in your throat a little. Before you can fully register how you reacted to seeing him, you cough it off and compose yourself. The man is tall, like really tall. His hair is kept in a messy, yet somewhat orderly, mullet. He has a very well groomed goatee. His bottom lip is pierced with snake bites and he also has an eyebrow piercing. His clothes however don't reflect what he has going on on his face at all.
He's wearing some very nice, what looks like freshly ironed pants and a black, tight, sweater. His pants are pretty long and half covering his shoes but it looks like he's wearing black converse. He's wearing a big silver watch with a few chunky, black bracelets. Rings on almost all of his fingers and he has three piercings on each of his earlobes. In all of them he's wearing silver and black, small hoops, alternating in color.
His face looks serious, stoic. He looks like he's made of stone, a statue. His eyes look straight at you, analyzing your face, before they quickly dart away to the register. His expression remains unchanging.
Realizing that you're staring at him, you quickly snap out of it and focus on your job.
“Yes, do you have any cold brew?", he asks, his voice deep, and smooth.
“Yes, of course, our cold brew is our new signature drink! Would you like anything in it or just the cold brew?””
“Just a large cold brew is fine, thanks.”
“Okay, perfect, that would be 3.99, please. Would that be cash or card?”
While you're checking him out, Pieck gets straight to making his drink, while Porco is mopping the floor, occasionally shooting the man a foul glance.
"Cash, please,” He puts a twenty on the counter, "Keep the change, put it in your tip jar or something.” He awkwardly says, not knowing where to look, his eyes wandering all around the store. You're surprised. People around here don't usually ever have the money for such large tips, the usual tip was about 20 cents on a good day. “Oh, no, Sir! I couldn't accept that, it's a lot of money, please take your change!”
He turns to look at you again. “You can give it back to me but I'm just going to put it straight back in the jar for you, so be a dear and keep it, please.” He sent a small smile your way, barely lifting the corners of his mouth before molding his face back to his prior stoic expression.
You hesitate but end up doing as you're told, and putting the tip in the jar, quietly mumbling a thank you once again.
He thanks Pieck when he reaches out to grab his drink. He doesn't bother making himself look friendly. He has a cold look in his eyes, he seems disinterested, not fully here. Since the café is fully empty, he walks over to a more secluded corner and sits down at a table near one of the windows.
Having put down his cup, he lets himself drop onto one of the armchairs arranged around the table. He grabs a pair of headphones and his phone out of his pant pocket and puts them in. You can't fully see him anymore from where you're standing, so you turn around to look at Pieck whose face hasn't changed, not even a little bit.
“Oh. My. God.” She dramatically mouths, and starts walking towards you, putting both her hands over her heart and squeezes them tightly, signaling that he's really caught her attention. You giggle and point in his general direction. "Be careful, he could hear you.”
She leans her elbow on your shoulder and leans in really close. “Y/N,” she says, her voice low kinda teasing, “I saw the way you checked him out, too, you know?” You can't help but scoff at that. You, checking a man out? Please. You haven't even thought about being in a relationship since getting out of your last one a bit less than a year ago.
"Pieck, don't be silly, I'm not interested in him in the slightest.” Pieck knew all about your past, she was there for it when you were going through it.
She looks at you like she wants to say something but decides against it. You don't ask her about it, not wanting to get into it with her right now.
“Ugh, this is so annoying. Pieck, I swear to god the next time you spill something you have to clean it up.” He says, bringing the mop and its bucket back to its designated storage space. Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and sighing dramatically.
"So, Pieck, I saw you looking at the guy, do you think he's like hot or something? Is it the piercings?” Porco asks her, trying to sound like he was just messing around with her but coming across rather… insecure.
"What? No! I don't thin-”
The sky grumbles before erupting into a droning roar of thunder, cutting Pieck off from what she was going to say. The sky lights up for a short second before returning to the dark, gloomy blanket of clouds it was just a moment ago.
The three of you don't continue the conversation and get back to doing whatever around the café.
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The hours drag on for what feels like an eternity until it's 5:58pm and you're putting the last chair away. Ready the close up shop for the day.
The guy that came in earlier that day left only a few minutes ago. He quietly got up from his seat and before any of you could say anything, all you heard was the bell ringing as the door fell shut behind him, and his figure disappeared into the wall of rain, still pouring from the sky.
"Man, this day was ASS.” Porco dramatically says. The three of you step out of the locale as you lock the door shut behind you. "The two of you did make sure to clock out, right?” You ask them, you close with them often and the amount of times they've forgotten to clock out after leaving is beyond you.
They quickly nod their heads in confirmation, and you quickly lock the door.
“Yeah, okay guys I'm way too tired for this. I'm going home.” You look over at Pieck, “How are you getting home? Do you still have to go somewhere or are we going home together?” The two of you lived together, however this morning Pieck told you that she had some errands to run after work.
She thinks it over for a second, glancing over at Porco for a second. "Porco, will you drive me to run my errands, pretty please?” She bats her eyes at him.
“Fuck, this isn't fair Pieck, I can't say no to you when it's raining like this.” He seems annoyed with himself for saying what he did, and giving into her so easily.
Giggling, she turns to you: “I'll see you later tonight, Y/N, you don't have to save me any dinner!” She smiles at you sweetly, grabs onto Porco's arm, and starts dragging him to the parking lot, leaving you alone in front of the café. You hear her giggling as she drags him behind the corner, where his car is parked.
