Indigo and Lilac Wine
Chapter 1: Extra Service

AN: Hi, if you're new to the series, welcome! This is the start of the Monoshin part of the civilians AU. I've published one story of Chef Monoma and Dr. Shinsou before for rarepair month, you can read it here if you want (Chapter 14!). So this multichapter fic will show how they met, and maybe show us some of the things going on in the background too!

You don't need to read the first two stories to understand this. But if you've read them before, you kinda know that some significant stuff will happen in the end. So, yeah, let's get the show started!

Six AM on a bland Monday morning. The sun is shining hot and bright, bathing everything in golden light. The sounds of the birds chirping are overwhelmed by the rush of traffic, steadily congesting as the minutes tick by. Various smells pollute the air: smoke and coffee and waste, competing for critically acclaimed patissier Monoma Neito's refined senses.

He trudges his way to the Boulangerie, trying not to look as if he spent his Sunday drinking too much wine and sobbing over his French Netflix shows until he passed out on his living room floor, with his loungewear in disarray and his belly exposed to the cold.

The ache in his head tells the true story, however, and he finds himself cringing as he hears the high-pitched tingling of the door chime and the blast of cold air when he enters his establishment.

" Bonjour, maman! " a sprout of brown hair wearing a chef's hat greets from behind the counter.

" Bonjour, Komori." He tries to be his usual affluent and elegant self, but his voice comes out as an awful croak.

Komori Kinoko, his assistant pastry chef, emerges from the back to place freshly baked baguettes on display. "You look exhausted. You musht have had a lot of fun-gus this weekend, huh?"

"Ugh. Must you ask me if I had fungus over the weekend every Monday morning?" It was cute at first, but now it's getting old and he doesn't want to answer the question on the unfortunate occasion that he does get fungus over the weekend.

Komori grins at him without remorse. "You know I have to, Chef. I musht make sure that you aren't too hungover from your mainstream French shows and awful wine to work."

He scowls at Komori's unsurprising accuracy. She'd been working with him for the past five years, after all. "Excuse you. My tastes are high-class. Exquisite. Nothing that a plebe like you could ever hope to attain."

"Of course. Because pink mush-cato and Miraculous Ladybug are Festival de Cannes material," she sneers, showing off sharp teeth that makes her look like a gremlin rather than a baker. She's certainly acting like one.

In any case, it's too early in the morning and the week to be disrespected in laser-like precision like this. He rolls his eyes. "More importantly, is it just you this morning? Where's Tsuburaba?"

The small girl shrugs. "I a-shroomed that he called you? I don't know where he musht have gone, either."

The chef scowls. "He didn't tell me anything. That boy better get here before opening-"

"I'm here! I'm here… sorry I'm-urp-late…"

The door chimes behind them followed by the heavy sound of trudging. Monoma and Komori simultaneously look at him, the former with his mouth open and ready to scold.

That is, until they take note of the greenish hue of Tsuburaba's face, the beads of sweat decorating his forehead, and the way he's clutching his belly like it's about to spill over.

Monoma wrinkles his nose at the sight as he cautiously approaches him. His usually reliable other assistant pastry chef reeks of throw-up and looks like he's about to collapse. "… what happened to you? Komori, did you poison him by accident again?"

"Of course not! Don't just a-shroom I did!" Komori counters. It was just that one time, she mutters under her breath.

"I'm okay boss," Tsuburaba struggles. He pushes down a small gagging noise and turns greener. "I think…? It's just a stomach ache. I guess I drank too much last night with Rin and Kaibara…"

"Very irresponsible, Tsuburaba! What are you doing, drinking like a fish when you have work the next morning?" Monoma admonishes with a humph, even as Komori looks at him as if he were a dirty, dirty hypocrite. Which he isn't, by the way. He may spend some nights drinking just a teeny tiny little bit over the point of inebriation, but at least he knows not to get to the point of being as discolored as Tsuburaba is right now.

Still, there's something alarming way about the way his other employee is clutching the lower half of his stomach. His face is also getting progressively paler with each step he takes. Something at the back of his head suddenly tells him to take this seriously. "I don't think this is just a hangover. I think I should take you to the hospital."

"Nah, nah, nah... I'm good, okay?" Tsuburaba obviously isn't, the stubborn fool, but he tries standing up and hobbling to where his trusty apron hangs on a hook. "It'll pass. I had a Yakult and lots of water, and…"

A spasm of pain hits him, and he crumples to the floor with a dramatic yelp.

Monoma rushes over to his side, preparing himself to drag him out of the premises. "Komori, I think you need to get your car ready. Now, please."

"N… no, not the hospital," whines Tsuburaba. Komori makes an affirmative sound and runs out of the restaurant as fast as her little feet can take her. "W… what if they keep me there? I don't want to be admitted, boss… hrrk- "

" Mon dieu," Monoma mumbles under his breath. "I'm sure this isn't from drinking Rin's Chinese snake wine or whatever. We need to get you to a doctor."

"B-but," Tsuburaba stammers through shallow breaths. He's losing control of his quirk, and small circles of solid air form from his mouth and break out into shards around them. Monoma pushes him delicately until he's lying on his side and visibly gains some semblance of comfort holding onto the side of his stomach.

Thankfully it isn't long before Komori honks her little mushroom beetle car outside. Monoma summons all his strength reserves dragging Tsuburaba out of the Boulangerie. He makes sure that he flips the signage Closed before the trio rushes through traffic going towards the Hosu General Hospital emergency room.

He supposes that they're lucky the ER isn't that busy, or so the red-headed ER nurse claims, as Tsuburaba is lifted from a wheelchair and onto his own hospital bed. They only had to pass by three children crying, a sidekick with a stab wound, and exactly one person coding at the other side of the ER to deposit the pale Tsuburaba on his own, secure stretcher.

