Work Text:
“You have to go there at least once.” Tamaki had said it so many times that it felt like the phrase had been laser etched directly into Kyoya’s brain. Every single time, too, Tamaki’s eyes would sparkle in that way that they did whenever he was devoted enough to a topic to be truly annoying about it. Unfortunately, that was the case for many, many topics. Tamaki’s tenacity was exhausting. “It’s my favorite coffee shop in the world! I make sure to visit every time dad takes me to New York. You have to go!”
The coffee shop in question was ‘Drink Up!,’ a place that claimed to serve customers exactly what they needed or exactly what they wanted, but never exactly what they ordered.
Of course Tamaki adored it.
Kyoya hated it on principle.
He had managed to successfully avoid the unavoidable for three years, reminding Tamaki that America was big, that Harvard and New York City were quite far away from each other, and that pursuing a business degree didn’t leave him with much free time for things like four hour roadtrips for a cup of undoubtedly mediocre coffee.
Of course, that had all been before his father had asked him to be the Ootori Group’s representative at a meeting in New York City, and, because the café hadn’t done him the favor of going out of business in that span of time, all of his excuses had suddenly failed at once.
So here he was, bracing himself against the blisteringly cold January wind that was whipping past him on the New York sidewalk, fully prepared to hate the uninspired and overpriced beverage he was about to consume. There was no sense in further delaying the inevitable, so Kyoya let himself into the shop.
A bell jingled over his head as the door swung open. At least the café smelled generic and inoffensive enough inside. The spices in the air were as thick and aromatic as one would expect from this sort of establishment, but there was nothing particularly unique about the shop—at least, not as far as Kyoya could tell.
“Welcome,” said a voice coming from somewhere behind the gleaming espresso machine that dominated the long oaken counter. “I’ll be with you shortly!”
It was the sort of pointless retail chatter that Kyoya never bothered with. Of course the barista would be with him shortly; he was a paying customer. Further dialogue on the matter was an unnecessary waste of breath.
The place was busy—for a coffee shop in Brooklyn, that was hardly a statement of quality—but the level of activity in the dining area seemed controlled rather than chaotic. Despite his lack of interest in the industry as a whole, Kyoya could appreciate that level of management, at least.
“‘Drink Up’ for Cole!” called the same voice that had greeted Kyoya when he had first entered the shop. A redheaded man who looked to be roughly Kyoya’s age appeared at the other end of the counter, holding a drink in a nondescript white cup. With a smile, he passed the drink to a gray-haired man in a business suit, who took it with a reverence that implied it might contain water directly from the fountain of youth.
Kyoya’s eyes narrowed. He hated passing fad shops like this, where every repeat customer was practically a cultist. It was the sort of business that was only sustainable temporarily. If the owners were not incredibly savvy, the enterprise would be dead in the water as soon as the shine of newness wore off of all of those bright-eyed fanatics.
The owners of these sorts of shop were seldom incredibly savvy, in Kyoya’s experience, and “new” was often the only product that they were capable of selling.
He would rather make use of a tried, true, established business every time. It was a testament to his friendship with Tamaki (and his desire to be done with those damned puppy-dog eyes once and for all) that he actually managed to walk up to the counter to order instead of just turning around and heading straight back out into the New York winter.
The redheaded man behind the counter returned to the cash register to properly serve him. Now that he was standing closer, Kyoya could tell that he was of vaguely Asian ancestry, despite the red hue of his hair and his oddly golden eyes. Dye and contacts, undoubtedly. His name tag read “Hikaoru.”
“Welcome to ‘Drink Up!’” the man—Hikaoru—said. He looked Kyoya up and down quickly and then gave him a second, slower once-over, his smile adopting a rakish angle as he went. There was a teasing gleam in his eyes when his gaze finally traveled back up to Kyoya’s face. “What would you like to order?”
Kyoya could feel his own eyes narrow. “It was my understanding that you would already know,” he said, not one for wasting time on small talk when there was business to be conducted. “Isn’t that the selling point of this establishment?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
The barista actually clucked his tongue at him.
