Chapter Text
The late afternoon sun filtered through the large glass windows of Port Café, casting a warm, golden glow across the wooden tables and polished countertops. Atsushi Nakajima stood behind the espresso machine, skillfully preparing another order with practiced ease. The familiar sounds of grinding coffee beans, the hiss of steamed milk, and the occasional chatter of customers filled the air. It was a small, cozy café—his sanctuary amidst the chaos of the city. And he loved it.
That is, until he walked in.
It was a particularly slow day when Atsushi noticed the door to the café swing open, and a tall, dark-haired boy strode in with a confidence that instantly put him on edge. He was dressed in all black—his coat too long and dramatic for the warm weather outside, his expression cold and unreadable. He looked like he belonged more in a dark alley than a friendly neighborhood café.
Atsushi frowned as the stranger approached the counter, his sharp eyes scanning the menu as if it personally offended him.
“Can I help you?” Atsushi asked, his tone polite but strained.
The boy’s gaze flickered to him, and Atsushi immediately felt a wave of disdain roll off him. “I’ll have a black coffee. No sugar. No cream,” the boy said, his voice low and clipped, as if even speaking to Atsushi was a chore.
Atsushi blinked, taken aback by the bluntness. Most customers, even the grumpy ones, offered some sort of pleasantry. But this guy? Nothing.
“Right,” Atsushi muttered, quickly preparing the order. He couldn’t help but glance up at the boy again, his curiosity piqued despite himself. The guy had this brooding aura about him, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders—and Atsushi could already tell he wasn’t going to like him.
He handed over the coffee, hoping the exchange would be brief.
But as the boy reached for the cup, his eyes lingered on Atsushi for a moment too long, filled with an icy kind of disdain. “Next time, don’t take so long,” he said flatly before turning on his heel and walking toward a table by the window.
Atsushi’s jaw dropped. What the hell?
It took everything in him not to shout something back. He had been nothing but professional, and this guy acted like he was beneath him. His fingers clenched around the counter as he tried to let it go. But the more he thought about it, the more his blood boiled. Who did this guy think he was?
From that moment, Atsushi knew one thing: he hated this guy.
Over the next few days, the brooding stranger became a regular presence in the café. To Atsushi’s increasing frustration, he showed up almost every day, always ordering the same thing: black coffee, no sugar, no cream. And always with the same attitude—cold, condescending, and dismissive.
Atsushi had learned his name by overhearing him on the phone one day: Akutagawa Ryunosuke. It suited him, somehow, that dark, mysterious name. But Atsushi wasn’t impressed. Every time Akutagawa came in, the atmosphere in the café seemed to shift, like a dark cloud had rolled in.
And every time they interacted, it only reinforced Atsushi’s growing dislike for him.
“Here’s your coffee,” Atsushi said one afternoon, barely managing to keep the edge out of his voice as he handed Akutagawa his usual order.
Akutagawa didn’t even glance up. “You forgot the sleeve,” he said coolly, as if Atsushi were some incompetent fool.
Atsushi gritted his teeth and quickly grabbed a sleeve to slide over the cup. “There,” he muttered.
“Try to get it right the first time next time,” Akutagawa said, his voice devoid of any emotion as he turned and walked away.
Atsushi’s hands curled into fists. This guy is impossible.
He wanted to say something, wanted to snap back, but he knew he couldn’t. He had a job to do, and customers—no matter how irritating—were always right.
But that didn’t stop him from fantasizing about pouring Akutagawa’s coffee over his head.
As the days turned into weeks, Akutagawa continued to visit the café with clockwork precision, always arriving at the same time, ordering the same coffee, and delivering the same biting comments. It was as if he took some sort of perverse pleasure in needling Atsushi, and Atsushi found himself dreading the moment the door would open and Akutagawa’s figure would darken the threshold.
One day, Atsushi finally snapped.
It was a busy afternoon, and the café was bustling with customers. Atsushi was running around, barely keeping up with the orders. And, of course, right in the middle of the chaos, Akutagawa walked in, looking as aloof and unbothered as ever.
Atsushi hurried to make his usual order, sweat beading on his forehead as he juggled multiple tasks at once. But when he handed Akutagawa the coffee, the dark-haired boy frowned, his expression colder than usual.
“This is lukewarm,” Akutagawa said, his voice low and cutting.
Atsushi’s patience, already stretched thin, snapped. “Are you serious? It’s busy, okay? You can’t expect everything to be perfect all the time.”
Akutagawa raised an eyebrow, his eyes narrowing. “If you can’t handle simple tasks, perhaps you’re in the wrong line of work.”
