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She came in every day. He worried just a bit about her health, since she was drinking so much coffee, but that was alright. It meant he got to see her more.
Kaminari worked at the campus coffee shop after his classes, making a little extra money so he could start paying off school right away. He liked it well enough, even though it was a bit boring, but his coworkers were all his friends and they had ample time to goof off in the back.
The customers had been boring until she’d walked in. She had dark purple hair and dressed punk rock, heavy liner and dark colors decorating her. The vibe she let off was a little scary, but Kaminari was immediately interested in her. She came right up to the counter and ordered in a soft, gentle voice that Kaminari could barely hear.
“Should I speak up?” She asked, when he had been staring at her for a moment too long.
“No, sorry, I got it!” Kaminari beamed at her. “What’s your name?”
“Jirou.”
“Okay! Cool! That’ll be $2.73…” He collected her money and set off to make her drink. She’d just gotten a small iced coffee, but Kaminari made it a medium. She was really pretty, after all, and he wasn’t exactly trying to be subtle about liking her. A little crush on a customer was allowed, right? He finished writing her name on her coffee and added a little star next to her name before sliding it across the counter.
“Hang on, there’s a mistake, I ordered a small,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it! Consider it a free upgrade.”
Her lips twitched in what might have eventually been a smile, and she nodded her thanks, leaving with her coffee.
Something Kaminari noticed pretty quickly about Jirou was that she was always ordering something different. She had a lot of different tastes, from iced coffee, to frozen drinks, and the occasional hot coffee. Kaminari always added a little star to her drinks, even when she seemed to be in a bad mood.
She came in with a guitar strapped to her back one day, and that was the day Kaminari fell in love.
“You play guitar?” he asked excitedly as he typed her order into the computer.
“Yeah, I’m in a band,” Jirou responded, looking at him carefully.
“That’s so cool!” He enthused. “Maybe you could play here sometimes? That would be awesome.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think this is the kind of place that lets a punk rock band play,” she laughed a little. “We’re just starting out, too- not a lot of time to play music on top of our work.”
“What’s your major?”
“Are you writing an article?”
Kaminari blushed, realizing he’d been asking way too many questions for it to be reasonable as a barista. He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “No, sorry. You just- you’re really interesting! I’ve never seen anyone like you around school before.”
“I keep pretty busy. I guess you wouldn’t have seen me around on campus.” She stared him down, looking very much like she wanted to ask him a question. She didn’t, though, just passed him the money.
He grinned, taking her money and putting it in the register. He went to make her drink for the day, this time just a black coffee, and she watched him from the pickup counter. Kaminari was a little nervous, with her watching him, but she was so cool he wondered if he should just be impressed that he was maintaining her attention.
“Um… Where do you play?” Kaminari asked finally, as he handed her the drink.
“There’s a little club outside campus, in the city. We’ve been playing there for a little extra cash, and they let us do new material there.” She cocked her head to the side. “Why?”
“I… Um… I just wanted to know… I’d like to hear you guys play.”
She smiled. “Oh yeah, Coffee Boy? We play at ten on Friday.”
“I’ll be there.”
Jirou wrinkled her nose. “Alright, we’ll see about that. Thanks.” She picked up the coffee and gestured to him with the coffee before disappearing out the door.
Kaminari ran to the back the second she was gone, catching Kirishima, who was washing the dishes in the back. “That girl was here again!”
Kirishima looked over slowly. “Huh?”
“That girl, the punk girl, Jirou! Her band plays at the club in the city on Fridays. Come with me!”
Kirishima smiled. “Hey, that’s progress. You asked her a question today.”
“I think I made her nervous,” Kaminari winced, “I dunno, I just think she’s cool and I like her a lot.”
“You don’t even know her!” Kirishima laughed. “Look, I’ll go with you to her show, but you can’t be creepy!”
“I’m not creepy!” Kaminari’s voice reached a high pitched whine that just made Kirishima laugh again.
But besides, he’d chatted with Jirou several times, and she never seemed like she’d thought he was creepy. She’d stop coming or complain if she thought he was, right? And she wouldn’t have given him the place and time of where they were playing if she thought he was creepy.
So, deductively… He was not being creepy.
Kirishima did his best to encourage him, albeit in a cautious way, because “C’mon man, it’s not manly to stalk girls” but Kaminari had a feeling that Jirou wasn’t just another girl he was going to have a crush on.
He’d had crushes on plenty of girls throughout his time at school, but none of them had ever stuck. They either didn’t like him or he would go on a few dates with them and realize that they were totally boring. He was interested in dating someone for more than just their looks, and sometimes, the looks was all Kaminari liked about a girl.
At first he thought he’d be okay with that, but it was so boring. If he couldn’t talk to a girl about music or TV or video games, what was the point? Jirou seemed to be interested in the type of music he liked, not to mention the fact that she was super cute, and he wanted to get to know more about her. He just had to convince her of that before he asked her out.
Whoa. Was he already thinking of asking her out? Was that creepy?
