Work Text:
Mark looks up from the table he was cleaning to check the clock, sighing heavily when he sees he still has another thirty minutes until his 12 o’clock closing time. Customers had stopped coming in twenty minutes ago, and he’d been idly wasting the time away as much as he could. He wasn’t doing a very good job of it, admittedly, if the amount of time he still had on the clock was any indication. The worst part of the coffee shop being empty was that he didn’t even have a coworker to talk with – which was something he placed full blame on his boss for. Irene hated him, and he never understood what exactly he’d done to her other than exist in her general vicinity.
He shuffles back to the counter, throwing the rag to the side and running through the different machines for the third time to check if they were sufficiently clean. It was tedious pulling them apart over and over, but he really didn’t have anything better. Which was so sad he almost wanted to give up on getting money to support his college education and go back to being a hermit in the dorm he shared with Yukhei.
“Still don’t why he chose Lucas of all English names,” he mumbled to himself out of habit. “He sounds like a frat boy with a name like that.” The espresso machine was fine, so he moved onto the oven. The crumbs inside were so blackened he thought they would eventually become ash, so he doesn’t bother with them. He removes most of the bakery goods from the display and stands in the doorway that led to the backroom, examining his cleanup with the most interest he could muster. Which ultimately amounted to dragging his eyes across the shop once before turning to go into the breakroom and nap the next twenty minutes away.
He freezes when he hears the classic jingle from the bell at the front and refrains from kicking the couch he’d been heading toward. Instead, he imagines storing his irritation in a ball and shoving it into a chest. He exhales through his nose heavily and whispers an encouraging mantra to himself, remembering he only has twenty minutes before he can close the damn store and finally sleep away the horrors of the week, and turns around to deal with whoever had come in.
“How can I help you?” he asks tonelessly while coming through the doorway. The person was wearing a gray sweatshirt and black sweatpants, and Mark decides it’s another student athlete who had stayed at the library for too long.
“Can I get a trenta iced coffee with seventeen extra shots?” Mark begins typing in the order, and his unfocused daze breaks when he sees the total number of espresso shots.
“What the fuck,” he says, forgetting he wasn’t supposed to swear in a work setting and giving the person a bewildered look. He notices soft platinum hair and plump lips and his brain short circuits for a moment. Then he remembers that this (cute) boy had basically asked for the caffeinated equivalent of vodka. “Why the fuck do you want twenty shots of espresso in your trenta iced?” The boy shrugs and Mark narrows his eyes. Even if he couldn’t care less about his job, he wasn’t about to let a freshie kill himself with coffee.
“Listen, dude, I don’t think I’m even supposed to give more than nine extra shots, forget seventeen,” he says a little more calmly. The person sighs and closes their eyes.
“Ok, I wasn’t gonna make a big deal about it,” he begins, and Mark notices how his voice seems to lilt and drawl all at once. He forces himself to pay more attention because he’s supposed to discourage harmful behavior like this. “But I’d rather take the option of death than deal with this bullshit essay about civics when I’m majoring in biomedical.” Mark frowns.
“Doesn’t mean you should supplement your cramming with 1500 milligrams of caffeine.” He stops leaning on the counter and crosses his arms. The boy raises an eyebrow.
“What kind of math is that?”
“Each espresso shot has 75 milligrams of caffeine,” Mark parrots from their training, “and multiplication is easy.” He arches an eyebrow in return as the boy snorts. “Fine, I’ll make your 20 shot death wish, just pay your fifteen dollars and sit down. It’s gonna take a while to get through five rounds of shots, and I can guarantee it won’t even taste that good.”
“I’ve had worse,” the boy shrugs, pulling out a card. “Some of the things Chenle cooks border inedible. I’ve been surviving on cup ramen for the past three weeks.”
“I would tell you that’s awful but neither my roommate or I can cook, so we’re stuck in the same situation. Sometimes I spice it up and eat cereal for dinner,” Mark adds wryly, and he earns himself a snort of laughter. That’s quite a bit of progress for two minutes, he thinks. He turns around and grabs a trenta cup from the cupboard they keep them in; they weren’t asked for often, so they kept it in a separate place for more space. “Can I get a name?” he asks without thinking too hard about what was coming out of his mouth.
