A/N: I'm just going to have to leave this here and flee. I graduated! I can't promise a better update schedule, regardless, but please hang in there with me.

Devil's Food

Chapter 7: Caffè Medici

Yuuri let out a sigh into the chilled air. He half expected to see a puff of white breath follow, but truth be told, it wasn't even Winter yet. This day had just been particularly cold right from the start. He couldn't help but imagine one of the cafe's signature hot chocolates, with the fresh cream practically spilling over the top, and the gentle curve of the chocolate sauce drip. It was a dangerous fantasy, as it depended entirely on Wolfram being in a good enough mood to make him one in the first place, nevermind to make the cute little chocolate heart on top. Sure, he could make it himself, but it just wasn't as good.

He tossed his head about, trying to shake away both a bit of the cold and thoughts like that, as he came up on the cafe store front. Strangely enough, there was a super classy looking motorcycle parked out front, pushed up right against the sidewalk. As distracted as he was by the shimmering paint job, he only briefly contemplated the illegality of the parking spot before deciding to just go to work already. He had fallen far enough into his routine to hardly cast a second glance at the door before barreling right in to get out of the cold, but this time he had to wonder why the "Open" sign had been flipped. The cafe was open a good deal before he came in after school on weekdays.

It only really hit Yuuri that something was seriously wrong when he stepped inside. The bell chimed to announce his entry into the otherwise completely empty cafe. His mouth hung open, frozen from his usual greeting for Conrad, whom he could even now imagine standing behind the counter with his usual smile. His eyes flicked to the wall clock, only to see that it was indeed the start of his shift, right when the cafe should be buzzing with the excited after school crowd. An uneasy sensation crawled through the pit of Yuuri's stomach.

Another few steps inside and Yuuri was just about to call out asking for anyone when the back door opened. His mouth twitched into a relieved smile before he saw the broad shoulders distinctive to Gwendal pushing through into the main room. He could only stare in shock at the extra wrinkles bearing down on the eldest brother's features.

"It's you," Gwendal started, and Yuuri noticed his voice sounded somewhat raspy.

"H- hello," Yuuri tried to smile, but it ended up an odd, lopsided thing. "Where is everyone?"

"We..." Gwendal muttered after a stretch of silence, "We're closed."

Well... I figured, Yuuri still managed to think despite the unease that was taking over his mind at an alarming rate. "Did something happen?"

Now, this question truly brought on the silence. Yuuri stared into Gwendal's face with increasingly desperate eyes. Gwendal's lips, however, remained firmly pressed into a deep frown. Yuuri was contemplating trying to break the mood by shouting, "You did it, didn't you!" but it didn't seem like a line from a crime drama would really do much for either of their temperaments.

Fortunately, Gwendal did eventually grunt out, "It's Wolfram."

"Wolfram!?" Yuuri exclaimed. His mind filled with images first of Wolfram wearing an expensive suit and black sunglasses, standing over a body with a smoking gun. The criminal was Wolfram! No, no, it's not a crime drama! His heart started pumping wildly, however, as the next images to follow were of the actual Wolfram getting carried off by some cronies. "Who did it!?"

Gwendal shot him a long look of confusion and, he presumed, distaste, before explaining, "Conrart took him to the hospital."

All of the ridiculous scenes his brain usually so busily concocted went out in a flash when he heard that. Yuuri's eyes fell to the floor as his blank mind struggled to react. He clenched his hands into fists before looking up to Gwendal again, fire in his eyes. "What are we doing here, then?"

The quirk of Gwendal's brow practically shouted, "We?" but he didn't comment. "I just shut down the power back there," he grumbled. "It will all burn down by tomorrow otherwise."

"Oh," Yuuri nodded, feeling just a bit sheepish. Perhaps he had gotten ahead of himself. "Right."

"Besides," Gwendal said as he removed a slip of paper from the heavy jacket Yuuri only then realized he was wearing in place of his usual baker's garb, "Conrart sent me a list of things they need from home. I'm stopping there before joining them."

