"Wow, Gaara, I had no idea you worked here, that is so great for you. What do you do here?" The smile on Lee's face was almost infectious. Temari hid a smirk behind her hand and Gaara seemed confused at the attention.
"I do morning bake and I prep the pastries." He said quietly and Lee beamed at him.
"That is wonderful! So you've made all of these?" He pointed to the pastries on display and Gaara gave a short nod and walked further out of the kitchen.
Lee almost died with how cute he found Gaara in checkered pants, a short-sleeved chef coat, and an apron. He also had a black headband keeping his hair out of his eyes and giving Lee a better view of his kanji "Love" tattoo. Lee couldn't help the blush on his cheeks when Gaara walked closer to him. Gaara pulled off the glass dome lid to some of the pastries and picked one up and handed it to Lee.
"Why don't you try it?" Gaara offered and Lee quickly grabbed his backpack to look for his wallet. "No." Lee stopped what he was doing and looked up. "It's on the house." Lee's eyes widened, then he smiled shyly.
"T-thank you Gaara. Cinnamon rolls are my favorite." Gaara didn't smile, but there was something about his expression that seemed pleased.
Temari observed the exchange, biting back a grin. How precious. If Temari didn't know better, she'd say Gaara had a crush. From the looks of how flustered Lee was, she'd guess it was a mutual thing. Who was she to stand in the way? She did need help in the mornings (mainly so she could sleep in. Getting in at 4 was not kind to her psyche.)
"So when can you start?" She asked and Gaara and Lee turned to face her. Gaara stared at her with mild shock and Lee stared at her as if she hung the stars.
"Whenever you need me to!" He said happily and she laughed. "Would you like me to start today? I can be here after school?" Temari shook her head.
"I do need someone from early mornings though. You can start training sometime this week. If you'd like you can come in tomorrow and we can fill out paperwork and talk about wages." Lee nodded his head vigorously. He'd almost forgotten he was getting paid. He was more excited to be working with Gaara, that seemed like payment enough. "Do you have any questions for me?"
"Well... If you aren't ready to do the papers today, that is fine. But I do not have to be at school for another... 2 ½ hours. I figured I can wait here. If it would be easier to do the papers today to get them out of the way, I would be more than willing." Lee said happily and Temari raised her eyebrow.
"Wait here a minute." She walked into the back, leaving Gaara and Lee alone.
"So we're going to be working together." Lee stated with a grin and Gaara nodded.
"I can show you the kitchen when you're finished." Lee beamed thankfully.
"That would be wonderful, Gaara. I would love that."
Lee never thought the paperwork would end. Apparently, you can't just walk in and get a job and start it and move on with your life. There's emergency contact papers, work history papers, standard information, tax information, what the hell was a deductible? At least he had the delicious cinnamon roll to occupy his thoughts every time he got overwhelmed with all of the questions.
Lee was so glad when he finally finished the paperwork and was surprised to see it had taken the better part of 37 minutes. Even so, he was glad to have it finished now instead of later. He glanced over the papers one last time to make sure everything was in check, make sure he signed in the appropriate spots and wrote the correct date on the papers. With a satisfied smile, he shuffled the papers so they were even and walked to the counter, which was surprisingly busy. It was a bit passed 6 and the morning rush was just starting. Lee wished he could help but he didn't even know how to use the machine yet.
Temari worked easily, he was amazed with the fluidity of her movements. She easily made several drinks at once, not even flinching. Lee wondered if Gaara ever went up front to help.
Another person walked through the door and Temari gave him a dirty look.
"You're late." She stated and he glanced at the clock and rolled his eyes.
"By 8 minutes, you survived." Lee was surprised at the tone! How can you disrespect your boss that way? Lee would never dare!
"Kankuro, just shut up and get behind the counter." Temari looked irritated but not as much as she could be. "By the way, this is Lee, the new hire." She nudged Lee at the bar and Lee tensed at the sudden attention.
"Yo, Lee. I'm Kankuro. Temari and Gaara's brother." Well that would make sense why he was able to talk to her like that. He still shouldn't but Lee felt if Temari were talked to that way by anyone else, they would be fired.
