Chapter Text
The little café on the corner of Metropolis Street had a reputation. Not for its coffee—though it was damn good coffee—or its aesthetic, which was an effortlessly cozy mix of dark wood, warm lighting, and mismatched secondhand furniture. No, Black Arms Coffee was known for them.
Shadow, co-owner and reigning champion of Most Unapproachable Barista, stood behind the counter, creating a latte with the kind of focused intensity a person usually reserved for defusing a bomb. His dark skin caught the early morning light of the day, the sort of light that was making him wince in pain, intensified by the hungover state he was in today. A streak of red weaved through the short braids of his messy, mullet-styled hair, and his resting glare alone was enough to ward off early casual customers, allowing him a little more time to get his head on straight. Currently, he was using that valuable time to make sure all of the hand-painted pumps were restocked for the day ahead. His head was bobbing ever so slightly to his current favourite song, Yankee Rose, just enough to let him appreciate the way the headphones blasted the music through his veins, but just unnoticeable to still keep his “cool guy” persona on.
Stone - universally known as such thanks to one ill-timed joke about his “rock-solid” latte art - was restocking in the back. Stone was Shadow’s dad and the polar opposite to Shadow, all smiles, easy charm, and a tendency to make heart-shaped foam designs whether you asked for them or not. He liked people. Which, in Shadow’s opinion, was his most irritating trait.
And yet, somehow, they got on well enough to successfully run this place together with little to no disagreements. Stone picked the aesthetic, unconvinced Shadow’s whole “rockstar vibe” would convince many people to come in. Shadow hired and made coffees with the only employee, Rouge.
No matter how much Shadow hated people, he couldn’t hate Rouge. Most of the time. When Rouge first began working here, Shadow was, quite frankly, pissed off. He’d had to have a long sit-down talk with Stone afterwards about “hiring nice people who were looking for a job”. But he did have to admit, her ability to juggle socialising with and impressing customers with her sharp, silver tongue and creating damn good matcha was worth keeping her around. Plus, over time (and after a lot of hard work wearing down Shadow with spa trips and encouragements to finally get his dream and current highlights) Shadow had gotten used to having her around. She was good company and good fun, and in the early mornings, her sharp and sarcastic comments were the only things stopping him from shoving his head in the blender.
Pushing away actually nice thoughts about his co-workers (he must be softening, he usually only disrespects his co-workers in his head) he smiles as his current favourite song fades in, Bitches #02. However, his temporary positive mood fell when he heard the bell announcing the first customer of the day. He hoped it was a regular, only they knew how touchy he was in the morning, he needed to be handled with care. He started to move to take his headphones off, beginning his usual monotonous spiel of “Welcome to the Black arms, short, tall or grande?” Then his breath was caught in his throat because the most scruffily beautiful man walked in.
He was tall - taller than Shadow - with the messiest most windswept blue hair Shadow had ever seen scraped back into a messy man bun, although whether it could be called that was a good question- it didn’t seem to be doing much to keep his hair from flying into his face and around his head like a halo. Instead, his white headphones covered in stickers seemed to be doing most of the work, and even then, the mysterious boy had to push back his hair with a tanned hand for Shadow to get a good look at his emerald-green eyes. His hands had light freckles all over them, which were dancing over his face too, and had chipped white nails worn down by incessant biting. That and the way his eyes never stopped moving, taking in the cafe, while his ever-moving feet took him in a jagged path to the counter, seemed to hint to Shadow that he shouldn’t give this guy anything strong. And yet, his handsome smirk, which appeared upon taking one look at Shadow, made him want to give this mysterious new customer whatever he wanted. All hatred towards new customers disappeared when this man waltzed in.
A snort from behind him, clearly from Rouge snapped him out of it, making him realise with a shock that while this guy was walking slowly towards the counter in his head, he had been waiting for Shadow to reply to his own remark, patiently leaning against the counter with an amused smirk that seemed made for his face, lighting up his green eyes. Shadow could only hope that his intense training allowed him to keep a semi-straight face while he verged away from imploding. The semi-conscious thoughts formed upon some more intervention from Rouge (who had to kick him towards the counter), and Shadow was able to stutter out a “Repeat whatever you just said?”, to another amused nudge from Rouge, who was passing by. Shadow then immediately registered, upon watching his mouth move again, that his headphones were still blasting the lyrics, “..bitches love me, bitches love me…”. Removing his headphones, he sidled slightly closer to the countertop and register, and got out a, “one more time for me,” glad that his voice didn’t crack, and he managed to regain his unbothered attitude. He just hoped that the amused look on the man’s face didn’t mean he’d caught on to his internal panic, rather just assumed he had underestimated the loudness of his own headphones.
