#otp: konpeito chou cream

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Nurse Café - Chapter 6/6: “Back to Normalcy, If Normalcy There Is“

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary:  After recovery comes coming clean to your friends about where on Earth you've been lately.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.7K words

Chapter Notes: Let Subaru Enstars Say Fuck. Writing Hokuto and Subaru banter has no rights to be this fun, I swear. Anyway! I started work on this chapter right after finishing the very first chapter in, what, July? I believe the first paragraph of this is older than the entirely of chapter 2, in fact. More on NC's origin story in the end notes. Because of how long this chapter has actually been in the works for, I'm afraid it sounds a little reconstituted and mashed together. Y'know, casual "I spent 6 months on this" issues and whatnot. I'm still terrified this is OOC, as I've honestly not watched Enstars in months by now and got carried away by my headcanons and AU-ing, but oh well. I hope you'll like

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Hokuto was walking down to his first class of the week, the one whose presentation he had eventually surrendered to and asked to postpone (not his proudest achievement), when he heard a very familiar sound: Subaru Akehoshi’s signature high-pitched voice resonated through the corridors, accompanied by ferocious-sounding footsteps rushing in his direction, lacking any kind of discretion or concern for whomever else may have had the misfortune to be sharing this very corridor with him.

 “Ho-kke!!”

Akehoshi jumped on him, wrapping his arm around his shoulders and almost making him tumble and fall. If his face wasn’t so naturally inexpressive, someone else would have noticed the panic suddenly enlacing his mind.

“Back off, Akehoshi,” he responded to the assault, watching his friend get down and walk next to him.

“You usually bite harder than that, Hokke! What’s up? It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other!”

“…it’s been, what, a week at most? I wouldn’t call that ‘a while’.”

“It’s just not the same without you, Hokke! I’ve missed you friend!”

To be fair, he had missed Akehoshi and simply didn’t want to admit it to the latter’s face. Doing that was like yearning to be discredited. He’d have to work on that dishonesty of his later.

“I suppose so,” he replied with some doubt lingering (truly, someone as much of a social butterfly as Akehoshi couldn’t have missed him that much, right?).

 “Hey, Hokke, tell me something! What’s happened to you? You’ve disappeared from the surface of the planet, Ukki and I got worried, and Sally wouldn’t tell us anything about your whereabouts! Anzu seemed really worried about you too…”

Oh God, was this guy really going all out on him? Was it legally allowed to embarrass someone in public like that?

“It’s a long story,” he half-heartedly replied.

Akehoshi’s glaze didn’t let up. He was coming for actual answers and Hokuto wasn’t all too keen on giving it to him in public like that. He had somewhat of an image to keep as a student representative in the university, he found that important to keep for himself, and this excitable boy wouldn’t do that. Not while he was alive, at least.

 Suddenly, more footsteps came in their direction, prompting them to both turn around. Coming towards them were Anzu and Isara with Yuuki trailing not far from them. All shone a smile, to which Akehoshi replied with more excitement. Truly, this guy seemed unstoppable and always full of energy. Hokuto suddenly found himself somewhat envious of this, before focusing back on the incoming conversation, wondering how he’d unbury himself from having to reveal why he had gone missing for an entire week.

“Hello everyone!” Anzu said in their direction, her lovely smile as on point as always.

“Hi everyone!” Yuuki continued, waving at them, Isara doing the same right afterwards.

Akehoshi rushed towards them. Well, there was nothing better to do than follow him, he supposed… At least, it’d be a good way to begin returning to normalcy.

 As they walked back in the direction to their classes, questions rose up.

“Ah, Hidaka, you’re back!” Yuuki noted with a bright smile. “Where have you been all that time?”

“Yeah, Hokke, where in the world were you?! Our routine doesn’t work the same if it’s without you, y’know!”

He didn’t know if he should have been flattered or offended to that remark.

“I had…” How was he supposed to lie about the reason without actually lying about it either? “I had a lot of things to take care of.”

“Still,” Yuuki makes another note, albeit his tone drops in happiness, “you weren’t there on Tuesday for your own presentation! The prof didn’t know what to do with you missing, he hadn’t seen that coming.”

