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There’s no beverage that Taehyung despises more than coffee. And he’s sure that coffee hates him back. What, with the number of times he’s had the repulsive drink spilled on the white shirts he loves wearing for class or on his fresh pair of jeans on the limited occasions he wears them, and even on his white sneakers.
Taehyung absolutely abhors coffee. And he’s sure the feeling is mutual. Yet coffee, this godawful liquid that he believes to have been originally handcrafted from the devil’s own piss, imbued with the bitter tears of the heartbroken and the lonely, is the reason why he drags himself out of his tiny apartment fit for an impoverished grad student so close to midnight.
Because his new neighbors are going it again like shameless rabbits, and paper-thin walls are useless at muffling moans and bed creaks. So, imagine how much more audible the “YesyesyesfuckthereyesbabyfuckI’m—” would be. Heck, he almost types it into his graduate thesis proposal that was due early the following morning.
So he closes his laptop in a snap and tosses it into his messenger bag along with everything that is currently on his study table—loose notes, dog-eared books and journals, three sharpened pencils, a chewed-up eraser, and a half-eaten granola bar. And he makes the slow and steady descent to the hellhole that is the 24/7 coffee shop right outside his apartment building.
It’s ass o’clock but the place is packed. It’s even smaller than it looks on the outside, he thinks. Almost two years in that apartment and he’s only set foot in this place now for obvious reasons. He finds a vacant stool by the bar. He figures it’s as good a place as any to park his stuff and his sorry ass in the meantime and surely, some booth will free up between now and sunrise which he expects to meet with sleep-deprived eyes.
He senses a barista approach him from the other side of the bar as he marks his territory by emptying the contents of his bag onto the tabletop. Without looking up, he asks, “What is good here that isn’t coffee?”
Instead of an answer, his question is met with a chuckle that sounded like angels, and a baffled “Are you kidding me?” that prompts him to look up and leads him to look into a pair of doe eyes that hold all the stars in the galaxy.
Pretty, he thinks.
“Thank you,” he hears, realizing a little too late that he had said the word out loud, his cheeks turning a certain shade of red. He opens his mouth, hoping it will spit out some smartass comeback, a comedic line or a witty remark as redemption or at least an apology but nothing comes out so he just promptly closes it and keeps his lips securely together in a line as thin as the sliver of dignity he has left.
“Would you be interested?” he hears angels again.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“In a pot of mint tea. With honey. I can make you some if you’re interested.” The angel barista motions to the heap of papers and whatnot on the table. “Looks like you have miles to go.”
Taehyung runs a hand through the unruly brown mop on his head. “Yeah, yeah, in fact, I do.” He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels out of breath. He suspects being in the presence of the man in front of him has knocked the air out of his lungs, but for the sake of his sanity, he convinces himself that it might just be from his three-flight descent from his room to the building lobby and the short walk to the coffee shop. “Mint tea would be lovely. Thank you…” he says, scanning the barista’s chest area for the ubiquitous nameplate.
“Jungkook,” the angel volunteers. “Can I get your name, too?”
“Oh, yeah, for the cup,” Taehyung concludes. “It’s Taehyung.”
“Taehyung,” Jungkook lets the name roll off his tongue, nods as he speaks it as if committing it to memory. “But, no, it’s not for the cup. I just wanted to know. For me.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be back with your tea, Taehyung.”
Taehyung mutters a soft “Sure” and settles on the stool. He doesn’t know why he feels so unhinged like he’s suddenly more disoriented than when he had to go through that ordeal of listening to his neighbors intensely copulating. He has to get a grip and finish this chapter or he’ll have his adviser’s hand around his throat tomorrow in a totally non-sexual way. Kim Namjoon is not someone to mess with when it comes to deadlines, and Taehyung values his life too much to put it on the line.
So when Jungkook comes back and he carefully places Taehyung’s tea on the table, Taehyung barely looks up.
“Here you go, Taehyung” he hears Jungkook say.
Taehyung nods his thanks, his eyes never leaving his laptop screen. And maybe Jungkook stays for a breath longer than he should, but not long enough to hear Taehyung mumble his hurried thanks. He types in relative peace for what he didn’t realize was hours, pausing not even once to wonder why his tea never runs out or why it is always hot. It is around 8 o’clock when he stops, after having emailed the file to Kim Namjoon with a good 30 mins to spare before his deadline. Only then does his consciousness rejoin the rest of humanity and he becomes aware of his surroundings in the coffee shop. Some of the midnight owls have left and the breakfast crowd has started pouring in.