The emphasis placed on the word "I" did not go unnoticed, but Yuuri indignantly took a step forward. "Take me with you!"

He put all his energy into a look of ferocity and determination. Gwendal stared back impassively. "Why?"

That question did, he would have to admit, set him back a bit. His look softened as he thought for a moment. He had been reacting purely on instinct, but he could immediately recognize what lay behind the feeling of panic. Sure, most of what he remembered when he thought of Wolfram was still his angry and pouting expressions (not that they were particularly unpleasant sights to remember), but the past weeks had seen them through times of laughter as well. He looked back up to Gwendal. "Wolfram's my friend, and I'm worried about him."

Yuuri almost thought Gwendal looked stricken before he shook his head. He was about to protest further when Gwendal sighed, "Alright. But you're going to have to ride on the back."

Yuuri blinked once, twice, and then Gwendal bent down to retrieve a helmet from beneath the counter. He stepped out from behind the counter and towards Yuuri, reaching out the helmet to him, before the sight of his reflection on the curved surface brought Yuuri to reality. The motorcycle outside! The expensive, classy ride! It was Gwendal's! He was too deeply in shock even to cry out. His hands numbly closed over the straps of the helmet.

"Okay," he nodded weakly.

Any hopes of acting cool like some guy in a commercial looking slick on a motorbike died as he fumbled with the straps of the helmet and ended up needing Gwendal's assistance. The helmet wasn't particularly cool, either. As a matter of fact, it was kind of adorable, with its soft pastel yellow paint job. The sight of Gwendal in a matching lavender one almost made him chuckle, but his mirth was gone by the time he was standing on the sidewalk, still staring rather blankly as Gwendal swung onto the motorcycle.

"Come on," he grunted.

Yuuri outright stumbled over, barely managing to propel himself across the seat. He tried not to let himself think too hard about what little he knew about motorcycle riding, and particularly not about how awful he imagined the accidents must be. What was safety protocol like, anyways? All he could remember was seeing some gallant guy in a movie with a young lady holding onto him tightly going flying down some picturesque mountain path... Wait, how was he supposed to hold on? His hands flicked nervously from his sides to closer to the imposing back looming all too near to him. "Do I... wrap my hips around your arms?"

Now, that had not been what he had meant to say. Yuuri contemplated just giving up and rolling off the back of the bike, onto the road where he belonged with the daily trash. Had it been a burnable garbage day? He might not have counted if it was recyclables day. Organizing the trash properly is an important step to a better tomorrow...

Fortunately, Yuuri was dragged forcibly out of his increasingly irrelevant ponderings by Gwendal's rough command of, "Just hold on," and the simultaneous ignition of the engine.

Yuuri's hands were wrapped tightly around Gwendal's general waist area within the second. As a matter of fact, his knuckles were practically turning white already by the time they left the side of the road. They made it off the side street without too much event, but by the time they whipped off onto the main road, Yuuri wasn't sure his heart was capable of beating any faster without outright exploding. He quirked his eyes shut as tight as he could manage, but the sound of the wind was inescapably deafening. He even imagined he was losing feeling in his fingers by the time they finally slowed to a stop, and had been about another minute away from trying desperately to shout over the whipping of the wind.

It was a good thing they pulled over before he had managed to further embarrass himself, but Yuuri's legs were still shaking uncontrollably as he struggled to step off onto the sidewalk after Gwendal. The rider had long ago removed his helmet and was striding forward with keys in hand before Yuuri had managed to suppress his quaking. Struggling to keep up, he opted not to even try to remove his helmet-he was just going to put it back on anyways.

That logic didn't seem to pass onto Gwendal, who looked down at him with an eyebrow raised far up his wrinkled forehead when they got into the elevator and he saw the ridiculous pastel yellow helmet still firmly placed over his mussed up black hair.

