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Life wasn’t very fair.
Ash knew that, of course, he knew that. It wasn’t fair how his brother was his lecturer but absolutely refused to give him even a day extra on his assignments (honestly what sort of family was he?! Shameful) It wasn’t fair how the half-brained nympho living above him (Lut Yungi? Yul Tungi? He couldn’t fucking remember) couldn’t go a day without bringing someone back home and keeping Ash up all night. (Ash was convinced the man was into some heavy sadomasochistic bullshit and it freaked him the fuck out) It wasn’t fair how Griffin’s lovers Max and Jessica basically made him suffer through their random-ass parenting urges that lead them to coddle Ash and want to stroke his hair (Max had taken to calling him ‘Ashiekins’???) It wasn’t fair how his landlord Dino took any and every opportunity to invite himself into Ash’s apartment under pretence of wanting to ‘make sure he wasn’t having any problems.’ (which was just fancy for ‘I am a creepy old pedo who drives downtown to check out a teenager.’)
What was really very, very unfair though, was how cute the barista inside ‘Blends’ was.
First, it was the only coffee shop within walking distance of Ash’s university. Secondly, it was famous; and Shorter and Soo Lin won’t stop bugging Ash about how the grumpy blonde Russian barista who intentionally misspelled everyone’s names on their cups and single-handedly made the coffee shop popular looked exactly like a younger version of Ash. Thirdly, Ash was a high-functioning coffee addict himself, and finally, the black-haired, Japanese barista who took everyone’s orders was so fucking cute that they knocked the breath straight out of Ash’s chest.
It all started the day Ash, harried and at the end of his rope, decided he needed to get a good three (or thirteen) Espresso shots within his system or he would murder his irritatingly loud classmates and annoyingly dumb professors. He was a teenager, after all, they felt murderous sometimes. It was just one of those days.
He stomped over to Blends, fully intending to throttle his supposed carbon copy if he fucked with the name on his cup when, right outside the glass door of the cozy little coffee shop, his eyes found the boy.
His thick black hair swept across his temples, dark eyes looking impossibly bored as he smiled at the customer ratting off his order. Ash was intensely aware of his hanging jaw as his eyes traced the bow of the boy’s lips. His heart thundered and that precise moment was when he decided he was going to marry that boy.
… before he remembered he didn’t even know his name.
‘That is easily solved.’ He told himself. He just had to go in and chat up the boy. If all else failed, he could perform his ‘Candybar’ routine and that was bound to seduce the Japanese boy, no sweat.
Except, at that moment, the boy’s eyes lifted to find Ash’s, and he decided the best course of action would be to bolt. Which he did. Promptly.
It was not the best first impression to leave, and with the cutie out of sight, other doubts started plaguing Ash, like if the boy was even gay, or if he would be open to date someone who was asexual like Ash was. Not many people were, which was fine because Ash was rarely into anyone as it was, but it would be disappointing if the barista said that was going to be a problem.
Ash soon told Shorter about his little (Japanese) problem, and in true best friend fashion, he decided it was essential, a matter of life and death, in fact, if you’d have it, that he got the two together. His actual, physical support in terms of furthering that cause only amounted to a roughing up and subsequent dragging of Ash’s protesting form over to the cafe when Ash kept chickening out and leaving from outside for two weeks straight.
That was how Ash found himself deposited in the cafe’s doorway with the cute barista’s confused gaze pinned right on him in the lull of the hour, with no one in line.
A door to the back corner of the cafe behind the counter swung open, and another Asian man stepped out. He was older than Ash’s barista but remarkably similar in looks. Blue-framed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose and he frowned when he took in the awkward stare-off between his coworker and the two sheepish-looking idiots standing in the doorway of his cafe.
“Uh, good afternoon,” he said and it seemed to snap Ash’s barista out of his trance. He pasted a smile onto his mouth and repeated the greeting. Feeling his face flare-up, Ash gulped.
“Good afternoon” he managed to nod and smile, flexing his hand behind his back in an anxious tell. All that got him, however, was a fistful of the pudge under Shorter’s t-shirt. Shorter yelped in pain behind him. The barista’s eyes widened, and the bespectacled man now looked even more confused.