“Excuse me,” he calls the attention of the barista crouched in front of the display, busily restocking pastries. He straightens up to about Taehyung’s height. He is lean, almost lanky, and with an easy smile that rivals the brightness of the sun.
“Oh, hi,” he greets Taehyung. “Are you done with your work?” he inquires. There is some familiarity in his tone which Taehyung finds surprising even though there is nothing offputting about it.
“Hi,” Taehyhung greets back, still a little dazed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m finally done,” Taehyung replies, stuffing his things back into his bag. “I’d like the tab, please. God, I must have had barrels of that lovely mint tea. Where’s Jungkook by the way?”
The barista responds with another smile. “Oh, he clocked out over an hour ago… And, uhm, there’s really nothing to charge you for so you can just go whenever you want to.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Well, the tea isn’t even on the menu. Jungkook just made it for you. And apparently, he brewed several batches to tide you over until you’re done. And before he clocked out, he gave me strict orders to keep refilling your pot and to make sure the tea was always hot or I’ll work all the shitty shifts next week. What a little power can do to people, huh?”
Taehyung nods in agreement just because it’s what this other barista expects. “Anyway, so would you like the rest of your tea to go? We’re down to the last batch anyway. And thank fuck you’re done because I don’t know what I would have done if we ran short.”
“Yeah, sure, thanks,” Taehyung replies. “Wouldn’t want a special beverage to go to waste. But, what I’d also like is a way to thank Jungkook personally for this. Do you know how I might be able to do that?”
“Are you asking for his number? Or his soc med details? Well, he’s not into social media a lot actually.”
“Whatever works, I guess. I just want to thank him for this. He saved my ass last night.”
“Gotta admit, when he talked to me about you, I actually thought you two knew each other from a while back. Because Jungkook never pays any attention to the people who come around here. Hates interacting with customers, even with regulars. Would rather stay in the back doing inventory or baking pastries or concocting beverages.”
“It must have been my lucky night then. For him to be out front. And for him to take pity on me like that. I must have looked desperate.”
“I doubt it was pity,” the barista, whose name Taehyung reads as Hobi, remarks, his lips twitching into a tiny smile. “Anyway, why don’t I just give you his number? Then Jungkook will owe me another one.”
Taehyung doesn’t know what to make of that but he hands his phone to Hobi who types in Jungkook’s details. “I don’t know about that, Hobi-ssi. I just know that I owe you one.”
“Hobi is fine. Hyung works for me, too, because you seem younger than I am.”
“Thank you, Hobi hyung,” Taehyung replies as he pockets his phone and walks out of the coffee shop, half-awake. He stops right outside the door and squints at the sunlight, his eyes adjusting to the brightness when he feels the cold liquid hit his back. It’s followed by a frantic female’s voice, “Shit, man, I’m so sorry.”
God, he hates coffee.
-o-
Taehyung does not text Jungkook right away. In fact, he does not text Jungkook for days. When he gets home from the coffee shop, he bites his nails while thinking of what to say. He starts typing, “Hi, Jungkook. This is Taehyung from the coffee shop last night. I don’t know if you remember me…” And then he deletes it because what if Jungkook doesn’t remember him, what if Jungkook thinks he’s overstepping, what if Jungkook is annoyed that this stranger is suddenly texting him. Heck, he didn’t even give his number to Taehyung personally and if Jungkook is the kind of person that Hobi says he is, he wouldn’t appreciate getting a text message from a random customer, even if that person just wants to thank him for his kind gesture. Maybe not reaching out is Taehyung’s way of thanking him. Maybe leaving him alone is the way to show his appreciation. But surely it won’t hurt to just say thanks, Taehyung thinks. He’ll leave out the part where he wants to say that Jungkook’s eyes are the prettiest he’s seen and who needs to look at the stars when you can actually stare at them instead. And he hates that the whole time last night, his eyes were glued to his laptop instead of drowning in Jungkook’s eyes. Yup, Taehyung definitely needs to leave out that part. But Taehyung doesn’t know if he can. At some point, he’ll let it out because Taehyung wears his heart on his sleeve like that. Which is why maybe it’s for the best that he doesn’t text.