Needless to say, this does nothing to calm Tsuburaba's nerves, or soothe Monoma's headache.

After asking Monoma to fill out Tsuburaba's information sheet, the nurse named Kirishima looks over Tsuburaba and gives a shark-toothed smile that strangely reminds him of Tetsutetsu. "Dr. Shinsou will be here any minute. For the meantime, I gotta put an IV line through you, okay, Tsuburaba-san?"

Tsuburaba whimpers. "I hate needles…"

"It'll be okay. You just need to relax. It'll feel like nothing, promise."

Wide-eyed despite his pain, Tsuburaba flails as violently as his weakened state allows. "Um wait… I need to hold on to something-Komori, hold me-"

"Eh? But I don't want to," the petite girl says with worry. "You know I shroom out when I'm nervous! I don't want to accidentally grow Amanita phalloides on you! Again!"

"Aw, come on! You won't, and I really- huff- -hate needles!" Tsuburaba starts to hyperventilate again, and no amount of Kirishima saying comforting words gets him to calm down. Luckily his breathing is so shallow that the air doesn't solidify anymore.

Monoma puts down the clipboard with a roll of his eyes. "Honestly. You two are infants," he mutters, holding onto Tsuburaba's right hand.

" Nous t'aimons maman !" the relieved Komori chirps with her heavy accent. This makes Monoma internally cringe a little, but at least she sounds like she's been working on it. Kirishima looks at this exchange with amusement.

Tsuburaba sniffles in gratitude and squeezes Monoma's hand to the point of breaking, and even harder than that when Kirishima starts cleaning his skin with disinfectant and turn his hand this way and that, looking for a vein. For a patient who looks like he's on the verge of dying, he sure is being dramatic and noisy about it. Kirishima impressively doesn't look distracted at all when he takes out the needle and lines this up against his vein-

"Excuse us, ribbit," the curtain opens, around the same time red blooms from the puncture point in Tsuburaba's skin.

They simultaneously look up at the newcomers. The one who opened the curtain is a small woman with long, green hair, dressed in bright green scrubs with black piping. Apparently she's from the General Surgery team. She has big round eyes and a tongue sticking out of her mouth. Oddly enough this doesn't make her look unreliable-at least, not like the second doctor who follows her in and catches Monoma's eye for the wrong reasons.

The second one, in a single kind word, is disheveled. He's easily the tallest in the room, with wild purple hair going in all directions. Equally purple eyes underlined by dark circles that may or may not be perpetually there survey all the people in the room in an irritatingly bored manner. The lower half of his face is covered by a facemask, but Monoma can easily imagine the impassive line of his mouth underneath it.

Are doctors allowed to look like this? Monoma is about to demand another doctor to see his employee, but is interrupted when the unimpressive doctor starts to speak.

"All right. Tsuburaba Kosei-san," the purple doctor drawls, flipping through a chart. "I'm Shinsou, ER physician. This is Asui from Surgery. Heard about your case and called her in to check on you too, just in case. How're you feeling?"

A pinprick of hot emotion stabs Monoma in the gut when he hears the unexpectedly deep voice.

"Kinda better," Tsuburaba slurs unconvincingly as Kirishima pushes a vial of something through his line that calms him down. "But my stomach still hurts."

"Mhm. And all of this happened this morning?"

He feels a little dazed as the doctor wordlessly asks him to let go of Tsuburaba's hand so he could quickly examine Tsuburaba with quick, practiced movements. The blonde finds himself staring too long at the way his bare arms look when he moves, the way his shoulders flex, how tall and broad he is, the little hums he makes when he takes note of something in the examination.

What the hell, what business does a scruffy-looking ER doctor have looking and sounding like that?

"Yeah, when I woke up..." Tsuburaba proceeds to answer a few more questions about his colorful evening drinking Chinese spirits and his less-than-colorful morning throwing everything up.

"Ribbit. I hope you don't mind, I have to check your stomach ," says Dr. Asui. She positions the suddenly pink-faced Tsuburaba with surprisingly strong, large hands and begins pressing on his stomach gently. "Does it hurt when I press-"

"N-no… ahhhhhhAAAHHHHHH"

She croaks in understanding and turns to Dr. Shinsou who nods at her knowingly. "Okay. I don't mean to alarm all of you, ribbit, but this might be appendicitis."

Komori gasps. "Appendicitis?! Does that mean he's dying?!"

Dr. Asui blinks her big eyes. Nothing on her blank stare affirms or denies Tsuburaba's status, and everyone becomes unnerved. "He's stable right now. We'll need to do a few more tests, but most likely he'll need emergency surgery to get better."

"What? S-surgery?" All traces of pink exits Tsuburaba's face, to be replaced by an alarming shade of green not far from Dr. Asui's hair. "I can't get surgery! I mean, I have work at the cafe, and a shift with Reiko-chan, and hggk -"

Komori jumps about a foot away as bile and semi-solid chunks of air comes out of Tsuburaba's mouth. Thankfully Kirishima is there with a basin and another vial of medication for it.

" Ribbit… you definitely can't work in this condition," Asui tells him blankly. "Besides, if it's really appendicitis and we don't operate, you could actually die."

Tsuburaba looks like he wants to blabber or panic again or something, but he ends up throwing up instead. Komori looks up at Monoma on the verge of tears. " Maman, what do we do? Tsuburaba will die! He'll become mushroom food!"

Monoma huffs. "Don't be so dramatic. We'll just have to let them do the tests and agree to surgery if it comes to that." He turns to the frog-like doctor and nods his head. "Please do what you need to do."

"Ribbit. Understood." Dr Asui signals to the nurse. Before they know it, Kirishima stands up and wheels Tsuburaba out of the ER. Asui speedwalks next to the bed, with Komori doing her best to catch up with her little legs. Monoma is just about to follow when he feels a tug on his sleeve, stopping him in his tracks.

