Stirring Thoughts [Open]

<sup>You would think that smelling fresh coffee all morning would perk a person up, but then you’ve probably never met Seo-yeon Park, part-time barista at the aptly named ‘Morning Glory’. Clad in the café’s signature uniform, the young rebel remained slouched behind the counter, squinting with tired eyes at the cash register. The digital clock read a solid ten thirty-three, much to the woman’s dismay. Another two-hours remained on her shift; the longest shift of the week, to boot.

Fortunately, she had survived the early masses of businessmen, bankers and dock workers requesting their morning espressos, americanos and that one suit who insisted on a short macchiato. In fact, if not for him, Miss Park would probably never have known the difference between a short and long macchiato. That aside, the soul from Seoul awaited the next wave of customers; the ‘early lunch bunch’ that she generally managed to avoid by virtue of always being handed the early shift.</sup>

The beautiful weather had the tattooed man in a good mood. Much as he was one for the finer things in life, sometimes he could remember the value of simpler things. Not that he could enjoy it for too long, as he was on a job. Thankfully just checking a potential lead on someone related to a wanted man someone was looking for, who supposedly frequented the place he was headed for. Beyond that he wasn't interested, especially to keep himself out of that part of the business. But since we was going to visit a cafe at such a time, he figured it might as well serve as a breakfast too.

It didn't take him long to locate the cafe he was looking for: Morning Glory. Pushing past the door, Locke removed his hat as soon as he stepped in. He wasn't wearing a jacket anyway with the temperature not requiring one. Eyeing the room, he heard a cacophony of different thoughts and emotions in his head whilst his eyes passed several different people. Not that he saw whom he was looking for, nor was there any real benefit for this as he could barely catch a whole sentence in the stream of thoughts, just such an initial scan had basically become a reflex by this point.

As he had a few moments to kill while waiting on his target, he maneuvered across the room to reach the counter, which seemed to be manned by a rather young girl, most likely not far past 20. Placing his hand on the counter, Locke cleared his throat a little before asking "Could I get a double espresso and a croissant?"

<sup>Maybe I shouldn’t have been out most of the night, Seo-yeon considered, briefly glancing through the window at the sunlit street upon which Morning Glory was set. The weather was clear, no storm warnings inbound as far as she could gather from recent forecasts, though that wasn’t to say one couldn’t suddenly roll in.

What instead rolled in was a neatly dressed man, polite at that as he immediately doffed his hat, revealing a variety of tattoos upon forehead and face. The barista couldn’t say she hadn’t considered tattoos, but to her the blotchy Hanja upon the back of her hand was enough. Besides, tattoos were permanent; fluorescent paint that evaporated in sunlight was not.

“Double Espresso, coming up,” she replied, reciting the gentleman’s order once, twice, three times over in her head just to make sure she remembered it. Not that it was a complex order, but she was practically comatose, idly splashing bright swirls and script on the bland environment with her mind’s eye.

A simple order, she swiftly took a small cup, two shots of coffee filtered cleanly to concoct what must have been the single most regular order any modern day barista ever had to. Good quality was always to be judged by the customer, but it was a good job of it if she did think so herself. The croissant was still relatively fresh, enough so that its scent was just strong enough to force its way through the perfume of a thousand caffeinated drinks.

“Here’s your order. That’s €3.60, please,” Miss Park said almost monotonously, placing the drink and accompanying pastry upon the counter for the customer and quickly (minus one small mistake) keying in the details on the register. She briefly side-eyed the television display, the Empyrean News Channel silently repeating the morning’s stories, before focusing again on the customer. Surely this was a man who was easily recognised.</sup>

The young courier was also enjoying the good weather, Which had him leaving his rather heavy jacket back home. Having just dropped off an early delivery nearby, Aaron felt it best to talk a bit of walk before his cell would ring with another job. Either that or the burner he kept in his back pocket for an assignment from his contacts in the Family. So might as well enjoy the morning. As usual, Downtown was always busy with traffic, both foot traffic and motor traffic. Taking in a deep breath, Aaron made a content sigh, in a decent enough mood to do so. He even found his gaze drawn by the occasional tourist, that temptation to pick a mark always present before he simply brushed it off with a smirk. The morning was a little too early to be cheating people out of their own money.