He goes back and forth like that until sleep takes him. And he ends up sleeping the whole day. The next day, he gets an email from Namjoon saying his proposal is cleared for defense. They schedule it at the end of the week. And Taehyung goes into thesis mode again. Thankfully, his neighbors are strangely silent for days. Perhaps they went on a holiday or they had a fight or if luck is truly on his side, they’ve moved out. But, on the night before Taehyung’s proposal defense, Lady Luck turns on him.
A broken electrical fuse leads to a power outage in his building in the dead of night. It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had been fast asleep, but he was doing the finishing touches on his presentation. So, he finds himself scampering to the nearest establishment with working lights, air-conditioning, and enough space for him and his laptop to camp in.
It’s not like he’s been avoiding the coffee shop all week. It’s just that he didn’t have the need to visit. He never did. Besides he was locked down on thesis mode, refining his proposal, working on his presentation, anticipating questions about the literature, design, and data that he plans to gather.
It’s not like he never thought of Jungkook. He did, in fact, think of the sweet-faced barista with the voice of angels but only on days that ended in y and thrice yesterday. However, between his tunnel-vision when it comes to his graduate work and his cruel and unrelenting overthinking, paralysis by analysis set in, and in the few days that had passed, he never got to send even just a simple “thank you” to him.
So Taehyung is somewhat apprehensive as he enters the coffee shop for the first time in a week. He is running lines in his head. What does he tell Jungkook when he sees him? Surely, an apology is fitting at this point because it’s been almost a week. A mere thanks would have sufficed if it weren’t a little too late. But then again, whoever said that Jungkook was waiting for it? Maybe Jungkook had forgotten all about the enervated grad student by the bar who splurged on his mint tea for free. Hundreds of customers walk in and out of the coffee shop and Taehyung is but one face, one teapot. Well, more than one. But, he makes up his mind that it’s just that. He’ll thank Jungkook nonetheless. Yes, he tells himself that thank you should be enough, whether the barista remembers or not.
Taehyung dumps his things in the first empty booth he spots and trudges to join the queue. It seems like everyone from his building who is remotely awake has trooped to the coffee shop to wait it out while the repairs ensued. He smiles shyly at a few of the people he recognizes, unsure if they actually recognize him too but afraid to come off as rude. In his mind, though, he’s rehearsing lines off a script that’s continually changing. How many ways are there to say thank you anyway? He has to choose one because from where he stands, there are only two people in front of him in the queue, and he’s less than five minutes from delivering his spiel.
Uh, by the way, thank you is too casual and leaves a bad taste in the mouth like it’s an afterthought.
Oh, yeah, thanks for that time is even worse because it’s like Taehyung forgot what he was thankful for in the first place.
Hey, Jungkook, thank you for last time is sus and sounds a lot like they had a one-night stand and Taehyung can’t stop thinking about it.
Thanks for the tea seems like Jungkook spilled some juicy rumors and is nowhere near the truth that Taehyung wants to say.
Taehyung’s eyebrows are furrowed in deep thought and he is chewing so hard on his bottom lip as the person in front of him leaves, and he approaches the till. Oh shit, he thinks. His mouth goes dry as he forces himself to look up. He takes a deep breath and slowly deflates as his tight-lipped smile is met by the words, “Yah, Taehyung-ah!”
“Hobi hyung, how are you?” He does a tiny bow.
“The question is how are you? Did you fall from the face of the planet or what?” His voice was a mixture of concern and exasperation.
“I—” Taehyung starts to reply.
Hobi cuts him off, not exactly annoyed, just dismissive as though he has had to put up with Taehyung for a long time even if he only got here. “You know what, I’ll just bring you something when this line thins out. You’re staying, right? Where are you at?” Taehyung turns his head to the booth he has claimed. Hobi nods in acknowledgment and shoos him off. Taehyung leaves the queue empty-handed.
Much ado about nothing, Taehyung thinks to himself as he walks back to his booth. It looks like the confrontation he was half-dreading, half-anticipating, and 100% stressing about isn’t going to happen today if Jungkook isn’t working. Although from the looks of it, Hobi may have a thing or two to say to him, and he cannot surmise what. He figures he’ll just wait for Hobi to come and say it himself, so he opens his laptop and begins to work. No tea for today then, he tells himself. He finishes the presentation in no time and starts going over his slides. He is editing the speaker’s notes when a cup of hot tea is placed in front of him and Hobi slides into the seat across from him, his apron tossed to the side.