Dr. Shinsou stares at him, hand not leaving his arm. "Stay here. Let them handle it."

That strong hand, that baritone, those tired, remarkable indigo eyes. The clinical white lights around them seem to shimmer in a rosy hue around his Einstein hairdo. Monoma actually feels the time stop upon that first contact, feels the space between each heartbeat that either stretches out or shrinks with the change of its tempo. Before he knows it he's lost in his eyes and his empty thoughts and the churn of weird, weird feelings in his tummy that he refuses to name.

Wait, cut the dramatics, Monoma Neito! This isn't one of your French dramas! It's the worst morning for this sort of thing, for all you know Tsuburaba's guts have already exploded and here you are trapped in a shoujo manga sequence!

More importantly, why. Why this guy. At least pick someone who knows how to fix his hair!

"W-what are you talking about? I have to be there for-" he finally stammers, forcing the rosy hue away from his mind's eye.

Shinsou points to his left hand. "Not like that you aren't. You're bleeding all over the place."

Monoma looks down and finally sees the mess of his left hand. A variety of ugly cuts and gashes mar his pale skin, the largest one among them actively oozing blood and making a small pool on the floor.

The sight of it makes Monoma's head spin. "I'm-bleeding?"

"Yeah." Somehow Shinsou gets him to sit down on a chair, where he quickly takes his pulse and blood pressure. When the nausea subsides and he's sure he's okay, the doctor asks, "Any idea how you got those cuts? You didn't get into a knife fight or anything like that, did you?"

Monoma shakes his head. "Earlier in the cafe, when Tsuburaba-kun went in. I think I got cut when he started hyperventilating, and the air around him broke-"

"Mm. He has a solid air quirk, right? Those shards must have been nasty." Shinsou takes his hand within his large gloved ones to examine the cuts. Monoma knows that he should really be worried about all the blood and his hand being mangled and all that, but his stupid brain can't stop thinking about how manly they look against his own, which look small and dainty in contrast.

"Right. Most of them are okay, just need disinfecting. But this one needs a few stitches." He carefully points to the largest of them. "I gotta get you to the minor surgeries area to work on this. That okay, Mr…?"

"Monoma. Monoma Neito."

Shinsou blinks. "Oh. Like Monoma's a few blocks away? Across Satou's? You're that Monoma?"

"If you mean the owner of the shop, then yes, I'm that Monoma. Chef Monoma, if you want to address me properly." The blonde knows that his reputation for consistently baiting-no, challenging his rival, Satou Rikido from Musutafu Culinary School's Class A-precedes him. He's never felt an ounce of regret for doing so because apart from the importance of proving his superiority, it also brings in curious customers for both places.

But now he wonders if Shinsou knows about that part of his business. The part where he screams and laughs across the street waving baguettes like they're a deadly weapon until Satou offers him peace and cake. Is this a good time to feel embarrassed over his antics?

"That's nice, chef. You make great coffee," Shinsou tells him easily as he leads the way to a different part of the ER.

Monoma is honestly taken aback by this, which doesn't make sense because he really does make the best coffee in Tokyo. It's only natural that this person who looks like a caffeine addict would say so.

"I usually get the café serré , but on good days I spoil myself by ordering une noisette ." It's soon apparent that Shinsou talks coffee to him to distract him from the set of things he prepares-gauze, curved needles, metal tools with scissor handles, syringes and the like. Not that it helps, because the perfect way that he pronounces the French coffees do very little to stop the twist and tumble of Monoma's insides.

"You don't say?" Monoma pales and tries to focus his eyes and ears anywhere else. "We have other coffees that aren't designed to jolt your brain into a different dimension."

Shinsou shrugs. "What can I say? I need that to stay conscious on most days." He nonchalantly sits across him. "You afraid of sharps?"

Involuntarily, he swallows as a syringe is positioned over the ugly gash on his hand. "No, not at all."

The doctor blinks at him glumly. "You sure about that? You're lookin' a little pale there."

He feels the tickle of nausea at the back of his throat, but stubbornly refuses to acknowledge it. "I can handle it."

Shinsou sighs and places the needle down. "You don't have to suffer through this, you know. I can help you with my quirk."

Monoma raises his eyebrows at that. "Oh? Are doctors allowed to use quirks now? I thought that was illegal."

"Some of us have provisional licenses to use our quirks under select circumstances," the purple-haired doctor answers blankly, as if he'd had to deal with the same snark and skepticism every shift. He shows the license hanging on his lanyard, which does show that he's allowed to use his quirk within the premises of the hospital.

(Also, that this doctor's given name is Hitoshi, and it really suits him and before he can stop himself Monoma has already filed that little tidbit of interesting information into his head.)

"Brainwash," Monoma reads, narrowing his eyes. "How are you going to do it? Are you going to say, look into my eyes, you are falling very sleepy? "

"Doesn't work like that."

"So how?"

Shinsou blinks again. "I need your consent first, Monoma-san."

Monoma-san. Ugh, how awful it is to have his ears assaulted by that sinful voice! "All right, you have it, just get it over-"

Monoma blinks once. In the space between, he finds his hand suddenly clean and covered in gauze, heavy and numb with anesthetic. Shinsou has already set aside the sharp tools and is scrawling a prescription in illegible handwriting nearby.

"What-"

"Welcome back."

Monoma means to glare at him for the time lost, he really does, but he suddenly realizes that Dr. Shinsou Hitoshi's mask is off and he finally gets a good look at his face and Monoma wonders how a face with that amused smirk and those kinda eyebags can look so devilishly attractive.

His brain stutters. Shinsou uses that opportunity to hand him the prescription, telling him about how he's supposed to drink his antibiotics and painkillers that Monoma really should have paid attention to instead of how his mouth moves.

