#i can't believe i just wrote 2k of this garbage what th e fuck

[xmhs]

2. junshua

junshua + “it reminded me of you.”

There’s something oddly comforting about the absolute chaos of the morning rush.  Joshua remembers describing the rush as anything but comforting on the very first morning shift he ever got scheduled for, but after working for so many years at the small coffee shop, the absolute madness that occurs within the four walls of the shop between the approximate hours of 5:30 am to 8:30 am has become a familiar constant in his life.

Now when he looks up at the display screen hanging over the espresso machines and sees it full with seemingly endless list of orders, a weird sort of calm comes over him rather than the full blown panic that used to.  He moves behind the bar with practice, hands moving to grab shots of espresso or open up a new carton of milk almost without him telling them what to do.  Joshua’s been told he’s good at his job.  Not just because he can turn out three orders of skinny lattes in a stupid quick amount of time, but because no matter how many drinks he has going at one time or how much his feet ache or how much he wishes for even a ten second break in the line of customers to just breathe, no matter what, he always offers the customer a smile.

It always comes naturally to him, as he slides a finished drink across the pick-up counter, calling out the order for the name displayed on the screen to his left.  As the espresso machine hums as it starts up another round of shots, as the timer on the coffee beeps loudly in the background letting him now it’s expired and another batch needs to be prepped, as Chan yells something at him from the register about changing the dark chocolate mocha for a Jeonghan to a white chocolate mocha, Joshua offers a warm smile to the man who reaches for his drink on the counter.  “Have a good day,” he says, making sure to make eye contact with the man, who blinks and returns the smile hesitantly, before turning back around and diving back into the chaos.

It’s closer to 9 today when Joshua slides a peppermint mocha across the counter to a small, white-haired lady and turns around to see the display screen empty of new orders to complete.  He lets out a relieved sigh and picks up a nearby rag to start to clean up his mess of a bar space.

“Josh, I’m going to take these out back.”  He glances up at Chan as the boy finishes tying up a second overflowing bag of trash before picking both up, one in each hand.

“Okay, thanks,” he responds with a grateful smile and automatically moves away from the bar to cover the registers.  Chan is another reason why Joshua is able to get through morning rushes so breezily; the boy was incredibly proactive about taking care of things that Joshua never had to remind him like he sometimes had to with other employees he’s had to work with in the past.  Joshua runs a clean rag over the counter by the register as he waits for Chan to get back, straightening up when a customer approaches.

The man has a warm, familiar smile and Joshua racks his brain for a name to match his face.

“Hi,” the man says, his voice coming out softer than expected.  He’s holding a paper cup in his hands, popping the cap on and off.  He must have come in during the rush, then.  “A large dark roast, please.  You can just put it in this.”

“Sure,” Joshua says and since there’s no one in line behind him, he takes the cup from the man and turns away to fill it up right away.

“You know,” he says over his shoulder to the man.  “If you order an in-house mug next time, the refills for plain coffee are free.”

“Yeah, I know,” the man says, accepting the cup back from Joshua with a smile, before darting his eyes away almost sheepishly.  “Uh, I like to, um, draw on the cups, so…”

Joshua’s fingers pause over the register screen in front of him and he looks over at the cup in the man’s hands.  The sides were covered in black ink, swirling and looping designs covering over half of the cup’s surface.  He looks back up at the man’s face, his heart unexpectedly stuttering at the sheepish grin there.  He realizes a second too late that he’s been staring and quickly rips his eyes back to the screen in front of him, hoping the heat searing across his cheeks wasn’t too noticeable to the man.

“Can I get a name for the order?” he asks, looking up when the man doesn’t respond immediately.  He’s grinning now and Joshua’s heart misses a beat once more.

“Even though I’m standing right here?” the man asks teasingly and Joshua’s cheeks feel like they’re being set aflame.

“Ah, sorry, habit,” Joshua laughs past the sting of embarrassment in his chest.  It’s quickly soothed when the man laughs as well, a warm and childish sound that makes the corners of Joshua’s lips curl even more.  He hands Joshua his card to pay for the coffee, the tips of his fingers brushing against Joshua’s own.

“It’s Junhui, by the way,” the man says, taking his card back with a unfairly charming smile.  “Thank you for the coffee, Joshua.”

Junhui comes up three more times to get a refill on his coffee and each time Joshua tells Chan not to charge him for it, saying that the coffee is about to expire and is going to be dumped out anyway (even when it still has half an hour left until expiry) or because he keeps reusing the same cup over and over again and should therefore be repaid by saving the planet with complementary coffee.

Junhui laughs as he reluctantly puts his card back into his wallet once again, smiling over at the bar where Joshua was standing as Chan goes to fill up his cup once more.  Joshua couldn’t help but notice that the outside of the cup was now completely filled with the black ink of Junhui’s drawings and he wishes he were the one filling it up so that he could look closely at the designs.

“Are you always this generous to first-time customers?” Junhui says to him, causing Joshua to tear his eyes away from the cup in Chan’s hand to meet his eyes.

“Of course,” he says, smiling.  “Hopefully it brings them back a second time.”