Trendy shops and their pretentious attitudes. Kyoya didn’t bother hiding the disgust curling the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t ask you what you were ordering,” Hikaoru said. “You should listen more closely. I asked what you wanted to order. It’s part of the data-gathering process.” A thin red eyebrow arched, emphasizing the barista’s smugness. The man’s voice dropped slightly, morphing into a teasing purr. “You do have the appearance of a man who cares about data, after all.”
“One large black coffee,” Kyoya said. He could see why Tamaki enjoyed this establishment, but there were too many businesses in the world for this one to think it could win him over through a strategy as banal and tiresome as quirkiness.
“One large black coffee.” The barista nodded as though he had anticipated this response. A shallow performance of artificial precognition, but at least it was a sign that their interaction was nearly complete. “That’ll be five dollars. What name would you like for the order?”
“Just ‘K. O.’ will be fine.” Too many Americans had butchered his given name over the past three years for Kyoya to ever bother supplying it. He pulled out the necessary bills, paid, and then moved out of the way. At least his part in this affair was finished. Now he could honestly tell Tamaki that he’d given the shop a try and found it lacking. Tamaki would pout, of course, but at least all the damned begging would stop.
The barista disappeared into the back room, ignoring the stainless steel machines up front. Kyoya pulled out his phone to check his email, not terribly interested in whatever ‘magic’ the barista was going to attempt. Probably the ‘magic’ of consulting with some pre-designed checklist in the back and deciding what to serve based on a few simple pre-designed calculations.
Kyoya was halfway through a thread of messages regarding an upcoming school project when the call of “‘Drink Up’ for tall, dark, and handsome!” dragged him back to reality.
Ah.
Was this man… flirting with him?
What a terrible practice for any kind of customer-oriented business.
Kyoya looked up from his phone to find the barista smirking at him from the other side of the counter as though he felt no shame at all for his unprofessional behavior. The man offered him an unremarkable white cup, for all appearances the exact same drink he had handed to the elderly gentleman a few minutes prior. It honestly wouldn’t have surprised Kyoya if this cup contained the exact same beverage as the old man’s as well. With the rest of the barista’s behavior, even that degree of laziness would not have been a shock.
Kyoya didn’t bother returning the barista’s smile. He just nodded in acknowledgement and took the cup.
He allowed himself a moment of pettiness in the face of all of this gratingly unprofessional conduct and brought the cup to his lips. He normally would have waited until he had left the establishment to partake in his drink, not wanting to offend the employee with his honest reaction. However, he found that he very much wanted this particular barista to see the look of disgust he would undoubtedly be forced to make when he tasted the swill that this “café” labeled “coffee.”
He tilted back his cup of coffee.
Only… it wasn’t coffee in his cup.
A liquid, far lighter and thinner than he had been expecting, curled gently across his tongue. It tasted both mellow and full at once, like sitting out in the bright spring sun with Tamaki happily chattering by his side.
Home.
A feeling of warmth sparked somewhere in his chest in response to the taste. It flowed out from that spot, filling the rest of his body to the brim.
Kyoya nearly choked. With an embarrassingly awkward gulp, he swallowed down his mouthful and pulled the cup away from his lips to study it, eyes wide in shock.
He would recognize that taste anywhere. It was unmistakably tsuyu-hikari, his favorite green tea cultivar. It had been brewed masterfully.
With a jerk of his head, he looked up to see the barista leaning against the counter, still smirking at him. Hikaoru took in his expression and his smirk faded into a smile that was so kind and understanding that it felt like a knife had been plunged directly into Kyoya’s homesick heart.
“Just what you wanted?” he asked.
Kyoya was too swept up in his own feelings to be annoyed by the man’s overly familiar tone. He turned and left without another word, though the way he clutched his drink was probably confession enough.
Outside, the savage winter wind hardly touched him.
-----
It had to have been a fluke.
A mildly offensive fluke, even; the barista—’Hikaoru’—had assumed based on Kyoya’s appearance that he was Japanese and had just given him whatever drink the café happened to have in stock for Japanese visitors.
