This is to fix a particular plothole that bothered me :)
Some time later...
Urie entered the shop and discreetly flipped the sign on the door to "Closed."
There was a single woman behind the counter, wiping down a chrome espresso machine. "I'll be right with you! We're about to close but I have time to make one last drink."
"I'm here to ask about one of your customers. Haise Sasaki."
She stilled and looked over her shoulder at him. "What do you want to know?"
"How often did he come here? And with whom?"
"Oh, once or twice a week. Usually alone, but sometimes he would bring his little flock of doves along. Did you want to order a drink, or can I keep cleaning up?"
Gotcha, Urie thought to himself. He barely seemed to hear her question.
"I'll tell you what. I'll whip up Haise's usual order real quick, just in case. A pot of pour over plain black coffee coming up—you can't go wrong with it."
Urie walked over to a table, intending to put a bit of distance between the two of them. He took off his jacket and sat down to watch the barista. She was very pretty in that way the women who worked at trendy restaurants tended to be.
"About Investigator Sasaki. There's this one incident I can't get out of my head. A man in an obnoxious suit recognized him, and ran up to him as if they were friends. It wasn't until after the Rose operation that I realized he was Shuu Tsukiyama."
The barista hummed with interest but continued to focus mostly on brewing one last pot of coffee.
"And the funny thing is, that's not the only time something strange like that has happened. A…former colleague of mine mentioned coming here with the investigator. He said that Investigator Sasaki couldn't stop staring at the girl who worked here, and that he started crying when he tasted the coffee."
Urie didn't mention that he knew all this from how much Shirazu went on and on about the cute coffee girl. It felt like crossing a line to share private details about the deceased like that.
"Maybe I just make fantastic coffee. Have you considered that?"
She set a cup down in front of him. Plain black coffee, still steaming.
"I have. But then I thought it's more likely you're someone from his past. And considering you called my colleagues 'doves,' and only ghouls use that word, I think you're probably a ghoul." He felt the adrenaline of battle flood his system and knew that his eye had turned red.
She raised an eyebrow at his single red eye. "Ah, I see now," she said.
Then she smiled, and her smile was so warm and beautifully disarming it startled him for a moment. She seemed completely oblivious to how much danger she was in. She just walked over to a small sink behind the counter and rolled her sleeves up to do dishes. "You know, I realized as soon as the words left my mouth. I was hoping you wouldn't catch it, but you're sharp."
He stared at her, suddenly feeling lost. This wasn't the script at all.
She picked up the pourover apparatus and began to wash it in the sink. Glancing up at him as she dried it, she said, "Ghouls, humans, doves…whatever you half-ghoul doves call yourselves…I'll serve you all as customers as long as you're not here to cause trouble. I always liked that about coffee shops, how everyone can gather there. So quit itching to start a fight and enjoy that coffee on the house while we chat a little bit."
Urie stared at the coffee.
"How is Haise? He hasn't been in here in such a long time. I'm worried about him."
Urie went back to staring at her. She had paused her closing chores and was watching him with an earnest look on her face.
When Urie still didn't respond she put one hand on her hip. "Are you just going to sit there and glare at me? I'm at the end of a ten-hour shift, I really don't have time for this."
He blinked, mind racing through options on how to play this. There wasn't exactly a standard protocol for how to handle a ghoul who didn't attack or run when threatened. Well, he couldn't just sit there staring until she kicked him out. Maybe he should just attack her?
Might as well see what information he could get out of her while she was being non-combatant. "Am I just supposed to sit here and drink coffee like you're harmless?"
She threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, you're a riot. I'm far from harmless. But I spent a lot of time and money on the décor in here, so let's not wreck the place up. You're perfectly safe for now."
"I've heard a lot of ghouls say a lot of outrageous things. You're going to have to lie better than that."
"You've been an investigator for, what, five minutes? Quit acting like you're some badass. You're not going to find many of us who'll sit here and have a conversation with an investigator instead of killing you on sight—hell, if you'd tried this stunt on me when I was younger, you'd already be dead—but you'd be shocked at how much us coffeeshop ghouls value human life."
Urie stared down at the steaming black coffee. "Alright. I might have some news on Sasaki. But you've got to talk to me first."
"Ah, I know that game. I won't give away too many secrets, but otherwise you have a deal. Now drink your coffee or give it to me. I don't like good coffee going to waste."
He scowled and tried to discreetly take in the scent of coffee. No hint of poison or anything else suspicious. He took a sip. It was...good. Warm and familiar in a way that brought back memories of his childhood.
"Well? What did you want to talk about?"
