Chapter Text
It’s a boring day.
It always is. Nothing extraordinary ever happens in the tea shop. A couple costumers come in, ask for some tea and some snacks, maybe sit on the green, small couches scattered across the place and leave after thirty minutes or so. One hour later the same thing happens, nothing new.
Sage is in the stockroom checking, well, the stock. New products arrived today and it’s her job to make sure everything’s in order. She didn’t want to leave Yoru alone at the counter, but he insisted it was okay. Besides, with KJ taking the day off, he was the only one who could stay here anyways.
Now he’s alone in the shop, watching the cars go by outside with his chin resting on his hand. It’s warm inside because the heat is turned on, but he can only imagine how cold it must be outside.
Not that it matters though, because he was going to spend the whole day here.
He sighs, thinking about all those employers who either fired him or turned him down before he even got a chance to try. They all said they either couldn’t allow dyed hair or piercings in the workplace, but Yoru knows it’s because they don’t like his personality. Too bad, though, ‘cause he isn’t planning on changing it anytime soon.
Sage was nice enough to give him a job here, and since they’ve known each other for a long, long time, her family approved. But, really, this is the last place he wants to be working at; he should be working in a gym or being a personal trainer, doing something he likes. Trying to figure out which tea is which and struggling to find a difference between the herbs when he can swear there isn’t any was definitely not his idea of a perfect job. But he does need the money.
“You’re thinking too much.” He hears Sage behind him. She almost hits him with the big box she’s carrying when he turns around to look at her.
“Well, there’s not much to do here besides think and die of boredom,” He replies, still watching her. “You want any help with that?”
“It’s okay, I got it,” She says, putting the box down on the counter, a deep sigh leaving her lips. “Did anyone come in, yet?”
“Nah,” Yoru rests his chin on his hand again. “It’s just me and the silly leaves.”
She chuckles. “You know they’re called herbs.”
“Whatever.”
It’s quiet now, and it’s kind of nice. Sage is softly humming to the song that is currently playing on the radio while she puts new tea packages on the shelves behind them. It’s a soft chinese melody that she’s memorized by now.
Yoru is about to sigh again and complain about something random, but is immediately cut off by the annoying noise of the bell above the front door. A tall man comes rushing inside and, following him, a white haired woman laughs loudly. Their clothes are wet and Yoru notices it's raining outside.
Sage stops what she’s doing to welcome them both with a bright smile on her face, like she always does, and Yoru hasn’t said a word yet. He notices he’s no longer slouching over the counter, and his mouth is suddenly kind of dry.
He thinks the guy is pretty handsome.
It’s no big deal though.
“Hi,” The white haired girl says in a very smooth voice, her scarf half hiding her mouth. “Uh, can we- Can we sit?”
“Yes, of course! We’ll take your order in a bit, please make yourselves comfortable.”
The girl smiles at Sage and Yoru sees her blushing a little bit before she turns around. The tall guy muttered a “thank you” and they both walked towards the back of the shop.
Sage turns to the blue-ish haired man and puts her hand on his shoulder, gently. “Can you take care of them? I still have some boxes to unpack.”
“Do I really have to?”
“It’s your job.”
He stares at her for a bit and finally rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
Yoru sighs for what feels like the 50th time today and takes out a pen and a small notebook from his pocket. He also feels the need to check on his hair – afraid the gel will suddenly stop holding it up for some reason – so he quickly rearranges it with his fingers before taking their order.
“Alright, what’s it gonna be.” He asks, already standing in front of them.
“Gee, so polite.” The girl teases and Yoru has to prevent himself from rolling his eyes. She points at the menu. “Well, I want this snack right here. Don’t know what it is but it looks tasty in the picture. Oh, and I’ll also take the Oolong tea. Never tried it before though, is it good?”
“How the hell should I know?” Yoru grunts and they both look at him with a funny expression on their faces. “Listen, I don’t drink that stuff, so I don’t know. Try it out and see for yourself, how about that?”
“Good to see such a lovely waiter in such a great mood today,” She jokes, again. “It’s refreshing.”
Yoru decides to ignore her completely.
When he turns to look at the guy, though, he seems so lost. His hands are grasping the menu as if his life depends on it and the furrowed brows complement the confused look on his face.
“What about you, tall guy?”