Yes, the proprietors had excellent taste in tea, but that was surely all the café could brag of. If he were to visit a second time, he had no doubt that the same drink would again be served no matter what he requested or the manner in which his request was made.
That was the precise reason he wound up standing outside of ‘Drink Up!’ the very next afternoon.
To test a theory.
Furthermore, if his prediction were correct, a second cup of perfectly brewed tsuyu-hikari would be a welcome reward for the confirmation of his astute business sense. If he were wrong, then… then he would need to reanalyze his data, which would be an interesting enough endeavor to make up for whatever other substandard drink they gave him instead.
The same barista was standing behind the counter when he opened the door. Hikaoru. The man looked up at the tinkling of the bell, and Kyoya was fairly certain he saw an interested gleam shining out of those golden eyes.
“Oh?” Hikaoru’s voice was practically a purr. “Back again so soon? You must have really liked your ‘coffee.’” He winked as though they were sharing an inside joke.
Kyoya ignored the unnecessary over-familiarity. He was here to test a hypothesis; that was all.
“One large coffee,” he said. “Black.”
“Mm. I see.” The man grinned broadly at him. He shook his head when Kyoya reached for his wallet. “No need; this one’s on the house.”
As before, he disappeared into the backroom. As before, Kyoya stepped off to the side. This time, though, he resisted the urge to pull out his phone, deciding instead to pass a more critical eye over the café itself.
It was obvious that ‘Drink Up!’ had been envisioned as a fashionable place, as it made use of many of the current trends in interior design. The problem was that whoever designed the space had used too many of those different trends at the same time. The framed pieces of art on the walls were all bright, flashy, and modern, while the counter and tables appeared to have been sculpted from living trees. Still, the warring trends didn’t clash quite as terribly as Kyoya would have expected had it all been described to him by a third party. There was something about the accumulation of styles and ideas that felt...
Well, he might have said ‘loved’ if it didn’t feel foolish even inside his own head. A business was a business; expertise and artistic inclination were important, but there was no place for ‘love’ in the world of business.
Kyoya’s musings were interrupted by a voice saying, “‘Drink Up’ for the guy who KO’ed my heart.”
Kyoya frowned but turned back to the counter, ending his study. Hikaoru was standing there, grinning playfully and offering him a drink.
“Is it common practice here to flirt with your customers?” he asked pointedly as he accepted the drink. Hikaoru’s fingers brushed against the side of his hand, light as a thought, but the other man was quick to drop his grip, not lingering long enough to make Kyoya feel uncomfortable. It was a thoughtful action, despite the other man’s flighty words.
Hikaoru used his now-free hand to flash Kyoya a peace sign. “Only with the customers who look like they don’t hear nice things often enough. And like they might tip well.” His grin widened, and he pointedly nudged forward a clear plastic jar that was sitting on the counter next to him. It was already stuffed with bills; clearly, however morally dubious, the man’s strategies worked quite well on most people.
Kyoya was not most people.
“Oh?” Kyoya smiled his best artificial, business-oriented smile back. “And how do your employers feel about you flirting with your clients in order to bolster your wages?”
The man’s red eyebrows rose as he let out a playful snort. It was immediately obvious that Kyoya’s subtle threat to tattle on him had inspired the opposite of its intended effect. “Since my employer is my mother, her response is probably going to be something like, ‘What, again?’”
Ah. A family business.
Kyoya could definitely see the benefit in something like that.
Still, if the business were going to succeed past its flourishing newness, Hikaoru needed to do better.
“I wouldn’t make a habit of propositioning customers,” Kyoya said, telling himself that he was merely offering a guiding hand to a business in its infancy, a business that Tamaki cared for. It would be troublesome if his friend were to lose this café. It would probably take him years to shut up about it.
“‘Propositioning’?” Hikaoru asked, drawing the word out as though delighted by its every syllable. “No, no, no, Mr. KO. You have the wrong idea. That was just some light complimenting. If you want to know what it’s like when I proposition you, then you should give me a call.” He nodded at the cup in Kyoya’s hand.