"So… that's that," he drawls, picking out his phone. "By the way, Asui tells me that your boyfriend really has appendicitis and needs to get to surgery ASAP."

Monoma stares at him dumbly. "Excuse me. My what?"

Shinsou pauses. "Um… Tsuburaba-san," he says in confusion. "Did I assume wrong? You were holding his hand earlier, so…"

"Oh! No, no, that's just," Monoma laughs, enjoying the way regret and embarrassment flashes on the other man's face, who knew this guy could look this flustered? "He works for me. And he would have had a nervous breakdown if no-one stepped up to hold his hand while your nurse was holding a needle, so…"

"Right. Sorry for assuming. I shouldn't have said that," Shinsou says, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously out of habit. It's a nothing sort of thing to do, but again Monoma catches himself staring at that strong arm, that big hand, that really handsome face and he loses himself again.

Pushing down all the flustered feelings aside, Monoma manages to say, "It's fine, Dr. Shinsou. Where should I go from here?"

Shinsou walks him to a hallway and utters directions. "If you go to the waiting room, I'm sure you'll meet your other friend there. They'll tell you when he's ready for surgery."

Monoma nods. "Got it," he says, pausing awkwardly.

Shinsou stares at him, eyebrows raised in curiosity when he just… stands there.

There's an urge inside him to say something, anything to make himself memorable. Because for one reason or another he's disappointed that his bloody, less-than-dramatic encounter with Dr. Shinsou has already come to an end. But at the same time, what the hell Monoma, they're opening up Tsuburaba any moment now and Shinsou's an ER doctor who needs to work, why are you so hell bent on impressing this sleepy doctor?

Finally he waves his heavy, gauze-covered hand to him. "Come by the cafe anytime you're off-duty. You're entitled to exactly one coffee, on the house."

Now that's not too bad, he thinks to himself proudly. It's not too grand a gesture, and it's easily something that Shinsou would appreciate. The guy looks like he's got coffee instead of blood running through his veins, after all.

Dr. Shinsou hums, and the uneasy way his mouth twists makes something in Monoma's stomach drop. " If I get off-duty. That's a big if, though. But thanks, Chef. I'll-"

Someone calls for Dr. Shinsou urgently behind him, and with a hurried flash of his teeth that could be an apologetic grin, he disappears into the fray of the ER.

Monoma stands there in silence. Was I… rejected just now?

Stupid. Even though he was masking it in a show of gratitude, was his interest in him too obvious? Really, trying to get with a doctor, who was on duty, who was only interested in stitching him up and nothing else, because he was a patient. Neito, what were you thinking?

In the privacy of the empty halls, he slaps his cheeks free of all the useless ruminations and rushes to the waiting room.

Two weeks later, everything is back to normal. More or less.

Tsuburaba's surgery is a success, although he had to stay a few extra days to finish his medications. Not that he minded, because the boy ends up catching an illness admittedly worse than appendicitis-an acute and hopeless case of infatuation for his surgeon.

Monoma has had to give him until the following week to recover, but apart from the extra work load on Komori, Rin (the other part-timer) and himself, it isn't that bad. At least he isn't consistently exposed to the lovesick boy and his cyclic blatherings about being head-over-heels in-love with the talented and cute-as-hell Dr. Asui Tsuyu, who saved "his body and his heart". (Unlike Kaibara Sen, his unfortunate roommate who looks about ready to drill holes into his skull just so he could stop listening to that.)

As for him, Monoma's doing great, just great. He kept his would clean, took his antibiotics like a champ, avoided overworking his hand and such. The gash leaves a visible scar that will last but at least isn't as horrible looking as it looked when it was fresh.

He had the stitches removed, too. Just walked in the ER and had the doctor on duty snip 'em off, and it didn't even hurt. It's a different experience from before because he didn't need to be brainwashed this time. And also it isn't a purple-haired sleep-deprived doctor who did it, but a different doctor, a less disheveled one with vines growing on her head. And it's great, just great that he's in and out of the ER in like ten minutes with no extra trouble at all.

(He knows Dr. Shiozaki well. She is a frequent customer in the Boulangerie who usually orders flat bread with absolutely nothing on it and insists on Komori or Tsuburaba saying grace with her before she takes her first bite. She's a good doctor and and he really shouldn't complain about it.)

(Still, he had to tell himself to not feel disappointed leaving the ER still carrying the black-as-night coffee he brought with him. He had to make up some excuse for Rin to drink it cold, so it doesn't go to waste.)

So anyway. Monoma is fine, totally fine, totally productive with no time to waste thinking of exhausted, indigo-haired doctors whom he doesn't think about constantly at all . He bakes all day and watches his shows at night. Twice he went to Satou's to exchange rude words with his plucky invisible waitress until the musclehead sends him off with a cake that he finishes, even though it's not that good, just that it's really bad to waste food okay, lots of poor people starving and all that. He had another meeting with his investor Tsunotori Pony too; they're well on their way opening up a second cafe in Yokohama.

Also, because Tsuburaba is absent, he's had to do a lot of the menial tasks by himself. Like waiting on tables, cleaning up, and deliveries to a certain hospital a few blocks away.

"You again, Monoma?"

The impolite greeting comes from a tired Kendo Itsuka, the in-house neurologist of the hospital and one of the few usual customers who stragely made an effort to make friends with him. (He reckons that she did so so she has rights to knock him out with a blow to the back of the head when he goes too far, which is more often than he'd care to admit.) While usually bright and bubbly, her visage right now is less bright and more lifeless, an obvious result of a tiring tour of duty.

She meets him at the lobby of Hosu Gen to pick up her usual order: a croque madame and black coffee, no sugars whatsoever. The total opposite of her personality.

Monoma pouts. "What's with that face? Am I so dazzling that it's exhausting to look at me?"

