Cappuccino Warfare

By Eiryia

Mino looked up from the counter eyes wandering slowly until they were lingering on the shop across the street. Everything about the new place annoyed him, from the glossy glaring sign to the pretend posh look of the rich wood exterior. Worst of all was the fact that it was another coffee shop, which meant it was direct competition to his place. He didn’t own it, but he was the manager and held more than a little pride in being the most popular place in the area. 

He didn’t feel threatened. 

Not all all. 

They got a lot of regular customers and a steady flow of new ones stopping by everyday. They were doing fine, had been for as long as he had been in charge there and would continue to do just fine. 

Just fine!

He sighed and straightened his apron before continuing his day in the regular way; making excellent cups of coffee, even putting in some extra effort to be nice just to remind everyone who their favorite barista was. 

It was evening and as natural for a coffee place had things begun to slow down, at least on his side of the street. The other side seemed to attract a lot of students and evening class high schoolers. Scratching his head he wondered why. Of course the new place was probably popular for being new, but still. 

While he cleaned the tables he set up a plan. He needed a spy, someone youthful to go over there and check out what the evening buzz was about. 

What did they have that he didn’t? That was what he needed to find out.

The next morning, as soon as the morning rush was over had he grabbed his doe eyed co-worker and pulled him with him into the back room. 

    "Jinwoo, I got a plan" Mino said feeling his eyes narrow in glee over his own genius. 

    "You want me to go over there?" Jinwoo replied with a yawn, making 40 espressos  didn’t seemed to have helped on his usual morning drowsiness. 

    "Well, yes" he sighed, Jinwoo’s yawn stealing away from his momentum. 

    "What do you want me to look for?" Jinwoo asked, taking off his apron. 

    "Not now, after your shift is over! Go find out whats attracting the young crowd" he instructed and Jinwoo nodded agreeingly. 

The rest of the day was pretty slow and he couldn’t help but to notice the steady flow of people entering and exiting the new coffee shop across the street. Come tomorrow and he would have his answer. Jinwoo wouldn’t disappoint him surely. 

The next morning Mino rolled out of bed a bit more excited than usual, he would finally get his answers and he could start making a plan to counter it. He would come out on top, they would win this! 

Unlocking the door to the coffee shop he couldn’t help but to notice the silver haired fellow doing the same across the street. He fought an urge to greet him good morning like he used to do with the old owners of the place, old habits die hard he supposed, but he couldn’t, because this was war after all. 

An hour went by and he was expecting Jinwoo any minute. When he finally showed up was it with a piece of paper in his hand. How diligent he thought, Jinwoo had taken the time to write down his observations. This new guy was really meeting his expectations and more with taking on this undercover mission in such an easygoing way. 

    "Whats this?" he asked looking down at the paper. 

    "My resignation" Jinwoo said plainly while putting on his apron. 

Jinwoo had gone on to explain about how his undercover spy mission had gone, from the amazing coffee to the super handsome staff. 

    "We got handsome staff" Mino had mumbled at this part. Jinwoo had gone on to how he had been offered a job after he had made a rather educated remark on the coffee beans to test the knowledge of the barista. 

    "The guy leading the place, Seungyoon. He was so kind, and really knowledgeable!" Jinwoo praised and smiled and Mino thought he looked a little enamored while saying this last bit. 

    "So you took the job!?!" he asked still gobsmacked at this development. 

    "The pay is better and they got cleaners" Jinwoo said apologetically with a shrug. "And I’d love to learn more from Seungyoon" he added leaving for the backroom. 

A month later and it was the first shift of the new guy he had hired and it was also the traitors first shift on the opposite side of the street. Jinwoo was too sweet, too kind and perfectly handsome and now he had been snatched away from him by this Seungyoon. 

    "Squabbling with some deep thoughts there" the new guy, Seunghoon, noted while sipping on his iced americano. 

He had picked Seunghoon out of all the applicants because he seemed to have some real spunk in him. 

When he told him about the ongoing war at the end of the interview had Seunghoon's eyes narrowed and he had been onboard to win the battle right away. 

Mino was well aware that Seunghoon probably was playing along to get the job, but playing or not, he expected him to help out. 

    "Just thinking about what Jinwoo, the guy who had your job before you said when he resigned to join the enemy" Mino explained, eying one of his regulars as he walked across the street towards the enemy. Another traitor. He better return here when he find out for himself their coffee is nothing like his. 

    "What?" Seunghoon asked with mild interest while stacking clean mugs on the shelves behind the counter. 

    "Frappuchinos" he said with a snarl. 

    "What?" Seunghoon repeated, staring at him probably wondering if he was going mad. 

Going on to explain about the iced coffee blended into mush with ice Seunghoon had replied that he knew perfectly well what they were. 

    "What about them?" he had asked, leaning backwards on the counter, rubbing his hands on his apron. 

    "We don’t have them" Mino replied simply. 

    "Right" Seunghoon responded. "Riiiight"

This time it was his turn to go on a research mission, across town obviously so he wouldn’t be spotted by the sneaky silver fox. 

