Work Text:
Abel doesn’t know what to make of this new café. It was recommended to him by his sister (for whatever reason) earlier that week, and, with a day off from work, he now finds himself queuing with only two other people for a drink.
The café—that is, The Good Day Café—not his style, but he appreciates, at least, the nice bounce of syllables—is largely… purple, in inoffensive pastel hues. Lavender and lilac, he vaguely assigns them. It simultaneously looks like the sort of overrated café popular on social media, and like that too-perfect place that holds some dark, horrifying secret to contrast the marshmallowy sweetness of its outward appearance. Bodies in the basement. Brownies made with bone dust.
The line shuffles forward. Abel shuffles with it.
The menu he is presented with on the wall behind the counter is both simple yet extensive. The usual suspects appear—espresso, mocha, latte, cappuccino—and so on. Meanwhile, the tea list provides everything from English Breakfast and Earl Grey, to rosehip and peppermint. Even the bizarre phenomenon known as 'bubble tea' makes an appearance! But then that does not compare to the innumerable options of smoothies, frappes, and freshly-squeezed juice. Do they have an orchard out back? he wonders, sardonic. The amusement remains in his mind. He continues to assess the new environment:
The tables have been adorned with littles vases with fresh flowers. Tulips, he notes. White and pink. Not just the tables, though; the rim of the flat top surface of the counter has been lined with fake foliage to provide the café with some green—a green also found in wall-mounted pots, and on the feature bookshelf against the far wall which consists of more hanging plants than high literature. Still, it gives the place character. The green compliments the purples. The café, in some ways, is almost like a garden. All that’s missing is the open air, sunshine, and privacy.
“Hiya, what can I get you today?”
Abel is dragged from the recesses of his mind by that voice. It is overly cheerful, melodic, friendly. Good for customer service, he acknowledges, but not for his head.
To answer the question presented to him by the guy at the till—a man perhaps his own age, but looking less hardened by life based on his impressive smile alone—Abel glances back at the menu to confirm that his choice does in fact exist and he wasn’t imagining it: “A latte to have in, please,” he says. “And a piece of carrot cake.”
The cashier’s smile somehow grows as he nods, and puts the order through on the till. Abel pays with loose change in his pocket (he’d rather save the ten euro note) and collects his receipt as the barista passes on the world’s simplest order to his coworker, and he walks along the counter towards the collection area.
He feels relief at having come at a quieter time, near closing. There were less people around. There were less people to stare at him, to distract him. He wants to be able to sit down, enjoy a drink, and carry on reading a book he’d recently bought and seldom found the time to open. Cafés were supposed to be good for that sort of thing, no? For doing the little easy things in life that brought a person such immense joy and satisfaction…?
The Good Day Café, the wall art screams at him. He hopes it lives up to its name.
The person in front of him receives their drink and Abel steps to the end of the counter. Brief eye contact is made with the second barista, though it feels as though Abel is the only one to have actually registered what he’s seen, because the moment he truly focuses on the man in front of him, the whole café and everything beyond ceases to exist. His eyes will only accept one thing as truth.
His hair is not so neatly put together, looking hap-hazardly pulled back into a high ponytail to keep the wild, wavy length out of his way while he works. How pragmatic. Semi-feral flyaways add a sort of… effortless charm to the image. It’s alluring in a way he can’t describe—alluring like his eyes, a soft hue, easy to look at, filled with focus and determination yet also a serenity not often seen in someone who works such a job. He seems almost relaxed, almost carefree…
Abel is starting to realise why his sister sent him to this café. Evidently, it was not for the coffee alone.
“Here you are,” the other says, a soft, mellow smile on his face as a cup is set down in front of Abel.
He doesn’t even register it right away. He’s too busy staring—too busy taking in what ought to have been an impossible sight, the little details that he can’t quite describe in his head, colours that he can’t place in the eyes glancing back at him, sensations he can’t pinpoint the origin nor trajectory of. A waft of coffee flicks up his nose and there’s a dull buzzing in his ears and is someone talking to me? and suddenly a faint clatter of metal on porcelain erupts in head and he finds that a slice of carrot cake has appeared on the counter in front of him and it looks so good that he has to swallow down the saliva that been building up and—
“Was there… anything else I could get you?” the other asks.
Abel struggles, just for a moment. He closes his mouth, mildly embarrassed at the thought of having been gawking, but not embarrassed enough to say anything or apologise or properly respond to the question he’s been asked. Instead, he shakes his head and manages the smallest, tightest of polite smiles, takes the tray of goods he has been presented with, and hurriedly parts in search of a table.
Sometimes, he thinks he was not designed with normal human interactions in mind.
The table he picks sits near the far wall, wedged in the corner between the window and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with plants, tumbling out from between countless books. Decorative. Though, when he considers how much dust might be lying up there, it does make him briefly twitch; he distracts himself by fishing his book out from his bag, searching for the last passage he had been reading, and then setting the book down on the table.
Abel removes his cup and plate from the tray (he wants it out of his way; a tray clogs up space unnecessarily and made him feel like he were in a canteen rather than a café) and organises himself: the tray finds a home on a neighbouring table, with others of its kind; his plate sits in front of him with the slice of carrot cake pointing out at the window, fork to the left; his latte sits up and to the right of the plate, and—
“Oh…”
He gently places the cup where it belongs, and stares for a moment at something he has only just noticed: art. It has been made into the foam of his latte, and resembles, to his masked delight, a bunny. Abel is reminded of his fluffy friends waiting for him at home. It makes him smile.
Curious, he glances over at the counter and finds that the man who made him his drink is talking to the one at the till. It’s amicable, if not closer. There are no customers waiting for them, and Abel observes them for a moment, before the one with the longer hair walks out from around the counter and embarks on what turns out to be a bussing mission; it’s time to clear up the mess people have left behind. Abel does not envy him. He sips his drink (sorry, bunny) and reopens his book.