"It is a pleasure to meet you." Lee said automatically and Kankuro chuckled and started making the drinks at the machine as Temari passed him cups and handled the transactions.
Lee began pondering to himself. If he worked here in the mornings, would he be replacing Temari or Kankuro? If he replaced Temari, he would be there for nearly two hours alone with Gaara. The thought was exciting. He hoped he'd be able to talk to Gaara more. He seemed like an interesting person, it didn't help that Lee thought he was the cutest guy he'd ever seen.
Thinking about Gaara sparked something in Lee's mind and he remembered Gaara said he'd show him around the kitchen when he was done so Lee put a pen down on top of his papers and slid it across the bar. He walked over to the swinging door that led to the kitchen and saw Temari and Kankuro were distracted with customers so pushed into the kitchen.
The kitchen was bigger than he expected it to be. There was a line of counters on the far wall with a stove, two work benches in the middle of the kitchen, and the other side had several glass door refrigerators. On the opposite end of the room there was a steel door that led into a walk-in freezer. Under the workbenches were several rolling bins with assorted baking equipment and on the right side of him the wall was nearly empty, having only an over and a sink. There was another doorway that Lee saw but he didn't want to walk in too far incase Gaara was busy.
Right now he stood at the counter holding a cornet filled with royal icing outlining sugar cookies. He glanced up and acknowledged Lee but said nothing and continued to ice the cookies. After a few awkward seconds of Lee standing there Gaara looked up briefly.
"You can come over if you'd like." Lee didn't need to be told twice. He loved to watch people work. Especially something as intricate as what Gaara was doing.
"What kind of decorations are you doing on them?" So far they were just circles with an orange circle around them.
"Some of them will be jack-o-lanterns." Gaara said quietly and Lee watched him outline the ridges with one cornet and pick up another one with a slightly lighter orange and fill it with runnier icing. After, he grabbed a thin scribe to push the icing around.
He had an entire sheet tray of pumpkin cookies iced before he grabbed another metal bowl and added more royal icing and dyed it black. He folded a piece of parchment paper into another cornet and filled it. He folded the bag so it wouldn't leak and he placed it on a plate and grabbed his dirty dishes.
"Come on." He said and walked through the next doorway which was a dish pit with a 3 basin sink and a dish washer. Despite the room next door being cool, this room was warm and humid. Lee found himself having a hard time breathing in it. On the other wall in the room were two speed racks filled with sheet trays. "This is the dish room. Our dishwasher isn't very punctual but no one wants to be a dishwasher so we take what we can get."
"If you would like me to, I can do the dishes." Gaara shook his head.
"I think Temari would want you out front. You're too... personable to keep back here. You need a certain mentality to work with the public. Which is why I'm back here." Lee went to make a comment, but Gaara was out of the room already and Lee quickly trailed after him. He peeked into the refrigerator and saw various cambros filled with different batters for cakes. There was more eggs than Lee had ever seen in his life at one time. One fridge was completely filled with different kinds of milk. Whole, skim, almond, soy, hemp, coconut. Why were there so many options? There was also a large jar filled with a creamy brown colored liquid.
"What is that?" Lee asked and Gaara glanced up.
"That is a mixture of sweetened condensed milk and coffee. You can add a bit to coffee drinks to make them sweeter and creamier." That sounded delightful.
"Do you make things for the coffee too?" Gaara nodded and he started drawing faces on the pumpkin cookies once he felt the base icing was dry.
"Ganache and caramel, mostly. Those are the most popular options." Lee was impressed.
"You make that here? That sounds so fancy." Gaara perked his brow.
"For ganache all I do is weigh out 650 grams of chocolate, put it in a bain marie, pour a quart of milk into a pot, warm that up, pour it on top, leave it alone for 5 minutes, come back, mix it and there you have it, ganache." Lee looked at Gaara thoughtfully.
"I never knew it was that simple." He admitted, truth be told, he didn't know much about ganache.
