Haru isn't really sure why his small restaurant attracts such strange customers. He was positive that building his restaurant, Iwatobi, next to a indoor community pool had been a good idea. The lunch rush of parents and children after morning swim classes was probably enough to keep Iwatobi opened for years. Plus the owner of the pool, Goro Sasabe, had taken a liking to Haru's seafood pasta. Even promised Haru a free five month membership to his pool if he would give him the recipe.

Haru had been sorely tempted but eventually refused. His recipes were precious to him, and even though he loved swimming he wasn't willing to give up his secrets just for a five month membership.

Sasabe bumped his offer up to a full year membership and Haru immediately agreed.

Although even after Haru had given up the recipe, Sasabe continued to come by for Haru's food. Even ordered the seafood pasta on occasion, claiming he could never get the taste quite right at home. He was constantly bothering Haru, laughing loudly in the restaurant, constantly chattering at Haru even though Haru rarely said more than a few sentences in their conversations, and always bugging Haru to come by and swim with him. Still, after a time Haru had come to slightly enjoy Sasabe's company. He certainly livened up the place after the lunch rush had left.

While Sasabe was a little odd, he was still relatively normal and since Haru had opened his restaurant right next to Sasabe's pool, it was to be expected they would see each other a lot.

The other customers that constantly visited Haru had no such excuse.

The first oddity had come in with a large group of firemen smelling of smoke. Apparently a building nearby had been burning. Haru had heard the fire truck sirens pass by early in the morning while he was busy preparing ingredients for the day. Slightly concerned, he went outside to make sure nothing nearby was on fire. Satisfied that the pool building wasn't burning down, he had gone back inside and finished his preparations, thinking no more of the incident. It wasn't until a little past lunch when the large group of firemen tramped in that he was bothered to remember it.

It appeared nobody had been badly injured in the fire, as the firemen were smiling and chatting happily with each other. Haru sent one of the new waiters, Nitori, over to take their orders, mentally preparing himself for the large amount of orders about to come in. The next half hour was busy, with him and the other two cooks hastily making food for the large group. When Nitori started taking out the food Haru was pleased to hear the chatter die down and quite munching take its place.

It was only when it was time to pay that Haru actually met the first odd customer. After the firemen had finished eating and paid their bills almost all of them tramped outside. However one stayed, and asked Nitori if he could meet the cook who had made his food.

Which unfortunately was Haru.

"That was one of the best tuna melts I've ever had! You truly have a gift with food!" The man beamed up at Haru from his seat. Haru shifted uncomfortably. Since his restaurant had taken off and he was able to hire more staff he didn't interact with the customers as much, except for Sasabe who would make a scene if Haru didn't come out to meet him. It wasn't that he didn't like people, he just preferred to be in the kitchen cooking rather than interacting with the customers.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Haru mumbled. Rather than being put off by Haru's quiet attitude, the man seemed to take it as an invitation to keep talking.

"It really was excellent! Better than any other one I've tried! I never noticed this place before even though I go swim at the pool by here quite a bit. By the way, my name's Makoto Tachibana, you can call me Makoto if you want. What's your name?"

"Haruka Nanase."

"That's such a cute name!" Did the fireman just actually say that.

"No it's not."

"Yes it is! Haru-chan!"

"Don't call me Haru-chan."

"Awww," Makoto looked a little put out and Haru was having trouble understanding what was going on. "Well I'll call you Haru until we're better friends then," Makoto said with a warm smile.

"We're not friends," Haru said.

"But we will be! I'm sure of it!" Makoto said. Haru wasn't exactly sure what to say next. If one of the other firemen outside hadn't stuck his head inside to tell Makoto to hurry up, Haru probably would have stood there silently staring at the other man for the next ten minutes.

As it was, when Makoto left with a friendly pat on Haru's shoulder in goodbye, Haru was only left staring after him for three minutes until Nitori came back and worriedly asked his boss what was wrong.

Haru mutted, "Nothing," and went back into the kitchen, determined to ignore the weird meeting.

It was only after Makoto came back almost every other day for the next two weeks that Haru realized it wasn't something he could ignore.

Makoto was the first of Haru's four strange customers.

~FREE!~

The second strange customer was completely Matsuoka's fault. Or, Haru should say, the younger Matsuoka's otherwise known as Gou's fault.

