Chapter Text
It was the kind of day that called for coffee.
12:30 AM, force himself to sleep after gaming with his roommate.
6:30 AM, wake up for morning track practice.
7 AM, practice begins (somehow Naib manages to perform).
8 AM, Naib’s survived an hour of exercise without -really- being awake.
Naib checks his watch. Early morning sun casts light across the glass, but 8:15 AM reads on the touchscreen. 40 minutes to do what he wants and 5 minutes after to sprint make his way to class.
What he wants, he decides easily, is something caffeinated. What he needs, thinking about how he just ran off the little sleep he had, is something -heavily- caffeinated.
Off to the nearest campus coffee shop he goes.
Lucky for Naib, one of two locations isn’t far away, and he manages to jog over without expending too much energy (or rather, dip farther back into -negative- energy).
Aha. Here!
Naib pushed open the door with renewed enthusiasm only to groan inwardly when he saw the line was already 8 people deep. Who else was awake this early…? Um… honors students? Good thing he came here right away.
Naib stepped in the slightly shorter line before stuffing a hand in his sweats and scrolling through his phone as he waited. Other than a standard ‘Good practice guys! Let’s keep up the hard work!’ post-practice text from the track captain, Martha, he has nothing. His roommate was still sleeping too, from the looks of it. Great timing. He decides an iced macchiato sounds really brilliant right now and hoped the line would actually let him obtain one.
Finally, he reaches the front of the line, and blinks foggily at the menu.
“What can I get you?” a friendly voice chirps.
Naib raises his eyebrows for a moment and straightens, trying to wake up as he pulls his attention away from the board to meet eyes with the speaker and-
A student barista that looked to be a junior like him, or maybe one year younger. He was a few inches taller than Naib (as other men tended to be), with a slender build, with short-cut dark brown hair, dark blue eyes that looked warm rather than intimidating, and oh helloplushlips. His name tag read “Eli” with a little owl drawn beside his name and Naib memorized it instantly.
Oh. Oh fuck? This barista was. Is. Cute. Really cute? Shit Naib, get it together stop staring and fucking order your drink—
The barista smiled at him kindly like he was used to dealing with sleepy customers all the time. “Up late studying?”
Naib would describe his smile as angelic.
“Oh, uh, no. Track team. I’m on the track team. We have morning practice” to prove his story, Naib dumbly held up his arm to the side as if the sports jacket he wore explained all.
The barista, Eli, laughed a little. “My bad! Usually it’s kids who spend more time studying than sleeping who come in here this early… but here you are” he smiled.
Naib hoped he wasn’t blushing at the other boy’s sweet disposition. Fuck.
“Yeahh. Yeah! Well, uh, could I get a medium iced macchiato? Please. Thank you”.
Fuck!
The pleasant smile remained on Eli’s face as he replied with a, “You got it. ID in the card reader when you’re ready” and started scribbling his order on a clear cup.
Naib slid his campus ID into the reader and watched as Eli wrote. He couldn’t make out words, but saw his handwriting was rather curved, though not quite cursive. He retrieved his ID and was about to pull himself away instead of continuing to stand at the counter awkwardly (dumbly, he thought) before Eli’s voice stopped him in his tracks again.
“Oh wait, sorry! I need to get your name”.
Naib looked up and swallowed as their eyes locked. “Naib Subedar. Naib”.
Why did you say your last name too, idiot?!
Eli added his name to the cup and looked back with one more warm expression. “Got it. Thanks, Naib”.
Naib’s name had never sounded so nice until it rolled off this boy’s tongue.
Not that he would ever tell him that, so he nodded affirmative, and stumbled walked off as fast as he could without being obvious about it.
Naib’s mind raced (not visibly, he hoped) and he tapped his sneaker-clad foot as he waited in a corner of the shop. Other students came and went, but his mind was stuck on one student and one student only.
How could someone be that cute? Effortlessly cute, by the looks of it… And how could he have been so blindsided by it he made a fucking fool of himself right away? Great job Naib, meet one genuinely cute guy in your 3 years of college and throw it immediately by acting like you don’t know how to form coherent sentences.
