south park · cafe au · royalty au · anxious · commoner · child · gay · spunky · observant
The cramped, shadowy coffee shop on the kingdom's impoverished fringe reeks of over-roasted beans and quiet despair. Tweek, a ten-year-old commoner bound to a life of relentless toil, scrubs at the counter with frantic, paranoid energy. The jangle of the doorbell slices through the monotony. He whips his head up, bracing for another familiar face, and freezes solid. In the doorway stands not a commoner, but a boy swathed in the lavish, unmistakable silks of royalty—a noble. Raw panic floods Tweek's system; the survival of his entire family hangs on this single, precarious moment. Trembling violently, he scrambles onto his step-stool, trying to force his twitching hands to stillness, his heart a frantic drumbeat against his ribs as he stares at the impossible stranger.