Once there he had sampled several iced coffee drinks, made notes on his phone and even sent a few pictures to Seunghoon who didn’t seem to think frappuchinos for a traditional coffee place like theirs was a good idea. 

    "Do Italians in coffee bars throw down frappuchinos with their espresso shots? No, they don’t" he had said in a bored matter of factly way.

Mino didn’t care. He needed to stay relevant, no one came by to take shot after shot of espresso anymore anyway. Once he was back home he organized his notes, made a list of things to order once he was back at work and spent the evening planing recipes he wanted to try out. 

He arrived extra early that morning only to spot the silver fox already outside his coffee shop sweeping leaves. 

    "Try-hard" he mumbled trying not to look at him, but staring quite hard anyway. The fox was obviously pretty young, so why was his hair like that? Maybe that was what attracted the crowds.. His wacky hair? 

For a moment he considered changing their image and making both himself and Seunghoon adapt odd hairstyles too, but he had a feeling Seunghoon wouldn’t be too pleased. He didn’t wish to scare him over to the other side where now both Jinwoo and Mr. Fox was standing ready to steal away his newest employee. 

Come lunch break and he was clicking away his order for a couple of powerful blenders, a freezer for all the ice they needed and a new dishwasher along with other smaller necessities. 

He could feel Seunghoon shaking his head at him from the doorway, but he was dead set on winning this war. 

Jinwoo had stopped by not long after he had finished his order, wondering if he was still upset with him. He were, but he pretended not to be. What worried him more however was the way Seunghoon smiled at Jinwoo. The way he leaned forward on the counter despite Jinwoo standing on the direct opposite side of the counter. 

    "Don’t tell him of any of our improvements" he said pointing at Seunghoon before leaving for the storage room to get more coffee beans. Once around the corner, out of view he tried to listen in to the two coffee novices conversation. 

Catching only a few words here and there he heard "Seungyoon" "Coffee" "Competition" "Dinner" … "Dinner?" the last word had been Seunghoon’s. Bursting out from his hiding spot he went straight over to Jinwoo and kindly guided him to the exit door before turning to Seunghoon behind the counter. 

    "Fraternizing with the enemy! Thats treason!" he exclaimed more seriously than he had intended. 

Seunghoon only laughed, waved his hand at him to shoo him away and started cleaning the espresso machine. 

    "I’m sure I can get him to tell me everything, their recipes even" Seunghoon said to him in a low voice once he was back behind the counter with the coffee beans which he had failed to fetch the first time around.

He had approved of that idea, Jinwoo might just tell him something useful. A little bit worried he told Seunghoon to give it his best, but mentally he was preparing himself to call up his second choice for staff from the job interviews the previous month. 

That Sunday he had spent experimenting with his new blenders in the closed coffee shop, making some decent frappuchinos if he was to judge them himself. He got Seunghoon and Jinwoo’s date in the back of his mind however.

It was just as he threw a quick glance at his phone to see if Seunghoon had sent him any messages he was hit by a ice cold wave of ice, milk, syrup and coffee. 

He had forgotten to shut the lid properly before pushing the button on the blender and so there he was: completely coffee soaked. Just when he thought it couldn’t get worse had someone knocked on the glass door at the shop front. 

Turning towards where the sound came from he saw Mr. Fox aka Seungyoon standing there waving, waving and laughing. 

Why him, why now, why? Mino thought while drying his sticky hand on his partially covered apron.

Striding over enraged he unlocked the door and pulled it open in one swift motion almost knocking himself over in the process as the door opened inwards. 

    "What?" he grumbled angrily, barely managing to keep himself from shouting. 

Seungyoon put one finger to his frappuchino covered cheek, smiled amused and said:

    "Since our employees are dating I figured I’d come over and suggest a truce" Seungyoon said looking like he was withholding a laugh with quite a bit of a struggle. 

Truce. 

He repeated the word in his head several times. So Jinwoo had told him about their supposed war. Suddenly he felt slightly embarrassed. 

    "No need" he muttered feeling bothered. 

    "What? Are you saying there is no war?" Seungyoon asked arching an eyebrow at him, obviously mocking him now, putting pressure on the situation by taking a step closer while the frappuchino from his face off his finger. 

Now he was standing too close, so close Mino could feel his warm breath on his face in the cool spring morning. 

    "We run the same kind of shop, of course there is a certain level of competition" Mino said sternly. 

    "If you say so" Seungyoon replied, a wonky smile spreading on his lips. Eyes glinting with mischief. 

    "I do" he repeated, trapped between the door, the wall behind him and the step down to their side. 

    "Do you need help with this?" Seungyoon asked poking at his chest covered with the coffee splatter. 

    "I’m fine" he replied, one hand on the door handle now. 

    "I can teach you one of our recipes?" Seungyoon suggested, but instead of responding Mino opened the door to his side and returned inside as quickly as he could manage. 

Once inside he shook his head no at Seungyoon as if he was telling to a stray cat not to follow after him even if he knew it wouldn’t take no for an answer and then he b-lined straight to the backroom to change into his spare shirt and apron. 

Once he returned to the shop was it to find Seungyoon leaning on the counter staring up at the menu above him. 

    "We are closed you know"