Approaching the familiar signage of a local cafe, The Morning Glory, the seasoned criminal stepped inside to the rich smell of coffee beans wafting through the air. He had joined his place in line, sliding behind a suited man as he waited patiently for the line to move forward. He yawned a bit, still trying to wake up without the aid of caffeine. Once the man in front of him received his order, Aaron would walk forward without being pushy. Looking at the barista, the courier was drawn to her eyes immediately, noticing the slight difference  on then as he lost his words. Well That's interesting. His smirk did not falter however as he spoke. "I'd like a cup of coffee..." Noticing her rather zombie-like behaviour earlier, he decided to tease her a bit. "And could I just get like a shot of workplace dread in that."

The bell above the door dinged a couple of times as the tall Viking descendant entered the coffee shop, he was enroute to an art collector. Someone who wanted one of the rare “Torch light pieces”. Sculptures and art pieces that can only be made by one man and kept around by one method that he only taught to the best payers. It was because of this job that the man had gone and got an early night he night before, leaving his top boys to look after his usual nightly duties. A quiet chuckle escaped the man as he watched the guy at the front of the queue tease the seemingly tired barista. “Good thing I slept well.” He muttered to himself as he let his eyes scan over the menu of drinks that was available.

The selection was good, but James was tossing it up between an Americano and a hot chocolate… it all depending on how awkward he wanted to make the order and what mood he wanted to carry over into his next piece. As the thought of what he would build passed through his mind he lost track of time for a moment and in a daze missed what went on in front of him. Instead the man saw a brilliant sculpture forming, one of a victorious but nameless soldier standing over defeated… a rebel over a storm trooper in fact… hopefully his new employer liked star wars.

A small shove moved the man forwards and brought him back in time to see it was his turn to order… he was in a nostalgic mood. “Gimme the regular, Large hot chocolate with whipped cream, chocolate shavings and some of those small marshmallows you sprinkle on top for the kids…” He recounted as he stepped forwards with a cocky smile “I’m feeling nostalgic and hot chocolate is just what I need.”

Having already counted his total off the menu, Locke almost immediately handed over exact change to the bartender. Though glancing over her face, something stirred at the back of his head. Not from his brand, that was bringing up nothing but baristas regret over staying up too late. Just the eyes of the barista were rather distinct, something he could swear he had heard about on the job. Though most likely as just some rumor, nothing he was paid for. Certainly no one in the big leagues worth digging into if he could just barely remember some vague details with no connection to anything. He simply took his order and said "Thank you miss. Have a nice day."

With a steaming cup of coffee, Locke took a table next to the wall and once again laid his eyes across the room. Someone here would supposedly know about one Wesley Adler. He had an appearance and time of day, so now he'd just need to notice them among the crowd. Asides the occasional sip on his coffee, rather good coffee at that with just the right amount of kick, the tattoo'd mans attention was on the coffee house entrance. As soon as someone entered or exited with a matching description, he'd need to begin probing their mind.

Exact change? That was unexpected. At least it made the slowly increasing queue shuffle a bit. Unfortunately for Seo-yeon Park, that wasn’t a good thing, as proven by the next customer in line. She was already silently wishing for one of her colleagues to return, but there were still a few minutes of torture to put up with before they returned from their break.

Next to step forth was a man of short, dark hair and brown eyes, a small and somewhat devious smile upon his face. Of course, the barista was quick to find the pressure rising, direct eye contact being maintained for far longer than her current state of lethargy would have desired. She understood why he was staring. He wouldn’t have been the first; certainly not the last to notice her heterochromia.

His order released the pressure.

“What an ass,” she mouthed in Korean as she stared daggers at the gentleman, soon thereafter gesturing towards the café’s drinks display and reverting to English. Sarcasm teased her tongue, but her mind quickly remembered her manager’s straight-laced beratings, forcing her to mould her grimace into an obviously fake smile. “Sir, we do have a wide selection of available coffees--Espresso, Americano, Latté, Mocha and both short and long Macchiato--to name a few options. If you could please decide on an exact order while I serve this-”

^{Oh, for fuck’s sake…
It had to be him, now?!}

“-gentleman, that would be greatly appreciated, thank you.” Patience. What was that mysterious creature? Miss Park certainly had none of it right now. How bizarre was it that the most unusual looking man had the simplest, quickest order, and that the two most normal-looking folks had to be the two biggest pains of her day. Her thoughts immediately danced to the last clash between herself and the blond, better known as ‘Torch’. A splash of bright colours on the streets and walls at midnight came to mind, as too did their mutual agreement.

