Work Text:
“Caramel oat milk latte for Mack?”
There’s a pause.
Long enough to seem awkward, before he speaks up, “Do you mean Mark?”
It’s a minor thing.
In the course of Mark’s life.
A blip on a radar that he would otherwise forget, except, the barista in question is cute and kind of exactly Mark’s type. With black hair that seems to fall into the slightest of curl and an otherwise adorable look of confusion as he looks down between the name typed onto the to-go cup and Mark standing there awkwardly in his padded winter jacket.
“Did you order one and a half portions of oat milk?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“And brown sugar?”
Mark nods again.
"And also ten vanilla," this one is sai with a grimace.
Even so, Mark nods again.
“Why would you even do that?”
“What,” Mark says. Not expecting the barista’s comment and blurting the word out a little too loud into the otherwise calm atmosphere of the coffee shop.
“Why would you-”
“Coffee’s kind of gross,” Mark laughs awkwardly. A hot take for a coffee shop. “I’m just trying to drown out the flavor, maximum caffeine, minimal coffee taste.”
The barista laughs too.
But more honestly.
Voice raised high enough in pitch that one of the other baristas shot him a look. “Okay, Mack, enjoy your ‘coffee’.” The air quotes only sting a little.
“It’s Mark!”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you said-” The coffee cup is pushed into Mark’s waiting hand before he can finish his sentence. So sudden that Mark gets distracted by his need to keep his coffee from slipping and spilling and giving the barista enough of a chance to grab the next order up.
Any thoughts of arguing about his name is a lost cause when the barista calls out - “Iced sugar cookie latte for Wendy!”
But sure enough when he glanced down at his cup all of the letters of his own name are there.
*
“Mick, your order’s up!”
It’s not the same barista as last time.
That barista from last time is working the cash register today.
Had smiled at Mark so nicely when Mark was giving his order.
He’d probably just gotten distracted.
“I think you mean, Mark?”
The guy holding up the drink glances down at the misspelled label, the one that clearly reads Misk , and then up at Mark and shrugs, so much easier than his last interaction at this coffee shop, “Yeah, sure, if you want it, it’s yours.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I ordered,” Mark prompts. “Just to double check.”
That had been what they’d done last time.
But this barista, one whose name tag reads Jaemin just shrugs again -“They don’t pay me enough to care.”
*
“Since when is your name Milk ?”
“What?”
“On your cup it says,” his roommate Jungwoo waves at the coffee cup in question. “Milk.”
Mark turns his to-go cup around to look at it and sure enough, the sticker that reads his rather intricate order - he’s got a tough job of making coffee taste decent while also avoiding dairy at all costs, and he knows his order is a bit much even on the best of days - along with his name.
Except instead of saying Mark it says Milk .
Just as Jungwoo had said.
He supposes he’s been lucky up until now. His name is a simple one, four letters, not too hard to spell, common enough in Canada that nobody’s ever really messed it up before.
Unless he counts the occasional Marcus, but really he feels like those shouldn’t count.
But Mark and milk do both start with M and end with K, so he supposes it isn’t that wild of a stretch.
It’s just weird that it’s happened twice.
*
“I’m pretty sure the barista hates me.”
“They’re customer service workers, Mark, they’re allowed to hate you,” Doyoung points out.
Which is fair enough.
Except-
Mark sighs.
Like he gets it, he does.
Sure, Mark has never worked a customer service job in his life, never really worked at all before college and his parents are thankfully well off that there hasn’t been a need to supplement his scholarships with a part time job, but like Mark gets it… In theory.
He might be a little less friendly than his usual self had he worked one of these jobs, dealing with self-entitled or just generally rude customers all day, but that’s the thing because Mark gets it he is always nice.
Maybe too nice.
Maybe that was why maybe…
He turns his cup, the red holiday one, where someone put through the effort of typing out his name on a sticker - or not his name, never actually his name - this time it read Melt .
Twice could have been an accident.
Thrice a coincidence.
But at this point… Mark’s sure the barista has to be running low on four letter words that start with M by now, he’s already given up on having it match with a K .