Sighing, you open your umbrella and start heading towards the parking lot yourself. Porco‘s car pulls out of the lot, shoots you a quick honk, before they also disappear into the gloominess of the evening. Your thoughts start drifting towards what you should make for dinner. Having bought at least ten frozen pizzas last time you and Pieck went grocery shopping together, it seems like the choice has already been made for you.
As you round the corner, expecting your car to be the only one left, you see that there’s a black Mercedes parked not too far away from your own grey Toyota Camry.
Your car was the love of your life. When you were seventeen your parents surprised you with it on a random day when you came home after school. Admittedly, she was an older model, and maybe had a few light scratches here and there, but she was your most prized possession. And she was one of the last things you had that reminded you so much of your family.
You missed your mom and your dad a lot. It has been a while since you last visited them. You liked telling yourself that it was because you have just been too busy with work and haven’t had the time to stop by.
But realistically you knew you were lying to yourself.
Making a mental note to find some time to go visit them, not wanting to think about them any longer, your attention is brought back to the other car in the lot.
It looks like there's a guy sitting in there, hands on the steering wheel, gripping it so tight that his knuckles turned white. He almost looks like the man that sat in your café for hours on end today.
You feel crazy, you looked at him for barely one singular minute earlier today, and now you're seeing his face somewhere he probably isn't. Not having slept much the last few nights, you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, blinking the sleep out of them.
"God, I'm so tired,” you whisper to yourself, running your free hand through your hair. You awkwardly rest your umbrella between your shoulder and the side of your face and rummage through your purse, looking for your car keys. Having found what you were looking for, you stuff them in your pants pocket.
You grab your pack of cigarettes and your lighter.
At this point you've been smoking for two years. Just about every day you tell yourself that you're going to quit, and sometimes you do… for three days and then you cave, just as you always do. Frustrated with yourself, the weather, and your life, you bring the cigarette to your mouth and light it. You inhale deeply, relishing in the feeling of your lungs filling with smoke. Immediately your mind quiets down, your hands feel less shaky, and you feel more awake.
The black Mercedes’ headlights light up, startling you. The car slowly pulls out of its parking spot
You hate how much you love smoking. How it calms you down, how it's the only thing you crave after a long day, or when you wake up in the morning, or when you're sitting on the fire escape. Nothing will come close to the feeling of smoking. While you do wish you never picked up this habit, this wasn't the most harmful of your coping mechanisms.
Taking your last drag, then throw the bud onto the ground and step on it. You make sure it's completely out before unlocking your car, sitting down, closing your umbrella and throwing all your stuff onto the passenger seat.
With a huge sigh of relief, you relax into the seat. Today was a long, boring, rainy day. You couldn't wait to go home, make dinner, light up a joint and watch your favorite movie with an ice cold coke.
Your phone connects to your car and music starts playing, not bothering to change the song, you put on your seatbelt, put your car in drive and slowly pull off.
Your drive home is filled with your favorite songs playing just loudly enough to drown out your thoughts, warm air blowing on your cold hands, and the lingering aftertaste of your previously smoked cigarette in your mouth.
Every day you count your blessings that you live so close to your workplace. The drive home takes barely longer than ten minutes, you turn onto the familiar street you‘ve now lived on for just about two years.
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Parking your car in your usual spot, grabbing everything out of the passenger seat, without bothering to open your umbrella to shield you from the rain, locking your car, and running to your condo‘s entrance, your feet landing in a huge puddle.
“Yup, seems about right.” You think to yourself, cursing your lack of attention. Not letting this inconvenience ruin your excitement of getting home, you rush up the stairs all the way to the fourth floor. While there was an elevator you could technically take, by the time it reaches the ground floor, you could already be in your apartment, pouring yourself a glass of wine.
So when you and Pieck moved into your apartment, you decided that using the elevator is strictly reserved for when you go grocery shopping and don’t feel like dragging all the heavy bags upstairs.
Standing in front of apartment 4a, you grab your key out of your pocket, and hurriedly open the door. The smell of the candle you lit while getting ready this morning flooding your nose. Pieck gifted you it a few weeks ago for your birthday, its scent reminds you of your parents. It smells like warm vanilla and caramel.
You hate using the overhead light, and while Pieck used to make fun of you for that, you showed her why your love for ambient lighting mattered. When you moved into this apartment, you spent two days changing all lightbulbs in the house to smart lightbulbs. You programmed all the lights to either a warm yellow, or a few different shades of pink.
While you can change the lights from your phones, you wanted to make sure that they could be turned on as soon as you entered the house, hence the second lightswitch you attached next to the entrance. With a press of the button, your apartment lights up in different warm shades of colors ranging from yellow to orange going all the way to pink.
It feels like a warm blanket was wrapped around you, as you bask in the comforting ambiance of your home. Finally, you close the door behind you. You take your shoes off at the entrance, pick them up and bring them over to the bathroom, not wanting to get the floor dirty but still needing a place to leave them to dry.
Your back is aching, begging you to lay down and just relax. However there're a few things you have to do before you can allow yourself the heavenly feeling of resting your aching limbs in your warm bed. When you finally get to your room, you throw your purse on the floor, your umbrella falling next to it. Your feet are screaming at you to sit down and give them a break. You try your best to ignore it as you wander over to your closet to grab a fresh pair of pajamas.
You walk over to your dresser, where you keep an array of candles. You can't help but light the same one you lit this morning. As badly as you wanted to just go shower, make food, and lay down, there was a picture you knew you had to look for.
