Note: FOR ANI! I wanted to write a College AU for Ani, but then I'm pretty sure she also likes Coffee Shop AU so… why not both?! Also I've wanted to write this for a long time but never really got to do it… until now. I haven't written in a long time, so apologies for the sloppiness.

penny for your thoughts?

"Here's your order, sir."

"Ah."

This has been the fifth time this week since Rio's seen the young man who entered their little café; a new regular customer, perhaps. She places his order of "A caffe macchiato, please." onto the table and gives him a slight bow, receiving a "Thank you." before she leaves, going back to the counter. She returns to her tasks, serving the customers, cleaning the workplace up, manning the cashier while her partner takes his turn in cleaning up. She turns on the radio and the melodies of an unfamiliar smooth jazz band can be heard around the little café. The customers are seated in their favorite spots within the shop, she's taken notice, and are now making small talk with each other as they drink their coffee or eat their snacks. Soon, the customers start to leave the shop. Those she was familiar with waved goodbye to her. She doesn't fail to call out a "Thank you for coming. Have a great day." like her father told her to do. She's been doing this job for a year and a half now and she doesn't make little mistakes anymore.

Now and then she glances back at the bespectacled young man who sits at the end of the café, by the window, alone. In the five days she's seen him, she notices that he always has folders and papers in front of him, and she wonders what job he's employed in that would result to him always having to bring those files with him. Or maybe he's a grad student, which would be understandable; he must be working on his thesis. She sees him absentmindedly twirling his pen and oh, he's left-handed I didn't notice, or is he ambidextrous? She finds herself paying a lot of attention to this man, and she doesn't understand why. There doesn't seem to be anything special worth noting about him at all. She doesn't even know his name, nor does she need it.

Rio leans back onto the wall as she surveys the little shop. Her eyes land onto the door, beside the man's table, remembering the first time this particular customer entered the shop. It was half past one, and Thomas had been busy attending to some girls saying something about 'special customer service' or whatever crap it was that he did. She remembered how tired this customer looked when he went to the counter and ordered in such a quiet, monotonous tone that Rio almost had to ask him to repeat his order because she thought she was hearing things. The transaction went quietly, and once the man received his change, he gave a small bow and walked, trudged, to the seat by the window. He placed his bag on the seat beside his, and started to bring out those papers, folders, and a mechanical pencil that he clicked 'click, click, click' three times. He was a lone worker, and he was very quiet as well. When she finally gave him his order, he muttered his gratitude. He was… a boring guy. That was the first impression she got from him. Which leads her back to the question: why was she so interested?

To snap her out of her troubling thoughts, she checks her wristwatch. It is 3:00 PM. About a few more minutes before her brother comes back for his shift; and also, she looks at the man by the window again. He stands up and stacks his files in a neat pile, then takes them all, placing them in his black backpack. He doesn't look back to the counter and heads directly for the door, as if he was in hurry, and Rio is always, always late in saying "Thank you for coming. Have a great day." And she feels silly because she couldn't say it again, he didn't hear it again. And she shouldn't be feeling upset about something this small, but she is.

And she doesn't know why.

He's just a stranger after all, why should he even matter? Maybe it was because he always looked so tired and upset, and she probably just wanted him to smile? Come to think of it, he always looked so problematic whenever he entered the café, was he having problems with the project he was working on? What course was he taking anyway? Why was he in such a hurry to leave the shop all the time? All these questions just made her feel even more upset and she took a deep breath, she needed to calm down, there was no use getting worked up over that guy.

Her brother comes by late, again. And she takes her frustrations out on him, "Ryouga! This is the third time! Can't you leave the university a little earlier, you idiot!" And he exhales and did he just groan?! "Okay look, I didn't mean to," He explains as he wears his black apron, "But I bumped into this upperclassman and we talked about some stuff for this one project we're supposed to pass by the end of the semester. Look, it's for a minor subject, but we need all the credit we can get because the professor's an ass."