“Which barista,” Johnny, the slightly more helpful of the two graduate students asks.
That’s the other problem.
He can’t very well say the cute one.
“I don’t know his name,” which is ironic considering Mark’s complaints are that the barista in question never gets his own name right, “How can someone who I don’t even know their name hate me? How is that fair?”
Doyoung hums at that, as if seeming to be deep in thought before he finally says - “If it makes you feel any better I’m sure there are hundreds of people who you don’t know that hate you!”
“Why would that make me feel better?!”
“I don’t know, it’s kind of comforting, in a tragic way.”
*
The next time it happens he’s alone.
And really, it’s a trivial thing.
But as he orders he makes sure, despite having a common and easy to spell name, to make direct eye contact with the barista’s (admittedly very pretty) eyes and say, “Mark, spelled M-A-R-K.”
He could swear he saw a flash of humor in those eyes for a second.
Before it’s gone, replaced by the manufactured customer service smile, and a quick, “I’ll be right up.”
He’s so sure that it will work.
That maybe somehow this is still a coincidence.
That Mark is just getting all caught up on his head, and this one will be fine.
Which is why he doesn’t check until he’s halfway to his first class of the morning and sees two letters instead of the four of his name written on the side.
Just one word:
No .
*
He has a plan.
A good one.
A solid plan to corner the barista in question, and demand that his name is finally spelled right.
Or something like that, Mark hadn’t exactly worked the details out.
But the plan is ruined because the next time he enters the coffee shop the barista in question isn’t there.
Or the next day.
Or the day after that.
And really at this point Mark is getting too much coffee, especially for someone that doesn’t even like coffee, but it’s not like he can very well go up to the counter and ask where ‘ The cute barista always spells my name wrong ’ is.
At least, not without looking like a crazy person.
*
“I don’t get what the big deal is,” his roommate, Jungwoo says, cutting him off in the middle of his rant. “I mean, at least he’s not spitting in your drink or purposely giving you two percent milk or anything.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I think it’s kind of cute,” Johnny teases. “Like pulling your pigtails on the playground.”
“You know that’s like bullying, right,” Mark counters. He read about this in one of his classes, they had a whole discussion about how we as a society shouldn’t be dismissing childhood bullying as pre-flirting.
Plus.
It’s not like the barista is flirting with him.
Right.
That would be crazy.
Mark voices the concern out loud a moment later to laughter from the gathered group.
“I mean, that would mean we’d be functioning in an alternate universe where you’re somehow considered dateable .”
“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? I am dateable!”
“Keep telling yourself if it helps you sleep better at night.”
*
It shouldn’t feel like a relief to see his name written Mel on the side of his cup.
But it’s kind of nice.
Just a little.
“I missed you,” Mark says, holding his new coffee cup. “I mean, in a totally normal way and respectful of your boundaries as a customer service worker kind of way.”
The barista - his barista - laughs.
Finally, Mark looks down at the other’s name tag, reads the letters written there and furrows his brow in confusion. Because Mark may not know much about the barista, but he’s pretty sure that the name tag that reads Jaemin belongs to the other barista that never seems to actually care about doing his job.
“What’s your name?”
“Donghyuck,” the barista replies.
Finally giving Mark a name to match the face that’s been occupying his thoughts so frequently the last few months.
“Nice to meet you, properly, I’m Mark.”
“Oh, I know.”
“But then why…”
Another laugh. “Because I can.”
“Because you-”
“Also because you’re kind of cute when you notice your name is all wrong and get flustered,” Donghyuck continues. That amused expression never leaving his face, as he speaks.
“Wait, you think I’m-”
“Let me fix today’s,” Donghyuck says, holding out a hand for Mark’s coffee cup.
He pulls a sharpie out of one many pockets on his apron and takes the to-go cup back from Mark.
It doesn’t take long, not exactly, but just long enough that Mark knows it is more than the four letters of his name on the cup.
Seeing a phone number written there instead shouldn’t be surprising, and yet… Mark’s cheeks heat up just a little bit. “Oh I - wait, is that your number?”
“Who else’s number would it be, Mel?”
“Mark,” he corrects reflexively.
“I said that.”