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Love is green, for Matthew.
Love is the iced mint latte he buys along with his own iced Americano. It’s always the same order, three days a week, and Taerae knows it by heart now.
Sometimes Taerae throws in a cookie on the house, and he is rewarded with Matthew’s blinding smile.
Matthew doesn’t go on Tuesdays and Thursdays because he has a 9 a.m. class. Taerae knows this too, because he’s in the same class, sitting two seats behind Matthew.
Love is green for Taerae, too.
It is the feeling he has to push down every time with gritted teeth as he completes Matthew’s order, which makes him secretly hope the drink tastes bitter to whoever Matthew gives it to.
It’s what he knows he has to let go, both for his own and for Matthew’s sake.
***
One day, Matthew doesn’t come alone. He is accompanied by a man in a suit and a long trench coat, who looks like he stepped right off the pages of a magazine. He makes Taerae much more aware of his sweaty hair and the coffee stains on his shirt.
“Let me order for us,” says the man.
“Ah, hyung,” Matthew stretches the syllables in a way Taerae can only describe as aggressively pouty.
“You don’t have to pay, I can do it.”
“I want to.” The man strokes Matthew’s cheek with the back of his hand, and Taerae wants to gag a little.
He doesn’t like how generous the man is making himself seem. Matthew buys him coffee three times a week, and this is the first time, to Taerae’s knowledge, that the other guy is the one buying.
Taerae notices the older man orders an Americano for himself, too. Matthew’s brows pull into a slight furrow, but he quickly schools his expression back to normal.
Taerae doesn’t give them a cookie that day. Maybe he’s being petty, but he doesn’t want to feed his rival.
Ah, but what kind of a love rival is he, if Matthew only sees him as a classmate he barely interacts with?
***
Love is blue, for Matthew.
Taerae knows something is wrong the moment Matthew walks in the door.
Matthew seems to be in a daze, following the line blindly without being alert to his surroundings.
When it’s his turn, he stands there staring at the menu in a way that makes it obvious he’s not reading anything there.
The silence extends for long enough that Taerae sees mildly irritated expressions on the faces of the customers behind him.
“The usual?” Taerae prompts.
Matthew jumps a little in his spot. “Taerae!” He processes what Taerae said belatedly. “Oh, um, yeah sure.”
Taerae quietly makes the order. He adds not one, but two cookies as freebies to the order, hoping this would change Matthew’s mood. But Matthew’s frown deepens when he sees them, though he does not comment anything.
Unlike before when Matthew would take his drinks to go, today he sits at a table in the corner.
Between his duties, Taerae observes Matthew drinking his Americano slowly, not using his phone or doing anything in particular, just staring into space.
When he leaves, Taerae walks to clear the table. Both cookies and the mint latte remained untouched.
***
Taerae doesn’t want to make the mistake of presuming again. This time, he clearly asks: “An Americano for you, right?”
Matthew looks like he is torn between being relieved and embarrassed.
He nods. “Just the Americano. And I’ll get a cookie myself this time.” He winks at Taerae as he says this. Taerae feels like he needs to hold the counter otherwise he will melt into a puddle.
He makes Matthew’s drink, and in a spur of the moment decision, he begs his coworker who is going on their break if he can exchange his break with them. His coworker looks at him strangely, but sensing Taerae’s desperation, they agree.
Before leaving, Taerae quickly whips up another drink, and brings both over to where Matthew is sitting. Matthew looks up and smiles when Taerae places his drink in front of him.
“I-um, I like mint lattes too. But I prefer matcha.” Taerae doesn’t know why he’s saying these words.
“And I’m on break so-” Taerae let the words linger between them.
“Yeah, of course, Taerae.” Matthew gestures in front of him.
Taerae doesn’t want to let go of this chance to have a proper conversation with Matthew. He sits in the seat Matthew pointed towards, and sips his drink shyly.
“Did you finish the essay?” (“I’ve liked you since the first day of orientation.”) is what Taerae plans to say and think respectively.
In classic fashion, of course, his thought and speech bubbles get mixed up and “I’ve liked you since the first day of orientation.” (“Did you finish the essay?”) come out instead.
Matthew scrunches his brows.
“You-what-?”
Taerae’s eyes widen and his hand tighten around his drink.
“I meant to ask if you finished the essay,” he squeaks out.
“I did. You like me? As in, you want to go on dates with me and stuff?”
Taerae sighs. “Yeah, like I want to go on dates with you and stuff.”
“You never really said anything,” Matthew says almost to himself.
“It just never felt like the right time. And you were dating someone…”
Taerae doesn’t know if it’s a sensitive topic and he regrets bringing it up, but Matthew doesn’t seem to take offence to it.
“You want to go on dates with me,” Matthew repeats instead. “Let’s go on one!”
Taerae gapes. Can something this big really be this easy?
He asks this out loud.
“Of course!” Matthew’s tone is bright. “There’s enough complicated things in life, why make this complicated too?”
Taerae finds himself swayed by Matthew’s logic. Sometimes, it can really be this easy.
Before leaving, Matthew says, “You like matcha lattes right? I’ll remember that.”
Love is green for Taerae. It will start with a matcha latte.