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Vivian initially believed he and coffee shops were soulmates. With his aptitude to stay up late at night thinking of strategies for his football team, scribbling cursive all over his notes, he was prone to get some coffee in a nearby place. Deciding that all the coffee he had consumed tasted quite mediocre, he decided to completely apply for a job as a barista in a new and upcoming coffeehouse called Ego’s Mocharia. From the flyers, it describes it as a hip workplace with a rent-free living space, and Vivian is always down for some cheap work, so he signs the contract without even reading, nor skimming what the deal actually says.
So when there was a mic shoved onto his face, along with seeing a cameraman on the roof, Vivian knows that he made the worst decision in mankind.
Ego, with the bob cut making him look like Dora the Explorer, gives him a director's cut of a new documentary starring Vivian Hugo in a mockumentary setting.
It was a horrendous display, at first. He feels as if he is constantly being watched, and he is— the camera is constantly on his face, and there were times when the producers wanted him to speak louder.
There were also, god forbid, the challenges he had to do. The challenges, all ninety of them, were made to spice up (quote on quote) the documentary by showcasing angry customers that he deliberately made mad because of said challenges and literally put the food service employee through hell.
Case in point: today, his challenge was to serve the first customer last, so he stalled on a boy's order until even the closers had all gotten their orders. When he called the boy’s name out to the front — Isagi Yoichi — the boy was close to exploding.
“Why the hell did it take you eight hours to give me my order…?” He asks in a dangerous tone, gritting his teeth. If Vivian were in his spot, he would've already punched the manager.
Vivian shrugs, subtly glaring at the cameraman in his peripherals. “Your orders got all messed up with the others.”
Isagi’s eye twitches. “You literally only have seven customers!”
“You should've gone to another coffeehouse if that's how impatient you are.”
“I already paid for this, jerk!” Isagi takes the cappuccino, and he strides out of the coffeehouse with a huff.
Vivian wants to apologize for any inconvenience, but his producers force him not to socialize with a lot of customers.
So he continues his miserable life as a barista being exploited, and he messes up orders, whilst also sometimes getting perfects on some days.
The producers added a scoring system, where they will personally rate the orders that he'd done. He will get perfects if the wait score, brewing score, pour score, and build score are all in the hundreds, and that means that not a single mistake is rewarded.
He thinks it's ridiculous, though; why in the everloving fuck would the customers notice if the matcha powder was added a little off-center? It's still in the drink, is it not?
Illogical. The scores were, simply put, quite illogical.
Vivian will only need to complete a hundred or so days for him to stop being penalized by every single order he makes finally. When he forgets he's being filmed, he actually does enjoy working this job. The customers were nice, and even the closers, who were supposed to be the big bads at the end of the day, didn’t give Vivian too much of a hard time. He is also fond of those who offer him the special recipes for the price of giving them a perfect order.
Today is a Friday, meaning that the closer today is his own number one, Julian Loki. The challenge was simple enough: serve Julian’s order immediately when he arrives. Vivian was used to serving Julian hand on foot, so seeing him once a week in the coffeehouse outside of practice puts him in a good mood.
He takes extra measures to make sure that the espresso is just as perfect as the speed of this order. He discards the rest of the orders to make way for Julian’s. The young man hasn't arrived yet, being the last customer to open the doors to the coffee shop. Sorry to Nagi, Chigiri, and Kaiser— he has pressing matters to attend to.
Just when he was able to finish Julian’s order, the doorbell rings, and he knows it was Julian himself.
He scrambles back to the counter, palms sweaty with trepidation. Julian blinks at his haggard look and smiles.
“Oh my, you seem quite tense today,” he says pleasantly, with a slight tease in his tone that is so like him. “Are you ready to take my order?”
Vivian nods, taking out the ordering list. “You know I'm always ready— I had it memorized, you know?”
Julian raises a brow. “Oh? Then prove you've memorized it. I'm not gonna tell you my order, so you better know what my order is.”
Vivian smirks. “Of course.” He returns to the kitchen, slaps the order ticket onto Julian’s pre-made order, and calls his name just when Julian was about to turn around to terrorize some of the remaining waiting customers here.
Julian examines his espresso before he flashes Vivian a smile. It makes Vivian’s heart stutter. “Excellent. I did not know you had already made my order. If this was a scoring game, I'll be scoring you a hundred in all stations.”
Vivian sure hopes that this is worth hundreds.
“I'll talk to you later,” Vivian murmurs, wanting to reach over and kiss Julian, but this being a documentary puts a damper on his affectionate moments. Besides, the other customers in the restaurant are looking displeased that their orders are taking too long to be made, because their barista was busy making googly eyes at Julian.
Julian’s eyes soften. “I will wait until the end of your shift.” He walks away with his coffee in one hand, a cannoli in the other.
Vivian stares at the empty space where Julian had been, with a yearning expression on his face. He would've stared at the empty space more, but Nagi clearing his throat and the tapping of Chigiri’s footsteps cause him to remember the day wasn’t done yet.
“Are you going to continue our orders, or at the door with a miserable lovesick look on your face?” Kaiser snaps, raising a brow at Vivian’s perceived insolence.
“I'll get right to it,” Vivian replies with a sigh.
Once he closes up shop, he spots Julian in the distance, leaning against the wall of the establishment. Vivian swears there is a skip in his step as he approaches Julian. He tries to bend down to kiss Julian, but Julian simply stops him with a hand.
“Now you're being too needy for your own good.” He laughs as Vivian pouts.
“How'd you like your order, Julian? I dedicated so much of my time to yours that I messed up everyone else's orders.”
Nagi had given him a seventy in the build station, as he had forgotten to give his espresso any toppings. Chigiri had given him a sixty-seven for forgetting to pour syrup in the pour station, whilst Kaiser gave him a whopping zero in every station because he overbrewed his milk, forgot to put ice in his latte, and added no toppings to his cup. He didn’t care when Kaiser was literally shouting profanities in Vivian’s face, because all he could think about was Julian waiting for him to clock out of his shift.
Julian gives a smile, which he knows means that he, indeed, had done a great job. He pats Vivian’s hair, having to stand on his own tiptoes to do so. It was adorable when Vivian responded by preening to having his hair be tousled like this.
It all feels domestic.
“I'm pleased with my order. It seems like your training in the mocharia is helping you become what you were meant to be.”
Vivian narrows his eyes. “A food service employee?”
Julian rolls his eyes. “No, my number two!”
Vivian makes a noise that sounds like a laugh but is too breathy to be one. “I jest.” He pecks Julian’s cheek, delighted as Julian lets him. Emboldened, he swings an arm around Julian’s waist, and he lets him.
“You miss me that much?” Julian teases with a grin.
Vivian hums, looking at Julian as if he’d cured all his nightmares. “I miss you all the time, Jules.”