Kyoya looked down to find that a ten-digit number had been written around the bottom of his cup.
This was the most forward barista he had ever met in his life.
“See?” Hikaoru said. Kyoya looked up to find the other man still grinning at him. “This is me propositioning you.”
America. A place where baristas could flirt with impunity.
What a ridiculous country.
“I assume your gesture is intended as a sign of appreciation,” Kyoya said dryly. “I’ll show my own appreciation by not reporting you to your supervisor.”
The redhead rubbed his chin with put-upon thoughtfulness. “So what you’re saying is you appreciate me.”
“I appreciate your skill at brewing tea,” Kyoya replied, lifting his cup as evidence.
“You don’t even know if that’s tea yet,” Hikaoru said, nodding at the drink.
“Isn’t it?” Kyoya asked. He would actually be a little bit disappointed if it wasn’t. It was incredibly hard to get properly brewed tsuyu-hikari in America.
Hikaoru’s grin widened, making no effort to hide his smug confidence. “Try it and find out.”
More artificial precognition, and he looked so damned pleased about it. It made Kyoya want to prove him wrong.
He lifted the cup, face schooled and ready to be as cold and cutting as this interaction deserved. He let a tiny sip past his pursed lips.
It wasn’t coffee.
It wasn’t tsuyu-hikari, either.
Warm, comforting lightness drifted across his tongue, sweet and gentle, melting the cold facade he’d hoped to maintain. It drizzled its way down his body, easing tension that he hadn’t even realized was there.
Roasted tea, this time. Sweet but not cloying, like an afternoon with the Host Club. It made him feel like he was surrounded by people who appreciated him, who appreciated the work that he did, who paid attention. He felt thoroughly coddled. He felt warmed.
It had been a while since he had last felt that way.
Years. Maybe longer.
“Just what you wanted?” asked a soft voice from across the counter.
Kyoya didn’t owe this smarmy American barista anything, especially not an answer to a question like that.
He left.
-----
When Tamaki pestered him about his most recent trip to New York, Kyoya admitted that he had visited the café. When Tamaki asked for his thoughts, Kyoya responded, “It was adequate.”
When Tamaki reacted like Kyoya had just admitted to falling deeply and passionately in love, Kyoya ignored him.
He didn’t call the barista’s phone number, but he did program it into his contact list. After all, Kyoya was not one to needlessly discard a potentially useful connection, even if he couldn’t quite see the specific usefulness of it yet. Still, he felt certain that something would come to him eventually.
Something about naming the contact “Hikaoru” felt too familiar, so he just wrote in “Barista” instead.
He was willing to admit that the café’s reputation was not entirely unearned. He was not the kind of fool who would deny the evidence of his own senses simply to prove a point. Still, it wasn’t like he was planning to move to New York just to be closer to the place.
Of course, when his father asked him to move to New York to intern at the Ootori Group’s office for the summer, that was a different matter entirely.
If he was going to be living in New York anyway, it only made sense to frequent the only café that had proven itself capable of brewing his favorite kind of tea.
He decided to act on this policy during his very first day on the job. The day was long and busy, though he didn’t encounter anything he wasn't capable of managing. It took him until eight o’clock at night before he was able to find time for a coffee break. He half-expected ‘Drink Up!’ to be closed by then, but quickly decided that the short walk and even shorter subway trip between the Ootori offices and the café would be worth it for the sake of exercise alone, even if the café were already closed for the night.
Fortunately, there was a warm light glow coming from the windows as Kyoya approached the door. The tinkling of the bell at the entrance was familiar.
The sight behind the counter was, too.
Hikaoru was standing there, red hair flopping into his eyes as he tapped something on a laptop. There were still several customers sitting around and nursing their drinks as they chatted or worked, but the barista clearly wasn’t expecting to be interrupted very often this late at night.
“One large coffee,” Kyoya said as he approached the counter. “Black.”
Hikaoru glanced up, appearing entirely disinterested. He caught sight of Kyoya and didn’t react, his face a neutral blank. He didn’t appear to recognize him at all.
