#no hitachiin twins i am so sorryyyyyyy

[ellgrimm]

Sweets (OHSHC bakery AU)

He lightly dusted the rectangle of dough with fine, white flour and ran it through the sheeter one last time. Mori peeled the slightly bouncy dough off the machine bed and placed it on a tray lined with a piece of plastic film. Wrapping the film snuggly around the croissant dough, he smoothed out the indents impressed by his fingertips. He scooped the tray off the maple wood table and spun around gracefully, with habitual movement, to slip it into the fridge along with the other identical trays of dough.

With that done, he slid out of the floury work apron and traded it for a fresh one he kept tidy for sales at the front register. He washed his hands and checked for any errant streaks of flour on his face. Satisfied, Mori walked out from the fairly austere kitchen and into the world of rich woods and shining glass cases that was the customer-service side of the French patisserie shop and cafe.

Haruhi was in the middle of preparing a cup of drip coffee for a patron. Another customer just arrived at the pastry counter and stood politely, waiting to place his order. “Why don’t you see to our guest, Mori?” she asked cheerfully, as she held a gooseneck kettle and slowly circled hot water over the fresh coffee grounds, keeping an eye on the weight of water being poured. A rich, gold-black coffee dripped out the bottom of the cone filter into a ribbed glass pitcher.

Mori turned to face the pastry case and reflexively picked up a set of tongs. He performed a test click: *click*. Then he looked out over the top of the case and said in a deep and calm voice a phrase he had said at least 500 times before: “Good afternoon, what would you like today?”

But there wasn’t anyone there?

He scanned left and right.

Then he directed his gaze down and his heart skipped. A pair of enormous, caramel eyes were looking up at him from underneath a glorious mop of flaxen hair. The boy spoke, blushing a bit, in a voice that rang out clear and light, “Good afternoon! I would like one tartelettes aux fraises, please.” His French was pretty good, or at least it sounded good, Mori thought. “For here,” the boy added.

“Of course,” Mori replied, as he carefully lifted the mini tart off the ceramic tray. A glazed strawberry, sliced and fanned out over piped pastry cream, sat like a glistening red jewel. He placed it on a round plate and brought it over to the register counter. “Anything else today?” Mori asked.

“Can I… get a caffe mocha?” the charming and petite lad said reluctantly after reading through the coffee menu.

Mori caught the hesitation. “Yes, sir. How many shots of espresso?” he asked attentively.

The caramel eyes wibbled a little, damply, and he burst out suddenly “um? No shots? Please?”

Mori was relieved. Now he understood what the problem was: the menu did not list “hot chocolate.” He made a mental note that he should suggest a menu update to the manager. Making cute boys cry was already not his preference; and this boy in particular deserved the world, he immediately and definitively decided.

Mori nodded and completed the cash part of the transaction. “I will bring your strawberry mini tart and no-shots ‘caffe mocha’ to you in a minute, sir. There is a table with a nice view by that window, if you like.” He gestured to a small, round table that offered a glimpse across the street of a park with a duck pond. A coveted sight in urban Tokyo.

The boy smiled and practically floated over to the promised seat. He caught sight of a mama with her raft of ducklings zooming past and gasped with delight. Mori had to work incredibly hard to suppress a grin. It was everything he had hoped for.

Haruhi noticed. She noticed a lot of things, to be clear. Here, she was shocked and intrigued that Mori had said the longest continuous string of words than she had heard at any point over the past two years since he had started working here.

To be honest, she had been surprised when Kyoya had hired him on, considering how much talking is often involved in customer service. Kyoya, in an uncommonly forthcoming reveal into the inner workings of his mind, succinctly told Haruhi once that “diversity is a strength.”And that meant, in stark contrast to longtime coworker Tamaki’s effervescent and somewhat scattered personality, a staunchly grounded giant who is almost religious in keeping up on the daily labors of a bakery is certainly an asset.

Haruhi grabbed a silver dessert spoon and placed it and a napkin on the wooden serving tray, next to the strawberry mini tart. She winked at Mori as he finished making what was honestly a hot chocolate. He grunted softly, as if to say “hush, you.”