The redhead rolls her eyes. "Spare me, I've been awake for the past twenty hours and my brain's just about to shut down." She takes a sip of the coffee without flinching and sighs gratefully. "You usually get Tsuburaba or Rin to do this. Is it so busy without Tsuburaba that you have to do this on your own? It's surprising to see you in this god-awful depressing place three times in a row."

"Is that any way to talk about your workplace, Dr. Kendo?" Monoma says with a huff. "I thought you were proud to be of service for the needy and all that."

"I'm quoting you directly ."

"When have I ever?"

Kendo looks at him in that usual done way of hers. "Always? I hear you say it at least once every time Tetsu and I go to your place. You said it yesterday when you did the delivery."

He shrugs. "I'm allowed to call it that since I don't work here. Besides, when I come here for any other reason, it's usually the god-awful and depressing ones. I mean, I almost bled to death while Tsuburaba's guts almost exploded!"

Kendo sighs. The sips of coffee she takes is slowly giving her life again, but not enough energy to argue. "You're a survivor, Monoma."

"That I am," he says smugly as he takes her payment. "Thank you for your continued patronage!"

"Thanks," she manages, seemingly summoning all self-control not to chug all her coffee in one sitting. (Ironic, really, how rampant caffeine addiction must be in this hospital.) But just as Monoma's preparing to leave, she calls him back with a frown. "Hey, Monoma, there's an extra coffee here."

He freezes with a flinch. "Oh… oh, there is?"

Kendo takes the cup and squints at the scribbles on the side. "Four shots of espresso and nothing else? Are you trying to kill someone?"

"Ahhh-haha!" Monoma snatches the cup from her before she's able to turn the cup to see the name scribbled at the side. "That's, that's mine, Kendo! I simply forgot that I brought it with me to drink!"

She narrows her eyes at him. "First of all, since when have you drank black coffee, Monoma? I've never seen you drink anything more bitter than a café liégeois ."

"Excuse me? Bitter coffees do not bother me! I can take un cafe without anything just fine!"

She gives him a judging look, likely remembering the time he almost threw up drinking the 'Death Wish' coffees that she let them try that one time. She really shouldn't, by the way, those coffees were so strong and bitter he needed to eat sweets for three days straight just to recover. "Second of all, you never drink coffee on the go, even if it's your coffee. You always make a big fuss over people drinking coffee out of the cafe and not enjoying it like they do in France."

Monoma sniffs haughtily. "I'm not wrong! You lose a lot of the coffee drinking experience by not sitting down and collecting your thoughts while enjoying the flavors! But, it's not like I can be choosy with my caffeine intake these days! It's just been that busy!"

"Okay. If you're busy, you're busy." Kendo continues to stare at him critically, though.

"What?"

"To see is to believe," she says plainly, crossing her arms in front of her.

Monoma frowns at her. "Don't you have better things to do, Kendo?"

"Oh no, Nejire-senpai's covering for me upstairs. I got like… twenty minutes to kill?" To emphasize just how time means very little to her, she takes a long sip of her coffee and keeps her unblinking eyes on him.

"How nice for you. I don't have that sort of luxury unfortunately."

She raises her eyebrows at him. "Okay. Go then."

The emergency room's right there, dammit. Twenty paces to his right, the opposite direction where the exit is. Not like he can waltz in there now with a cup of death coffee that definitely isn't free service for anyone who could be lurking in there or whatever. Why is Kendo being so snoopy today of all days?

"Okay. I'm going." It's also very very very annoying to his petty self that the black-coffee-addicted girl is definitely feeling more self-satisfied than she has any legal right to, having caught him in an obvious lie. So what else is he to do but to stare at her just as unblinkingly and take a long, thoughtful sip of the coffee like it's a long, satisfying drag of a cigarette?

(Blegh. Bitter.)

She looks genuinely surprised as she watches. He gives her a smug raise of an eyebrow through the unpleasant jolt of caffeine in his veins. "Wow, Monoma. That's pretty amazing," she concedes.

"It's just coffee." A brown potion with a fatal dose of poison in it-oh lord, his brain's going into hyperdrive and his heart is on the verge of cardiac arrest already from that one sip, but he mustn't let it show. "All right, I have things to be, places to do, mushrooms to kill-"

"Okay. Tetsu and I'll see you later," Kendo says with an amused smile. "You can still give that to him if you want. I'm sure he won't mind the indirect kiss. He'll think of it as extra service."

He chokes on his spit just as Kendo gives him a cutesy little teasing grin and a wave of a normal-sized hand. She's gone before he can give a retort.

How much does that minx know? And anyway, like hell he can still give this coffee to Dr. Shinsou now, what sort of renowned chef gives a half-consumed cup of coffee as service?! As it is, he can't even dump this extra coffee on Rin now, it'll be too embarrassing! Monoma wishes he could take back her coffee and put seven heaping spoonfuls of sugar in it.

With a sense of defeat and irritation, he steps to the left and tries not to look through the emergency doors anymore.

He comes back to his shop with a scowl, a ¼ cup of coffee too cold to be enjoyable, and a heart setting up for arrest from how hard it's palpitating.

"Welcome back!" Rin calls from behind the counter with a grin. Seeing the cup of coffee though, he turns as white as confectioners sugar. "Um… are you going to make me drink that too, Monoma?"

Monoma shakes his head. Oblivious to his obvious frenetic misery, Rin lets out a sigh of relief. "That's good! I mean, I love your coffees and all but that extra one you always bring with you is strong as heck. I haven't slept for the past couple of weeks, you know." He then sees the very apparent tremor in the chef's hand. "Hey… you didn't drink it, did you?"

"Oh! No… not all of it?" He feels a little sorry for subjecting his overworked part-timer to this sort of assault on his bodily integrity, but he has no capacity to ruminate on that when he feels so on edge.