No, it couldn’t be. Dating was what people do when they wanted to get closer to each other, right? That was normal. He went through the rest of his shift in a bit of a daze, wondering if she’d come through tomorrow. Tomorrow was Wednesday, so he’d get to see her a couple more times before the concert at least.
The next day, she came in earlier than usual, her hair half pulled up and wearing sweats. She leaned her elbows on the counter. “So what’s your name?”
Kaminari blinked. “It’s… Denki Kaminari.”
“Cool. Black coffee today.”
He smiled a little. “Okay.”
She started to fish around in her purse before Kaminari reached out a hand to stop her.
“No, don’t worry about it. You look tired.” He smiled a little at her shocked expression, and she slowly lowered her wallet back into her bag.
“What’s your game?” She asked finally.
“What do you mean?”
“You always chat me up when I’m in here, up the sizes on my drinks for free, and now you’re giving me free coffee? What do you want?”
Kaminari felt heat run over his face. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed to read him like a book, and she was staring at him like she could hear every single thought that was running through his head. Swallowing hard, he thought that it might just be best to be honest with her. He tapped his fingers on the counter and leaned forwards towards her.
“You’re really interesting and I wanna come see your show.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have to give me free shit to do that, stupid.”
“I like you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I want to.”
Jirou blinked, jerking back. “Alright. Why don’t you come to the show on Friday, and if you still like me, we’ll talk.”
“Jirou, not to be dramatic, but I fell in love with you the first time I saw you come in here with that guitar.”
She tugged at the leather jacket she was wearing and wrinkled her nose at him. “Fine,” she spit out. “We’ll see. But I’ll take the free drink, coffee boy.”
Kaminari grinned at her and hurried to go start her drink. She watched him, just like always, looking at him like she was trying to figure out exactly what was going on in his head. He didn’t even know what was going on in his head. He was too busy thinking about how a very pretty girl was staring at him and he was going to her concert on Friday.
She didn’t come into the coffee shop on Thursday, and Kaminari almost exploded.
“I told her I liked her yesterday, she’s probably so creeped out,” Kaminari ran his hand through his hair as he complained to Kirishima. “You were right, I am creepy.”
“She didn’t take the invitation back though, did she?” Kirishima asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“No, she didn’t.”
“So she’s just… Indulging you in the chase.”
“But she comes in every day, Kiri. The fact that she’s not coming, the day after I told her I liked her… This is just so embarrassing. I should apologize to her.”
Kiri shook his head. “Apologizing for liking a girl when she hasn’t even told you no is not super manly. She’s playing your game, dude! You just have to play along too.”
*****
She didn’t come the day of the concert either, which made Kaminari’s blood pressure go up exponentially. He and Kiri went to the venue together, though it didn’t seem like the club was too packed. Jirou was nowhere to be found, and Kaminari had to have a drink just to calm himself down.
When she took the stage, his life changed. Her face lit up when she was singing, and she was gorgeous, overflowing with confidence she didn't seem to have in her daily life. It was eye opening to see her that way, and Kaminari just wanted to frame this feeling and put it on his wall to look at and remember every day.
He’d be fucked if she didn’t like him back, because he was gone on her.
The band played a full hour set, and Jirou only looked at him a few times during it. He tried not to feel too bad about it, planning on sticking around for her afterwards. Kirishima stayed as well, claiming he needed moral support.
A few minutes after the set ended, Jirou stepped down from the stage, covered in sweat. “Hi,” she said, beaming up at Kaminari.
“Hi. You were amazing. You’re amazing.”
“Thanks, coffee boy.” She looked to Kirishima. “You work on campus too, huh? I’ve seen you before.”
“Yeah! You have! But! I should get going, someone’s, um… Looking for me!” Kirishima bolted, which, under normal circumstances, Kamianri would’ve teased him wasn’t very ‘manly’, but he wanted to be as alone with Jirou in this club as he could be.
“He’s fun,” Jirou remarked.
“He knows I wanna talk to you,” Kaminari smiled, doing his best to feign confidence.
“Oh, do you?” Jirou swiped the back of her hand across her cheek. “What did you wanna say?”
He let out a shaky sigh. “I like you. I think you’re super cool. And you’re amazingly talented. I’d like to get to know you better.”
“You wanna take me on a date, coffee boy?”
He laughed. “Hey, you know my name.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yeah, I wanna take you on a date.”
“Well, that’s good, because I really cannot afford to keep coming in for coffee every day just to talk to you.”
Kaminari’s eyeballs nearly exploded out of his head. “Sorry, what?”
“I’d like to get to know you too, idiot.” She leaned forwards and flicked him on the forehead. “The first couple times I wanted coffee, but I also sort of wanted to see if you’d be interested in me.”
“I am! I’m interested!” He blurted out.
She smirked at him. “Cool. But this doesn’t count as the first date!”
“Yeah! You got it.”
The way she smiled at him, Kaminari felt like he would definitely try to hold onto her forever. A chance meeting at his workplace was enough to convince him she was the girl of his dreams.