Bloom >> phan

What's Happenin', Howell?

     "Ooooooo, ooo ohhhhh oooooo..."  A young girl's beautiful voice filled the room.
     "But it's too late, oh, I believe in-" Phil started the tune and began fumbling his hand above his night stand, finding the alarm clock, then flattening his palm on the snooze button.  "-Not having to get up this earlyyy!...  Sorry Dodie..."  He apologizes to one of his best friends at the moment, whom is, like Phil, working on her music career. Her voice is the only thing that has ever been able to make me get out of bed lately...  So soothing, yet I want to immediately start dabbing to this. Dear God, Phil, no!  In response to this thought, Phil decided the best thing to do was to close his eyes back shut until the alarm chimed Dodie's ukulele masterpiece one more time.

---

An hour of self preparation (fringe control!) and a few handfuls of corn flakes later, Phil headed down the stairs to his flat, out the main door, and swiftly down the pavement to the left. The walk from his flat, which Phil rightly named "The Place" so that anyone asking where he was headed after work would be greeted by their wise, age-old friend, confusion, consisted of fifteen solid minutes of dodging early morning joggers with their furry companions and carefully stepping over what those heavenly disasters had left in their place. However, Phil would admit to anyone who cared enough to listen to a man who looked as if struck by hell's reign, that the bustling streets striped with business casual ties flowing in the wind, draped off of the previous generations glorious prisoners' shoulders just below the head, paired with horns shouting out at their rivals, who happened to be the youngest and free doodling in the street with brightly colored chalk, and the way that laughter would spread like bees pollinating a field in which sweet wild berries grew through the beamish mouths of these children, made Phil feel incredibly alive as he blended into the soft browns and hard, concrete grays of the city blockades, floating in between what is known as the devilishly living and the hopelessly long gone. A heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved, my mum always used to say. Phil halted both his thoughts and his jaunt as he swung open the cafe's door with a squeak of its hinges.
"Phil? Phil! Please, I don't know what I'm doing yet, why do you keep coming in late; why do you do this to me; I don't know how to work this machine; PJ isn't here to show me, Phil-" A strikingly beautiful girl with medium length brown hair, frizzed out from worry, shouted her anxious questions to Phil as he walked towards the counter.
"Dodie, please, what are you on about? You've been working here for three weeks now, you should know how to put in an order without me or Peej with you by now..." Phil took Dodie's obvious worry and turned it into his own action of going trough the door in the back of the shop that led to behind the counter, quickly tugging on his apron, and gently rubbing the top of her back in a calming manner. "See," Phil sedately noted, "to put in an amount you press this button first," he tapped the screen,"-this will make it available for Chris to see-if he were ever here-and this button," Phil expertly pressed a large green button on the keypad with the words COMPLETE TRANSACTION on them, "will complete the customer's transaction."
Dodie looked as if she were a child receiving a Christmas gift directly from Santa Claus himself. "Phil, I honestly do not know where the hell I would be without you." She stated, pushing up her wide-framed glasses back up her nose from where they had slipped down in her panic.
"Hey, hey, now... No, don't cry, it's okay. Dodie, we go through this nearly every day, but you've-hey, listen-you've been having a rough time in your life is all." To this, Dodie turned, stood on her tiptoes, and rested her forehead on Phil's shoulder, looking defeated.
Dodie slowly sunk back down to her own short height, in which her and the taller man exchanged a knowledgeable, caring glance, then Phil completed the man's order. Soon after, the small bell hung off of the front door chimed, signaling that another customer had arrived.  Phil had already started the daily task of wiping up messes made by the previous shift.
"Oooo-who's that boy I see looking at you?" Dodie asked Phil with a smirk.