About a month after Haru met Makoto his second cook had decided to suddenly quit on him and he had to quickly hire a new one. Gou had great credentials and seemed nice enough when they met for her interview, but Haru now believed he should have done a more thorough check into her background. Specifically her family, and even more specifically her weird brother.

Gou herself was actually a great cook and quickly became Haru's right hand in running the restaurant. She was smart and very efficient in nearly everything she did. She did have a odd tendency to stare at men with large muscles but as long as she did her job Haru wouldn't complain. Honestly it wasn't until she decided to invite over her policeman brother that Haru wished a little bit that he hadn't hired her.

"Oh, that's right!" Gou suddenly slapped her hands together, "Haru, I asked my older brother, Rin, to come over today. He works as a policeman and has a kind of scary demeanor but don't worry about him if you see him lurking around. He's a big softy underneath all that. Plus I told him about your fabulous grilled mackerel special."

Haru acknowledged her words with a tilt of his head, his eyes still trained on the fish he had grilling in the pan. Gou continued to chatter about her brother a bit, mentioning that he also enjoyed swimming and had considered training for the Olympics before he decided on becoming a policeman. Haru made polite noises of interest but honestly didn't care much about meeting Gou's brother.

Wish he could have said the same about Rin's feelings of meeting him. Rin stormed into the shop a few hours before closing, glaring around Iwatobi liked something about it offended him. Unfortunately Haru was up front, wiping down a few tables since they were low on staff that day thanks to a cold that was going around. Rin took one look at him and then suddenly got up close to Haru.

"Hey," Rin almost snarled.

"Hello," Haru inched away a little bit.

"Is your name Seijuro Mikoshiba?"

Mikoshiba? Wasn't that one of the waiters Gou had hired a little while ago? He was one of the people out sick.

"I'm Haruka Nanase, owner of this establishment. Can I help you?" Haru said, a little coldly.

Rin looked a little surprised and then backed off. His face lost it's scary expression and instead he looked a little abashed. "Sorry about that! Gou's been going on about this guy and I just wanted to make sure he knew not to try anything funny with my little sister. But she's also mentioned you," Rin said hurriedly, "it's nice to finally meet you! It's great that you see Gou's talents, the last place she worked for, sheesh, I wanted to arrest the owner for being a jackass. Sadly couldn't do that without getting in trouble by the higher ups. Did manage to give him a parking ticket though, heh."

"Um," once again Haru was speechless.

"But seriously! I've heard great things about your food!" Rin swung a friendly arm around Haru, "You aren't closed yet, right? Let me try some of that grilled fish Gou was going on about!"

And that was how Haru met he second strange customer. Rin stayed almost until closing, switching between chatting with Haru and arguing with Gou about Mikoshiba. Haru hadn't had any issue with dating in the workplace, although none of his staff had shown any interest beyond being friendly with each other before, but he was almost willing to forbid Gou from seeing Mikoshiba if it meant getting rid of Rin. If he hadn't been so scared of losing Gou as a worker he might have even done it.

Unfortunately even getting rid of the Gou Mikoshiba problem probably wouldn't have stopped Rin from becoming another regular. Even on days when Gou wasn't working Rin would show up, baring his pointed shark teeth in a friendly grin.

Individually Makoto and Rin were small annoyances. Sadly the world seemed to have it out for Haru, because on one fateful Wednesday the two came in almost at the same time, shouting out a friendly greeting to Haru who was back in the kitchen. According to Nitori, who was up front, they had shared a surprised look before noticing that they actually knew each other by sight from the pool next door. Of course this started off a conversation, and since they had a mutual friend (acquaintance, Haru would argue)they began to hit it off pretty well. Soon the two organized lunches together, inviting Haru to sit and eat with them.

"I can't do that, I have to cook the food you're eating," Haru huffed at them.

"We could eat somewhere besides Iwatobi," Rin offered. Haru only sniffed and ignored them for the rest of their meal. Makoto, who had known Haru for just a little longer than Rin, had to explain to the poor confused Rin that Haru really didn't like eating at other restaurants. In fact, according to one conversation he had with Haru, the only reason Haru had decided to become a chef was so that he wouldn't have to eat out again.

Which was actually untrue but Haru found it amusing to let the two believe it. Since they wouldn't leave him alone he might as well have his fun.