Work Text:
“Here he comes!!” squeals Power. “Your man!”
Denji glances out the window, instantly spotting ink black hair and a beauty spot.
“Fuck!” he yelps, ducking behind the counter. “Tell him I’m not here!”
“Language!” Aki yells from the back room, where he’s baking custard tarts for the post-work rush.
Denji hisses an apology as the bell chimes, announcing the new arrival. He hears Power snicker and counts out the measured, even paces of the customer approaching.
“Denji says to tell you he’s not here,” Power offers brightly.
“Oh?” comes the deep voice of the only man in line. “And when did he tell you that?”
“Like, five seconds ago,” Power says. Then, nudging Denji with her foot, she asks: “Or was it more like ten?”
Denji groans. The gig is up. He might as well get off the floor.
A blush explodes across his cheeks as he faces Yoshida, who has one elbow rested on the counter, lips curling in a smirk.
“Denji,” he purrs. “So lovely to see you again.”
It’s not that Denji has problems with Yoshida—he doesn’t. Not really. The only issue is how weird the other man makes him feel; sweaty, flushed, gut all fluttery, heart beating too fast. He’s experienced something similar before with Reze, only this time it’s… different. More intense. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, just an alien one. And on days like today, Denji doesn’t want to confront it. So, acting like an ostrich, he hides. Yoshida can’t make his stomach feel funny if he can’t see him.
Strangely enough, it never really works.
Cleaning his throat and willing his blush away, Denji asks: “Whaddya want today?”
By now, he knows the drill. Yoshida arrives. Yoshida asks for Denji. Yoshida always asks him to make his drink, even though that’s technically Aki’s job. Denji's only meant to work the register.
It’s been the same ever since Yoshida first came to Pochita Brew, the coffee shop above where he, Power and Aki live. It’s small and homey, decorated with mismatched chairs from yard sales and recycle shops. A cat scratcher for Power's cat, Meowy, sits in one corner. In another, there's an ancient bookcase for customers to take books from—so long as they leave one in return. Denji and Power fight over the music, so it's always random, but undoubtedly a good time. It feels like an extension of home to Denji, who didn’t know what home meant until relatively recently. A safe space, uninterrupted by worries or concerns—that is, until Yoshida arrived.
He first came on a weekday, when things were slow. Unusually, Aki was on break at the time—he worried about leaving them alone—but Power had cooked dinner the night before, and Aki's stomach wasn’t half as strong as Denji’s. So when Yoshida placed his order, their barista was nowhere to be seen.
“Why don’t you make it instead?” Yoshida had asked Denji, raising his eyebrows. “It’s just black coffee.”
Denji wouldn’t have known how to work a coffee machine if Aki held a gun to his head, but he’d always wanted to try. In any case, he’d do it better than Power, who could probably make milk curdle through sheer strength of will.
Denji had set to work: switching things on, grinding things down, pressing buttons and swirling liquids. He had no idea what he was doing. Eighty percent of his ingredients wound up on the floor, and the distinct scent of burning filled the air. But he created a cup of dark liquid, which he proudly presented to the other man.
“One black coffee!” he cheered in triumph. “For…?”
“Yoshida,” the new customer told him. He smiled in that subtle way that Denji is now so familiar with, a sight which always makes his toes curl and ears tingle.
Yoshida had tasted the drink, hummed in approval, nodded his thanks, and left. Denji watched him walk away, feeling a jolt of what must be jealousy strike him in the heart as he admired that ass and those long legs. At which point Aki returned, nearly imploding when he saw the café, which Power had once again failed to clean.
Yoshida had returned the following week, and thus began the farce.
“I’d like one large non-fat no sugar, triple threat, extra-hot iced caramel macchiato. Upside down,” Yoshida instructs—his orders get longer and longer each time he comes in.
Denji smashes buttons on the register, but loses his train of thought immediately. “What the fuck is a triple threat,” he whispers to Power from the corner of his mouth.
“I have no idea,” she shouts back.
“Your lips, nose and eyes,” Yoshida says to Denji, resting his chin on his palm to gaze at him beneath hooded eyes. Tilting his head, his dark fringe shifts across his brow, revealing the studded row of piercings adorning his ear. Denji suppresses the urge to reach out and touch them, wondering if they feel like knobbles of a spine.
Then Yoshida’s words catch up to him.
“Hey,” he objects. “I can count! I’ve got two eyes. So that would be a foursome!”
