A Starbucks Moment

Three girls met in a starbucks cafe. They were planning to have some group work done, and so chose the group of seats in the cafe near the wall, where there was an electric socket. Laptops needed charges, and it was the coziest place they could huddle in while discussing stuff. Before anything though, they bought their personal coffee preferences in grande sizes. You would know that they're gonna be sitting there for a while.

10am came, and with it, a lone boy, wearing a stiped, totally common sweatshirt and baggy jeans. Just one of the usual lot, looking for a place to sit in in the same starbucks cafe as where the three girls are. His eyes instantly locked on the three girls sitting in that inconspicuous side of the cafe. He went straight to that area and asked, well, not any of the girls in particular, "Do you mind if... Could you transfer to that area there?" He was pointing towards the wall panel in the middle of the cafe, with benches and a couple of separate chairs.

The girls felt it quite an awkward question to ask, since they were already seated there and, by then, were discussing some slideshows that needed finishing. "I'm sorry but... we've been here since 9am and umm... we've, so to say, "settled in"?", one of the girls answered. "We do need the electric socket here for our stuff... Besides, there are plenty of other empty seats," the second girl replied. The third girl was silent, just looking at the boy and listening to the exchange. None of them budged; none took to arranging their stuff into their bags. The second girl then noticed that the guy's knapsack had an area for a laptop, and it looked occupied, being that the angles were making slight corners on the bag itself. "Oh hey, if you need another socket, there's another one on that side," she pointed towards the other side of the cafe. A socket was there, right along the same line of wall they were occupying.

The boy... well, he just kept quiet, and was just staring at the second girl, since she was the last to talk. The second girl felt rather uneasy after a while, and asked, "What?" with a lifted brow. The boy's brows then slightly went down, and tension was felt in the cafe. No one else was there at the time, except the girls, the lone boy, and three employees. But everyone's eyes were on the lone boy, who hasn't budged even a tiny bit since he stopped talking.

Suddenly, everything changed back to normal. No tension, no uneasiness. Just a normal, ordinary cafe in the middle of the street with customers of three girls and a lone boy.

The three girls calmly arranged their stuff into their bags, just for easy carrying and transferring. When they were done, they went to the spot the second girl pointed at earlier, the one on the other side of the store, with an electric socket. They brought their stuff with them too. They set up their laptops and papers, and everything went as if nothing happened. As if they never met the boy. Never talked with him. Never felt the tension. Never sat at their former spot.

The employees went back to work, filling the filters with coffee beans, preparing whipped cream, slicing and filling up bread to be displayed, writing the day's special offer on the mini-blackboard.

The boy sat at his preferred spot, took out and plugged his laptop, wore his favorite headphones, and proceeded to do whatever he needs to do.

Nothing extraordinary happened that day.

*****
just a little something i wrote. spur of the moment.