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Tucked away in a corner of the room, Hinata was nose deep in the new book from his favorite author, Clover . The words flew off the page as he read them, Hinata watching with bated breath as two inherently flawed, but endlessly fascinating characters had their fates intertwined into a steamy romance. Hinata probably shouldn’t be reading erotica in the break room. In fact, his heart pounded in his chest from the thought of discovery, but he wasn’t exactly known as the most stringent workplace rule follower. Either way, the book wasn’t just mindless smut. Along with the more dubious elements, the story felt alive with complex desires that yanked the characters in different directions.
At that very moment, the two male characters were about to confess their true feelings, following a long series of misunderstandings and torrid encounters.
Minato’s gaze, while fearful, was steeled into a firm and steady mask of determination to let his feelings be known. His hope for a better future propelled him forward as he formed the words “From the bottom of my heart, I-”
“Hinata!”
Hinata shrieked, the book flying from his hands and onto the floor. He leaped down from the folding chair to pick it up before anyone could catch a glimpse at the cover. Koizumi stared down at him disapprovingly.
“Your break time ended ten minutes ago,” she scolded, her hands on her hips.
“Sorry, sorry!” Hinata shoved his bag into a cubby and hightailed it out of the break room. He couldn’t believe he’d lost track of time! And for such an embarrassing reason. He attempted to breathe evenly to reduce the redness of his face as he re-tied his apron. Ugh, always too tight in the chest. He slapped on a customer-service smile and went back to work.
He took some coffee orders, making notes of each specific kind of dairy each drink required. He also slipped a couple of pastries into the heater to warm up. Saihara was usually a bigger help, but the poor man looked like he was being run ragged by the requests of the purple-haired regular. Koizumi was making sure all their products were accounted for or refilled for the afternoon shift. He could hear her grumbling about their dwindling supply of espresso roast. The job wasn’t perfect, but Hinata at least appreciated how in this slightly higher-end coffee shop his patrons would mostly weaponize superiority complexes and sarcasm rather than thrown drinks. Mostly.
While he delivered products to tables, his mind wandered. If news of what he got up to in his free time ever came out, his social life would rapidly spin down the toilet. It was bad enough that he read romance as a man, but gay BDSM erotica? He’d be a laughingstock.
In the middle of taking an order from a way too flirtatious middle-aged woman, Hinata finally noticed him.
Komaeda always had an uncanny ability to sneak past him before he could greet him as Hinata was getting paid to do. The man would avoid the counter entirely, depositing himself at the farthest corner of the store where he’d immediately pull out his laptop and fill the store with the sounds of frantic typing. He always gave off a strange, nervous energy, especially with how badly he’d freaked out the first time Hinata approached him to ask if he’d wanted to order anything. Despite his quirks, Hinata quickly learned that he was a kind, if a bit eccentric, man that was simply too socially awkward for his own good.
Komaeda was sitting in the same place he always was, dressed in an oversized college sweater and sweatpants and sitting in a position that made Hinata’s back twinge in secondhand discomfort.
Hinata finally peeled himself away from his current table and headed over. “Hey, Komaeda can I-”
Komaeda yelped, slamming his laptop shut with an unsettling crack. He sat in silence for a second before his face bloomed pink.
“Ah, I’m sorry! I didn’t hear you coming!” He ripped off his headphones, giving Hinata a comically attentive stare that occasionally flickered back to his laptop.
Hinata raised an eyebrow. “Working on uni homework again? Must be important.”
Komaeda nodded vigorously, loose strands of uncombed hair falling in his face.
Hinata raised an eyebrow but readied his notepad. “Do you want your usual?”
“Yes. Large half-decaf oat milk 1 pump peppermint cappuccino with extra-”
“Dude, you’ve been coming here every day for weeks. I hear your order in my dreams.”
Komaeda shrank into his seat. “Ah…right…I’m truly sorry for occupying your mind with my intrusive and disgusting presence. I won’t bother you with my silly requests.”
“It’s my job , Komaeda,” Hinata sighed. He knew he was just trying to be polite, but the man always took it too far. “I’ll be right back.”
