AU chosen -Bartender
Summary: She was just the owner of a bar that happened to be a favorite place for police, criminals, and informants to hang out (when not trying to do business/kill each other, that is). Somehow, the leader of a crime ring and one of the Chief Inspectors are now after her. Not really romantically, but more like a I-want-your-knowledge-way.
"But the romance is definitely implied!"
"Yuki, this is not a love triangle- gotta run bye."
Notes: Exile Wrath's AUs strike again! Yep, this is a long one.
She had inherited the bar from her parents ever since she had turned 21. It was family tradition; the bar itself was a little over a hundred years old. Same Sky was a popular bar in downtown Tokyo, a bit on the shadier side, but not exactly an illegal place. It was an odd crowd that frequented there, all on various sides of shades of lawful and unlawful gray. You had Yakuza bosses and Inspectors and assassins and bodyguards in the same building, which miraculously had not been demolished by gang warfare or police raids. Yet.
Because everyone in town knew (or soon learned) that the bar had the best beverages around, and if you damaged it you were basically asking for the Tsunemori folks to sue you for enough money to cover the cost of all the lost drinks. And trust me, the price of covering that amount of quality liquor would leave even the richest black market dealers flinching in horror.
It was this not-so-ordinary-but-not-that-extraordinary bar that young Tsunemori Akane currently ran, and had been for the past six months. The brunette had managed to assimilate with the regulars easily, and working in the bar as a teen to help her parents already gave her knowledge of the alcohol and drinks and cocktails. But just because she now owned the bar didn't really mean that she just had to deal with the paperwork and hiring people. No, Same Sky's owner needed to be on good terms with all of its frequenting customers, so that meant-
Bartender duty. "Welcome back, Makishima-san. The usual?" she asked warmly as one of the regulars slid onto a stool in front of the counter. He nodded, engrossed in a book like always, and she quickly served him a plate of madeleines and a cup of Earl Grey tea. (Hey, this wasn't a normal bar; they carried nearly every drink known to mankind and then the bar snacks were something else) Next to him, Choe Gu-Song received a glass of Jameson on the Rocks and nodded his head at her politely.
"How was your day, Tsunemori-san?" Makishima got around to asking after memorizing the page he was on and closing the book to nibble on a tea-dipped madeleine. The owner was standing near them, as there was a lull in patrons and it was customary for them to have a little conversation, for the sake of familiarity. "Have you read the book I told you about yet?"
She laughed as she wiped down the counter near them, embarrassed. "Sorry, Makishima-san. I've been busy all last week. There's been an odd influx of police-type customers, and I usually have to work double-time to make sure that no fights break out," Akane explained. "What about you? How has your... work been going?"
The amber-eyed man frowned in disappointment. "I hope you can at least get started on that book later today," he mused. "My workings are fine, thank you. I have found a few artists that may prove to be of some interest."
"Here to meet someone or just drinking?" she inquired in reply, pausing her work and standing a little bit diagonally from him now. "And I'll try."
"Just dropping by for a cup of tea, no worries," he waved her concerns off. "And I have no intention of letting any of my artists know about this place until they prove to be reliable." Around this time, Choe picked up his glass and wandered to one of the other tables, a lone figure drinking, until a seemingly random stranger sat down and began an animated discussion with him.
Akane raised an eyebrow, jerking her head towards the meet. "That is...?"
"Ah, nothing too important," Makishima remarked. "Just a business deal concerning materials. Nothing I need to bother myself with." He reflected for a moment. "Why the extra caution, Tsunemori-san?"
"Ah, because-"
She was cut off with the noisy screech of the ungreased bar doors. "Oi, Tsunemori! The usual, please!" a rough male voice ordered, and Makishima instinctively shifted his chair a good few inches from the suited man that had just taken a seat to his right. The bartender sighed momentarily before going off to make the man's drink. He glanced at Makishima dismissively before waiting on his order.
He also was a significant public figure: Kogami Shinya, one of the reputed Chief Inspectors of the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau.
It was ironic, this place. It was a blur of black and white, and though the colors clashed the place was peaceful. It was doubly ironic in that a practically wanted man, the leader of a notorious crime ring, was capable of having such a person sit down next to him without knowing and still be completely safe.
"Here you go, Kogami-san." A drink was slid across the table. Kogami nursed his drink for a bit, taking care to observe his surroundings first. "Sorry, Makishima-san, I'll talk to you later."
"It's fine. I don't wish for you to lose on your precious bonding time with other customers because you feel obliged to carry on our conversation," he remarked casually. "Though I do wish to converse with you about that book when I drop by tomorrow."
She nodded, and was about to walk away when Kogami's voice caught her. "Rough crowd tonight, Tsunemori?" the detective asked.