---

He came in every day that week. And every day he tried a different sweet pastry. As far as Mori could tell, he loved them all equally.

And Kyoya saw no objection to adding Hot Chocolate to the official cafe menu. “It’s not seasonally appropriate, but there has been an anti-caffiene health trend picking up lately,” he said decisively.

On the last day of his work week, Mori once again watched the boy leave the shop for the day. This time, the boy, busy looking at his phone, bumped into a trio of well-built, strong young men. He started to apologize for running into them, and Mori panicked a little, instinctively leaping over the counter and dashing past the other customers sitting at their tables. A blur of hyperactivity in an otherwise amazingly calm and inviting space.

And then Mori stopped, his heart beating hard.

“Haninozuka-sensei! We are so very sorry for getting in your way!” the trio barked, stiffly and respectfully bowing. Honey smiled kindly and waved them off.

“Oh, no, it was my fault entirely! I must have been busy with my own thoughts,” Haninozuka offered brightly. And after a quick exchange of pleasantries, he turned and walked up the street.

The trio lingered and talked amongst themselves. Mori tried not to listen, sort of. But he desperately needed to know more about this Haninozuka person. Their… sensei?

“Sensei was so...” Said the first one.

“I know! He’s been such a goddamn hardass at the dojo lately. I wasn’t expecting it.” The second offered.

“I was ready for him to beat us up right here on the sidewalk.” The third expressed, now relieved.

Mori was dumbfounded. This bubbly slip of a lad who giggled at baby ducks and was afraid to ask for a coffee without coffee... was apparently also a brutal martial arts teacher? He couldn’t possibly... and the name was familiar, but he couldn’t finish the thought.

Mori swam in his thoughts for a minute, completely adrift in the dissonance, before Tamaki finally caught his attention and brought him back to earth. “Mori-senpai!” he practically sang, “you left this winsome young lady before giving back her change~”

Mori’s eyes flashed and he looked back, embarrassed. “Very sorry, miss.”

“Um, well, I don’t mind!” she chirped. And she honestly hadn’t minded. He had been athletic and lithe --like an action hero-- when he vaulted himself over the counter, and it had made her think spicy thoughts she would never say aloud. Not something she had expected to experience during her trip to the nicest pastry shop in the ward, but it was a surprise she would treasure for years.

---

It was an agonizing week before Haninozuka came back into the patisserie.

Mori spent every shift that week dutifully doing his work, to the best of his ability. But his ability had degraded because a solid half of his brain was fixated on this mystery. Cute? Cruel? Sweets? Sensei? It consumed him, and he was beginning to hate himself for it. It had been much easier to do this job before he had someone he so looked forward to being around.

Then Mori caught himself. Sure, the work was easier before, when he had been habitually focused entirely on the tasks. Separating eggs. Measuring flour. Shaping butter into thick slabs. Pouring coffee and picking croissants out of the case. Even washing dishes. It had become a somewhat mindless rhythm.

But Haninozuka had made him want to come to work. It made the work feel more purposeful, somehow. It was like Mori had a specific audience in mind when he wiped tables. An audience he wanted to feel safe and comfortable and happy in his domain.

But what if Haninozuka was a bad person? Those three guys had been so sure that this was an unusual side to him. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for their comments to color his idea of this boy. But he also was afraid it would be foolish to not heed their words. Surely they knew their sensei better than Mori could possibly have gotten to in a handful of hours over a few days?

But eventually, he did come back.

This time, he was escorted by the trio from before, as well as a new face. The fourth person, who had similar facial features to Haninozuka, but was a bit taller than him, also had a permanent scowl topped with a grown out bowl cut and glasses, and he was nervously eyeing Haninozuka, watching to see what he would order.

Mori was ready to push the register icon for in the hot chocolate part of the order, and jumped ahead to asking “What pastry would you like today, sir?”

Haninozuka, looking resolute, jaw clenched and without the usual gleam in his warm eyes, stated plainly “I’ll take a plain croissant and black coffee today. Thank you.” The bowl cut kid visibly relaxed a little.

Mori felt the pain in his unusually flat voice, but only nodded. “Excellent choice. Is this together or separate?”

