Chapter Text
Sasuke had already stopped paying attention to the noise, the coffee machine hissing somewhere behind him, cups clattering together as his hands moved on autopilot through another late shift.
It was late enough that he had to suppress a yawn, but still far too early to let himself think about being done. He checked his wristwatch anyway. Two more hours. Plenty of time before he could finally go home, sink into a hot bath, and later crawl into freshly changed sheets with his favorite manga. A sigh slipped out of him, louder than intended. He stayed where he was, behind the counter, surrounded by the familiar chaos—the milk frother hissing, dishes stacking up, a child screaming bloody murder after burning its tongue on hot cocoa. Sasuke rolled his eyes. It wasn’t even busy—just loud in that particular way small-town places tended to be. The same faces, who knew each other well enough to linger, to chat, to notice. On most days, the café barely filled up at all.
Staying here was the price of staying in uni. Today, tomorrow, and a long stretch of days after that. His textbooks weren’t going to pay for themselves. Neither was his apartment. And cheap food certainly didn’t appear out of nowhere. Which was how he ended up eating canned meals in front of the TV most evenings—because, honestly, the only thing he could reliably make was coffee. And even that only just well enough to keep complaints to a minimum. Luckily for him, they always seemed to arrive precisely when the manager wasn’t around. Just like today.
“I ordered a latte—what kind of garbage did you serve me here?” an overweight woman snapped at the counter, just as Sasuke was drying his wet hands after doing the dishes.
He looked at her, possibly for a second too long, blinked, adjusted his cap, and only after a moment of genuine consideration did he tilt his head slightly and open his mouth. “A latte,” he said calmly.
“No, this is not what I ordered,” the woman complained, slamming the oversized white cup onto the counter hard enough that a bit of foam spilled across the wooden surface. Sasuke’s gaze followed it, stunned, drifting down to the mess before slowly lifting back up to her face.
“Then tell me what exactly is wrong with it,” Sasuke said, voice even, “or do I need to magically pull a solution out of my apron?”
“Oh, very funny!” the woman scoffed. “Youth these days…”
Sasuke took a deep breath, carefully arranging what was supposed to be his most customer-appropriate smile on his face, though it worked only marginally. His cheekbones twitched from the effort alone.
The woman planted one hand firmly on the counter and made a broad, impatient gesture that—if Sasuke had to guess—was meant to demand a refund. “It’s basically just milk. For that price, I could’ve made this at home five times over.”
“My good lady,” Sasuke began, brow furrowing slightly, “do you know what a latte actually is?”
“What, are you trying to tell me I don’t know how to order my own drink, you little brat!?” She slammed her flat hand down on the counter between them, making the piggy-bank jar that held the tip money rattle loudly. Sasuke’s gaze flicked to it for half a second before snapping back to her face.
Now he was smiling—not out of politeness. This time, it was pure amusement. “First of all, I’m not a little brat,” he said slowly, “and secondly, I would never say that out loud. It’d remain a thought. ”
“You little—”
“A latte consists of equal parts milk and coffee,” Sasuke cut her off, his tone noticeably more serious than before. He rolled his tongue against his teeth as he pulled his cap off, briefly running a hand through the hair flattened underneath before putting it back on. “If it doesn’t taste right to you, that’s on the coffee, not how it was made.”
Damn it. The job was miserable, but he needed the money, and that meant measuring every word, every look, every reaction. Still, the impulse lingered, stubborn and tempting, creeping into his fingertips—the simple, disastrous idea of throwing the coffee, shedding the apron, and leaving the café behind for good. He filed that thought away somewhere in the back of his mind, neatly tucked into a mental drawer for later—something to pull out again if he ever decided to write an overly dramatic biography about his life.
Yeah. Good idea, actually.
“You can spare me the explanations, kid! Either I get my money back, or I’ll be leaving a very detailed review on Yelp. And I won’t hesitate to—” her gaze flicked down to his name tag, “—mention you by name, Sasuke Uchiha, and make sure everyone knows exactly how poorly I was treated here. Trust me, you’re going to wish you’d handled this differently. I have a lot of followers!”