On your wall, you kept just about a million pictures of your friends, family, pets, and sceneries that you took. The corkboard designated for your pictures was overflowing, but you were sure you knew where that picture was hung up.
Carefully moving a picture of Pieck, Porco, and you out of the way, you saw the picture of you with your three childhood friends.
It was taken on Christmas, both your families celebrating together, like they did every year. You remove the tack you used to attach it onto the corkboard. Reluctantly, you turn it around, and there it is, written in your mom's handwriting: Christmas '05, Eren, Y/N, Mikasa, Armin.
"Right, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin. How could I possibly have forgotten. Aw man, I miss them so much. I wish I knew what happened to them.”
You make sure to put the picture back exactly where it was, and make sure to make a mental note of their names, making sure you don't forget them again. You look at the picture once more, starting to feel tears well up in your eyes. Not wanting to cry this evening, you quickly gather yourself, rub your eyes with your hands, and turn your attention away from your board of memories. On the way out of your room, you grab your speaker as well as some fresh towels.
You go to the bathroom, set all your stuff down, and turn on your speaker. You scroll through your spotify playlists before settling on your Cigarettes after Sex playlist.
⋆⋆✮♪♫ play: Tejano Blue - Cigarettes after Sex ♫♪✮⋆⋆
You start humming along to the sound of one of your favourite songs, turning on the shower, and get ready to get in.
Stepping into the shower you let out a sigh of relief as the warm water hits your back. As much as you want to stand here forever, your desire to lay down is much greater. While you're relishing in the warm water, you close your eyes and let yourself drown in the music. The slow, relaxing beats help to keep you out of your own thoughts. Eyes still closed, you reach for your shampoo. The familiar scent of lavender and vanilla filling your nose.
You rub the shampoo into your scalp, relaxing against your own touch. The warm water runs down your body before you push your head under the stream to rinse the shampoo out of your hair. Today you don't bother conditioning your hair, you are just too tired to stand for much longer.
Having washed yourself off, you get out of the shower, wrap your hair in your towel, and after drying off, you get dressed. You grab the most comfortable pajamas you put out for yourself. A pair of black, old sweatpants and your favorite shirt with a whaleshark on it. Having forgotten your socks in your room, you quickly run to get them, and while you're at it, you put on your slippers.
While all you want to do is lay down, your stomach starts rumbling, and you are at its beck and call. Your music still playing in the background, you wander over to the kitchen and grab a pizza out of the freezer. You turn on your oven, put the pizza on a baking tray, and shove it in the oven.
Reaching over to the cabinet where you and Pieck keep your wine, you grab one of the bottles, find a wine glass, and pour yourself some. Alright maybe it was more than just some, it was closer to being an almost full glass, but you told yourself that you deserved it after a long day at work.
"Hey Siri,” you start, "set a timer for 20 minutes.”
"Done.”
Disconnecting your phone from your speaker, you make sure your wine glass is sturdy in your hand, and make your way over to the balcony.
It's pretty cold outside but the cold air feels good against your skin. You sit down on one of the two chairs. It's dark outside, the rain is still pouring. Luckily for you, the balcony of the apartment above you is right above yours, so you don't have to worry about it falling on you. The pack of cigarettes laying on the table is teasing you. Reluctantly you put down your glass, pick up the pack and put one in your mouth. The lighter finds its way into your hands and you can't stop yourself from lighting it.
Once again inhaling the smoke, you're filled with relief. While you try to limit yourself to just one cigarette a day, that doesn't always work out for you. You alternate between taking a sip of wine and taking a drag of your cigarette. You finish smoking it about five minutes before your timer is supposed to go off. Making your way back inside, you go to the kitchen and ready a plate for your food. You start getting impatient, not wanting to wait much longer for it to be done, you decide that it's probably ready by now and take it out a few minutes early. Your stomach starts rumbling more at the smell and sight of your freshly baked pizza.
Putting on a pair of oven mitts, opening the oven door, you carefully take out the baking sheet and put it down on the stove. You take off one of your mitts, grab a pizza cutter out of your cutlery drawer, carefully cut the pizza into 8 slices, and transfer them onto a plate.
Your mouth is starting to water at the sight of your soon to be devoured meal. You hum a random melody as you grab your plate, your wine, and make your way over to the couch, where you'll be spending most of your evening, enjoying a few episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen.
Having put your plate down on your coffee table, you grab a blanket, rearrange the pillows, and get comfortable. You turn the tv on, scroll over to crunchyroll, and turn on your show.
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You were so invested in your show and your food that you barely noticed Pieck coming home.
The door slams shut. "Hey, Y/N! I am finally home, no need to tell me how much you missed me!” She shouts from the hallway.
You pause the tv, and look over in the direction of where her voice is coming from. "Hi, Pieck, did you have dinner already, I can quickly make you something if not.”
“Aw, Y/N, you're too kind for your own good! However, I already ate – Porco took me out to dinner.” She makes her way over to the living room.
"Since when are you and Porco even so close? I thought you said he was "soooo annoying” last time we talked about him.”
She breaks eye contact, starts playing with her hair and blushes a little. “What!? I mean, yeah he is annoying, but he‘s still our friend, you know!”
You smile at her, nodding your head a little in agreement. “Right, no, yeah, absolutely. So what kind of errand did you need to run that was so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” You ask, hoping to successfully change the subject, as Pieck looks uncomfortable talking about Porco.