“Large with cream, chocolate and kid marshmallows. Coming right up,” Seo-yeon recited, now feeling a little more awake by virtue of repetitious aggravation. The only thing that could possibly make this worse was if the boss walked in. Still, she could not help but snark back, a barely audible mutter directed through a smile at the customer: “Because you don’t have enough bite to handle real marshmallows.”

The reaction to his order even through her forced smile was one that cracked James Kovatch up, the smile he bore grew to a cheeky grin and he let his hand lay on the laser pointer in his pocket. A seemingly useful tool to just point out things in the distance, but to this particular branded an effective weapon. “Thanks, tell ya what. I’ll get you one on me. I got a good job today and I’m in a grande mood.” The blonde noted as he started to play with the laser pointer in his hand, fully revelling in the afterglow of a pun.

With a quick shift in his weight he leaned forwards, pressing his tall frame on the counter. “Ohh and throw a slice of chocolate cake in there too, I’ll share it with my friend after work tonight. She loves the cake in this place. It practically makes her glow.” He said, trying to be menacing but his giddiness at his own pun and potential at a good pay packet completely threw his town off. To anyone that didn’t know the pairs dubious night lives this might look a little awkward. Once the failed attempt at teasing was over James stood back up and slipped his free hand into his pocket to drag his wallet free of its tight confines ready to pay arch-nemesis for his goods.

The career criminal blinked a bit at the girl's response, before using a somewhat thinly veiled sarcastic tone as he noted the rather icy gaze she was sending his direction "Well, I suppose it was MY fault for assuming that a coffee shop would sell, you know, coffee." Feigning annoyance as it really didn't bother him that much. He stepped aside to let the blonde gentleman behind him make his order. He would quietly watch the two interact as he acted like he was reading the menu. There seemed to be some kind of history between them, but Zephyr wasn't interested enough at the moment to really pay attention. He did, however, try to hide a chuckle at the pair's back and forth until it was his turn to order once more. He stepped back up to the register as she smiled at the young barista, deciding to go the complete opposite direction from his first order

"I think I have a better idea now. I'd like caramel macchiato, short, skim, extra shot, extra-hot, extra-whip, sugar-free" He grinned as he was certain he had come up with a frustrating complicated order this time. He waited for her to start making it before the pressure would seem to shift in the air. Eventually, the Korean woman would feel an odd breeze along her back and the nape of her neck, Much cooler than what would have blown in from the door opening given the weather. The courier had always been a bit playful especially those that he met with some bite. The man hummed a soft tune as he waited for his drink

“That’s… kind of you, but I’ll pass,” Seo-yeon replied awkwardly, noting the blond’s offer as he then went on to add a slice of cake to his order. His puns were terrible. That being said, any art that came from this man was by default atrocious in the barista’s eyes. Well, at least that’s what she wanted him to think. She was never going to give him the satisfaction of praise.

Now, there’s an idea… Hot chocolate swiftly prepared, cream added on top, Miss Park took a moment to add an artisan’s touch to the order. Sprinkling the chocolate carefully in a jagged pattern, she made sure to spell out an insult in her nightlife’s trademark script in a way that only he would be able to read when he looked down upon the mountain of cream, marshmallow and chocolate.

“Hot chocolate, as requested, and one slice of chocolate cake…” She didn’t even have to bother reciting the price of his order; accepting cash payment and quickly arranging change from the register to hand back to him. Hopefully, this was the last she would see of him today. “Thank you and enjoy the rest of your day…”

^…

C-Caramel Macchiato? Sugar free? Do we even have that… Her rivalry’s order looked tame compared to this roaring lion of a request. Still holding a customer-friendly smile as best she could, Seo-yeon quickly stepped herself through the order again and nodded. This was on purpose, she was sure of it. Why else would he have gone from a pointless ‘coffee’ to something so convoluted?

Well, now was the time to put her training to the test, and she did just that. Having never done something of such calibre before, it took longer than she would’ve liked, specifically balancing the amount of coffee to keep it within the realms of a short. It was she was blending in hot water that a chill ran across shoulder and neck, making her shiver slightly. She turned to view the door with the corner of her eye. Nothing. But as her gaze started to turn back, her eyes graced the TV display again.

^{‘VANDAL NEON STRIKES AGAIN’}

Looks like we’ve made the news, the graffiti artist thought, grinning for a moment as footage of her last anti-capitalist masterpiece starting to fade in the early morning sun was shown. But a prideful moment’s lapse in concentration was soon punished with a burning sensation.