“I’m kind of the only one here,” he says, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head to the side. Mark’s embarrassment makes him blush a little, but he still manages to speak coherently.
“It’s a force of habit,” he defends, going to put the pen back.
“It’s Jisung,” he says, maybe a little hastily, but Mark’s not sure. He takes it, though, and smiles the way he knows everyone finds super cute for some reason. The one that makes his eyes crinkle the tiniest bit and gets everyone except Renjun cooing at him.
He looks down at the cup to spell the name, deciding to be even more extra than the situation called for and writing it in Korean. He’s not even technically supposed to be writing names on cups – some company policy that he thinks is unwarranted and a load of bullshit – but he’s alone and getting ready to pull five rounds of shots for a cute boy who came in twenty minutes before closing, so it’s go big or go home at this point.
“Sit down, Jisung,” he motioned at the bar stools. “This’ll take a while.” Jisung obediently sits on one of the stools, slipping his backpack off as he did so and running a hand through his hair, which slips through his fingers so smoothly that Mark knows he was right in thinking it was soft. He wants to touch it, he thinks absently while starting the first round of shots. He loses himself to his daydreams while running through the motions of making each shot and filling the trenta cup with the ice. He barely recognizes that Jisung’s calling for him.
“Mark? Mark, are you hearing me?” He blinks frantically and checks the shots, praying he didn’t accidentally miss them finishing. He breathes a sigh of relief when the machine cuts the stream of liquid as he watches, quickly grabbing the cup and filtered water to start the iced coffee.
“What is it?” he asks, replacing the cups after pouring them and starting the machine again.
“Why are you working alone? I’ve never seen a Starbucks so understaffed.” Mark’s face twists into a grimace, and he turns back around to add the finished shots to the cup and start yet another round.
“That’s a not-so-funny story,” he says plainly, “but it basically amounts to my boss messing up and then not caring enough to fix it. I’ve been working alone since just after rush hour, so for like five hours.” Jisung hisses sympathetically, and Mark nods glumly. “Yeah, it’s like that sometimes.”
“Late shifts alone suck,” Jisung says with a click of his tongue, “even more than civics essays do.”
“Sounds like a lie, civics was a pain in the ass,” Mark groans, putting on the final round. “I took it last year because I had to make up the credits they didn’t transfer from my old school, and it sucked that I had to take the same general course twice.”
“I’m so sorry.” His somber tone makes Jisung sound like he’s speaking at Mark’s funeral, but as he applies the finishing touches on the trenta, he can’t help but think it should be the other way around.
He blames his slip-up of “Here you go, cutie,” on his immense exhaustion and not his lack of filter. Jisung chokes on air a little when he hears him, but he recovers enough to give him a shy smile, and Mark has to bite his lip to avoid the urge to cry. Jisung looks so soft and sweet that he almost has to physically restrain himself from giving him a kiss on the cheek – almost, because at 22 years old he’s pretty good at mentally restraining himself beforehand. He clears his throat and tries to remember what they’d been talking about before. Something about working late shifts, so he jumps back into that, hoping it doesn’t sound too awkward or forced.
“I’ve never had to work the closing shift before. I leave at 11 usually, and someone else stays after to lock up. I don’t even know when this library closes.” Jisung’s eyebrows shoot up and he pops his lips off the straw.
“Are you serious? You don’t know when the library closes?” Mark tilts his head.
“No? Is that really such a big deal?”
“Mark, the library closes at 12 on the dot. I’ve nearly gotten locked in once because I misjudged the time!” Mark blinks, and his eyes traitorously slide over to the clock. 11:56.
“Fuck,” he whispers. He can’t move for what seems like the longest time, but when he does, he immediately runs to the espresso machine and cups and hurriedly rinses them the best he can. He doesn’t bother to dry them or to really even check if they’re clean, and he throws his apron-uniform on the hook it belonged on to before sprinting to the backroom to clock out and get his stuff.
“Come on!” Jisung calls out from the front, a mixture of encouragement and urgency in his voice. Mark sprints back and joins Jisung again, noticing rather annoyingly that he’s already gotten through a fourth of the drink. How does someone drink 8 fluid ounces so quickly?