“Do you mean quadruple threat?” Yoshida asks, eyebrows raised. “Or in coffee lingo, ‘quad’?”
“Whatever,” Denji grumbles, cheeks heating—from embarrassment or Yoshida’s gaze, he can’t be sure. “Gimme a min.”
Rolling up his sleeves, he gets to work making the drink, remembering exactly none of its contents. Power chooses that moment to take over the music, blasting out electropop. Energised, Denji starts with the syrups because he likes the way they cling to the cup’s side like glue. Next, he dumps the coffee grounds in dry, following it with milk, which he heats by microwaving the entire bottle.
While he’s wrestling the ice machine into submission, Aki appears from the back, asking what Yoshida ordered this time.
“A big, milky, hot n’ cold coffee with syrup and sprinkles,” Denji recounts confidently. Since Yoshida doesn’t correct him, he must be right.
Aki sighs, but makes no move to interrupt. It’s reached the point that whenever Yoshida arrives, Aki abandons hope.
Running a floury hand through his fringe, Aki looks at Yoshida. “Your intentions better be honourable,” he says, voice more serious than Denji’s ever heard it. Glancing at his face, Denji sees Aki's piercing eyes fixed on Yoshida so intensely it’s like he’s trying to see into the future.
A Cheshire cat grin spreads across Yoshida’s face; the sight makes Denji’s heart lurch into his throat so hard he tosses ice all over the floor.
“What if they were dishonourable?” Yoshida asks with a wink.
Aki folds his arms. “My boyfriend may be called Angel, but he’ll send you straight to hell,” he warns.
Yoshida’s expression turns serious. “I have nothing but the most honourable intentions, I swear.”
Aki nods, apparently satisfied, but Denji doesn’t follow, frowning in confusion.
“You two better clean this up,” Aki says, gesturing to the chaos and returning to the kitchen.
“Never!” Power shrieks, grabbing the mop to wipe the floor.
The drink is finished. Denji completes it with tiny marshmallows, because Yoshida looks like he’d love marshmallows. Yoshida has a takoyaki keychain that Denji finds cute, and besides, he can’t spell for shit. The last thing he does before handing it over is doodle an octopus on the cup’s side.
Their fingers brush as he hands the drink over, making that same strange feeling ignite in his gut. He watches Yoshida sip his drink, and blurts: “What did you mean by honourable intentions?”
Swallowing, Yoshida says, “Aki wanted to know my intentions towards you.”
“Towards me? In what way?”
“In every way, if you’ll have me,” Yoshida quips, voice low and assured.
Denji isn’t following. “Whaddya mean, in every way?”
Yoshida’s gaze entangles him, like tentacles coiling around his ankles to drag him down under.
“Go out with me?” he asks.
Denji frowns. “But I’m working.”
Yoshida smiles, in his shadowy, mysterious way. “I meant on a date. Not immediately, but preferably soon.”
Power’s electropop fades to nothing as Denji processes the other man’s words. He’s asking him on a date, the kind of thing that couples go on. On dates, people hold hands. Sometimes, they even kiss. And then afterwards, if things go well, they do more than that…
Denji thinks about what it would be like going on a date with Yoshida, who makes his heart beat too fast and ears tingly. He thinks about what it would be like doing other things with him, too.
“I like boobs,” he says slowly, working things out aloud.
Yoshida raises his eyebrows. “I can offer nipples?” He sips his drink. “I also have a great ass,” he adds, as if Denji didn’t already know—he admires it every time he walks out the door.
Wait.
The cogs in Denji’s head churn like a coffee grinder, the cup of realisation on the edge of his tongue.
He admires Yoshida’s ass. His male ass. He’s admired it for weeks, if not months, checking him out like he checks out girls.
“Huh.” Denji likes butts too, although not as much as boobs. But the nipple argument is very compelling.
He doesn’t think about it a moment longer. Thoughts are for cowards.
“Alright,” he agrees. “Let’s go on a date!”
Power cheers, tossing a rag in the air and stomping her feet.
Yoshida’s eyes crinkle as he smiles—really smiles—wider than Denji has ever seen.
“Great. When do you get off?”
“I’ll get off at any time, I’m actually really easy,” Denji supplies helpfully.
Yoshida snorts. “Good to know. But I actually meant: when does your shift end?”
“Oh. Six.”
“Cool. I’ll see you then.”
And with that, Yoshida leaves. Denji watches him walk away, realising that the jolt he feels at the sight of it isn’t actually jealousy, but arousal. Huh.