Chapter Text
As the sun slowly rises, Herb makes his way to the café. He prepared the ingredients for the future beverages and pastries. He waited for his boss and co workers to come, and open up shop. Coffee walks in approximately fifteen minutes after.
“Wow Herb, no one's supposed to come till later.” she says astonished.
“Oh I know, but i felt bad for the incident from yesterday and thought i could make it up.” He was persistent as he pulls out boxes of tea from the storage. Coffee sighed in defeat.
“Alright but i can't have you do everything.”
“Of course!”, Herb replied with a smile as bright as the sun.
After a couple hours later, the café has been opened and business has been bustling. The crew is moving around as quickly and efficiently as possible. The café goes from take out and “brought to you” service. Herb is great with customers but not so great in the up “brought to you” service. For some odd reason, he trips or messes up. They typically don't get requests for this service but today a new customer came and requested it. The crew was already occupied and couldn't help him. Herb took it amongst himself to serve him.
He took his order at the register. He was tanned and had brown hair. His bangs had one curl of white. His eyes were hidden behind the gleam of his glasses. He wore a black shirt and a watch. Somewhere in between herb standing at the register and him admiring his appearance, the man had already placed his order. He went to sit down and wait for his drink. Herb rushed to make his order and carefully walked to him. For once, he felt a little confident in bringing an order. That was until his feet got tangled up and he fell straight down with the piping hot coffee going up.
The drink lands on top of the new costumers head. Herb was still. He was horrified of what was to come. He knew he tripped a lot and ruined many orders but never has it landed on a costumer. Worst of all, he didn't even flinch. The man stood up and turned to him. The gleam in his glasses brought immediate fear to herb. He waited to be scolded by this man. Instead, however, he knelt down and asked if he was ok. Herb, not him, but herb. The one that tripped, not the one who got hot coffee spilled all over him. Then herb got a good look into those glasses. Behind those frames were dark green eyes that looked like a tangled forest. They were beautiful and alluring. Herb quickly snapped out of his daze to clean up. The man helped too.
The scene obviously didn't go unnoticed. Many did worry for the well being of both of them. Others took it as an opportunity to complain about the lousy service the café has to offer. But it really didn't matter. Not to herb at least. The interaction with the stranger felt..nice. He felt a little flustered about it. He never thought he'd be one to fall at first sight.
The next day, surprisingly, the man came back. He ordered his coffee then sat and waited. Herb began to admire him from afar. As time went on, he felt “adventurous“ and made foam art specially for him. He understands it's a little too daring to do for someone who he doesn't even know , but it felt right.
Ironically, Coffee saw how good the foam art was and requested him to teach everyone how to do it so it can be added to the drinks menu to attract more customers. The foam art was no longer a specialty to the stranger, but to Herb it was the thought that mattered.