“Hyung,” Taehyung promptly closes his laptop and eyes Hobi curiously. He catches a whiff of the tea. “What drink did you bring me? Is this…?”
Hobi gestures for him to stop, raising his pointer finger and shaking it in front of Taehyung’s face. “Nah-uh-uh… You don’t get to ask me anything until you’ve answered my questions.” Taehyung eyes him quizzically. Hobi narrows his eyes at him. “Yah, you said you’ll text him. Did you lose Jungkook’s number or what?”
Taehyung blinks several times at the question and then shakes his head. “No, hyung, I--”
“Well, you had one job, Taehyung-ah. But it was an epic fail. And you just made my entire week insufferable.” Taehyung is stunned at the familiarity but he finds that he likes it, listening to Hobi rant as though they’re old friends. So, he lets the barista go on, his amusement increasing with each passing second. “He made me work all the graveyard shifts. Double shifts and till duty towards the end of the week when he was too droopy and miserable to come out and help. When I told him you asked for his number, he really just went from unbelieving and suspicious to mildly hopeful but doubtful to hopeless and disappointed to downright crushed and dejected in a span of days. And I had to witness all it, Taehyung-ah, do you hear me?”
“Hyung, I didn’t think--” Hobi cuts him off with his unfinished tirade. Taehyung finds it endearing. While Hobi waxes indignant about his difficult week and how it’s Taehyung’s fault, he takes the cup and brings it to his lips. As soon as the hot liquid touches his lips, he becomes certain of what the drink is.
“Hyung!” he says a little too forcefully, making Hobi stop in midsentence, eyes blown up. “He’s here! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask. And I didn’t think you’d care. You never texted him after all. Which brings us back to why my week has been horrible. But nowhere near as horrible as that boy’s.”
“Hyung, so he knows I’m here? He made this for me?”
“Only Jungkook makes that shit. And he’s only ever made it for one person, Taehyung-ah.”
“Shit…” Taehyung panics. “Make him come out front, hyung, please. I need to talk to him.”
“There’s no way I’m ordering my boss around. Not after the misery that I put him through. Well, you put him through to be exact.”
“Your boss?”
“Yeah, why do you think he gets to do pretty much what he wants here? Well, technically, his parents still own the place, but he runs it. He used to be all sulky about it but one day, a year or so ago, his demeanor changed and he started looking forward to coming here.”
“Listen, hyung, I need to talk to him but he won’t come out… And I suppose no one will get in trouble if I get in there, right?” Taehyung points to the swinging doors leading to the backroom, sneaks one sly look at Hobi, and winks.
Taehyung springs from his seat. He is too quick for Hobi to catch. “No, wait… I will get in trouble, Taehyung-ah,” he hears Hobi say, but he pays no mind. He had a situation to rectify after all, and this time he won’t let overthinking get the better of him. Maybe this is taking things to the other end of the spectrum but maybe he doesn’t care anymore because maybe behind those swinging doors is the boy he has to win.
Chimes signal his arrival as the doors to the backroom swing open. He hears Jungkook first before he sees him.
“Hyung, does he want more…” Jungkook hollers from inside, cutting himself short when Taehyung comes to view and he realizes it wasn’t Hobi who just entered. His mouth falls open and Taehyung finds it all too endearing.
“Tea?” Taehyung finishes the sentence for him with a smile full of anticipation. “Uh, yes, please. I’d like some more of it.”
“H-how did you get in here?” Jungkook asks, wiping his hands repeatedly on his apron.
Taehyung steps closer to him. “Through those doors, silly.” He slightly turns to the back and points with his thumb. “Hobi hyung is busy. So, I came to get the tea myself.”
“I--I’ll just bring it out for you then.”
Taehyung’s face lights up. But he turns on the puppy dog look nonetheless to seal the deal. “Promise?” Jungkook just nods because one, he’s out of words, out of air, and probably out of his mind, too, and two, by now it’s clear that acquiescence is the only response to anything Taehyung asks of him.
So, when Taehyung asks him to stay when he brought the tea, stay he does. Taehyung watches as Jungkook sits nervously across him, repeatedly wiping his hands on his lap, apron discarded to the side like Hobi did.
“Hi,” Taehyung says, hoping Jungkook would rest his eyes on him instead of anxiously scanning the place like it’s a crime to sit in front of Taehyung like this.