Hinata stepped away to prepare Komaeda’s order. The other man always insisted that he’d never drink anything other than what Hinata made, clarifying that anyone else always made it too sweet, too creamy, or too “pepperminty,” whatever the fuck that meant. He idly wondered if he should sneak him a pastry. Komaeda had a habit of staying in the shop until closing some nights, but Hinata had never seen him eat. Unfortunately, Komaeda had said on multiple occasions how much he disliked anything “too sweet,” so that wasn’t going to work. He settled on grabbing an extra-large cup instead.
He made sure to approach him gently this time, setting the drink far away from his laptop. Komaeda cocked his head at the size.
“The bags under your eyes are deeper than the Iya Valley. You could use some extra caffeine.” Hinata explained. “Just don’t tell my manager.”
Komaeda smiled sadly. “I appreciate the thought, Hinata-kun, but there’s already enough caffeine in the large to wreak havoc on my medications! If I drank all this my heart could stop!”
Hinata almost choked on his own spit, his eyes widening in shock and worry. “Komaeda, what? ”
“Oh, there’s no need to worry about someone like me! Coffee from Hinata-kun gives me the strength to finish my work, so it’s worth it!”
Hinata felt his face redden, even as he spluttered. “No, no it’s not! Also, I’m allowed to worry about you! We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Komaeda’s eyes widened into dinner plates. “...Friends?”
Hinata cleared his throat. “Well, I guess more like acquaintances. But you’re one of the only people here that takes the time to treat me like a human being, so that’s gotta mean something.”
Komaeda looked at him as if he’d told him he’d won an all-expense paid vacation. It was starting to get a bit creepy. “Friends…” he repeated, before muttering something unintelligible and staring down at his lap.
Hinata awkwardly shuffled away once it was clear he’d get nothing else out of him, shaking his head as he returned to his post at the counter. “What a weird guy.”
The next day, Hinata’s bored scrolling down his local library’s event webpage had finally paid off. The library was hosting a meet-and-greet that evening with the first scheduled public appearance for the author of his favorite-even-if-he-didn’t-want-to-admit-it books!
The author had kept themselves anonymous since they’d started writing a few years ago, presumably to avoid tarnishing their private reputation. Not even their gender was known. Hinata was incredibly impressed at the balls of whatever library committee had looked at their books and gone “yeah, let’s organize and advertise a public event with a queer BDSM author!”
Clover was said to be offering signatures, insight into their future projects, as well as copies of their most famous series Encounters Against the Scourge of Despair along with bookmarks that they had designed themselves. It was a bit weird that the author was dropping in on a random, tiny library in the middle of nowhere, but maybe they just needed to warm up to the idea of fame. Hinata would be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit interested in meeting the person who had jump-started the journey into his self-acceptance.
So, there he was, his eyes darting back and forth along the busy sidewalk at people he really hoped weren’t capable of mind-reading. He shoved his hands in his pockets, cursing under his breath. This was such a bad idea. If anyone saw him anywhere near that damn autograph table, he’d be toast. Not even that nice, lightly singed buttered toast that you get at high-end cafés but those crumbly piles of charcoal that result when you forget what setting to use on your busted toaster.
He slipped into the library behind a giggling group of fangirls and pressed himself against the wall of a nearby corridor, peering around the wall into the lobby. He scanned for anyone he knew, heaving a sigh of relief when none of his friends’ ridiculous haircuts jumped out at him. Near the front of the lobby sat a sign that proudly announced Clover’s appearance along with some impressive stats relating to sales and the fact that they had translated their own books into English.
Hinata wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead and took a deep breath. He needed to at least scope it out , or else the entire ordeal would have been for nothing.
Rehearsing excuses just in case he ran into anyone he knew, he stepped out of the corridor and cautiously entered the lobby. The small, folding table at the center of the lobby was surrounded by chatty young adult women, holding copies of Clover’s books. Hinata envied their complete shamelessness in public. However, their giggling faces faded into worry as they approached the table. They whispered to themselves, seemingly concerned. Hinata craned his neck, attempting to look over their heads to see what the problem was.
As one of the women’s eyes drifted towards him, Hinata felt all his bravado drain from his veins like a vacuum. He gulped, the back of his neck heating up as he ducked into the nearest aisle.
He held his hand against his thumping chest, shaking with nerves. Geez, that was too close. How pathetic was he? Afraid of some rando’s eyes on him in a public library?
