Arthur Pendragon sat at a table littered with enough empty coffee cups to narrate his caffeine-fueled study session crammed in the corner of the noisy cafe. He ruffled his hair. He stared at the blank document in front of him. He started typing, then backspaced the uncompleted sentence with a grunt. He would never have the motivation to finish this paper.
A box appeared in front of his blank document.
"Starbucks.2234" wants to send " ."
Arthur raised an eyebrow and looked up from his screen, peering around the store. Knowing that the person with the "Starbucks.2234" computer would have to be near, he searched for the mysterious sender. And what was the 'question'?
He clicked "Save and Open," skeptically. What if it was a crazy porno? Or some virus? He instantly regretted saving the file. It could totally corrupt his computer!
Instead, he snorted.
It was a picture of a dog wearing sunglasses. Underneath it said "will u go out w/me." Well, that certainly got his attention.
With a mischievous smirk, Arthur deleted the dog photo and quickly replaced it with a different dog wearing sunglasses. His response caption said "buy me a frappucino babe and imma be urs"
He found "Starbucks.2234" and dragged the document to send.
Later on, he would deny that his heart quickened a little bit as he watched the recipient download the document. It was sent. All he could do was wait.
After three minutes passed and there was no response, Arthur was crestfallen. Well, what did he really expect? Some type of fairy tale romance?
"Swag Monster," he heard called out.
He instantly regretted naming his computer something so juvenile.
Arthur tried not to run to the cash register.
He stared in disbelief. There, behind the counter, was a frappucino. And it was held in the hands of an extremely attractive young man, someone about his age. He probably was a student at Camelot University, Arthur managed to think through his surge of adrenaline.
"Swag Monster?" the barista asked.
Arthur nodded in confirmation. He looked down at the name tag on the student. Merlin.
Merlin raised his eyebrows, imploring Arthur to take the drink.
Arthur was too deeply in shock to do anything. He just stood there.
Merlin took it as a sign that Arthur wasn't interested. He let out the breath he didn't know he had been holding, wiped his hands on a towel, and slung it over his shoulder. He walked away into the back closet.
Arthur blinked a few times. Did some random stranger just ask him out via AirDrop on a Mac computer?
He took the frappucino.
There, ten little digits were written in Sharpie. With a name. Merlin. And a heart.
Yes, some random stranger just asked him out via AirDrop on a Mac computer.
What a time to be alive.