"So have you calmed down at all now, Dodie? I knew I shouldn't have taken my time getting here this morn-wait... What did you say?!" Phil whipped his head around so that it should have snapped off of his neck in a full 180 degree angle, and, sure enough, he was met by the same deep, chocolate brown eyes from days ago on the corner pavement of the park. However, Phil couldn't find exactly what, but something seemed different about the boy. It's probably just me... I'm mean, he is absolutely perfec-
"Hello, it's me again, um, Phil." Phil had not even paid attention to when Daniel strolled over to meet him at the counter.  "I'm sure you think I'm a weirdo, but, trust me, there's worse things about me that I am glad that you don't know," Dan started, putting great carefulness and length between each sentence and each word being said.  "I guess you know this, but I need...  Well, I'm here because I need coffee... From you."
     "Coffee?"  Phil asked.  "From me?"
     "......"
     "..."
     Crickets are chirping...  What is happening?!...
     "The, uh, usual then, mate?"  Phil asked, trying desperately to break the awkward silence.  Why can't I speak normally??!
     "What-oh, um, yes, please."  Dan looked just as dumbfounded as Phil felt. 
     Still caught in a daze, Phil slowly sent the order to Dodie, who somehow knew how to make coffee, while she cannot do much else here, and Phil stood, waiting for either him or Dan to spit out something, anything, to make this transaction less excruciating.
     "Phil, may I ask, what the in the actual hell are you doing?"  Dodie was now standing behind Phil, yet also where she could see the handsome stranger.  She was already holding Dan's drink.  Phil shifted and looked up at the clock on the wall behind him.  It read 1:20 PM. We've been standing here for fifteen minutes!!
     Phil, still in a dream state, suddenly felt outside of his body completely.  Dodie, annoyed by Phil's sudden lack of barista expertise, handed over the iced coffee to Dan.
     "Daniel, I think you are the most lovely man I have ever met." The words tumbled out of Phil's mouth.
     "Owo what was that??"  Dan appeared to be appalled.  Phil was sure he was in for it now.
     "Nothing.  Absolutely nothing..." Phil immediately took hold of the situation he had just made for himself. "Well, it was something-a thing you should forget about.  For chissake, I don't even know your last name, or your birthday, or what kind of person you are.  Honestly, I don't know why you would come here to be with someone like me, but you could be here for any reason; I just like to think that people think about me, and-"
     "No.  Look," Dan paused to set his drink on the counter, his suntanned hands shaking lightly, "I, as awkward as I am, was here because of you, but, well, what I'm trying to say is that you could know all of those things about me, I mean, uh.."  He looked down and slid one hand over the pocket of the plaid shirt he was wearing, a pastel green striped tee underneath.  "I'll be here tomorrow, the same time."  Dan pulled a small, fresh yellow rose from his pocket and held it out towards Phil, whom took it carefully, his sea green eyes wide open in shock.
     "I hope that'll make everythin' ace, mate," Daniel finished as he held his coffee in one hand, and, with the other, motioned towards Phil in what signaled his goodbye as he waltzed closer yet towards the door.  Only then did Phil, hopelessly, yet lovingly, stuck in what has been his most deeply in admiration state of being in his entire life, realized the object that made Dan so amazingly different than Phil had ever seen him:  draped loosely over the pastel of the boy he had come so quickly to adore was Phil's own black flannel. 
     The door of the Starbucks chimed, and Phil watched as Dan went out and headed off onto to pavement and to the right.  Dodie stood next to Phil, left shocked and utterly confused at what had just happened.
     "Well, is everything ace?" She asked.  "If so, then maybe you should take your guitar and invite him to-" They spoke in unison, "The place." 
All day, Phil was left with one thought:  Tomorrow cannot seem to come soon enough.

AN:
First of all, AHHHHHHHH!!! This was so exciting to write!! I hope that, as this is the longest chapter, that it doesn't turn any of you off from reading this fic. Honestly, however, I would love to write chapters this long about 70% of the time... Knowing me, that percent will definitely drop throughout the course of writing this, but I like to keep my expectations for this high. I mean, just ??!? I can't rn?? Anyways, thank you all (especially my boi breadbinboydurie) for reading this.
See you in the next update! -Em