“Frankly, never did I,” Akehoshi added. “A day without Hokke around isn’t a normal day!”

They were pushy, but he couldn’t hold it against them. He had vanished for an entire week, after all, of course they’d ask about it.

“Hokuto, I think it’s time you tell them what’s actually happened. We’ve respected you not wanting us to do that on our terms, but… These two were worried sick you know!” Isara finished to convince him.

 Despite the embarrassment already piling up in the back of his mouth, Hokuto nonetheless cleared his throat and tried finding the exact right words. He’d have liked to keep that awkward week in the sands of time, but alas, the peer pressure happened to be a little too strong to withstand.

“I, hmm…,” yeah, no, that remained hard to put into words, “may have collapsed last Friday night.”

A thick silence settled. While Isara and Anzu exchanged slightly awkward glances, Akehoshi and Yuuki had be shut for good, the former blinking furiously and the second staring with a distraught expression and agape mouth.

“W-wait, really?! L-like, collapsed-collapsed?!”

“Yes, that kind.”

“What the fuck Hokke.”

“Huh… Y-yeah, what h-he – what Akehoshi said,” Yuuki added with a tiny, clearly confused laugh.

 He scratched the back of his head. This was making him maybe more nervous than the entire process of making that cancelled presentation…

“I don’t exactly remember much from it.”

“Let me do that recap for you then,” Isara suddenly chimed in. “Friday night, you went into a café, realized you picked the wrong one, ordered an espresso at eleven in the evening, passed out on Anzu who was supposed to close the shop, and she tended to you for most of Saturday afterwards.” (Did he have to mention that? He could see Anzu growing red as he said that). “I think that’s all you need to know guys!”

Hokuto wanted to bury his face in his hands and disappear right here and there; alas, miracles didn’t exist, did they.

 “You do look much better than when I last saw you, though, Hokuto!” Isara resumed the conversation.

“Mao is right! You really do look better, I promise,” Anzu added, and if it wasn’t his fever coming back, then he didn’t think he’d like to acknowledge what it was. “You still look a little tired though, are you sure you should be attending class right away?”

“It’s only a couple of lectures, nothing I can’t pull through.”

“…Do I need to remind you that you said that about your presentation too, Hokuto…?”

 That made Yuuki jolt in place.

“Wait, you ran yourself sick just for that presentation?!”

“Unlike what Isara is saying, it’s not just that presentation.”

“Speaking of that presentation, Makoto, do you remember for what subject it was?”

“I think it was for the History class. I mostly remember the prof looking kind of pissed…”

“So that was the subject this was for! Hokuto didn’t quite remember it and I was curious.”

“Wait, Hokke, you didn’t remember that when Anzu asked?!”

“Man, Hidaka, you really must have been exhausted to the bone to forget something like that…”

Everyone was trying to kill him, especially Akehoshi’s barely contained amused giggling.

“Anzu, why did… That didn’t amuse you back there!”

She gave him a glance, suddenly much calmer, her smile dropping.

“That was because it meant there was a ton of problems on your end, Hokuto. Come on, do you think that was a normal thing?”

“I never said the opposite…”

“I know. I just try to make that amusing because, frankly, you scared us all to death, not just Mao and I.”

“Oh, yeah,” Akehoshi added, “you don’t even know how much Ukki and I asked about you for days! These two really wouldn’t tell us much even if they did!”

“Sorry for that again, guys. Hokuto really insisted on us not telling, or at least, he mumbled about that in his sleep…”

“I actually remember asking you that, Isara. I wasn’t entirely braindead.”

Akehoshi and Yuuki looked thoroughly confused. This was at least proof that they had successfully been kept out of the loop.

 “Still,” Yuuki asked, “why didn’t you want us to know? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“I don’t think you’d ever want to see what unfolded there.”

“Well duh! Of course we don’t wanna see you be sick beyond your mind or somethin’ Hokke! Anzu and Sally talk about it as if you were gonna die!”

“Plus, we’re friends. Isn’t the whole point of friendship to help each other out in times of need?”

“They’re right, Hokuto,” Isara completed their argument. “You were also helping your grandma at the time, right? The poor woman looked worried for your life back there!”

