Seri Awashima passed Homra every morning on her morning constitutional, but today when she saw the bar's owner – cigarette dangling from his lip – sweeping debris out the door with a straw broom and a dust pan, their eyes met.
Glass tinkled against the metal pan. He groaned as he knelt to gather the last little bit in by hand; he moaned as he rose, as if his knees or back, or a combination of the two, were insulted by the motion.
She jogged in place at the corner, waiting for the light to change.
"Good morning, Lieutenant. I've seen you go by every day for the last month. You ever take a break?"
"I enjoy running," she shrugged. "What happened there?" She nodded toward the trash can as he slid the last bit into the overflowing heap.
"A birthday celebration got a little out of hand last night, but what can you expect out of a bunch of teenage boys?"
"I hope you're not serving alcohol to minors, Homra," she said, suddenly still.
"The name's Izumo Kusanagi."
"I know. I'm Seri Awashima."
"I know. Want a drink?" he offered, gesturing inside.
"It's a little early in the morning…"
"Oh, no," he laughed. "I meant coffee, or tea. I'm too old for a little hair of the dog first thing in the morning."
She checked her watch. "I have to admit, I'm curious about what it looks like on the inside. Alright, one cup of coffee."
As she followed him inside, the first thing she noticed was the cherry-wood bar, running the length of one wall and curving around the corner onto another. Behind it were hundreds of glass bottles in a rainbow of colors and a variety of sizes, all twinkling in the late morning sun filtering through the half-opened blinds.
"Watch your step," he warned, as he avoided a teenager slumped in the corner, and climbed behind the bar.
Her eyes adjusted quickly, revealing five, or maybe six, teenagers all crashed out on the floor, all of them in various states of dishevelment.
The smell of beer and spirits grew stronger as she weaved her way to the bar and sat on the stool in front of him. He worked out of sight for a moment beneath the bar, but then came up with an old-fashioned French press. He washed it, before filling it with coffee grounds.
"How do you like your coffee?"
"Sweet."
"Honey alright?" he asked after a beat. "I seem to be out of sugar."
"I haven't tried that before, but sure, f you think it'll be good."
"It's an old Homra recipe."
She watched him pour the boiling hot water over the grounds and lower the press. When he was satisfied by the color and steeping time, he found a clean shaker, added some milk, honey, a dusting of a spice from a mill, a sprinkle of another, and finally a splash from a dark brown bottle from the back wall.
"I can't –"
"A drink isn't ready until I've presented it to you," he said. He shook the mixture, then divided the mixed between two cups. The first was a china cup, placed in a matching – sort of – saucer, the rest when into a plain mug.
He turned to the good cup and held his lighter up next to one side and put his other hand across the rim from it. Flicking it to life, he drew the flame from one hand to another, swirling it around the rim and lighting the surface of the drink on fire. "No blood, no bone, no ash," he said quietly, and as the flame dwindled to nothing and disappeared, "no alcohol."
"You're not trying to drug me, are you?" she asked he turned the cup so that the handle was pointing to her right hand.
"You cold-hearted woman; I offer you hospitality, and you repay me with suspicion?" he said, holding his hands clasped over his chest as if wounded. He winked and picked up his own mug, taking the first sip to reassure her that nothing was amiss.
She lifted the cup to her mouth, sipping the rapidly cooling beverage. "Sweet, yet somehow spicy: delicious. What's the secret ingredient? I saw a spice or two. Is that vanilla?" she pointed to the brown glass bottle.
"It's a Red Clan trade secret," he said, smirking around the lip of his mug. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to… well you know, no blood…"
"No bone, no ashes," she finished. "You're really not going to tell me?"
"Where would the benefit be in that? I want my cherished customer to come back and drink my delicious coffee often."
"We hardly know each other and you've called me cold-hearted and cherished in the span of twenty minutes."
"Women, in my humble experience, have the right to be both," he said, leaning forward on the bar to rest his chin on the heel of his hand. "Am I wrong?"
"It's an interesting theory," she replied, hiding her blush behind the act of lifting her cup again. "Have you ever tried this recipe over ice?"
"Hm," he considered. "It might be worth trying, but none of my regulars are much for cold."
"That's a pity," she retorted and then touched the body of his mug with one finger, spreading a thin sheet of ice across the top.
"It's a bit hard to drink that way," he said, holding the cup at an angle. She tapped the surface gently, and it shattered into a thousand sparkling fragments of ice before evaporating, leaving the beverage perfectly chilled. He sipped it, and nodded. "Not bad that way, although, for a Red Clan member, it is impractical."
A silence lengthened as they pointedly avoided looking at each other.
"What's it like, serving the Blue King?"
"What's it like serving the Red King," she deflected his question, her hackles suddenly alert for any slight against Munakata.