“Owch!” she hissed, again in Korean: “Shit!”

Despite the clock striking the time his target was supposed to be visiting, there didn't seem to be anyone coming with a matching descriptor. Might just be that they were late, so he decided to stick around a little while longer. Either way, his attention was caught by quite a bit of ruckus going on around the counter. While usually it could have just warranted a glance, his brand offered just a little bit of insight that caught his attention. Her relationship seemed to be more than an awkward past romance, as most of those didn't include clashing during what seemed like gang wars. Same as her mind gave him the name "Torch". A name familiar from the lower-level gangs around. "Well, I might have missed one piece of info, but might have stumbled onto a bit more. I might not know who that guy is, but I now know what this 'Torch' looks like."

Since the girl had some connection, Locke kept his gaze on her. Thankfully he was sitting far enough with his back against the wall so it wouldn't look too odd to be looking in the direction. While for a while she was just focused on another oddball order, the kind of coffee he'd never understand, the TV piped up. As the name Neon was mentioned, her mind went into that again. And if she really was part of that gang, her mind might reveal something with a little more probing. Hoping to re-focus her mind, he began putting his thoughts into her mind. "I wonder if the boss sees this." That alone might not reveal the identity of whoever leads them, but it might give him a little more to prod at. After all, it wasn't too hard to steer someones thoughts when they had no idea you were doing it.

The time James spent waiting on his order he had gotten out more than he had needed and placed it onto the counter. He was in a great mood and was not opposed to leaving a nice tip to his rival for always putting up with his shit for a while now. “Thanks Seo-yeon. If my cousin drops by, she’ll lurk in the corner for a while.” He warned as he picked the cake up in one hand and the to go hot chocolate. “Keep the change.” He taunted as he turned around and walked out of the shop with a grin on his face.

“Going to be a good day!” James touted as he got outside and headed down the street to find a place to get his usual disguise on for work.

<sup>The slightest thought of her manager’s reaction to the news was quickly dismissed, instead shifting to what would happen if he found out she was drifting off. She was sure he’d scolded her in his strangely professional approach before about daydreaming or snoozing on the job, though maybe that was one of those work-related dreams? Either way, the scalding of her left hand was far more important at the moment.

“Ow- Uh- Excuse me for a minute,” Miss Park said, pulling her slightly saturated glove off, but making sure to keep the back of her hand covered as best she could muster, picturing the mark itself in her mind’s eye for just a second. Great fucking job there getting your Brand hand scalded of all things… Best go and run water over this…</sup>

The implanted thought didn't exactly go as Locke planned. Though it couldn't be helped, most people reacted differently to the same thought or idea or had different associations to terms. While he was considering trying a few other ideas, her own provided plenty to chew on. "So, the Neon's gang has a brand user. Need to get back soon so I can copy that one, get the word out to keep an eye on it. There might be people interested in this."

As the bartender finished his coffee, there was still no sight of the man he was supposed to find. "Guess that was bad intel. Oh well, I still got a good few clues to follow up on this one. Plus it wasn't a total waste." Glancing at the bartender again, Locke made plans to seek out the name of this barista. Shouldn't have been too hard to figure out the info of someone so public for a man of his talents. As he was about to get to the door, he shouted towards the counter "Thank you miss, have a nice day" before donning his hat and heading off again. Small leagues weren't usually his thing, but any brand user in this city he wanted to be aware of.

Aaron stood there, resting one elbow on the counter as his chin rested in his palm. He grinned further as he noticed the young woman shiver a bit from his wind As he teased her. He continued to watch as her gaze seemed to scan the room before stopping on the tv. Turning to look at himself, it was about that rather flashy and flamboyant tagger that had been going around Empryean leaving graffiti artwork everywhere. The information normally wouldn't have mattered to him, so he turned his attention back to Seo-Yeon, noticing her hold her hand as if she had burned it. 

That had him curious as it seemed to have happened only after seeing the news on Neon. The man scratched his chin a bit, nails smoothing back the sign of a recently shaved beard as he watched her going into the back. He thought of what he still needed to do for the day until his phone beeped and vibrated in his pocket. On the screen were two addresses, one being the usual dead drop for packages regarding The Family. The other was a bookstore specializing in the occult. It had been an address for an associate of theirs. 

He tapped his finger on the counter as he waited for the barista to return, not in too much of a hurry at the moment.