Childhood Friend

"So, A tall iced americano with three pumps of palm sugar, oat milk that was blended with skin on, extra caramel drizzle, extra pink salt from the Himalayas, extra butterscotch, extra praline, extra homemade dairy-free caramel crunch, double blended, and extra tears of the forsaken souls found on Mount Vesuvius in the 369 B.C?"

The lady in front of the register stared at Lucas with one of her eyebrows raised and her mouth slightly agape.

Her mouth started twitching as barrages of words began forming in her throat.

But before a single one could make their way out of the woman's mouth, Lucas spoke first.

"I'm just kidding for the last part. Is the rest correct?"

The lady swallowed up most of the words she wanted to say, but still continued speaking,

"Yes I ordered A tall iced americano with three pumps of pal-"

Before she could repeat the obnoxious order Lucas quickly put the drink in front of her and cut her off before she could continue the order that made americano a diabetesno instead.

"That'll be 11W$, miss."

Hearing the last word Lucas said, the lady instantly forgot about being cut halfway through her sentence and happily gave Lucas 12W$, saying proudly to take the 1 extra dollar for his tip.

Lucas gave her the best corporate smile he could give and tended to the next customer while started taking their order.

'So this is the kind of job you do here. No wonder you didn't find anything a person said to be too ridiculous.' 

Maya spoke directly inside Lucas' mind as she began feeling emphatic to the young man that had been standing for hours and hearing bullshit almost every 5 minutes.

'Yup, it doesn't get any better than this. At least being a cultivator helped a lot with the exhaustion.

I didn't feel any physical exhaustion so far. Only the mental ones. And it didn't even feel that bad.'

Maya had taught Lucas how to actively absorb more mana from the environment and he had been doing it so far as a practice.

At first, he could only do it while standing still and focusing on activating the magical runes in his body.

But after a while, he could also do it while taking and making orders. 

And now, he could even do it while keeping a poker face when hearing a ridiculous order and responding with a seemingly genuine smile.

'Yes, you could say it does have an effect like the vitamin C boost that artists take.'

Lucas tilted his head a little, 'You even know about that now? How deep have you gone inside my head?'

'Deeper than any girl had gotten herself inside you.'

Lucas' whole body froze for a second when he heard Maya's answer and he almost forgot what kind of drink and the bazillion modifications the woman ordered added to it.

Sensing Lucas' mind questioning and judging her deeply, Maya asked, 'What? Isn't it popular in your world to do dirty jokes?'

This time, Lucas didn't even bother asking anything and just continued doing his job.

Lucas' routine of taking, making, and giving out orders continued just like usual until a certain customer came in.

"Good afternoon miss, may I take your order?" Lucas said as his hands were still busy making the previous order.

"Hi, can I please order…"

Hearing the voice of the customer was a girl, Lucas stopped in his tracks for a second as he thought that he would need to write down her order.

But surprisingly, the girl continued speaking,

"An Iced Americano."

Lucas kept his mouth shut and waited for a few seconds, expecting a barrage of caramel this and caramel that to come, but they never did.

"That's all?" He asked as he turned his head to the saint-like girl who had just ordered an ordinary americano when he was busy as heck.

"Yes, that's al- Wait, are you Lucas?"

Lucas had recognized her the second he turned his head, it was a nostalgic face that he hadn't seen for quite a long while.

Her face also changed a bit since it had been some time since he last saw her, but he definitely recognized her.

"Catherine?"

Recognizing it was her name that he called out, Catherine's eyes lit up as her hands clapped "It's really you! I wonder where you went to after primary school!"

"You suddenly disappeared and never came to the playground anymore! Do you know how many weeks I spent waiting for you to come every single day?!"

Hearing her words, Lucas' heart ached a little as he remembered his childhood friend who played with him every afternoon.

But he really couldn't do anything else, he didn't have a phone back then and the only way to meet and talk to her was actually to go to the playground and hope she would also be there.

"Some things happened and I couldn't tell you about me moving, I'm sorry."

Catherine was about to ask him dozens more questions, but the purposely faked loud cough from a lady behind her cut her short and instead she asked,

"When are you free? You have a lot of explaining to do, Luke!"

Lucas froze a little as he heard his childhood name being called out after about 5 years of not hearing it, but he kept his cool and looked at the clock on the wall of the cafe.

"About 30 minutes left until my shift's over."

Catherine nodded and continued speaking, "Please make my order 2 iced americano then."

Lucas smiled while pressing the keyboard to note her order and spoke, still with a genuinely happy smile on his face, "Please wait on the next counter to pick up your order."

=======

"I'm really sorry to hear that…" Catherine looked at Lucas' eyes.

Her own eyes started wavering as tears began welling up behind her eyelids.

Seeing her, Lucas quickly responded, "No worries. I've gone past the grievance stage and I'm currently just thinking of it as an unfortunate thing to happen.

It had happened and I couldn't do anything about it either, nothing to overthink about."

Seeing his words did nothing to stop her from feeling sad, he asked a question instead, "What about you? Why did you move here?"

Catherine did stop shaking for a split second before it continued again right after.

Seeing this, Lucas had a bad feeling.

"My father got laid off from his previous work."

'Shit. Good job making her forget about your miserable life and thinking about her own instead.' Lucas cursed inwardly as he saw his childhood friend's eyebrows become even more downcast than before.

'You definitely messed that up, boy.' Maya added, fanning the flames even more.

'Maya! Give me your hundreds of years of wisdom! Your little partner here needed an experienced woman's help!' Lucas begged, his mind going 100 miles an hour trying to find the right words to say to the girl in front of him.

'You need to avenge his father! Destroy the company that dared to mess with her and her father! Burn them through the ground! Show them that they messed with the wrong people!'

Hearing Maya's answer, Lucas didn't even know what words to give to respond to her and instead became more confused than before.

Fortunately, Catherine threw out the lifeboat herself to save Lucas from this predicament.

"But he got a job here and we are doing just fine now!"

After the almost unsavable awkward moment had passed, the two continued talking until sunset.

Realizing they had spent hours sitting there, Lucas decided to go home first as he still needed to buy his grandma the chicken bucket and meat so she could eat enough protein.

As they walked out of the cafe, the two still continued talking.

It had been quite a long time ever since Lucas spoke a lot to someone. 

They never had any kind of deep talk before since they were still kids back then, but knowing that someone from his past, back when he was still a happy little kid, thinking about nothing other than his next meal and playtime, Lucas found talking to Catherine to be quite a healing experience for him.

"So you will continue going to school here?"

"Of course dumbass! You want me to be a beggar in the future?"

"You can do better than that, Cathy! You can find a rich old man to be your husband. Which school by the way?"

"I'll be a rich auntie on my own without no one's help. So no thanks! To school A!"

"That's the same school as the one I'm currently in! We might be classmates!"

"That would be awesome! We could also be deskmates" Catherine said as she punched Lucas' shoulder.

"Yes, that would be-"

Lucas was cut short as he heard a voice in his head,

'Luke boy, look at that alleyway over there.'

Lucas then turned to the direction where Maya sent him a mental pointer and quickly realized what she meant.

Lucas quickly opened up his phone and slapped his forehead

"Ah! Cath, I forgot something! I need to run! See you at school!"

Without waiting for Catherine's response Luke turned back towards the cafe but then took a right turn to the alleyway near there.

"Wait! Lucas! You haven't given me your phone number!"

Catherine's shout went unnoticed as Lucas' eyes were focused on the man standing with his arms crossed in the front of the alleyway.

'Who was that bastard's name again? Tom?'