She immediately perks up, bolts back towards the hallway to fetch her bags. “Oh. My. GOD! Just wait until you see what I got you, you’re going to FREAK!” She shouts, already making her way back to you.
“What? Pieck, you didn’t have to get me anything.” You state, slightly frowning at her. All she does however is beam a huge smile right back at you.
Setting down her shopping bags on the couch right next to where you’re sitting, she plops down too. Rummaging through two bags before she gets to the third and finally finds what she was looking for.
“Here!” She says, not taking her eyes off of you, handing you the bag with her gift in it.
You hesitantly take it, put your hand into the bag, and grab whatever it is that‘s in there.
You freeze as soon as you realize what Pieck got you. Unable to believe your eyes, you stare at your gift, look up at Pieck, stare at her, look back down to your gift, and back up at Pieck. Carefully placing it onto the coffee table, you lunge towards Pieck, enveloping her in a hug.
You've been looking for this one missing piece of decor for your room ever since you and Pieck moved in together. It was an antique hollywood regency tulip lamp. It was in perfect condition, the metal was completely rust free, the glass petals of the flowers were perfectly clean, and without a single scratch on them.
You squeal: "Pieck!! Where did you even find this?” Pieck's gesture moved you to your core, you can feel tears welling in your eyes.
“Y/N, you won't believe how long I've had to haggle for this lamp on facebook marketplace. I think I've been in touch with the lady selling it for about a month before we could agree on a price.” She giggles, and pulls you closer, running a comforting hand down your back
"However, I'm glad I ended up getting it for you, I know how much you've been wanting one ever since the one your grandma had broke.”
The two of you sit back down on the couch, you quickly rub your eyes to get rid of the tears.
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go plug it in and see how it looks in my room!” Eagerly, you get up, grab the lamp with one hand, grab Pieck's hand with the other, and drag her into your room.
Walking over to the dresser you keep your candles on, you move them out of the way, making space for your room's new, beautiful, addition. Your hands were shaking with excitement, carefully placing it where you needed it to be, and plugging it into the wall. When it turns on, it beautifully lights up the backmost corner of your room. You can't stop staring at it. Overwhelmed by your feelings, you can't help but hug Pieck tightly once more.
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March 13th
Days come and go, between working, running errands, cleaning your apartment, and late night conversations with Pieck, two whole weeks go by without you really noticing.
The late winter was slowly warming up to early spring. As it was starting to warm up, it stopped raining as much, slowly the sun started coming out more and more often, and most importantly, the days started getting longer again. It was crazy to you how quickly the weather and temperature could change within the span of just two weeks.
You were so caught up working, you've only had three days off in the last weeks. Your body and mind were exhausted.
A loud groan left your mouth as your alarm went off once more. It was 6am once more and you had to start getting ready for work. You could hear Pieck in the kitchen making coffee. You were hoping that she made enough for you both, but even if she didn't, you have a huge stash of RedBulls in the fridge waiting for you.
Begrudgingly, you push yourself up off the bed, letting your feet hang over the side of the bed, looking for your slippers. You sit for a moment, not ready to get up yet. You wish you could just call out of work today, however that wasn't an option since Porco got himself sick.
It was already going to be hard enough managing the café with just two people, especially on a Saturday.
You stand up, walk over to your window and slide it open. Breathing in the fresh air, you feel yourself wake up a bit more. Heading over to your dresser, you turn on your all time favorite lamp, and light a candle.
There's a soft knock at your door. "Who's there?” You know it's Pieck, of course, but sometimes you like to make stuppid jokes with each other.
She opens the door, "Good morning, Sunshine! I made you your coffee, just the way you like, cold brew with vanilla sweet cream” She smiles at you.
Pieck truly was your savior. "Thank you so much, Pieck, you truly are the very best.”
You take the coffee and walk to the kitchen with her. "So, are we gonna go for our morning cig?” You ask her like you do every single morning since you started living together. And every morning the answer you got was the same. “Of course, I would love to!” Before heading to the balcony, you run to grab a sweatshirt, not wanting to freeze on the balcony. "Pieck, do you need a sweatshirt, too?” You shout out from your room.
"No!”
You grabbed a random sweater to throw over yourself so you wouldn't freeze to death on the balcony.
Before joining Pieck on the balcony, you go to light up the candles that the two of you kept on your coffee table. When you join Pieck out on the balcony, she already has a lit cigarette in her mouth and she's holding one out for you, too. You sit down on the other free chair, grab the cigarette and light it. You take a long drag, letting the smoke fill your lungs, before you exhale it all. A feeling of calmness rushing over you.
“I'm finally off tomorrow,” you say, “I can't wait to be able to sleep in.”
"Do you have any plans on what you're gonna do tomorrow?”
“I think it's time I clean around here again.”
“Oh, alright! Are you sure you don't want us to do it together?”
“Yeah, I'm sure, since I have the day off I'm gonna do a few things around the house, I really don't mind at all.”
"Thank you, Y/N, you're the best,” she says before continuing, "So, the tall guy has been coming in every single day so far.” She says, shrugging her shoulders.
“You really took a liking to him, didn't you?” You giggle, taking a sip of your coffee.
"What?! No I didn't!”
“Oh, right, I totally forgot, you like Porco now, don't you?” You take a long drag from your cigarette, Pieck doing the same.
