Summary: From the prompt: Frequent, notoriously flirty barista notices hot new customer working away at their table. Naturally, barista flirts with him when he orders coffee. Customer is seemingly unperturbed and brushes away their advances with witty banter. Barista ups the game with cheesy one liners and pick up lines, also starts making hearts in their coffee, and writing charming messages when they order to go and customer begins to look forward to the coffee shop and flirty barista.

OR

Genma is awkwardly cool and Ino finds him too perfect for this world.

Pairing: Ino/Genma and (beginnings of) Kiba/Ibiki

~..~..~

"There is a chance… A very small chance… So minute, actually, that I may be wrong… But, still… There is a chance that I may have fallen in love with you."

Silence.

Then, in a shrill, clearly faked female voice, "You're such a creepy stalker! How could you fall in love with me if you haven't even talked to me? And it's not like I've ever even said anything to you. Like, I only make your coffee!"

Genma Shiranui huffed out and glared at the man that was supposed to be his best friend.

"Raidou, what the hell? Aren't you supposed to be helping me?"

The scarred man smiled cheekily at him and proceeded to raise his cup of coffee into the air in a lonely toast, "I am helping- by telling you how creepy that confession is going to be." He took a sip of his dark coffee, then placed the mug back onto the table. "Look, Shiranui, you're a twenty six year old man in love with someone that is clearly at least six years younger than you. You've got nothing to worry about. Women that age go crazy for older man."

Sometimes, Genma truly wondered just what in the world he was doing around Raidou Namiashi. Sometimes, he found himself questioning just why in the world he kept the man around if he was such a useless and spiteful friend.

Then he remembered all of the good things Raidou had done for him, everything he had done to keep him from sinking into the dangerous waters of their younger years and bad influences, and how he was always there for him. And, upon remembering these things, he found that Raidou became just a tiny bit more tolerable.

Right now, he couldn't bring himself to remember any of those things.

"For some reason, she doesn't really strike me as the kind of woman that'd trip over herself just for some older guy." Genma frowned as he breathed this out.

The woman they were talking about- a beautiful blonde barista that always seemed to be working whenever he and Raidou came into Musashi's for their weekly dose of hipster coffee and new books- was currently working behind the counter. Genma could barely see her from their spot hidden by the outermost corner of the bookshop's coffee house area, but, every now and then, he would see a flash of blonde flitting by… And, like a teenager, his heart would skip whenever he saw said flash.

She was beautiful. Young; that was clear to see from the outright brightness of her blue eyes; but not stupid. Genma had been witness to many a-time when a customer would try to outsmart her and try and get some free embellishment on their drink they had not paid for and she had chewed them out for having been idiots.

He had also been witness to her flirty nature. He'd managed to play off her banter as if it didn't really matter… But hot damn, it had! He'd been single for almost a year now and no woman had deemed him worthy of their time for so long that he'd begun to wonder if he was just now a woman repellant.

Maybe if he hadn't tried to play it cool… Maybe if he'd flirted right back and had let her know just how beautiful he'd thought she was from the very beginning… Maybe if he hadn't depreciated himself so much, he wouldn't be pining silently for a woman who most probably didn't even know more about him other than him being a recently-become-frequent customer.

"She clearly likes you, dumbass." Raidou huffed out, pointing over at the simple espresso Genma had ordered. "Who in the world would leave hearts in the coffee of people they don't like?"

Genma shrugged softly, although a small smile appeared on his lips as he looked down at the coffee the blonde had given him. "It's her job to make the customer happy."

"You're a dumbass." His best friend finally concluded before he began to pull out his laptop, "Now shut up. I've got an application to fill out and résumé to update."

The shorter of the two sighed softly, but still nodded and began to pull out his own computer. He was on a deadline to design this new website and he really hated cutting things close. He may as well get started on it early so he didn't have to worry about getting anything wrong before his time was up.

~/~

Lunch break was the best- especially on days when Genma was working on his computer at the far end of the shop.

She knew she was being extremely obvious in her ogling. But she didn't care. Genma was a hot man and she very well deserved to stare. It was the least she could have, seeing how he didn't really seem like he wanted anything with her.

"You've got it bad."

Ino rolled her eyes at the buffoon she called friend and co-worker. Then she stuck her tongue out at him, righted herself in her chair so she was facing the table, and grabbed the sandwich that was her lunch.

"I've got nothing."