And it does, as well as a third time, and then a fourth, and soon Joshua loses count the number of times the bell overhead the shops’s door chimes brightly and Joshua’s eyes stray over to the noise to see Junhui’s head of black hair and handsome smile already shining in his direction.  Junhui’s learned since the first day to avoid the rush, or at least come in near the tail end so that he has time to talk to Joshua as he gets his first cup of coffee, the paper cup he takes a hold of a blank canvas waiting to be marked.

“What’re you going to draw today?” Joshua asks, glancing over at Junhui as he wipes down the outside of an espresso machine.

“I don’t know yet,” he answers, his usual response over the weeks that Joshua had started to ask him, a glimmer in his eye and smile playing at his lips.  “Whatever captures my attention.”

Today is particularly slow for no reason.  It’s a nice day out, not raining or overbearingly hot, both weather extremes tending to draw crowds of people in for coffee, and only a half dozen customers litter the chair and stools placed inside the shop.  The rush itself hadn’t even been that bad, but seeing as Chan called in sick last night and the only replacement they had been able to get was a new kid named Vernon that Joshua hadn’t worked with before, it had been a bit of a struggle to get through the rush.

But now getting through it, Joshua finds himself bored.  The counters and machines have been wiped down twice already, he took out the trash earlier (since Vernon had made no move to), and he already did all the dishes that were to be done.  He glances over at Vernon, not surprised to find the other leaning up against the counter, staring down at his phone and tapping away at it so quickly that Joshua wonders how his brain can follow his fingers when they move like that.  After a moment, Joshua picks up a nearby rag and walks out of the bar area. Vernon doesn’t even lift his eyes from the tiny screen when Joshua tells him he’s going to wipe down the tables in front.

Junhui always sits a table in one of the corners of the shop, his back to the shop door, his bag occupying the wooden chair across from him.  He has laptop and mess of papers spread out across the table and for once it looks like he’s actually doing work, typing away at the laptop, sometimes stopping to glance down at a note-filled piece of paper on his right.  His cup of coffee sits on a stack of papers, black lines and swirls covering its surface.  Joshua picks up the cup as he nears Junhui’s table, not surprised to find it empty, and turns it in his hand to look at the drawings.

“Want a refill?” Joshua asks.  Junhui’s head snaps up to him, eyes darting between the cup in Joshua’s hand and Joshua himself.  A smile tugs at his lips and he straightens in his seat, shoulders dropping from where they had been hunched up by his ears.

“Always,” he says.  “Thanks.”

Joshua smiles back, but hesitates before moving away.  “Is this a lily?”

Junhui blinks at him, not understanding, until Joshua turns the cup towards him, showing him the elegant, swooping petals that covered almost a third of the cup already.  There was nothing else draw besides that, which Joshua thought was a little strange.  Usually Junhui drew a dozen different illustrations on each cup.

“It is,” Junhui says with a soft smile, seeming to brace himself before continuing.  “I got inspired.  It reminded me of you.”

He then drops his gaze back to his laptop, completely absorbed in whatever was displayed on the screen there.  Joshua stands there for a moment, stunned, staring down at the side of Junhui’s head.  The tips of his tan ears are a touch pinker than normal, Joshua thinks, before his feet move back towards the bar automatically.  Vernon’s eyes are still glued to his phone as Joshua reaches behind him to grab a pen from the counter he’s leaning on.  He looks up then, to see Joshua holding the cup in his left hand, tip of the pen in his right hovering over a blank surface of the cup.

“No way,” Vernon laughs as Joshua writes, trying his best to keep his hands from shaking too much.  “You’re really doing the whole ‘writing your number on his cup’ cliche?”

Joshua glances at him out of the corner of his eye.  “Yeah, why?”

Vernon just laughs again, shaking his head as he turns back to his phone.  Joshua frowns, turning back to his cup and at the black numbers staring up at him against the white cup.  They look out of place, harsh and strange placed right under a swooping curve of one of the lily’s petals.  Joshua’s stomach hits the floor.  “Is it really that bad?”

“Is what really that bad?” a voice asks behind him and Joshua turns so quick he almost drops the pen and cup.  Junhui blinks at him, a little startled by Joshua’s reaction.  His eyes drop to Joshua’s hands and he smiles.  “Did you draw something?”

Joshua stutters, heart racing into double time like the very first time he took six shots of espresso straight on a stupid dare.  “No, I-here, let me get you another cup.”

Before he can reach past Vernon for one, the boy plucks the cup from his hands and turns away to fill it with coffee.  Joshua watches with an impeding sense of humiliation as Vernon places it on the counter in front of Junhui, twisting the cup until Joshua’s number was facing him.  The three stand there for a moment, none of them saying anything, Junhui staring at the cup in front of him, pink flooding the skin of his cheeks and a smile threatening to split his face in two.  Just as he lifts his head towards Joshua, Vernon clears his throat loudly, causing both Junhui and Joshua to look to him.

“Not to ruin this moment or whatever,” he says with a not-so-genuine apologetic smile.  “But that’ll be $1.81 for the coffee, sir.”