Chapter Text
The clock on the wall reads 9:23 PM.
Thirty-seven more minutes until closing, Rin thinks, which basically means only twenty-seven more minutes until he can start clearing the cafe. Maybe if nobody comes in, he can start grabbing the mop or putting the chairs onto the tables five minutes earlier than usual, which makes that twenty-two more minutes until he can start cleaning up.
Because, seriously, what are the chances that someone’s going to waltz into the Asahi cafe at such a late time? The streets are pitch black outside. There’s nobody in their right mind out there, thinking, Hey, you know what I could really go for? A caramel latte with whipped cream.
There is no chance anything would be any different from yesterday to today, Rin tells himself while spacing out in front of the cash register.
Predictability is kind of Rin’s thing, after all. Ever since Sae left for Cambridge University, some top-notch smart-kid school all the way in Europe, to study biomed, out of everything there is to study, Rin’s life has been pretty repetitive: wake up, go to school, finish some of his homework, come back to the cafe, finish more of his homework in the spare time, and then sleep. Every single day. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Not to say that he resents Sae for that: in fact, it’s almost definitely the opposite. Even respect doesn’t cover everything Rin feels for Sae. After all, why else would he be slaving away at six in the morning wiping syrup off tables, or finding time at the back of the cafe pantry trying not to smell like espresso while skimming over his stupidly thick Campbell biology textbook (which he forced nicely asked his rich friend classmate Reo to lend to him).
The clock on the wall reads 9:25 PM (two minutes of his life he’ll never get back). Rin has nothing to do, so he ends up staring at the dimlit streets outside the window and listening to the faint hum of the coffee machines. Sometimes, monotonous moments like this makes Rin wonder why he even accepted the job at this stupid cafe in the first place.
Oh right. The paycheck.
That wasn’t saying he got a lot of money at this job: no, he was probably getting paid the bare minimum. But no matter how little money he received, a job was a job, and that meant maybe he would have an inch of opportunity to follow his brother across the ocean to go to that smart-person school. That was the goal Rin told himself to keep him going every day (although he didn’t have any real plans of achieving it besides taking the necessary side-hustles and classes). But that would only be if he actually got accepted, which really seems less and less desirable to Rin with every late-night shift that passes by.
Rin has tried passing time during his shifts by making crazy plans for his future (If I work only 700 more shifts, stop eating for two years, and sell my soul to the devil, maybe I can afford one plane ticket to Europe) The more realistic version of this dream though, was that Rin would stay here forever, bleaching tables, mopping coffee spills off the floorboards, memorizing which customers asked for oat milk instead of regular, until he eventually dropped dead behind the counter at the tragic age of 16.
The idea he came up with purely to motivate himself is starting to sound less like a dream and more like a joke.
A very unfunny joke.
This cafe-work gig has taken so much- too much of his time: and his manager (who probably hates him even though they have only met a grand total of two times), assigned all of the bad timeslots for Rin: the very crack of dawn on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the very late nightbreak on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Don’t ask Rin what shifts he has on Wednesdays: because on Wednesdays, he had both morning and night shifts.
It didn’t take much thought to understand why the manager chose those time slots: Rin had horrible customer service skills, so it was best to get him in the dead hours of the Asahi cafe: the opening and the closing times. This was probably the manager’s version of damage control.
The soft vibrations of the heater and the quiet rumble of the coffee machines and the messy thoughts swirling Rin’s head are suddenly interrupted by the sound of shuffling feet and the familiar melody of the door chime.
Rin freezes.
Who the hell comes to a cafe at 9:31 in the night? Is the first thought that pops up in Rin’s mind as he goes to check the clock again. But despite literally just being about to close down the cafe, Rin muffles a groan and turns to the register with his best thinnest fake smile.
“Hello, this is the Asahi Cafe, what can I do for you?” Rin says, half-asleep and half-dead inside, not fully making eye contact with the customer. He doesn’t even bother to plaster a saccharine smile on his face. He fiddles a bit with the register desk and the receipt paper until he finally lifts his head to get a good look at his customer.
That’s when Rin stops dead in his tracks. His eyes settle on the familiar face in front of him. Because this wasn’t just any regular old (albeit crazy) customer. It’s Yoichi Isagi, the kid who shares two entire classes with Rin.
It takes Rin a good three seconds to process the whole thing. His brain, usually sharper, short-circuits with one thought stuck in his mind: this cannot be happening.
