Jean sat down on the familiar hard wood chair as he set down his mug on the table in front of him. The mouthwatering aroma of coffee and cinnamon inhabited the small coffee shop; sounds from the whirring air conditioner blasting at full force to keep its patrons cooled in the intense summer heat was covered by the not-so-bad indie music humming through the speakers on the walls of the room.
The teen opened up the laptop he'd positioned in front of himself, typing in his password and getting back to work on his essay. After having a week to do it, you'd think he'd have written more than just a few paragraphs out of six pages. Sighing, he brought the cup of steaming black coffee to his lips, taking a tentative sip and recoiling back slightly from the burning sensation that singed his taste buds.
He plugged in his earbuds into the computer and stuck one in his ear; he would've put in the other as well, and he was about to, but a conversation nearby caught his ear.
"Just ask him out!" A female's voice sounded and he recognized it as the brunette girls who had made his coffee. She was obviously trying (and failing) to be quiet.
Another voice responded, much softer than the other's, "I can't do that! I don't even know him!" It was a male. Jean thought he could have been able to place a face to the gently spoken words, but his mind was drawing a blank.
"You know a name and a face, if it's enough for a serial killer it's enough for you."
"Really, Sasha? You're making it sound like I want to murder him in his sleep," the small voice spoke again, muffled by what was probably a hand covering his face in either embarrassment or frustration with his coworker, Jean snickered to himself at the thought.
By this point, he had given up with writing the essay. He'd finish it tonight– right now, this conversation was interesting him far too much to focus on anything else.
"Hey, I don't know what you do to men when they're asleep," she said, lowering her voice in a teasing lilt.
He sputtered, finally groaning in surrender and not-so-gently dropping what Jean assumed was his head onto the countertop. Sasha laughed, now smacking him, most likely on his back, and going to make coffee for a customer that'd walked in a few seconds prior.
The teen laughed quietly to himself; closing his laptop and pulling out the one earbud that had been left to hang in his ear. He got up and walked to the other side of the shop, pulling out a ten dollar bill and stepping up to the counter.
"Hey, I'll take this," Jean said, dropping a small pack of sugar cookies he grabbed from the side on the counter top.
The boy on the other side of the counter jumped due to the fact that he was looking down and hadn't noticed the other male approach.
"O-oh, uh… yes! That's three fifty please!" He said, tripping over his words, a blush slightly tinting his cheeks.
Jean handed over the bill and waited for his change, noticing the girl, Sasha, leaning against the wall behind the boy who was currently handing him a five and some coins, smirking.
"What're you smiling at," Jean asked, amused, his mouth upturned in a smirk of its own and his voice asking the question in the form of a statement.
The barista helping him quickly spun around to glare at the girl, though the scowl held no real menace. She only laughed and got back to sweeping the floor behind the register, now and then glancing up from her work. Jean stood there for a good ten seconds, looking back and forth between the two baristas with curious eyes before shrugging off any comment he had and turned to go back to "working".
When he got back to his small two-person table, he sat at the opposite side of where he was before so he could face the counter at the front of the café and sneak glances at his new favourite barista. The one with freckles and brown eyes. He smiled to himself– pretending to type on his now reopened laptop– while he stared at the boy across the shop. The cute brown haired barista was wiping down the counter's surface, looking rather exasperated at his friend who just wouldn't shut up about that guy he liked.
Jean sighed; the work in front of him wasn't going to magically disappear, after all– no matter how much he wished he could trade it for just ogling at the boy behind the counter (Jean figured that the next time he went up there he should really check the name tag). He began tapping away at the keys, writing paragraph after paragraph until finally, he was done. Surprisingly, it only took him about an hour (while the usual amount of time for a paper that large was about three hours), probably because he knew the topic well so he didn't have to constantly look things up.
When the teen finally removed his tired fingers from the keys, he glanced up and was immediately met with the soft chocolate brown eyes he'd been obsessed with for the past few hours.
"Hey," he said, trying to calm his heart which was slowly, but surely, speeding up its pace. 'Why am I freaking out this much? I don't even know his name,' He thought.
"Hi," the barista said back, Jean noticed he wasn't wearing his apron anymore and had sat himself across from him, a half-finished cup of coffee in front of him, "Finished whatever you were working on?" 'How long had he been sitting there?'
"U-uh… yeah," Jean said, slowly closing his laptop after quickly saving.
"So…I'm sure you overheard me and my friend talking before…" the raven averted his eyes, looking anywhere but the other male.
"Oh, yeah, what about it?" The older teen asked, fairly curious.
"W-well, she kinda bullied me off my shift to go talk to the guy I like," he replied, his eyes still not meeting Jean's.
"So, what? You want me to help? I'm not a very good wing-man–"
"No," the freckled teen cut him off, "I'm here to ask you if you wanted to go out sometime, actually," he said, looking rather nervous.
Honestly, Jean probably would've acted a bit smug at the offer (or at least he would've bragged about it via text to his enemies, *cough* Jaeger *cough*), because the very cute barista had just offered him a date, but his brain had just decided to forget the English language because mother fucker he was getting asked out by the beautiful-as-hell-guy he'd been silently obsessing over since he saw him.
"So…is that a no? Or…" the raven haired teen leaned back in his chair, looking slightly dejected.
"NO!" He shouted, startling the other boy and a few patrons around them, he coughed, "I-I mean…no, I was just…surprised, sorry," Jean turned away, covering for a traitorous blush that'd made its way across his cheeks.
The other male gave him a bright smile, making Jean practically swoon in his chair, "So, do I get to know your name?"
"Hm?"
"Your name, what is it?" Jean asked, chuckling into the back of his hand.
"O-oh, right. It's Marco."
Marco.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Jean," 'though you already know that,' "So, is your shift over yet, Marco?" Jean asked, liking the way the other boy's name sounded as it rolled off his tongue.
It seemed that the barista liked it too, because a blush mingled with the freckles on his face, 'Can he look more adorable?' Jean asked himself.
"Y-yeah, you wanna go somewhere?"
"I would love to."