“Yelp. Right,” Sasuke said calmly.
Terrifying.
He resisted the urge to gasp in mock terror.
“Okay! You're not taking this serious, are you? Enough! Let me talk to your manager!”
“Please don’t,” Sasuke muttered with a tired sigh, rubbing at his forehead. “I’d have to call him, since he’s not here. And he’d be… pretty pissed if he had to come in just for this.”
“That’s what I thought!” The woman snapped, her face now flushed a deep red, and Sasuke kind of worried she might actually run out of air. “You really don’t want that kind of trouble, do you?” She made that same impatient gesture again. “Money. Now!”
Gosh. This was exactly the kind of thing that got mentioned during staff meetings. He did what she asked, albeit begrudgingly, opening the register without another word and handing her the money before ringing it up as a refund, his movements tight but practiced. “Here you go,” he said with a smile so fake it almost hurt, eyes half-closed like he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her anymore. “Six whole dollars. Go wild. Walmart has razors on sale. Toothbrushes, too.”
For a brief moment, Karen was speechless, staring at him with an expression that looked uncannily like surprised Pikachu. Sasuke almost wished he could pull out his phone, snap a picture, save it for posterity, and post it on X just to immortalize the moment.
The thought was cut short by her loud shriek, which drew far more attention than Sasuke would have liked.
“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!”
She stuffed the money into her jeans—at least three sizes too small—and Sasuke was immediately subjected to a rather unfortunate glimpse of exposed belly as she threw her arms up, launching into a furious rant about him.
“This is the last time I ever set foot in this place! No one is coming here ever again! I know everyone in this neighborhood, and they will all hear about the terrible service in this disgusting place! Goodbye!”
She stomped off like an enraged, overinflated meerkat, fueled entirely by spite, Yelp reviews, and jeans that had long since given up on their original purpose.
Sasuke was just glad she was finally gone, her exit slipping out of his mind as quickly as the ringing from the entrance door faded from his ears. If the whole ordeal had accomplished anything at all, it was that his shift was a little closer to being over.
Thank god.
He was just about to turn away and erase the entire encounter from his memory when his gaze caught on a boy standing a few feet away, phone held up and pointed straight at him, as though he were filming a nail-biting documentary destined to be wildly popular—a chronicle of Sasuke’s ongoing battle with Karens everywhere.
Sasuke’s face tightened immediately. When their eyes met—God, the kid couldn’t have been older than eight—the phone vanished into a pocket so fast it might never have existed at all. The longer Sasuke stared, the more the boy’s eyes shimmered, widening by the second, edging into something that looked dangerously close to existential dread.
Oh no… Had he really just filmed all that?
“Hey,” Sasuke said carefully, loosening his apron, though he wasn’t entirely sure why, as he stepped out from behind the counter.
Sure, Sasuke wasn’t old at twenty-two, but he also wasn’t exactly built for chasing after a kid who’d only just outgrown diapers. He hadn’t even managed to take another step before the boy was already gone, darting out the door in a blur of movement. Sasuke stood there with his mouth slightly open, only slowly becoming aware of the other guests’ eyes on him—lingering, uncomfortably present, as though he’d done something far more embarrassing than simply stand still.
Oh no. He could already picture himself popping up on his own For You page on TikTok.
Well, that's just great. As if this shift hadn’t already been bad enough. He clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to hit himself for being so stupid. Because if his manager ever caught wind of how he talked to customers when no one else was around—
“I saw everything,” a familiar voice chimed in, amusement soft but undeniable. “Every single second of it.”
Sasuke turned—and Hinata was there, smiling like she’d been entertained for a while now. He couldn’t remember when she’d taken the seat across from the register. Or how he’d managed not to notice her at all.
“What are you doing here?” he asked under his breath, trying to dislodge the uncomfortable attention still clinging to him. He knew the answer to his question, actually—she usually picked him up after work. Still, she was over an hour early today.
