[drabble] Coffee Prince
Title: Coffee Prince
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )
Pairing: Hikaru x OC
Genre: Fluff
Summary: When she smiles he thinks he sees sparkles.
Notes: Request for shiroikazex .
~
His usual black coffee is passed over the counter.
He accepts it with a word of thanks, and then notices that the barista is a new one at the café he frequents.
Tachibana, he reads on her nametag.
“You’re new?” he asks curiously, and she smiles.
“Yes, I am.”
Strange, he muses, as she turns away to make a latte for another customer.
Just for a moment, just for a brief moment, he thinks there may have been sparkles in the air when she smiled.
~
“Don’t you ever drink something different, Yaotome-san?”
Hikaru takes his black coffee from her and drinks a mouthful. Her chin is propped up in her hands, with elbows resting on the counter, staring at him intently.
“I like black coffee. And how do you know my name?”
The look she gives him is very much like the one he gets when he asks a rather stupid question at practice.
“Yaotome-san,” she says dryly, “are you not aware of the fact that you are actually broadcasted on national television a lot? Even with the beanie and the tacky sunglasses it is actually pretty easy to recognize you.”
Hikaru pouts at this.
“My sunglasses are cool!” he insists childishly, draining the last dregs of his coffee.
“Yeah, sure,” she laughs, “keep telling yourself that.”
Her laughter, he thinks, is very pretty. Like the melody of delicate silver bells.
~
It is his tenth visit to the café since he first saw her.
“You know,” he says, as he waits for her to brew his coffee, “it’s not very fair that you know my name but I don’t know yours.”
She passes him the cup, and raises an eyebrow.
“I do have a nametag, Yaotome-san.”
“Hikaru,” he insists, like he has at every visit before.
And like every visit before, she shakes her head.
“We’re not that familiar,” she says, “Yaotome-san.”
“Then let’s become more familiar!” he bursts out, “What do you like to drink?”
She gives him a very strange look.
“…I like bubble tea,” she says at last, walking away to take a new order.
~
“…So tell me,” Inoo says, slightly annoyedly, “what’s with this newfound obsession with bubble tea?
Hikaru doesn’t answer, because he’s busy concentrating on trying to suck up the pearls from the bottom of his bubble tea cup. Inoo caves in at last, and tries to help him.
“You need a bigger straw, stupid.”
~
“I don’t think I like bubble tea,” Hikaru says the next time he goes to the café, and she laughs at him.
“You never had to.”
“But it would help me to get to know you better!”
She sets down her washcloth on the counter and turns to look at him.
“You know, Yaotome-san, when people want to get to know each other better it’s generally a two-way thing.”
“Then let’s talk!” Hikaru suggests.
“What,” she replies, gesturing to the line of customers, “now?”
“…I’ll walk you home?”
~
Her name, she finally reveals, is Tachibana Saki. She is part-timing at the café, and is a first-year university student studying medicine at Todai.
“Saki is a pretty name,” he says, and she laughs.
Her face is radiant again, the smile still etched on her face. Hikaru likes it when she smiles, and her eyes go all sparkly like stars.
“You should smile more,” he finds his mouth saying, “your eyes are beautiful when you do.”
He thinks he sees the faintest hints of pink on her cheeks.
~
The café is somehow especially crowded on Valentine’s Day, and by the time it’s his turn to order he is in great need of his caffeine fix. The beanie is bothering him, and the sunglasses aren’t exactly helping either.
“The usual?” she asks.
“Mm.”
When his cup of takeaway coffee is pushed over the counter there is something dark brown sitting on the plastic cover.
“…Saki-chan, what is this?”
“It’s chocolate, Hikaru-san. Which is melting rather quickly, so you’d better eat it.”
“Chocolate? But-”
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she says, and smiles.
Somewhere in his chest he feels his heart flutter.
He blames it on the fact that she is finally calling him by his first name.
~
One evening it rains just as her shift is about to end.
“Oh shit,” she groans, “I didn’t bring an umbrella.”
Left with no choice, she digs her windbreaker out from her messenger bag and drapes it over her head to form a makeshift waterproof curtain. Keeping every body part of hers under the windbreaker, she exits the café, she begins her mad dash down the sidewalk, trying to get back as fast as possible.
Not looking where she is going, she ends up banging into someone in front of her.
“Sorry!” she gasps, and peeks up from below her windbreaker to meet a pair of familiar eyes.
“…Saki-chan? Why are you charging through the rain like a mad bull?”
She huffs and stomps on his foot hard, smiling in satisfaction when he screeches in pain.
“I thought you have work, Hikaru-san.”
“It ended early,” he says, wincing a little as he tries to ignore his throbbing foot, “I’ll walk you home. It’s dangerous to be running around alone, especially on wet streets.”
He leaves no room for argument, and she concedes. They walk back under Hikaru’s blue umbrella, talking and laughing over his interview for the day.
“I don’t know why the magazines keep asking us about the girl we like,” Hikaru sighs, “I know it’s for girls and all, but don’t they ever get sick of reading it?”
She grins.
“You’ll be surprised.”
“…What about you, Saki-chan?” he blurts suddenly, “Do you have anybody that you like?”
She is silent for a while.
“I do,” she admits at last, “but I don’t think he’ll ever like me back.”
“How do you know that?” Hikaru asks curiously, burying the strange flare of disappointment at her words.
“Well…he’s popular, everybody likes him, and I’m just…a nobody next to him. There’s no way he’ll like me. Besides, I’ve been hinting to him about it for a while now, but he never notices. I guess that just means that he’s not interested in me at all.”
“That’s not true,” Hikaru frowns, “maybe he’s just dense.”
He wonders why she rolls her eyes at him.
“Why don’t you just try to confess to him? You never know, maybe he does like you back.”
She turns sparkling eyes to him.
“You think so?”
“Yeah. You’re very easy to love.”
After all, I fell in love with you.
“Really?”
Her voice is full of hope.
“Mm.”
They walk on for a short while in silence.
“But I can’t just walk up to him and tell him straight out that I like him! He’ll think I’m weird.”
“You could…text him?”
“Maybe.”
The rest of walk is left to an amiable quiet, and they reach her doorstep soon enough.
“Goodnight,” he says, and she smiles at him in return before turning to her door.
But just as he is about to step out to the sidewalk and walk back home in the rain, his keitai vibrates with a new text message.
He fumbles in his pocket, and flips open his keitai to read the message.
好き。(I like you.)
Bemused, he looks up to see her flipping her own keitai shut, a tiny blush painted across her features, and suddenly everything clicks in place.
“You…like me?”
Her blush darkens, and it is more than an adequate answer for him.
“Me too,” he whispers, voice carrying in the wind.
And suddenly she is running off her doorstep and flinging herself into his waiting arms, sobbing and giggling at the same time.
He tilts her face up with one finger, and her wide obsidian eyes look straight into his own, sending a tingle through him. Without thinking, he drops his umbrella and swoops down to kiss her.
The rain falls around the pair, sliding down their entangled legs, but neither cares.
The umbrella lies forgotten on the sidewalk.
~
“…What’s this?” he asks curiously, staring at his cup, “this isn’t black coffee.”
“It’s a cappuccino,” she informs him, “I figured it’s about time you try something new.
Sighing, he accepts the cup. He looks down at the coffee, and blinks in surprise.
Drawn in chocolate sauce on the foam is a big heart.
He looks back up at her, and grins when she winks at him and giggles. She forms a heart with her fingers fleetingly for him, before another customer comes and she gets distracted.
He smiles softly.
I love you too.
Downing the coffee, he rises and leaves the café.