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The first time the man with the blue hair comes in, Reki doesn’t think much about it. He comes during one of the busiest hours of the day, and Reki barely has time to notice his hair and his fine-boned face before his customer service instincts kick in.
He smiles at the man. “Hi, what can I get you?”
The man in front of him blinks slowly, as though he wasn’t expecting the question. “I’ll have… one large cappuccino, please.”
“Large cappuccino,” Reki repeats, punching the order into the register. “Do you want anything to eat along with that?”
That earns him another slow, strange blink. “No, thank you.”
“Can I get a name for the order?”
“Langa.”
“Langa,” Reki repeats, taking care to make sure that it’s spelt correctly. Something about this moment feels important, although he couldn’t say what or why.
He forgets about Langa in the rush of orders and cleaning all of the machines, but eventually, things slow down enough for Reki to go out into the cafe and clean up tables and leftover dishes. His hands are full of plates and mugs when he walks past the counter by the window and pauses.
There’s a cup, a large to-go cup. It’s filled to the brim with cappuccino. The computer-printed label says Langa on it. And none of that is strange, except that the order is hours old, and the coffee is still so hot that there’s steam rising off of it. He tests it with the back of his hand and pulls away: it’s far too hot to touch. There’s not even a sleeve on it.
Reki frowns and goes back to the kitchen. He’s going to have to make sure that there are more coffee sleeves out for customers. Someone could get burned badly if they’re not paying attention.
“Hello,” a voice says.
Reki jumps and spins around. A minute ago the cafe had been empty, but now the man with blue hair is standing in front of the counter, completely silent.
“Oh!” he says and hurries to the register. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. Your name’s Langa, right?”
Langa tilts his head to look at Reki. Now that it’s not frantically busy, Reki has enough mental energy to look back at him. He looks very placid, the way that Reki remembers, his face permanently resting in a neutral expression. His hair is tied back today, although it’s barely long enough to do so. And he’s looking at Reki with a strange intensity like he’s trying to puzzle something out. Like Reki is the puzzle.
“Yes,” Langa says at last. “I didn’t think you would remember.”
“Oh,” Reki says, suddenly embarrassed. “I just - your hair is distinctive, that’s all. And you got a cappuccino. That’s easier to remember than most people’s orders.”
Langa’s brows furrow. “What do most people order?”
“Lots of things. People like flavour shots and froth and special milk and things like that.”
“I see,” Langa says slowly. “I’d just like a large black coffee. Please.”
“I’ll have that right out for you.”
“Thank you,” Langa says, with such odd sincerity that Reki feels warmed through.
Langa keeps coming in at random intervals of timings and, at odd intervals to begin with. Reki tries asking some of his coworkers about it, but none of them knows who he keeps talking about.
Eventually, Langa’s schedule levels out into, well, an actual schedule. He comes in two afternoons a week and always orders the same thing: one large black coffee.
But it becomes a routine because it’s easy to make strange things a routine. Reki takes to adding little drawings to Langa’s cups, just to try and get a reaction out of them. Normally the reactions are nothing more than raised eyebrows, but one-day Reki draws a tiny skateboard around the bottom of the cup and that gets an actual smile. A small smile, but still a smile.
It’s a slow day, and Reki keeps staring at Langa. He’s sitting by the window, looking out absently, sitting with his cup between his hands. There’s so much steam coming out of the coffee that Reki wonders if it’s literally boiling. It’s a strange, nonsensical thought, but there’s no logical explanation for that much steam coming out of the cup otherwise. But Reki's sure that he didn't boil it, but he may have forgotten to stop boiling it in the midst of all the chaos of the shop.
He wonders if Langa is dangerous. He doesn’t seem dangerous, with his solemnity and the tiny smile that he’d offered Reki earlier, but then, Reki’s not always a great judge of character.
Still, he’s fascinated by Langa, and he has questions and i t’s that fascination that leads Reki to go over to the counter and say, “Langa.”
Langa turns and looks at him. “Reki,” he says. It’s the first time he’s ever said Reki’s name aloud.
Reki swallows. “Do you want to go out sometime?”
Langa blinks, one of those scrutinizing blinks that makes Reki feel small and immense all at once. “Yes,” he says, and then turns back to his coffee.
“Okay,” Reki says on an exhale, and then more or less sprints back behind the counter. His face is burning, although he can’t say why. Langa said yes; isn’t that supposed to be good?
It takes Reki a full two days to realize that he hadn’t actually set a day or time to go out with Langa. He’d been so flummoxed by getting a yes that he hadn’t thought to say anything else, which is awful. Langa must be so confused, and now Reki is going to have to bring it up again, and it’s going to be a whole conversation-
There’s a knock on Reki’s apartment door.
Reki frowns. Normally his friends text him before they come over, which gives him enough warning to pick up around his apartment and make sure that he’s wearing a clean shirt or something. Luckily, he’s already wearing a clean shirt today, so he silently hopes that whoever this is will want to go out instead of staying in, and he opens the door.
“Reki,” Langa says. “Are you ready?”
Reki’s entire brain stalls out for a second. He doesn’t remember telling Langa where he lives; he’s sure that he would remember having a conversation like that. But Langa is there, looking at him as steadily as always.
So he asks, "How did you know my apartment?"
Langa looked confused at the first and then says, "Joe told me."
Reki stopped doing whatever he was, that is searching for a jacket and said, "You know Joe?"
Langa looked around his house and said, "Of course, I go often to his restaurant for food. In fact, he is the one who told me to go to your shop."
Reki squeezed the jacket in his hand and said, "You say Joe's the one who told you to come to the café huh? Looks like we'll have to have a talk soon."
They end up going for a walk in a park near Reki’s apartment, watching as the sunset. Langa doesn’t say much, so Reki ends up talking a lot, chattering about sports and celebrities and customers and whatever else comes to mind. Ordinarily, he’d be embarrassed by how much talking he’s doing, but whenever he stops Langa looks at him, something attentive and focused in his face. It makes Reki feel… heard. Listened to.
They stop at a bench after a while, off to one side of the park. They’re angled away from the sunset, but Langa seems to be watching it anyway.
“Reki,” Langa says quietly. “Do you have a destiny?”
He is startled. “A destiny?” He’s always had goals, aspirations, things to work for, but that doesn’t seem like the same thing. He’s never felt like he’s meant to be any particular thing, only like he could be like he can work for it. “I don’t think so.”
Langa nods. “That must be nice.”
“Do you have a destiny?” Reki asks before he can stop himself.
Langa doesn’t turn to him. “Yes,” he says, and he sounds sad, bone-deep.
So Reki opens the jacket he was wearing and puts it on Langa and says, "Even though we all have a destiny, it is us who believe, follow and make the path to it."
Langa looks at him, with a sense of wonderment that Reki has never seen on anyone before. “Oh,” he says, as though he had never thought of having Reki wrap his hand. Maybe he hadn’t.
His hand is sweaty and hot inside the scarf, but he doesn’t want to move it away. He wants this strange, sad man to know that he cares. That he’ll reach out.
By the time he takes his hand back, the sun had gone down and the night sky had come to life with a thousand stars. But there’s also a smile on Langa’s face, beaming out of him, and that’s much more important.
And someday, he'll weasel out the story out of Langa.