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Chongyun will be the first to admit that he does not have what the rest of his friends call ‘rizz’. It isn’t something he was born with, nor does he know how to cultivate it now that he’s an adult, and it makes flirting in the real world really difficult if not entirely impossible for him.
So when Chongyun finds himself in the cafe by the library and comes face to face with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life working the bar, he has no idea what to say to him. His name is Gaming, which Chongyun only learns on his tenth visit when one of his coworkers shouts at him when he stops making drinks to dance to aespa’s Whiplash . He was shockingly good at the girl group dance and Chongyun could watch him do covers all day.
Gaming is muscular but in a soft way; he looks like he might have a bit of squish hidden under his t-shirts. His smile is also damn radiant and he got red tooth gems for Lantern Rite and Chongyun felt his brain melt out of his ears when Gaming smiled at him after taking his order the first day he had them.
Gaming is… Gaming is just nice and beautiful and Chongyun just wants him so fucking bad. He’s just not equipped to do anything about it. So, Chongyun just goes to the cafe every day despite the protests of his banking app and hopes for the best. Maybe Gaming will make the first move. Hell, maybe Chongyun will figure out how to be an adult man and make a move.
(He’s not too sure that he’ll be able to do that but he is trying his best, okay?)
“Hey!” Gaming calls as Chongyun walks in. Chongyun wants to hide in the cozy collar of his sweater but he takes a breath and gives Gaming a shy smile and waves in greeting. “Do you want your usual today?”
Chongyun may or may not come to this cafe way too often. Oops . Too bad that he’s fully committed to showing up at least once a day every day just to see Gaming. That is just Chongyun’s cross to bear. He accepted his fate three weeks into visiting the cafe.
“Yeah; I’m not really in the mood to switch it up, you know?” Chongyun laughs and hopes he doesn’t sound as awkward as he feels.
Gaming laughs, though, and Chongyun lifts his head up to look at him–
Archons , he looks so fucking beautiful. His hoodie is tied around his waist and Chongyun can’t fight the urge to just stare at Gaming’s strong arms. The short-sleeved turtleneck put them in perfect view and, yeah. Chongyun was right about his soft muscles. He looks like he would give great hugs. Or he’d be able to put Chongyun in a really good headlock. An adult headlock. With less clothes.
Chongyun takes a deep breath to clear those thoughts from his head. Now is not the time. Now is the time for caffeine.
“I get that,” Gaming says as he taps Chongyun’s order into the tablet. “Hot, large vanilla matcha latte with oat milk, regular sugar, and milk foam. Y’know, I’m really curious about milk foam on a hot drink. Is it really good? I wouldn’t have ever thought about mixing the two!”
“I used to be a barista, too. Sometimes we would experiment with the leftover ingredients and stuff. I liked how this one turned out and I got super attached to it. It’s hard to find someone who is willing to make it because they like to look at me crazy.”
“I think that anyone should be willing to make something once . Maybe I’ll try it some time! But what do you do now that you’re out of the barista game?”
Chongyun watches as Gaming adds a couple snow-skin mooncakes to his order–for free! --before applying the cafe’s neighborhood discount. He’s so damn nice on top of being handsome and, really, it isn’t fair. Gaming needs to be bad at something for life to be considered fair.
“I’m a library assistant at the Liyue Historical Society. I learned that food service wasn’t for me after a year of toughing it out at the campus coffee shop. My roommate said that I don’t know how to learn from my mistakes at a reasonable pace.” Which, honestly, was a fair assessment on Xingqiu’s part. Talking to people isn’t exactly one of Chongyun’s strong suits. Even now, he’s fighting for his life to hold a conversation with this boy he finds attractive without keeling over in embarrassment. He thinks he’s doing okay so far.
“It’s not easy, but it’s also not customer facing and my boss is this really cool queer elder with a hard-on for history.”
“That is cool! I wish my boss was a cool queer elder–he’s just my dad. Fuck the concept of work-life balance, right?”
That sounds fucking miserable. Chongyun nods his agreement as he pays his total and leaves a 100% tip. Gaming won’t see it for a little while, at least, and that eases his anxiety about it. Kind of. Maybe. Not at all.
“That’s rough. Does he do all the tea ordering and importing, though? That’s a cool thing to have in a small business!” It’s also something Chongyun only knows about because Mr. Zhongli can’t shut up about any of his special interests, especially tea and fancy rocks.
“Oh, yeah. It’s a passion of his and the trade has been in our family for ages. I prefer this part of the business, though. It keeps me away from the really boring, tea-obsessed fuddy-duddies.”
Fuddy-duddy is such a good word. More people should use it. Mr. Zhongli, who Chongyun knows visits this tea shop, could count as an old, tea-obsessed fuddy-duddy, but he wasn’t boring.
“You’re good at dealing with people for sure. It’s…definitely not my forte and I lose thirty minutes off of my life every time I make a phone call.”
“I don’t know,” Gaming says, looking over at Chongyun while he whisks Chongyun’s matcha. His wrist movements are smooth and well-practiced and he uses just the right rhythm to make sure the matcha is properly mixed in with the water. His skill makes way more sense to Chongyun now that he knows that he comes from a tea family; Chongyun had just assumed that Gaming was really passionate about his job as a barista in the tiny cafe.
Gaming starts to steam the milk and the way each tiny movement flexes his muscles is enough to make Chongyun feel absolutely insane.
“Beautiful,” Chongyun says, chewing on his lower lip as he admires how Gaming makes his latte. His eyes widen as he realizes that the word leaves his mouth unbidden and his mouth closes so fast that his teeth click together audibly. He’s an embarrassment. May Morax split the ground and swallow him up. Chongyun is only grateful that there isn’t anyone else around to watch him make a complete fool out of himself.