I give up, Yuuri thought as he listened to the elevator beeping. Just how far up were they going, anyways? He'd been so distracted by their crazy ride here that he'd hardly noticed, but this place was so ritzy it was more like a hotel than an apartment building.

Still no words came from Gwendal even as they got off at the top floor, and then Yuuri was completely flabbergasted when he proceeded to open the only door in sight to reveal the craziest multi-room apartment he'd seen. No, he had never seen something like it except on TV-one of those actual mansions, or something.

"No way," he whispered to himself as Gwendal marched off with purpose. "Not the super classy, top floor suite…"

But it undeniably was, with two hallways on each side of the massive living room leading off into other rooms. He was working at a small, side-street, start-up level cafe-but he was working for the one percent here! His mouth fell open as he noticed there was an actual mantle, and for a moment he was afraid this place was so classy that it even had a fireplace. He was relieved to see it was one of those electric ones with a fake screen. Nevertheless, it fell in well with his earlier mental image of Wolfram's aristocratic living situation. His thoughts leading back to Wolfram cleared the adrenaline inspired high from his mind for a moment, just enough for an uneasy feeling to settle into his stomach.

The fancily framed painting resting on the wall above the mantel distracted him soon enough, though, when he realized it wasn't just a replica of the Mona Lisa or something. It didn't look like a copy at all, actually. As a matter of fact, two of the people in it looked so familiar that he could almost swear… He took a step back to get a better look.

"Conrad!?" he exclaimed as soon as the revelation hit him. "Gwendal!?"

Two of the painting's subjects were, make no mistake, his employers. The likeness was truly impressive, right from the creases in Gwendal's brow to Conrad's habitual smile. Possibly even more astounding, however, was the third person seated comfortably between them. With long blonde curls and a daring black dress that showed off an amazingly curvy body, she looked more like a goddess in a classic painting than anything. Her features were really what drew in the eye, though. Something about them seemed almost as familiar as the other two people, but he was sure he'd never met anyone like this.

A low grunt finally drew his gaze away from the painting. He turned to see Gwendal standing there, a small rucksack in his arms. Despite being a fairly plain, black bag, it was bogged down with a load of keychains. Among the masses, Yuuri noticed the strange little bear thing he'd seen on Wolfram's cellphone waving at him with a cute smile. It really was quite an adorable mascot.

"Yes," Gwendal stated, and only then did Yuuri realize his grunt had been a sound of confirmation. "We posed for that family portrait a few years ago."

At first, Yuuri's brain accepted this information. He stared blankly at the portrait again. Family portrait. He looked at the woman in the center, with her warm smile. "You mean… you guys have a hot sister?"

"That is our mother," Gwendal answered, his tone level.

Yuuri made a slight strangled noise as he realized just how desperately his polite conversation filters were needed at this moment. The headline popped into his mind all too easily: Highschool boy tragically loses life in motorcycle crash. Driver unharmed. With that thought in his mind, he managed not to express his follow-up question: Is that even possible?

He did actually voice the other question that came to mind: "What about Wolfram?"

Gwendal shook his head with what looked like the ghost of a smile on his lips. "He refused to work from a photograph, so he isn't in this one."

Yuuri was drawing blanks on that one. "Huh?" was all he managed.

"He painted this," Gwendal explained, his voice just slightly strained. If his mind hadn't been so totally blown at the moment, Yuuri might have noticed the slight spark of pride in Gwendal's dark eyes.

As it was, Yuuri was hardly capable of sensible thought until Gwendal had already shepherded him out the door and into the elevator. They were on the sidewalk before he managed to actually say, "So he's really good at painting?"

Gwendal looked at him with somewhat narrowed eyes before nodding and swinging his leg over the motorcycle. As Yuuri had suspected, nothing beat a tall foreigner on a motorcycle. He was about to be left behind by the time he managed to climb on after him, his mind still trying to digest the new information.

Maybe I really got a steal on some high-class art for just 500 yen, he thought as he watched a few buildings slip by. Oh right, I didn't pay.