"Dude. Even Naruto knows something's up with you." The annoying brunette crossed his arms over his chest as his dark eyes chanced a look over at the table Ino had been staring at. "It took him a couple of visits to see, of course… But, still, if he noticed something, then there clearly is something."

"There's nothing. So you can safely say your something is actually nothing."

Now it was Kiba's turn to roll his eyes.

"Sure. Nothing. Absolutely nothing is happening." He snarked, "And there's absolutely no reason as to why you don't flirt with everyone that walks up to you anymore. Just like there's no reason why you make sure to put hearts in his coffee whenever you make something for him."

Ino breathed in to stop herself from glaring at the annoying male she had the misfortune of calling her friend.

Kiba was an oddity in her life. She had not liked him at first when they had begun to work together. He'd trained her for her job as a barista, seeing how he had been promoted to cashier work.

Just like every other male in her life, he'd started off flirting with her, telling her cheesy one-liners to try and pick her up. He'd been annoying, rude, and crass. And, at first, she had wanted to dropkick him so hard he wouldn't have teeth left in his mouth. Eventually, though, she'd begun to flirt back and they'd begun an uneasy relationship of cheesy humor and horrible jokes that would make anyone else cringe.

It had been pretty funny, actually, now that she thought about it.

Then his ex-boyfriend had made a whole show of calling him out for cheating on him- which Kiba had never done- in front of her.

Never in her life had she thought a guy as rude and crude as Kiba could have tears spring up in his eyes over being called a cheater. And it had hurt to see him like that, especially with all of the horrible things the disgusting ex-boyfriend had dared call him and say about him in their workplace.

She'd stood up for Kiba, threatened to call the police on the guy's ass, and had promptly kicked the living shit out of him when he'd dared put his hands on her.

After that, Kiba had confessed that he was gay. He'd only flirted with her because he'd had really bad experiences in the past with people in the workplace finding out he was homosexual. And he was extremely sorry for having been so horrible to her and he felt bad if he had ever made her feel uncomfortable… But, come on, those pick-up lines were pretty funny.

Their friendship was now nearing the one year mark and Kiba was just as single as she was. And he was a bit less subtle about wanting to have a relationship again, which is actually the reason why she thought he was so insistent on getting her to go out with the hot customer that always made her day light up.

"Are you sure you're gay? I'm pretty sure you and Sakura would make the perfect couple." Ino remarked in a deadpan, "You're both so busy trying to control my love life."

Sakura was her best friend from childhood. Because of this, she believed she had all the right to get Ino to go out with whoever she deemed was perfect for her. The only reason why she wasn't trying to shove guys down her throat at the current moment was because she was always running around trying to keep all of her schoolwork from overwhelming her.

Sometimes, it was a good thing that Sakura was kept so busy with her medical school program stuff.

"As gay as you are single."

"Why do I keep you around?"

"For the lols? I don't know, honey. You're a weirdo that decided to keep me around."

And I'm still not completely sure why, the blonde thought. But instead of saying it out loud, she decided to merely eat her lunch before her break was up.

If she stole a couple of glances of Genma as she ate her food… Well, Kiba didn't have to know about that. Because there was nothing to know about. Absolutely nothing.

One day as he walked into Musashi's, Genma noted that there was something different about the establishment. He didn't comment on it as soon as he noticed it to not alert Ibiki and Anko to the fact that Raidou had been kind of right when he had told him that he was obsessed with a blonde barista that worked in the coffee shop.

Instead of working in the side area where the coffee was being made, Ino was at the front, working the cash register. And rather than take a couple of seconds to figure this out, Genma had figured out what was different as soon as she'd seen her smiling at a customer she was taking an order from.

"You'll order for all of us, Shiranui?" Anko asked, not even making sure that he would agree to such a thing before she set off to find a table she found suitable for all of them.

Genma frowned with a shake of his head and looked over at Ibiki. The large detective shrugged minutely, mumbled out a request for simple black coffee, and began to follow after his partner.

The lither of the two males sighed softly and began to make his way over to the moderately sized line. He knew that Anko usually got what she wanted. So if she didn't want to order her own drink, she would do her damn best to make sure that somebody else ordered it for her.

It didn't really bother him that they weren't around, though. They had been friends since childhood at this point- they'd all grown up in the same wrong side of the tracks and had managed to pull themselves away from all of the bad that had once been in their life. He was accustomed to their more eccentric sides.

He hummed softly, rolling a toothpick around his mouth as he waited for his turn to order.