“This was merely me fulfilling my obligations as her grandson. Still, I suppose you are right. I obviously couldn’t have survived that alone.”

“I think we can all testify to that…” Isara seemed a little jaded, but nonetheless smiled again as he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “So, next time, don’t hesitate to call for us when you need help, ’kay? We really don’t want you to run yourself to the ground like that again!”

The three others hummed and nodded almost in unison. All he could react with was a sigh and a tiny smile (that was most likely not even visible on his stiff face).

“Lesson learnt.”

 Their conversation eventually took its usual course, deviating (to his relief) to other topics. By the end of the main hallway, he found himself with only Anzu, the both of them heading towards different rooms almost facing each other.

“Ah, before I forget. Thank you very much for… all of this, Anzu. I don’t even want to know where I’d be right now if it wasn’t for you.”

“As much as I also don’t want to imagine that, I’d have said an ER. Again, really, Hokuto, you don’t need to thank me so politely! It’s a normal thing for friends to do. You’ve done that for me before, haven’t you?”

“That’s true…” (And these weren’t such good memories, as it mostly reminded him of bitter concern).

“Just avoid doing that next time you feel in a pinch, okay? I’m sure we’ll all be glad to help. I know I will…” Her voice trailed off and so did her eyes, looking in the distance. He naïvely started doing so as if someone or something would arrive.

“I’ll make sure to, then.”

 They stared at each other, red, for a couple moments before Anzu snapped out of it first.

“Ah, sorry, my class starts real soon! See you around, Hokuto!”

“See you later then.”

As they went on their separate ways, he could only confirm something: if his heart was beating this profusely, it had to mean he had very clearly come down with another illness altogether. In hopes that, just like his collapse, Anzu could help him fix his own issues…

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Nurse Café - Chapter 5/6: “Recovery is Nothing but a Filler Arc”

PREVIOUS CHAPTER / NEXT CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary: Hokuto finds the process of recovery boring. This is a snippet into this very boredom.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.7K words.

Chapter Notes: Lmao @ my shitty updating schedule (which isn't a thing to begin with). It's technically filler content, but I felt bad about not having at least some snippets into a recovery process and, of course, more pining because who doesn't like pining. I like writing with a lot of sarcasm and this fic is the perfect occasion for it lol. My goal is to actually finish Nurse Café before 2020 rolls around, so we shall see if the last chapter comes out before the new year arrives! (I doubt it, but you know, a week can be enough for this).

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Recovery was a boring process. A necessary, absurdly boring process.

He supposed it depended on what you needed to recover from. If you only had to recover from a cold, it could be a good occasion to feel cosy: buried under the covers, a cup of hot chocolate in hand, watching some TV programs while a humidifier tried to keep your nose from clogging up… Alas, he wasn’t recovering from a cold at all and must have been in the most boring kind of recovery: the one where he wasn’t well enough to do anything interesting, but not dying enough not to be aware of how much he was wasting his time as he flopped in bed like a fish out of the water.

 At least, and yet a little to his dismay, his grandmother had insisted to watch over him when his friends couldn’t. Sure, she was out of her cast and had recovered her full mobility, but she shouldn’t have been there. He was supposed to do this thing on his own, not get babied all over again. It tasted like failure and disappointment in himself, as if the entire situation wasn’t worth being untrusting of his capabilities.

However, a major part of him was grateful for her to be such a watchful caretaker. It was his fault if he had landed there, he admitted to that fact without hesitation (albeit not without swallowing his pride in for good measure), so he could have been expected to fix his own mistake by himself like a good boy; and yet Grandma was here, tending to him each time he’d open his eyes during the day. He’d have to find a way to thank her later down the line…

 Truth be told, he was relieved that people were checking up on him. In that state of his, his body barely agreed to move out of the bed, and if it accepted, then it’d only be for short spurts of time. The festering headache raging in his skull really didn’t help in the slightest, instead profiting from his incredible vulnerability to do its thing. The more time went and the less he felt that way, usually trapped in a deep daze for most of the time, overthinking things when he was conscious enough to do that. A… fascinating time to be had in perspective, huh.

