Honey hates this new job. She's never liked coffee anyway, never understood how people drank the bitter tasting sludge. Honey is a steadfast tea person, and she intends to always be a tea person. Yet here she is, working at the Lucky Cat Coffee Shop. It was just bad luck that this was the only job on campus. And she's had to wake up extremely early, because apparently the only shift left was at 5:00 in the morning, and-

"Oof!"

Lost in her thoughts, she stumbles into someone. The tray she's carrying falls, and the coffee spills.

"Ohmygosh, are you ok? Did I burn you?"

"No, I'm fine. This silly apron does come in handy sometimes."

Their eyes meet, and the first thing she thinks is, He's kinda hot. She ignores that, though, and jumps to her second thought, which is that he works here. The green apron is proof of that. She can't get a good look at the nametag, though, so his name is still a mystery.

"Here, let me help you clean that up." says the boy.

"Oh, oh, thanks!"

He gets a mop and a "Wet Floor" sign from the nearby closet. She takes it and begins to clean up the mess, when he starts talking again.

"What was the order?"

"What?" She doesn't understand the point of his question, until she does and realizes this boy is honestly too kind.

"Oh, no no no, you don't have to do that, I mean thank you, but it's my fault, honestly, you're too nice."

"No, it's fine. And besides, we can't leave customers waiting."

Honey glances at the floor, then at the person, clearly waiting and looking a bit impatient, standing in front of the cash register, and gives in.

"Medium caramel espresso."

"On it."

Honey finishes mopping, sighs, and walks over to the customer.

"What can I get for you?"

When her shift ends, Honey slips off her apron and runs, hoping to catch the nice boy before he leaves. She does more than catch him though; she nearly crashes into him in her rush.

"Hi, I just wanted to say, thanks for helping me this morning."

"Oh, no problem. You're welcome though."

She catches her breath and straightens. "I'm Honey Lemon. Well, my name's really Aiko, but everyone calls me Honey, so you can call me Honey."

"I'm Tadashi. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too!"

Days pass, then weeks, then months, and Honey thinks she might go crazy. Midterms are coming up, and the workload is massive, not to mention the stress. At this point, she thinks that the coffee shop is the only thing keeping her sane. Honey's not talking about her job; that still sucks. Plus it means she has to get up early, which means less sleep, and, at this point, sleep is a lot like uranium 235: valuable, rare, and very very hard to get. But, every day after her second shift ends, about 4-ish, she and Tadashi will take their textbooks and notebooks and all other kinds of books, and they'll sit in a relatively unoccupied corner and study together. She'll jabber on, and on, and on about elements and how they combine, and, when he can get a word in edgewise, he'll talk about his new robot he's building. They fall into a sort of routine: work, sit down, study together, get food somewhere in there. And then, one day, Honey hangs up her apron, and to her surprise, Tadashi is sitting there, with two cups in the table before him.

"Don't I usually get out first?" she says, grinning.

"Oh, uh, class got out early."

"Suuuuure."
Honey knows he's lying, because Professor Callaghan's class never gets out early, and, even if it did, Tadashi would stay late to work on Baymax. Tadashi sucks at lying. But honestly, she thinks it's kind of adorable, and so she says nothing and sits down.

"So, what is this?"

"This is coffee," Tadashi tilts his head quizzically and stares at her, "haven't you had it before?"

"Not really." and then, because he's looking at her like she's just told him she's from outer space, "I'm more of a tea girl."

"You've never had coffee? We work at a coffee shop!"

"Well, I mean, I tried it once, but it was bitter and icky and terrible."

"This isn't straight coffee. Maybe you'll like it."

Honey doubts it, but she takes the cup and sips. Surprisingly, it's actually not terrible.

"So, what's the verdict?"

"It's . . . actually not bad."

"Aha! I knew it!"

Honey grins.

The next day, Honey gets there first, like always. This time, she's the one who buys coffee, and the blinding smile on Tadashi's face when he walks in and sees two cups in front of her is the most beautiful thing Honey's seen all day.

