Chapter Text
Kim Sunoo is, by all means, no idiot.
Sure, he never pursued further education after graduating from high school. Sure, he graduated with just okay class and a half-assed grade in the suneung. But the truth is—and that’s what a lot of people still don’t realise—that he doesn’t need a bachelor’s degree, a diploma or any kind of tertiary education to be happy.
Sometimes, happiness comes in the shape of wonky cupcakes, bad coffee art and a cozy little café tucked away at the corner of two small streets that he opened with his two best friends.
That, however, doesn’t mean that he likes having his morning ruined by the opening shift.
Not that he ever had a different shift. Jay doesn’t bother hiring more employees, and Jungwon is so busy baking all of their tasty treats that he doesn’t have the time to. Sunoo, too, is simply too lazy to go through the process of hiring more employees.
He doesn’t mind it, though. After almost four years of this torture, he only looks a little dead when they open.
“You look like shit,” Jungwon points out as he arranges their freshly prepared breakfast menu in the countertop case display, not even sparing a glance over his shoulder when Sunoo gasps in offense.
Okay, rude.
His younger friend doesn’t look much better this morning. It’s been a rough night for him, coming up with a new seasonal special and it shows in the dark rings under his eyes and the way his hair sticks up wildly. He kind of looks like a dandelion.
“Thanks,” Sunoo deadpans and rolls his eyes, “So do you.”
Jungwon just shrugs listlessly and tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes. His brain is slow this early in the morning, and he doesn’t even flinch when Sunoo’s hand pats him on the head to smooth out some of his hair.
It will be a terrible, stressful morning. Sunoo can smell it. Their little café is close to a university campus and some offices, and if there’s two groups of people that need coffee more than people with an opening shift do, it’s office workers and uni students. Today, more than ever. Summer break is over, and everyone is back in the busy city from their vacations. Bad planners arrived yesterday night, having had little to no time to properly come to rest.
By the time the first customer trudges in, Sunoo can feel his brain slowly coming to a wake. He’s almost ready to follow the ridiculous order of a double shot salted caramel mocha latte with whipped cream, seven shots of caramel, two sugars, a little bit of milk, two pumps of vanilla syrup and a lot of caramel drizzle on top.
He glances at the clock above the door. It’s barely 7 am in the morning.
What a loser, Sunoo thinks to himself and tries his best to keep his face neutral while he prepares this so-called coffee. It resembles a drink monstrosity more than it does a real drink and, even though he’s already had his morning cup of hazelnut latte, Sunoo wants to kill himself.
And since Jay still isn’t here, that fucker, there’s nobody to stop him.
Well, except for Jungwon maybe. But with his clumsiness, he’s more likely to accidentally push Sunoo off a roof instead of pulling him up one. It’s a wonder he hasn’t burnt down their kitchen yet with his baking experiments.
“Oh, do you still have those blueberry muffins?” the guy asks him. Unfortunately for him, Sunoo has to deny.
“They were last week’s special offer,” he explains as patiently as he can. They always run into trouble like this with their special offers. People apparently can’t read their chalkboard sign and the column headlined by the words ‘Weekly Specials’ in big, fat letters.
Thankfully, this customer also decides that it’s too early to cause a fuss and just shrugs his shoulders before he taps his phone to pay and leaves.
Success.
This is Sunoo’s first win of the day. Most likely, it will also be his last. Nobody ever wins the war when working in customer service. Sunoo is but a mere pawn that will soon have to sacrifice himself in the name of profit.
“Have a nice day!” he chirps happily after a man as the bell rings when he opens the door to leave. And then, it rings again. And again. And again. And again.
The bell only stops ringing because the door is now perpetually open, a sudden flood of customers spilling into the café and lining up at the counter. Where the fuck is Jay when you need him.
