He enjoys working on Fifth Avenue, where the coffee machines slurr underneath the chitter-chatter within the modest bakery. Hoisting bags of roasted beans and foreign-named syrups leaves him with a scent he has grown to love. He prefers working with his hands, twisting the gears in a jammed milk steamer or fixing a twisted chair leg. It means that there is no need for his words to trip over one another since Ymir commands the cash register daily.

She enjoys teasing the morning commuters as they stream into the bakery, bleary-eyed with a feral craving for caffeine. However, on that particularly morning, she called in sick. She even offered a mediocre cough or two over the phone for added effect, yet both Reiner and Bertholdt knew that she was in the company of a particular blonde she was seeing since they met at a party last week.

That is the very reason he is standing at the forefront of the counter, sweaty palms against his apron. Bert punches in his password, and a wide array of drinks and sweets appear on the screen. He counts, planning his staged rhetoric in-between the spaces of the seconds. Bert constructs a shaky smile that threatens to collapse underneath his anxiety and glances up to tend to the next customer. His speech—as it often does—skitters to a halt at the sight of the woman at the counter.

She’s exceedingly short (more so than people normally are compared to his height), blonde strands piled haphazardly into a bun on the top of her head. Blue eyes are shrouded with lashes that adorn half-melted snowflakes from the storm outside. The woman pulls her green scarf away from her mouth, rosy lips pursed. 

"I just need a small, vanilla latte," she says, never holding his gaze a second longer than is appropriate. She digs into the pockets of her peacoat and retrieves a handful of dollars bills, to which Bert accepts with mechanical gestures and offers her the remaining change. He is supposed to say something, perhaps wishing her a great day (although that would be false due to the weather outside), or something of the other. 

More importantly, he is supposed to ask the woman her name, but he watches as her retreating figure seeks warmth by the radiator in subtle defeat. Bert withdraws a paper cup and begins mixing her drink with a twinge of dismay pricking his chest. The coffee machine gurgles, and he tops her drink with a layer of whip cream and a plastic top. He takes the Sharpie resting on the curve of his ear and is suddenly hit with a stroke of confidence when the black tip of his pen hits the surface of her coffee cup. He is quick, etched lines blending with one another to create a rough portrait of her. Bert barely gets to do her angular nose justice when she reaches the other side of the wood counter, patiently awaiting her drink. She surprises him, and Bert nearly drops his Sharpie to the floor. Somehow, he manages to hand the woman her drink without spilling it.

"H-have a nice day," he stammers, heat flooding his cheeks as the woman turns without saying goodbye. He wants to crawl into the back room out of sheer embarrassment, but the small look of appreciation the woman gives to the picture on her cup keeps him upright on his feet.