You nearly cried when your favorite coffee shop closed. They were the only place in the entire city that had exactly what you wanted and the fastest free wifi you’ve ever seen. It was a little slice of heaven every time you went in there, which was every morning.

The little coffee shop that stood three blocks away from your apartment hadn’t gotten enough business, causing it shut down quickly.

Now the search was on to find a new coffee shop that fit your standards exactly. You started with a fairly big cafe called Coffee Express, which ended up tasting disgusting and the service was horrible. So the next day you decided to try a little hole in the wall called The Busy Bean. The name was exactly the opposite of what the cafe actually was, hardly anyone was in the cafe and the atmosphere didn’t feel like home.

And that’s when you found the Aroma Mocha, a little place next to your job at the hospital. When you walked in, you already understood the meaning behind the name. Everything smelled so amazing, so rich and strong. The soft clink of coffee cups came from all around, accompanied by the quiet murmur of an early morning’s conversation. Once you arrived at the counter, you stopped to scan the menu. It was hard to figure out exactly what you wanted, maybe a little bit too hard because you were snapped out of your reverie the second you heard someone clear their throat.

You looked ahead, shocked by the barista who stood before you. The man smiled brightly, showing off a perfect row of white teeth. “Are you going to order or are you going to look at the menu until we close.” He joked, holding a pad of paper in one of his hands and a pen in the other.

You laughed nervously, and quickly chose what to order. “I’ll have a Raspberry Mocha” you blurted, even though the drink hadn’t even been one of your two options. The barista nodded his head, still smiling. “Not a very common order, may I have your name?” He asked, writing the order down quickly.

“Y/N.” you said. The barista wrote it down and went to the machine to start preparing your order. It took nearly everything in you not to look at the barista. He had the blondest hair you had ever seen and eyes that almost screamed happiness. He was very handsome, and it made you almost wonder why he was working in a coffee shop rather than a modeling agency.

The barista hummed to himself a song that you had heard before, but it sounded more pleasant as he hummed it to himself. Once he finished, he scribbled your name on the cup and handed it to you with a smile. “Have a nice day, hope you come again!” The barista said cheerfully. You raised your hand to wave goodbye and you rushed out of the cafe to get to work, realizing that you were nearly late to work.

You sat down on the cold tile floor of the hospital, leaning your head against the pure white wall. You still held your coffee closely. The second you walked into the hospital, you were greeted with nothing but hecticness. You set your coffee down on the nearest nurse’s station and now, three hours later, you had finally gotten the chance to drink your now cold coffee.

You sat next to Jooheon and Ellie, who were the two people who kept you from going crazy in the always busy hospital. You played with the heating sleeve of the cup of coffee as you slowly sipped it. Cold coffee was one of your least favorite things in the world.

“A kid in the peds floor made me a picture because I am his favorite nurse.” . Poor kid, he has a late stage stomach cancer.” Jooheon mumbled. He had always had a soft spot for the kids. Ellie, who sat on the other side of you only shrugged her tired shoulders. “I prepped a man for a heart transplant. He was a sweet old man, his wife brought the hospital staff cookies.”

You sighed and finished off the coffee. “I’ve been stuck in the E.R. I had to change into new scrubs because a man puked on me.” You groaned. You both loved and hated your job, today was one of the days that you hated it.

You closed your eyes and rested your head on Jooheon’s shoulder. “I’m exhausted.” You said as Jooheon pat your weary head. “Hey Y/N, where’d you get this coffee?” you heard Ellie ask. You opened one eye and saw her examining your coffee cup.

“The coffee shop across the street, why?”

Ellie moved the cooling sleeve away from the paper cup and held it out to you. In large black letters, there read ‘If you were a vegetable you’d be a cute-cumber.’

Jooheon laughed, “That is the worst pick up line I’ve seen in a long time.” He joked as he nudged you in the ribs. You placed a hand over your face, a slight blush crawling over it. Ellie wiggled her eyebrows and held the cup closer to your face.