Sunoo is all alone for the morning rush even though he was only supposed to open by himself! And if he asks Jungwon to get out of the kitchen and help him out, he’ll just laugh in his face and tell him to shove it. He can already imagine him saying ‘I was hired for the kitchen, I’m staying in the kitchen’ with a smug grin.
It’s not like Sunoo necessarily needs the help to run the counter. He can work alone just fine, balancing between taking more orders and making as many of them at the same time as he can but a little support would be greatly appreciated.
Usually, he tries to keep count how many orders he manages per rush. It tends to fluctuate between twenty and fifty, but today, he doesn’t have the mind for it.
Caramel macchiato and a breakfast sandwich with egg and ham, iced americano with three extra shots of espresso, three vanilla lattes, one with extra whipped cream, one with oat milk, whatever the fuck a quad shot decaf dirty chai latte is, no foam cappuccino and a breakfast bagel with salmon, two iced americanos, one with three scoops of strawberry milkshake—
and finally, at last, after almost fourty-three minutes of coffee torture and breakfast foods, an iced white chocolate latte with extra white chocolate, 6 shots of espresso, 12 pumps of simple syrup, 12 pumps of vanilla syrup, 6 pumps of caramel sauce, caramel drizzle, and whipped cream.
Yeah. Yeah, what the fuck.
At last, the final customer of this wave leaves. The sound of the bell above the door ringing signals Sunoo that he's survived yet another battle and that it's finally time to collapse behind the counter with a deep sigh and slam his head into the wood. Or lick his wounds (read: his crumbling sanity). Whatever makes him feel better.
He's just about to slam his head against the counter, figuring it's the best solution for his current problem, when the bell jingles and announces the arrival of yet another customer.
“Jay-hyung!”
Even better yet. It's Sunoo’s saviour, his brother in battle, the only person in this shop that will actually help him survive. His Jay-hyung!
“Sorry,” he grumbles, shuffling into the shop while still running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it, “I overslept. My bed was too comfortable.”
Which is a shit excuse. Sunoo’s bed is even more comfortable and he accidentally spent the whole night playing a video game. If anybody needed more sleep, it was him, and not the guy who set up a cot in the room in the back to take naps whenever he wants to or falls asleep standing. Jay gets enough sleep. It might be his cat attributes that add to his already excessive human need for proper rest but still!
“You left me to fend for myself,” Sunoo accuses him, deadpan. Jay raises his gaze to hold his eye contact, not backing down from his halfhearted glare. No, even worse. That asshole laughs. “Don’t laugh! It’s not funny! I had to make an iced white chocolate latte with extra white chocolate, six shots of espresso, twelve pumps of simple syrup, twelve pumps of vanilla syrup, six pumps of caramel sauce, caramel drizzle, and whipped cream! It’s barely 8:30 am!”
Jay blinks at him owlishly as he rattles down the order, clearly still in the process of waking up and trying to keep up with Sunoo’s flying tongue. It might be good that he wasn’t there to take the order because he surely would’ve messed it up.
“Oh,” he says after a few moments of silence, “You wanna try one?”
“Heck yeah, I wanna try one!” Sunoo spits out his jealousy like venom and ushers Jay to the room in the back so he can put on an apron and get to work.
If there’s one thing that’s nice about working at a cáfe where the owner also happens to be his best friend, it’s the free drinks. Jungwon and Sunoo can take anything they want as long as they make it in moderation and ask Jay. Or, much more preferable, as long as Jay’s the one making it.
(That one wasn’t one of his conditions. Sunoo and Jungwon just make him.)
“Jungwon!” Jay calls out, sticking his head into the small kitchen to talk to their cook better. Sunoo peers over his shoulder to take a peek as well.
Jungwon is, as always, having the best morning of his life in the kitchen. Since there’s no customers to attend back there, he’s got his earbuds in and jamming along to a song blasting from them at an ear shattering volume while he waits for their employee breakfast to finish baking. His apron is covered in flour, powdered sugar and different kinds of jams, having wiped his hands clean there. From the smell of it, he’s making cheesy baked bagels for them to spread some cranberry jam and cream cheese on top. Sunoo’s favourite.