She shrugged. "Kogami-san, this is the usual crowd. They all know the rules, and regulars here know better than to pick fights." A little hesitantly, Akane continued the thread, "Why do you comment that every time you walk in?"
It was Kogami's turn to shrug. "Habit, I suppose?" And then another customer walked in and her attention was taken away.
Makishima identified the expression on his face quite easily; he had grown accustomed to seeing it on men's faces when the young woman walked away or her attention was taken. Undeniably, Kogami Shinya was another fool that held some kind of feelings beyond professional for Tsunemori, whether he was aware of it or not. It was irritating (as Shogo had known her long before most of the regulars here), but it was gratifying that finally he had found an individual worthy enough to actually be considered an opponent in the matter of forcing Akane to look at other perspectives of life.
"Makishima Shogo. Weapons and black market materials smuggler. No current charges, but shown to be linked to several serious cases, a practical ghost in the system." Kogami interrupted his thoughts as he directed those words at Makishima, taking a drag of his cigarette at the same time.
Shogo was only mildly taken by surprise. "Kogami Shinya. Promising Chief Inspector at the MWPSB. Renowned for a record high of solved to cold case ratio for someone so young." The two men glanced at each other, sizing the other up as is calculating how to take down a beast.
They were not like two ships passing in the night.
"What's your business here, ghost?" Kogami asked brusquely. "I doubt that someone like you, an aider of criminals, would bother to come here for polite conversation and tea. Meeting up with another future serial killer?"
The other hummed tunelessly. "Why not? I'm flattered that you think I'm a criminal, but I'm merely a lover of books and a teacher, here for a cup of tea and a chat with Tsunemori-san."
Shinya snorted. "Yeah right. This place is a mixing bowl of criminals, civilians, and law enforcement alike. Pity I can't arrest you right here and right now. A cup of tea my foot."
"Why are you here, Kogami Shinya? To pester an innocent person enjoying good company?" he countered wryly.
"Nah. Just checking up on Tsunemori," Shinya answered easily. "Who knows what might happen here if people like you hang around this establishment?" There is mirth and mockery in his eyes, a teasing laugh that claimed that because of their positions on the sides of the law, Shogo would lose.
"I've known her ever since three years ago. You? A month, at most," Makishima replied calmly, waving down another bartender in order to pay his tab.
On his way out, the white-haired man takes the opportunity to remind Akane to read the book with a hand around her waist and a hot whisper in her ear.
Shinya is left snarling and rubbing out his cigarette in anger.
They don't meet again until two days later, this time running into each other on the way in the doorway. Kogami was there for a meeting with an eyewitness to the crime of his current case, and Makishima was determined to quiz Tsunemori as to see if she had read the book yet.
The latter made an immediate U-turn after learning that the owner was at home, down with a high fever. The former was stuck at Same Sky for a good hour, during which Makishima dropped by her apartment with food and medicine and assurances that the bar was fine.
Shogo: 1, Shinya: 0
The parrying maneuvers between the two men in attempts to lay claim to Tsunemori grew no more obvious to her. She dismissed it as innate reactions to opposing sides of the law.
Then everything changed the morning her cousin appeared knocking on her doorstep.
Cousin Touma Kozaborou was not considered a direct line of the Tsunemori family, so he had no eligibility in possibly owning the bar, so Akane and her brother had not been in contact with him often. Koza-kun (their familiar nickname for the brunet man) was a mysterious cousin that showed up at family reunions and their birthdays with presents and stories of place he had been, even though he was only two years older than him at the time.
As far as Akane knew, he was a hacker and informant for various people. But that meant that he was a neutral party, so... "Good morning, dearest cousin Akane-chan. Could I possibly have some gin, medicine, bandages, and an opportunity to collapse on your couch?" he requested politely, clutching his waist, which was bleeding so profusely that the blood had soaked through his clothes.
Without batting an eyelash, Akane dragged her wayward cousin to the couch and stripped him of the bloody clothes before promptly tending to his wounds. No words were exchanged, as a bartender knew that some questions were better left unasked.
When he had been cleaned, bandaged, and fed, Touma patted her head thankfully. She bristled at the childish action. "So how is Akane-chan the bartender doing? Meet any interesting people?" he asked jovially.
She looked at him expressionlessly. Whenever Koza-kun asked about someone's health, he was going to drop a bomb on them.
"So you see, I was shot and chased and stabbed by a good lot of friendly folks while I was traveling around town. They're after the information that I managed to get," he winked.
"So you needed a safe place for the moment?" Akane asked.
Touma shook his head, continuing to smile brilliantly. It was unsettling. "No, no, nothing like that, dearest Akane-chan," yep, he was going to tell her something ridiculously sensitive, "You see, I need you to hold on to the files for me and then mail them to me in three days!"
