stfu!! @xiao

7. closing the café

CLOSING THE CAFÉ !!

your weekend sadly passed by quickly and it was back to working shifts at the café again with the new part timer. you remembered the manager telling you something about closing the café with the new part timer you were leaving on your last shift. you weren't dreading going to work at the café today because as much as last time for some reason though, maybe you were finally getting more used to it??

since this time you and xiao were supposed to close the café, you shift started later than usual. you were just laying on your bed watching your phone and eventually got up and changed into some plain clothes once you checked the time. you went to your kitchen and ate a small snack before getting your bag, putting your shoes on, and leaving. you walked over to the café and by the time you got there, xiao was already there with his apron on. he was just standing at the front counter doing nothing.

the two of you made eye contact until xiao looked away. you walked to the back and quickly put on your apron before coming back out to the front counter. xiao was still standing there in the same position, looking around at other things since there were still no customers at the time. you stood next to him and took a quick glance at him before looking away.

"so how was your weekend?" you asked. "it was okay.. what about yours?" he asked. "mine was okay too, i didn't do much though. i was mostly on my phone and stuff" you said. "mhm, makes sense" he replied.

the conversation between you two ended pretty quickly and the two of you just stood next to each other awkwardly while waiting for somebody to walk inside and order something. as time passed, a couple customers finally walked inside and ordered something. you and xiao took their orders and prepared them as best as possible. xiao then walked over to the customers with their orders and served them.

he seemed less stiff compared to the last time he was serving people their orders but still struggled to smile at them or at least just appear more friendly. you continued to prepare and make any of the orders that were made and handed them over to xiao. more and more people started to come in and you made more drinks and such. eventually, there were no new orders that had to be made and you just stood and leaned against the front counter. xiao was standing next to you again and just stood there not saying anything.

you decided to take this time to try and explain to xiao how closing the store would end up working like and he tried to listen to everything you said. you weren't sure if he actually understood anything but at least he nodded his head and gave you his full attention.

as more and more time passed by some customers left while new ones came in and you continued to prepare their orders and xiao kept on giving them out. while watching him give out the customer's orders you realized that he was actually still pretty stiff, it was funny in a way.

you looked around more after making all the drinks that were ordered by customers and saw that there was a pastry left on the front counter. xiao probably would have given this out to the customer by now but it just sat there on the front counter. when xiao finished handing out the last order he saw you pointing at the pastry. he looked confused and walked over to you.

"can i eat this???" you questioned. "uhm.. im not sure but i think the customer who ordered that left already." he explained. "oh okay then." you replied. you left the pastry alone just in case that the customer who ordered it would come back but as more time passed you just assumed that they weren't returning for their pastry.

you felt a little hungry and decided to open the packaging of it. you then took a small bite out of it before you took another. xiao looked over at you and started to stare at the pastry, you looked back at him and offered him some of it by holding the pastry out in front of him. he ended up taking a small chunk of it with this hand and put it in his mouth. he chewed it seemed to enjoy the taste of it.

"can i have another piece..?" he asked. "haha yeah, just hold out your hand in front of me if you want another one." you responded. he nodded and took off another chunk of the pastry. you continued to take small bites out of it and broke off one more piece of the pastry before handing it to xiao. he took the small piece from you and ate it.

finally, when it was closing time you went to the front and flipped over the open sign hanging on the door to closed and walked back inside to clean up the place. xiao seemed like he was doing something but you didn't know exactly what he was doing.

you continued to clean the place and wipe down the tables that the customers sat at. you then took off your apron and put it back in its original spot. when you came back out you saw xiao standing around awkwardly not really doing anything.

you looked at him dumbfounded. "do you not know how to close the place?" you questioned. he looked at you and nodded his head, "im sure that if i knew what to do, i could do it easily, but, the thing is that i dont," he explained.

and you soon realized, the newbie wasn't only bad at serving customers, but bad at closing the café too.