Ash wanted to pull out Shorter’s teeth and then his own, before moving out of the country and changing his name and hair colour.
He turned towards his best friend on instinct, hoping against hope that he will find some way to salvage this shitshow written on his face. Shorter, in true Shorter fashion, was incredibly unhelpful, a right problem, even. For he nudged Ash forward with his elbow, very, very obviously, and made the entire thing even more embarrassing.
Ash hissed a quiet ‘bastard!’ under his breath and then turned around and walked up to the barista.
He was distracted, however, when the tiny chime above the door tinkled. As one, everybody in the cafe turned to look at the newcomer, who was a tall, silver-haired man in a formal suit and tie with the widest grin on his mouth looking entirely out of place in this cosy, little cafe.
He pranced up to the counter, and Ash would have said something about being first in line if he wasn’t so confused by how happy this man looked to be here.
“Hello, Yuuri!”
Oh
He… didn’t seem to be interested in ordering, planting himself firmly in front of where the bespectacled man stood instead. Ash blinked.
Okay, then.
The man, Yuuri, began chatting with the hot newcomer. Ash shook himself out of it and stepped up to where the barista was waiting for him. ‘Eiji’ he finally read on his name tag.
He smiled up at the boy.
“Um. A coffee please.”
The urge to smack himself was monumental.
Eiji, however, dutifully began keying it in without doing anything to make Ash feel awkward about himself, only offering a small, kind smile.
“Sure. Do you have a milk preference? We have soy, skim-…”
The boy went on listing options for milk, flavour, sweetener, and everything else. Ash responded on auto-pilot, too busy staring at Eiji’s cute, thin, pouty lips. Somewhere during this entire exercise, Ash had begun grinning like a maniac and Eiji raised his brows a little before a grin of his own broke out on his face.
It would be so easy, Ash decided, to just ask for his number.
They could figure everything out from there. That was just step one right?
A laugh from beside him startled Ash, and he turned to see Yuuri frowning impatiently at the silver-haired man, who had his elbow on the counter and face on his palm and was smiling up at Yuuri with the most besotted look on his face.
That was the moment Eiji asked for his name and caught off guard between thoughts of asking for Eiji’s number and the handsome but dorky stranger next to him, Ash rattled off his own number in response.
Eiji blinked, his dark eyes wide and confused.
“That’s your name?” He raised a brow.
Behind himself, Ash could hear Shorter cussing out blondes.
In a tizzy, desperate to save the situation, Ash, like a blonde, let his hindbrain take over, and its genius solution to his present predicament was to go all out.
He had come here to flirt, he was going to flirt.
“It can be whatever you want it to be.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, Ash cringed, his entire face flaming up a ridiculous red colour.
Eiji blinked, again.
Then he leaned a little to his right and called out to Shorter.
“Hey, what’s your friend’s name?”
“Um, Ash!”
There was snickering to the far right, probably from Ash’s lookalike behind the still engrossed stranger and Yuuri. Ash covered his face and slunk away from the till after Eiji told him where to collect his drink from.
“Man, you are such a mess.”
Ash glared at Shorter but didn’t trust his luck enough to actually open his mouth and attempt a rebuttal.
A loud whine attracted their attention to the hot stranger and the barista called Yuuri. Was it actually possible? Someone even more ridiculous than him was in the cafe today. The stranger was fully pouting now, eyes gazing imploringly at Yuuri, who had already turned away from him.
The staff seemed resigned and like they were all used to the stranger’s behaviour as they went about their business.
“My Yuuri wounds me! Every day you grow crueler, my love!”
The man seemed ready to cry actual tears and with a shake of his head, Ash stepped up to get his drink from his tiny lookalike.
“What’s your name?” The boy asked, already sounding bored.
That was when Ash realised that Eiji didn’t strictly need to know his name. He had asked Ash that of his own volition.
(What did that mean what did that mean what did that mean what-)
His heart stupidly picked up speed and his face immediately decided to go pink as if he were a hormonal middle-schooler. Ash resisted the urge to slap himself and worked hard to keep his eyes on, he glanced at the name tag, Yurio’s.