“Was he cute?” She asked with a smirk on her face.

You looked to her and raised your eyebrows. “Huh?” Ellie rolled her eyes and pointed to the text on the cup. “Was the barista who wrote this cute?” She repeated. You threw your hands up and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

You knew. You so knew. He was gorgeous. Picturesque. Beautiful. Yet, you weren’t going to give Ellie the pleasure of knowing that. You got up from the hospital floor and dusted your hands off, taking the cup from Ellie and throwing it in the nearest trash can.

Ellie frowned and got up after you. “So that means he was attractive.” She yelled after you. You shrugged your shoulders again and grinned. “I have patients to check on”

Ellie grumbled but followed you back to the patient recovery rooms anyway, Jooheon following close behind.

You didn’t get off your shift until two in the morning. There had been an extensive trauma that took all of the E.R. staff and surgical staff to handle. You tiredly walk the streets home, dragging your feet from pure exhaustion.  Once you got home to your small apartment, you got a text message.

You check your screen, surprised by the time that someone was trying to contact you. It was the chat that you shared with Ellie and your fellow nurses, some of which had just gotten off their own shifts as well.

Hoseok: Did you hear about the new group of surgical interns coming in a couple of months?

Jooheon: Yeah, they’re the new med school grads.

Changkyun: Hopefully some of them will be cute ;)

Jooheon: Is that all you can think about?

Changkyun: What? Cute people love me.

Hoseok: Well I certainly don’t

Changkyun: Was that a burn “Mr. I’ve been turned down by every nurse/doctor/lab tech in the hospital.”

Hoseok: You didn’t have to be mean about it

Ellie: Stop acting like children. We have more important matters to talk about. Like the barista who’s currently after Y/N.

You: Now who’s acting like a child?

Ellie: I’m coming to your apartment tomorrow at 7 to come to the cafe with you and check this fellow out. Be ready!

You groaned and clicked the phone off. You didn’t want to think about it, you were too tired to be concerned with your friend treating it like a middle school crush. You closed your eyes and were greeted by a pleasant night of sleep.

You woke up with loud banging on your door, you rushed to your door, opening it up to see Ellie and Jooheon standing, already dressed in their pale red scrubs. Jooheon crossed his arms, amused by the sight of your flustered self. “Y/N It’s 7:05, hurry it up!” Ellie pushed you gently back into your apartment. You pushed back your hair and quickly grabbed clean scrubs to change into, once ready you scrambled to leave your home, Jooheon and Ellie following close by.

“A little eager to get some coffee aren’t we?” Jooheon teased, nudging your side as the three of you walked. You glanced behind you and glared and Ellie “Why did you think it’d be a good idea to bring him along?” You asked, maybe a bit too loudly.

Jooheon pretended to be offended, grabbing his chest and acted as if he were crying. “Maybe she thought that I would like to see the man that my best friend is pining over!” He yelped when you hit him in the stomach. “I am pining over no one, now, let’s get some coffee and get to work, I am not in the mood to mess with your antics today.” You mumbled, speeding up your pace.  

Jooheon looked to Ellie and grinned “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today” he whispered.

“I heard that!” you yelled behind you, continuing at your quick pace.

“You’re back again” The barista grinned, writing a quick note on his pad. You smiled, taking the money out to pay. “I would like a sma-” you tried saying before he lifted a finger to silence you. “You’ll pay for a small, but I’m giving you a large. I can tell you’re exhausted.” he held out his hand to take the money. You slowly forked over the money, not taking your eyes away from his smile, and in turn you smiled too.

“A large raspberry mocha for Y/N, it’ll be out soon.” he grinned, he set your order to the side and took the other two’s order.

