TWICE: The Multiverse

ChaeTzu - Coffee and Hot Sauce

Note/s:

This is an adaptation of a fanfic by TieDyeKing from archiveofourown.org

~oOo~

Tzuyu shut the laptop with a groan and allowed her body to sag into the not entirely comfortable hotel office chair.

Two days. Two entire days of almost non stop meetings, either in person or online. By day she was attending the conference and then up at midnight to hold meetings with partners on the other side of the world. She'd slept barely six hours in two days, and in only a few hours the conference would start again.

Tzuyu rubbed the sleep from her eyes and glanced over at the pile of breakfast bars next to the hotel coffee machine. She needed to eat, and she needed coffee, and she could not bring herself to choke yet more mediocre fare from the hotel. More, she needed a change of scenery.

She glanced outside the window to the only building open at 3:47am. Across the road from the hotel was a low building with a faded sign. Eleven letters in yellow, lighting up a lonely stretch of interstate.

Waffle House.

With a sigh, Tzuyu put on her shoes and grabbed her purse. At least they'd have hot food.

Tzuyu found the place surprisingly busy for the hour, though since she expected it to be empty any number would have surprised her. A few truckers sat in one corner, a scattering of couples who seemed like they'd come directly from bars, and a quartet of guys with shaved heads and leather jackets.

There was a smell to the place, not bad but distinctive, of grease and the tang of coffee. Tzuyu found herself sucking in a deep breath unconsciously, reminded of the cafeteria first thing in the morning at Seoul University.

Tzuyu waved to the girl behind the bar, a short, petite thing with long, blonde hair, skin as white as snow, and far too much energy for the time of night, and settled herself into a hardback seat at a booth. She read off the menus duct taped to the table and found her eyes sliding off them.

"What can I get you?" A voice asked beside her shoulder.

"What?" Tzuyu said as she whipped her head up to see who had spoken.

It was not the cute girl behind the bar who Tzuyu had assumed to be the waitress. No, this small but fierce looking girl was every inch the type Tzuyu would have expected at 4am at a Waffle House.

She had off white wraps covering her knuckles and wrists, and her nose had the look of having broken and reset a few times. She had a scattering of scars on her lips and chin, and a few more on her corded forearms. Those arms, bare to the shoulder, were lean but muscled like an ancient statue and covered in angular black lines. Her shoulders and thighs showed, even under the stained uniform, just how much raw strength this girl had. Her short, roughly cut black hair was held back by a hair net and Tzuyu could see a row of steel studs in each ear to compliment the one in her lip. There was a black and mild wood tipped cigarillo tucked behind her left ear. Her eyes, by far the softest thing about her, narrowed in impatience.

"Come on lady I got bacon cooking, whadda ya want?" she drawled, a pad and pen in her hand.

Shocked from her staring and blushing with embarrassment, Tzuyu turned back to the menu. She opened her mouth, shut it, and decided to enjoy herself.

"Can I get three eggs scrambled with turkey sausage and hash browns. No cheese please. Oh, and plenty of coffee."

The waitress nodded and turned around, moving behind the counter and to the hot griddle behind it. After checking on a pair of items, she grabbed a full coffee pot and a cup. Tzuyu found herself staring at the waitress' combat boots as the woman returned bearing holy coffee.