“Uh, hi,” Jungkook replies, eyeing Taehyung briefly before lowering his gaze to the hands on his lap. “They’ll probably need me in the back soon. So….”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll make this quick. It’s just that coming here, I was thinking of how I would say thank you to you for the first time you made me this tea. But it seems like more than thank you, I need to say sorry…”
“Oh, no, no, not at all,” Jungkook denies too quickly and too emphatically. He glances at Hobi who’s standing behind the counter, failing to pretend that he’s not watching them. He shoots Hobi some dagger looks even if the older isn’t looking. “I’m not… I don’t know what Hobi hyung told you...”
“No, Jungkook, I’m not saying you’re anything. This has nothing to do with what Hobi hyung said. I really am just sorry for putting off thanking you. It makes me seem so ungrateful for what you did. But please know that I am thankful and I really appreciate it.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Maybe it is nothing to you. But it’s one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me. And it sort of overwhelmed me that an insanely attractive stranger with the voice of angels and all the stars in his eyes showed me the kindest and sweetest gesture as though my forever frazzled, perpetually frantic, exceptionally boring grad student ass deserved any of it. And believe me, I really wanted to thank you as soon as I knew but I didn’t know how to say all that through text without sounding like a creep. Heck, I don’t even know how to say that to your face without sounding like a creep. But I just did, didn’t I and oh shit….”
Taehyung shoves a fist into his mouth and bites on his knuckles as Jungkook’s lips quiver and his shoulders begin to shake slightly until he couldn’t keep his laughter in anymore and it explodes in angelic peals and rings throughout his tiny cafe.
“God, you’re even cuter up close,” he says when he comes to it and finally catches his breath.
Taehyung raises an eyebrow in question.
“What?” Jungkook bemuses.
Taehyung squints at him as though trying to read him.
“What do you want me to say? You’re welcome. Come by anytime and if I’m here, I’ll make you your tea. Happy?”
“You’ve seen me before I came here last week?”
“You walk by all the time. You’ve been walking by for over a year. I’m not blind.”
“And you think I’m cute.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, my bad,” Taehyung puts a hand on his chest in a mock apology. “Sorry, that’s not what you said. ‘Cause you said, and I quote, God, you’re even cuter up close …” Taehyung exaggerates as he mimics. “You can just call me Taehyung though.”
Jungkook’s cheeks are dusted pink but he manages to retort, “Are you always this cocky?”
“Only when I don’t know what to do with myself because I’m overrun with all sorts of feelings with you here in front of me and I can’t seem to shut myself up to keep me from looking like a whole circus act before the boy with the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Taehyung hears a tiny gasp escape from Jungkook’s lips, but Jungkook seems to recover quickly. “Your tea is getting cold,” he points out and pushes the drink toward Taehyung, finding an excuse to look down and stare at the neglected cup because it is too much to look at the man in front of him while his cheeks are burning.
“Are you always this avoidant?” Taehyung tilts his head, angles it to the side and downward, trying to meet the younger’s gaze.
Jungkook looks at him. “Only when I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Taehyung smiles warmly, his eyes crinkling. And it makes Jungkook brave. And he dares to hold Taehyung’s gaze. And it allows Taehyung to swim in the bright galaxies in Jungkook’s eyes. And maybe that’s how new stars are made, how a new universe is created. When eyes are opened and fear is silenced, courage blooms and births tiny sparks, bright enough to become beacons for those who have been cowering too long in the dark.
A perky female voice makes Taehyung snap back to reality. “Excuse me, Taehyung-ssi.” Taehyung manages to peel his eyes away from Jungkook's to find one of his neighbors standing by their table. He recognizes her as a graduating senior from his department. “I think the lights are back on, sunbaenim, if you wanna head back home.”
He and Jungkook turn in the direction of the apartment at the same time and briefly watch the lights switching on, one by one. Some white, some yellow, some pink and blue and purple.
They're pretty, Taehyung thinks.
"Yes, they are," he hears Jungkook say.
Taehyung gapes as he realizes that he has thought out loud in Jungkook's presence once again. Perhaps he just feels so at ease around Jungkook that he finds little need to censor himself. And Taehyung thinks that's refreshing--to find someone who makes you unafraid, someone you're just bursting to be yourself with. He smiles politely at his neighbor and says, “Thanks, you go on ahead. I think I’ll stay for a bit.” Then his eyes return to Jungkook’s as he says, “The lights are way prettier here. And it’s starting to feel a lot like home but brighter.”