originally a ziam fic by alannalaleona on ao3
summary: troye goes to school, works, and tries to make the prettiest latte art a girl could dream of. troye is in a slump until one day, the bus almost runs down the pick me up he just might need. and it's not a latte.
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troye tapped his foot impatiently, staring blankly at a projector screen in his least interesting class. he tried to focus, really he did, but his mind kept drifting to other things. the porn he'd watched last night to get to sleep, the cute guy on the city bus that morning, going to work later, and the girl sitting in front of him on her laptop, reading some sort of smutty story. she always did that. troye was so bored once, he had tried to read the story with her. he'd gotten as far as, "they wank each other like that, kissing hot and wet and deskayate..." before he realized he wouldn't be very good at hiding a hard on, so he hadn't really tried again. troye didn't think class was the place for that type of thing, but he really couldn't judge. besides, it was fine for her. girls didn't have to hide boners. lucky.
troye sighed and chewed on his pencil. it was gross, really, but at least it kept him awake. it was a yellow pencil, not one of those stupid mechanical ones. he hated those, hated the way the lead snapped too much and the way the eraser could be removed. but that meant his pencils typically had bite marks in them. troye dreaded the day someone asked to borrow a pencil.
troye started as the girl on the laptop stood up to pack her stuff. troye stretched. class had ended without him realizing it again. he really needed to pay attention next time. he slung his notebook into his pack and walked quickly out of the room, avoiding looking at any of his peers. he couldn't afford to talk to anyone. if he didn't catch the first bus out, he was gonna be late to work.
troye caught the bus just in time. he stood, clutching at a strap hanging from the rail, and tried to take stock of his life. school: check. three and a half years. crippling debt: check. three and a half years. job to pay back debt: check. time it would take to pay back the debt? troye heaved a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. he shoved thoughts of money to the back of his mind and decided to focus on something else.
something he could think about more immediately was lattes. every day, troye tried to make latte art. it was the only interesting thing he could do. given that it was his job to make coffee, he figured he may as well try to make it fun. only, latte art was hard. troye didn't have all the time in the world to practice, nor did he have the right equipment at home. plus, school kind of cut into his latte art practice. just a little. between school and what little social life he allowed himself, he practiced. more often than not, he was just frustrated. the most he'd been able to do so far was create distinguished waves of white in the brown. it didn't look like a shape, just vague, misty waves. still, he was pretty proud of himself.
the bus neared troye's stop, so he leaned over and pulled the cord. he heard the familiar screeching sound of the bus stopping and he started walking up toward the front. the driver chose that instant to slam down on the brakes hard, causing troye to pitch forward into the seats. he caught himself on a soft, overly patterned seat cushion, and stood up just in time to see the bus driver curse at a guy who had jay walked directly in front of the bus. troye ignored the bus driver's cursing and thanked him, jumping down the stairs.
troye stood for a moment outside the bus and stared at the guy who had almost just gotten flattened by the bus. there was something about him troye automatically liked. maybe it was the way he had waved at the bus driver apologetically, indicating that it was his own fault. or maybe it was the way the batman t-shirt he was wearing stretched over his chest, the way his smile sat easily on his face, or the way he looked when he noticed troye staring-"hey, you alright?"
