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Shuriken had been somewhat stumbling across the café, to say the least. In his defense, he’d been out all night trying to catch some guy who’d stolen a purse.
That wasn’t something he could really tell his siblings aloud, which meant he’d accepted all the quiet comments today.
“I can brew you a coffee,” is what Vine had said to him at the start of his shift, frowning as he’d rejected the offer.
Slingshot had a blunter approach, outright saying, “You don’t need to clock in if you didn’t sleep last night.”
Both of them were trying to be caring, but it wasn’t a problem the two of them could fix within his seven-hour shift. The best they’d done today was allowing him to nap through his lunch break.
Vinestaff had shaken him awake by the time it was over, grumbling, “I can take your shift if I have to.”
He didn’t say anything, only shaking his head and yawning before stepping back out.
Shuriken only lazily blinked at the order names attached to some of the papers, looking around the café for a regular he could serve without getting himself in trouble.
That Inphernal looked mean; that was someone who could definitely recognize him from Thieves’ Den, but one person stood out.
‘The Beast’ as his name on the order?
Deadass?
Thankfully, he didn’t get annoyed as easily as his brother did, walking over with what was clearly only a bowl of ingredients.
“See, Sling, this is what I mean: you put no effort into serving—” Coil had already begun his pre-planned ‘customers deserve respect’ bait, only pausing upon realizing it was him.
Coil’s approach quickly changed, having become more awkward: “Mornin’, Shuriken.”
“Morning,” he yawned again, somewhat unintentionally, as he stared at the mix of ingredients.
Slingshot really didn’t want Coil in here today, did he?
“You just woke up, didn’t you?”
“‘m trying to be subtle about it,” Shuriken murmured, placing down the metal bowl and snickering quietly at the concept.
His face was being stared at.
“Could’ve fooled me.” Coil gave a small shrug before adding, “You look good for someone who just woke up.”
Shuriken didn’t blink at that, rubbing at his eyes before humming, “Mhmm.”
Then the bowl was being pushed back towards his hands, and he didn’t even process that he’d taken it back until Coil was laughing at him.
“Just— go get your brother to remake that for me. Make sure he keeps the eggs out of the recipe and the bowl. He can’t contaminate my food.”
He gave a nod, going back to the kitchen and handing the bowl back to Slingshot without saying anything. His brother translated the situation off of his face alone, beginning to quietly grumble while remaking the food.
Would Coil care if he sat there and waited for the remake?
It’s not like Slingshot could yell at him for being lazy when he was socializing with a customer as much as he could in this state.
Shuriken gave that a lot of thought, trying to think about it rationally with way too much brain fog. He’d eventually settled on the fact that he couldn’t get ridiculed for being ‘too friendly’ with a customer.
Coil didn’t say anything as he dragged himself back towards the table, taking the chair across from the boxer and hardly keeping himself awake.
Gosh, he’d never do a chase at three in the morning again. Forty-five minutes in between his shifts wouldn’t save him.
“You know, Shuriken,” Coil was looking over at him, clearly having some new idea based on the smirk he had:
“You have nice muscles. Kind of sucks you have a uniform.”
Something in his sleep-rattled brain reminded him that it wasn’t normal talk.
But then he thought about what he’d deal with tonight, and making small talk didn’t seem too bad.
Meaning, Shuriken grumbled back a small, “Thank you.”
“You could start boxing against me if you tried.”
And that was physical contact. Coil had reached over to touch his hand resting on the table, specifically by the time Slingshot walked in.
Shuriken blinked at the hand for a second or two before holding it, murmuring out another lazy thanks. He was trying to keep himself awake in one of the best chairs in the café; that was proving to be a challenge.
“I mean it, y’know.” Coil was grinning, continuing to speak as if he weren’t messing with his hand while doing so, “You have the perfect build for it, and I’d wanna see you in a fight.”
“I could,” he mumbled.
His days off were his rest days, but he could make exceptions or two for something like that. Being in a sparring match sounded nice.
“It wouldn’t have to only be a phight—”
“Coil.”
He hadn’t been paying attention to how Slingshot approached their table, holding one mildly depressed-looking cake on a plate. That’s what no eggs got you, he supposed.
“You’re not meant to touch my employees, you know, especially while they’re on the clock.”