“Uh, it is Ash.”
The silver-haired man was now trying to lift himself onto the counter, his eyes on Yuuri’s butt as the man busied himself at the work station. Eiji was nowhere to be seen, probably having escaped into the backroom.
“Sure you don’t need help getting that man outta here?” Ash offered as he jabbed his thumb back at the man.
Yurio snorted as he scribbled something onto Ash’s coffee cup.
“Throw him out of his own cafe?”
Ash blinked.
“This cafe is his?”
Yurio rolled his eyes as he began ringing up Ash’s total.
“Yeah, and the little piggy over there is his husband.” Yurio gestured to where Yuuri was still staunchly ignoring the stranger. “And before you ask, yeah they are always this fucking annoying. I swear to God I hate them both so much.”
Ash was taking his time wrapping his head around that. At least now, everybody’s indifference to the man’s antics made sense.
“So Yuuri is the guy’s employee? You all are?” He asked as he handed over the amount Yurio ratted off.
“Yeah. Victor’s a fashion designer though. I don’t know I wasn’t around when this shit went down but Yuuri’s old boss bloody sucked and Victor found out about that when he was still trying to woo Yuuri so he just… bought out the cafe. As a present to Yuuri.”
Yurio counted out his change and held it out to him.
“Fucking ridiculous, isn’t that?”
“That man’s a genius!”
Both Yurio and Ash said at the same time. They both stared at each other.
A second later, Yurio smacked his forehead in irritation.
“Here we fucking go again.” He muttered.
…
The name he put on Ash’s cup was simply ‘Ketchup’. Ash rolled his eyes because that was lame but he took a picture and posted it on Instagram anyway, tagging the official handle of Blends.
Then, he turned his attention to trying to figure out how exactly he could go about applying for a position at the cafe.
So invested was he in furthering his plan, he didn’t notice when the handle of one @ok.eiji liked his post.
…
Victor Nikiforov was surprisingly easy to get a hold of and also surprisingly firm in his email telling Ash they had no vacancies.
So, Ash decided to get a little personal.
He sent another email explaining in detail how the success of Victor’s own love life had inspired him and he just had to give this a shot. He promised about a million times that he would not misbehave and never be a creep and that if Eiji rejected him, he’d back off. If Victor wanted, he’d work for free!
That last concession, however, wasn’t necessary. It was true that Ash didn’t know Victor but if he had, he’d know he had Victor when he mentioned being impressed by his wooing methods. Literally, everyone else had called him unhinged, after all, including his precious Yuuri.
‘You can start three days from now! And don’t worry, you will be paid! <3 <3 ^_^’ - was Victor’s next email’s subject. The body of it just contained ‘best of luck’ written in all caps.
It took him an hour to remember to ask for Ash’s documents for verification.
…
Ash proudly put on his Ace and Gay pride badges before he left for ‘work’ that evening, nearly skipping out of pure joy. He had been so happy ever since Victor’s confirmation email dropped that even the days-long sex marathon the dumb Luy Tungi had seemed to embark on that had stolen Ash’s ability to sleep for nights in a row, couldn’t truly put him off.
Shorter’s reaction to his news hadn’t been all that encouraging though and Ash was hoping Eiji’s would be different.
The first person Ash met when he entered the cafe was Yurio who gave him such a baffled glance that Ash couldn’t help but smirk.
“You didn’t.” He said.
“Ketchup? Really? Your reputation was all lies, you are so unfunny I gagged.”
Yurio flipped him off.
“The old man told me you’d be coming, the piggy knows. Eiji doesn’t, or he knows we’re getting a new guy just not that’s it’s you.”
“Where are they?”
“Taking a break out back. Come on in.”
Ash was escorted ‘out back’. Ash could feel nervousness pooling in the bottoms of his feet, making them feel sweaty inside his shoes. He curled his toes and followed Yurio through the tiny door.
“The bimbo is here.” He announced to the people inside the spacious sitting room, who were still out of Ash’s sight.
“Bimbo?” Ash frowned at Yurio’s back.
“You look like one.” Yurio shrugged.