Once he finished taking the group order, they paid and left to go sit down at a pair of tables outside on the sidewalk, well away from the previously frequented pond-viewing seat.

Mori turned to the task at hand. He brought out a set of wooden half-trays, one for each order, and selected pastries for each guest while Haruhi got to work on the drinks. Mori used the tongs to pick up the plain croissant and paused. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It felt so wrong.

He put it back and selected a hazelnut and chocolate ganache filled croissant instead. It looked nearly identical on the outside, especially if you weren’t paying close attention. Only a small seam with chocolate peeking through could be noticed, and even then, that was on the bottom side of the pastry.

He then turned to Haruhi and said, without room for question, “make the black coffee a hot chocolate. And put all the drinks in to-go cups.”

Haruhi smiled, and used a marker to write “black” on the paper cup that would be destined to not, in fact, have any coffee in it whatsoever. She was already thinking similarly, but had been waiting for Mori to declare it officially.

Haruhi helped Mori carry the trays of drinks and pastries out to the sidewalk tables. He carefully placed the correct one in front of Haninozuka and gave a half smile. Haninozuka barely noticed, staring dead ahead, bracing himself for what would be an absolute trial of bitter drink and plain food. She distributed napkins and utensils appropriately. They both chimed “Thank you, please enjoy,” and turned to head back inside.

“Why don’t you wipe down table 3?” prompted Haruhi, who magically produced a clean damp rag and offered it to Mori. Table 3 was inside the shop, but aside from the large pane of clear glass, was right next to the sidewalk tables. The audio was barely muffled. Mori took the cloth and singlemindedly started wiping at a table that was cerftifiably already clean.

Haninozuka tremulously started with the pastry. He nibbled cautiously at one corner. He sighed.

Mori cursed silently. “You have to take a bigger bite to get to the filling!” he thought.

Haninozuka couldn’t bring himself to try a sip of black coffee yet. He went back to the croissant. This time a luscious double whammy of chocolate and hazelnut hit his tongue. His eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.

Haninozuka Yasuchika, his brother, was taking a bite of his own pastry and found the kouign-amann satisfactorily salty as well as only lightly sweet. He grabbed his latte and brought it to his lips, then paused. He couldn’t help himself. Squinting suspiciously through his glasses, which light glinted off of even though they were all fully sitting in the shade, he prodded verbally “what about your black coffee, Mitsukuni-san?”

Mori kept pushing the cleaning rag over a now polished strip of an already spotless table and watched intently. “Mitsukuni” he thought to himself. “A nice name. And… I feel like I know it?”

Mitsukuni tried to not lament the inevitable ruination of his surprisingly edible, nay delicious, croissant. He reached for his cup and brought it closer. Holding his breath, so as not to overpower his sense of taste, he sipped delicately. Yasuchika grinned.

“Why it is perfectly tasty, brother! As usual, I mean.” Mitsukuni smiled, practically florid.

Yasuchika was caught between doubt and relief. His alien brother had so obviously hated giving up sweet things this past month. How could anyone go from entire cakes to once piece of (albeit very nice) plain bread? And from the most syrupy, whipped cream-bedecked drinks to black coffee? It was an unprecendented transformation. But on the other hand, Yasuchika felt accomplished. He had singlehandedly pressured his older brother to reform his ways. It was for the best, obviously. What sort of dojo is led by someone who would do anything for a chocolate bar? The lack of self control was shameful.

The other three guys were completely oblivious to the intimate details of sugary drama. They had simply thought it would be a good idea to bring their sensei to the only place they had seen him happy in recent memory, as part of a quiet campaign to improve the captain’s mood. Practice had gotten shockingly intense this past week, and, if they were to survive next week they needed their sensei to ease off a touch. Not that they could EVER say so to his face.

Mori checked that Mitsukuni was happily enjoying his hot chocolate and pastry, and that Yasuchika remained none the wiser. Satisfied, he decided the table’s newly worn hole was deep enough and turned back to his work behind the service counter. Haruhi winked and said nothing.

---

It was almost another week before Mitsukuni came back to the patisserie. Mori had been more patient this time. He felt firmly confident that Mitsukuni would find his way back when he was ready.