Atsushi’s face flushed with anger, his fists clenching at his sides. “Maybe if you weren’t such an entitled jerk, you’d realize that I’m doing my best!”
The café fell silent, the sudden outburst catching the attention of the other customers. Akutagawa’s gaze locked onto Atsushi’s, and for a moment, the tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife.
But then, something unexpected happened.
Akutagawa’s lips twitched, almost imperceptibly, as if he were amused. “You’re braver than I thought,” he said quietly before turning and walking away, leaving Atsushi standing there, fuming and confused.
Braver than I thought? What was that supposed to mean?
Despite the heated exchange, Akutagawa continued to frequent the café. Atsushi half-expected him to stop coming after the argument, but instead, Akutagawa’s visits became more frequent. And oddly enough, his biting remarks started to lose their edge.
There was still tension between them, of course—there always would be. But something had shifted. Atsushi noticed it in the way Akutagawa would linger just a little longer at the counter, in the way his eyes would flicker toward Atsushi when he thought no one was looking. He wasn’t nicer, per se, but he wasn’t as overtly hostile either.
One evening, after the café had cleared out and Atsushi was wiping down tables, he glanced up to see Akutagawa still sitting at his usual spot by the window, nursing the last of his coffee. He’d been there for hours, which wasn’t unusual, but tonight, there was something different in his demeanor—something almost… contemplative.
Atsushi hesitated, then approached the table, wiping it down with a cloth. “You, uh, staying late tonight?”
Akutagawa didn’t respond at first, his gaze fixed on the street outside. But then, after a long pause, he spoke.
“I don’t hate this place,” he said quietly, almost as if speaking to himself.
Atsushi blinked, taken aback. “What?”
Akutagawa’s eyes shifted to him, and for the first time, there was something softer in his expression—something that didn’t make Atsushi’s blood boil. “I keep coming back because… I don’t hate this place,” he repeated, his voice low and measured.
Atsushi wasn’t sure how to respond. It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but coming from Akutagawa, it might as well have been.
“Thanks, I guess?” Atsushi said awkwardly, his fingers tightening around the cloth.
Akutagawa’s gaze lingered on him for a moment longer before he stood, his long coat sweeping behind him as he made his way to the door. But just as he reached for the handle, he paused.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, his voice so quiet Atsushi almost didn’t hear it.
And then he was gone.
A month had passed since Akutagawa’s first visit to the café, and in that time, something had undeniably changed between him and Atsushi. They still bickered, still exchanged sharp words, but there was a familiarity now—a strange, almost reluctant camaraderie that had formed despite the odds.
But Atsushi still couldn’t figure out why Akutagawa kept coming back.
One evening, as the café was winding down for the night, Atsushi found himself once again facing Akutagawa, who sat at his usual spot by the window. The café was nearly empty, and the quiet was comforting after a long day.
Atsushi brought over Akutagawa’s coffee, setting it down on the table with a soft clink.
“You know,” Atsushi said, his curiosity finally getting the better of him, “you never told me why you keep coming here. I mean, if you don’t hate the place, why come every day? There’s plenty of other cafés in the city.”
Akutagawa looked up at him, his eyes dark and unreadable. For a long moment, he said nothing, and Atsushi started to wonder if he’d overstepped.
But then, Akutagawa spoke.
“I keep coming because of you.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and unexpected. Atsushi blinked, his heart skipping a beat as he processed what he had just heard. “W-What?”
Akutagawa’s gaze didn’t waver. “At first, I thought you were just some irritating fool, and maybe I still do. But I realized that… I don’t mind you. In fact…” He paused, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “I think about you, even when I’m not here.”
Atsushi’s mouth went dry, his mind struggling to keep up. Was Akutagawa saying what he thought he was saying? There was no way—no way—that this cold, arrogant guy was confessing… was he?
Akutagawa’s lips pressed into a thin line, his expression tense, like he was forcing the words out against his will. “I don’t like admitting it. I don’t understand it. But I can’t ignore it. I’m drawn to you, Nakajima.”
Atsushi’s heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to react. For so long, they had been at odds—two people who couldn’t seem to stand each other. But now, in this quiet moment, the truth was laid bare.
Akutagawa stood abruptly, pushing his chair back with a sharp scrape. “Forget it,” he muttered, his voice cold again. “It doesn’t matter.”
But before he could leave, Atsushi grabbed his wrist, his grip firm but gentle. “Wait.”
Akutagawa froze, his eyes widening slightly as he looked down at Atsushi’s hand.
“I… I don’t know how I feel about you either,” Atsushi admitted, his voice shaking slightly. “But I know I don’t hate you. Not anymore.”
