Work Text:
Artwork commission by otaku-108e
“That will be $5.76.” He had no right to sound that sexy, saying numbers.
Sango handed over her card to the barista, then dropped a $1 coin into the tip jar. This was how each day went. She would walk into the coffee shop, she would get in line, she would then spend all her pre-caffeinated time following the flexing forearms of the beautiful, dark-haired barista. He always added a little flourish when he poured the steamed milk over the espresso, making flowers or fern leaves or hearts in the foam (and he always made Sango a heart).
“Thanks for your continued patronage!” His indigo eyes sparkled through the lush eyelashes that lined them.
“Yeah.” Sango turned around and bolted out of the shop, double shot oat milk cappuccino in hand (because oat milk took the longest to steam).
She had failed again.
Was she seriously this pathetic? (yes)
Thirsting after a barista at this artisan coffee shop? (oh yes)
Without having enough brain cells and courage to flirt with him? (sadly also accurate)
Sango was a modern woman. She could flirt and take charge. She could tease and pass her number to a good-looking man and talk to him about his interests and see if he wanted coffee. In theory, all these things were perfectly within her grasp!
She was an engineering student, after all. The type who would be able to look at the elements of a problem and create an organized step-by-step solution that would accomplish the goal that she set out to achieve.
In the past month, that goal was to carry on a conversation with the ridiculously hot barista at Sengoku Cafe and be witty and fun and casually mention how coffee was her favorite thing and maybe they should… go for coffee sometime.
To a barista.
At a coffee shop.
Brilliant plan.
It wasn’t that the triple-shot skinny macchiato with a dash of vanilla wasn’t great, it was (especially when made with care by the man with the gorgeous forearms). It was more… she was a student after all, with big student loans and rent and food and textbooks, and the coffee she kept ordering was not on the cheap end. (Capitalists would even tell her that she would not have a mortgage one day because of these treats, along with the avocado toast brunches apparently that kept her from being financially responsible…)
Yet, there she was, every day, standing and staring at the barista, and instead of saying the witty things that she had written down in her flirtation work plan (1: I like my coffee like I like my men: tall, dark and delicious. 2: Your coffee tastes like ambrosia, because it has been touched by the hand of a god. 3: Is that a heart in my latte or are you just happy to see me? — Sango was creative dammit!), she always just ordered something. A latte at first, then she started adding frills. Because frills meant it took the barista longer to make the coffee, which meant Sango got longer to regroup and try to remember the conversation starters she had written on the index cards at home and practiced with her long-suffering best friend.
Once she even managed to say, “Boy you must like coffee!” to the barista, which caused him to turn his head away from the latte art, smirk at her (he had a dimple!) and then answer, “Yes, I do like coffee.”
Sango would totally have said “want to get some with me?” like she had practiced with Kagome if… she was caffeinated. That was the only reason all she did was grin and nod at him after he said he liked coffee, uttering the word “good” as if that made any sense at all.
“Struck out again?” Sango should have known that Kagome would be standing outside. Holding the thermos of coffee that she made at home.
“Shut up,” Sango snarled at her friend. “Just because you found your soulmate when you and he were both kids does not mean anything in terms of my ability to flirt.”
“How much did this one cost?” Kagome did not deserve to look so smug. But honestly, Sango enjoyed the way her face lit up with a private smile when someone mentioned Inuyasha.
“Are you going to tell me to march back in there and ask for his number?” Sango changed the subject.
“Yes.” Kagome wasn’t phased by Sango’s deflection. “He’s a snack, and you’re spending nearly your share in rent on coffee you can’t afford and don’t like.”
“I do so!” Sango was a mature adult. “I like his coffee a lot. And all those add-ons are—”
“If you had your way, it would be a french press with good dark beans,” Kagome interrupted. Damn her for being right. “So… you’re drinking coffee that you don’t like and spending tons of money to ogle a man you won’t even talk to?” Sango officially hated Kagome, who had turned to head toward Sengoku Cafe’s door. “Don’t give me that look! I swear I am going to march in there and talk to him for you if you don’t—”
“Don’t you dare!” Sango grabbed onto Kagome’s sleeve before she had taken more than a step.
