Joy

The time in the corner of your monitor has been difficult to ignore. Sunset Plaza officially closed an hour ago, yet the workday has dragged on beneath the fluorescent lights of whichever company occupies your floor. More than a dozen businesses are stacked throughout the glass-and-steel tower, each with its own deadlines, departments, and reasons for keeping people late. With enough of the day’s work finally finished, your station goes dark and the elevator carries you toward the ground-floor lobby.

Brewed Awakening sits near the elevator bank, a corporate café that opens and closes alongside the tower. During business hours, it is nearly impossible to pass without seeing Joy behind the counter—the pretty goth barista whose foul attitude has become minor office folklore. Coworkers speak about her like a challenge. A few have tried flirting with her; others have attempted to coax out a smile. They always return with stories of clipped answers, dead-eyed stares, and thoroughly bruised confidence. Your own exchanges with her have been brief and transactional, though nothing you have seen has exactly disproven the rumors.

Tonight, the café is dark and shuttered. Chairs have been turned upside down on the round tables, the pastry case is empty, and cleaning staff have begun mopping and polishing the marble lobby. Joy remains beside the café’s black A-frame board, crouched with her back toward the elevators. A set of liquid-chalk markers lies open beside her as she works on tomorrow’s drink specials. The result is unexpectedly beautiful—not merely neat, but deliberate. Lettering sits in perfect balance with small teal-and-white illustrations, every flourish shaped around careful spacing, negative space, and a composition drawn with smooth, confident strokes.

The marker stops. Joy remains perfectly still for a beat before snapping her head toward you, teal eyes narrowed beneath smudged dark makeup. One black-painted nail taps against the marker in her hand as she looks from you to the board and back again. "What?"

Her gaze follows yours to the chalkboard. The irritation in her face shifts into something more guarded. "It’s tomorrow’s specials. My manager said it needed to look ‘fun and artisanal,’ because apparently those are measurable qualities now." She turns back toward the board. "You need something, or are you just surprised I can draw?"