The girl—his best friend—ran a hand through her long black hair, fixed her bangs, and glanced to the side, before getting up from her seat and moving closer to him, each step landing like an echo of his outburst.
Sasuke took her in, briefly, but long enough to notice the purple winter jacket she was wearing, still damp from the snow outside, which meant she hadn’t actually been here as long as she’d made it sound. His gaze slipped down to her legs, and for a moment he wondered why the hell she was wearing a skirt. Sure, with tights—but still. Wasn’t it freezing? He considered saying something, then let it go. It didn’t feel important enough, and she’d probably give him one of those explanations anyway—thermal fabric, and… welp, something like that. He skipped the conversation and focused on what mattered more.
“You came to help me lock up again, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Correct,” Hinata said. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and she leaned toward him slightly, looking innocent in a way that very much wasn’t.
“What did I tell you about that, Hinata?” Sasuke blurted out, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t want you wasting your days off. And I definitely don’t want you doing more for this place than you have to.”
“Sasuke.” Hinata placed her hands gently on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m doing this for you. Not for Kakashi. Not for the café.”
“I get that, but I’m grown. You know that, right?” He glanced around the café, watching as two guests—probably a couple—carried their empty dishes to the tray return station before heading for the door, offering a polite nod on their way out. Both Hinata and Sasuke returned the gesture, but Hinata went a step further, calling after them, “Please come visit us again!” her voice almost comically cheerful. That earned her a few curious looks. After all, Sasuke was the one still dressed in work clothes, while she stood there bundled up like a winter Barbie from Lake Tahoe, wrapped in layers of fabric and plastic.
Then she turned her attention back to Sasuke, looping her arm through his and pulling him behind the counter with her. She wore that look—the one that only ever appeared when she had something incredibly exciting to tell him, something Sasuke usually only caught about half of, since he tended to listen with one ear at best. He always felt a little bad about it. But sometimes, the things coming out of her mouth were simply words she might’ve been better off sharing with someone of the same gender—someone she could discuss them with in a decidedly same-gender kind of way.
“Okay, so—” she began, grinning, which came as no surprise to Sasuke at all. “Do you remember that date I told you about?” she asked. “The one that went, like, super duper well?” Her smile only widened with every second, and Sasuke shot her a brief, deeply confused look.
“Date?” he echoed quietly. “Uh. Which da—oh. Right. Yeah. Of course.” He did remember. Just… vaguely. For reasons already explained. He watched as she helped herself at the coffee machine, putting together a Hinata Special—which was really just coffee with whipped cream and a splash of vanilla, but still. She insisted on calling it that. Sasuke’s gaze flicked up to the security camera pointed straight at them, his shoulders tightening for half a second before he forced himself to relax again. Their manager, Kakashi, hated it when people treated the place like it belonged to them outside of working hours. Hinata knew that. Which was exactly why Sasuke didn’t say anything. His name wasn’t Randall J. Weems after all.
His thoughts briefly drifted back to the kid who had filmed him just now, and for a moment he considered checking TikTok—just a quick look—but decided against it. His brain wasn’t exactly in a state to distinguish between trivial and even more trivial things right now. It wasn’t that important anyway.
“Glad you remember,” Hinata said with a soft laugh, taking a long sip of her drink. “Sometimes I genuinely worry your brain might be showing early signs of dementia.” Her hand brushed his arm, light, almost indulgent, like she was humoring him.
Sasuke shot her a deadly look. “Do you have a fast-forward button, or do I have to sit through the ads before you start talking?”
Hinata rolled her eyes, but a quiet laugh still slipped out. He knew she’d always liked his stupid comments. She just didn’t realize how often they weren’t really jokes at all.
“Alright, alright. I heard you,” Hinata whispered. “Jeez.” She paused—just long enough not to make Sasuke any more irritated than he already was—before setting her cup down on the counter behind her and leaning back against it.