She looks at you, wide eyed, her cheeks red as apples, her jaw basically on the floor.
“I- wha-, Porco? I don't care about Porco, he's fucking annoying, or whatever.” She stammers. “Stop teasing me, I don't even like him!”
You put your hands off in defense, giggling. “Alright, alright, I'll drop it. But when it does happen, I called it.”
“IF it happens, Y/N, IF. And I'm telling you now that it never will because I don't like him like that.”
“Okay, I'll let it go. However I have to get ready now girl, I don't wanna get there late. Are you okay with just taking one car?”
“Yes, of course, we can take my car. You've been driving us everywhere lately.” You nod in agreement, grab your coffee, and go back inside.
You grab your phone out of your pocket, and look at the time, it was already 7:00am, which meant you only had about forty minutes to get ready.
Taking your sweatshirt off and throwing it on the couch, you put your mug in the sink and rush to the bathroom. You put your hair up out of your face, wash it with ice cold water and try rinsing the remaining sleep out of your eyes. You grab your clean towel, and dry your face off. You look for your face cream in the drawer once you find it, you rub a generous amount into your skin. Quickly brushing your teeth, you look at yourself in the mirror once more.
Your hair was sloppily tied up on top of your head, frowning at yourself, you rip the hair tie that's currently in your hair out, causing your hair to fall over your face and sticking to the face cream you just applied.
“Ugh, ew.” You roll your eyes, and grab your hairbrush. Quickly working through all the knots in your hair, you decide to put it half up half down for work today.
"Well, this is as good as it's going to get.” You whisper to yourself, opening the door and turning off the light in the bathroom. You make your way over to your room, quickly glancing at the clock in the living room – 7:27am.
You frantically look for your work uniform, probably on your desk chair. The black pants and white shirt with the corny coffee pun on it were exactly where you knew they would be. Your apron was at the café, you never bothered taking it home.
You put on the pants and the shirt, you grab a pair of socks, put those on too, and quickly sit down at your vanity.
Barely having ten minutes left to get ready, you do your eyeliner the way you've been doing since you were fifteen years old. You grab your highlighter, place some on the inner corner of your eyes, a little on the bridge of your nose, and on the cupid's bow of your lips. You apply some mascara and you're just about done getting ready, the only thing missing is your lipstick and your hairclips.
Your lipstick should be in your purse, your hairclips on the other hand should be in your vanity drawer. You have three different kinds, star shaped ones, heart ones, and butterfly shaped ones. You would usually alternate between them. Today, you decided to go with two stars on each side of your head, the larger clips are pink and the smaller ones are yellow.
You get up from your vanity, grab your purse and a sweater from your closet and look at yourself in the mirror, you quickly turn your body to see the back of your shirt. Today, you picked your shirt that says "Made with a Latte Love ♡”. All your work shirts have different puns on the back of them, it was corny, but the customers seemed to love it.
You get out of your room, close the door behind you and make your way over to the hallway, where your shoe rack was. As per usual, you decided to wear your converse. You had three different pairs, all of them were high tops, of course, but different colors.
One baby pink pair, one brown pair, and of course, a black pair. Today, you decided to go with the pink ones, since they matched the pink heart on your work shirt.
"Pieck! Are you ready to go?” You ask her. She doesn't say anything in return, you hear nothing until something thumps on the floor.
"Pieck?”
“I'm okay, I fell while tying my shoes, I'll be there in a moment!”
"Dude, are you okay?”
“Yes, duh.” Pieck has always been clumsy, so nothing surprised you anymore when it came to her. She runs out of her room, grabs her purse off of the couch, runs over to the hallway, where you're currently standing, and gets her keys that are hanging on her designated key hook on the wall.
“Okay, I'm ready, let us go to work!”
⋆ ⋆ ✮ ☆ ✮ ⋆ ⋆
You and Pieck work together really well, having had this job for just about four years by now. You applied for this job together, when everyone around you also started getting jobs. Both of you knew that you wanted to start making money so that when you eventually moved in together, you could buy yourself all the beautiful furniture you've dreamed of since you were little girls.
And since then, you kept working there together. Through all kinds of personnel changes, surprisingly, the two of you have never gotten fired. Two years ago, Porco joined your team, and since then, the three of you hung out outside of work often. He would barge into your apartment randomly, call the two of you in the middle of the night to get milkshakes, or to go get McDonald's. You've come to really like his company. You would do anything for your friends, nothing could ever come between you, they are your support system, and you wouldn't have it any other way.
The drive to work drags on, already dreading the long work day ahead of you. You were hoping none of the customers were going to throw any fits, however working in food service has taught you that not nearly as many people have common sense as they should.
Especially on a Saturday, when most of your customers consist of families running errands all day with their feral children and coming into your coffee shop for a “break”. That break usually consisted of them sitting down and letting their children wreak havoc upon the shop, bothering not only you but also most of the other customers.
Your day was filled with people requesting the strangest drinks, asking for seven millions pounds of sugar, requesting you remake their drinks, and so much more. You haven't had a second to even stand there and just breathe. Pieck and you danced around each other perfectly, not a single step was out of place, making your way around the equipment but never getting in each other's way. Slowly but surely you made your way through all the customer's orders.
And just like that, you were almost at the end of your shifts. It was now 5:13pm, only 45 more minutes and the both of you could finally go home.
“Today was insane, Y/N, I don't know how we made it.” Pieck leans against the counter, sipping on some water.