Lee continued to watch Gaara draw faces on the cookies and asked him random questions about what he was doing. Gaara responded with just the right amount of words. Nothing too wordy, considering he didn't much like talking. Lee was happy to hear him talk all the same. Even more so, he loved to see him work. Gaara's hands were a lot steadier than Lee's were, that was for certain.
It was amusing that all the faces were different in some aspect. Some were angry, some were happy, some looked sad, some had square eyes, some round, some triangle. None were the same and Lee loved that. He was also excited to see that the bakery was getting into the autumn spirit. Autumn was his favorite times of year. It was nice and cool, the leaves changed color, and of course, there was pumpkin and apple everything!
Finally, Gaara slid the cookies onto a speed rack with a variety of other baked goods and looked up at Lee.
"It's time for school." He pointed out and Lee couldn't help the nagging feeling of disappointment at that. He couldn't wait to start work and spend all of these mornings with Gaara. He hoped Gaara felt even slightly the same.
Gaara walked into one of the doors that Lee peeked in and saw was an employee bathroom and came out a few minutes later changed out of his chef clothes and into plain jeans and a red sweater. He also had such a strange shaped backpack.
Lee followed Gaara out of the kitchen and the line was still there, but not as bad. Gaara walked behind the counter and grabbed a cold cup and started making himself an iced drink.
"Would you like some coffee, Lee?" He offered and Lee debated it.
"I am not really a fan of coffee..." He admitted bashfully and Gaara looked up at Temari.
"Well..." Temari started. "You should try the drink Gaara always makes. Do you have a sweet tooth?" Lee nodded and Gaara pulled out another cold cup. Lee never had cold coffee before.
Gaara worked around his siblings, putting a scoop of ice into Lee's cup and he made two shots of espresso at the same time. Gaara filled the cup halfway with milk, then tended to the espresso shots. He took a squeeze bottle of vanilla simple syrup into the espresso and mixed it. Before he put the espresso in the cup, he reached into the fridge and pulled out the sweetened condensed milk mixture and put at least a fourth cup in. Gaara dumped the shot on top and closed the lid and handed Lee the drink and picked up two straws and handed Lee one of those too. Lee took it and stared at the drink for a moment and Kankuro was scowling.
"Gaara, you ruin coffee, you know that, don't you?" Gaara shrugged his shoulders while drinking.
"So do you, and you're a barista. At least when I ruin coffee, someone doesn't pay for it." Kankuro scowled and Temari laughed.
"Don't you have to go to school?" Kankuro scowled and Gaara nodded.
"So do you."
Lee finally took a sip of his drink. His only thought was the bitterness of the coffee he drank earlier that morning. This coffee on the other hand, was nothing like that. It was sweet and creamy and had the slightest bitterness in the aftertaste. It was delicious.
"This is amazing." Lee said honestly and drank more.
"Calm down there." Temari warned. "You'll get a stomach ache if you chug that." Lee heeded her advice, but it was so hard with the coffee being so good.
Him and Gaara walked to school together. It was only across the street, but Lee still felt happy to have Gaara walking by his side. Gaara was such a calm, quiet person. It almost reminded him of Sasuke when they first met. Lee and Sasuke became friends in the fourth grade. Sasuke was angry at the world because his parents had died and he was left in the custody of his older brother, Itachi. Itachi and Sasuke always had this weird air about them. They always fought about something but Lee and Naruto absolutely adored Itachi which probably didn't make anything better. Anyway, once Lee and Sasuke became friends, Sasuke became much more talkative. Not that he was talkative now, but he was more so than he used to be. Lee hoped the same would happen with Gaara.
They walked in silence and Lee noticed how it was still decently early. Why were they there so soon?
"I usually walk the track in the morning before school to get myself awake." Lee could understand. Sometimes he woke up at four to run a couple miles.
"Why do you need to walk when you already get up at four?" Lee asked and Gaara looked at him, Lee noticed the bags under his eyes. He wondered why Lee looked perpetually exhausted. Did it have something to do with the job?
"Waking up for work and waking up are two different things. I'm going to walk the track. You don't have to join if you don't want to." Lee smiled at Gaara.
"Of course I would like to. I have so much more to ask you about baking!" Lee felt excitement at the budding friendship.