“So…” she said. “Here’s the thing…” Her eyes began to sparkle. “I stayed over at her place. Last night.”
“At… Sa…?” Sasuke hesitated, searching his memory. What was her name again?
“Sakura,” Hinata reminded him.
“Sure,” he said, “Sakura. So?”
“It’s possible,” Hinata admitted, dragging out the words, “that we had sex. Potentially even really, really, really good sex…”
Sasuke raised one eyebrow. “This—” he said quietly, miming two scissors with his fingers and sliding them against each other, “—lesbian scissoring?”
“Wow. You’re like, peak gay, Sasuke,” Hinata grumbled sleepily, barely hiding a smirk behind another soft huff. “Or did you just binge too much lesbo porn?”
“Yeah… Right, because nothing gets me going like a good vagina vista...” Sasuke dragged a hand over the back of his neck, cheeks prickling with actual embarrassment. Being caught dead-to-rights clueless about the mechanics of lesbiansex felt… humiliatingly rookie. “Queer girl sex isn't in my repertoire, okay? I'm gay, not a scissoring consultant…”
“Eh, screw it,” Hinata snickered under her breath, grabbing her coffee for a totally normal sip—then immediately turned away, because nope, she was two seconds from losing it completely. Arms flopped onto the countertop, head thunked down like it weighed a ton. Sasuke felt the awkwardness crawl up his spine and settle in his soul.
“Okay, Hinata, cut it,” he hissed quietly, face blazing like a damn tomato. He grabbed her shoulder to steady her, but it backfired spectacularly—she started laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
“Sorry—sorry, Sasuke!” she managed between guffaws. “I love you, my sweet little twink gay boy!”
“Wha—!? I am not a twink! Gay? Yes. A fucking twink? Hell no!” He shook her shoulders harder, desperate, and bit down hard on his lip. Why was he suddenly boiling? “Sure, lesbian mechanics might not be my expertise, but I’m far from clueless! I already lost my virginity, and you were—by some cosmic joke—right fucking there. Remember?”
The memory hit him like a bad hangover.
Three years ago. His nineteenth birthday. Hinata’s brilliant idea had been to take him to a gay bar—his first one ever. His first drinks, too, if he was being totally honest. One could safely say he was a crowned and certified late bloomer. They’d somehow made it past the bouncer despite Sasuke’s freshly shaved, unmistakably underage face, thanks to fake IDs provided by Hinata’s vaguely concerning network of contacts.
He’d met a guy there. Six years older, went by Neji. Not exactly his type, but confident enough to invite him back to his place. Sasuke wasn’t about to disappear alone with a total stranger, though, so Hinata tagged along. The problem was that all three of them were drunk enough to get hopelessly lost—even with navigation—and the bar had been barely fifteen minutes away on foot. So they piled into an Uber, and somehow Neji got worked up enough to start groping Sasuke right there in the backseat, his best friend sitting literally next to them… and things escalated from there.
In the end, the driver kicked them out, and they finished in some random side alley. Hinata just… waited.
Definitely not his proudest moment.
Sasuke blinked, trying to shake off the flashback as if it had never happened. In the meantime, Hinata seemed to have calmed down a little, and goddamn it—he was just about to open his mouth and say something, anything, to change the subject, because everything about this suddenly felt painfully awkward—
when he suddenly heard someone clear their throat behind him.
His heart seemed to skip a beat—something he hadn’t seen coming at all—but what startled him more than the sudden noise behind him was the fact that he was startled by it in the first place. Hinata straightened up almost immediately and shot Sasuke a look that hovered somewhere between outright panic and a desperate attempt at professionalism, her eyes darting frantically toward the register as if to say customer, deal with it.
Sasuke wrinkled his nose, his mind briefly clouded by static before he turned around—and there the customer was. Standing right in front of him. Since… when, exactly?