“I’m such a mess,” Hinata grumbled sinking down to the ground against a shelf. “I should just go home at this point if I can’t even get near the damn table. This was all a terrible idea. I-”
“-shouldn’t be here…”
Hinata’s head shot up like a bullet, face red. Was there someone near him? He looked around. Nothing. The voice piped up again, muttering something in a dark tone. It was too far away to understand, but it sounded…familiar.
Against every ounce of logic still left in him, Hinata got off the floor and followed it deeper down into the sea of books.
When he turned the corner, there he was. Komaeda sat in a library nook, wearing a chunky, pink, off-the-shoulder sweater with a black tank top underneath. His long legs, clothed in form-fitting black jeans, were hugged into his chest. He kept muttering, presumably not noticing Hinata’s presence.
“Komaeda?”
Komaeda’s entire body jolted in shock, his head snapping up from his knees. “ Ah!? Who–? Oh, it’s just you, Hinata-kun.” He relaxed a bit, laughing nervously. “You gave me quite a fright.”
“Yeah, uh, my bad!” Hinata wished Komaeda would have kept his head down because fuck was this distracting. The other man had taken the time to put his hair into a half-updo with some hairpins framing his face. His face. It’d always been concealed by wisps of hair but now Hinata was uncomfortably aware of how pretty the other man was.
He shoved his thoughts away before his brain could take him down any more levels of bisexual hell. “Soooooo…What are you doing all the way over here?”
“I like this corner. It’s the quietest area, barely anyone knows about it. As for what I’m doing, I’m reading. This is a library, after all,” he said, his eyes shifty.
“I don’t see a book,” Hinata deadpanned. Something seemed off.
“I, ah, have it in my bag. I just put it in right before you came.” He gestured to a small, gray duffle bag near him that was decorated with a multitude of pins.
“Alright then, sorry. I’m not sure why I decided to question you like that,” Hinata chuckled awkwardly, “I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Are you here for the Clover meet-up?” Komaeda blurted out.
Hinata was sure his face was going to explode if he kept getting into situations like these. “N-No!” he stammered. “I wouldn’t be caught dead next to that monster-fucking stuff!” Wait, no, fuck. “I MEAN I only know about the books because I have this girl friend who reads that kinda stuff. I don’t. I could never. Yeah. Definitely not.”
The more he went on, the more distressed Komaeda looked. Hinata couldn’t imagine why, but his posture retreated inward with every word.
Hinata’s awkward rambles trailed off into an even more awkward silence. He sweated as the seconds stretched on, hoping that he bought it. Please buy it.
After a while, Komaeda’s face suddenly snapped into a strange smile. “Of course not! You’d never indulge in anything so vile, so degenerate, so disgusting as Clover’s writing!”
Ok, that hurt a little bit, but something about Komaeda’s words didn’t sound hateful. It sounded more…sad.
But before Hinata could think anything else Komaeda snatched his bag and stood up straight as a rail. “I’ll be going now, see you later!” he said quickly, turning away. He turned away and sped-walked down the hallway…right into the path of a dropped book.
With a shocked “ ah ,” Komaeda toppled over, the contents of his bag dumping out and his nose colliding with the floor below. Hinata sprinted over to him, dropping down to his knees and helping him to his feet. His heart stopped for a second at the sight of gushing blood, but Komaeda waved him off. He retrieved a set of tissues from the mess on the ground and held them to his nose.
“T’horry, Hinata-kun, this ‘appens all th’ time,” Komaeda assured through a faceful of tissues, continuing to push away Hinata’s concerned hands. “I really ‘ave th’omewhere importan’ to be, so let me go blease-”
“Komaeda, you need to rest, you might still be-”
Komaeda tripped over his feet with a yelp, barely able to right himself with Hinata’s help. “...Dizzy.”
Hinata sat him against the wall. “Stay here and I’ll clean up your stuff.”
“Mhm…” He sounded dazed.
Hinata began to tidy up the mess. How many journals does one man need?
Then, he saw it.
A lanyard.
A light green strap with clover pins. He dimly heard Komaeda gasp sharply as he picked it up.
“Nagito Komaeda,” it read.
“Author of the series Encounters Against the Scourge of Despair ”
“Pen Name: Clover”
What.
The.
Fuck.
Hinata’s head slowly swiveled toward Komaeda, who looked white as a sheet, hand outstretched in a half-hearted attempt to retrieve the lanyard.
