Chapter Text
Nobody transfers schools to make friends.
Yuuta is wholeheartedly aware of this when he rolls on to campus for the first time. He’d been something of a screw-up in high school, so he hadn’t even bothered applying to any high-level colleges the first time around. It didn’t take him long to realize that college was different. You got to do whatever you wanted all the time, could devote yourself to any one subject. Yuuta never cared much for his regular academics, but with music? Suddenly he was an A+ student for the first time in his life.
So here he was, a year later at a prestigious conservatory he’d only learned the name of a few months ago in a big city he’d never visited before. It was a dream, but something of a nightmare, too. He didn’t know a single person here, and the rickety studio apartment he’d leased was hardly helping the matter. His only solace was his workload, which kept him too busy for much of a social life anyway. Maybe that was the case with everyone here- they were so dedicated to their craft that they didn’t need friends. He knew it was unlikely, but it was a comforting thought.
What wasn’t making him feel better? The shit coffee they served at the dining hall. He’d thought at an institution as fancy and expensive as this they could at least afford something name-brand, but Yuuta could hardly complain- with a sleep schedule like his coffee wasn’t just a routine, it was a necessity. And since he was too inept to make his own, he'd drag himself down to the cafeteria every morning to tolerate the muck for as long as it took him to find a will to live and head to class.
It takes a month before anyone takes pity on him and teaches him otherwise.
“You know you don’t have to drink that crap, right?” a girl says, appearing behind him. Yuuta recognizes her- A freshman viola player from his orientation group. Kugisaki was her name. “The coffee place next to the main theater takes meal swipes. Just go there.”
Yuuta nearly spits out his coffee- if that’s what you could even call it.
“Wait, seriously?” he squeaks, voice cracking from disuse. He clears his throat as the girl laughs and tosses her hair behind her shoulders.
“You really didn’t know?” she asks, clearly smug. “King Salmon Coffee. It’s right down the street. Has this dump totally beat- the only people who still come here are oafs like my friends who want to eat full-sized pancake breakfasts every morning.”
“Kugisaki!” one of them calls- another first year with sleek black hair. He stands next to an aloof boy with dyed pink hair and a Cello case nearly as big as he is. “We’re gonna be late!”
“Ugh, gotta run,” she complains, rolling her eyes and gesturing to the dark-haired boy. “Violinists. So entitled.”
“Thank you!” he calls as she flits away. The second she and her friends are safely out of sight, he stands up and drops his cup into the trash can. Goodbye dirt, he thinks with a smirk, see you never.
King Salmon Coffee was not at all hard to find once Yuuta knew what to look for. Embarrassingly, it’s only a block away from his new place and he’d never once noticed it before- an impressive feat considering it had a flashing pink fish logo in its front window. Yuuta had always been a bit of a space cadet, but this was taking it to a new level. In his defense though, who thought it would be a good idea to name a coffee house after seafood? Certainly that was asking for confusion. Yuuta decides not to care as he throws the strap of his guitar case over his shoulder and pushes the front door open.
Surely, this is what heaven feels like.
A welcome bell chimes over his head and a wave of dark roast hits his nose as warmth covers his body. The whole thing is so beautiful he could cry. The homey, wooden interiors are lit with soft lamps and a flickering fireplace in the back corner. Everywhere he looked were students sunken into velvet-covered chairs, chatting with ease while they sipped from disposable cups hand-stamped with neon pink fish logos. Yuuta felt like he'd just stepped into a freaking amusement park.
Genuinely misty, he walks up to the counter and pulls out his freshly minted student card. He’s staring up at the menu like a kid in a candy store when he hears fingernails tapping impatiently at the counter. He looks down to meet the gaze of a small boy with the whitest blonde hair he’s ever seen and a dark navy face mask.
“Purple,” he blurts. The boy, unamused, blinks at him. Twice, three times. “Your eyes, I mean- are they purple? I’ve never seen anything like that, are they real?”
Instead of answering, the boy swiftly and deliberately looks at the line forming behind him before flashing back to Yuuta. The gesture, which could only be a request for Yuuta to hurry it up, is so sharp and practiced it could be mistaken choreography. Yuuta is so entranced that he nearly forgets what he’s doing.
“Sorry- that was so rude of me. I just- I’ll- can I get a plain latte?” he stammers, trying to get himself together. A bored expression on his face, the boy takes the end of a sharpie and points to three different sized cups, tapping on each of them individually. It takes Yuuta a painfully long time to figure out his meaning. “Oh, what size? Um… a medium, I guess?”
The boy swiftly picks up a pink-emblemed cup and poises his sharpie against the bottom of the cup, pausing briefly to look up at Yuuta’s face before scribbling something in. He hands it to a girl with an edgy green ponytail and scans Yuuta’s student ID wordlessly before motioning him along. Yuuta’s head spins, but his feet move to the pick up window.