It’s not that serious, right? Or so Rin tells himself. Because Rin might be right: Isagi probably won’t notice Rin at all. In fact, Rin barely even talks in his classes: mostly because people don’t talk to him. He only shares two classes with Isagi, and Rin’s practically invisible in both classes. Actually, he takes that back. Rin’s practically invisible to the whole school. So no, there’s literally no chance that Isagi will recognize Rin.
And besides, of all people, why is Isagi going to the Asahi cafe at 9:31 PM in the night?
From what Rin has noticed (not that he’s paying attention or anything) Isagi doesn’t seem like the type of kid to drink a lot of coffee. He’s more like the type to drink hot chocolate in the morning, or be the type to order a cake-pop instead of a drink at Starbucks. But coffee? At night? Weird.
Isagi’s blue eyes are glancing at the menu, skimming over the messy chalk handwriting, and when his gaze finally lands back on Rin, Rin feels something sick twist in his stomach.
“Hello, uh…” Isagi hums, scanning the menu again, tilting his head to get a better view, “Can I get the…vanilla latte? 20% more sugar please, with added lemon too. Thanks!”
Rin blinks once. Twice. Three times.
What. The. Fuck?
20% more sugar? Rin has tasted the vanilla latte exactly once before: when his customer never showed up to pick up their order, and even by itself, with 75% sugar (which is supposed to be less than usual), the latte was absurdly, way too sweet. Half of it was definitely milk and foam, and the other half was probably a pound of creamer (this, by the way, was definitely not Rin’s fault because all he did was follow the recipe given to him). But 20% more sugar? That wasn’t a latte. That was diabetes in a cup.
“Are you sure?” Rin pressed on, already turning his body to grab a paper cup and a Sharpie from the pile. Rin chooses not to comment on the sugar, because that’s a problem for Future Isagi and his pancreas. He only comments on the bigger issue, being the lemon (because who puts lemon in a latte?) “About the lemon, I mean.”
The kid-Isagi, only grins and digs out the wallet from his oversized coat pocket, “Oh, the sugar will balance out the lemon.” He fiddles with his cash for a few seconds and lays it on the table, “I think sweet and sour create harmony.”
Sweet and sour create harmony? Maybe Rin was just looking too much into that phrase, but what does that even mean? This is a coffee shop, not a philosophy class.
Whatever you say, Rin thinks, but he makes sure to plaster that same smile on his face to not show any indifference. He doesn’t get paid enough to discuss life lessons with his customers. “And, what’s the name for the order?”
“Isagi.” The boy says, “Yoichi Isagi.”
Rin’s hand hesitates as he writes the name on the cup. He didn’t need to hear the name of the kid to know he was right: the face was unfortunately confirmation enough. It was the kid who had a bad habit of showing up quite literally everywhere like irritating background noise: lingering in the halls, popping up randomly in his classes, and now, apparently, also in this cafe.
Yoichi Isagi. And of course, because Rin’s luck is terrible, that name is now scrawled in black ink, over a cup that he has to hand back to Isagi in less than five minutes.
Rin simply just cannot grasp what was going on today. First of all, it’s nine in the night, and the streets are empty and dark. Nobody comes to the cafe this late in general, maybe excluding the occasional college student hopping on late-night caffeine and existential dread, or, apparently also this high schooler (who probably doesn’t even drink coffee regularly).
And it’s not just some regular order either. Of course it can’t be. No, Yoichi just has to waltz into this cafe, just to order some lemon-latte with way too much sugar? Rin doesn’t know how this guy isn’t bullied yet in school, because this is something only an absolute dumbass would order.
Rin mutters a few curses under his breath that were hopefully quiet enough to be concealed by the loud heater, and then he ducks behind the counter to open the pantry door, which squeaked embarrassingly loudly in response. The dimlit shelves were unnecessarily cluttered with glass bottles coated in sticky syrup and overflowing sugar jars and endless bags of tea powder. Rin pushes them to the side before pausing and scanning the ingredients on the shelf. Where the hell do they keep lemon nowadays? He could’ve sworn he saw wedges of it in a clear plastic tub this morning.
Rin shoves a few things around, jaw tightening as a bottle of caramel syrup clatters to the ground. It ends up spilling its contents, coating the wood tiles in the sweet, sticky substance. Great. Now he gets to clean that up later.
From the front, Rin can hear Isagi’s bright voice
“Hey, aren’t you Rin?”
