To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions

-Hugh Jackman

Minseok knew the power he had, helming the café every weekend. It was his special nook, away from the busy college life he had bustling through the weekdays like a steam train that was late for its arrival. Although he understood the stress of juggling his job and studies, the very reason why he pushed through was because of the café every Saturday morning when he entered the café, till the time he had to clock out every Sunday night. It was like he was entering heaven during that time, pushing through glass doors only to be greeted by the thick aroma of roasted coffee beans and the soft bossa nova music in the air.

But there was something else too, he thought to himself, as a faint smile spread on his lips as he wore his staff apron, heading behind the counter.

It was the arrival of someone very special to him.

She was a sales promoter at Victoria’s Secret next door, who came approximately in the late afternoon when her shift ended, staying over for an hour or two before her watch beeped, signalling for her to be heading back.

Every single time she entered those glass doors, Minseok knew he was a goner. He would dash to the counter, pushing away the tall Chanyeol, just so he could get to be the one who stood at the cash register and say breathlessly, “Yes, miss, may I have your order?”

He was never one to be flustered, especially when he himself was studying to be a surgeon and knew how to be very accurate and deliberate when performing his tasks, but when she came, all his desire for immaculateness were thrown out the window, leaving behind a stupid grin on his face and a nervous flutter in his heart.

Anyway, it wasn’t as if he was sloppy. He knew her chosen orders – an ice blended coffee and cherry smoothie when she was feeling particularly energetic, or a more subdued mocha for when she was a little down. And he would write her name on her plastic cup every single time in cursive lettering, like a lingering afterthought.

Areum. Just like her name, she was beautiful as ever, doe-eyed, soft long hair, and a bright smile. And she smelled of such breathtaking perfume. It made him so desperately want to reach out, take her fingers in his, and caress the back of her hand to take a good long smell. He wondered which intrigued him more: the girl herself, or the perfume. 

He felt a hand pat him on the back. Chanyeol grinned at him. "Daydreaming about the girl next door again?" he asked in his teasing voice. For a relative giant, with that height, Chanyeol was all about being a five year old who never stopped trying to jab at him about his secret crush. 

He gave his colleague a glare. "At least I even have someone who makes my day," he muttered. He shut his eyes, mentally scolding himself for daydreaming about her again, and went to take a customer's orders.

Chanyeol chuckled, leaning over a white mug to carefully outline a a heart in the coffee foam. "But it doesn't matter when you've had a crush on her for over a year and you still haven't talked to her yet."

Minseok rolled his eyes as he went to the blender, pouring in milk and coffee and a bit of vanilla essence. "Yeah, well," he faltered, "Some people like to admire their object of affection from afar."

His colleague laughed as he went to deliver the coffee. When he came back, there was a glint in his eyes. "I bet a hundred dollars you won't ask for her number."

Minseok glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. He had been a little too excessive in his Christmas shopping the past week, and his colleague's offer was sounding incredibly tempting. Not as tempting as Areum, but definitely intriguing enough.

He folded his arms over his chest. "A hundred dollars? If I don’t get her number? What if I do?" he challenged.

Chanyeol took a whisk, deftly frothing the milk in his metal cup. "Then the hundred dollars are all for you," he replied simply.

Issuing a suspicious look at his friend, he grinned. "Okay, fine. I take your bet."

"But hyung, if you don't…" Chanyeol began.

"I know, I know, I'll pay you hundred bucks."

Chanyeol shook his head vehemently. "That's too tame."

Minseok looked back. "What's more satisfying to you than a hundred dollars? Don't you know you can get so many things with that?" he asked incredulously. 

Young people. Always so flippant with their money.

In reply, his colleague grinned even wider. "If you don't get her number...I will, and I'll say you asked me to."

***

Minseok wiped the table of a leaving customer, casting worried looks at the cafe doors. 

“Anytime now,” he whispered to himself, before looking up and seeing Chanyeol’s devilish smile.