It had been nearly half a year. It would only make sense for a barista to forget about a customer that he had only served twice before.
Still, there was a sharp uncomfortable feeling in Kyoya’s chest at the thought.
It was no matter. So long as he got his tea, it was immaterial if Hikaoru specifically remembered him or not.
“That’ll be five dollars,” Hikaoru said, sounding bored. “Name?”
He really didn’t remember, then.
That was fine. So long as whatever checklist he had available in the back continued to do its work, so long as he still served Kyoya incredibly well-made tea, Kyoya had no room to complain.
“K.O.,” he said again.
That earned him a sharp look. Those golden eyes glittered as they studied Kyoya with renewed interest, raking over his body from head to toe.
The other man had finally remembered him, then. Perhaps his name had sounded familiar.
“K.O., huh,” the barista muttered, seeming to confirm this theory. He accepted the bill in Kyoya’s hand. “Fine. I’ve got the perfect drink for you.”
To his mild surprise, Hikaoru didn’t head into the back room. Instead, he grabbed a cup and slouched behind the espresso machine, pulling knobs and pressing buttons.
Kyoya walked to the end of the counter and pulled out his phone, but he merely used the device as a cover, pretending to scroll through news sites while he studied Hikaoru through a pair of glasses that he knew must be opaque in the light. They were a good cover for some subtle observations.
The man was moving differently than he had been the last time Kyoya had visited the café. Kyoya had never actually seen him make a drink, the last time, but something about his current movements seemed harsher, more jarring than Kyoya would have expected.
Perhaps Kyoya’s initial judgment of the situation had been wrong. Perhaps Hikaoru had remembered him all along and was simply so angry that his overtures had been ignored during their first pair of meetings that he was now treating Kyoya coldly intentionally.
It was an acceptable hypothesis.
Hikaoru put a lid on the drink he had brewed and slid it across the counter for Kyoya.
“Here,” he said.
Kyoya took the drink, knowing that he was frowning as he did so. He didn’t care; he didn’t owe this barista anything. “Thank you,” he said, mirroring Hikaoru’s brusqueness.
He lifted the drink, wishing very briefly that one of his bodyguards could have been there to check for poison. Still, it would have been incredibly foolish for the barista to kill him on the shop’s own premises.
It was this the reassuring thought that led him to tip the drink back.
He nearly spat it out again.
It was coffee, but its essential ‘coffeeness’ was almost impossible to discern. The bitterness was overwhelming, all-encompassing, with barely a hint of spice or even flavor to lessen the impact.
And then the caffeine hit him like an adrenaline shot straight to the heart.
There must have been ten shots of espresso in his drink.
At least.
He looked up at Hikaoru, eyes involuntarily wide.
The redhead smirked back at him, his lips wide and curved and almost evil-looking. It was nothing like the smug, silly smirks that Kyoya had seen him adopt before.
His hands felt like they were shaking. He quickly glanced down and confirmed that they were.
Hikaoru snickered at him. “Soooooo?” he asked. There was an oddly sharp edge to his voice. “I’m guessing that’s just what you needed, right?”
He… wasn’t entirely wrong. Kyoya still had a lot of work to finish, and he’d been planning to use a nice cup of tea to help replace the hours of sleep he was sure to miss tonight.
This cup of… calling it “coffee” seemed inaccurate. “Large cup of concentrated caffeine” felt more like the truth. Whatever it was, it would certainly help him finish the workload he still had in front of him.
Still, he had been hoping for tea.
He left the café without giving Hikaoru a response.
-----
He wound up working straight through the night.
The coffee most assuredly helped.
Kyoya wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
He returned to the café during his lunch break the next day. He knew he was being overly optimistic after last night’s interaction, but the appeal of actually having a nice cup of tea after all of his hard work simply could not be denied, no matter how foolish.
Hikaoru was standing behind the counter when he entered. Kyoya was beginning to wonder if ‘Drink Up!’ had any other employees.
Hikaoru’s eyes brightened upon seeing him, a warm smile curling the corners of his mouth.