When it was finally his chance, he was met with a bright smile from the blonde.

"Did it hurt?"

He quirked an eyebrow at this, forced his hands into his pockets to stop them from shaking, and cleared his throat to clear it from the lump that had formed. "Did what hurt?" He asked, hoping he sounded much cooler than he felt.

Everything around him felt unbelievably hot. He shifted his weight onto his left leg, closer to the air vent that rested right above that spot. And he jutted his hip slightly, although this was a consequence of leaning onto his left.

"When you crashed down from heaven?"

Genma forced himself to choke back the awkward laugh he wanted to let out. Instead he scoffed softly, then murmured, "Nothing more original?"

He'd heard this line plenty of times from Anko when she tried to pick up some unfortunate woman or another. It was so normal to hear it, actually, that it was almost instinct to answer it immediately with that question.

His blood ran cold as soon as he noticed that he'd just said that out loud and Ino had heard him.

The blonde's lips pursed into a slight pout, then she smirked deviously and leaned forward, both of her hands resting on the cash register before her. "Alright, did it hurt when you broke through the Earth's crust ascending from hell?"

Closing his eyes, Genma puffed out a small chuckle.

He floundered over what to say-

"Does that make me a demon? Or the devil?"

- and subsequently regretted ever having been born.

"Oh, you could be my devil any day." She winked and the base of his neck suddenly felt much warmer than before- was that air vent doing nothing? "So, I know what you'll be having. But what'll be the order for your friends?"

"Anything cold with too much sugar for a normal human being, and one dark coffee, if you'd please." He smiled lopsidedly as he pulled out his wallet from his pocket, keeping his hands from rising too much so the beautiful woman wasn't able to see how minutely they were shaking.

Dammit. He was an idiot. Demon or devil? How in the world could that ever be seen as appropriate material for flirting? Did he even know how to flirt? Did Ino even know that he existed aside from the fact that he would order coffee every now and again?

Raidou was right… He was a dumbass.

~/~

That man was so damn perfect it should have been illegal.

He was such a cool guy! Everything he did; everything he said! It was all just so calm and collected!

From the deep clearing of his throat to the lopsided grin she liked to think he only gave her and all the way to the way he stood with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders relaxed- everything about Genma was just cool.

She especially loved the sound of the chuckle he only ever released when she had done something particularly funny. So she strove to make him chuckle like that every single time they talked. Hopefully, one day, she'd even get to hear him laugh!

"So? How'd my shift go?"

The blonde shrugged softly at Kiba's question, "Nothing much. Same old, same old, really. Some college students, some working class citizens, a couple of annoying high schoolers… What, did you expect something bigger?"

Kiba merely shrugged and proceeded to tighten up his jacket around him. "I thought there would be a Hot Guy related story somewhere in there. You're like his magnet."

As they walked down the cold streets, Ino couldn't help but wonder just where in the world Genma would go to whenever he left the coffee shop/bookstore combo she worked at.

He was always nicely dressed, although he didn't look to stand out. His fashion was comfortable and stylish, but he didn't try too hard to impress. He had never worn a suit, though, so she believed he didn't work in anything that required such high maintenance- so not a lawyer, surgeon, or anything of the lie. But he had enough money to look well fed, well dressed, and well slept. So he was not a fledging college student- like herself- or someone that worked for minimum wage.

She hadn't been able to get a good look at the man that had accompanied him today because she'd been too busy trying to keep her eyes on her customer and from straying to look at Genma. But from the large and unique frame, she had a small feeling that she had some idea as to who he had been.

He looked familiar. She just wasn't sure why.

"I swear, he only ever appears when you're on shift. I've never seen him at Musashi's when you're not working."

Ino rolled her eyes at his words, "You're not always working either, Kiba."

"I could be if Jiraiya actually allowed me to!"

"You've got college to worry about, dummy."

"Yeah? Well you've got monsieur Hottie to worry about."

"Real mature, Kiba."

"Why thank you, hon. I try my best."

"If you don't like seeing her flirt with him, you should go up there and finally ask her out."

Genma huffed as he crossed his arms over his chest. But he did not move to get out of his chair, more than aware that it really wasn't his place to intervene with the beautiful blonde's love life.

He liked her, yes. He wished he could gather up the courage to finally ask her out. And he wished he could have laser vision so he could burn holes into the head of the shameless flirt that was currently trying to put the moves on Ino.

