Ah... Another beautiful day at the café.
The customers were fine, we had enough food, and everything seems perfect.

Except for one thing.

It's 4:00pm. Sharp.

There is one thing missing.

Where the hell is that stupid Dane.

Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved I don't have to deal with him for a day.
But there's this empty seat and an empty table at the spot where he always sits. It's driving me crazy.

Is his streak finally over?
Oh gosh, what if he died?
I will never find out.

I shook those depressing thoughts right out of my head and continued with the café shenanigans.

"Hello, Welcome to Magic Bliss Café! How may I take your order?"

Half an hour passed.

"Hi, Welcome back to Magic Bliss Café! My name is Lukas' and I am your server. What may I take for you?"
There goes another half hour.

...

Did I do something wrong?
Maybe it was because I purposefully added one spoonful of skimmed milk too little that one time.

Or that time when I didn't get his order right away like usual.

"E-excuse me...? Do you guys serve Donuts here?" The lady asked while I was taking her order.
She snapped me right out of my thoughts right away.

"Oh, yes we do. We have many kinds as you can see on our shelf."

There goes another half hour.

5:30pm. Maybe he's sick today...
Wait no, he even went here when he was vomiting badly this one time and threw up on the table.

It was a pain to clean.

A gentle tune rang out across the room as another customer walks in.

Hoping it was the cheery Mathias, I glanced over eagerly, meeting with blue cold eyes and perfectly combed hair.

Nope. Not Mathias.

Berwald sat over at the place where Mathias would normally sit.

"Hello, Berwald, welcome back to Magic Bliss Café! How may I take your order?" I side grinned.

"I'll just g't a strawberry ban'na smoothie please."

"Coming right up."

I noticed that there were some bruises on Berwald's face and arms.

I wonder who would have the heart to hurt the... intimidating boy.

He's not as scary as Ivan, that's for sure.
But it's more of like, Unfriendly intimidating.

"Lukas! Everyone is waiting for at least five minutes now." Emil said.

"Oh... I guess I zoned out again."

After making the smoothie, and balancing each plate of food on my arms, I placed them all on the customer's tables.

Finally reaching Berwald's table, I handed him the smoothie.

"I don't mean to be rude... But, can I ask where you got those bruises...?" I asked.

"Oh, that."

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me."

"No, it's okay. Let's just say... some idiot tr'ed to claim something that wasn't theirs."

"I see. That must be annoying."

"You have no id'a." Berwald gave a small smile, it looked terrifying to me though.

Keeping my composure calm, I gave a small smile back.

I continued serving the customers, and gave up on waiting for Mathias.

He's just not going to come over today, is he?

When Berwald handed me cash for the bill, he left two 20 dollar bills behind.

Before he left, I grabbed his shoulder.

"You dropped this." I said, handing him the bills.

"That was a tip."

... He could buy like a hundred smoothies with that.

"It's too much. I can't accept it. Please, take it back."

"No. I insist. Ke'p it."
We pretty much just shoved it back and forth.

What made me stop and finally accept it though was when he literally shoved it down my shirt.

Thank goodness most of the customers are gone at this time, it's humiliating.

"Take it. I'm going now. See y'u tomorrow, Lukas." He gave another small wink before walking away.

It's already the end of the shift.
Still no sign of Mathias.