It's a little more than halfway through the school year when Honey notices the persistent bags under Tadashi's eyes. She doesn't know when they first appeared - during midterms maybe? That seems likely - but they don't go away, and Honey's starting to get worried. So one day, she looks up at Tadashi and says, "Have you been getting enough sleep?"

He doesn't answer right away, and that's when she knows something's wrong.

"Tadashi?"

"Uh . . . what?"

"OK, that's enough."

She reaches over and closes his textbook and his notebook. For good measure, she takes his pencil away too.

"Hey, no, give that back!"

Tadashi reaches for it, but Honey's taller than him - thank goodness for 6-inch heels - and she holds it out of his grasp.

"Nope. No more work tonight."

"But I have so much homework!"

"Tadashi, it's Friday. You can get your homework done on the weekend."

"Not all of it!"

"Your teachers can't possibly assign that much homework. Now promise: no more working, or I won't give your pencil back."

"But-"

"Tadashi!"

"Fine, I promise."

"Yay!"

As Honey grabs his hand, she can hear him mutter "My teachers do assign that much homework, actually," but Honey can see him grinning.

They spend that evening in her dorm, laughing and talking and just having a night off. Honey tries to get Tadashi to watch Tangled for the third time ("Honey, really? You're obsessed!" "Sorry." "You're not sorry. "Nope!"), Tadashi tries to get Honey to watch Frozen ("If I never hear that song again, it'll be one time too many." "Let it go, let it go-" "No, Tadashi!"), and they end up having a pillow fight ("Winner picks the movie." "Oh, you're on.") until they finally end up on the couch laughing their heads off ("Tie?" "Tie." "Hey, how does Wreck-It Ralph sound?" "Oh, I love that one!"). And so Tadashi presses play, and they sit back and watch.

Honey watches as the credits come up onscreen and begin to scroll.

"Hey, Tadashi? The movie's over."

She reaches over, and that's when Honey sees that he's fast asleep. He probably hasn't had any good rest in a while, and he looks so peaceful that she can't bear to wake him up. And so she slips her shoulder out from under his head, grabs a pillow and blankets, and makes the couch into a temporary bed.

"Good-night, Tadashi."

She doesn't say the words, but she thinks them, and knows they're right: I love you.

She goes with Tadashi to the airport. They get there about an hour earlier, because Tadashi is beyond excited about his science conference and he'd woken her up far too early, and they'd both gotten off work to have breakfast together at the airport together, before he left. There's a Starbucks nearby - ugh, she hates Starbucks, but Tadashi loves it, and it's his last day in San Francisco for a while - so she goes over, gets breakfast for both of them, and wanders slowly back toward Gate 24. Tadashi brightens when he sees her coming.

"Starbucks? I thought you hated Starbucks."
"I do, but it's your last day here."

"Oh. Thanks," and she takes her tea and croissant, and he takes his coffee, and they eat. She steals a sip of his coffee, he burns his tongue trying to take a sip of her tea and eventually settles for stealing part of her croissant, and their laughter has just died down when the announcer calls "Boarding group A, please. Boarding group A."

"Well, that's me."
Tadashi shoulders his stuff, and turns to go. Honey doesn't want him to, she doesn't, and she can't stop her words in time.

"Wait-"

"What?"

Her brain screams kiss him, kiss him before he's gone. But she doesn't; something holds her back (she doesn't know how much she'll regret it, later)

The plane crashes. The plane crashes and there are no survivors and Honey can't. Tadashi, her Tadashi - when did he become hers? she isn't sure - is, no, was on that plane, and now he's gone, and she is lost. Honey finds another job (it's too hard, being in that same shop, where - no, she won't think about it). She stops drinking coffee, too, because it reminds her too much, of a too-kind boy in a green apron and spilled drinks - she'd give anything, anything, to have him back again.

Hi! I'm back with fanfiction and plot bunnies! Ok, so here is the last chapter of Coffee (it was supposed to be a barista AU but then these two were just too cute to not write in college). It is dedicated to everyone who reviewed, followed, and favorited - thank you guys so, so much! I hope you like it! If you did, please leave a review.