Work Text:
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i:
On a fine Thursday morning, Yixing, a stressed, overworked uni student in his third year, found himself sitting on the corner table of the Aroma Mocha as was usual for him on days without classes.
Yixing had been a frequent visitor to the cafe across the campus grounds, always spending his minimal free time on one of the corner tables, his laptop flipped open in front of him as he chewed on the straw of his cup of americano and doodling away on his due-soon essay of Ecology.
Being a foreign exchange student in South Korea entailed that Yixing's name would often get mispronunced or misspelled, but he had made sure to correct those who had mistaken it, every single time. Politely or otherwise.
Yet here he was, glaring at the beige cup sleeve, plain except for the post it flag they used for writing names, pasted with a small pink babysbreath stem, which had the crooked korean alphabet strewn across, spelling shin (신) instead of the xing (씽) Yixing had instructed while giving his order to the barista.
If it had been anyone else from the cafe staff, who supposedly knew that Yixing was a regular at this point, Yixing would have promptly given them a passive-aggressive smile with a small, almost inaudible thank you and would have walked away muttering in Mandarin, hoping that they'd take the hint and not misspell his name next time.
But since it was not anyone else, but the (cute) newly hired barista, who had made his order, Yixing was only left gaping and accepting his drink wordlessly as it was given to him with a warm smile full of curly lips and crescent eyes.
He was still pondering, eyes lingering on the cafe counter (on the pretty barista really), whether he should go over and ask the barista to rectify his mistake. But the thought of facing the bright eyes gleaming with shooting stars, and the curling smile reminiscent of sunflowers at full bloom, had Yixing stifle his current vexation at the prospect of being the reason behind the dimming of those eyes and smile at a rebuke.
Anyway, it was a first-time thing. Perhaps Yixing could overlook it this one time and tell the barista the next time he would visit. With that thought, he promptly got back to completing his god forsaken essay.
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ii:
The second time the pretty barista, whose name was Jongdae as Yixing had managed to read the name tag on his apron, had messed up Yixing's name (again) on his order, Yixing wasn't alone. He was together with his best friend slash the bane of his existence, Byun Baekhyun.
And ever since Yixing had collected both their orders some twenty minutes ago from a smiling Jongdae, he was being subjected to Baekhyun's loud as heck guffawing and sputtering as the latter kept wheezing out "lee shin" every time Yixing took a sip of his iced matcha. For that was what was written on Yixing's cup as his name this time, lee shin (이신).
"Are you going to drink your latte or do I have to shove it down your throat?" Yixing glared across their table, Baekhyun's laughter only growing tenfolds after the former's reprimand.
"I will, I will." Baekhyun wheezed out after a minute. "Just let me have this moment for now. This is the funniest thing I've witnessed this week." More giggles peeled out from him. "Aside from our chem lab TA's pet frog jumping into a titration flask." He finished off, crouching over on the table and almost dropping both their drinks and books while trying to reign in his laughter.
"I don't even wanna know what you find so funny in this. He just misspelled my name on the order. It's no big deal." Yixing grumbled sourly, his words and his tone of voice completely at odds with each other.
"Oh?" Baekhyun smirked, still chuckling a bit when Yixing sipped his coffee again. "No big deal, huh? I remember someone making a huge deal out of it in freshmen year when I mispronunced his name on our very first meeting."
"That someone must have been very sensitive about such things. I'm not like that." Yixing pointed out, eyes scanning across his phone screen as he surreptitiously avoided eye contact with Baekhyun.
"Yixing, you literally asked me to get the fuck out of there!" Baekhyun exclaimed loudly. "We were in a classroom and the prof was speaking about plant genetics when you dramatically stood up and asked me to leave!"
"Okay, alright, fine! I get it! Stop screaming about it, Byun!" Yixing scowled, glancing around and offering a sheepish smile towards the barista counter as most of the patrons and staff and especially Jongdae were looking at their table in concern.
"Ah!" Yixing turned back to watch a lopsided smile grace Baekhyun's lips. "I see how it is now. Lil xingxing has a crush~" Baekhyun singsonged and Yixing wanted to hurl something at his face.
"No, I don't!" Yixing thumped his fist on the table gently, to emphasise his point.
"Nuh-uh!" Baekhyun wagged his finger. "Quick denial equals acceptance. You definitely have a crush on the cute barista who made our order." Baekhyun stage whispered gleefully.
This time Yixing did fling his cytology textbook on his best friend's face.
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iii:
The next time Yixing visited the cafe, for a much needed break from his extended mycology revision, he was without Baekhyun's company (and by extension his mockery too).