“Excuse me?” the man had said, very polite, wearing a smile Sasuke couldn’t fully decipher—either basic friendliness, or the kind that came from having overheard just enough of their conversation to start outlining a gay coming-of-age drama in his head. And as if the situation wasn’t humiliating enough already, Sasuke found himself studying the man in front of him for a beat too long.
“Am I bothering you?” the man asked, his voice slipping past the flimsy mental wall Sasuke had thrown up without much effort.
Sasukes mouth was hanging open a fraction too wide when he felt Hinata’s far from tender kick beneath the counter, clearly meant to catapult him back into reality. He shook his head, then put on a smile.
“Oh, no, not at all,” he said, sounding very much like the exact opposite of that.
He didn’t recognize him. Which, in a place like this, was unusual enough. His eyes kept roaming over the man with far more attention than strictly necessary, as if his focus had simply latched onto him and refused to let go. Maybe it was the far-too-blond hair, the striking blue eyes that made him look like he’d stepped out of another world, the faint warmth of tanned skin that stood out immediately under the café lights, or the fact that—despite looking almost excessively good-natured and friendly—there was something undeniably intimidating about him, if only because he stood a full head taller than Sasuke.
As if this were the first tall man Sasuke had ever encountered. It wasn’t. Sasuke wasn’t even particularly tall himself; that thought was ridiculous—though, to be fair, his own head had never been a reliable place to look for logic.
“What can I get for you?” Sasuke asked, pulling himself together just enough to look literally anywhere else—like the register, for instance.
“I’d love a Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato, upside-down, half-caff with a double ristretto, oat milk, extra hot, extra foam, only two and a half pumps of caramel plus three pumps of sugar-free vanilla, light ice, extra whip with extra caramel drizzle and cinnamon on top, in a Venti cup, no shaking, and I’ll stir it myself,” the man said, like he was reciting a carefully memorized mantra.
Ah. Sasuke nodded. Typed something into the register. Anything. This was one of those moments where he would have loved to look at Hinata, just so he could say out loud what an absolute fucking disaster of a goddamn, bullshit order that had been. What the actual fuck?
“The first part—” The Uchiha took a deep breath, forced himself to look up into those ridiculously captivating, ocean-blue eyes, only to immediately look away again. “I was still with you there. After that, it kind of… went off the rails.”
Behind him, the espresso machine hissed to life, that familiar burst of steam signaling that something was happening without him having to be involved in it. Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at Hinata and felt genuine relief when he saw that she was already working on the drink. He knew his best friend well enough to trust that she knew exactly what she was doing.
At least one of them had a functioning brain around here… As much as he hated to admit it.
“I know it’s a bit of a complicated order, but I really need it exactly like that—otherwise the coffee just doesn’t taste right,” the customer said with a smile that was far, far too friendly. Almost performative, even.
Sasuke was about to respond, but Hinata beat him to it. “Oh, I know exactly what you mean!” she laughed, matching his friendliness just a little too well. “My friend here doesn’t really get it—he doesn’t drink coffee.”
Why the fuck did she put so much emphasis on friend of all things?
“Oh, really?” the blond said. “Interesting. So how did you end up working here, then? I mean…” He grinned. “If you don’t mind me asking. Too personal?”
“What? Uh, no…” Sasuke replied slowly, flicking a glance at Hinata for a second as he watched her whip the cream, before looking back at him. “It’s basically her fault.” He gestured toward her. “Not in a bad way,” he added. “I needed the mon— the job. University.” His eyes refused to stay still.
The man nodded, as if he’d just unlocked some deeper level of understanding with Sasuke, when Hinata cut back in. “Oh, I’ll need a name for that,” she said, tapping the cup. “Has to go on here too—along with the usual cryptic barista hieroglyphs.”
“I like how you phrased that,” he laughed, amiable. “You can put Naruto on it. That would be really nice.”
Naruto... Sasuke repeated the name in his head, over and over, as if saying it often enough might leave a taste on his tongue. Their gazes met for a brief moment before the man smiled again. “I hope I’m not causing you any trouble.”
