A/N: Yay LenKu. Miku is like me when I'm ordering food except I wouldn't run off in the middle (lol).
Miku taps her foot impatiently. The queue is taking forever and she's both glad and annoyed by that. Her left brain screams at the queue to hurry please my gosh but her right brain is telling her please take a long time so that I won't be embarrassed. She looks up at the bright menu and re-reads her order. One chocolate mocha with whipped cream, please, thank you very much, she repeats inside her mind.
The queue grows shorter and her palms sweat. She can feel the sweat collecting in the middle and cooling off, bringing a chill in her palms. Miku wipes her palms against her shirt and gulps. There's only one person in front of her and she admires how calm the person is when he gives his order.
She could never do that.
Even if it's just eleven words consisting of her order and thanks, Miku doesn't think that she can do it successfully. So she has to rehearse (in her brain) about a hundred times before she believes she can get the first word out. Of course the real world isn't that kind, she remembers when she moves to the front and lo and behold, the gods up there had to give her a cute blonde cashier. She freezes up momentarily and has to stare at his questioning eyes for what feels like five thousand centuries before her voice works.
"One chocolate mocha please thanks you very much," Miku gushes out and winces mentally at her screw-ups (she realizes mortifyingly: what happened to her whipped cream?). The counter is smooth marble and she runs her fingers across nervously. She also discreetly wipes her palms on the counter. The (cute) cashier is saying something but her brain refuses to compute his words.
It takes a while before Miku asks hesitatingly. "Sorry?"
"We've run out of chocolate." He smiles apologetically. "It's been very popular lately. Try something else?"
Her mind blanks out but he is running off the other popular choices they have.
"Um," Miku says eloquently before turning right and running off. Behind her the cashier is crying out for her to come back.
She runs to the back of the queue (unfortunately, the shop has only one queue and so she's stuck with the cute cashier) and the people at the back try not to stare at her. Miku pants and straightens up and pretends that she has been here, at the back, since forever. In front, the cute boy leans to the side to find her but the next customer quickly takes up his attention. Miku looks away.
Her eyes search the menu and she decides on her second choice. No chocolate, she tells herself, so let's get a normal matcha mocha. With whipped cream.
Matcha mocha with whipped cream, please, thank you very much, Miku repeats to herself and prides on not stumbling over matcha and mocha.
Too soon she's at the front of the queue again. This time, though, there is no one behind her so she has all the time in the world. She looks nervously down at the white marble and repeats her order.
"Matcha mocha with whipped cream, please, thank you very much."
She's done it! She's done the impossible! Hatsune Miku has finally said her order without tripping over her words!
Miku does a tiny fist pump under the counter but her jubilation is cut short.
"Sorry, we've run out of matcha as well." There is a teasing smile on the cashier's lips and Miku's mouth drops open. He's smiling at her and Miku's sure he's got to be kidding. There is no way both chocolate and matcha ran out on the same day. It's not her first time in this shop and she's never encountered this kind of situation before.
"What?" She screeches and doesn't care if people see (anyway, she's about the only one left in the shop), because right now, all she wants is a cup of mocha and this stupid, cute cashier is not giving her what she wants.
"Really sorry." He's grinning now and she's doubly sure he's pulling her leg. He's enjoying this too far to be serious. "Why don't you get a strawberry mocha, miss? Cute girls like you usually get it."
"I don't like strawberry," she grumbles, ignores his offhand comment about her cuteness and looks down at the counter.
"Why, what would you like then?" He places his elbows on the marble and leans forward, cerulean eyes deep and narrowed, waiting for her answer. Miku's pretty sure that's not in the 100 things to do as a coffee shop cashier manual but her throat is too dry for her to think about that.
"Um," she bites her lip and run her eyes over the menu on top. The cashier just waits patiently, his eyes still trained on hers and still leaning too close over the counter to be proper.
"The one...at the very top?" Miku gestures, desperate now. She just wants a cup of mocha but she's spending way too much time at the front of the counter and she hasn't even gotten a single cup.
"Green tea mocha?" The cashier leans back, still smiling, and enters her order. Miku taps out piano tunes with her fingers, nervous. She wants this to be over now.
"Whipped cream?"
She nods, eyes frantically looking over at the mocha-making machine (also known as her heaven) as he adds in her special request.
A red light blinks and the cashier looks over. "Oh," his lips curl into a smile that heaven should ban for eternity. "It looks like we just got another stock of matcha. Would you like your previous order or retain your current one?"
Her blissful stairway to heaven is suddenly interrupted by this dilemma and Miku's brain short circuits. She just gapes and the cute boy just smiles at her indulgingly.
"I-I don't care," she stammers out and is suddenly hit by a wave of irrational anger. "Hell, I don't care. What do you recommend?"
He's obviously surprised by this turn of tides and the boy blinks. His eyelashes are long and Miku finds herself focusing on how they tremble.
"Matcha it is then." He decides and cancels her order before filling up a new one. "Still with whipped cream?"
She nods, eyes on the clock now (because she certainly doesn't want to be caught looking at his face). It suddenly hits her why no one else is coming in. It's because it is ten minutes over opening hours and Miku's sure she spent that time standing here debating over whether she should die or embarrass herself to hell and back in front of this cute cashier that she's interested in. She is also suddenly glad that the cashier is indulging her even though his shift is probably already over and he should be closing shop now.
Her cup of matcha mocha slides to a stop in front of her and she finds a small piece of chocolate on the very top of her whipped cream. Her cashier winks.
"For you," he laughs and Miku blushes.
It also suddenly hits her that there's no way matcha would come in after closing hours and now she's sure the cashier is pulling her leg.
She still thanks him and walks out of the shop, hands around her mocha. It's night but mocha can be drunk twenty-four-seven is what Miku believes.
She's waiting by the bus stop for her bus (she only ever comes to this shop even if she has to take the bus) when the cashier from before comes sauntering up. He stops when he sees her, no doubt remembering her as that girl with social anxiety. "Hello," he smiles and Miku doesn't smile back.
She's actually too nervous because in his casual clothes, he's suddenly a billion times cuter and she can tell that he's around her age too, maybe younger. Her palms are suddenly sweating and that has nothing to do with the condensation on the cup.
He's still smiling and waiting for her to answer, so Miku stiffly cranes her neck over and smiles awkwardly. "Hello," she whispers.
They wait side by side but the bus doesn't come for another ten minutes and the silence between them is too heavy. Miku scuffs her boot against the sidewalk and attempts a conversation.
"Um," she says at the same time the cute boy burst out his question of What's your name?
"Oh, you first!" He gestures and rubs the back of his neck, the tips of his ears red. Miku shakes her head and replies with her name. Her cup of mocha is trembling in her hands; she's never told a stranger her name before, but he seems to be interested in her so why the hell not?
"I'm Kagamine Len."
There it is again. That smile that ought to be banned for eternity. Miku still thinks it should be, especially when it's aimed at her. Her heart can't take it and she sips from her mocha to calm her traitorous heart down.
"So, Miss Hatsune. I've got something to confess." Len turns to her and looks at her with such apologetic eyes that her newly calmed heart melts into a puddle.
"We actually still had matcha." He smiles.
Miku snorts. "Obviously."
She blushes after she says that because that makes her sound bold even though she isn't. She fiddles with her mocha.
"I just wanted to talk longer with you," he shrugs. "Because you're cute."
"Um," is all Miku manages to get out and then Len's laughing at her wide eyes and blushing cheeks.