"So you can escape?" Akane supposed.
His shit-eating grin grew wider. "Exactly, dearest favorite cousin!"
"Won't my life be in danger?" she rebutted, her eyebrow raised.
"You are a Tsunemori, though! And the current proprietor, to boot." His expression turned serious. "Please. For me."
Akane heaved a sigh. "Fine, Koza-kun. Three days and three days only."
The man brightened visibly, rummaging in his pockets to give her a memory stick. "This is why you are my favorite cousin! I'll pay you back later, okay?"
She was not surprised when he was already out the doorway three seconds later. "Bye, Koza-kun."
His head appeared back in her line of sight. "Oh! By the way, avoid a fellow with white hair and amber eyes, okay? And the guy called Kogami Shinya that's been everywhere in the media lately. Goodbye~!" And he disappeared.
"No way-" Akane paled, looking at the memory sticks in her hand with horror.
In precisely three minutes, she changed, grabbed her emergency backpack, and ran out of her apartment to the bar.
Exactly fifteen minutes after that, police forces invaded her living space, hunting for the memory sticks which had electronic tracking devices implanted in them.
Four seconds later, several Yakuza crashed through the windows in search of the same objects.
Makishima blinked. "Naze? Isn't that Tsunemori-san's apartment?" he realized as the police and gang members began fighting each other.
"So Touma ran to a safe house, fixed himself up, and is now taking refuge at Same Sky?" Kogami asked, staring at the screen and hovering above Karanomori Shion's chair.
The woman took a drag of her cigarette. "You got it, Shinya-kun. This guy is really smart, huh?"
He sighed, standing up and running his hands through his hair. "We're at a stalemate. As long as he doesn't take a step from the place, he's safe and whoever wants the information can get it from him. On the other hand, he can only stay there for so long before he's kicked out."
"So it's a matter of timing?" Shion guessed.
"Yeah... Maybe I'll be able to get Tsunemori to help out," Shinya muttered as he began to walk away. "I need a drink anyways."
The blonde frowned, swiveling in her chair to face him. "What are you talking about now?"
"The newest owner of the bar is a woman named Tsunemori Akane. She works as a bartender to get to know the regulars. If she is willing to let us apprehend Touma, we won't need to risk angering anyone," Kogami explained.
A cat-like smile crept on Shion's face. "Oh? Is she cute?"
The Inspector walked out before he was forced to answer that yes, she was.
"Yo, Tsunemori-"
"Good day, Tsunemori-san-"
Both men stepped in the door and greeted Akane at precisely the same time, causing each to turn and eye each other vindictively.
"I'm sorry, but Akane-chan is resting upstairs right now," one of the barmaids, Funahara Yuki, remarked in passing. "She ran in today like she had people chasing her!"
They turned to face her at the same time. "Is she okay?" Shinya demanded.
"Which imbecile attempted to send people after her?"
Yuki shook her head. "Well, she had a run-in with her cousin today, she said. So maybe people were after him and they mistook her," and then she went back to work.
Both men using trackers to detect the location of the memory sticks, they were confused when Touma was not seen anywhere on the floor. And a glance at the place where the items supposedly were showed nothing.
That evening, Akane was forced to rise from her paperwork and drag herself downstairs to place an order for more sake and vodka from their suppliers, which meant being seen by people. It also meant carrying the memory sticks on her whilst serving customers. "Hello, Makishima-san. Hello, Kogami-san," Akane greeted tiredly upon sighting the two. Paperwork was exhausting.
As she approached them, an odd beeping sound filled the air, and the two men jerked around to look at her. Okay, sure Koza-kun had warned her to stay away from them, but it wasn't like they knew of her relation to Touma, right?
Makishima figured it out first. The resemblance between the two was so obvious it was overlooked. "Tsunemori-san... You wouldn't happen to know a man named Touma Kozaborou, would you?"
She flinched.
They looked at the trackers.
The memory sticks Touma had stolen was apparently right where Akane was.
Kogami nearly fell off his stool as Akane bolted over the counter and out the door, "Yuki, I'm out to mail something okay don't let them follow me-!" was her parting call. the barmaid looked about confusedly, and upon seeing the two men chasing after Akane, clapped her hands.
"I'm starting a betting pool on whether Kogami or Makishima get Akane-chan first~!" she sang, turning to the customers. The flood of bets and money was immediate.
As she accepted the money, Yuki pondered, "I wonder what made them snap and chase after her...?"
Makishima Shogo had known her for the past three years, ever since he was 24. She had caught his attention by coincidence, commenting about the book he had been reading at the time as he had drank tea at the bar. A conversation had somehow evolved, and her father, Tsunemori Natsu, hadn't minded their talk even though she was technically on shift- something about "my daughter needs more male friends".