Either Yuuri was already used to it, or he was just so mentally overstimulated it didn't hit him anymore, but the ride to the hospital was over before he knew it. His knees weren't in total agreement with him when he stepped onto the sidewalk again, of course, but he managed to steady himself. Looking up at the hospital wasn't quite as easy. He didn't have time to let anything sink in still as he followed Gwendal inside.

As he thought, the woman directing them to Wolfram's room looked kind of bewildered when Gwendal strode up to her and spoke in basically flawless Japanese. Yuuri nodded with great sympathy, although the most he could do was follow like a puppy at Gwendal's heels. There was something intimidating about hospitals.

"This is the one," the nurse instructed as she opened the door.

Once Gwendal's broad shoulders moved aside, Yuuri took in a sharp breath. Yet Wolfram was sitting up in the pure white bed, looking a bit pallid and tired. His leg wasn't set up in a giant cast, nor was he out cold in some kind of coma. ...Not that that was what Yuuri had been picturing, or anything. Come to think of it, he probably should have thought to ask Gwendal why Wolfram was in the hospital before any of this.

"Yuuri," Wolfram said, his eyes wide. There was a little flurry of rushed motion, and only then did Yuuri notice that Conrad was seated at his bedside, his hands resting on the mattress by Wolfram's side. Wolfram crossed his arms across his chest. He narrowed his eyes, looking to Gwendal briefly before focusing back on Yuuri, who felt more and more like an intruder every second. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh," Yuuri began, looking between Conrad and Gwendal as if they would provide him an answer. "I was worried?"

"Well," Wolfram pouted-most undeniably pouted, turning slightly aside before he realized that put him face-to-face with his brother. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm perfectly fine."

Conrad had remained smiling the whole time. "Thanks for coming, Yuuri. I'm sorry about having to close the cafe without notice."

"Don't worry about it! I'm sorry for intruding," Yuuri laughed slightly, feeling awkward even as he ducked into a small apologetic bow. It just didn't feel right to have someone apologize to you while you were standing in a hospital room with them.

"It's not intruding," Wolfram answered, despite not looking any happier about it. As a matter of fact, he looked even more irritated, by Yuuri's estimation-even a little bit red.

Yuuri didn't exactly feel encouraged. Fortunately enough, Gwendal stepped forward with the adorable bundle of keychains and passed the satchel to Wolfram. "I brought your things," he said simply enough, but his voice sounded softer than Yuuri could have imagined.

Wolfram nodded, his pout suddenly gone without a trace. "Thank you, big brother," he said as he took the bag, only to slide it towards Conrad.

"How is your pulse?" Gwendal asked quietly, his voice strained.

The question seemed to break the gentle atmosphere. Yuuri looked uneasily to Conrad, seeing Wolfram stiffen up. Even Conrad wasn't smiling anymore. It was eerie.

"It's okay," Wolfram snapped. "The doctor said all I need is rest."

About the only thing it occurred to Yuuri to do to break the tension in the atmosphere was to blurt out, "Sounds easy enough!" accompanied by the awkward laugh he was afraid could qualify as his signature at this point.

The smoldering look Gwendal shot him made him most sincerely regret his lack of forethought.

Fortunately, Conrad took pity on him and cracked a smile. "Yes, things will be fine."

"I've been saying that all along," Wolfram scowled.

Yuuri, despite the fear instilled in him by Gwendal's glare, was sincerely intending on asking just what had happened to land Wolfram, who was apparently perfectly fine, in the hospital when the door opened again. There was barely any time for him to stumble out of the way before the intruder dashed in, and all Yuuri could see was a head of long silver hair straight out of a shampoo commercial and some long, shimmery fabric still struggling from all the motion, which presumably was actually a scarf. He blinked hard a few times.

"Oh, my little Wolf!" a high voice cried.

It was something of a comfort to Yuuri that he wasn't the only one totally taken aback by this entrant. Wolfram was practically gasping for breath-which made sense, considering he was subject to what looked like something of a death grip.