This allowed him to freely wallow in embarrassment as the pretty barista aka his newfound crush misspelled his name again, this time with a cute heart caricature beside it which had Yixing's own heartbeat doing somersaults.
And even though he had planned on to tell Jongdae about his mistake, in the end Yixing could do nothing but gratefully take his cup of iced americano, offering a shy smile, which then got him a megawatt smile equal in brilliance to the sun's flare in return. A simple crush had him so weak, if Baekhyun had seen him like this it would've been the end of Yixing.
Still feeling his heart palpitate at an extreme rate, Yixing was about to exit the cafe when he felt someone tap lightly on his shoulder. He turned around to come face to face with another barista, Junmyeon, this one also a familiar face because he had made Yixing's orders before.
He looked at Yixing dead in the eyes and said, "Are you really going to let the newbie slaughter your name unknowingly every time you order coffee here?" And Yixing in his rightly confused mind, sputtered.
"Huh- what?!"
Junmyeon sighed. "Really? I've been seeing that you just meekly take your cups and go instead of correcting Jongdae. How about finally letting him know your name's correct spelling so that that dumbass can stop embarrassing himself. Maybe you can also give him your number and score a date with him while you're at it? All the good possibilities you know." He finished with a cheshire grin and Yixing had to reel back again.
"Wait- what? Why would I want a date with him?" The denial osmosing in Yixing's voice was so apparent, that Junmyeon just harrumphed.
"C'mon now, don't try to fool me here. I've seen the way you shyly smile at Jongdae, and the way you both glance at each other, and the way you don't even say anything when he misspells your name. Literally the entire staff knows it. Our building owner knows it. Even our baker Chanyeol knows and he's almost always in the kitchen 24/7. So really. Just go and tell Jongdae already. Because even though I said all the staff knows, Jongdae doesn't. You need to spell it out for him." Junmyeon finished in a breath and Yixing just looked at him dumbfounded for a moment, the former's words bringing about a sense of embarrassment and also hope within him.
"So uh... what should I do then?" He stuttered, all bashful.
"Oh I dunno? Tell him your correct name for a start? Just espresso yourself y'know." Junmyeon winked as he turned around to attend to his work, seemingly done giving advice to Yixing with a horrible pun to boot.
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iv:
Yixing just stood there for a moment, almost blocking the entrance to the cafe, his thoughts warring with each other whether he should go do what Junmyeon had suggested or just keep quiet and let Jongdae misspell his name.
In the end, the logic that even if he can't get a date with Jongdae, he would want his crush to know his correct name won and Yixing buckled himself up to do this right.
He approached towards the counter again, Jongdae saw him soon and asked in the amiable tone he always does.
"Hey. Did you forget anything? Wanna change your order?" The sunshine smile always present on Jongdae's face gave Yixing more courage to say his next words.
"Actually... uh. There has been a mistake-"
"Oh! Did I mess up the order? You did say you wanted americano right?" Jongdae frowned, his expressive eyebrows furrowed and his nose scrunching up cutely and Yixing just wanted to turn around, get out of the shop and hibernate in his apartment for even attempting to make the pretty boy upset.
"No, no! I just- you.." Yixing inhaled in a deep breath, setting his resolve. "You.. misspelled my name. It's not a Korean name so, it's not spelled like this." He pointed out at the sticky note attached to his cup.
And Jongdae looked mortified then, his mouth gaping wide in equal parts shame and shock.
"But, I've been spelling it that way for all your orders. Why didn't you tell me before? I'm so sorry!" The barista groaned out the apology and Yixing's amusement knew no bounds.
"It's no problem. I'm sorry too, for not letting you know earlier." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, minutely aware of Junmyeon chuckling at their exchange from somewhere behind the counter.
"Tell me the correct spelling of your name so I won't mess up again." Jongdae requested, eyes fiery with determination and something else which Yixing couldn't make out.
"Let me write it down for you." Yixing smiled and accepted the notepad offered to him.
He quickly scribbled down his name. In Hangul and Hanja and even in the English alphabet. And before he could chicken out from this, he also jotted down the digits of his phone number, cheeks flushing hot at the contemplation of how Jongdae would react to that.
"Okay, that's all." He smiled again timidly, feeling his face burning up still, handing back the notepad and quickly grabbing his cup and bolting out of the shop before he could see Jongdae's reaction to his failed shot at flirting.
Although the text he received later in the night with the correct spelling of his name made Yixing pause in his perusal of the ascomycota diagrams, a huge smile stretching his lips and something warm and giddy settling down in his chest at the realisation that he hadn't really failed.
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