Jooheon looked at his simple small cup of black coffee, frowning fakely. “I am the sweetest man anyone will ever meet. Yet I have never been given a free size upgrade” He grumbled, he also noticed that there was no site of a ty pick up line written on the side of the cup. He sat in the nurse’s office, swinging his feet around a revolving chair. You and Ellie looked at your cups, both about to reveal what was written under the cooling sleeve. “There’s going to be a crappy pick up line” you said to Ellie, who only shook her head.

You both wanted to see if the mysterious barista wrote the horrible pickup lines to every girl who came into the cafe.

“1…2…3” she mouthed. And as she said the last number you both removed the cooling sleeve, revealing a written compliment for you, and not one for Ellie.

“Do you have a map? I’m getting lost in your eyes.” You said to the other two.

Jooheon’s eyes grew wide, a smile spread across his face “He’s smooth as hell, I wonder how he comes up with them.”

You flipped your hair and smirked “Just by looking at me obviously.” you joked.

Jooheon only shook his head “No, not that.” he said, but laughed when he couldn’t pull off the joke. “He’s into you, he gave you free coffee, that’s a keeper right there.” he said, chugging down his coffee and throwing the empty cup in the nearest trash. Ellie laughed under her breath, but looked at you with amusement in her eyes.

“Don’t let Kihyun know about your new barista boy,” Ellie winked, as she stood up from her chair. She heard a few beeps and checked her page “And speak of the devil himself.” she sighed, getting ready to answer to the doctor’s call.

As Ellie left, Jooheon slowly looked to you, pure confusion on his face. “Have you been seeing a doctor behind my back? Y/N, I thought we agreed on no doctors!” You stood up and grabbed your page, laughing nervously “Look at that, I got a page for doctor Chae, see ya!” you mouthed before hurriedly rushing out the door.

Yoo Kihyun was the heartthrob young cardiac surgeon who had come to the hospital around the same time as you. You could not classify your relationship with the doctor as a professional one. Even though it was frowned upon, the two of you met secretly in on-call rooms at any chance you could.

It was a sort of friends-with-benefits case. Though, with the two of you, it was more of a stress relieving exercise. From the long hours in the hospital and the high stress of it all, you both found a way to relieve just a little bit off your shoulder.

It had started nearly a year ago when you started working at the hospital, he had been a newer doctor at the time you began working, causing both of you not to have many friendly connections. Of course, normally the doctors and nurses never quite became friends, but since you and Kihyun worked on the same surgical floor, a friendship ended up sparking between you two.

Also many nights spent under each other’s covers.

After realizing how human you both were, you agreed to keep your ual relationship and your work relationship separate. Of course the two of you could date other people, in fact, it was very much encouraged, because you both knew that you didn’t want to be stuck in a dead end driven relationship.

You had only shared the details with Ellie, but now that she spilled the beans you were sure the rest of the nursing staff would soon spread rumors about you being in love with the doctor.

Which was not even close to being the case.

You rubbed your tired eyes and went about your day, waiting for the exhausting shift to get over.

You had started to go to the cafe every morning regardless if you had a shift or not. It soon came to the point where the barista already had your coffee waiting for you, a cute little message already written on the cup. Today’s message read You must be a magician, because every time I look at you, everyone else disappears.

Today was the day that you decided to make a move as well. After waiting for the line to die down, you approached the barista. He smiled brightly as you approached him, despite already having your coffee in your hand.

“And the beautiful Y/N comes to talk,” He beamed. You smiled and reached for his hand, which held a pen tightly. You slowly took the pen out of his hand and wrote your number on his palm. “It’s been a few weeks and I still don’t know your name.”

He smirked, looking down at the number written on his hand. He found it adorable how your handwriting looped around and seemed so girlish and neat. He extended his marked hand out for you to take “I’m Lee Minhyuk, and I’m so happy to finally meet you, Y/N.”

You grabbed his hand, taking note right away about way his hand warmed yours. He laughed nervously after you both didn’t take your hands away from each other’s.

“I really don’t write those notes to anyone else, just in case you were wondering.”

You smiled at him and waved goodbye. “I know. Have a good day, Lee Minhyuk.”