Chapter Text
The thing about coffee shops is that you can walk in on any day and meet someone so odd, so different, so completely opposite from yourself that you can hardly believe they exist. Norm calls it his ‘coffee shop theory’, the phenomenon that ordinary coffee shops attract the most extraordinary, fantastical and interesting people like moths to a flame.
But noticing his makeup means noticing his face, and at that Norm blanches. A horrific scar, a burn, marrs the right half of his face and creeps down his neck, disappearing underneath the suit. The skin there puckers, dented in all the wrong places and looks tenderly red. No wonder he’s sitting on his own, Norm realises- every other patron of the shop is eyeing him up, seated on basically the other side of the shop.
Norm is glowing with anger. His hand gives a tap at his side, scrunches into a ball with his fury. How dare they? How dare they all judge him, when he’s just another person trying to live his live? It’s not his fault he’s gruesomely disfigured – probably.
He takes his latte trembling and walks to sit with him. He can feel every single person in the shop’s eyes tracking him as he weaves between tables to sit beside this unfortunate teenager. Norm reads his coffee cup. Herman.
‘Hi.’ Norm starts, sipping his drink. Herman doesn’t look up, just keeps nursing his espresso, the burned half of his lips struggling to not spill any. A tiny trickle of coffee runs an even tinier river down his chin.
‘What’s your name?’ Norm asks, trying not to pretend he already knows. Herman gestures at his cup and says nothing.
‘Herman?’
Herman frowns, turns his cup around and sighs. ‘Herm-ie. I don’t know how they got it wrong. I spelled it out.’ Norm huffs out a laugh at that and Herm-ie does too.
They sit in silence for a while, finishing their drinks, and Norm’s phone blares out it’s marching band ringtone. It’s Taylor, the caller ID tells him as he takes the call.
‘NORMALLY ‘LY OAK-SWALLOWS-GARCIA!!! Where are you??’ Taylor has that kind of way about him, someone where you can tell how many exclamation points or question marks he used in each sentence. It’s confusing but kind of makes sense. ‘Worlds are at stake here! The spaceflight simulator starts in 15 MINUTES!!’ Norm swears and stands up.
‘I’ll be right there Taylor, I lost track of time, see you soon!’ He barely finishes his sentence before he hangs up, grabbing his cup and turning to Hermie.
‘Sorry man, I gotta go- hopefully I’ll see you around sometime?’
Hermie nods. And right as Norm is about to leave, he feels a tap on his shoulder- it’s him, with a piece of paper in hand, passing it to him with a slight smile.
‘Thanks for coming to sit with me.’ Hermie says quietly.
Normal beams. ‘Any time.’
And then he literally sprints out of the door, leaving Hermie standing alone in the doorway of a coffee shop staring after him.