Rin sighs. With a knowing hum that's almost motherly, he pushes a glass of water towards him, and a little tea cake. "Why would you do that? You could have died out there, boss. I've never seen you take anything stronger than an espresso cheesecake."

Why does everyone assume he's so weak against bitter stuff?! He wouldn't be this good in making coffee if he was so bad at drinking them! That being said, he takes the water and the cookie gratefully, finally getting the ghastly bitter taste out of his mouth. "It's no big deal! I just assumed we'll be busy today and thought I needed the extra boost, that's all!"

Is his voice usually that loud? Rin dodges from a particularly wild gesticulation that just flew out his arms. Oh, he is going to regret this stupid coffee later.

" Maman, you're back!" Komori's little head sprouts from next to Rin like a little mushroom blooming on a carcass. "Are you ready to work now? Feeling energized? Shroomed-up? You've been leaving me alone in the kitchen for a few days now~"

Her tone is sweet, but the gleam in her eye behind her fringe is as deadly as a deathcap. Monoma flinches as the aura gets to him. " Oui, Komori! I'm going, I'm going-"

Komori gives him a real, sweet smile then and disappears at the back. Monoma follows, slightly chastised and wondering who's the boss between them anyway.

Well, it shouldn't matter. As soon as he steps in and changes into his chef's whites and takes command of the kitchen, as he does without much difficulty, all silly thoughts are out the window. People have told him before that he's an entirely different person when he bakes-serious, impressive, focused. All movements precise and measured, no extraneous motions or words to be had. With each tick of the clock, he produces many beautiful creations - macarons, eclairs, tartes, and the like, one after the other, each one more perfect than the last.

Those people who comment about the difference in his person do not know what they're talking about. He really feels like himself when he bakes.

Today he's so focused that he's even able to forget the awful aftershocks of the coffee he took that morning. And it's a good thing, because the orders just kept coming. Before he knows it, hours have passed and it's already the late afternoon. Didn't have time to sit down, or eat, or even throw a single insult to Satou's across the street. The efforts of the day suddenly hit him like a truck.

It's not food or drink that his body craved that moment, though. Fingers twitching, he pats his body down searching for his pack, finds none, and clicks his tongue. "I'm stepping out for a bit, Komori. Can you handle things for ten… fifteen minutes?"

Komori frowns at him. As is her habit when he gives in to his, she says, "You musht get rid of that habit, Chef. It's not good for you."

Of course he knows it isn't good for him-risks of lung cancer and heart disease and killing his sense of taste and all that-but he's so stressed and tired and his body needs to do something else, breathe something else so he can distract himself from the stress and keep going. Besides, it's not like all the sugary confections he makes are brimming with health and goodness anyway. If anything, his cigarette habit matches his sweets: the orally-fixated's path to an early death.

And so he waves Komori's concerns off and goes out of the kitchen and into the shop to lie to Rin about stepping out to buy cigs at the Lawson a block away.

But he couldn't, because Rin's talking to a customer. And Monoma finds himself frozen in his steps.

"... anyway, you're welcome to wait here while he finishes up. I'm sure he's just about done-oh. Here he is." Rin greets him with a smile, gesturing to the customer looming over the counter. "Chef Monoma! You have a visitor!"

It takes him a few seconds of blinking and remembering how to breathe before he registers the presence of Dr. Shinsou Hitoshi in the specific spot on God's green earth within his vicinity. Sure he looks as tired as ever, his eyebags might even be deeper than they were when they first met. But at least he's out of his scrubs, and in casual clothes-a dark hoodie with the name of a band emblazoned over its front, and dark jeans and sneakers that make him look tall and broad and attractive in that vagrant, unassuming way that has Monoma wondering why he considers it attractive anyway.

It must be the combination of nicotine withdrawal and coffee jitters, it has to be.

After a few seconds of silence, Shinsou blinks, as if he were just as surprised as he is. "Hey chef. Finally caught you here."

Monoma forces some functionality in his brain as he eloquently replies. "Finally?"

"Yup." Shinsou points to Rin with his thumb. "I've dropped by here a couple of times last week, but every time I do Rin-san tells me that you're out doing deliveries and such. Was beginning to wonder if you're avoiding me or I'm just really bad with timing."

And now Monoma remembers Rin saying something about a customer wanting to see him while he was out hunting for this person. He'd been so disappointed that he didn't pay heed to it. Monoma resists a terrible urge to hit his forehead repeatedly with his palm.

"Oh that… yeah, we've been terribly busy, Dr. Shinsou. Tsuburaba's still out of commission, as you'd expect. Sorry about that," he says, hoping he sounds smooth and not as stupid as he felt then. "So… coffee! I promised you coffee, so I should get you coffee!"

Ignoring the itch in his fingers for a cigarette, Monoma gives Rin a bunch of hand signals before Shinsou can say anything. Rin looks at him in confusion because since when have they communicated via hand signals?! But the man's a professional, and has a keen instinct when it comes to understanding Monoma, so he's on it in a flash.

Monoma leads Shinsou to one of the tables-for-two at an isolated spot in the shop before he can change his mind. In a few moments, Rin's placing a tiny shot of espresso in front of Shinsou and a quiche. For Monoma, he places a parfait.

"Where's my coffee?" he complains, after Shinsou raises his eyebrows at the bright, sweet thing in front of him.

"Hm? What was that?" Rin's smile is as zen as ever, but there's an extra tension and hard, hard scales over his fingers when he pats Monoma's shoulder and stares at him with a look that says You're not asking for more caffeine are you? After subjecting yourself to that shit this morning? It's~not~healthy~

"... nothing. Thank you, Rin," Monoma mutters.

With that, Rin gives another customer-service smile directed at Shinsou and leaves the two of them to talk.