“Um, I actually didn’t place an order, just said I liked that song!” Beamed the new-comer. The sunshine radiating off him made Shadow wish he hadn’t gotten so drunk with Rouge the night before, because goddammit was it blinding him.
“Oh, big fan of rock? What's your favorite band? ” Shadow managed to get out, attempting to maintain his edgy and unbothered persona while simultaneously internally stressing over whether his red eyeliner was too messy. He had only done it minutes prior next to Rouge in the toilets.
“Uhh..” The guy gave an awkward chuckle, scratching the back of his head bashfully, “no..just liked the style and wondered what it was!”
“Lord…” Shadow heard from the left of himself, obviously from Rouge.
“Oh. Well, it’s a cover of an MSI song, which stands for Mindless Self Indulgence, and it’s called ‘Bitches #02.’”
“He also said he wanted a grande ristretto, although he’s clearly neglecting to mention that point in favour of people-pleasing. No-one likes your shitty music Shadow.” Rouge’s comment had clearly shocked the new-comer to his core, as he tried to cut in with all sorts of excuses, but it just made Shadow snort, permitting the man to let out a relieved sigh. “I’m just waiting for you to get him to pay before possibly wasting coffee on a guy who looks like he would forget his own head, let alone his wallet.”
“Nuh-uh! I have my card right here! I keep it in my phone case to make sure I never forget it, although you would be right to assume I have. Many, many time before,” laughed the stunner, who was leaning happily on the counter. Shadow then remembered he was, in fact, at work, and needed to get him to pay.
“Of course. Three fifty, just scan your card here,” Shadow pointed to the mentioned scanner. A high pitched beep shot through Shadow’s ears. He winced.
“Busy night?” The guy pressed against the counter at the sign of his obvious discomfort.
“Uh..yeah.” He could practically feel Rouge’s stares. Ordinarily, he would never… talk to people.. ugh. But he didn’t want to mess anything up here.
“Oof, I feel ya man! Strong coffee does it for me!”
“Not a fan.”
“What? But you literally work in a coffee shop,” the man gestured to Rouge starting up the machine behind him. Shadow just hummed in vague agreement.
“Well, I wanted it to be a tea shop, but Stone, the guy who co-owns this place, said we should do coffee as well, and our coffee is much more popular, so we just shortened this place to ‘Black Arms Coffee’ rather than ‘Black Arms Coffee and Tea’.” Woah. Longest sentence Shadow had voluntarily strung together in a while for a customer. The guy laughed.
“No you know what, it’s a bit of a mouthful,” he laughed again, “but still, you do just seem like a coffee guy! I don’t know how but you do,” Shadow found himself laughing too.
“Aren’t you going to ask for his name?” A bitter Rouge asked behind him, meaning she had managed to start up the machine, just needed a cup.
“Oh yeah, name?”
“Of course man! Sonic,” the guy, Sonic, beamed.
“Sick name. Wish I was blessed with such,” Rouge started saying as Shadow began scrawling on a cup, which was utter bullshit in Shadow’s opinion. Rouge was a cool name. Shadow is a wannabe edge lord name. He made it work though.
He let Rouge continue with the conversation, opting instead to busy himself with continuing to prepare the shop for the morning rush he knew would begin in mere minutes. However, he did allow himself to laugh at some of Rouge’s comments, and he may or may not have created a small list of things he knew about the guy now.
Sonic:
-19 years old
-In college (training to be a coach for track)
-Has a younger brother
Very little information, but Shadow just had to hope, watching the beautiful man wave through the window of the shop, whilst running to catch up with whatever bus he was missing, that he could eventually get to know more about him. Now, Shadow just had to prepare himself for the interrogation-
“Sooooo~” He heard from behind him. Shit. He thought he’d at least get a couple of seconds to fake a story.
“So what?” Perhaps playing dumb could stall?