He doesn’t have to wait long. Even though the place is packed, the kids behind the counter clearly had everything down to a science. The girl who was handed his cup moves in such a quick flurry, Yuuta can’t even keep sight of her. The drink is finished in what must be record time.
“Coffee for-“ she makes a face and squints at the bottom of the cup before looking up and scanning the room. Her eyes finally land on Yuuta and she addresses him through tight lips. “Medium latte, yeah?”
“That’s me!” Yuuta tells her, eagerly accepting the cup with both hands. She turns her back to him cooly, not sparing him as much as an extra second. There’s an uneasy look on her face, but he ignores it, opting to take a long drag of his coffee instead.
The piping hot liquid burns the inside of his mouth and all the way down his throat, but Yuuta doesn’t care- he’d inject it into his veins if could. It takes everything in him not to chug it right there and then. He manages to get out the door with it, but the rich, smokey espresso drink really stands no chance. The caffeine is just starting to hit him, euphoric and fuzzy, when he remembers to check the name at the bottom of the cup. How had the barista girl figured out who he was? He nearly chokes on his last sip when he finds his answer.
In a small, neat script reads the phrase: dark circles.
Oh, Yuuta realizes with a start, yikes. Maybe he’d gotten a little less sleep last night than he’d thought. Well, there wasn’t much he could do about that. At least the boy behind the register had noticed something about him. He’d take that as a small win in the war that was his new addiction- King Salmon Coffee and the mysterious purple-eyed boy behind its register.
He comes back every single day for two weeks straight, even when the weekend team comes in and the lines are practically out the door- it’s worth it. It’s only on his second round of Sundays that he realizes with a startle that that cashier actually talks to him. Yuuta finds it oddly disturbing, despite the fact that it’s the norm. When the perky girl with blonde pigtails smiles at him and asks his order, tacking on some weird pet name at the end, he genuinely flinches. He misses purple-eyes and his seemingly unwavering no-nonsense interactions.
So Yuuta embarks on a mission. It’s happening without his permission- the antics start before he’s even aware of his new goal: he wants to talk to the cute weekday cashier.
On day 17, a Monday, he purposefully goes in a little later than normal. The morning crowd has all but dispersed so he can ask a few random, thoughtless questions without being in the way. The cashier fields the questions effortlessly, pointing to random items and words on the menu with complete confidence and specificity. Eventually, he gets tired of the game and starts making the latte Yuuta hasn’t even ordered yet himself, letting the green haired girl take over the register while he listens to Yuuta drabble. It’s even better than his day 1 drink. If this guy was that good at making coffee, why were they letting him handle the ordering?
Yuuta has the rest of the afternoon off, so he decides to settle in and lurk for a little while. He wills himself not to look at the cashier, he doesn’t want to be creepy after all, but he does sit close enough to listen as he flips through an exercise book. He doesn’t learn much, but he does learn that Yuuta certainly isn’t getting any kind of special treatment- the boy hadn’t spoken so much as a word to anyone in more than an hour.
There’s something comforting about it, listening to people talk around him as they’re forced to work around his silence. He owns it so completely, no matter who comes in. Yuuta has fun imagining his reactions as people ask stupid and thoughtless questions. It’s practically lulled him to sleep by the time closing is about to come around, when a gruff old man comes in and starts ordering.
“I’m sorry,” he jeers loudly, in a tone that is not apologetic at all. “Can’t you just talk? What are you, mute?”
And just like that, Yuuta is on his feet. His shoulders and spine have stretched out to their full extent, ready to hop into action. He wasn’t going to sit here and listen to the sweet checkout boy be ridiculed- already Yuuta knew he didn’t deserve that.
As it turns out though, Yuuta needn’t have bothered getting worked up. Before he can even gauge if he needs to step in, green-haired girl has jumped to the register and all but used herself as a human shield. By the snarl on her face, Yuuta can tell she is highly capable of ending this fight on her own.
“And what are you, stupid?” she sneers, face deadly serious. “We’re done brewing for the day. We ran out of everything. Get out.”
Yuuta is too distracted to appreciate the effort. He’s too busy staring at the cashier’s face- his near translucent skin had flushed up around the edges of his mask, red and splotchy like a water-color sunset. Yuuta doesn’t realize he’s staring until he notices purple eyes boring back into his. He makes an active effort to close his agape mouth, clearing his throat and nodding curtly. If the other boy has a response, Yuuta doesn’t see it. He’s too embarrassed by his obvious overreaction- clearly the boy had no need for Yuuta’s brutish show of protection. He picks up his book and slings his guitar bag over his back, beelining out of the shop without a second look.
He stays away for what feels like the longest week of his life. Cafeteria coffee is even worse than he remembered, instant even less palatable than that. But when he finally sheepishly wanders in, he swears he sees something flicker in the cashier’s eyes. And his latte doesn’t say dark circles anymore. He’s been promoted to Sleepy Guitar Guy.
Ridiculously, it makes his heart sing.