Chapter 1: The Girl Who Hates Coffee
If there was one thing Dechen hated more than group presentations, it was mornings.
Mornings were busy. Mornings were bright. Mornings demanded productivity before her brain had even work up. And on this particular morning, the universe had decided to test her patience.
Her alarm rang at 6:00 a.m.
She snoozed it.
It rang again at 6:05.
She negotiated with it.
By 6:30, she was sprinting across campus with her bag half open, a notebook sticking out like a wounded soldier, and one shoe lace suspiciously trailing behind her.
"Why," she muttered between breaths, "do 8 a.m. classes even exist?"
The campus of Bhutan Valley University was unusually alive for that hour. Students with suspiciously perfect hair carried coffee cups like trophies. A group of boys laughed too loudly near the gate. Someone was already playing music on a speaker.
Dechen pushed through the crowd toward her favorite weapon against the morning: coffee.
The campus café smelled like roasted coffee beans and bad decisions. She rushed to the counter without fully looking up.
"One iced latte, extra shot, less sugar, no foam," she recited like it was her national anthem.
"Coming right up," a deep voice replied.
She blinked.
That voice did not belong to Karma, the usual barista who had the emotional range of a calculator.
Dechen looked up.
And promptly forgot how to function.
Behind the counter stood a tall guy in a black apron, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly messy in a way that looked illegal. He had that calm, slightly amused expression of someone who already knew you were about to embarrass yourself.
Which she did.
"Uh. I mean. Yes. Latte. Coffee. For drinking," she finished brilliantly.
He smiled. Actually smiled. Not the polite customer-service smile. The kind that said, this is going to be fun.
"Good to know," he said. "I was planning to use it as shampoo."
She stared at him.
He raised an eyebrow.
She felt heat rise to her face.
"I'm late," she announced suddenly, as if that explained her entire personality.
"You look like it."
Rude.
He turned to prepare the drink, moving with irritating confidence. Dechen leaned against the counter, trying to appear composed while internally replaying her life choices.
Who was he?
Why was he here?
Why did he look like he belonged in a romantic drama instead of behind a coffee machine?
When he handed her the cup, their fingers brushed.
It lasted half a second.
Her brain treated it like a historical event.
"Name?" he asked casually.
"Dechen," she said.
He grabbed a marker and wrote something on the cup.
She didn't check.
She should have checked.
Because when she rushed into her lecture hall five minutes later and placed the cup on her desk, her best friend Pema leaned over and squinted at it.
"Who's 'Morning Disaster'?"
Dechen froze.
She slowly rotated the cup.
In bold black letters, under her name, it read:
Morning Disaster
She gasped. "He did not."
Pema started laughing so hard the professor paused mid-sentence.
"Is this the new barista?" Pema whispered. "Please tell me he's cute."
Dechen tried to look unimpressed. "He's… average."
"Your ears are red."
"Shut up."
The lecture blurred into background noise as Dechen's mind kept drifting back to the café. To his smile. To that annoyingly smooth voice.
And most importantly—
To the fact that she had been labeled Morning Disaster.
No one had ever teased her like that before.
No one had dared.
By lunchtime, curiosity had officially defeated her pride.
"I need another coffee," she declared.
"You had one three hours ago."
"It's for academic reasons."
Pema nodded solemnly. "Of course. Very scholarly."
They marched back to the café.
He was still there.
Of course he was.
This time, he noticed her immediately.
"Well, if it isn't Morning Disaster," he said.
Pema made a choking sound beside her.
Dechen crossed her arms. "You spelled my name wrong."
He leaned forward slightly. "I didn't spell your name wrong."
She blinked. "What?"
"I wrote Dechen. Then I wrote a very accurate description underneath."
Pema abandoned her completely and went to order something, leaving Dechen to defend her dignity alone.
"You don't even know me," Dechen said.
He tilted his head. "You ran in with one shoe lace open. You almost dropped your bag twice. You ordered like you were being chased. And you looked personally offended by the concept of sunlight."
She stared at him.
He wasn't wrong.
"That doesn't make me a disaster."
He smiled again. Softer this time.
"It makes you interesting."
Her brain stopped.
That was not the direction she expected this conversation to go.
She cleared her throat. "What's your name?"
"Jigme."