Seeing her question for what it truly was, a defense of her King, he gestured to the kids still lumped together on the floor, sleeping off last night's revelry. "It's like being the only adult in a kindergarten or half-way house. It's a lot of responsibility and very little appreciation," he answered, turning his back on her and moving toward the sink behind the bar. He ran steaming hot water and rinsed the shaker and the glasses in the sink. One after another, he scrubbed them, and turned back – sun glinting off his blue-tinged lenses – to line them up on the bar. Still she said nothing, so he took up a rag and began swirling the insides of each until they gleamed with a polished shine, before replacing them in the rack above the bar.
"It's like...," she began, then slumped as if answering him meant defeat. "It's like being the only girl in an all boy's school," she suggested finally.
"That's gotta be rough, especially when you're in charge of all those boys."
"Second-in-command," she corrected immediately.
"We both know who does all the day to day work. We spoil our Kings so that they'll be ready to do the heavy lifting when the time comes."
"The more we do, the longer they will be our Kings," she agreed.
"I'll drink to that," he said, smiling, and held up his mug in a toast. "To the Kings, may Damocles be forever stalled."
She lifted her cup and clinked it lightly against his mug. "To Reisi Munakata and Mikoto Suoh."
He watched as her lips turned down in a frown as she reached the last dregs of the sweet goodness at the bottom of her cup.
Pouting, she sighed. "You really won't tell me what's in this coffee?"
"No, but I'll make you one, any time you want to come by, free of charge."
"I can't –"
"Yes, you can. You're observant, and if you keep coming back, eventually you'll figure out the secret ingredient to my coffee."
"Secret ingredient?" a voice asked. They both turned to see Totsuka yawn at the bottom of the stairs, his hair still bed-tussled, his shirt one button hole off, and his feet bare. "That's easy –"
"Tatara, don't…," Izumo warned.
"Please, do tell me," Awashima asked sweetly.
"Izumo-kun's secret ingredient is love," the sleepy blond said with a grin. "He'd kill me if I said anything more."
Izumo exhaled loudly and Awashima chuckled.
"No wonder it is so good, then," she said.
"Did Kusanagi-san give you one of his love potions?" Yata asked, rising from the bedding piled under the couch where he'd slept last night.
"Oy!" Izumo shouted. "Don't go saying such strange things."
"Well, if he did, it backfired on him. I love the coffee, but I'm still indifferent to the man himself," she teased. She rose from the stool and headed toward the door as the rest of the Clan finally began showing signs of life. "Thank you for the coffee, Homra."
"You're welcome, cold-hearted woman."
She slipped out into the slow foot traffic on the road in front of the bar and was gone, leaving only a lingering scent of her icy perfume.
"Was that Munakata's lieutenant?" Totsuka asked.
"It was," Izumo answered, picking up her cup with the intention of washing it right away, but he stopped as he became aware of an odd sensation in the china. While it was hot from the beverage, he felt a haunting chill from the handle and shivered.
"Ice and fire aren't a good mix," Totsuka warned.
"Oh," he said, chuckling, "it never crossed my mind. But you have to admit, she's an interesting enigma. I didn't even think she'd accept my invitation into the bar, but she did."
"She probably wanted to catch a look at our King," Yata dismissed.
"Likely, but she was braver than the other Blues we've dealt with. After all, she let us surround her."
"Yeah, she's nothing like that traitor. That damned monkey…" Yata mumbled. "But we were all asleep and your coffee is famous in this neighborhood. Speaking of which: I want coffee."
Mikoto appeared behind Yata. "What's all this noise about? It's not even noon yet."
"Sorry, Mikoto." The short man blushed as bright as his hair. "We were just making fun of Kusanagi's crush on the Blue Clan's lieutenant."
"Misaki made her think I slipped her something fishy," Izumo accused, pointing at the redhead
"Are you sure she didn't slip you a love potion, Kusanagi-kun?" Totsuka asked with a laugh. "You're not your regular calm and collected self right now."
"Ha ha ha, can't two people just be friends?"
"Not when the two people are you and a woman with enormous…" Chitose piped up, describing Awashima's upper body proportions with his hands.
"How juvenile," Izumo muttered. "That's why you will always be known as a womanizer, Yō. She and I have the same positions in our respective clans –"
"He said 'position,'" Chitose joked and some of the others shared in the laughter.
"That's it, all of you freeloading jerks are unwelcome in the bar for the next twenty-four hours. Get out!" he shouted, pointing at the door.
Mikoto yawned and went back up the stairs as the others began protesting.
"Out," he said again, a little calmer.
"But, but, I wanted some of Kusanagi-san's coffee," Yata complained as Izumo shoved him out the door, and flung his skateboard after him.
A/N: This was written for the RLt Green Room Challenge #9, The Passion Potion Challenge.