Ash didn’t have the time to respond to that, however, because Yurio stepped aside that very moment and Ash found himself looking directly into the wide eyes of his crush.
A dopey sigh escaped his mouth, right there, right then, and mortified just a second later, Ash crumpled on himself like wet tissue.
Yurio audibly gagged, Yuuri, sitting beside Eiji, just rolled his eyes. He muttered an amused ‘foreigners’ to Eiji before getting up to walk over to Ash.
At a startlingly furious speed, he whisper-lectured Ash in under five seconds flat.
“I don’t care what arrangement you and my ridiculous husband have come up with you mistreat my employee for a single second and I’ll crack your head between my thighs and you should know I used to figure skate so I actually physically can.”
His face eased up immediately though and he raised his voice in a friendly trill.
“Welcome! We’re so glad to have you here! Now my break is nearly over so I will head on out. I will let Eiji show you the ropes back here and then we can get you started on learning to make some basic drinks! The more complicated orders we will help you with as it goes. Does that sound good?”
Ash, who was still suffering from whiplash due to the quick 180 Yuuri’s face had done, nodded dumbly, unsure if he had even taken anything in.
“Best of luck,” Yuuri muttered in his ear before he left, Yurio following righ behind.
Ash couldn’t tell exactly what he was supposed to make of that interaction especially since he was actually pretty sure that figure skater or not, he, by himself, could easily take the entire staff of Blends plus Victor in a fight.
He didn’t think Victor even knew what a fight was supposed to mean.
“Um, hi.” So lost was he in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when Eiji stepped up to him with a tiny smile and surprisingly pink cheeks.
Ash’s face immediately melted into a grin.
“Hello.”
“How have you been, Mr. my name is whatever you want it to be?” Eiji snickered.
“Listen, I panicked.” Ash protested.
“You panicked cause I asked your name?”
Ash saw an opportunity to shoot his shot and decided to take it.
“No, I panicked because you’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen in life.”
Eiji narrowed his eyes. He lifted his brows too like Ash was truly ridiculous and he didn’t want there to be any doubts about that.
“I didn’t think it was true when Yuuri told me you got a job here just to flirt with me but this is making it seem as if you did.”
Ash gasped, his hand flying to his chest.
“You weren’t supposed to know!”
Eiji’s eyes narrowed further.
“Are you a theatre kid?”
Ash felt his shoulders sag. This was all going so horribly.
Fuck Victor. Ash had thought he was on his side!
“You weren’t supposed to know,” Ash mumbled, repeating himself like the sad, sorry idiot he was making himself out to be.
Eiji sighed.
“Listen, Victor is a genius but he’s also really, really dumb. You can see how this was putting me at risk, right? I am glad Yuuri told me. You could be a creep.”
Despite the irritation flooding his chest, Ash could see the point of that. He had gotten so excited, he’d had acted entirely too ridiculously. Eiji had every right to feel uncomfortable and Yuuri had done the right thing by informing him about Ash.
He was starting to realise where everyone was coming from when they called Victor an idiot.
Wait, by that logic, wasn’t he an idiot too?
Oh god, Ash’s tiny doppelgänger had the right idea. He and Victor were both bimbos!
“It’s good that you’re not, though. A creep that is.”
Ash looked up. If he was pouting, that was that. He had way too much on his mind to actually be worried about how he looked.
“Plus, you’re hot too.”
A tiny, thin smile crossed Eiji’s face and Ash’s first instinct was to wonder if he was being set up again.
He didn’t know why, out of nowhere, Yuuri’s words from minutes ago flew through his mind again. Coupled with the way Eiji was blushing, with what he had said…
Was that a shovel talk?!
His eyes widened when he clocked on to it.
Eiji bit his lip as he watched the realisation dawning in Ash’s eyes. The blush in his cheeks darkened.
“Yeah so just ask me out like a sane human, maybe. You don’t need to work here to get a date with me.”
In record time that day, an employee quit Blends and he was all too happy to do it. He had a new number saved in his mobile phone and Eiji’s smile still made his cheeks go warm.
Besides, Eiji had told him his Ace pride pin looked cute.