“We have two minutes!” Jisung warns as Mark fumbles with the lock, finally managing to get it to click. They take the stairs to the first floor three steps at a time, making it to the bottom just in time to see the aging librarian come out from her desk with the keys to the library in hand. She looks up at the sound of their hurried footsteps and gives them a withering stare.
“No running in the library, boys,” she says, looking down at them as best as her 5’4” self could over her wire glasses.
“Sorry,” Mark mumbles, not exactly unkindly but with a fragile politeness, and he and Jisung leave the library at 12 on the dot. They glance at each other and make eye contact, and the trenta cup is halfway done.
“I can’t believe I nearly got locked into the library with you,” Jisung says with narrowed eyes, almost looking confused at how it all happened.
“Well if you had,” Mark says, a smile overcoming his face, “I would’ve given you free food for the inconvenience. Who says no to stale banana walnut bread?” It takes Jisung a moment to understand that it’s sarcasm, but he lets out a surprised breath of laughter and closes his eyes for a moment.
“You’re right, it would probably be the best thing I’d eaten all week. This iced coffee is gonna keep me awake for three days.” Mark rolls his eyes playfully.
“I told you that and you still didn’t listen, so that’s a you-problem.” Jisung shoves his shoulder lightly, not quite enough to make him move anywhere, but enough to get his teasing intent across.
“Chenle is probably gonna beat my ass for getting coffee so late anyway, so you didn’t even have to do anything.” They’d started walking somewhere during their silly banter, and Mark kind of doesn’t want to part ways. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever come across Jisung again, and his witty humor and adorable features seem like such a waste to not get to know.
“I’m glad I can trust Chenle to do what I can’t,” he nods solemnly. “You’re still a freshie, right?” Jisung’s face scrunches up.
“Yeah, I’m a freshman. Why do you call us that?”
“Honestly, I have no clue.” Mark shrugs and stops at an intersection. “But that’s just how it is now. I’m technically a senior since this is my fourth year in college, but I switched majors sophomore year, so I’m a junior in psychology.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you were a psychology major,” Jisung says with a note of surprise. They’re still stuck under the streetlight, unsure of where to go.
“Honestly, me neither. I used to be a music major, but I fell through with that.” He shifts uneasily, getting a little restless with the awkward limbo their movements are stuck in. “Um, thanks for helping me out. I might have actually ended up having to sleep in the shop.” Jisung giggles at that and Mark’s heart swells a little.
“It was the least I could do after you went through the hassle to make my monster drink.” The cup in Jisung’s hand is now three-fourths of the way done, and he can’t help but sigh.
“And I still think you’re asking to die when that coffee kicks in.” He feels brave all of a sudden, like this is his only chance, but he opens his mouth to say something, Jisung beats him to it.
“I know we’ve only known each other for a grand total of thirty minutes, but,” he bites his lip nervously and looks down at the cup in his hand. “I liked talking to you and I want to get to know you better. If that’s okay with you.” Jisung’s punctuated pauses shouldn’t be all that adorable or endearing, but they are, and Mark has to resist the urge to give an embarrassing “Aw.” He smiles, the same way he had earlier, and pulls his phone out.
“Here. Put your number in, and I’ll put mine in yours.” As his face seems to light up, Jisung quickly pulls out his phone to give to Mark and types in his number, unintentionally humming to a song in his happiness. Mark wondered if everything Jisung did was cute. They hand their phones back to each other, and when Mark checks the new contact, he feels his heart flip at the hearts Jisung had added next to his name, and his smile gets wider. “Thanks,” he says quietly, looking back up at Jisung and softening his grin. “Text you soon, Jisungie.” He’s not too dense to notice the red tint of Jisung’s ears from the nickname, and as he turns around to walk back to his dorm, he feels a seed of hope begin to sprout.
It’s only another twenty minutes later when he receives a text from Jisung, excessive exclamation points and capitalization and all.
♡ jisung ♡
MARK SDKJDHF IM SOSJIT ERY I CANTJEVEN STADN SITLL [12:31 AM]
Me
i did tell you this would happen. [12:31 AM]
Mark rolls his eyes and shakes his head fondly. “Idiot.” He checks the read symbol, but he puts it aside after a minute without a response. He falls asleep with a smile on his face, though, so the night shift wasn’t a total waste. He got a potential boyfriend out of it after all.