Fuck
Rin freezes, hand squeezing tightly around the lemon in one hand and the other hand being clenched into a fist. Biting the inside of his cheek, he pretends not to have heard Isagi. Maybe if he pretends hard enough, Isagi will just back away, take the drink, and leave.
“Excuse me? Uh, Rin?”
This kid I swear-
There’s no going back now. Isagi has already said his name twice- he practically just identified him then and there, which was the last thing Rin needed at 9 PM in the night, with nobody else around to dilute the humiliation. Slowly, Rin turns his head around, lemon coating the palm of his hand like a stress ball that nobody asked for.
This time looking more closely, Isagi was exactly how Rin had remembered him. Bright blue eyes, the stupid hair tuft refusing to budge the top of his head, and a coat that’s probably two sizes too big (Rin can tell because the puffed sleeves hang off the tips of his shoulders two inches longer than it should’ve). But the worst part was the way Isagi looked at Rin: like they were some variation of old friends, which is not true: not now, not ever. And the more Rin looks, the more Isagi makes Rin’s skin crawl.
“Yes?” Rin says awkwardly. He doesn’t know how else to respond.
Isagi just sighs in relief and a smile blooms on his face. “Man, I thought it was you when I walked in, but I didn’t want to ask. Thankfully it really was you, Rin, otherwise it would’ve been really awkward for me to have asked a random worker if they were you,” Isagi pauses and spots Rin’s backpack in the back of the kitchen, “Hey, have you done the bio homework yet?”
Rin didn’t like the familiarity in Isagi’s tone: they weren’t friends, nor did they even talk to each other- at all. And somehow, the conversation just flowed naturally from Isagi’s mouth (not so much from Rin’s). The answer to Isagi’s question was yes, of course he did, but Rin had a bad feeling that Isagi’s expectant smile would lead to him asking to copy his answers, so he ended up saying no.
“No.” Rin lied.
“Oh.” Isagi blinked, “Well, I did, and it’s pretty hard, so good luck with that.”
Nevermind then, Rin thinks sourly, tightening the grip on his sharpie in his hand. Wrong again, I guess
Rin had actually been wrong a grand total of three times that shift. He was wrong when he thought nobody would show up in the first place, he was wrong when he thought Isagi wouldn’t recognize him from school, and he was wrong when he thought Isagi would ask to copy his homework. Apparently, the universe, or rather just Isagi, thought it was funny to prove him wrong tonight.
Rin finishes squeezing the lemon and adding in the requested amount of sugar (the sheer amount made Rin cringe in disgust), so he snaps on the lid and carefully hands over the paper cup to Isagi.
“There,” Rin mutters, “Your…vanilla latte with extra sugar and lemon.” Or whatever it was. Rin felt weird saying it out loud.
Isagi just nods and takes the cup from Rin’s hand, brushing his fingertips past Rin’s. “Thanks,” Isagi beams and takes a sip, the unfiltered joy bursting from behind his cup. “You’re a lifesaver.”
Rin pauses and stares. Just for that coffee? Really? But Isagi doesn’t seem to mind the silence that stretches out between them and just continues drinking, face lighting up with ridiculous bright satisfaction that makes Rin clearly uncomfortable.
“You’re actually drinking that?” Rin can’t help but comment, “It’s like, nine in the night.”
“Oh really?” Isagi retorts sarcastically, “I didn’t know that.”
“No, I mean, you’re drinking coffee this late in the night.” Rin narrows his eyes, “Either you’re not sleeping tonight or you’re just crazy.” As soon as the sentence leaves Rin’s lips, he winces. Great. Customer service of the year. Maybe this is why my manager puts me in the closing shifts.
But Isagi just laughs. “No, I just like this. Sweet and sour.”
Rin doesn’t know what to respond, just watches Isagi drain a third of the cup like it’s completely normal.
And then just as quickly as he appeared, Isagi walks out of the cafe, the familiar melody of the doorbell ringing in Rin’s ear as he stares at the empty spot where Isagi just now stood. The cafe’s quiet again. The last customer is gone. He can clean up and head home.
Rin slowly picks himself up off the counter. Time to mop up that caramel spill and scrub the tables clean and put the chairs up. Then he can rinse out the cleaning rag and let it dry on the rack. And then, finally, he can grab his bike and go home: his shift’s basically over anyways.
But the only thought that lingers in his mind is Isagi’s ridiculously bright smile and the smell of citrus and vanilla coffee.