Naib groaned further when he realized he must have noticeable eyebags too.
He needed to work on his first impressions.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of agonizing over his circumstances, Naib heard his name called out.
Oh thank god.
It wasn’t Eli who called out his name, to his disappointment, but a girl with deep pink (fuchsia?) hair tied in a braid and deep lipstick in a similar shade. She passed it off to him with an airy “Thank you!” and turned away.
With no sight of Eli, Naib turned away too and made for the exit cup in hand. Surely the barista wouldn’t care about the order of a half-asleep guy who stumbled over everything he said, let alone seeing him off. Maybe freshly brewed beans could relieve his sorrows and his burgeoning headache.
Reaching the door, Naib pushed it open with his back, facing the barista’s counter one more time.
Looking back at him curiously from across the shop was Eli.
Naib’s eyes widened and breath shot up as they locked eyes again and both froze.
Neither moved, as if doing so would alert the other to the fact that they were definitely staring, and the moment was only broken when Naib’s embarrassment overtook him and he remembered he was leaning against a door right now. Completely awkwardly. Again.
Naib tore his gaze away before hurrying out the door and fast walking away (very visibly this time). He couldn’t even care about maintaining his dignity now because he’d just engaged in a staring contest with the fucking cute barista! Eli! Naib took a large gulp of his coffee in an attempt to placate the feeling and headed off towards the sciences building for class.
On the way, he pulled out his phone and shot off a text.
Naib: you up yet??
…
Norton: nope!
Naib sighed. Typical behavior for his roommate of two years.
Naib: come on this is serious. need your help.
Norton: -you- need my help? i’m flattered.
Naib: …
Norton: alright bro what’s up, i got 30 before i see mike
Naib groaned for the nth time this morning, but this time it was expected. Also very typical of Norton to go do whatever he did with his boyfriend at every possible hour of the day he didn’t have educational obligations. He was certain Norton would prioritize making out with Mike over a study session if it came to it, anyway.
Naib: how do i put this… what did you do when you met Mike?
Norton: when i met mike ??? i mean he’s hot asf so i kept talking to him in our class a lot. and he kept talking to Me a Lot so we exchanged #s pretty quickly and the rest… yeah it was obvious p quick
Naib: ok. thanks.
…
Naib: did you two ever just. -stare- at each other before you knew each other?
…
Norton: something tells me ur not asking bc u want to know about my history with mike a year after it happened
…
Norton: naib. talk to me.
Norton: wait. did u MEET someone ??? LMAOO DID U STARE AT THEM ??? u look like u want to kill someone when ur not trying. Holy fuck thats it. u did and now u need my help
…
Norton: naib. believe it or not i'm very interested in this and if u don’t text me back now i’m asking u about it later in the dorm and i Will get an answer
Naib: i may or may not have met a barista at the south campus coffee shop and maybe made an idiot of myself and met eyes with him -way- too long for a stranger when i was leaving???
Naib: yeah i think i need help.
Naib knew Norton would be laughing right now, wherever he was.
Norton: ok ok i got u. best friends help each other out, dw about it. we can talk tonight in the room ??
Naib: yeah, sure, thanks.
Norton: hahahaha this is great ok see u then !!
With that, Naib sighed and pocketed his phone. He’d stopped at the base of the science building’s stairs to finish texting Norton, and decided he’d make his way up to the third floor now and wait in his classroom till the prof came. Better early than late and diving into his coursework sounded like a much better alternative than being unable to rip his mind from thoughts of Eli and their awful meeting.
He had it for someone he’d just met, and yet the ‘just met’ aspect of their relationship, the -only- aspect of their relationship, only registered in his brain and not in his flustered emotional state. Had it for Eli-. Wait. Eli…Eli what? He didn’t even fucking know his last name!
Naib huffed, furrowed his eyebrows, and downed the rest of his drink before tossing it in the nearest trashcan and hurling himself up the stairs.
Thoughts of mystery barista boy could wait. They would have to.
Justtt until he couldn’t bear to wait anymore.