But it just wasn't his place.

That didn't stop him from trying to glare holes into the back of the dark haired brat's head, though.

His useless best friend sighed heavily and shook his head at him. Then he heard the insolent brat say, "You're such an idiot I think I'm actually starting to get allergies. Could that be a thing- being allergic to stupidity?"

Genma glared at him and hissed out, "If it existed, you'd be allergic to yourself."

The scarred jerk smiled broadly at him and shrugged softly, "Well, we'd be on the same boat. You'd be allergic to yourself too."

Sometimes Genma did not understand why he kept the guy around.

Still, he couldn't properly hate on the annoying man when he was so busy thinking up of ways to make the annoying flirt at the counter disappear and never be seen ever again.

… Ibiki might be able to help him… But he'd ask too many questions… Anko wouldn't, though…

"Oh, I know that twinkle." Raidou cut into his plotting, making Genma look at him with an annoyed glare. "You have to be kidding me- you haven't even talked to the girl and you're already possessive!"

The man bit at his toothpick as he frowned at the person he called a best friend.

"There's no way-"

Before he was able to finish telling Raidou about how he certainly felt nothing towards the blonde woman, he found himself getting grabbed by the scarred man and pulled towards him. Soon enough he was much too close to his best friend's glare, his dark eyes glaring straight into his own.

"Now you listen to me, Shiranui. This ends today!"

~/~

"How about that number?"

"Oh, I don't think you'd want that number." Ino tried to keep herself from looking as bored as she felt as she smiled at the customer.

He had been talking to her for a good five minutes now. And, quite frankly, she was very much not happy with it.

He was a cute guy. There was no getting around that. He didn't stand out much in a crowd with his normal brown eyes and brown hair. But he certainly found a way to make up for the normalcy of his appearance by being outgoing with his personality. Wicked sense of humor, cool persona with a bad boy edge to it, and a propensity for flirting was exactly what he had and exactly what would have interested her about two to three months ago- before she had met Genma for the first time.

If this guy had walked up to her, begun to flirt, and asked for her number before she had met the man that always had a toothpick in his mouth, she would not have had too much reason to hesitate over actually giving in and flirting right back. The phone number might have been something she would have paused over, but ultimately given in… Wow… Had she really been that desperate to not be single before?

"Oh, come on, pretty little thing like you would be just what little old me would need to not seem like a complete loser going to that movie."

The guy's name was something long, so she could only properly remember that it sounded kind of like 'Karuro'. She wasn't sure about it. Most probably, it was not that.

He wasn't ugly. He wasn't overly creepy. And he didn't seem like he was that bad of a guy. But she knew that Genma was within her line of sight and that made her feel really guilty.

It wasn't like she was dating him or anything… But, for some reason, she felt as if she was doing something really wrong by not flat out refusing Karuro's proposal.

Besides, she could see that the toothpick loving man was glaring over at her for some reason… And she liked to believe she knew why.

"You don't seem like much of a loser." When he looked at her with a somewhat confused look on his face, she pointed towards the table filled with the friends he had come in with.

He looked back at it and smiled, only to shrug and look back at her with a devilish glint in his eyes, "Guess I just think you'd be really cool to hang out with?"

In a past life, she would have most probably said yes to this guy. He was nice enough, although kind of too flirtatious and eager to hang out with a stranger. And his friends looked to not be part of a rough crowd she should stay away from.

But she had her eyes on just one man.

"Sorry. But that date would be a no-go."

He offered one final frown before sighing and nodding softly, "Understood. Still, if you ever want to try it out…"

Ino nodded softly and offered him a small smile that promised absolutely nothing.

Once he was gone, she noticed that one of the orders that had just rang up belonged to Genma. The guy looked as if someone had just drowned his puppy, which was quite the odd look on the usually put together man.

Already fully aware as to which order was the man's, Ino decided to try out her little theory by writing him a note that would (hopefully) finally get a snowball rolling.

"You chickened out again."

Genma frowned over at the useless pile of critiques that was Raidou, all the while he held fast to the bag in his hand.

"Yeah, yeah, I've now got to pay you for that stupid bet I never even wanted to make. Don't care. Can we just go now?"

The scarred man grumbled in irritation as he packed his things up. Then, once they were on the move, he continued with his ranting about Genma being a horrible person that was always looking gift horses in the mouth, where were Ibiki and Anko when someone needed theme to knock sense into the walking toothpick?