Ugh. Why did he have to sound so considerate about it? Sasuke shot an annoyed glance to the side—more obvious than intended—while Hinata, with her usual big-hearted ease, was once again the very picture of kindness as she went out of her way to keep the customer happy. “Not at all!” She laughed warmly as she pressed the perfectly prepared drink into his hands. “I even drew a little heart on it—I hope that’s okay!”
She held the cup out with both hands, pride unmistakable in the way she beamed at her own handiwork, as if the foam, drizzle, and cinnamon had aligned into something close to art. The heart sat slightly off-center, lopsided in a way that made it feel more deliberate than sloppy, framed by a mess of marker shorthand only another barista could ever hope to decipher.
Naruto glanced down at it, his smile softening in a way that felt entirely unforced. “That’s perfect,” he said, genuine enough to annoy Sasuke without the slightest justification. He adjusted his grip on the cup, careful, like it was something fragile. “Honestly, that might be the nicest cup I’ve gotten all week.”
Hinata brightened at that, clearly pleased. “I’m glad! Enjoy—let us know if anything’s off.”
Sasuke watched the exchange, drained to the core, arms tense at his sides, trying very hard not to think about the fact that the name Naruto now existed in permanent marker on a Venti cup, right beside a stupid little heart.
“How much do I owe you?” Naruto asked congenial, setting the cup down as he reached for his wallet. The motion drew Sasuke’s attention upward, and that was when he noticed the watch on Naruto’s wrist. Sasuke didn’t know the brand, didn’t know the exact value, but he knew enough to be uncomfortably certain that the watch was worth more than anything he would ever realistically be able to afford in his lifetime. The realization landed with a quiet thud somewhere in his chest. It made him look at Naruto again, more carefully this time, as if the watch had unlocked some hidden layer he’d missed before. But aside from that single, glaring detail, nothing about him screamed money. Not his clothes, not the way he carried himself, not even the easy politeness in his voice. He didn’t look rich. He didn’t even look upper middle class.
He just looked… normal. Not that it was a bad thing—just didn’t quite fit the picture.
“It’s alright, it’s on the house,” Hinata said suddenly, and Sasuke flinched on the spot, as if she’d just uttered the most catastrophically terrible thing he had ever heard—or ever would.
“Huh?” He tilted his head, staring at her with wide eyes—stunned, way past annoyed. Hey, it wasn’t like he didn’t want to treat people every now and then, but damn it, this was his shift. Which also meant it would be his register coming up short later. If the order hadn’t already been rung up, it might’ve been something worth discussing—but like this? Absolutely not.
Hinata had always been remarkably good at ignoring looks she didn’t want to acknowledge, and this was very much one of those moments. Sasuke had to actively restrain himself from kicking her overly generous ass, his fists already clenched tight at his sides. If the customer—Naruto—hadn’t interrupted right then, Sasuke probably would’ve said something spectacularly stupid.
“No way,” Naruto said, shaking his head as he pressed a bill into Sasuke’s hand—three times the amount he should’ve paid. Sasuke was still standing there, frozen, when it happened. He stared down at the money as if he’d never seen cash before in his life.
“This is—” he began, but—
“The rest is for you,” Naruto said easily. “It’s my first time visiting this chain in this city, and you two have been incredibly kind. Honestly, you’re probably an asset to this place. Take it, please.”
Somewhere behind him, Hinata was already thanking him profusely—once, twice, maybe three times—but Sasuke could only keep staring at the green printed paper in his hand, unsure what he was supposed to do with it. At the same time, he wondered whether those words had been meant for him at all, or if Naruto had really only been talking about Hinata.
Whatever it was, the question lingered in the air, unanswered. And Sasuke had been so lost in his own thoughts that he noticed far too late when the nicest—and at the same time strangest—customer of his entire shift had already left the café.
All that remained was the faint trace of his perfume, and the sudden, unsettling realization that the absurdly specific drink order had lodged itself firmly in Sasuke’s head—only now fully registering, sticking in a way that suggested it might never leave again.