Chapter Text
Of course it must have happened in a café. Things like that always happened in cafés as all the romantic-comedy-Christmas-romances always happened.
Except it didn't really proceed as you would think.
The café was pretty. Small, adorable and with a particularly cute owner. He always stood behind the counter, sometimes hiding from people's interested looks when he flipped switches and turned knobs on his gigantic coffee machine to make a perfect espresso for his various hot drinks. People liked watching him work, because not only was he pretty but also skilled in his job and each perfected move was performed with practised ease of a professional barista. Bottles of various sizes, shapes and shades used for keeping syrups and the likes were his background and fitted nicely as they towered behind his back.
The clientele differed - various people of all ages, genders and ethnicities visited his little café but only some would come back. Most of those who would, were handsome hipster boys in skinny jeans, wearing glasses that were just for a show with beanies covering their messily styled hair, or groups of girls raging from pretty to plain wearing their high school uniforms and bringing bags full of books that usually ended up forgotten over the friendly chatter or when the cute barista brought them their coffee and the groups ended up giggling and whispering with confidentiality and the air of mystery that always surrounded girls spilling secrets to each other. But those guys and girls rarely paid any attention to his coffee and were usually enchanted by the pretty owner from the moment they spotted him through the windows of the café when he was working. He had a few regulars, as you always would have after running a café for some time and managing not to go bankrupt throughout that time. But mostly there came tourists that once they visited they never returned.
The café was well-known, and for that situations two reasons were a cause. Firstly, the barista was adorable, so those high school girls and hipster boys were all over him and they usually brought their friends along. The second reason, just as important as the first one, but resulting in a popularity among a slightly different clientele that consisted of older hipsters with fancily cut beards, dragging along equally well-groomed girlfriends, was the menu of his little café. Starting from plain, but very good coffee and ending at amazingly tasty pastries, pies and cupcakes. For those sweet beauties was responsible this shy, Chinese guy who worked early in the mornings and left around noon after he was done with baking for the day.
The business was going well. Not exceptionally, because for that you needed to own a huge chain of cafés ("Like Starbucks," the owner thought to himself sometimes, shivering a little from an overwhelming contempt towards this café company that he would rather call 'expensive as hell sanctuary of fake cool kids' company) or be featured on the top of several rankings of the best cafés according to various magazines or online journals. Being mentioned in the conversations of popular contemporary artists who were going to all those parties and were like a free advertisement and a reward for your hard work also helped in this business.
Barista's little café was featured on one of the rankings, which in itself was a thing to take pride in. Yet, it was for the best interior design of the café, not for the coffee. And it wasn't even the first place, but the sixth, what was the main reason behind the cute owner's constant melancholic mood. The feature helped the café to gain some popularity nevertheless, so he wasn't complaining most of the time. People always wanted to see the popular things to have something to talk about with their friends who did the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. But his clientele didn't consist of rude and obnoxious douchebags who only talked about popular things to gain some sort of social status among their so called "friends". Well, not most of the time. Unless they chose this perfect, little coffee-smelling sanctuary to break up with their no-longer-loved one.
Around this time of year, though, most people didn't have the guts to actually upset anybody this severely, so every couple sitting in the café was laughing, drinking hot chocolate with a dash of cinnamon and a candy cane melting in the mug as they were cutely holding hands in a seemingly romantic and affectionate fashion. The only time that could possibly make all the people pretend to be happy was Christmas. Not all the people were lying, though, or at least he hoped to be so. Only some couples - married or not - were keeping up this façade of Christmas spirit. The rest of the crowd visiting was truly cheerful. If they weren't they would usually become happier after being served something out of the menu of the little café or after being gifted with a smile from the owner. Only this one lanky kid who always sat in the corner, eating various sweets seemed forever grumpy due to being forever single - or maybe it just looked like that. But the story of this awkward but handsome young man should be left for another time or at least be told later in the story, because as every storyteller will surely tell you, the chronology of the events is important. And the lanky kid didn't really change his attitude until much later. The thing that changed the order of the small café, while still not changing the attitude of the kid, was one particular visit of a pretty boy with an equally pretty girl.
They entered through the front door - as everybody had to enter when their only other option was not to enter at all - and sat at the table near the window. It was a sort of a little, lonely island, where you sat on a little podium after climbing up three little steps.