For a few minutes, he is awarded peace. He makes it through a chapter, tucks into a bite of cake—it’s so beautifully done, moist and light—and flicks another page to carry on this journey he’s becoming engrossed in. That is, until noise from his right distracts him from his words. When curiosity so violently yanks his eyes away from his book, he finds himself looking at the one who makes everything else redundant, insignificant, imperfect. The trays are being collected from the table. He sprays the table ready to wipe it down. And then, he notices that Abel is staring once more.
Abel cannot bring himself to look away. It is too awkward, and he doesn’t want to be perceived as a creep (even if, surely, continuing to stare is not much better…).
“You’re a new face,” the other remarks, (somewhat) to Abel’s relief. “This is your first time here, right?”
The blonde slowly nods. “It was recommended to me.”
“Oh! That’s good and, uh… a little surprising to hear. Not— Not that there’s a reason we shouldn’t be recommended, I don’t mean it like that,” he fumbled, voice smooth and sweet (condensed milk…). “I just… Customers don’t often tell you that they’re visiting on a recommendation, so… thanks…?”
Abel is glad that he is not the only one, it seems, struggling with talking to someone else. Perhaps it is the time of day. Perhaps the other is in need of coffee, too.
“My name’s João, by the way. I actually… own the place, with my brother.”
Relief becomes pleasant surprise. “João?” Abel repeats, just to be sure, and he receives a confirmatory nod. “You’re the owner?” Another nod. Abel hums. “Well, it… looks good. You’ve done well with it.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad. Running a business is surprisingly not easy, but we’ve had a positive response so far. Makes the stress worth it,” he remarks, a little off-handedly. “But anyway, I shouldn’t bother you. Seems like you were in the middle of a good book.”
“And a good coffee,” Abel feels the need to assure him. “I like the art you did. As in, the rabbit.”
“Aww, good. I was worried for a moment, you know,” João says, “when you were sort of just staring and not talking to me; I thought you were going to complain about me giving you a bunny, because, well… some people are like that.”
Abel would never complain about a bunny; he explains as much to João, and finds an inexplicable solace in how pleased it makes him.
They end up talking for five, ten minutes. João sits down at the table upon Abel’s offer, and Abel is given not only some insight into what it’s like trying to set up a new business in a competitive area, but also into João’s personal life. As it currently stands, he lives with his brother, Antonio, who is busy tidying up the area behind the counter; they’re relatively new to town and don’t really know many people as a result. Abels decides to amend that, introduces himself as thoroughly as feels appropriate, and says, “There. Now you know someone else.”
“Very kind of you,” João replies, a trickle of laughter escaping him. “Hopefully I’ll see you back around here soon, in that case. It’d be a shame to make a friend, only to never see them again.”
“The coffee’s worth coming back for, don’t worry.”
“… just the coffee?”
Abel hums. “Your cake’s nice, too.”
João slowly grins. “My cake, huh? Good to know,” he says, coy. Abel has no idea why what he said has gained such a reaction (maybe he’s just really proud of his baking skills?) but he overlooks it, as João stands up and informs him that he can’t hang around. “I’d better help Toni before he starts to complain. There’s another half an hour until closing, but before you leave, swing by the counter for me?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, Abel.”
And just like that, João is gone.
Abel drinks up the dregs of cold coffee and sets the empty cup aside, just out of his way. He then has another piece of cake—it’s almost all gone; he wants to savour the sweet taste—and then, at last, returns to his book once more.
Time ticks by. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. At the twenty minute mark, however, he decides that it is time to go. His bus will be turning up at the stop down the road before long, and he would rather not miss it. So, he packs up his things and carries his plate and cup back to the counter, where João greets him as he finishes wiping the sandwich counter.
“You didn’t have to do that,” João says, nodding towards the used crockery.
Abel shrugs. “Only polite, given that no one else is here.”
The other smiles at him, sets down his cloth, and asks for Abel to give him just two minutes. Abl agrees, not sure what to expect. João seizes the cup and plate and whisks them away through a door, presumably to a kitchen area, and he promptly returns about twenty seconds later with a small paper box. He sets it down in front of Abel. Abel looks at it, bewildered.
“We had some cake left over,” João tells him, “and I figured you might want some. You can always share it with your siblings, if you think you can’t manage it yourself.”
He mouths a silent ‘oh’ and lifts his gaze to look at Joao. He musters a meet, grateful smile. “Thanks,” Abel says, and knowing the other’s intentions, as soon as he sees that João is distracted briefly by his brother calling out to him from the back, he pulls out the ten euro note from his pocket and slips it into the tip jar. He refuses to let the other just give him free food; he would hate to do that to a new business.
“Damn, I’ve got to go help before he hurts himself. He’s such a klutz in the kitchen,” João mutters, and he gives Abel an apologetic look. “It was nice, though. Meeting you and having that chat.”
“I enjoyed it, too,” Abel promises him. Promises himself. “I’ll, uh… Leave you to it.”
“Mmh, okay. I’ll see you soon, then.”
“Yeah,” Abel nods. “I’ll see you soon.”
As he stands at the stop down the road, waiting for his bus to appear, Abel glances at the box of cake in his hands. He’s curious to know what’s inside—what magical cakes that João decided he is worthy of having. Seeing that he had some spare time, Abel fails to resist temptation, and spares a glance. He finds carrot cake, something chocolatey, and some sort of fruit tart. He smiles at them. It was a… kind thing to do, and Abel is not so used to that.
It is only when he gets back to his apartment and decides to have another sweet treat, that he discovers someone’s phone number scrawled on a napkin, waiting for him.