Strange.
Had he been forgiven so easily?
“K.O.!” Hikaoru chirped, leaning forward on the counter. His body language was oddly inviting after his aggressively closed-off attitude the night before. “What would you like to order?”
“One large coffee,” Kyoya said, like always. “Black.”
It felt a bit ridiculous. Kyoya knew that the café had several perfectly serviceable teas in stock. Plus, his experience the previous evening had put him off of coffee for the foreseeable future. Still, he was a man who respected tradition, and this exchange with Hikaoru was starting to become one.
“Hm.” The other man studied him as though working through some kind of mental catalogue. His golden eyes seemed to linger on the exposed skin of Kyoya’s neck and the looseness of his cuffs. Kyoya struggled not to turn to the side, to hide his loose tie and two-day-old shirt from view. Foolish. This barista had no room to judge him. He was a paying customer.
“That’ll be five dollars,” Hikaoru finally said.
When Kyoya handed over the cash, their fingers brushed, and Kyoya felt an odd electricity from the contact.
He must have been even more tired than he had thought.
He stepped back to give Hikaoru room to work, once again bringing up his phone as a prop to hide his study of the barista.
All of the harsh motions of the night before were gone. Hikaoru selected a cup carefully, respectfully, before disappearing into the back room again with long, leisurely strides.
Perhaps the barista was simply a morning person and his previous night’s behavior had been entirely due to fatigue.
Another hypothesis to test.
‘Drink Up!’ was certainly an intriguing place, if slightly inconsistent in delivering beverages that he actually enjoyed.
Hikaoru soon reappeared from the backroom, drink in hand. He already had another customer to attend to, so he just declared, “‘Drink Up’ for the hottest man in the room,” and slid the cup to Kyoya with a wink.
The room was full of people, and he was flirting at a volume that was sure to be heard.
America certainly was a different kind of place.
Kyoya, never one to make a scene, ignored Hikaoru’s embarrassing declaration and took the drink. It actually felt rather freeing; the barista was so ridiculous that all the attention and social pressure was off of Kyoya entirely.
He took a sip of his drink.
Tea again, thankfully. Hachijyu-hachiya this time, if Kyoya wasn’t mistaken. It was rich and almost vegetable-like on his tongue, thick and settling.
His stomach growled.
This was delicious.
Still, he knew he should look into getting an actual lunch, not just a single cup of tea.
Hikaoru looked up at him, past the customer he was currently dealing with, his golden eyes bright and knowing. He was too busy to ask the follow-up question, but Kyoya could feel it hovering in the air between them.
“Just what you wanted? ”
Kyoya left.
-----
He made it two days before returning to the café. His servants at the Ootori residence in New York couldn’t brew tea with any degree of skill, no matter the quality of the leaves.
It was a useful excuse, at least.
He made his visit after another long day at work. They had all been long, so far, but Kyoya liked feeling useful, so he had no real complaints.
He felt confident that his father would be proud of him when he saw all that he had managed to accomplish.
When he entered the shop, Hikaoru was standing behind the counter like always. Kyoya could appreciate that sort of work ethic. At the jingle of the bell, the barista looked up.
His expression, which had been some version of benign indifference, immediately fell into something far harsher.
It was a scowl. The look was unmistakable: low, twisted and bitter.
Kyoya blinked, taken aback.
How curious.
“What do you want?” Hikaoru asked. His teasing, flirtatious tone was nowhere to be found, and Kyoya found himself wondering if he’d somehow switched personalities overnight. More than any fatigue, it was like he’d become an entirely different person—
Ah.
The solution, at last.
He was a different person.
Kyoya’s eyes narrowed. He looked Hikaoru over more carefully.
Now that he was looking for them, he realized that there were a few visible differences. This ‘Hikaoru’ had hair that was slightly shorter. His outfit was louder, with brighter colors than the morning-shift Hikaoru tended to wear. The angry pout that sharpened his face into a point looked practically nothing like the welcoming gleam of morning-shift Hikaoru’s wide smile.