Shinsou stares at the interaction blankly. "So… that's interesting. Are you sure you're the boss around here?"

"Of course I'm the boss around here! It's not like I just let them do whatever they want! I'm not a pushover or anything!" It's just that his employees are the most terrifying when it came to taking care of him, that's all.

"Wasn't implying that. Just that I've never seen someone treat his employees like you do. You know, letting them call you maman and holding their hand when they're scared and getting injured 'cause you were watching over them."

Monoma puffs his cheeks. "And?"

Shinsou's face breaks out into a grin. "I think it's cool. Shows that you really care about them."

Something weird swirls inside Monoma's chest again at those words. The man completely ignores the blush that spreads on his face and brings the coffee up to his nose and inhales it with a sense of satisfaction. "Plus, you guys make really great coffee. So I guess you're doing a good job of running this place."

"Of course I am! It's telling of a fantastic employer, how he treats his subordinates, isn't it? I can do no less, it's impossible for me to do a terrible job at anything!" The chance to brag gives him a way out of the embarrassed flush on his face, even though he feels himself going out of control again. "Now if you want a place less perfect than this place, maybe go across the street and watch how Satou does things? I mean sure, his cakes are decent and his coffee's edible, but don't be fooled by all of that! He's got-"

Shinsou's got his eyebrows raised again in that curious way of his, indigo eyes unreadable. Any minute now he's going to do that laugh he does, and he's going to scare Shinsou off. Just when he finally got him right where he wanted him, too…

The bell chimes. He hears two familiar voices vocalize something that sounds like a greeting and a judgy huff at the same time. "Hey Monoma. And, Shinsou! You're here too!"

Kendo's there on the dot for her third or fourth dose of black coffee for the day, her loud metallic boyfriend Dr. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu in tow. She gives them a grin and tells the purple-haired guy, "So you're finally here to claim your free coffee, huh, Shinsou?"

Shinsou nods, his awkward smile strangely seeming like he's got his hand caught in a cookie jar full of Monoma's insecurities. "Yeah. Here I am."

"Cool. Hey Monoma, make an extra effort to be sane, won't you? I don't think he's slept for the past forty-eight hours or so? He might not be able to take it if you're your usual, um… extra self."

"Well I never!" Monoma complains, just as Shinsou mumbles, "It's cool, Kendo, he's not that bad."

But at the new knowledge that the guy hasn't slept for two whole days, Monoma pays attention to his tired visage. Apart from the shadows under his eyes, his skin is pale and hair more disheveled, even though it's impossible to fathom at first. He really does look like he's at the brink of taking a week-long nap and probably has no use for Monoma's blatherings and such.

As usual, Kendo has a point. But the fact that despite all that Shinsou's sat there for five minutes without rolling his eyes at Monoma or teasing him relentlessly like his friends do is almost sweet.

Tetsutetsu, loud in every way, laughs at the two of them. "Nice one, Shinsou! I'm glad you finally got to take him out on a date, man!"

Silence falls over the entire cafe like an atomic bomb. Kendo's face is frozen as if in a middle of a silent scream; from the counter, Rin looks dumbfounded enough to drop the cups he's cleaning. Komori, who's peeked out of the kitchen to see what the commotion is about, looks completely scandalized.

Monoma doesn't want to know what his face looks like. He doubts that one can read an actual human emotion from it.

And Shinsou, well. Simply put, the saucer-wide eyes and jaw-drop that rivals Tsuburaba's horror movie face is the very picture of mortification.

"What?" Tetsutetsu says in genuine confusion. He turns to Kendo and meets the unforgiving flare of her teal eyes. "I'm just saying, he's been tryin' all week to- mphh! "

Whatever he was about to say is interrupted by Kendo's enlarged right hand. She smiles at the couple and utters a quick and apologetic, "I'll take care of this one! Don't mind us bye!" and drags her suffocating boyfriend out on the streetside seats. Through the glass separating inside and out, they hear Kendo telling him something through gritted teeth and Tetsutetsu's not-so-subtle moment of realization.

When Monoma quietly turns to Shinsou again, he's got his hands covering his face and his eyes trained directly into the espresso under his nose. There's a long, painful moment of silence before Monoma decides to break it. "So… that was interesting?"

"... yeah," Shinsou replies, with a bitter laugh. "So… I'll see myself out? My mortal vessel's got an important appointment with a ten-wheeler truck it can't miss, ya see. Nice knowing you-"

"No, no!" Monoma holds out his hand to stop him before he stands up. "Wait, Dr. Shinsou, you don't have to go. Stay right where you are, please."

Shinsou sinks back into the cushions with obvious reluctance. He has an obvious hard time looking at Monoma in the eye, has an even harder time doing anything purposeful at this point except to hide his face. The blonde can't blame him; he suspects he's having a similar episode of bashfulness too.

But at least his cheeks are pinker now, not at all like the deathly sleepless pallor he has before. And that expression he's making-awkward, fragile, confused. Sort of like a stray cat he once encountered in Brussels before, who didn't know what to do with a cup of cream he offered so he could bait it out from underneath the family car.

Unexpectedly cute, in other words. Monoma tries his hardest not to smile too much at the sight of it because it might be interpreted as smug and ruin the moment. "I'm a little surprised, Dr. Shinsou. I didn't know you thought of me that way."

He tries to speak calmly, even though his mind is in an interesting place right now. The Neitos controlling his head are abuzz, high-fiving each other, clicking their heels mid-air, and rolling on the floor and screaming into pillows like a teenage girl.

"That so?" Shinsou begins with an anxious rub of his hand against the back of his neck. "Well… no use denying it now I guess. Not to threaten your friends in front of you or anything, but I'm really gonna kick Tetsu's ass after this."

"Oh, you really should. I'll help you out if you like. I don't think Kendo's gonna stop either of us for planning to."