“Then… do something before I do!” Kagome huffed, then turned tail and walked in the opposite direction, throwing a wave Sango’s way.
“You don’t need to tell me how pathetic this is,” Sango murmured under her breath. She knew.
She had gotten straight A’s in high school. She studied and succeeded in getting a scholarship to the college she wanted. She was a blackbelt in karate and even proficient with weapons (a girl’s gotta protect herself after all). Everything Sango put effort into, she succeeded at!
And yet… boys were always the exception. Sango was the one who pushed them down on the playground (served that stupid boy Kuranosuke right for trying to punch her…). Sango was the one who told them all to stuff it when they complimented her body (her brain was so much more valuable!). And that one guy who asked her on a date for the night before entrance exams?! Was he really that uninterested in his future?
Sango didn’t need them. Not any of them. There would be men in college that would be able to carry on a decent conversation with her. They would be as serious about their futures as she was. Heck, she might even find one or two that could give her a run for her money in the dojo! Sango would ace boys the way she did her science classes!
Well, that was the plan, anyway.
Engineering students were more insufferable as the idiots in high school. Because they all had chips on their shoulders about girls, and could not stand that there was a girl in their class that was beating them on tests.
And the ones in the dojo that Sango found were all afraid to spar with her, because… she often won (was it her fault that her family were a line of demon slayers and trained her in martial arts from the time she could walk?). At least Inuyasha now sometimes came to spar with her (and because he was Sango’s best friend’s boyfriend, he didn’t go easy on her!).
Then came the barista.
Sango was just thirsty that day. She just wanted to grab an iced hibiscus tea on her way home from the dojo.
And she walked into Sengoku Cafe.
“You look like you could use something cool.” His black t-shirt was so tight that Sango could make out each and every muscle group on his upper body (the word toned did not quite work… it was more… sculpted by a masterful and well-informed connoisseur of the male form).
Sango, on the other hand, was in a tank-top and leggings, with bangs sticking to her forehead. She probably stunk to high heaven.
“Yeah.” Sango’s first words to the barista.
“Let me make you something special.” He had turned around and put his hands to work, creating one of the most refreshing peach black tea iced drinks that Sango had ever had. She didn’t even like peach normally. Or coffee.
Sango paid and tipped, then ran out of the coffee shop before she had even thought ahead to getting the barista’s name (which was Miroku… and it only took a week for Sango to uncover it!).
Yeah.
Sango looked down at the double shot oat milk cappuccino, adorned with a heart in the foam.
There was no doubt in her mind. If she didn’t actually say something to Miroku, then Kagome was going to take matters into her own hands.
“Today,” Sango growled to herself, then took a sip of the heart-infused cappuccino. “I’ll do it today.”
But first, she had to go to class.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Miroku’s eyes were wide. He never saw the brunette beauty in the afternoon anymore.
He still remembered the first time she came into his cafe. She was wearing gym clothes, and her skin glistened from sweat. She was, hands down, the hottest woman that Miroku had ever laid eyes on.
That was probably why he tried the charm approach. The “I’ll make this special just for you” approach. It was effective, usually (Miroku knew that he looked good).
Unfortunately, the woman grabbed the peach and black tea refresher and bolted before he had had a chance to take it up a notch: to the “here’s my number if you want me to make you another one outside of working hours.”
When she finally used her card, he learned that her name was Sango.
Why oh why had she started only coming in the mornings? He was always busy with an endless stream of customers in the mornings. He couldn’t pay her the special attention that she deserved, so he wallowed and took his time making her drinks. He always finished the steamed milk with a heart, but writing his number on her cup seemed too forward (that and there were a couple of over-thirsty cougar types that would try to get their hands on his phone number if he was careless).
That and… she never seemed to like the drinks he made her. She ordered them, more complex every time, and he did his damndest to make them the best coffee he was capable of producing, but she never looked happy with it.
Was that why he lost his nerve? Why he couldn’t bring himself to just out and say he thought she was cute? He was Miroku! Flirting with women practically flowed through his veins! Why was this one woman, Sango, someone he couldn’t flirt with?
(...why didn’t she like his coffee?..)