“I’ll have the same thing I had yesterday,” Kyoya said, breaking their normal script.
He wanted to test this new hypothesis.
Hikaoru didn’t appear to mind that their pattern had been broken, though he did look angry about needing to take his order at all. “Five dollars,” he practically snarled. He shoved the bills Kyoya handed him into the register before stalking away to the backroom.
The café was operating at a low hum rather than an active clamor, as Kyoya had learned it tended to do at night. He managed to find an available chair to sink down into, studying the space behind the counter. This Hikaoru had a laptop again. Kyoya had never seen the morning-shift Hikaoru with a laptop. It was likely that the two were college students, like him. They probably had different majors. At the very least, they had different schedules. Perhaps they had intentionally chosen opposing schedules, the better to make sure the both of them could assist with the family shop.
Kyoya could admire that sort of filial devotion.
“Here,” this Hikaoru said, snapping him out of his thoughts. The barista was back in the mainroom, holding a cup. He never said the traditional ‘Drink Up!’ line, Kyoya had noticed. Clearly, only one of the two of them was fully devoted to the shop’s quirks.
Kyoya did not appreciate quirkiness, but he could certainly appreciate devotion.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Enjoy your ‘tea,’” Hikaoru replied, his face twisted into an unpleasant sneer.
Aha. The two of them had spoken about him, then.
Kyoya took the drink and left without tasting it.
When he later realized that the evening-shift Hikaoru had just given him a cup full of water, he couldn’t help but laugh.
-----
The next day, he waited for that same slow window, the time just after the lunch rush had cleared out but before most other people were out of work.
Just like he’d planned, the café was nearly empty when he arrived. When the bell jingled above his head, Hikaoru was unoccupied enough to give him a bright smile.
“Mr. K.O.,” he greeted, sounding pleased.
“Kyoya Ootori,” Kyoya said, offering his hand across the counter.
Hikaoru’s eyes widened, but he kept smiling as he reached forward to take it.
His touch felt electric.
“It’s customary to offer your own name, when someone introduces himself,” Kyoya pointed out.
“Kaoru Hitachiin,” the man across the counter said, still holding Kyoya’s hand in his.
“Kaoru,” Kyoya repeated, defaulting to the given name in the American fashion and implying that Kaoru had his permission to do the same. He was relieved; Kaoru was a far more sensible name than ‘Hikaoru.’ “Do you have classes every night when your brother works, Kaoru, or would you be available to go out to dinner with me at some point?”
Kaoru’s eyes widened, before being completely eclipsed by the gigantic grin that burst across his face like a sunrise.
“You just like me for my brewing,” he teased. The sparkle in his eyes was nearly as warming as a cup of his tea.
“I’m just hoping that, if I actually take you out, your brother will stop sabotaging my drinks,” Kyoya said. He knew he was smiling as well, a small little curve that was entirely overshadowed by Kaoru’s own grin.
Kaoru laughed. “Good luck with that,” he said. They were still holding hands, all pretense of their handshake feeling like ancient history. No one in the café appears to be paying them the slightest bit of attention. Kyoya could get used to this. “So, what would you like to order?”
“One large coffee,” Kyoya said. “Black.”
Kaoru squeezed his hand one more time and withdrew.
“One of these days,” he said, still bright and teasing, “that’s actually what you’re going to get.”
“Then I’m sure, on that day, it’ll be exactly what I want,” Kyoya replied. He pulled out his wallet and Kaoru waved him off.
“On the house,” he said.
Kyoya didn’t put the wallet away. Instead, he pulled out the $5 bill he’d prepared in advance and dropped it into the tip jar.
His phone number was written across the bottom in stark black letters.
Kaoru noticed, and he smiled, if anything, even wider than before.
“Be careful or I’ll offer you a job!” Kaoru said before disappearing into the backroom to brew whatever it was that he thought Kyoya would like best today. His voice drifted back from the other room. “After all, you managed to figure out exactly what it was that I wanted most.”
Kyoya despised quirkiness and whimsy.
But new traditions…
He supposed that those were things that he could get used to.