That boy is enjoying himself too much, he thought with a roll of his eyes, as he cleared things up on his tray.

As he passed by the front doors, they opened, and he caught a whiff of that perfume. His hands suddenly wavered, barely holding the tray as his insides churned with a nervous excitement.

However, when he turned, it wasn’t his girl, but one of her colleagues.

Keeping the disappointment at bay, he laced a smile on his lips. “Good afternoon, may I have your order?” he said in his best cheery voice.

She never came that day.

Or the next.

Minseok was more concentrated on his task, trying to forget the familiar young lady who came on the weekends, and was substantially quieter as a result of Chanyeol not being able to .

“I wonder where she went,” he mused.

Chanyeol pouted. “Maybe she quit her job,” he wondered, “I guess the deal’s off then, hyung. Sorry about your loss.”

“It’s cool, Yeollie. I never was going to do it anyway,” he lied.

***

With finals approaching, Minseok stopped working, instead wholeheartedly throwing himself into his studies. After an unfortunate accident in which he had accidentally pulled the scalpel on his subject in practical, he had received an earful, and decided it was time to rewind and forget about the exams.

He pushed open the familiar glass doors, smiling faintly when he felt the tension in his body start to ebb away.

The café was at its peak period, with people filling up almost every table, and he smiled at their relative popularity as he made his way to the front.

The barista behind the counter looked up when he appeared, a happy grin lighting his face. “Minseok-hyung!” he sang, “Nice to see you again!”

“You too, Tae,” he nodded with a smile to the youngest staff, Taehyung, “Can I get a macchiato, please? In large.”

“Yes, sir!” he answered jovially, reaching for the biggest-sized mug. “You know, Chanyeol-hyung mentioned that he misses you a lot,” the boy remarked, “He says the new barista isn’t the same as you.”

Minseok smiled. “Tell him not to worry,” he said, “I’ll be back next week.”

Taehyung’s hands were skilled as he drew intricate caramel spirals over the foam of his coffee, and placed the mug on his tray, with two serviettes on the side and a large cookie.

“On the house, hyung,” he said with a grin, to which he thanked him.

The boy looked past him, at someone. “See you tomorrow, Yoonji!” he called, and Minseok glanced back at a girl leaving the café.

He looked back at Taehyung, who was serving another customer, and sighed.

Immediately he thought about Areum. Why couldn’t he have initiated conversation with her during the whole year she went to the café? Why was he so intimidated by talking to his crushes?

He went to the back of the café, where the light was dimmer, and realized the table he wanted had no chair. He placed his tray on the table, looking around him. Spotting a lone person with two extra chairs, he went to her.

“Excuse me, may I have this chair?” he asked, when she looked up at him.

“Sure, go ahead,” a familiar voice answered jovially.

Minseok’s eyes widened at the figure in front of him, and his throat went dry. All the air suddenly seemed to leave the café, making him a little dizzy as he stared at the girl in front of him. Same eyes, same hair, same smile.

His mind went into a frenzy. Areum. It’s Areum. She’s right here.

And then,

Oh god, oh god, I have to get out of here!

Her perfume reignited his senses, confirming that it really was her. He was going to swoon right in front of her, and there was nothing he could to stop it.

Her features contorted to one of concern. “Are you alright?” she cried, as he swayed on the spot, and she stood up quickly, helping him into the seat opposite hers.

Minseok felt for his head. “I’m sorry…I just…” he croaked.

She turned around, taking his tray and placed it on her table. She handed him his cookie with a smile. “Here, get some sugar in your system,” she told him.

He could only nod with an embarrassed smile as he took it from her, stuffing it into his mouth like he depended on it to live.

Coughing a bit, he took a long breath, glancing up.

“Feel better?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Yes…thank you, Areum.”

Her name didn’t mean to come out. It was just that it was richocheting in his head at the speed of light, and suddenly slipped out.

She looked at him in a renewed light, her lips parting in surprise as she let out a gasp. “You’re the barista, aren’t you?” she asked, delight spreading across her face.