Coil hardly acknowledged the sentence, tightening his grip on Shuriken’s hand as he went:
“I’m not hearing many protests.”
Sounds like he could keep sitting if he kept up the bit.
Shuriken only raised a brow before relenting, looking up at Slingshot while saying, “I’m not gonna get upset at him.”
“Right.” His brother narrowed his eyes at their hands, forcefully breaking the little hold by placing the plate there and saying, “You better tip me good if you keep him sitting here with you.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Slingshot looked more annoyed than anything else; it wasn’t like there was something to complain about. Shuriken was having a decent, polite, and compliment-filled conversation with someone who was paying him.
Not like that was against the employee handbook.
“Shuriken, could you taste test this for me?”
Coil gave him a sweet look while Slingshot walked off, looking happier as the seconds passed.
“Got it.”
“Say ah.”
Now that was pushing it. He furrowed his brows, seeing how Coil only continued to try fluttering his lashes at him. The puppy-dog eyes look would’ve worked better if it weren’t coming from some muscular man.
Working better, as in making him give in faster than he did.
“Ah—” Coil was blushing.
Shuriken didn’t comment on that aloud, not really being able to with the taste of red velvet quickly in his mouth.
They were getting weird looks.
“You should’ve let him add the eggs,” he commented, still chewing a bit before shutting his mouth again.
“I have an allergy.”
“Seriously?”
Coil then reaffirmed his little suspicion, still somewhat smiling while retorting, “I wouldn’t be feeding you if I didn’t.”
Fair enough point, in a sense.
Shuriken took the spoon back from him, blinking some more at the cake before getting his own scoop and putting it in Coil’s mouth before he could start up again.
Something in the other seemed to short-circuit, and he found himself laughing back at the reaction. For somebody who annoyed his brother all the time, he cracked fast under pressure.
“Aren’t you a beast?” He was only reciprocating a fraction of the taunting Coil would do, trying not to laugh harder at the pause.
“I’m very beastly, actually.”
“I don’t know, man; I have doubts.”
“It’s hard to be a beast with some cute guy putting food in my mouth—”
Coil had gone silent, dragging his hand down his face a bit to conceal his expression.
“Can’t be that hard.”
Shuriken had mildly tuned out the fact that they were still in his brother’s café and that he was still in uniform. His reminder came pretty swiftly, with Slingshot coming back to the table while carrying out another order.
“Shuri,” he was giving that passive-aggressive smile he always would before showing his annoyance, whispering:
“Take your flirting out of the café.”
“Hah?”
He’d been so adapted to casually handling customers politely that he didn’t realize what it looked like. Coil was redder than he’d seen him before, and Shuriken had been too tired to properly think about how intimate it must’ve looked to anyone else.
Shuriken looked over at Coil for a minute before narrowing his eyes and somewhat sheepishly asking, “Was this meant to be flirting?”
Upon seeing the nod, he’d gone red too.
“Got it, Slingshot,” he mumbled, just loud enough for his brother to hear him from the table he was at. “I’ll get your to-go boxes.”
Coil had grabbed his wrist when he tried walking further away from the table, just hard enough to make him pause.
“We can hang out outside of the café, right?”
“Yeah?”
The way he answered made it sound confused, partially because he was— of course they could? Then again, Coil had been intentionally annoying his brother since the café started. No wonder he thought the annoyance would be an inherited sort of thing; the issue was that Shuriken was too sleepy for that to properly work.
As he grabbed the to-go boxes, he figured Slingshot wouldn’t kill him if he snuck in an extra cookie for Coil.
Right?
Shuriken brought back the box and put the cake in it with ease, mumbling, “Don’t tell Sling about anything.”
Mainly because his brother would reprimand him for enjoying something like this to annoy him.
Coil grinned at the cookie, but he was smart enough to just start leaving immediately. That wasn’t before he gave Shuriken one more little glance, snickering at him when he waved back.
Good riddance.
Or, something like that. He didn’t know how to feel about all of it, other than a tad bit giddy at getting a date.
He was quick to stack up his tray and try to look busy, ignoring how Slingshot continued to relook over the plates he needed Shuriken to run.
“Where’s the cookie for table three?”
Right, right, Shuriken didn’t say a thing.