“Komaeda?”
“...”
“Are you… Clover?”
The silence was all he needed.
The other man looked as if he would bolt if either of them made the wrong move, which was, coincidentally, how Hinata was feeling. He just couldn’t believe it. His stupid, depraved interests were being slammed right into his face with the revelation that his friend, the guy who spent all day obsessively typing mysterious things in his café while looking like a thrift store puked all over him, wrote novels about fantasy creatures fucking in increasingly kinky ways for a living.
If Hinata wanted to crawl into a hole and die, he couldn’t imagine how Komaeda was feeling.
As if in response to his racing thoughts, Komaeda broke into a wide smile and began to giggle. Then he began to laugh. It hit his ears in all the wrong ways, raspy and bitter. “ Ahahaha… How horribly, dreadfully unlucky. My only “friend”...the only person willing to tolerate my shameful existence…soon to be gone!” He wheezed painfully between guffaws. “Juuuust like all the others! Poof! And I deserve it with my disgusting and perverse nature. And Hinata-kun agrees too, right?”
Hinata had never seen this side of Komaeda before. He was rooted in place, trying to move, to comfort him, to do something, but all he could do was stare with his mouth hanging open like a dead fish.
“Huh? He does, doesn’t he?” Komaeda jolted forward into Hinata’s face, skin and clothes caked with drying blood, eyes swirling with despair . “He should say it, right to my face. He knows I deserve it. Tell me I should be condemned to hell for my grotesque existence.”
“Komaeda, no!”
Hinata finally found his voice, reaching out to place his hands on the other man’s quivering shoulders. Willing his own hands not to shake, he continued. “I don’t think that of you! Please don’t say such awful things about yourself!”
Komaeda stared at him blankly, cocking his head in a way that would have been cute if not for the smile stapled on his face. “There’s no need to lie, Hinata-kun. You wouldn’t be caught dead near my writing.”
Hinata flinched. Yikes, he deserved that one. “Komaeda, you have to believe me, I don’t-”
“But it’s okay!” He continued raving, his eyes losing focus. “I won’t ever come back to the café! You’ll never see me again! I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t spread the disease of my presence anywhere public ever again! Don’t worry about me, it’s for the best. I’ll take my leave now.”
Komaeda stood up, barely able to keep himself upright, and tried to run. Until a hand dragged him back.
“Komaeda would you stop and just listen for a goddamn second?”
Hinata’s serious tone snapped Komaeda out of his trance long enough to stop running and look back. The white-haired man stared blankly back at Hinata, eyes cold and empty. He stopped trying to weakly pull away and instead stared intently down at their intertwined hands, lost in thought. Hinata blushed, transferring his hands to Komaeda’s arms for better leverage as he gently coaxed them both back to the floor.
“Look, I know what I said before, but I don’t believe any of that stuff, really!” Hinata assured. “The truth is…” Hinata averted his eyes. “I was, uh, lying. Before. When I said I only knew the books from a friend. I’m actually a… really big fan of your books.” He felt like he was going to die with every admission, but he knew it was necessary to help Komaeda. “I…actually came here to meet you in person, but I chickened out. Didn’t know what people would think of me if they knew. I’m sorry for being such a coward.”
When Hinata finally got the courage to look Komaeda in the eyes again the other man was dumbstruck, mouth hanging open. Hanging on every word. Damnit, what else could he say?
“Um, my favorite one is the…the…uh, the one with the…” This was so fucking embarrassing. “The… Absolute, er, Absolute H…Hope-”
“Absolute Hope Initiaiton. ” Komaeda clarified. “Where the human accidentally summons an incubus and they end up-”
“YES THAT ONE PLEASE DON’T SAY IT SO LOUD!”
A chorus of “ shhhh ”s echoed through the library. Hinata’s head sunk into his shoulders, his ears burning. Oops.
It looked as if his efforts had achieved something in the form of making Komaeda too confused to spiral any deeper into whatever panic attack or psychotic break he was previously exhibiting. His eyebrows were knitted together into an almost comically bewildered expression.
“Hinata-kun. You read those kinds of books? You? ”
Hinata frowned. What was that supposed to mean? Some sort of insult? “Well, I never would have guessed that you’d have written those books. You never struck me as someone who’d have experience with this kinda stuff.” He gestured to a cover that prominently displayed a werewolf and vampire locked in an embrace.