“Huh,” He looks up at Yoru with a lost expression before landing his eyes on the menu again. “I have no idea what any of these are… Do you guys have coffee?”
Yoru needs to take a step back and let himself marinate in that british accent, that he was definitely not expecting, and that stupid question. He takes some time to rub the tips of his fingers on his eyebrows before answering. “It’s a tea shop. What do you think?”
He can hear the girl giggling quietly.
“Well, I,” The giggles are louder and the guy’s clearly flustered now. “I’ve never been to a place like this before, bruv, how was I supposed to know?”
Yoru doesn’t know what it is, maybe the growing laughter of the white haired girl or the extremely flustered mannerisms of the dude trying to shut her up, but he catches himself holding back a smile.
“We don’t sell coffee, sadly,” He says, teasingly, “But how about this: I will pick something for you, and then you tell me if you like it or not. It should be fine, since you have no references, so you have nothing to compare it to.”
“Sure, sounds good, I guess,” The other man replies, a darker tone creeping up his flushed cheeks. “Should I trust you, though?”
Yoru smirks at him. “Probably not.”
Sage is behind the counter again, looking through some small boxes with a slightly furrowed brow. She only seems to notice him when he’s already next to her, boiling some water.
“Oh, you’re back,” She says. “It wasn’t too bad, was it?”
“The guy asked me if we sell coffee.”
She chuckled. “Some people still get confused, for some reason. I guess tea shops aren’t too popular around here.”
“Or maybe they’re just not very smart. I mean, it’s literally in the name.”
She smiled before fondly rolling her eyes. “Please tell me you were nice to them.”
“Tried my best. No promises, though.”
Yoru decided to make Black tea for the confused guy. For no particular reason, it was the first on the list and it’s the one they sell the most, so it was an easy pick.
Sage ended up helping him brew the teas, since he’s not very good at it yet. There are things only she can do that he simply wasn’t cut out for.
“Here,” Yoru mumbles, placing the tea-pots gently on the table and taking two beautiful pattern tea-cups off the tray, putting them down in front of each of them. “Your stuff. Enjoy.”
She looks at the tiny cups, excited. “Thanks, grumpy guy.”
“Thanks, mate.”
“It’s not coffee, but it’s still decent. Tell me how you like it later.” Yoru smirks before turning around, taking the tray with him below his arm.
He hears giggling behind him and the guy mumbling “Can you drop it already? Jesus, Jett.”
“Thank you so much for coming,” Sage says with the usual bright smile on her face. Yoru is at the register. “I hope to see you again soon.”
“Oh you definitely will, yes, absolutely,” The woman, named Jett apparently, blushes again and avoids eye contact with Sage. “You guys have, uh, very tasty… Tea, yeah, it’s very, very sweet. I like it.”
Both men know she isn’t talking about the tea. But Sage seems surprisingly oblivious.
“Anyways,” The tall guy is now one step closer to the counter, eyes locked on Yoru, his voice low. “The Black tea was good, but… I might come back and try the other ones, if that’s okay?”
“Sure,” Yoru replies. “You know, I kinda can’t believe you’re british and haven’t had tea before.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” The girl butts in.
“I was never interested that stuff,” The other man huffs. “But who knows, I might change my mind. Especially if Jett here keeps treating me to it.”
She fakes a laugh and playfully punches his shoulder.
Yoru hands them their receipts and is taken aback by how warm the man’s hand is. It’s so cold outside, but he’s so hot, his skin almost burning. “See ya next time then, tall guy.”
He then sees a smile take form in his lips before they turn to leave. “My name is Phoenix, by the way.”
The bell rings and it’s quiet again. Yoru’s cheeks are very warm and Sage looks at him with a knowing expression on her face.
“Shut up.” He hisses. His face gets even warmer when she starts chuckling.
“I didn’t say anything.”
Yoru wipes his sweaty hands on his apron and fixes his already fixed hair. He is fidgdeting, and he knows it.
And he hates it.
The guy comes back the next day.
Yoru didn’t think he would actually come back, and so soon? He thought he would never show his face around here again.
But no. It’s so early in the morning and he’s already here and, oh, he’s wearing glasses this time and they look so good on him and Yoru doesn’t even know how to act. He can’t remember the last time he felt this nervous around a guy, especially someone he doesn’t even know.
