talk to you (n. uzumaki)

2.

It's been one week.

And yet again, the unforgiving rain of the New England territory decides to greet you on your way to work. You try your best to squint through the downpour to see the sidewalk ahead of you, and grasp your nearly inverted umbrella as tight as humanly possible, grateful for the little strap it has. 

"Why, exactly, did I choose to go to school here?" you think to yourself, southern bones rattling. Thankfully, you'd learned your lesson after your first day back, and today chose to wear a green raincoat with matching boots. 

You once again hurried to the door of the campus coffee shop you worked at, being met with a jingle of the bells hung upon it and the calm low chatter of the shop's patrons. Immediately, your nose is filled with the wonderful scent of ground coffee, cinnamon, vanilla, and chocolate. Even if you hadn't been lucky enough to get a job here... you couldn't stay away from here for a second if you tried. The coffee shop is often quite busy, and definitely for a good reason; it's by far the best place on campus to study, even more than the library itself.

Making your way past the counter, you see a wave from your manager, Shikamaru. How he even got the position is totally beyond you, considering he's the same age as you. Still, you'd be lying if you said he wasn't fit for the job. 

Even though you know he's lazy as they come when it comes to just about anything else, you haven't seen him care about anything quite like how he cares about this coffee shop. While he does find any way possible to bitch about "what a pain" the workload is, it doesn't ever stop him from going out of his way to make sure everything is always in it's place and running smoothly. It doesn't help that he's without question one of the smartest people in your year without even needing to try; just from the way he acts alone makes it obvious that he was one of those poster kids for the "gifted and talented" program back in middle school. He's a business major- not the one that occupies most frat houses in the  most negative way possible, but the kind that you know will shoot up the ranks just due to their dedication to the job. You're pretty sure he'll end up being a terrifying CEO of some company by the time he's 30.

"Geez, if I didn't know any better I'd say someone threw you in the Hudson. I had no idea it was that bad outside." he says with a smirk. 

"How on earth have you not noticed that outside? When the hell did you get here, Shikamaru?" you say, gesturing to the rain pounding on the door.

He sheepishly grins, tightening his ponytail. You've noticed it's a habit of his that he does when the cool persona he has is somewhat contradicted, especially when someone points out how hard he secretly works.

"Sometime around five this morning, I guess. What's it to you? I just wanted to make sure we had everything stocked.  Besides, you know how crowded we are this time of year anyway... I mean, just the freshmen alone come here in a mob once they figure out there's a nice coffee shop on campus."

"Dude." you say, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "You make it sound... like you like working here. Like it's... not a pain?"  

He narrows his eyes at you. "Shut up, man. Keep it up and you're cleaning out the coffee grinder. By hand."

You pop into a quick salute, before heading into the employee room to shove your raincoat and boots into your cubby before putting on your apron. 

Business is markedly more slow today, probably on account of nothing being worth walking across campus in the weather of the morning. 

Since there's only a few people here just studying on the beanbag chairs in the corner, you instead busy yourself with making sure every single table and floor are spotless. You get through most of it pretty quickly, besides one table that had "I+S" written on it in bright pink Sharpie that took you forever  to remove. "After all that work, I'd better be invited to their wedding."  you think to yourself, rolling your eyes as you scrub away at it. But after that, you took a seat at one of the barstools close to the serving counter, just appreciating the rain as it patters on the window, following the drops as they make little trails on the glass panes.