Jay taps his fingers on the door as he waits for Jungwon to notice him. He didn’t hear him over his music but at least moving around that, at one point, he should turn his head enough to spot Jay in the corner of his eyes.
And he eventually does, jumping back with a squeak and his hands thrown into the air.
“Oh my god!” he gasps and clutches his chest as if he’s anywhere near the age where heart attacks would be plausible. His earbuds fall out of his ears and drop to the floor. “Why didn’t you say something?!”
“I did,” Jay points out with a fond chuckle and shakes his head, “Are you putting music on louder so I have to yell?”
“You already yell enough,” Jungwon huffs and bends down to pick up his earbuds, stuffing them into the pockets of his apron as he blows a stray strand of hair out of his face. “What’s up? I’m in the middle of breakfast.”
“You wanna try the insane order Sunoo had to make?” Jay asks him, already closing the door as Jungwon happily agrees.
He gets straight to work, rolling up his sleeves and bumping his hip against Sunoo’s to move him away from the counter. Sunoo obliges with a big smile stretching his mouth and steps aside so that Jay can move freely as he whips up their drink monstrosities with ease.
Thankfully, the next wave doesn’t come until lunch time, and with whatever drink Jay conjured up for them gave them one hell of a sugar boost. Jungwon is basically vibrating out of his skin, jumping around the kitchen and flying around the counters as he preps all of their foods in half the time it usually takes. Jay is also a little jittery and Sunoo has never seen him with trembling hands.
Sunoo himself isn’t faring much better.
He’s all over the place, wiping counters and tables twice, floating through the shop as he cleans up the empty dishes, spilling coffee and laughing at everything. None of them do well with sugar, even with their tendency to snack a lot, so it’s an exceptional state they find themselves in.
That’s why the jingle of the doorbell after the worst of their lunch wave gives him such a whiplash.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s not the bell.
Maybe it’s the man that steps inside, dressed casually like every other college student that walks in. Baggy, grey washed jeans, a basic white shirt, a hooded jacket under a, what seems to be, a vintage leather jacket, black specs and a New York Yankees cap. But there’s one thing that makes him stand out.
This man is incredibly handsome. Model level. Actor level. Idol level. You get the gist.
Birthmarks speckle his face like the chocolate chips on their cookies. His skin is snow white, almost blending into the white of his shirt if he wasn’t flushed a subtle tone of pink. He has a sharp face and yet, contrasting soft features only further emphasised by his puffed up, round cheeks as he steps inside and checks their menu, deep in thought.
“Sunghoon,” Jay chuckles fondly, “You know our menu.”
That would imply that he’s a regular. Jay knows his name, this ‘Sunghoon’ guy knows the menu. And yet, Sunoo has never seen him before.
“I know what suggestions I made,” Sunghoon counters. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, huffing and puffing, and pouts at Jay, ignoring Sunoo next to him, “And you still don’t have it.”
“Well, we don’t get a lot of bunny shifters,” Jay tries to reason with him. Sunoo is only half listening to their bickering, too focused on letting his eyes wander over this gorgeous man on the other side of the counter. “We’d throw half of a cake out every few hours or the slices won’t be fresh anymore.”
His fingers are long but slender and his wrists aren’t too skinny. The curve of his nails is almost elegant, manicured. It must be a manicure. Sunoo doesn’t know a single man whose nails look this good.
“You could still make it!” Sunghoon whines and stomps his foot in a childish tantrum before he realises that acting cute doesn’t work on Jay and opts to flutter his eyelashes at him pleadingly. He even clasps his hands together and tries to smile coyly. “For me? There are basically no bakeries or cafés selling it. I’ll be your most loyal customer!”
“You’d also be our only customer buying it,” Jay deadpans and points at the board, “Now order. You’re holding up the line.”
