Chapter Text
There’s a quite famous rural bookstore in a small little town by the sea. The Light Fox Ink Bookstore gained some traction after some of the owner’s own books rose to the top of charts, making Yae take the decision to expand beyond a small cafe bookstore in a small town.
That’s when the idea of getting her wife’s son (the relationship of mother son is a bit complicated neither of them really knows), who had just started looking for a job came to mind. What would be more lovely for him than taking over the small bookshop with a lot of loyal customers? Match made in heaven truly.
Scaramouche didn’t exactly agree to it but he couldn’t complain, he was looking for a job and he did want to leave the big city to have some fucking peace. So he agreed.
And so there he was, flipping the sign to open at the ungodly hours of the morning, (why did small towns have to wake up so early? Couldn’t they wait until a reasonable time to start their day?) and waiting. Because truly that’s what he was going to end up doing. Sure Yae said there were a lot of loyal customers and he’d probably have to end up doing their regular drinks but how many people would go to a bookstore everyday? Or even every week for that matter. He didn’t know how Yae was able to keep business in function for so long in such a small town with so few people.
Things were, as he expected, slow. Two hours in and there was no one in the bookstore yet (precisely what he expected, but he was being paid regardless so he wouldn’t really complain).
Things did start picking up after lunch, mostly the curious residents wanting to see who the previous owner had trusted to take care of business. Just a bunch of old people and the occasional child with their mother wanting a children’s book. A couple of people did ask for a drink and asked him how he was enjoying the place. One with white hair did ask for his “regular” to which Scaramouche just stared blankly.
“Please I really need my coffee right now” The man wasn’t even looking at him. He wasn’t sure whether he was mocking him or genuinely didn’t realise he wasn’t Yae.
“May I at least know what your regular coffee is?” He tried, did his best little effort to sound pleasing and polite and put on a perfect customer service smile. His efforts weren’t the best. But it did make the man take a proper look at him instead of the furious typing he had going on on his phone.
“It’s just the- oh.” His eyes went wide for a split second and then he was back to normal “Oh yeah, Yae was moving right? Sorry I’ve just been very busy, I’m Kazuha” Saying that he reached his hand over the counter for a shake. The people here were weird, but he answered it nonetheless.
“Scaramouche. May I know your order please?” He wasn’t getting impatient. He was simply naturally like this. And he was in fact getting a bit impatient because he really thought he wouldn’t need to actually do any coffee orders at least on his first day.
“Oh yes of course, I had the small hope that Yae would’ve told you the orders ‘cause to be completely honest I’m not sure if I know it myself” He gave small chuckle, hand behind his neck now. Was he awkward? Scaramouche wasn’t the best at talking to people but did he make him nervous? “It was something with caramel I think? I don’t remember how many coffee shots but I think it needs to be at least two at this point… Do you have the little cream on top? I think she used to put it…”.
“How do you not even know your regular order? How would you know if Ei got it wrong?”
The white haired guy, Kazuha apparently, tilted his head a bit at that “Ei?”. Turns out he was very expressive, it was a bit funny to see.
“Yeah, the tall purple haired lady? She’s the one that took care of the drinks.”
Kazuha furrowed his brows a bit “What? No, it was Yae, the one that owned the store? The pink haired one? I think I only saw Ei like once or twice. She was rarely here.”
“But the cafe part was her idea.” It was, he was sure of that, he remembered mocking her even for it, saying how it was a bookstore not a library. Scaramouche ended up having to eat his words since the cafe was very successful, driving people for coffee and then ending up buying a book too.
“I won’t argue with you on that but that doesn’t mean she’d be the one taking care of it, Yae was the one that was always in the store. Sometimes Gorou would show up and she messed up his order just slightly, so it was wrong and he knew it but not wrong enough to be able to complain. You don’t want to get on her mischievous side” He shuddered. It wasn’t cold. The Kazuha man was… very entertaining to watch, maybe it was the sleep deprivation that made him so expressive, you could see the eye bags from miles away, but he wore his emotions on his sleeve, or in this case face… wearing your emotions on your face makes more sense either way.
“Hm… If you say so… You said Caramel with 2 shots of espresso right?”
“Hm? Oh yeah, I think that was it, thanks”
Scaramouche quickly did the drink as best he could (not that well, he had an english major degree, not a barista one) and decided to write the name on the cup, might as well have some fun right?
“Here’s your drink and that’ll be… uh… how much do u usually pay?”
“Around 3,67€. Why?” He was taking the cup now, looking at the name written there with a flashy handwriting (he had to show off in some way).
“The machine doesn’t have the drinks… I- I need a course for this shit what the fuck is this? There’s a drink called “Doggy cap” and another called “Pirate’s bouze” . What is it?”
Kazuha bursted out laughing, through gaps of air he tried to communicate something without any success.
“Okay, okay sorry sorry. Just… I think those are the regulars? Doggy cap is very much for Gorou and Pirate’s Bouze must be for Beidou, so there must be there one for me”
After looking through some more he found one called “Grass Poet”, which didn’t seem fitting but through the process of elimination it had to be it, it was also 3,67€ which matched what Kazuha said.
“Okay… there we go, yes 3,67€”
“What’s my name?” He was holding the cup with one hand and the other was propped below his chin. Kazuha seemed completely relaxed like it was usual to spend more than 10 minutes at that point chatting and laughing with the current owner/employee of the bookstore.
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you actually”.
“Oh come on!” He did his best at puppy eyes, failing miserably. “Fine then, I’ll find out eventually” At this point he finally looked at his cup “...really?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about”
“You’re terrible at lying, I can see your little mischievous smile waiting for my reaction. You won’t be satisfied cause I actually think that ‘zuzu’ is adorable and I love how it’s the first thing you could think of, it’s an extremely cute name” Almost like putting on a mask Kazuha’s face goes incredibly smug in a way that used to be a tired but happy smile “Do you think I’m cute?”
“I think you’re incredibly annoying, that's what I think”. It was true. Kazuha was a pain in the ass rambler that woudln’t shut the fuck up and yeah maybe Scaramouche had only known him for about 10 minutes but those were 10 minutes too many. And if his heart started beating a bit faster and his cheeks reddened to match his eye liner? That was no one’s business, and neither mentioned it.
“I think you think I’m adorable, and I think I’m correct” He finally stood up from putting his entire body weight on the counter “I’ll get going now, seriously just needed the coffee, thanks Scara.”
When he finally realised the name and went to reply Kazuha was already gone.