After two years of working at the Battle Frontier, Olivia had fallen into a routine: each day, after the whistle of the Battle Factory blew to announce the end of the day shift, she would unceremoniously dump any and all of her uncompleted paperwork into a messenger bag and set off for one of the Frontier's many restaurants, hoping that the food would give her enough energy for the final stretch. After waving goodbye to Rodger, a natural night owl who practically lived at the factory, she made her way to her favorite restaurant in the whole Frontier, and possibly the whole Hoenn region: The Steamer.
The Steamer was the Frontier's only family-owned restaurant; the rest were chain restaurants. Unlike the chain restaurants, The Steamer retained one hundred percent of its profit; Simon took a cut of the profits of the other restaurants. Olivia heard rumors that this was because The Steamer's proprietor was a distant cousin of Simon, but she didn't really care; as long The Steamer's employees kept churning out great food, they could be caterpie in a human suit.
But without a doubt, Olivia's favorite aspect of The Steamer was its atmosphere. The entire restaurant was made up to look like a like a vintage bar; from pictures Olivia had seen, it looked almost exactly like one of the speakeasies from back when Kanto's government thought it was a marvelous idea to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol. Naturally, the ban had only increased the consumption of alcohol, especially hard liquor, by nearly tenfold.
Olivia also loved the general emptiness and silence of the place. While The Steamer was a very busy restaurant, there were few customers at this time of day, and those who did come were mostly regulars who had "reserved" seats. So, much to her surprise, Olivia found her traditional seat at the counter taken. By none other than one of the new Brains.
It was the shy, sick-looking one she had seen earlier in the day. Although he still wore the same mottled greatcoat, something about him just seemed… different. He didn't look any different at all- he was just sitting at the counter, reading a newspaper like any normal person would. Perhaps it was just the restaurant's lighting, but he seemed less sickly and gaunt than earlier in the day.
Intrigued but still rather annoyed at having her seat taken, Olivia tepidly sat herself in the stool to his right. He didn't seem to acknowledge her.
The barkeeper bustled over to her. "Same as usual, Olivia?"
"Yeah, but double the sugar. I'm gonna fall asleep at this rate," she replied. After placing her, she slumped down and would have dozed off had not the barkeeper returned promptly with her traditional evening coffee, albeit with double the sugar.
As he slid the mug over to her, he commented, "I know it seems ironic to get health advice from a bartender, but you better watch your caffeine, girl. I wouldn't want to lose a regular customer to a heart attack, especially one at your age."
Olivia dismissed his advice with a wave and a small smile. "You always tell me that. But like I always reply- I'll probably die from loss of sleep way before anything else gets me."
"If you say so," replied the bartender as he began polishing a glass.
With a small grunt, Olivia heaved her messenger bag onto the counter and pulled out a stack of papers. The bartender whistled.
"Now I see why you needed the extra sugar."
After two hours of nothing but filling out paperwork and gulping down coffee, Olivia was finally tired out- no amount of caffeine could keep her awake much longer. She looked down at the stack of paperwork and sighed- almost one third of it remained. With another sigh, she slowly placed the papers back into her bag, placed enough money on the counter to cover the cost of her coffee, and turned to leave, not realizing that her arm had accidently knocked over her recently-refilled mug of coffee. She did, however, hear the very audible THUD of a person slipping and falling to the floor behind her. Spinning around, she saw the newspaper-reading Frontier Brain sprawled on the floor behind her, lying in the puddle of her spilled coffee.