Fortune Cafe Before & After

Summary

"Fortune Cafe After" vol.1 chapter 1

The narrator talks about the mystery and wonder of the meido and the maid cafe, until the fantasy gives way to reality.

Hotori Arashiyama invites her friend Toshiko Tatsuno to come see her work after school at a place called the "Seaside Cafe," and to her horror it looks nothing like she expected. The place is completely plain instead of pretty, the person working behind the counter is an ugly old woman, there's no actual body of water near the "Seaside Cafe," and to top it all off Hotori doesn't know how to act like a stereotypical maid that Toshiko remembers. Toshiko tries to school her in the art of the maid, and Hotori seems to respond by tripping over almost everything with her friend's help. However, this only seems to excite the portly customer who came through the door.

Later, Toshiko decides to join the cafe as another maid when she hears that a boy from her class, Hiroyuki Sanada, often stops by the cafe.

"Fortune Cafe Before" vol.1 chapter 2

The two girls plan to start their work at the Seaside Cafe, but they are stalked all the way to their job by their homeroom teacher who seems less-than-pleased that Toshiko is working without submitting the proper paperwork. The two girls decide to try to please him with their work, but when he orders tea, Toshiko is shocked to discover that the Cafe has no tea at all to serve. So instead, Hotori tries playing an "innocent" prank by switching his coffee with Coke. However, the act backfires when the teacher runs out of patience and starts scolding Hotori for the act. Luckily, he gets so angry that he forgets all about his problems with Toshiko.