Chasing you || Luke Hemmings Fan Fiction

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The day had started like any other day. Everyone I knew hated Monday mornings, but I never minded them. I liked arriving early at The Buttered Bun, firing up the huge tea urns in the corner, bringing in the crates if milk and bread from the backyard and chatting woth Nico as we prepared to open.

I liked the coffee and freshly baked goodies scent of the cafe, the little bursts of warm air as the door opened and closed, the low murmur of conversation and, when quite, Nico's radio singing tinnily to itself in the corner. It wasn't a fashionable place -- its walls were covered in scenes from the castle up on the hill, the tables were small but cute, and the menu hadn't altered since I started, apart from a few changes to the ice cream section and the addition of chocolate brownie flavour and the muffins to the iced bun tray.

But most of all I liked the customers. I liked Stefan and Angelo, the plumbers, who came in most mornings and teased Nico about where his meat might have come from. I liked the flower lady, nick named for the flowers on her hat, every day she pit different flowers on her hat and it looks beautiful, she usually orders espresso with with slice of Tiramisu from monday to Thursday and sat reading thr complimentary newspapers and drinking while doing so. I always made an effort to chat with her. I suspected it might be the only conversation the old woman got all day.

I liked the tourists, who stopped on their walk up and down from the castle, the shrieking schoolchildren, who stopped by after school, the regulars from the offices across the road, and Elena and Isabella, the hairdressers, who knew the calorie count of every single item The Buttered Bun had to offer. Even the annoying customers, like the red - haired woman who ran the toyshop and disputed her change at least once a week, didn't bother me.

I watched relationships begin and end across those tables, children transferred between divorces, the guilty relief of those parents who couldn't face cooking, and the secret pleasure of pensioners at a fried breakfast. All human life came through, and most of them shared a few words with me, trading jokes or comments over the cups of coffee. Dad always said he never knew what was going to come out of my mouth next, but in the cafe it didn't matter.

Nico liked me. He was quite by nature, and said having me there keep the place lively. It was a bit like being a bartender, but without the hassle of drunks.

And then that afternoon, after the lunchtime rush had ended, and with the place briefly empty, Nico, wiping his hands on his apron, had come out from behind the hotplate and turned the little Closed sign to face the street.

"Nico, I've told you before. Extras are not included in the minimum wage." Nico was, as Dad put it, as queer as a blue gnu. I looked up.

He wasn't smiling.

"Uh-oh. I didn't put salt in the sugar cellars again, did I?"

He was twisting a coffee towel between his twi hands and looked more uncomfortable than I had ever seen him. I wondered, briefly, whether somone had complained about me. And then he motioned to me to sit down.

"Sorry Luna", he said, after he had told me. "But I'm going back to Sweden. My dad's not too good, and it looks like the castle is definitely going to start doing its own refreshments. The writing's on the wall."

I think I sat there with my mouth actually hanging open. And then Nico had handed me the envelope, and answered my next question before it left my lips. "I know we never had, you know, a formal contract or anything, but I wanted to look After you. There's three months money in there. We close tomorrow."

"There Months!" Dad exploded, as my mother thrust a cup of plum juice in my hand. "Well, thats big from him, given she's worked hard in that place for the last six years."