Conrad's hand quickly found its way to the stranger's shoulder. "Günter," he said, sounding just a bit harsher than Yuuri had ever heard from him, "I'm sure Wolfram appreciates your visit, but he does need to breathe."

"Of course," the man, evidently Gyunt or whatever in the world Conrad had just called him, assented as he backed away a step, nearly knocking right into Yuuri. "We were just terribly worried about him."

We? Yuuri finally turned back to the still open door to find someone else patiently standing there, and the nurse slowly backing away with a look of apologetic terror on her face. The other party was a tall, impressively buff man with shockingly red hair. Well, not as shocking as he'd ever seen, now that he'd met Anissina, but still pretty shocking after a life never having left Japan. He had a face like something out of the movies, too, with big blue eyes and a spattering of freckles. Actually, Yuuri could almost swear he'd seen him in a movie or two. Once he remembered himself and that he was indeed an active participant in this experience and actually the one blocking the man's entry, he squeaked an apology and ducked out of the way.

"Pardon the intrusion," the man said with a smile and a wave. Actually, there might have been a wink, too.

"Josak," Conrad greeted, his smile significantly less strained than it had been a moment ago, "it's been a while."

"Sure has," Josak laughed. "How's the kid doing?"

Said kid still had no words for his visitors. He seemed fairly occupied with frowning.

"Did Anissina call you?" Gwendal grumbled. Yuuri thought he noticed a few extra wrinkles on his forehead even as compared to the moment before the duo's entrance.

The first man, Gyu-Yuuri had no clue, turned away from Wolfram for the first time to spin and face Gwendal. It was only then that Yuuri saw his face, and he nearly fell over on the spot. Sometimes he wondered if it was just some foreign magic of exoticism that made all these Europeans he'd been meeting look beautiful to him, but this man was objectively stunning. He had to have come right from the photoshoot for some international magazine's Most Beautiful edition or something. He looked like a photo you'd look at and assume it was at least airbrushed.

"Gwen," he called sternly, mouth twisted into a silly little scowl, "this is the first time you see me in years, and that's all you've got to say?"

Surprisingly enough, Gwendal did look somewhat taken aback. He was silent for a long moment before muttering, "Right. It's been a long time."

At some point during this exchange Yuuri's eyes, in their confused wandering, met with Conrad's. His smile took on a sympathetic light before he chuckled and announced, "Yuuri, these are some more family friends. Günter von Kleist and Josak Gurrier. Maybe you've heard of them?"

Wolfram scoffed and Yuuri looked just in time to see him rolling his eyes. "It's impossible to go to high school in this country and not see Günter's face on everyone's folders."

Those words were enough to set Yuuri's mind in motion, and he realized that the photo he'd assumed had been airbrushed had been one of those giant, wall-scaling movie posters lining the subway stations. "Oh, Gyu-gyu!" he exclaimed before he could stop himself. He'd heard the strange name everywhere.

"What an adorable young man," Gyu-gyu himself was gracious enough to respond.

"He works at the cafe," Conrad explained.

By then Yuuri had recovered enough from his mortification to duck into a bow and say, "I'm Shibuya Yuuri. It's an honor to meet you!"

"You as well, you as well," Gyu-gyu (or was it Gyun-gyun?) nodded, reaching for both of his hands at once and shaking them enthusiastically in wide arcs. "Please, just call me Günter."

Even Yuuri was fairly sure this wasn't how they shook hands in Europe. A large hand landed on his shoulder, stabilizing him somewhat.

"Pleasure to meet you," Josak finished with a wink.

Overwhelmed would hardly begin to describe Yuuri's feelings in his current situation.

"I'm supposed to be resting," Wolfram muttered, sounding distinctly miffed.

Gwendal didn't hesitate for a second before answering, "I'll have them out within the minute."

Yuuri, for one, didn't need to be told twice.