“I know, but we did it, and soon we can just go home and relax.” Your back is turned towards her, you are reorganizing the fridge with all the different kinds of milks and creamers in it. During the rush, you made a mess in there, a lot of the bottles tipped over, and it was just disorganized in there now.
You hear the bell above the door ring, as somebody enters the café. You hear Pieck put down her water cup, and walk over to the register.
"Hi, welcome to Latte Love, can I get your usual started for you?”
"Their usual? Who was this?” You think to yourself. While yes, you did have a few regulars, you always greeted all your customers by saying "Welcome to Latte Love, what can I get started for you?”
Hearing the customer laugh, he says: “I guess I have been coming here everyday for two weeks. Yes, please.” You recognized that voice very well by now. You turned around to confirm your suspicions, and you were right, it was the tall, pierced guy from two weeks ago.
“As always, that would be 3.99, please.” Pieck says
"Here you go, and as always, please keep the change.”
You can hear Pieck wanting to retort, however he cuts her off before she can say anything. “I've told you every single time not to argue with me on this, please keep the change, it is my pleasure.” He always paid somewhere between 10 and 20 dollars, and every single time, he told you to keep the change.
"Uh, listen, you've been coming here everyday for two weeks and yet we still don't know your name.” Pieck giggles a little as she starts making his drink.
“I guess you make a fair point, my name's Jean, and you are?”
“I'm Pieck!” You can hear their conversation, you choose to ignore it however, not knowing whether Jean was talking to you, too.
“And what about you?”, he says, now talking to you.
You turn around, looking him in the eye. You point at yourself. "Me?”
"Well, yeah, is there anyone else I could be talking to?”, he says, a cocky grin on his face.
That expression on his face irks you. You almost want to laugh in his face, make a joke at his expense. Something about his presence shifts something within you.
"No, right, you're right. My name's Y/N.”, a blank expression on your face, voice monotone.
He seems irked by your answer, his facial expression changes from cocky to annoyed? It leaves you satisfied seeing him not fully getting what he wants. What even is it that he wants?
"Here you go, there's your cold brew for you.” Pieck says, holding the cup out in his direction. His eyes slowly leave your face and make their way over to Pieck.
"Thanks.” He grabs it out of her hand, turns around, and walks straight out of the door.
"What a strange guy.” You say, eyebrows furrowing a little.
Pieck just looks at you and nods in agreement.
⋆ ⋆ ✮ ☆ ✮ ⋆ ⋆
March 16th
Pieck left early this morning since she was scheduled to work again. You on the other hand got to have the day off.
You didn't get to sleep in often but when you did it was heavenly. Your room was flooded by light, you reached over to the right side of the bed, where you knew your phone would be. Quickly looking at it, it was 10:37am, Pieck sent you a text this morning.
Piecks ♡: Good morning, my love! Thank you for cleaning the place today, I appreciate you so much.
You can't help but smile to yourself, Pieck was the sweetest. You shoot her a quick text.
Y/N: Don't even worry about it, babe. Good luck at work, tell Porco I say hi! Ilysm.
You turn your phone off, rub your eyes, and push yourself up out of bed. Your slippers are in their usual place, right by your bed. You look for a sweater to throw on, finding one on the floor next to your dresser. “I really need to clean up in here.” You whisper to yourself. Having worked so much recently, you just let your clothes accumulate on the floor, only washing your work uniforms.
Leaving your bedroom you walk over to the kitchen. In the living room you see that Pieck lit a candle before leaving the apartment, not bothering to blow it out since she knew you'd be at home. You decide to not blow it out yet.
You didn't bother making coffee, knowing you had an ice cold coconut RedBull waiting for you. You knew it was unhealthy for you to drink one as soon as you wake up, however, you also knew how draining today was going to be, so you allowed yourself a little treat. Now only one question remained: to cigarette or not to cigarette.
As much as you didn't want to give in, your hands itched for it. Making your way over to your balcony once more, you sit down and shamefully light your cigarette, like you do every morning.
You decide to scroll on Instagram for a little. You barely followed anyone, only Pieck, Porco, and a few bands you liked. The only story that was posted was by your all time favorite band – Paradis Bay.
Usually, they posted pictures of their instruments, or they posted new song drops. They were a faceless band, never having been on tour yet. You were sad about that, you've loved their music for three years by now. You remember seeing one of their videos on Instagram when they first started out as a band.
And ever since then you've adored their music. It was slow, calming, almost repetitive but not quite.
⋆⋆✮♪♫ Touch - Paradis Bay (Cigarettes after Sex) ♫♪✮⋆⋆
Your favorite song by them was "Touch". Everything about that song was perfect for you. You've listened to it countless times, on your way to work, at work, on your way back home, while you shower, cook, clean, and even when you try to sleep. That song played on repeat.
Finally, you open their Instagram story. You weren't expecting what you saw.
Hello, everyone.
We would like to inform you that we will be taking a hiatus for a while.
A lot of very personal things have been going on in our band, and we need to take our time to figure it all out.
We are going to keep all our socials up, however we won't be interacting with your posts like we usually do.
Thank you for supporting us through everything.
We love you. ♡
What? They were going on hiatus? While that really sucked, you hoped that everything was okay. As much as you loved the band and their music, you wanted them to get their stuff figured out, instead of forcing themselves to work on music they couldn't put their heart and soul into.
Once you were done smoking, you got your RedBull, and went back inside.
You headed to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face.