Komaeda raised an eyebrow. “Hinata-kun thinks I look like a virgin?”
“ACK, NO!! I mean, yes?” He waved his hands around wildly, trying to regain control of the situation. “I’m so sorry, that came out wrong! Please don’t be offended-”
He was cut off by a barking laugh. Komaeda leaned against a bookshelf, lost in hysterics. It was nothing like the hard-to-watch spectacle from a few minutes prior. This was free. His laugh was a bit wheezy and sounded a bit like a cat trying to claw its way out of a paper bag, but it was kind of…adorable. Which was a really strange word to use in reference to a man with blood smeared across his face who periodically compared himself to every disgusting thing under the sun.
Komaeda’s laughter tapered off into giggles after a while. He wiped tears from his eyes, relaxing against the wall with an easier smile. “Don’t worry, Hinata-kun. I’m not offended. It’s true after all.” He picked up one of his books from the floor, observing it bitterly. “Nobody would ever stoop so low as to engage in any such actions with something like me, let alone to gift me with the slightest hint of love such as that experienced by the characters I write.”
“Huh?” Hinata scooched closer to Komaeda, intrigued but also concerned. “But your stuff is always so…vivid! It always feels like I’m right there with the characters whenever they do anything! Surely you based it off something !”
“I’m an author, Hinata-kun. I specialize in writing fantasy. ” He idly fiddled with the pages. “While the scenarios and characters may be contained in a magical realm, the emotions and desires are pulled from my shameful reality. The men in my books are outcasts. Unloved, ill, estranged from or ousted from their family and friends. It’s humiliating, but…it’s become a sort of wish fulfillment for me to write happy endings I could never hope to achieve for myself.”
Komaeda hugged his knees to his chest. “When I was graciously invited to this event, I was initially excited. It was a chance to face my crippling fear regarding public perception. Selfishly, I hoped to receive some sort of praise or validation for my efforts. However, the more I thought, I realized seeing me as I am would only disappoint. My readers have likely built up the image of a confident, charismatic author who has all the answers, owing to my ability to publish something so controversial. They praise me online, but what would they think of me if they knew me?” He traced his name on the cover. “An asocial loser who dropped out of college to write depraved nonsense. And a pathetic coward who hides behind a fake name...”
Komaeda related each depressing statement with a sad smile. When other people Hinata knew spewed self-deprecating insults he’d noticed how they were often looking for reassurance, but Komaeda spoke every word as if it were an undeniable fact. He’d seemingly resigned himself to the fate of being unloved long ago. Hinata never could have imagined that the sweet white-haired man from the café was fighting this kind of battle against himself.
“Is that why you ended up over here?” Hinata asked quietly, gesturing to the nook.
“Yes…I couldn’t stand the fear any longer, so I ran. Right here, I’m hidden from view. Where I should remain.” Komaeda replied, his voice muffled by the fabric of his pants.
After a moment of hesitation, Hinata placed a comforting hand on Komaeda’s shoulder. The other man looked in confusion but leaned into the touch. He looked so, so tired…
Hinata’s thoughts raced. He wasn’t good at comfort, never had been, but he couldn’t stand to see Komaeda drown in his own pain. He needed a way to prove to Komaeda that his writing, and by extension, he had meaning. He knew weak reassurances wouldn’t help anything and would just come off as pity. So, what could he do?
Well, there was something he could say.
And, by God, if he wasn’t embarrassed before, he sure was about to be.
He looked away from Komaeda. “Do you know why Absolute Hope Initiation is my favorite?”
“Presumably not because you have an unquenchable thirst for a partnership with an incubus.” Komaeda grinned. “Or maybe you do. I don’t judge.”
“NO, it’s not because of that!” Hinata bristled. “Nice to see your sense of humor is intact. But, no. It’s actually because…”
He breathed in. And out.
“It’s because the love interest is trans.”
“...Oh?”
Hinata fiddled with his wrist sleeve. “L-Look, do you know how hard it is to find people who actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to writing trans characters? Everything I’ve picked up so far has these infantilizing or weirdly sexual undertones with people like us and it’s frustrating. Ever since I was younger, I’d wanted to find books where people like me just existed without any ridiculous fanfare. With your books…” His gaze flickered over to Komaeda, and he smiled shakily. “Well, you write them like normal people. You don’t try to “fix” them and don’t present them as anything close to the hyperfeminine trans caricatures I’m so used to seeing. Sure, the whole book itself is focused on sex, but it’s not in a creepy way, y’know?”
