You had discovered the coffee shop three weeks ago purely by accident. Your law firm was two blocks down in Shibuya, and you had been running late to court when you ducked into the first café you saw. The place was small, tucked between a bookstore and a ramen shop, with hand-painted letters on the window that read Ground Zero Coffee. Inside smelled like fresh roasted beans and something warm you could not quite place.

Behind the counter stood the most aggressively attractive man you had ever seen. Blond hair, sharp red eyes, and an expression that suggested he had personally been insulted by your existence.

"Matcha latte, please," you had said, still scrolling through emails on your phone.

He stared at you like you had just spat on his floor.

"The fuck? Are you insulting my coffee beans?"

You looked up, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"Get out."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Out. This is a coffee shop, not some trendy health bullshit bar."

You had been too stunned to argue. You left.

But the next morning, you came back. This time you smiled when you ordered. "One matcha latte, please."

His eye twitched. "Are you fucking serious right now?"

"Very serious."

He pointed at the door. You left, grinning the entire walk to your office.

It became a routine. Every morning before work, you stopped by Ground Zero Coffee and ordered matcha. Every morning, Bakugo Katsuki, you had learned his name from the business card taped to the register, kicked you out with increasingly creative insults.

"Do I look like a tea shop to you?" "You're banned." "I will physically remove you."

You kept coming back because somewhere between the second and seventh visit, it stopped being about the drink. It became a game. A break in your exhausting corporate litigation schedule. The one part of your morning that made you laugh.

Then one morning, you arrived to find a handwritten sign taped to the door.

"NOTICE: Matcha Drinkers Not Permitted. This is a Coffee Establishment. Respect the Beans."

You laughed so hard an elderly woman crossing the street gave you a concerned look. You pushed the door open anyway. The bell chimed. Bakugo looked up from the espresso machine, saw you, and his expression darkened into something between disbelief and rage.

"Are you illiterate?"

"I can read just fine," you said, walking up to the counter. "One matcha, please."

"Seriously? Are you that blind?"

"I saw the sign. Very creative, by the way. Did you make it yourself?"

"Get. Out."

"Make me a matcha and I will."

"I don't even have matcha!"

"Then I guess I'll have to keep coming back until you do."

You left before he could throw something at you.

The next morning, there was a second sign. This one hung directly beside the cash register, impossible to miss. Bold letters, slightly crooked, clearly made in anger.

"FUCK MATCHA."

Bakugo stood beneath it, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, drinking black coffee from a mug that said #1 Matcha Hater. He was smirking. Actually smirking, like he had won.

You leaned against the counter, mirroring his posture. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Outside, Shibuya was waking up—salarymen rushing past, students laughing, the distant sound of a train. But inside Ground Zero Coffee, it was just you and him and this ridiculous standoff over a drink he refused to make.

"You're not gonna give up, are you?" he finally said.