You kept spacing out while looking at yourself in the mirror, somehow when you walked out of the bathroom, your hair was already done. Without any recollection of doing so, you settle for what you created atop your head.
You put your hair up in a simple ponytail and added the same star clips you had on yesterday.
Was it necessary to do your hair and get dressed to clean around the house? Probably not, however you wanted to feel cute while vacuuming and dusting.
Maybe getting together with your friends tonight would be a fun idea. Grabbing your phone, you open your group chat with Pieck and Porco.
Y/N: Hello, lovelies. Pizza night at ours tonight? Since we're all off tomorrow?
Immediately, they read your text.
Poc☆: Yes, for sure! Pieck and I will go pick it up right after work, pepperoni for you, as always?
Y/N: Yes, you know me too well, Poc.
Pieck♡: Ew are you guys like flirting right in front of my innocent eyes, wrap it up guys.
You giggle, before turning your phone off and stuffing it in your back pant pocket.
You love hanging out with your friends, they are the kindest, most comforting people to have around. You never felt judged around them, loving their company more than anything. Going back to your room, you change out of your pajamas and into some simple black flared leggings and a baby pink baby tee with a small heart cutout on your chest.
“Where is my speaker?", you said aloud to yourself. Glancing around your room, you saw it standing on the bookshelf behind your door. You kept a lot of trinkets and way too much manga on that shelf. You loved collecting your favorite mangas, and all different sorts of books. Many of them were given to you as a gift from Porco and Pieck, some of them you got from your grandma.
You grabbed your speaker and turned it on. Opening your spotify on your phone, you scroll through all your playlists, settling on Pieck and your playlists. It was a mix of all your very favorite songs. You put it on shuffle and hit play.
⋆⋆✮♪♫ New Person, Same Old Mistake - Tame Impala ♫♪✮⋆⋆
You put the speaker down on your vanity, and turn the music up louder, drowning out all other sounds, and your thoughts.
Making your way back over to your room, you start picking up your clothes, and putting them in your laundry basket. Having filled it to the brim with dirty clothes, you picked it up, and dragged it over to where your washer was. It was really heavy. “I can't keep doing this to myself,” you whisper to yourself.
You and Pieck got lucky to find an apartment with a washer and dryer in unit. While it took you a while to find an apartment as perfect as this one, it was well worth it.
Stuffing a big part of your clothes into the washing machine, you add your favorite detergent and close it, and start it. You go back to the living room, where your phone was, and set an alarm, so you could make sure not to leave your laundry in the washing machine. There were so many things you could be doing today instead of cleaning up around this stupid apartment. You see the state of your kitchen and nearly have a heart attack.
For some reason, earlier this morning, when you were grabbing your RedBull, you didn't notice how bad it was in here.
The dishes were piled up in the sink, the counters were disgustingly dirty, and there were crumbs all over the floor. You could feel yourself getting anxious, hands getting clammy, your breaths starting to shallow as they speed up. You didn't mind things being messy, not at all. This was all your mother's fault. You remembered how she would yell at you for not cleaning the house the way she liked it to be cleaned. How she would ridicule you, and punish you, and all you could do was take it.
You shake your head, wanting the memories to leave your mind as quickly as possible. Quickly getting to work, you start doing the dishes, not wanting to look at the mess in the kitchen any longer than you have to. As bothersome as doing the dishes is, you did enjoy seeing how the kitchen went from looking a total mess, to looking somewhat put together after only having done the dishes. You promptly start wiping down all the counters, making sure to pay extra attention to the stove.
Once you're more or less content with how the kitchen looks, you make your way back to your bedroom.
As much as you hate the thought of it, you know you need to change your bedsheets. You need to make sure you do that before you vacuum. Maybe you regretted telling Pieck that you were going to clean up the apartment. Even though you already started stripping the sheets off your bed, you flopped onto it and curled into yourself.
Sometimes, when you were all alone, you allowed yourself to truly bask in your feelings. Not that you didn't trust Pieck to be there for you, that wasn't it at all. You know how much the both of you have supported each other through the toughest of hardships.
The idea of how much work you still had to do around here was overwhelming you. However you did this to yourself and you weren't going to stop cleaning, especially since you were having Porco over at your place tonight. Not that it really mattered if it was clean around here, he has seen your apartment in a shameful state more than once.
So you forced yourself to get up and finally put a new, fresh set of sheets on your bed. It was your very favorite, pink and white striped set. After a good half hour of stripping your bed, sitting down, putting fresh linens on your pillows, sitting back down, trying to figure out which side of your duvet was longer, sitting down once more, and struggling to put on the sheets on the duvet, you were finally done.
Embarrassingly, you were sweating a little. However that was one more thing you could cross off your list, and finally, you were able to move on to vacuuming. But not before you shoved your laundry into the dryer, and pushed another load into the washing machine. You quickly vacuumed your room, the living room, kitchen, and bathroom.
You grabbed your phone, and opened your chat with Pieck.
Y/N: Do you want me to vacuum your room, too?
Pieck♡: No, but thank you!!
That just meant one less thing to do, perfect.
The last thing you needed to cross off your list was mopping. As much as you didn't want to, you slowly made your way over to where you kept your bucket and mop, as well as the detergent you used to mop the floors with.
"Just this last thing, and then you can lay down.” You think to yourself. So you hurried to get everything set up, before you fully mopped the entire place in less than forty minutes.