And his patience was rewarded, in a way.

Mitsukuni staggered in, after dark and only twenty minutes before closing. His eyes were bleary and his countenance groggy and listless. Mitsukuni, usually so sprightly and upright, dragged his bookbag on the ground and pulled up to the duck-watching table. Mori wasn’t sure what to do. Hand the man a hot chocolate as usual? Or… ask how he was doing???

Mori decided to walk over and offer some direct, compassionate human interaction. “Good evening,” he said, simply.

Mitsukuni looked up, with dark circles under his eyes.

He slammed his hand on the table, which startled Mori for but a moment, and said “I wanna shot!”

“...” said Mori.

“Of chocolate syrup, I mean. Like, a couple pumps in an espresso glass.”

Mori left and came back in an inhumanly fast turnaround with exactly that, and offered the teeny glass full of viscous sugary syrup to Mitsukuni, who promptly sucked it down and smacked the glass upside down on the table. “Another!” he garbled.

Mori didn’t remember grabbing the entire syrup bottle, but it was in his hand already. He decided not to think too hard about that and just left the entire thing on the table and walked away, back to cleaning up behind the counter for the night.

Well after the shop closed, with most of the lights off, save for the one over the register, Mori was done closing with one exception. Mitsukuni was finishing the last of the chocolate syrup. He had perked up considerably, and was now waving his arms animatedly, talking fast about his troubles.

“And Chika-chan comes up to me, and says, you know what he says?” Mori did not know. “He says that real men don’t like sweet things! He tells me I won’t be able to get any respect from my men if I keep eating midnight cakes and carrying candies in my pockets!”

Mori assumed Chika-chan must be the grumpy boy in glasses from the other day. He couldn’t say he liked him, particularly. Or, to be more precise, he didn’t like anyone who dared tell Mitsukuni that his respectability was dependent on having “appropriate” and “masculine” interests.

Mitsukuni blurted out a final exclamation of “Chika doesn’t have the balls to talk shit about Usa-chan, though!” and he… passed out.

Mori didn’t know who this Usa-chan was, but he did know that the shop was closed and that Mitsukuni needed to go home. But where was home?

He decided to try something. He looked up the name “Mitsukuni” along with the words “Bunkyo ward” and “dojo.” The search results were conveniently helpful, offering a website that encouraged serious karate students to sign up under the tutelage of Haninozuka Mitskuni.

“Oh. He is really that Haninozuka,” Mori thought to himself. Ages ago, there had been a falling out between their families. Once a close bond through fealty and eventually marriage and bloodline between the Haninozuka and the Morinozuka families, had been broken a couple generations back. The stories we still told, the wounds still fresh. Mori hadn’t even thought about them as “real” since they had become more of a background radiation to his life than a pressing influence. Until today, that is.

He grabbed the leather book bag and slung it over his shoulder, and then picked Mitsukuni up gingerly. Mitsukuni remained unconscious, a few smears of chocolate around his mouth. A legendary sugar crash.

Mori locked up the shop, without even having to put the boy down. He walked towards the Haninozuka family dojo, which was close by.

The lights were on. It was fairly quiet on the grounds. Only once voice was shouting from inside the dojo training hall as they practiced the forms.

Mori called out. “Excuse me. I have your sensei.”

A surprised face poked out. It was Yasuchika. “My… sensei? Oh, you mean my brother, Mitsukuni.” He looked suspiciously at Mori. “Who are you? What did you do to him?”

“I work at the French pastry shop up the street. I didn’t do anything, he was just very very tired.”

Mori purposefully “forgot” to mention his name. And he didn’t want to stick around to find out what Yasuchika really thought of him, especially with their families at odds.

Instead, he gently deposited Mitsukuni’s slumbering form on a training mat and put the book bag down next to him. Mori looked into his calm, round face and committed it to memory. Then he issued a quick departing bow and turned away, leaving the compound. He didn’t look back with his eyes, but a small part of him looked forward with his heart, in a complicated way.

He couldn’t shake that, despite it all, he still wanted to see this Haninozuka back at his patisserie and cafe. He walked home, tired.