When the clock finally hit 7:00 a sigh of exhaustion and relief left your mouth. You had been wanting to go home since you had started to work at 23:00. Every single day since they hired you, when the time to finish your work period was coming, you couldn’t help but wonder why did you accept a night shift, and wouldn’t find any valid reason. Of course, when the night was coming and your entry time was near you remembered exactly why you had accepted it. You were as poor as a rat and if you wanted to keep studying, you needed that job to pay for basically everything.

Rob came in cheerfully greeting everyone, as always. You hated him. He was a nice guy, but he used to come to work every morning with a shiny smile and his stupid rested face after having slept all night… Like you all had that chance! er.

“Good morning Sweetheart,” he smiled trying to be nice, as he leaned on the counter in front of you, “How is our newest worker doing today?”

“Call me Sweetheart once again and I will rip your eyes out of your face using this teaspoon,” you answered showing him the one you were wiping and mimicking his pose.

“We get grumpy if we don’t have our beauty sleep hours, huh?” he laughed lightly, ignoring your bad-tempered and putting his apron on.

You gave him a fake smile as you went for the door, wanting to leave the place as soon as possible and avoiding to answer him, knowing that he was right and your reply wouldn’t be nice,

“Rest well! I’ll see you tomorrow!” he shouted before you grabbed your bag and crossed the door.

What an idiot. He knew you were going to spend most of the morning catching up on your homework and studying for your exams and your afternoon schedule was packed with classes. You were lucky if you managed to get a maximum of 4 hours of sleep. Thank God every five days of hard work there was always a weekend to have some rest…

As your feet carried you lazily through the street, the scent of freshly brewed coffee made you walk right in front of the nice building where it came from, as every morning of the last two months.

You opened the door making the small bell that was over it ring, and went straight for your usual table, waiting for the waitress to come and take your order.

It was one of your favorite places in the world. That coffee shop was on the campus, next to the building where you had most of your classes,  near your workplace and even closer to your dorm, but as soon as you crossed the door it made you feel disconnected from everything, like nothing else existed out of its doors. You didn’t know if it was an effect it only had on you or if someone else could feel it, but you were in love with it.

The huge windows in the front and the back let the sun rays light the place and, as most of the furniture was painted with bright colors, it added a special gleam to it, making you feel at ease.

Something that you would never understand was why so many students had stopped going to that place because of the Starbucks that had been opened a block away. For you, it wasn’t as nice as this coffee shop, as cheap as the one you were in or the coffee as good, but you were thankful for the stillness that could be breathed without an avalanche of people walking around.

“Hey! What can I bring you? Your usual?” asked with a huge smile the waitress, who had silently approached to your table.

“Yes please,” you answered, “and extra sugar. I need to keep myself awake.”

She nodded and turned around giggling. You didn’t know her name, but you used to be each other’s waitress every day. Before her shift began she would walk into the bar where you were working at and ask for an orange juice and chips. It wasn’t an ideal breakfast but you were not her mom so you would get her what she wanted and, around an hour later, you would go to her work place and order a big cappuccino and toasts. It was like you were friends but you had never had a conversation out of what you would serve each other, and despite it was weird, it still added an extra to the coziness of the place.

The bell over the door rang again and he came in. The guy you had been observing every day since you became a regular customer there. Well, maybe observing was not the word. You were not a creeper. It was more like you couldn’t refrain yourself from glancing at him from time to time. But how not? You were sure you had never seen such a beautiful man in your life. He was Asian, with soft eyes and full lips. His hair always up, showing his forehead, and his clothes on point. He did remember you of a cute small bunny sometimes, and still, everything he did was graceful and manly. His presence was not like something you could ignore. You had no idea if he knew that, but you did, and the rest of the female customers of the place knew that too.

“Your breakfast. Bon appétit!” exclaimed the girl carrying your order and making you jump in surprise.

“Thanks,” you mumbled blushing, ashamed that she had just caught you staring at the boy.

She walked from your table to his and asked the same question she had asked you when you came in. He was also a regular. Every single morning he would come in, look for his usual table, next to yours, and sit on the opposite side you did, so you were facing each other. He would ask for a black coffee and pull his tablet out of his bag while waiting. He would drink the whole mug at once, after considering it was cool enough to drink and keep reading something on the screen. A couple of minutes before the clock hit 8:00, he would look at his watch, course under his breath for being late, and hurriedly pick his things, dropping a couple of coins on the table to pay for his coffee, and then he would leave. Just to do exactly the same the next morning.

Despite knowing every detail of his routine, you had no idea that morning, for the first time, it would be different. He ordered his usual, read on his tablet, as usual, and drank his coffee in one go, as usual, but when he left the mug over the table he lifted his eyes and looked at you. Well… more like he caught you staring.

The heat on your face was an indicator that you were blushing, probably like never before, and you looked away as quickly as you could. He smiled softly, finding cute the shade of red in your cheeks, and then called for the waitress.

That was a new move. You wanted to know what was he doing, why did he change his every-day procedure, but you were ashamed enough to refrain yourself, at least for that day. You didn’t think you were able to hold his sight again.

The sound of the bell indicating that the door was being opened dragged your attention to it, and you saw the back of the bunny-guy who was already leaving the place.

Why was he leaving? Was it because of you? Did you make him feel uncomfortable? Oh God! Maybe he was aware of you watching him all the time and he just couldn’t stand it anymore. That was it. You were a creeper. You definitely were.  

“Here, this is for you,” The voice next to you made you jump again.

“Jesus!” you whimpered placing a hand over your chest in an attempt to soothe your heart. How was she that quiet? Did she even walk using her feet or she moved around just walking in the air? It was the third time she surprised you that day.

She turned to leave with a huge grin on her face, clearly amused with your reaction, but you called her again,

“Excuse me, I didn’t order this,”

“I know, he ordered it for you,” she sang pointing the table where the pretty boy was sitting a second before, “He left that for you to read and paid your bill too.”

Your heart froze for a second, just like the rest of you.

She said what?

He did what?

Turning the takeaway cup, there was a yellow post-it stuck to it with something written on it:

You look tired. Go home and have some rest.

Kim Junmyeon.

You didn’t know how to react. Like, on the one hand, a complete stranger was “kinda” telling you what to do with a note on a post-it, and you didn’t like it. But, on the other hand, the cute bunny boy who you “kinda” had a crush on, had just invited you to, judging by its smell, another cup of cappuccino and showed his concern for your well-being… Nice move.

“So Kim Junmyeon is the name that matches that face…” you whispered to yourself.

A small smile emerged on your lips as you found curious that he had asked for you to have some rest while paying for another cup of coffee that you had originally ordered to be sure that you didn’t fall asleep.