“You showed up,” He crosses his arms over his creased apron, afraid the other man will be able to see how fast his heart is beating. Phoenix looks at him with sort of a cocky smile before adjusting his glasses over his nose with his fingers. Yoru notices he’s holding what looks like a sketchbook and some sort of art kit under his arm. “I didn’t think you would take this tea thing so seriously.”
“Bruv,” Phoenix laughed lightheartedly. “I’m dead serious! I'm supposed to be passionate about tea, apparently. I’m british, you guys said so yourselves. I wanna see what the fuss is all about.”
Yoru scoffs, watching him walk towards the back of the common area and slowly following him, his tiny notebook already in his hand. “Did you suddenly become obsessed with your bloodline,“
“Sorry, mate” Phoenix interrupts. “I can’t hear you over the sound of my british blood flowing through my veins.”
Yoru rolls his eyes and tries his best to contain a smile, clearly failing, as the taller man smirks when he glances at him.
He ends up seating on the same couch he sat yesterday. After putting down his art stuff on the table, Phoenix grabs the menu lying next to him. Yoru stands in front of him, turning his head to look at the costumers in the far left, following the voice of a very loud young woman with a german accent.
KJ is distracted again. Probably boring them to death with her endless stories of how she built these stupid robots and programmed them to do stuff for her and how they would take over the world one day.
Yoru furrows his brow and bites his lips, feeling the sudden urge to tell her to focus on her job and go back to work instead of scaring the costumers away with her annoying stories. And he is about to, until Phoenix’s voice brings him back to the soft, private bubble they built around each other.
“So, what do you recommend this time?”
“Uh. The second on the list, I guess.”
“Green tea? Alright, sounds good.”
Yoru nods. He then writes it on his notebook, finding it incredibly funny how this guy hasn’t realized that he wasn’t actually recommending anything, just going over the teas on the menu one by one.
He goes back to brew the tea. Sage isn’t here today to help him, and that has never been a problem since he was also never worried about messing something up.
But this time he could really get some help from her. Yoru doesn’t really know why he’s acting like this, though. Why can’t he just do what he always does and mess around with the herbs until the water looks similar to the picture in the menu?
He wants it to taste good this time, so he tries his best. And when he’s done, he feels kinda proud of himself.
He’s really fucking good at this.
“Great, you’ve spent a total of twenty minutes on that tea.” He hears KJ from behind him.
He gives her one of those annoyed looks and before she can say anything else, he’s out of there.
Phoenix’s eyes meet his and he grins. Yoru places the stuff down in front of him and he mutters a “thank you”. He notices he’s drawing something in his sketchbook.
“What’re you doing?”
“Oh, just warmin’ up. I gotta do some assignments later and sketching gets me in the mood.”
Yoru scratches his chin. “You’re in college or something?”
“Yeah, art school,” Phoenix says. “I’m trying to be a fashion designer.”
Yoru smirks, looking at the other man attentively for a moment. “Well, you already look like one. Congratulations, you’re halfway there.”
Phoenix looks down at his own clothes; the black turtleneck sweater, the beige large coat sitting on the couch next to him, the round glasses over his pretty nose. He looks up at Yoru, slightly pouting like a kid, his brow furrowed.
“Man, you’re mean.”
Yoru shrugs. “I didn’t say you looked bad.”
Phoenix’s small laugh dies off and Yoru thinks it’s time to get back to work, scared that Sage will come in at any moment and scold him for taking too much time on one costumer while KJ is overworked on the other side of the shop. But before he can do that, Phoenix calls him with a soft “hey” and his attention is turned to him again. However, he seems hesitant now and looks like he regrets saying anything.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, just, uh… When’s your lunch break?”
“Ah,” Yoru pauses. “In like two hours.”
“Yeah, I can wait two hours,” He says to himself. Yoru looks at him slightly confused and Phoenix explains. “Oh, I thought we could have a little chat, if it’s okay with you?”
Yoru’s eyes widen a little bit and his heart misses a beat and he’s so afraid he’s blushing right now. That would be the worst.
“Hah,” He scoffs. “Why would I wanna chat with you?”
“You look lonely,” Phoenix pouts and pretends he’s wiping a tear from his cheek, sniffing theatrically. “It’s so sad.”