Akutagawa’s gaze softened, the tension in his body slowly easing. “Then what does that mean?”
Atsushi hesitated, searching for the right words. “It means… maybe we should find out.”
For the first time, Akutagawa didn’t have a cutting retort. Instead, he simply nodded, his hand lingering in Atsushi’s for just a moment longer before he pulled away.
“Tomorrow, then,” Akutagawa said quietly, his voice almost gentle.
And for the first time since they had met, Atsushi smiled—a small, tentative smile that felt like the beginning of something new.
A week passed. Every day, Atsushi found himself glancing at the café door, waiting for Akutagawa to walk through it as he always had. He would glance at the clock when it neared the time Akutagawa used to arrive, that specific hour when the light from the setting sun cast long shadows across the tables. But each day, the door remained closed. The familiar figure clad in black never appeared.
By the fifth day, Atsushi began to worry. His stomach twisted in ways that had nothing to do with their previous tension or their complicated feelings. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t place it. He thought of Akutagawa’s quiet confession, the tension in his voice when he had said he was drawn to him, and the promise of seeing each other again the next day.
But that day never came.
Atsushi told himself that maybe Akutagawa had just needed some space. Maybe it was too much, too soon. He had always been hard to read, his emotions buried beneath layers of coldness. Perhaps he was just processing things, and eventually, he would return.
But the week stretched on, and Akutagawa didn’t come back.
On the seventh day, as Atsushi sat at the counter on his break, he absentmindedly flipped through the newspaper someone had left behind. He wasn’t paying much attention, his mind too caught up in thoughts of Akutagawa. It wasn’t until a headline caught his eye that his heart seemed to stop.
Young Man Succumbs to Lung Cancer After a Long Battle
Atsushi’s breath hitched, his eyes scanning the small, grainy photograph beside the article. His heart sank as he recognized the sharp features, the cold eyes, and the unmistakable long black coat.
Akutagawa.
The words of the article blurred in front of Atsushi’s eyes as the realization slowly settled in. Akutagawa had been sick. He’d been fighting something far worse than the tension between them, something Atsushi hadn’t even known about. And now… he was gone. Forever.
A heavy weight pressed down on Atsushi’s chest, a strange emptiness swallowing him whole. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t known. All the times they had bickered, all the sharp words exchanged—Atsushi had never once considered that Akutagawa had been dealing with something so life-threatening.
All those visits to the café, all those moments they had shared, the confessions… Akutagawa must have known. He must have known that his time was running out, and he had chosen to spend some of it there—with Atsushi.
Atsushi couldn’t move, his body frozen in place as the noise of the café faded into the background. All he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, the weight of guilt and sorrow crushing him.
He would never see Akutagawa again.
.
.
.
The next day, Atsushi sat in silence during his break, staring at the empty seat by the window—the same seat Akutagawa had sat in every day for a month. He could almost see him there, his tall, dark figure silhouetted by the light filtering in through the glass. It was where Akutagawa had quietly observed the world, where he had delivered cutting remarks and, eventually, confessed his feelings.
It was where Akutagawa had existed, for a short time, in Atsushi’s life.
The café bustled around him, but for Atsushi, time seemed to stand still. He didn’t feel the urge to do anything else. There was no point. The space by the window—the space that had once belonged to Akutagawa—was now a place that Atsushi couldn’t tear his eyes from. He could never fill it, but he could honor it.
So, day after day, Atsushi sat there. The seat had become his, a quiet monument to the memory of someone who had come into his life so suddenly and left just as quickly.
People came and went, customers filled the café, but every time Atsushi took his break, he would find himself in that seat, gazing out the window just as Akutagawa had. The ache in his chest never fully went away, but he found a strange comfort in sitting where Akutagawa had once sat, in remembering the sharp gaze, the biting words, and the unspoken bond that had formed between them.
Years passed. Atsushi remained at the café, working diligently behind the counter, preparing orders, and greeting customers with a smile that no longer reached his eyes. But every day, when his shift ended or when he took his break, he would return to that seat by the window. It had become a part of his routine, a part of his life that he couldn’t let go of.
Even as time moved forward, even as new faces came into the café and old ones disappeared, Atsushi never forgot. He would sit there, quietly sipping his coffee, remembering the boy who had once occupied that same space.
And in the quiet moments, when the sun began to set and the shadows stretched long across the floor, Atsushi would close his eyes and imagine Akutagawa sitting across from him, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.
In those moments, Atsushi could almost believe that Akutagawa was still there—just out of reach, but never truly gone.
𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕟𝕕
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