Genma mostly tuned out everything Raidou said out of habit. His best friend had always had a bad habit of ranting endlessly whenever he didn't like anything in particular. And he had been more than just vocal about how displeased he was with Genma's horrible management of his crush on the cute barista. It was only natural for him to also rant about Genma within this situation.

As they walked, Genma decided to bring out his coffee and drink some of it while it was still hot.

He opened up the bag and blindly made to grab the cup out of habit. But once he pulled it out, his hand snagged with a piece of paper… which wasn't normal. Coffee in bag? Completely normal. Little piece of paper within bag? Not so much.

He glanced down as he abandoned his coffee to instead grab the paper. Then, once he had pulled it out, he was left blinking in numb astonishment.

There was a note for him.

… … … Someone had written him a note.

… … … … … … He really hoped it had been Ino.

It was a simple piece of white paper that had been folded up two times until it looked like a little square. But there was nothing written on the outside.

He stopped walking and allowed Raidou to continue going without him. The man was still ranting about being annoyed, so he would be busy for the better half of an hour if nobody actually stopped him.

His heart beat unbelievably loudly as he unfolded the paper once. By the second time he unfolded it and was able to see what had been left for him, he felt like he was about two seconds from fainting.

'You're adorable when you're jealous. ;)'

Time froze, just like his heart and his brain. All he could properly do was stare at the paper he clutched in his hand, suddenly numb and displaced from existence.

He didn't really think much… He just stared.

It was when Raidou came back and snapped his fingers in front of his eyes that Genma finally connected what the note meant.

"She likes me!"

"No shit, Sherlock."

He was much too happy with what he had just learned to properly glare at his useless friend.

~/~

She finally knew where she had met Genma's scarred friend. He, along with the purple haired woman, worked under her father at the Special Victims Unit. They were both top-notch detectives and had earned more than a couple of words of praises from her father.

It was funny how small the world was. Genma was friends with people that worked for her father.

Hmm… Might that meant that, even if they hadn't met by her work, they might have eventually met because of those relationships?

As she pondered over the likelihood of having met Genma in another life, Ino knew that Kiba was shaking his head at her while murmuring about poor, lovestruck fools.

The scarred detective in front of both of them looked more confused than annoyed as both workers that might have been able to take his order busied themselves with other, more personal things.

After a couple of seconds of shaking his head at her, though, Kiba finally walked up to the cash register, smiled at the man, and apologized for having taken so long, he was currently trying to avoid a crisis of self to make sure his friend didn't suffer from a mental break down brought on by disillusionment in love.

The scarred man smiled softly, nodded as if he knew what they were talking about, and ordered his coffee.

Ino ignored them until Kiba walked up to her and pinched her harshly by the ribs.

"You've got an order. And, I gotta say… Working here is great for eye candy. That man can take me for a ride any day."

The blonde rolled her eyes at the utter absurdity of what her friend had said, but still began to work on the dark coffee the detective had ordered.

Once she had finished making it and was about to ring the bell to alert the guy, she found someone that made her day brighten like the sun.

Genma offered her a small wave as he just about slouched in front of her counter, all the while his left hand remained in his pocket.

"Hey." He smiled.

"Uh… Hi." She smiled back, suddenly remembering the little note she had left him the past day.

"So… Jealous, huh?"

She shrugged to try and play off how much she suddenly regretted having made inferences. "You're adorable, what can I say?"

"How about yes to going out with me?"

"FINALLY!"

Ino and Genma both jumped at the sudden shouts that came from completely opposite sides of the coffee shop. She looked behind herself to see Kiba smiling like a cat that had just caught the canary he'd been hunting for the better half of a century. She glared at him for a moment, but soon turned to look at who had shouted on Genma's side.

Oh… That was the friend that came here the most with him, right?

"Rai!"

"I'm going to be the best man! Ibiki can be that kid's date, too!"

Ino could only stare wide eyed as the large detective suddenly loomed over Genma's friend, a deadly glare on his face.

She heard a choked up noise coming from Kiba, though, which let her know that he wasn't all that opposed to the idea of being the guy's date to anything.

With a heavy sigh, Genma turned back to her. His smile was lopsided and apologetic and Ino had never seen so much perfection on a human face before. It really couldn't be fair to be this perfect.

"So… Date?"

"Just say the day."

..~..~..

Hope you liked this lil' story, Smarty! And, for the rest, I hope you all liked this! Please remember to review and tell me what you thought!