café morts
Pairing : xiuhan
Rated: PG-13
Genre: espresso with a shot of… something else
Summary: Lu Han's favorite flavors: espresso, macchiato, and Minseok's butt.
"You smell delicious!" Lu Han sighs dreamily.
The barista stares back at him, a blank expression on his face.
"I meant the coffeehouse," Lu Han corrects himself, scratching his neck. "The coffeehouse smells delicious."
The barista continues to stare blankly.
"One café au lait, please," Lu Han mumbles, his shoulders drooping.
This whole crushing-on-the-barista thing isn’t working out. Still, Lu Han finds himself coming back every day just to see the barista’s cute butt. One day that butt will be Lu Han’s to drink, but for now he’ll just order everything on the menu, a different drink every day.
(Monday is cappuccino. Tuesday is antoccino. Wednesday is ristretto. Thursday is café au lait. Friday is espresso. Saturday is macchiato. Sunday is caffé latte and a scone to celebrate the start of a new week.)
Today is Thursday, thus Lu Han orders a café au lait.
(But every day is Kim Minseok, the barista with the cute butt.)
Even though Lu Han’s embarrassed beyond repair-more embarrassed than that one time he made the mistake of taking Junmyeon clubbing-Lu Han sits at the counter and watches art unfold before his eyes.
Minseok’s fingers glide along the keyboard of the espresso machine, weaving a Chopin scherzo out of coffee beans. He composes Debussy nocturnes in the steamed milk, and when he marries the two ingredients in a porcelain cup, Lu Han can almost hear the only ballade Faure ever wrote.
For the finale, the barista coaxes the foam into the shape of a heart before setting it down in front of Lu Han. Sometimes Lu Han pretends that Minseok makes foamy hearts only for him. Sometimes he just sits at the counter, nursing his drink and staring at the barista’s butt. But Lu Han always, always dreams of catching Minseok’s smile in hopes of sealing it inside of a jar to put on his nightstand.
Maybe one day his dreams will become tangible, will form into languid touches and hazy eyes and mocha kisses. Lu Han imagines that Minseok tastes like coffee. After all, he smells like roasted coffee beans. Even his eyes are filled with coffee, a rich espresso.
"This is delicious," Lu Han says. "Your coffee always gives me a warm feeling."
His words come out too syrupy, like adding three extra spoonfuls of sugar to a caffe americano, but Minseok takes it in stride and offers him a small smile. Lu Han swoons into the porcelain cup.
"Thank you, Lu Han," Minseok says.
Lu Han spits out his café au lait, a gloriously brown fountain spraying all over his white collared shirt.
"You," Lu Han chokes on his own words before trying again, "you know my name?"
Minseok suddenly finds a spot on the counter that absolutely needs scrubbing.
Eyes on the rag, Minseok mumbles, “Yeah, you signed your name on your receipt.”
Lu Han doesn’t know what to say. Minseok cares enough to figure out his name. At least that’s one step closer to making that cute butt his and only his.
Minseok decides that the counter is sufficiently scrubbed, and he pockets the rag in his apron. He looks like he’s about to say something, eyes earnest, when the glass window of the coffeehouse shatters, and half a dozen undead stumble towards them.
A porcelain cup half-full of café au lait shatters on the floor.
Lu Han whips out his AR-15, cursing under his breath that he only brought his shitty pistol. Normally Lu Han carries around his favorite chainsaw, but he leaves it at his base whenever he frequents the coffeehouse because he wants to make a good impression on Minseok. Chainsaws, although exhilarating to use in battle, aren’t appropriate for a classy establishment like Minseok’s.
As Lu Han blasts miscellaneous body parts off of a row of undead, Minseok digs under the counter and unearths one of the sweetest shotguns Lu Han has seen in a while. He takes out all of the undead on the right while Lu Han targets the left. They meet in the middle, crossing a bridge built by their sweat and adrenaline.
Half a dozen corpses-permanently unmoving this time-lie at their feet.
Minseok grins at him, and Lu Han leans in to capture that smile. As expected, he tastes like coffee.
A/N: Secretly a prequel to this.