Shinsou finally allows another grin on his face. "So. Um, if you're still willing to help me out and all. I don't know how to approach this really weird, socially distressing situation I find myself in now."

The blonde tilts his head with an amused smile. "And what situation is that, pray tell?"

The doctor's face softens then; perhaps because Monoma's smiling like he can't help it, and also the fact that he hasn't turned tail and ran or asked Rin to kick him out of the premises yet. He leans forward, cradles the side of his face in one of those large hands he'd admired from day one, and exposes his teeth in that charming way of his again.

"How to get this cute, obnoxious chef to agree to have dinner with me without sounding like an awkward idiot?"

Monoma makes the tiniest offended sound. "Well, I don't know which obnoxious chef you're talking about, because there isn't one nearby. But I suppose it's obvious that you should just ask?"

"That so?"

"Yes." Monoma clears his throat. "Because as it happens, Dr. Shinsou… I really have taken an interest in you. So…"

Really, Neito? 'I have really taken an interest in you,' he says. Too stiff, too formal, you could have just said I really like you Shinsou-kun, I really do- but wait, is that too overboard in this situation? What do people say in these sorts of situations anyway?

Shinsou cuts into his internal mental panic with a laugh. "Maybe we can start by exchanging emails, how about that?"

Monoma obliges, thankful to have a diversion from his steadily reddening face. He saves his number with a star emoji and sends himself a message. When he returns the phone to him, he takes note of the lockscreen on his phone. Cute, he thinks, but who knows if he's talking about the chubby tabby cat sleeping on a messy bed, or the messy-haired man taking a selfie next to it.

After that, they talk briefly about where to go and when. Monoma would have wanted to go right then and there, afraid that this is all just a complex daydream from all the stimulants in his bloodstream, but it's apparent that whatever energy reserves Shinsou had when he entered the cafe had all but diminished during this encounter with him.

They decide on Saturday evening-it's a day off for Shinsou, and he can spend the entire day paying his sleep debt and maybe manage dinner and drinks without looking like he'll pass out in the middle of it. Monoma has work in the morning, but he'll manage too-at least if he tires himself out, maybe he won't act like a natural disaster waiting to happen.

"That settles that, I guess," Shinsou says with a glance at his wristwatch. "So… it's been great, Chef, but now I gotta go home and feed Mackerel."

Monoma hums. "Your cat?"

"Sort of? Cats own you and not vice-versa, unfortunately," he says as he stands up. Monoma follows him, and soon they're standing by the door, staring at each other.

Will this ever be any less awkward? Monoma thinks in despair as he looks at Shinsou's indiscriminately good-looking face and tries not to smile too much. Will he ever look any less cute?

"I'll see you around then, Chef," he says with another lopsided grin.

No. No he will not. "I'll see you around, Doc."

With a wave of the hand, Shinsou walks away and disappears into the darkening streets of Hosu.

Monoma allows himself a small exhale as he watches him go. By this time his heart is throbbing wildly in his chest, and he doesn't know if it's still the caffeine spiking from the coffee he drank that morning. He can't help the silly smile on his face, either. And…

"Dreamy sigh, check," a certain snarky mushroom gremlin named Komori voices from behind him, totally ruining the moment.

"Cute pink cheeks with shoujo manga sparkles, check," Rin adds brightly, not minding the way Monoma turns his head to glare at his two employees whom he could totally fire right now if he wanted to.

"Hand dramatically clutching the doorframe as his big obvious crush leaves… check," Kendo finishes with a sagely sip of her black coffee, and since when did she enter the cafe again? Because isn't it about time to kick them all out so he could concentrate on this real miracle that happened just now?

She doesn't move when he voices out his monologue. "I'm not moving. And why are you so irritable when you made me so proud of you for managing a human conversation with him?"

"Yeah, Monoma! Great job, he didn't seem to think you were too crazy back then!" Tetsutetsu says while his shark teeth gnash through a ham and cheese croissant.

"You! You have the least right to be here, you oaf! I should ban you from this place for the next hundred years!" Monoma exclaims, pulling his plate away from him.

Tetsutetsu chokes at the blatant act of rejection. Thankfully Kendo doesn't stop any of it this time because he really does deserve it. "I didn't mean it okay! I mean, the way you guys were staring at each other made me think that you were already at it!"

This gives Monoma a cause to pause. "What do you mean?"

Tetsutetsu groans as if it's so obvious. "It's so obvious you're into each other! I mean, besides the stuff I know 'bout Shinsou, which I'll never tell ya since he might really kill me next time if I do…" … much to the chagrin of Monoma, but he lets him continue, "I knew from Kendo you've been trynna hunt him down for weeks since you went to the ER!"

Monoma gives Kendo a betrayed look. She just shrugs in response. "It's so obvious, Monoma And you wrote his name on the cup. With a little heart, no less."

"... so he's the reason why I had to drink all the rejected coffees?" Rin sighs. "Boss, your game's so weak. If you just let me deliver the stuff like usual, you coulda been dating him like a week ago."

Never mind that they've all been accurate so far. The disrespect, he cannot abide! Anyway, "It doesn't matter now, does it! I have a date with him, don't I?"

Just saying it makes his heart go into overdrive again. The next thing he knows he's curling up on the floor and burying his face in his hands, over-dramatic as is his usual way of life. It's so that Komori crouches next to him to see that he's alive, Rin begins to prepare some Chinese herbal concoction designed to keep him calm, and none of them have any reason anymore to kick Tetsutetsu out of the premises.

It's silly how such a sleepy man has that effect on him, really. He barely knows the guy apart from 'handsome' and 'awkward,' and the little spark of electricity he feels when he's around him.

But, Monoma can't help but have a good feeling about the days he's about to face with Shinsou Hitoshi.