Hinata buried his head in his hands, suddenly hyper-aware of Komaeda’s eyes on him. “Ugh, I don’t know if I’m making any sense right now but I just wanted you to know that your characters have really made an impact on me. I’ve never believed “that stuff” is just meaningless crap for high school girls to drool over. At least not since I figured out my…romantic preferences.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uh, not sure why I decided to spill my guts like that, but I thought it’d maybe help? Make you feel more accomplished? I don’t know, m’sorry…”
Hinata jolted as Komaeda’s thin hand ghosted over his shoulder. “Hinata-kun, you truly trust me enough to tell me all this?”
“Well, it’s not like I thought you’d be weird about it,” Hinata admitted bashfully. “You don’t seem like that kind of person. Like I said before, you’re always nice to me even when you don’t have to be. I meant it before when I said that we’re friends.”
Komaeda perked up. “Wait, Hinata-kun, you’re okay with being “friends”? Even with what you learned? And how much I must have frightened you with my outbursts?” He spoke tentatively, his voice carrying a spark of hope.
“Komaeda, trust me when I say I have much weirder friends,” Hinata chuckled. “Although I don’t have intimate knowledge of their kinks like I do with you.”
Komaeda’s face immediately bloomed pink. He tried to splutter a response, but Hinata beat him to the punch. “I guess exhibitionism is one of them ‘cause you apparently write your monster-fuckery while in a. Public. Coffee. Shop!”
“No! That’s not it!” Komaeda retorted. A wave of “ shhhh ”s swam through the air once again. Hinata grinned in triumph.
Komaeda shot him the most unamused stare Hinata had ever seen. “Perhaps I should level the playing field and have you explain your fantasies to me in excruciating detail.”
“I’m not doing that!” Hinata squawked, face burning. (He was surprised his cheeks hadn’t completely burnt off his face at this point). Despite his indignation, he couldn’t help but return Komaeda’s grin, now bright and cheery.
A blaring tone erupted from Hinata’s phone, making them both jump in surprise. When Hinata halfheartedly checked what could be so goddamn important as to ruin the moment, he noticed it was a calendar notification for work.
“Aw, shit, I’m gonna have to go. I need to make it to my night shift.” Hinata stood up, grumbling. “Damn those weirdos who drink coffee at 8 P.M…”
“It’s ok! I shouldn’t waste any more of your time!” Komaeda replied.
“You’re not wasting my time. I…” Hinata paused. “Huh. I had fun. We should hang out more often!”
“Wait, really? After-”
“Yes, after all that. You’re gonna have to try harder to scare me off!” Hinata jabbed a thumb into his chest proudly.
“Well, if you truly mean that…” Komaeda fiddled with the handle of his duffle bag. “Would you mind if I kept you company on your way to work?”
“You’re not gonna go back to the table and meet your fans?” Hinata gestured back to the lobby.
Komaeda clenched the fabric tighter, hands shaking.
“Ah! You don’t have to!” Hinata reassured. “In fact, we can sneak out the back exit if you want.”
“Yes please…”
The two broke out into the open air. Hinata breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t mind libraries too much, but he could only stand the cramped atmosphere and the smell of old books for so long.
The two walked side-by-side on the sidewalk, which was mostly cleared at this hour. “If you decide to keep writing in the shop, I might make you let me read some of it at the end of the day.”
“Sounds delightful!” Komaeda said brightly. “I’m a bit stuck on a particular encounter regarding bonda-”
“Ok, maybe not THOSE parts!”
Komaeda laughed softly. “If you insist. Either way, I will agree to your terms if and only if you let me buy you a coffee every once in a while.”
“Sounds good to me. You’re gonna need to memorize my order just like I did yours, though.”
“I’m up to the challenge.”
They arrived at the café. The second Hinata took his place at the counter, Komaeda slapped down a 5,000 yen bill. “The rest is your tip, friend ,” he announced, “Now, tell me your favorite drink.”
Hinata held up the bill, his shocked face melting into a warm smile. “Ok, take some notes. My favorite drink is…”