The conversations continued as he appeared more often, and they traded books and tea suggestions before one day Choe had commented that he behaved in a way that could be interpreted as affectionate to Tsunemori. It wasn't that much of a shock in seeing those formerly-thought-impossible feelings, but Makishima had forced himself to quit thinking about Akane's body on his bedsheets, cool and unflinching as caressed her with his knife before kis-
Touma, one of his connections at the time, had heard that he was "in love with a girl" and had gifted him with a set of books that he insisted would make him an acceptable dating partner. Choe had thoughtfully added to the collection with one called A Sociopath's Guide to Being a Boyfriend.
They had been harmed quite severely after that.
Knowing Tsunemori's outlook on love, Makishima was simply content to watch over her and interact, knowing that the more apparent it was to other bar patrons that she belonged to him, the less likely any people would attempt to rival him.
Now, chasing her through the streets and cobbled alleys, Shogo decided that this would be where he made his claim apparent to the cretinous detective.
Kogami admitted to himself that he had fallen hard. It hadn't been love at first sight (such things only belonged in novels), but there had been admiration. And approval. And a hell lot of jokes from Kagari after that incident, that meeting, which consisted of spilled coffee on a suit, arresting the wrong person, and going to Same Sky to meet someone.
They first met when he had spilled his morning coffee on a passerby on the bus, and he politely paid for the laundering bill. Akane (sitting near him) had scathingly commented about wasting drinks, and then somehow an entire talk about wasting food and things in general. He hadn't gotten her name.
Then when he had attempted to arrest that slithery bastard Touma Kozaborou a few weeks later, she had shown up at the station in handcuffs, thoroughly annoyed. Kagari had been punished with a tablet to the head courtesy Yayoi, and Kogami had managed to appease her with coffee and a drive to her business.
Professor Saiga wanted to meet up with him a couple of days later, and had given him the address of a relatively popular bar.
She had asked for his order and Shinya, for the first time in his life, was left gaping at the ridiculous amount of run-ins. He had gotten a cappuchino...
and an accusation from the professor for being a cliche student that fell in love with possibly the densest people in the world.
(It turned out that the professor had already successfully identified the expression worn on patrons which had fallen hard and fast for Tsunemori Akane and seen a glimpse of in on Shinya's face)
Kagari had somehow found out, the jokes started, the head-tablet attacks had ensued, Kogami became a regular...
and the rest was not history. Of all the women in his life, Tsunemori was the only one that had actually drawn his interest, and the one that he kind of wanted to try to date someday. But she had one of the most irritating criminals alive after her as well, so Shinya thought up something.
"Oi, Makishima. Whoever doesn't get the memory sticks has to stop going to the bar for three weeks," he challenged.
There was a polite smile and the triangle was defined.
Akane activated her Communicator, dialing her "dear cousin" furiously. "Cousin! What did you give me?!" she cried.
"Two memory sticks containing sensitive political information that have electronic tracking devices on them~" he sang. "Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She shut off the call and continued sprinting down an alleyway, reminding herself to never help her cousin again.
The chase was on.
There was a contest unknown to the three. It made sense when you took in all the information. They had three days to get the information before she mailed it away. She had three days to run from both sides of the law to keep her promise and virginity intact. Not that she knew about the second one.
But in the end, the gazelle tires, and the wolves close in. Or try to.
The snow started falling at that moment.
3 days later...
"Yuki!" the exhausted bar owner practically collapsed into her best friend's arms behind the counter. "I barely survived..."
"So what was going on?" she asked cluelessly.
"Koza asked me to hold on to some stuff for him so he could run. It turns out they had tracking devices, so I had the police AND a bunch of criminals after me. I just mailed the information to him and tossed the memory sticks, so I should be safe now-"
The door burst open, and two blurs of black and white latched to her arms, the men straightening up and glaring at each other. "I got to her first, Makishima," Kogami snapped.
"You're clearly blind, Kogami," Makishima sneered in reply.
Akane paled drastically. What's going on now!?
She slipped from their grasp, right as Yuki exclaimed, "Oh! This is such an amazing triangle~!"
Akane frowned. "Yuki-"
"But the romance is definitely implied!" Shinya and Shogo were still glaring at each other, inching towards her.
"Yuki, this is not a love triangle-" they lunged, "Gottagobyetellmyparentssorry!"
And the chase started anew.
"WHY THE HELL ARE THEY STILL AFTER ME?!" Akane cried, knocking the author out with a helmet.
Ambiguous ending D: M'sorry, but the request didn't specify. They just wanted the triangle...
*shunted off and killed by angry readers*