The first thing Minhyuk notices about the new barista is his hands. They’re elegant with long fingers but strong, with a map of veins running across the back of his hands. The knuckles on the barista’s hands are raised, slightly red, like he might be  tough enough to take care of himself but isn’t violent enough to usually use them. He’s pouring coffee beans into the grounder now, back turning against Minhyuk, and that snaps him out of his reverie. He hopes no one had noticed him staring intensely at the new barista, carefully lowering his head to look at his shoes for the rest of the time he has to wait before his coffee is ready.

The next time Minhyuk’s back in the café, the new barista isn’t there. Instead, it’s his usual barista for when he gets his morning coffee.

“Good morning, Minhyuk hyung. Your usual order?”

“Morning to you too, Yukwon. Yeah, the usual is fine.”

If he’s being honest, Minhyuk hears the slightest trace of disappointment in his own  voice under the warm words he gave Yukwon, but he chooses to ignores it. Minhyuk’s just here for coffee, and he’s only seen the other barista once. There’s no reason for him to be upset that the guy’s not working at the moment, none at all, but it doesn’t stop him from feel slightly empty anyway.

“Here’s your order, hyung,” Yukwon calls out, and Minhyuk manages to give a quick smile before he grabs his coffee to head off to work.

He catches the new barista a few days later, when he’s making a coffee run that’s not in his usual schedule. Work had been a huge pain, the paperwork he had to get through neverending, and Minhyuk figured a nice relaxing cup of something ridiculously sweet like green tea latte might be just the thing he needs before he heads home. The moment he enters the café, the smell of freshly grounded coffee wafts past his tiredness, and Minhyuk finds himself perking up. It’s because the place smells like fresh coffee, he reasons, and not because he finally sees the new barista again. No, of course not.

“Good evening! What can I get you?” The barista asks cheerily when Minhyuk reaches the counter, and he manages to read the guy’s name tag this time. Park Kyung.

He means to order a green tea latte, but what Minhyuk finds himself saying instead is, “Recommend me something sweet. I had a terrible day at work.”

The barista, Park Kyung, gives a sympathetic smile, and nods. “Sure! Would you like –”

“– surprise me.”

The barista is taken aback for a moment, but he recovers quickly enough to say with the same polite cheeriness, “Alright, why not?”

Minhyuk thinks he ed up, made a mess of the situtation with his awkward lines and abrupt conversation, so he hurriedly pays and moves away from the counter. But later when he picks up the drink from the counter, it’s a cup of hot green tea latte in a white porcelain cup, with a big smiley face drawn in foam on top. He feels a smile growing on his face as he stares at the drink. After he carries the cup back to his seat by the window, Minhyuk steals a glance at the barista who’s currently occupied, and he considers that maybe he hadn’t completely messed things up. The green tea latte is sweet but not overly so, and Minhyuk feels his chest grow warm as he sips on it.

After that, Minhyuk frequents the café for morning coffee as usual, not bothering to go out of his way to patronize the shop lest he comes across as creepy. Some mornings he sees Yukwon, but most of the time now Minhyuk gets his morning order from Park Kyung, or Kyung, as he tells Minhyuk to call him one day when he realizes that Minhyuk calls Yukwon by his name.

“Minhyuk-ssi, the usual today too?” Kyung asks without looking up, and Minhyuk makes a humming sound in agreement. He’s sleepy without the caffeine, but if he’s being honest, he’s mostly distracted watching the veins move in Kyung’s forearms as he brews the coffee. Kyung’s wearing a white dress shirt as per the uniform of the café but his sleeves are rolled up today, and Minhyuk finds himself more captivated by the slight exposure of skin than should be normal. He only gets to observe it for a short while though, because the door to the café opens and another customer walks in, prompting Minhyuk to pull out his wallet and pretend like he hadn’t been staring.

“Hi Taeil-ssi, are you getting your usual order too?” Kyung calls out to the new customer, and Minhyuk feels his heart sink a little. Of course he remembers other customers’ names and their usual orders, not just Minhyuk’s. Of course. He pays for his coffee like he hasn’t been thinking of something lame like that, and even manages a smile at Taeil, who just gives him a confused blink.

Once his takeaway cup is placed on the counter, Minhyuk grabs it and heads out, not wanting to do anything stupid that might embarrass himself more.

“Don’t you think you’re coming here too often?” Jaehyo asks from across the table and Minhyuk has to set his coffee down. Jaehyo’s a close friend from university, and they happened to both be free this weekend so Minhyuk had suggested they catch up in person even though they already text regularly. He definitely hadn’t suggested that they meet at this particular café; no, it’s just coincidence that Jaehyo lives nearby anyway, and the café was halfway between his apartment and Jaehyo’s. Yup, definitely.

“What are you talking about?” Minhyuk replies as evenly as he can, but Jaehyo has been friends with him for far too long to be taken in by his faked nonchalence.

“Anyone with eyes can see that you only come here to check out that barista who likes to wear shoes with ridiculously thick soles,” is Jaehyo’s dry remark, and Minhyuk quickly glances around to make sure no one