The couple matched well - the girl with dark, long and probably impossibly soft locks sat across the guy with raven-black hair styled a bit messily - but it was an orderly mess which you could obtain only through a visit in a fashionable, high-end hair salon or thanks to daily practice. It was this sex hair that nobody ever got in the morning after. They were a good sight. The girl was wearing a warm sweater paired with short, grey plaid skirt and cute thighs with little rabbits printed on them. Adorable, but he never really understood how was it possible not to freeze to death with just this thin layer of cloth separating skin of skinny legs from the scalding-cold wind of snowless Christmas. It crossed his mind that he maybe should try it - just for the sake of research and experience - but it quickly faded when his attention shifted towards the guy. He was girly. But also really handsome. When he came in, wearing a beanie paired with glasses in thick frames, it seemed he will most likely be a regular, everyday hipster but he proved otherwise when he had the decency to take off the atrocious, grey headwear in the presence of his pretty girlfriend. Their clothes matched well. Actually, their entire looks were made to match perfectly and the owner envied them for having a person who would blend with them so well. The guy's hoodie was the colour of the girl's skirt, his very tight pants matched the details of her sweater and both their hair was black and styled to perfection.
To put it shortly they were dreamy. Like a couple of famous celebrities, really. But their looks didn't really ring a bell and considering their lack of reluctance to show their faces in public, they probably were regular, plain human beings. Just exceptionally good-looking.
They quickly skimmed through the menu and after a moment the guy got up from his seat, making his way towards the counter.
"Hi. Hi there," he started, smiling brightly, his cheeks tinted pink from the coldness of a winter wind.
"What can I get you?" the owner beamed and mentally slapped himself three times in the face while trying to remind himself that he shouldn't fall for the consumers. Firstly, because they were his consumers, (for some higher entity's sake!), and that would be totally unethical. Because no flirting at the workplace. Or something like that. And secondly, because the said consumer was very much taken. What wasn't a surprise at all with a face this pretty, good fashion sense and an angelic smile. 'Angelic smile, huh?' he thought and delivered one more mental slap to his left cheek. Fortunately, the customer had also a perfect sense of timing making sure to break his train of thought, that was leading him into weird corners of his mind.
"Um... What's your specialty? I mean coffee, of course"
'Of course,' he thought and smiled at the handsome customer who seemed very alert and ready to listen to every word of the owner who was about to speak."Well... I don't know if you can call that a specialty... Because we don't have a specialty as such," he hurried with the explanation. "But my personal favourite is dark roasted, plain, black coffee. It's got intensive taste, so I'm not sure you'll like it..." he looked at the delicate features of the customer. Guys like this usually didn't like his favourites when it came to coffee. "But most of our customers choose soy latte with cookie syrup, whipped cream and white chocolate sprinkles. It's sweet and milky. I think you might like it."
He smiled. The wave of terror washed over him only when he saw the customer's lips turned into a thin line and his eyes changed into little pits of hellfire and pure contempt.
"The first one sounds better, thanks. I live for strong coffee," he said through gritted teeth and the owner just knew he fucked up. Not like he had any chance before, but he would very much prefer to be on good terms with his customers. Especially the pretty ones.
"Sure. And for your... um... companion?" he asked nevertheless, because you need to be nice to your customers, no matter what happens. Even if they steal (your heart) you should be as polite as possible. Ask them 'Can you please put that away, my mom gave it to me and it has sentimental value' or 'Can you please pay me, because without your money I will have to close my little coffee shop and live on the streets.'
"I think she'll like this sweet cookie-chocolate-coffee thing or something. Wait." He turned around and called to his supposedly-girlfriend "Baby, how do cookies, whipped cream and white chocolate on soy sound to you?" and he smiled.
The girl grumbled looking up from her phone, "I told you to choose something for me. It's fine," she stopped for a second and looked at the guy. "And I told you not to call me 'baby'. I'm not five anymore, you know?" but despite her bored tone she smiled to him. It was this pretty, honest smile which you give only to the people closest to you.
"Right, right. I love you too." He then turned to the counter and he looked at the owner. He seems less agitated than a minute ago and the corners of his mouth went up, forming a pretty smile. "So I guess you got our order?"
"Yep, definitely. Anything else? We have really good Christmas cheesecake. It has gingerbread crumble for a base," the owner said and then added conspirationaly, "But don't tell my baker that I said it. He likes to keep his recipes secret."
"No worries. I won't," his pretty smile grew wider, the signs of previous anger forgotten. "So I guess I should try the cheesecake... Okay. One slice of the special Christmas cheesecake."
"Two forks?" the barista asked hopefully.
"Nah, there's no need," and with the answer his heart dropped. Only a little, though, because it wasn't like his hopes were very high up. Not after the guy called the girl 'Baby'.
The pretty customer paid, turned back from the counter and sat down with his girlfriend with whom he immediately started chatting.
An hour and a half later they were leaving, the handsome guy smiled and waved at the barista, who waved back, almost spilling hot milk he was pouring into the cup.
Just before the door closed and the two were still talking, the owner heard the girl say, very much out of context, "Sometimes, you're the worst brother in the world, you know-".
And this time he actually spilled the milk.
"Oh," he said out loud, gaining a surprised look from the high school student waiting to pay for her latte.
He really fucked up.