Work Text:
Honestly, Bin’s job at the coffee shop was one of his favorite things outside of dancing with Minhyuk. It was far more fun than school, and miles better than hanging around at home with Su. He loved his little sister and all, but really, there’s only so many times he can listen to her squeal about this boy group or that in a day. (The fact that he and Minhyuk had probably done dance covers to the songs of whichever of the many groups Su loved was beside the point.)
His job was really quite enjoyable. Bin liked coffee, and was reasonably good at making it. The paychecks, while probably not the most impressive, were certainly an added bonus. But perhaps the best part was, in fact, the people. There were two other regular workers in the shop- Minhyuk, of course, was his best friend. Jinwoo was the other, a couple years older than Bin, but Minhyuk adored him and Bin had to admit that he was fun to be around, dumb jokes aside.
Sometimes, when Jinwoo was working, his friend Myungjun would join them in the shop, hanging around the counter and generally getting in the way. It was fun when the shop was empty and they could mess around, but when there were customers, Bin sometimes wished Myungjun had the capacity to sit down and stay quiet for longer than five minute periods of time.
Perhaps it made sense, then, that Bin’s luck with keeping his pretty boy’s name (or lack thereof) a secret would run out on one of the days that Myungjun was at the shop.
Bin was in the middle of making an overly-personalized macchiato for an obnoxious older woman, dressed in a overwhelmingly pink suit. Jinwoo was in the back, pulling some stock the manager had asked them to put out. Myungjun had wandered into the shop some half an hour earlier and was hovering near the pastries, leaning on the display glass Bin had cleaned not an hour before. Bin had half a mind to shoo him away, but before he could do that, Minhyuk made a noise of excitement.
“Ah, here comes your pretty boy, Binnie-hyung,” he exclaimed. Bin’s hands froze over the pink lady’s macchiato and his head snapped up.
“Pretty boy?” Myungjun’s loud voice echoed, and Bin felt his blood run cold as Myungjun immediately lost interest in chocolate chip croissants and turned to look through the store windows. Bin followed his gaze and sure enough, he could see the boy standing just outside the shop door, looking down at his cell phone. Myungjun turned back towards him, a large grin in place that made Bin’s heart start beating double time in fear. “Bin has a pretty boy?” he continued, resting his chin in his hand and fluttering his eyelashes obnoxiously.
“No I don’t,” Bin snapped, looking back down at the macchiato and finishing it with more aggression than a drink deserved. He was half on auto-pilot, the larger part of his brain trying to will the boy away from the shop with sheer thought alone.
Jinwoo chose that moment to return from the back, arms full of prepackaged coffee beans to put on display. Apparently he had been able to hear their conversation, because the first thing out of his mouth was, “Are we talking about Bin’s mysterious manga stranger that he doesn’t let us take orders for?”
“No!” Bin half-shouted. At the same time, three things happened- Minhyuk, the betrayer, cried “Yes,” causing Myungjun to say, far more loudly than he ever needed to, “So our Binnie has a crush!” as the chime of the shop door opening sounded.
The counter immediately went silent as all four of them looked up and towards the door. The second he properly saw the boy, Bin wanted to die- of course, today would be the day the boy decided to change his hair style- dark bangs were pushed up and off his face, exposing his forehead and making him suddenly look far older and, impossibly, more attractive. Not only that, but cold weather had set in over the weekend, and the boy was dressed for it- a thick scarf looped around his throat, a smart overcoat, and a red beanie that contrasted beautifully with his dark hair, carefully tucked over his ears but not pulled down so far that it flattened his bangs back over his forehead.
Basically, the boy looked like he could have stepped out of the music video for a kpop group’s special Christmas comeback, and Bin was torn between being appreciative of the fantastic aesthetic and hating that the boy chose this day to do it.
It took everything in him not to stare openly. Instead, Bin finished the macchiato, snapped a lid on it, and shoved it into Minhyuk’s hands. “It’s for the lady in the pink,” he said, and stepped behind the register before Minhyuk could argue.
Bin couldn’t help but feel a bit like he was going out to battle- the boy had crossed the room and was waiting for him on the other side of the counter, and Myungjun’s presence was overwhelmingly obvious. Bin tried not to notice that the tip of his nose was pink from the cold outdoors. Jinwoo, thankfully, had the decency to take his coffee beans and move to the built in shelves.
