Archive of Our Own

There's a little cafe in an obscure corner of town that goes by The Brew, the reason for the name being that one of the baristas kept coming up with more and more outlandish versions until eventually her brother put his foot down and insisted on simply calling it The Brew. (The tale can be found tacked on the cork board near the door, alongside flyers for made-up events and drawings supplied by customers.)

What makes the cafe a beloved local destination is the dynamic duo who run it. One of them is a girl who greets every customer with a stunningly pretty smile and showers them with compliments. However the drinks she prepares can range from decent to horrendously bad. One never knows what they're going to get. Customers have reported coming back simply to talk to her.

The second barista is a boy who will look at whoever walks in the door as if their arrival has greatly inconvenienced him. He often talks to customers as if they're incompetent and will outright change orders right in front of them. Yet every drink he's prepared has been nothing less than exquisite. His unique blends are the stuff of legends.

"I don't get it," Katara tilted her phone. "All I do is make the orders exactly like the customers tell me. Why do they call them bad? I'm not that bad at making them, am I?"

Sokka didn't even unearth his face from the magazine draped over it. "You're not. The problem isn't you, it's the orders."

"...I mean, I guess some of them are kind of out there. But I just thought it's because of the vibe of this place, you know? Very artistic, niche, unique-"

"Thanks to you."

"-which might make people want to be adventurous, maybe try something new for once, you know?" continued Katara, talking over the interruption.

A muffled snort answered her. "Adventurous. Right." He lifted up the magazine and used it to point. "If you want to hear the actual reason, I'll tell you. It's because our customers are stupid."

"Sokka!" Katara gasped, scandalized. "That's not nice!"

"It's because you keep flirting with them that some of them go braindead trying to impress you."

"Oh my god."

Katara grabbed the magazine and whacked him over the head with it. Which had about as much effect as using a feather duster. "It's not flirting to smile at people! I'm just trying to make them feel welcome! If you give kindness to others, you get kindness back. That's always what's happened for me, and it's made both me and the ones I've talked to happy and unlike some people I've managed to have an excellent barista experience, thank you very much."

"Okay, but like - I'm not wrong. You see," Sokka sat up, "the problem here is that you, in your naïveté, assume the customers know what they want. They do not. Because as previously stated, they are stupid. One of them could ask you for something caffeinated that has pineapple and mayonnaise in it and you'd make it without a blink, whereas I would know that what they really want is a raspberry with white chocolate. Case in point: that's exactly what my last customer did. And do you know what happened when I gave them the other one?"

"What?"

"They liked it. Obviously."

"...I wouldn't add pineapple and mayonnaise." Sokka gave her A Look. "Okay, maybe I would, but it's not like I'm here to judge them-"

"I am."

"-and how'd you even get that, anyway?!"

"For that order, I'd say...something creamy with a hint of tang, was what they wanted."

"...Oh. Huh." While he got up and wandered to the counter, Katara continued to stand there. She read over the words on her phone. "...So basically they like me for my personality?"

Sokka threw his hands up. "That's what you got from that?"

"But am I wrong?" she asked, hands clasped under her chin, wearing a huge smile and batting her eyelashes at him.

The only response that earned was a face palm.