“Huh?” Gaming asks, his voice soft in his confusion. He doesn’t stop making Chongyun’s drink, which is impressive in the scheme of things. “Did you just call me beautiful?”
“Huh? The way you steam milk!” Chongyun says quickly. He tries to power past Gaming’s second question and hopes that Gaming plays along. Chongyun pulls his sweater sleeves over his hands for something to do with them and to seem as casual as possible. “I just think that you do it really beautifully! And the way you whisk matcha, too! You’ve got some real skill as a barista, Gaming.”
This conversation has turned so fucking humiliating and Chongyun either needs the earth to swallow him up or he’s going to lock himself in his room and never leave the house so he doesn’t have to face Gaming after embarrassing himself so thoroughly.
“Oh!” Gaming says. He blinks at Chongyun but he is smiling sweetly with those tooth gems. They really suit him. “Thank you! I guess you can say it’s a point of pride for me.”
“Yeah, you kind of learn to appreciate good technique as a barista yourself.”
“Yeah, totally!”
Moment saved. Hell yeah.
Gaming pours the milk foam on Chongyun’s drink after drawing some painfully mediocre latte art for him. Finally; something that Gaming isn’t perfect at. There’s some balance in the world.
“Hey, Chongyun?” Gaming asks once he’s putting the top on Chongyun’s tea, pretty warm hazel eyes locking with Chongyun’s.
“Yeah?”
“Did I do that beautifully, too?” He asks, his smile coy and pretty eyes sparkling with mischief.
Chongyun flushes darkly, biting his lip as he tries to figure out what the fuck to say to that. It’s such a clear and concise callout for the bullshit Chongyun had spewed in his gay fugue state.
“W-what?” Chongyun eventually manages to ask, gripping his sweater cuffs as he stares at Gaming like a deer caught in headlights.
“You said that I was doing stuff beautifully. I just wondered if I was pouring your milk foam just as beautifully–I know my latte art isn’t–or if you have any tips.”
Chongyun groans and tips his head back in a weak attempt to mitigate the embarrassment he feels.
“Or,” Gaming adds when Chongyun doesn’t immediately answer, “you can admit that you weren’t complimenting my technique at all. You think I’m beautiful, don’t you?”
Chongyun has never felt so called out before. It is so fucking humiliating to be put on the spot by someone he wants to kiss so badly.
“Do you want me to die?” Chongyun grumbles. When Gaming laughs, bright and comforting, Chongyun’s eyes are drawn away from his teasing expression to focus on those damn tooth gems again. It almost feels like Gaming is trying to make him so red that Chongyun spontaneously combusts on the spot. Gaming is trying to kill him because there is no other explanation for this current behavior.
“Of course I don’t! I want to get your number and see you more than once a day on the days that I’m working. I like talking to you and would love to do it more often if that’s cool with you.”
Chongyun is another degree closer to combusting on the spot. Does Gaming even realize the impact of what he’s putting Chongyun through?
“You…want my number? Seriously?” he asks, just to make sure that all of the heat in his cheeks isn’t cooking his brain.
“Of course I do! I think that you’re really cute, Chongyun.”
“I think that you’re really cute, too, Gaming.”
Chongyun has no idea where he got the confidence to override his chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome so he could actually compliment the boy he likes rather than just standing there looking ‘stupid in the face’, as Hu Tao likes to say.
“Aww, are my barista skills the only beautiful thing about me? I guess I gotta work harder to impress the icy-hearted Chongyun~”
“You stop that!” Chongyun whines at him, crossing his arms over his chest. He doesn’t stomp, even though he wants to, and he knows he looks no scarier than a displeased polar bear cub, but it’s the thought that counts. “If you want me to give you my number then you’re going to have to stop bullying me. We already covered that I’m not that great at talking to people.”
Gaming has the absolute audacity to laugh again and Chongyun almost wants to strangle him before he pulls a deep red click pen–he’s pretty and has excellent taste in writing utensils. Chongyun loves a Zebra Sarasa Clip and the dark red is a good color for Gaming–out of his ponytail and prints Chongyun’s receipt out, flipping it over to write his phone number and instagram handle on the blank paper.
“I could try to stop bullying you, but you’re just so cute when I do it,” Gaming says with a wink and Chongyun’s traitorous heart flips in his chest. He hands the receipt over and Chongyun looks down at his messy scrawl. Chongyun can’t resist pulling his phone out and puts Gaming’s number in his contacts with a pout firmly on his lips. He sends an ice cube emoji to make sure that it really is Gaming’s number–not that he thinks Gaming would give him a fake one, he just has anxiety.--and smiles as Gaming’s phone lights up in his apron pocket.
Gaming pulls it out and grins again, absolutely sickening in how beautiful he is.
“See? You’re cute,” he insists.
Chongyun is pretty sure that if he blushes any more that he will, in fact, pass out on the cafe floor.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says and snatches up his drink and the receipt. He will put the latter in his journal, which Gaming does not need to know. “I gotta go back to work–I’ll…see you soon?”
“Totally,” Gaming says, sending him off with a wink. “Bye, cutie.”
This time, Chongyun does stomp off. He’s earned it.
“I think that your loser rizz compelled him,” Hu Tao says, propping her feet up on her desk. She’s grinning like the cat that got the canary and that never bodes well for Chongyun’s sanity. “Good job!”
Chongyun stares at her like she’s grown a second head. “My what ?”