Jay is so mean. There’s no line behind Sunghoon’s broad back, and if it was Sunoo manning the cash counter, he wouldn’t hurry him. Sunghoon is very pleasant to look at. He could stand there for a little longer.
“Not even a small one?” Sunghoon tries again, only to be shot down by a single, warning look from Jay.
“Would you eat half of that ‘small’ cake?” Jay asks him. His tone indicates that it’s a rhetorical question, and yet, Sunghoon still replies.
“I’m on a diet,” he sulks.
A diet! For a man this handsome? Sunoo almost scoffs at that, folding a lot faster than Jay does.
“Iced?” he offers with a sigh instead, seemingly having memorised Sunghoon’s go-to order already even though Sunoo’s sure that he’s never been here before. He would know had Sunghoon been here before. A face like that isn’t easy to forget.
“Yes please,” Sunghoon murmurs softly and hangs his head low in defeat.
That just won’t do. Sunoo will have to ask Jungwon to make next week’s special carrot cake.
The moment Jay steps aside to make whatever Sunghoon’s order is that he just telepathically told him, Sunoo hops forward to the counter. He slams his elbows onto the flat wooden surface and rests his head on the back of his interlaced hands, staring up at Sunghoon.
It’s not often that Sunoo fnds himself in awe of people. He appreciates all things beautiful, clothes, views, atmospheres, art of all sorts. But people are just… people.
Sunghoon is different. Sunoo wants to know just how different.
“How do you know Jay-hyung?” he tries to start up a conversation, startling the poor man who was previously busy with watching Jay make his drink. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
“Oh, I, uh,” he stammers quietly. Sunoo almost giggles when his soft cheeks turn a soft hue of pink. And then, he almost reaches for his phone to call an ambulance when Sunghoon’s flush doesn’t stop deepening, spreading. When Sunghoon speaks again, it’s quiet. Sheepish. Nervous. “We, uhm, we met at… cram school. We’re… friends.”
Sunoo perks up at that.
Jay only went to a different cram school than Sunoo in middle school. That means they’re old friends, and yet, Sunoo has never met this man before. Not only that, but Sunghoon also hesitated at the word ‘friends’. Either, Jay kept him hidden from Sunoo for so long by accident… or he doesn’t want to let him know just how big his roster of maybe-maybe-not boyfriends really is.
“Sunghoon, was it?” Sunoo feigns ignorance, blinking up at him as harmlessly as possible. Still, he can’t bite back the smile at how the other man jumps a little when Sunoo says his name, and he can’t keep his tail and ears in anymore. “Let’s be friends, too!”
Sunghoon straightens his back and blinks at him, alarmed. His wide-eyed gaze, however, isn’t focused on Sunoo’s friendly smile. It flickers from the top of his head where he can feel his ears twitch to his side, past his hip. That’s where his tail nervously swishes behind him. He won’t say no to a friendship… right?
Sunoo waits for a few more seconds before he’s rudely pushed to the side by Jay bumping his hip against his side.
“One iced vanilla latte with two extra vanilla shots,” Jay calls out the order in a robotic voice and pushes the plastic cup to the other side of the counter, closer to Sunghoon. “That’ll be 2,500 won please.”
Rude! Sunoo was in the middle of planting the seed for a blossoming friendship here!
“By the way, Sunoo,” Jay twists his neck to give Sunoo a Look™ over his shoulder, “He’s my age. That’s your hyung. Now put your ears and tail away, you’re scaring him.”
Sunoo complies but makes his dissatisfaction known by mimicking Sunghoon’s sulky look and pushes his bottom lip out into a trembling pout. Jay holds his gaze for a few seconds longer before he gives up with a heavy sigh and turns his head again—
just in time to watch Sunghoon slip out of the café without paying.
“Hey! Park Sunghoon!”
And just like that, Sunghoon made a fool of Jay and Sunoo.