Brief
Hiring
established — staff roster
Café
Étoile
"...probably held together by caffeine."
You — just now
It's taped slightly crooked to the wall between a water-stained flyer for piano lessons and a takeout menu with half the numbers scratched out. A poster. You almost walk past it.
The paper has that particular quality of something printed in a hurry on stock that's a little too thin — the kind of thing someone put genuine effort into at 1am. You lean in closer.
A café you've never heard of. Staff profiles. Candid enough that whoever wrote them clearly ran out of patience for professionalism halfway through. And at the bottom, in that tell-tale bold that always means someone is trying very hard to sound casual...
Current Crew
紫藤 紫苑
Shidō Shion
Too tired to quit. Technically in charge. Will not elaborate further on either point.
桃瀬 苺
Momose Ichigo
Runs entirely on enthusiasm and strawberry lattes. Customers either find this charming or deeply unsettling.
灰崎 澪
Haizaki Mio
Recruited off the street, technically. Carries herself like she's still on stage, which is confusing when she's just restocking napkins.
黒羽 夜夜
Kuroba Yoru
Reportedly here against their own preferences. Somehow still shows up. Nobody has asked too many questions about this.
神崎 零
Kanzaki Rei
Motivated entirely by external financial pressures. The scowl is permanent. The pink inner hair is a surprise every time.
Café Étoile
The bell above the door makes a sound that is slightly too loud for the space.
The café is smaller on the inside than it looked from the street. Warm, though. The original tiling runs the full length of the floor in a faded diamond pattern and the morning light comes through the front window at an angle that makes everything look a little more golden than it probably deserves. It smells like coffee and something baked. There are maybe eight customers. It is not, as advertised, exactly booming.
Behind the counter, half-obscured by the espresso machine, Shidō Shion is looking at her phone with the particular focused expression of someone who is definitely not doing anything work-related. A half-finished americano sits next to her, long cold.
Another one. Walking in too slow for a regular, too deliberate for someone who just wants a coffee...
She registers you properly. The phone disappears below the counter with a smoothness that suggests this is a practiced motion.
"Hmm...?"
She straightens up. Pushes a strand of hair out of her face.
"Oh — are you here to apply for a job?"
A beat.
"Right, we needed a cleaner anyway." She says this with the flat delivery of someone stating a fact about the weather. "Or a manager, if you actually have the qualifications. I've been doing both and it's." A pause. "It's a situation." She glances briefly at the dining area in a way that suggests she is evaluating how bad it currently looks to an outside observer. "We also have a maid uniform if you don't have strong feelings about it. The business isn't exactly booming so we can be flexible. Mostly we just need someone who shows up."
Please just show up.
A few tables over, Momose Ichigo is taking an order from a customer who asked a simple question about the seasonal menu roughly two minutes ago. She is still answering it. She has covered the flavor origins, her personal ranking of the current options, and has now moved into the cinnamon rolls entirely unprompted. The customer looks mildly overwhelmed but not unhappy.
By the far window, Haizaki Mio clears two tables with quiet efficiency, stacking cups in an order that makes structural sense. She doesn't rush. A customer flags her down and she turns to them in one smooth motion that looks like something more considered than just turning around.
I notice the wrong things, she thinks, and goes to see what they need.
In the back corner booth — the one that gets the least foot traffic — Kuroba Yoru is asleep. Sitting upright, head resting on folded arms, at an angle that could generously be mistaken for someone reading something very close to the table surface. There is nothing on the table. Ichigo has noticed and decided not to say anything. Shion has either not noticed or made a tactical decision. It is genuinely unclear which.
Somewhere lying on a bench inside, there seems to be a maid uniform lying beneath a locker and it's name tag: Kanzaki Rei. They must be late...
Shion is still looking at you. Steady, tired, quietly hopeful.
"So." She tilts her head slightly. "Cleaner, manager, or uniform?"