Urie had walked in with a short list of unanswered questions, but in the moment they had all flown out of his head. He was still processing the strange turn his evening had taken. "I'm…not sure."
"I watched some cop drama last week. They said you're supposed to build a rapport during an interrogation. So tell me, which type of dove are you?"
Urie kept quiet.
"Nine times out of ten, you guys go into your job because you've lost someone. And one time out of ten you just want to play the hero and you don't know what else to do with your life. So…"
Urie raised an eyebrow. "My father." Though hearing her put it like that, he thought that the second option wasn't entirely untrue. She didn't need to know that, though.
She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. "That sucks. I lost my dad, too. I once…chatted with an investigator about how a lot of us are just orphans trying to get revenge on each other. I've tried really hard to let go of my grudges and see things from your point of view. It's natural to want to avenge your loved ones, so maybe you guys aren't entirely in the wrong."
Urie nearly spat out his coffee in shock. "We're in the wrong? You eat people."
"Just the annoying ones. Rude customers, people who double-park…it's really a public service."
He gaped at her.
"Jeez, I'm joking. The look on your face. Life is rough. It'll help to develop a sense of humor."
"I don't take advice from ghouls."
"That's a shame, my coffee is second only to my advice."
"And your professional advice, as a ghoul, is to get a sense of humor." The derision in his voice was something to behold.
"Yeah. Do you really think we're so different that I can't understand you? Come on. The other investigators might not believe that we feel anything, but you must know firsthand that a higher RC cell count doesn't turn you into less of a person. It doesn't render you incapable of feeling happy or sad, and it doesn't stop you from caring about your family or friends."
Urie's mind flashed to the gut-wrenching grief of Shirazu's death. And how, looking back, he'd been a cold and focused teenager. And very alone. He felt more like an adult, now, and maybe more human, with the pseudo-family he had been thrown into at the Chateau. Even with RC levels that were creeping alarmingly high.
"Maybe you're right. What's the point of having that discussion, though? It won't change anything."
She shrugged. "Some might call it psyops, some might call it having a dialogue. I haven't really decided yet."
She began walking around the café, wiping down tables and humming quietly as she went. Urie stared after her for a moment. He hadn't realized at first, but there was soft, pleasant music playing overhead. She finished up and paused by the sound system, hidden in plain sight on the book-laden shelves. She hit the power button, leaving only the gentle buzzing of various refrigeration units.
Urie sipped on his coffee and thought about how mundane this ghoul's routine seemed. It amused him for some reason. Maybe he could make a joke about that.
She turned back around and looked at him. "Well? Do I ever get to hear that news about Haise?"
He sighed. "The truth is…Sasaki changed after we took down the Tsukiyama family. He got distant, requested a transfer, stopped talking to us. I thought he was insufferably cheerful when I first met him, but now…it's like he's empty. I pass him at work occasionally and that's it."
Touka looked at Urie with such an expression of gentle concern, it made him want to yell at her to stop it. "He did that to me, once. Kind of. He just left on a mission of his own, and I barely saw him for months. Then I finally caught up to him and he admitted he was staying away to protect me, so I punched him in the face."
"You punched him in the face," Urie repeated. He suddenly remembered the time Sasaki had slapped him, and had to suppress a smirk when he imagined the ghoul in front of him hitting Sasaki with a solid right hook.
"Yep. One of the great regrets I have. I think that was the last time I saw him before he disappeared and resurfaced years later as Haise, with no memory of me. At least he doesn't remember…me punching him in the face." Touka grabbed some dishes from a drying rack and stacked them on a shelf behind the counter. "Anyways, my point is that whatever he's up to, I'm sure he's convinced he's doing the right thing even if it's hurting the people who care about him. But you should also know that smacking him around a bit won't fix it."
"I don't care about him. I just wanted to follow up on a suspicious incident."
That look of concern returned. "Sure you don't care. That's why you're alone, with an extremely dangerous ghoul, trying to dig up all the information on him you can. He's basically a stranger to you, huh."
Urie stared her down defiantly. "Yeah. He's basically a stranger."
"Caring about others isn't a weakness, and it isn't a liability. Kan—I mean Haise might think so, but that's no way to live. Having people around me to lean on in my darkest moments is what's kept me going."
"I didn't come here for some armchair psychology."
"Well, that's what you got! Now I'm about five minutes away from locking up so…"
"You can't honestly think I'd just walk away."
"Of course not. But I do have one thing I can do that might make this all go away." Touka brought her cell phone out of her apron pocket and dialed a number. "I'm just gonna call a friend of mine real quick, okay?"