"Excuses." She muttered. "Just get to work, Ryouga."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

The next day, everything goes smoothly. Rio finishes classes early, checks in at exactly 12:30 PM. Customers come and go, orders are taken but there was no sign of the new regular. He must be busy, is what Rio concludes. Ryouga checks in on time, to her surprise, helps out with the work load, and everything runs smoothly until they close at 9:00 PM as usual. She was glad for the order. It's been a long time since she last felt this sense of control. Her thoughts were all focused on the work she had to do. There was no distraction, no annoyances, no… that guy wasn't there today, and okay, she may be a little disappointed, but today was great. But she couldn't stop herself from frowning, something her brother took notice of, "Hey, is something wrong?" He asks as he switches the sign on the window from "OPEN" to "CLOSED".

"Ah, it's nothing." She says as she locks up the cash register.

And Thomas, the nerve of that guy, starts chuckling to himself, "Rio just misses her crush, Ryouga."

"What?!" Ryouga yells, and Rio wants to smack her brother's boyfriend in the face because, "Shut up, Thomas! What makes you think I have a crush on him?!"

"Oh? You don't? Come on, I noticed you looking at him yesterday, and the day before." He teased. Then looking at her brother, he said, "Little Rio-chan's got a crush." He laughed.

And she would have laughed as well because of the mortified look on Ryouga's face, but right now she was annoyed because she did NOT have a crush on him, and Thomas really needs to shut up. "Just because I look at him from time to time doesn't mean I have a crush on him, Thomas."

Ryouga nodded in agreement, "She's right, you know." He still didn't look happy though.

"You're one to talk, Ryouga." Thomas chuckled, ruffling Ryouga's hair. "AH HEY! Not the hair!"

Rio cleared her throat, "Can you two flirt with each other later? We have a café to close up."

"Hey, don't look at me. He's the one who started it." Ryouga grumbled, going back inside the kitchen.

"Worried?" Thomas teased.

She scoffed, "As if."

The guy wasn't mentioned for the rest of the day.

A week had already passed since she last saw that guy. Maybe he wasn't coming by anymore. She shrugs it off. He's probably too busy to even take a break in a café now. More importantly, Ryouga was late again. She really needed to talk to her brother about punctuality.

The doors of the shop opened and to her surprise, it was Ryouga. "Ryouga?! Why didn't you use the employees—?"

"Hey, now. I brought that upperclassman I was talking about. It'd be rude to leave him to go to the back door, right?"

"Ah… Ryouga, you didn't have to."

And Rio is mildly shocked, the upperclassman that Ryouga brought with him was the very same guy that went to the café at half past one, who always ordered a caffe macchiato and sat alone, by the window. That guy.

She looks at him and nods, "Good afternoon, a caffe macchiato?"

He gave her a small smile, "Yes please." Oh, that was the first time she's seen him smile. It looked good on him.

Ryouga looked at his upperclassman, and then at her, "You guys know each other." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, I worked on that project here." The guy said.

"Wait, really? And you didn't tell me? Really? C'mon Durbe, I can't believe you. I could've helped you out."

"You aren't allowed to skip your last period anymore, Ryouga. Didn't the professor give you a warning already?"

"Tch. Whatever. You still should have told me."

So the guy's name was Durbe. What a weird name… but it was kind of cute too.

Thomas chuckled again, "Oi, Ryouga. Check in?"

"Ah, right." He gave a small nod to Durbe and entered the workplace, and went to the employees' lounge. Thomas then looked at her and gave her a playful wink and then followed Ryouga to the lounge. She was going to hurt him one of these days. She looked back at Durbe and smiled apologetically, "I'm sorry about Ani. And thank you for taking care of him." She bowed.

He chuckled, "Ah, it's fine. Ryouga's an interesting person. He's pretty lazy but he's intelligent. He just really needs supervision."

She sighed, "Tell me about it."

He smiled, "Oh, that's right. I'm Durbe. It's very nice to meet you." He offered his hand to her.

She smiled back at him, "Nice to meet you too, Durbe. My name's Rio." She took his hand and shook it. Hmmm, wasn't she forgetting something?

"Ah! Right, your order. A caffe macchiato, right?"

End note: It wasn't even DoruRio haha I suck.