“Screw fashion design, you should be an actor.” Yoru laughs quietly. “I’ll see how I feel when the time comes. I won’t sit with you if I’m not in the mood though, so careful not to wait two hours for nothing.”
“That’s alright,” He replies, lightheartedly. “By the way, I don’t know your name yet?”
"Do you need to know?"
"Maybe I don't?"
Phoenix looks at him, expectant.
Well. Whatever.
“It’s Yoru.”
“Okay. Thanks, Yoru.”
He suddenly feels very nervous, hearing his name in this guy’s voice, so he decides to turn away rapidly, leaving him by himself. KJ is looking at him from behind the counter and shaking her head in disappointment.
Yoru ends up spending his lunch break with Phoenix.
They talk about how much Phoenix hates some of his assignments ‘cause most of them require patience, and that’s something he lacks. The taller man then shows Yoru his sketchbook and he’s actually enjoying flipping through the pages, admiring this guy’s very sharp and bold art style.
“Huh,” He says, surprised. “Not bad.”
“What a weird way of saying I’m a freaking genius,” Phoenix replies, giving him a smug smile. Yoru rolls his eyes. He then glances at the book and points at one of the drawings, a very colorful one in an obviously different style. “Oh, that one was Jett. It’s really ugly and completely messes up the sketchbook’s vibe. She did it to fuck with me. ‘Cause of course she did.”
Yoru glances up at him, catching a glimpse of Phoenix’s bothered expression.
“Jett? The girl you were with, yesterday?"
“Yeah,” He replies. “The one with the obvious crush on your coworker.”
“My god, she was terrible.”
“She was,” They both laugh and then Phoenix sighs. “We’ve been friends for quite some time already. She’s really annoying, though, like a little sister. We argue a lot, but then we’re comforting each other. I don’t know, it’s weird.”
Yoru smiles to himself. It’s kind of like him and Sage. They’ve known each other ever since they were kids because their moms were also childhood friends. Yoru and Sage have been stuck to each other before they were even born, so he understands what Phoenix means by that. Sage is like a sister to him as well; an older sister.
Yoru hums and places the sketchbook down on the table to pick up his food.
Phoenix is staring at him now. “What about you, bruv? I feel like you’ve been avoiding talking about yourself.”
“My life is not that exciting,” He replies with his mouth full. “And it’s not like it’s any of your business, either. You’re still a stranger.”
“Ouch. Heartless.” Phoenix grasps his chest dramatically and Yoru can’t contain a smile. “Fine, fine. I won’t ask anything anymore. Just talk endlessly about my stuff until you jump in and share something about yours.”
Yoru is about to say something, but is cut off by KJ calling his name from the stockroom, so he places his food down again, along with his chopsticks. “Be right back.”
He stands up, mumbling a quiet “what the hell does she want now” under his breath. He hears a soft chuckle behind him as he walks angrily towards the stockroom.
Turns out it was just some meaningless shit again and now Phoenix was gone. Yoru walked out of the door to the common area and the guy was gone and he's never wanted to yell at KJ so bad in his life.
Yoru grunts, frustrated, and heads to their table to clear it. He grabs the big teapot and next to it are some coins and a small piece of paper with something written on it. He picks it up and squints his eyes a little to read it.
“Something came up so I had to leave, I’m so sorry! :( I enjoyed chatting with you though, I hope we can do it again. Also, the tea was not my favorite to be honest, so I might come back and try another one ;)
PS I left the money on the table I promise I didn’t leave without paying, If the money’s not there It’s ‘cause someone stole it I promise ok? Ok”
Yoru shouldn’t be blushing. He shouldn’t be holding back a smile. He shouldn’t, because why would he, it’s just a stupid message on a stupid piece of paper written by a guy he just met.
But he is, God, he is and he’s just awkwardly standing there not knowing what to think or what to feel, ‘cause- What does he feel? What is he supposed to be doing? Is this going to be a thing now, is this going to happen everyday? What is this?
A voice is calling him, he can hear it from far away, it’s a customer. They need his assistance and Sage needs him to do a good job and she’s helping him so he should be doing a good job, right? But he can’t stop thinking about useless stuff he’s never bothered to think about before.
Yoru takes a moment to take a deep breath and run his fingers through his hair. He knows his face is a blushing mess right now, and he usually would hate anybody seeing him like this, but right now he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care because, for the first time in a while, he feels really, really good.