“You like him.” Nope. Never mind. Rouge had cut to the chase just like that. Shadow whirled around to meet her cheeky eyes, outlined by beautiful blue makeup. Despite the fact that Rouge had so much more makeup that she liked to put on, despite the fact that they did it all in the same amount of time, a mere 5 minutes, despite all that, Rouge never failed to amaze Shadow with her stunning makeup. Actually, it wasn’t just her makeup. Rouge was stunning. Shadow would be one of the first to admit that, and he’s not even interested in women romantically. She just is stunning. She wore her uniform better than both of the other two (maybe because she didn’t follow the uniform code, but Shadow had given up a long time ago trying to convince her to do such a thing), her blonde hair fell in waves with not a single hair out of place, and jewellery was high-end, all suiting her perfectly. She has clearly worked for many years perfecting her appearance, and dammit did it work. She was beautiful. Shadow had asked her many times why she came to work at this cafe instead of going modelling, and no matter how many times he asked, he couldn’t ever get a straight answer. Just some roundabout story, which changed every time.
Back to the matter at hand.
“I do not ‘like’ him,” Shadow retorted snappily, crossing his arms and leaning on the marble-top counter behind him.
“Sure. So, you just suddenly had a turn-around, decided you wanted to change just like that and begin socialising? That is not like you babe.”
“Sure it is. Remember last night, you told me to lighten up, be nice, socialise? So, I’m doing just that. Watch,” Shadow was sure to regret the next words coming out of his mouth, “I will talk to this next customer and I will be nice.”
Rouge began opening her mouth for a snappy retort but was cut off by Stone’s sudden appearance from the back.
“First customer of the day without me?” Stone smiled.
“It wasn’t anything special Dad, don’t worry,” Shadow replied. Stone adopted him at 17, just 3 years or so ago and after quitting his job at a tech company that Shadow always forgot the name of, he opened up this coffee shop. When Shadow volunteered to work there, Stone's ideas grew more and more until Shadow was somehow putting his name on the forms next to his dad's.
“Sureee..”
“Shut up Rouge!”
“Oohh-kay!” Stone brushed past this pointedly, “well, let me take the next one! I’m sure Shadow must be exhausted from having to talk to a customer this early-“
“No no! Let him stay! He’s made a pact to continue socialising and being nice to customers! All day long.” Rouge clearly annunciated those last three words.
Stone looked at Shadow with an odd look on his face. “Uhh, are you alright, Shadow? Do you want to maybe wash your face in the bathroom?”
Before Shadow could respond, the door burst open, and Stone, taking charge, plastered a smile over the concerned look for his friend as an oddly dressed man with a thick mustache and a bald head walked in, tinkering with some odd gadget of some sort.
“Hello! Welcome to the-“ Stone began, but was cut off by the man with a concentrated look on his face waving his hand about.
“I need one latte with steamed Austrian goat's milk. I heard you do it here. Better be good.” The man spoke, never once looking up from his odd gadget.
“I’m uh..sorry Sir,” spoke up Stone. Shadow immediately knew the issue, preparing to take action. This guy seemed like one that shouldn’t be denied anything.
“What?” The man grunted, still refusing to look up. Shadow hoped Rouge wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to stick to his pact after this one.
“We’re actually out of goat’s milk. B-but come back tomorrow and I swear-!”
Stone was cut off immediately by a loud groan from the doctor, dropping his hands to his side and rolling his eyes so far back that Shadow was convinced it must hurt. “The only reason I stopped into this godforsaken place was for-“ Then the man stopped. Shadow looked to Rouge for guidance, but all she did was point back to the man. Shadow was confused. Then he understood. The man had finally seen who he was talking to. And he was blushing.
“Um…” The odd man began to start up again, clearly trying to regain his composure, clearing his throat not once, not twice but thrice, while Shadow and Rouge shared glances, “You know what? Oat’s fine!” The man got out awkwardly, drumming his hands on the marble surface, clearly putting his nerdy invention into his pocket.
“Oh! Okay! Shadow, ring him up!” Stone beamed. “Name?”
“Uh... Dr Robotnik. But you can just call me Ivo," the man said, stumbling slightly over his words and nodding fast (either to support his words or shake some sense into his brain, Shadow couldn't tell) to a bemused expression from Stone.
"Sooo, what would you like on the cup?" Stone asked, ever blind to clear human emotions.
"Whichever," the man seemed to have slightly gained his composure. Perhaps the head nodding worked. Shadow, still not wanting to ruin his agreeable mood, decided to write down 'Dr Robotnik'. Just to be sure. A couple of minutes and a very awkward silence filled only by Dr Robotnik's incessant drumming on the counter, the coffee was done, allowing the strange man to run off to wherever he needed to go.
"Sooo~" Rouge began to Stone, about to try the same interrogation she did on Shadow earlier, but the door began pinging open.
"Battle stations!" Beamed Stone.
"We'll talk later Shadow~"
And just like that, Shadow was back to work, putting on his headphones and dreading the lunch break.