Myungjun, on the other hand, was still leaning on the pastry display- watching Bin and the pretty boy with as much subtlety as the macchiato lady’s suit.
Which is, to say, absolutely none at all.
The boy had obviously noticed- he was glancing at Myungjun, looking semi-concerned. While that was the way Bin always looked at Myungjun, it certainly did not need to be a face coming from the boy Bin had a very large crush on.
“Hi,” Bin said, pulling the boy’s attention towards himself. “What can I get started for you?”
The boy gave Myungjun another glance, then looked back at Bin. “Just a latte, in a travel cup,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his coat to pull out a wallet.
“Okay,” Bin said, quickly tapping the order into the register, taking the boy’s proffered bills and handing him back his change. Myungjun still hadn’t said anything, and the thought that he might get out of this encounter unscathed passed through Bin’s mind as he reached for a marker and a to-go cup.
Bin dashed a line through the “latte” spot on the cup and was about to turn to make the drink when he was proven wrong.
“Excuse me, Binnie,” Myungjun said, sliding from the display case to lean on the counter that the registers sat on. “You’re supposed to ask for the customer’s name.”
Bin’s stomach dropped as he looked towards the other boy, whose eyes had confusion written across them. “It’s alright,” the boy started to say. “I’m right here, he’s about to make the-”
“No, no, no,” Myungjun said, bringing a hand up to rest on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s part of his job, right, Moon Bin?” Myungjun smiled brightly over the counter, but his eyes said that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Bin had never wanted so badly to reach across the counter and hit Myungjun in the head. But he couldn’t, so instead he grit his teeth, tried to ignore how hot his ears were burning, and said, as pleasantly as he could manage, “Your name?”
The poor boy was so confused, caught between looking down a bit at Myungjun’s hand on his shoulder and Bin. “Uh,” he said, and then took a moment to clear his throat. “Eunwoo. Cha Eunwoo. That’s it.”
Bin tried to ignore the fact that his hands were shaking slightly as he wrote the name on the side of the cup, repeating slowly, “Cha…Eun…Woo.” He capped the marker and looked up, putting on his most convincing smile. “One latte, coming right up.”
The boy- Eunwoo, Bin’s mind supplied helpfully- nodded and smiled, then stepped away from the counter to wait. Myungjun went with him, and Bin used every ounce of his mental ability not to listen to what they were saying. Instead, he focused on the latte, and had it done (foam heart and all) faster than he’d ever done before. Eunwoo had obviously been watching him, because he was at the counter the moment Bin turned around to hand it to him. Eunwoo accepted the cup with half a bow, turned a gave another small bow to Myungjun, and then scurried out of the shop.
As he watched Eunwoo hurry away, Bin felt his heart sink a bit- Myungjun had undoubtedly scared the boy away. With a groan, he let his head fall forward onto the counter with a thunk.
“That’s not sanitary,” Myungjun said, and Bin lifted his head again to glare. Myungjun was completely unaffected by it, instead grinning like a cat that got the cream. Bin was half tempted to issue some kind of threat against Myungjun’s life, but before he could, the older boy laughed, patted his cheek, and then practically skipped towards the built in shelves to (thankfully) bother Jinwoo instead.
Bin let out a huge breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and was about to lay his head back down on the counter, but caught sight of Eunwoo out of the shop windows. He was holding his phone to his ear, breath visible as he spoke to whoever was on the line. Bin watched him, admiring once more his ensemble and hairstyle as Eunwoo hung up and pocketed his phone.
What he didn’t expect to see was Eunwoo carefully pop one side of the lid off of his latte- but he did see it, and Bin watched as Eunwoo lifted the cup up towards his face and carefully peeked into the cup. Eunwoo’s face broke into a grin, and Bin suddenly realized what Eunwoo was looking for.
Warmth flooded his body, and Bin was suddenly able to stand up straight again as he watched Eunwoo snap the lid back down, just as carefully as he had pulled it up, concealing Bin’s foam heart once more.
Maybe, just maybe, it would take more than an obnoxious hyung to scare Eunwoo off. And honestly? At that moment, that fact was the best part of Bin’s job.