Minseok realized that if he died right now, he would be happy. “I am,” he said demurely.

She let out a soft laugh. “I didn’t recognize you without your uniform,” she said sheepishly, “You look really different at first glance, but now I remember.”

Minseok’s breath hitched. She remembered him? He grinned. “I didn’t see you earlier too,” he agreed, “I noticed you haven’t come by during the weekends.

“Yeah, about that…” Areum began, “Work politics, mostly. I thought it was time for a change.”

“Sorry to hear about that.”

Areum glanced up at him. “But I love coming here, though,” she said with a smile, looking around the café, “I get to wind down and just chill, you know? Plus, all the baristas are eye candy.”

She stopped, before covering with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean, that is,” she stuttered, “Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.”

By now, Minseok’s face was pink. Very pink. In fact, he was rendered speechless. All that mattered to him was to find out that she may like one of the baristas. In an almost choked voice, he managed to make out, “I don’t mind.”

She looked down at her mug, and he realized it was mocha. “But now that we’re here, I can safely say that no one does my drink better than you do,” she told him, “I’ve been waiting to tell you that, but you don’t work during weekdays, do you?”

“I stopped for a while due to my college finals,” he told her, “But I’m planning to come back again during term break, of course.”

She leaned forwards slightly, looking at him with wide eyes. “Will you be working during the weekdays?” she asked, “I mean, not that it matters, but perhaps…” she shrugged, “Maybe we could talk again or something? Not that we haven’t talked before, but…like this?”

Was she implying like a one to one meeting? A…date, sort of?

Minseok blinked. “Like ‘this’?”

Areum shifted in her seat. “I’m a bit of a loner,” she explained, “I could use a friend at the café every now and then, and you seem like such an easygoing person.” She bit her lip. “And it that I don’t even know your name, even though you write mine every single time.”

“M-minseok,” he blurted. “Kim Minseok.”

“Finally,” she said with a shy smile, “I keep thinking Mr. Sweet Smile and that sometimes sounds a little silly.”

He laughed. “Mr. Sweet Smile? That sounds like a storybook character.”

She laughed along with him. “I know right?”

Then her watch beeped, making them both pause.

He looked at her. “You’re leaving,” he stated.

“I’m afraid I have to,” she said with a regretful smile, “How did you know?”

Minseok shrugged. “You always do back then.”

Then, in a rare moment of bravery, although more of a desperate attempt to hold on to the moment,

“May I accompany you?” he asked.

Areum glanced at him. “Ah…I wouldn’t want to impose on you,” she said quickly, “You mentioned exams earlier…”

But there was something unspoken in both their eyes, something that they did not say to each other, and that was the fact that they would rather be in each other’s company.

“Maybe we could…” Minseok began, “I don’t know, see each other again, perhaps?”

She smiled. “Maybe we should.”

He swallowed. It was all on him now. “May I…” he faltered, “May I have your number, Areum?”

Oh, he was going to be a hundred dollars richer.

Aaaaaaaaand a chapter featuring Xiumin as a barista! I saw a photoshoot featuring him and really liked the idea of him taking up the craft. Being a barista is no joke. I went to take a coffee-making workshop, and it was so meticulous of the chef who was teaching us to make coffee so beautifully. I made myself a cup of iced mocha and it felt so good to be able to make coffee art. He even asked me if I had ever been a barista before, and I said no. But he gave this nod like, "Hmm...interesting..." and said that the way I rolled my whipping cream looked very natural.

Man, I preened a lot inside. The chef, although for a two hour lesson, was very strict in his methods and had that tough guy aura when he talked about methods of heating the milk, about whisking milk to cream (he believed in making cream himself because you never know what the cream sprays have in them!) and I was really awed.

Coffee-themed stories are always my fave, because of the cozy feelings that a cafe brings to anyone who enters. I was listening to jazz instrumentals on YouTube while I wrote this story, and it gave a pleasurable ambience to the whole thing. 

As a little footnote, here's the adorable baozi for you!