“Oh uh, hey.” Dear lord, she was blushing. And it was the cutest full-face pink he had never seen. She was wearing gym clothes again, but the sheen of sweat that he remembered from their first meeting had been wiped away, and her bangs had been clipped back with hair clips. Her eyes were bugging out of her face and she was worrying her lip with her teeth. Goddamn she was the cutest thing like that. “Again.”
It never even occurred to Miroku that she was awkward.
“To what do I owe this blessing?” Miroku wasn’t about to let this chance get away from him. “I usually only see you in the morning.” He almost added makes the afternoons lonely, but… that was laying it on too thick, even for him.
“Oh uh…” Sango tugged on her ponytail. Miroku needed to bite his lip. “Could I get a french press? Just… plain black.”
Wait. Miroku replayed all the conversations, all the drinks that he had served Sango. They would almost always be complex, taking a while for him to prepare. He kept oat milk for her. He made latte hearts for her.
Black?
“Sure.” Miroku got to work, coarsely grinding the beans and depositing them into the press, then pouring in the boiling water. It would need to steep for three minutes. Perfect opportunity to talk to Sango. “This is the first time you’ve ordered something so simple.”
“Right, yeah.” Was she getting more flustered? Cuter? “I… was just in the mood. After… I got done at the dojo.”
“You do martial arts?” So that was why her muscle tone was basically perfect.
“Yeah. It h-helps me…” Miroku would close shop and kick all his customers out for more flustered Sango time. “Relax.”
“I see.” This was interesting, very interesting.
No one had come in. His regular was sitting in the corner on a laptop. Did Miroku dare? Did he threaten to chase Sango away? Fuck it. He could never resist a girl who got cuter when she was flustered. Especially one who was as gorgeous as this one was.
“I do martial arts myself.” Miroku was going to do this! “Would you be interested in… going together sometime?”
Now he’d done it. Her eyes widened, and her face grew even redder. Shit, he was going to scare this perfect creature away with his forwardness. And then he wouldn’t get his favorite moment during the morning rush.
The beeper that told him it was time to press seemed to agree with him.
Dammit all. Miroku slumped over to the glass cylinder and compressed it. He decided not to look at Sango, to be professional (unlike his idiotic proposition). It wasn’t a very expensive coffee. He could give it to her on the house so she never had to come back.
“I… would love that.” When he turned around and met Sango’s eyes, they twinkled.
Miroku went to pour her coffee into a to-go cup, staring at the black liquid as it filled the large to the brim. It was an odd choice for Sango, who seemed to relish in complex drink orders. Perhaps she had run out of creative requests at this point, and post-dojo she just wanted…
Her favorite.
Oh. Oh.
Could it be that Sango had been ordering those drinks to… spend more time with him? Could it be that the frown that appeared on her face as she scurried out of his cafe was because she was ordering not for her enjoyment of coffee, but other things?
That… would be too good to be true.
He had to know.
Miroku grabbed a marker and finally did what he had thought to do since the first morning Sango wandered into his shop. He wrote down his number.
When he handed the drink to Sango, he tried to hide the grin that came to his face when she looked down and put together what those numbers meant. His charm was working!
“You could have just asked for my number, you know…” His own face flushed as he said those words. Damn, apparently he really did like this one.
“I-I-YOU—” She really was adorable when she was this flustered.
“How does Friday sound?” Miroku let his fingers linger on Sango’s as they both held the cup. “Dojo then… coffee?”
“You… sure?” There it was, something other than the fluster. A spark of interest, of fire. “I won’t go easy on you.”
Miroku was certainly not going to let on how excited he was to hear her say that.
“I would never want you to go easy on me,” Miroku answered; it was the truth. “What do you say, Sango?”
“You have a deal!” Sango’s smile had grown even more lovely.
“By the way,” Miroku smirked. “A plain french press is your favorite, isn’t it?” Sango’s stutter was back, and so was the blush. “This one is on the house.”
Yeah, Miroku really really liked Sango, especially when she was flustered.
“Th-thanks.” Sango scurried back out of the cafe, though not before saving Miroku’s number into her phone.
About sparring 😉
Sango texted Miroku’s number with her free hand and took a sip of the french pressed coffee. Who knew, when it came down to it, that the best plan that Sango had ever come up with to score that hot barista was to wing it.