You bring back the vacuum, bucket, and mop to your utility closet. You check the time once more, and you realize that you have one more load of laundry to do. So you slowly walked over to your washing machine, and repeated the same thing you did earlier. However, now you were left with a pile of clothes you needed to fold. You decided to shove them in your now empty laundry basket, and leave it next to your washing machine, since you had two more loads you needed to bring back to your room.
In the living room, you lit three candles, one on the coffee table, one on the end table next to the couch, and one on the kitchen island that faces the living room.
You finally go to check your phone again – 4:57pm. Great, Porco and Pieck should be here in about an hour and a half. You got kind of sweaty today, and it made you feel gross. So you decided to take a quick shower, so you could wash all of today's grime off yourself.
⋆ ⋆ ✮ ☆ ✮ ⋆ ⋆
You were sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, watching property brothers, feeling squeaky clean, when you hear the door unlocking.
“Y/N, we're home!” you hear Pieck shout from the hallway.
“Hi, Y/N!” Porco says.
“Hi Poc, welcome home guys!”
Pieck runs to you, throwing herself right next to you onto the couch, and Porco walks in behind her, carrying three pizzas, a plastic bag full of drinks, and Pieck's purse. He puts all the stuff down on the kitchen counter, and places the drinks in the fridge. Pieck grabs the remote and turns down the volume on the TV a little.
"So, the weirdest thing happened today,” she starts, “Do you wanna know?” She asks teasingly.
“Yeah, duh, of course I wanna know?”
“Okay, so,” she sits herself upright, waving at Porco to come sit on the couch with you two, “That Jean guy came in today.”
“Oh, okay, that's kinda boring, to be honest.”
“That's what I'm saying.” Porco interjects.
“You are the boring ones, I wasn't even done talking yet,” she rolls her eyes at you two, “He didn't come in alone.”
“Are you two hungry at all because I'm starving?” Porco says.
You start nodding when Pieck shrieks “You aren't even listening to me!”
Porco looks at you and very obviously tries his best to hold back his laughter.
“Okay Pieck, keep telling us, but yes, Porco, I am STARVING, please give me my food.”
He quickly gets up and brings over the three boxes, and gives each one of you their pizza.
“Okay so, now that you have your food, you better shut up and listen to me.” Pieck says, and gives both of you a serious look. You and Porco were already stuffing your face with food, so all you could do was nod. “You're both kind of gross, I hope you know that.”
“Alright,” she continued, “He wasn't alone. There was this weird brown haired guy, he was fully tattooed everywhere and had a fully pierced face. His hair was really long though, like it really looks like he takes care of it.” Both you and Porco keep munching on your pizza, while Pieck keeps talking about what happened at the café today.
“And there was this other dude. He was bald though, well no, not bald, he had a buzzcut. He came in wearing a fuckass beanie though. He also had a fuck load of piercings. I don't know, Y/N, those guys looked kind of scary.” Now, you were getting a little more intrigued. Who were those guys he came in with, his friends?
“When he came in, he asked if you were here, too. And when I told him no, he got kind of sad. He didn't even end up ordering anything. He said goodbye to me, and asked me to thank you for all the cold brews we made him. The three of them just walked out.” You looked at her for a moment, mouth still somewhat full, you covered it with your hand, and said “That guy really is so weird.”
“Y/N, first of all, stop talking with your mouth full. And second of all, that's all you have to say about him?”
"What, I literally covered my mouth!”
“Who cares? It‘s disgusting and bordering on you being a piggie.” You roll your eyes at her comment. Before you can say anything, Porco speaks up. "She's not a piggie, Pieck. And who cares about that guy anyway, he seems annoying as hell.”
“He's not annoying, Porco, he seems like a kind person who'd love to have some more friends, I just know it!” Pieck retorts.
“For all you know, he's some freak who is out to get you and sabotage your life in some way.” Porco states matter-of-factly.
“Porco, you're the fucking freak, get off my back for once, and shut up.” Pieck says, rolling her eyes and turning her body away from him.
Porco doesn't say anything, and scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest and sinking deeper into the couch. You're not sure how the mood soured so quickly, one moment Pieck was telling you about Jean, the next her and Poc are fighting.
“Whatever, guys, you can keep arguing, I'm gonna go lay down.” You get up off the couch and make your way over to your bedroom. “I swear to god if I hear you two fighting over this dude, I will personally make sure to bash both your heads.” You give them a stern look before disappearing into your room. They're loudly whisper-yelling at each other, but you couldn't give less of a shit.
Making your way over to your candle-littered dresser, you pick a vanilla scented one and light it. You go over to your desk, grab your laptop and throw it on your bed. You go to open your window, and then finally you can go lay down in your comfortable bed. Before you allow yourself to drift off into the most sacred thing that is sleep, you check your emails.
There's nothing unusual, UberEats, random ads, Spotify. At the very top of your inbox, there it is, an email from your boss titled “Transfer offer”.
A transfer? You open the email.
Hey there, Y/N.
We have been wanting to expand our business for a long time now, as you might know.
Finally, we got the chance to open up a new shop in Trost. By now, our new café is almost ready for the grand opening. We've been looking for someone from our store to transfer them over there, to support the new employees, and manage the new shop.
After a lot of consideration, we landed on you. We think you would do amazingly as a manager, so we would be more than excited to offer you this opportunity. Obviously this transfer would come with a promotion.
Please let us know as soon as possible if this is something you'd be interested in!
Kind regards.
What.