If it wasn’t Grandma, it was his friends from university. More exactly, two friends: Isara and Anzu. He had specifically for them not to tell anyone else, as he wanted to preserve a little bit of his credibility within the academic premise. It was mostly about food, medicine and cleaning stuff here and there. Before his glassy eyes, the papers on his floor finally disappeared, piling neatly on the desk as he heard conversations without participating. They made recovery less of a chore to go through.

 The only times where he didn’t feel like he was throwing his precious time of the window was when people came in and kept him intellectually awake. Day after day, for an entire week, his favourite moments were still those where Anzu was there, sitting on a chair next to him or simply minding her own business somewhere else in his flat. If his brain wasn’t too confused, she’d stay here more than Grandma and Isara, especially the second as he was permanently busy (he could swear he had heard Anzu making sure he too wasn’t overworked beyond his own mind. Isara only chuckled awkwardly at that).

He’d usually see her do things around, mostly her homework, sometimes something else. After spending almost an entire day sleeping and dazing when he wasn’t unconscious, he could finally truly watch her do things and hum some of her favourite pop songs. She was the most pleasant thing about his recovery, as he could spend some time with her without any major disturbance. He’d never admit it openly, though, because then he’d never see it get lived down.

It felt warmer whenever she was in the room too… Must have been his temperature and the awful sentiment it brought upon him.

 The first time he tried to rise out of bed, it was to help Anzu with putting away some groceries and pay her back for these, and she immediately dropped her bottle of dish soap to pin his shoulders back onto the mattress. Would have it not been such a situation, having her on top of him like that would have surely sent him into a daze; instead, Hokuto was glad to blame the sudden burn in his cheeks on what was left of his fever and shook the other ideas away. God, she did look like she was blushing as she realized how cliché their position had been, but it must have been out of embarrassment… Nothing more than that.

He did retry later in the day, after the nth nap he had taken in the last two days (at least, he thought it had been two days? He didn’t exactly have any screen to check the date on to set straight his scrambled perception of time). Once again, Anzu jumped on him, urging him not to overdo it, albeit they had come to a silent compromise: he could sit up now. It was unbelievable than even such a simple gesture still made his head spin like that. At least, it was stabilizing, so he figured his gyroscope had somewhat fixed itself. How fragile had he made himself, exactly?

 With some more patience, brought upon him by the screams of the body he couldn’t ignore much anymore and everyone’s smiles and words, he had finally reached a point where he could at least wash himself in peace and not risk opening his frontal lobe on the slippery tiles of the shower. If Grandma and Anzu still insisted to make him his food, he started biting back, albeit as hard as a new-born puppy, much to his chagrin and somewhat to Isara’s amusement.

 “I’ve never asked you about that, but I’m curious,” the latter asked him when the three of them were around his table with some fried noodles for dinner. “How in the hell did you put yourself in that situation, Hokuto? It really doesn’t resemble you to be this… careless?”

“Haven’t you asked me that before?”

“Mao has, but you may have… replied with nothing but nonsense, when he did…” Anzu chimed in, scratching her chin with an awkward smile.

He felt his embarrassment rise up in his throat again, but instead decided to clear his throat and brush it aside as much as possible.

“Things piled up, I suppose. I was making a presentation with a tight deadline and taking care of my grandmother who had broken her foot. It got out of control much more than I had anticipated.”

“Why didn’t you ask us to help then?” Isara seemed genuinely confused, or at least curious.

“Both Anzu and you were already busy, and I sincerely doubt Akehoshi would have made anything better for my grandma. Yuuki seemed busy enough as it was too, now that I think about it.”

Truth be told, Hokuto had no real answer to give and it must have felt by his two friends, considering the looks of disbelief they gave each other before realizing they’d both be late to class if they didn’t eat any faster.

 By the end of the week, life was finally back to what it should have been. It still hadn’t prevented Hokuto from disobeying doctor’s orders (he didn’t remember getting examined at any point, but if Anzu was telling him so, then it must have happened at some point…) and grabbing his laptop to write some mails here and there. Braving the headache the brightness of the screen was providing him with, he attempted explaining himself to his prof for his sudden disappearance with his presentation in hand.

Apparently, he had written nothing but gibberish, and that was more than enough to convey to the prof how unwell he had been. He guessed it was convenient, in a way…

 He made sure to thank everyone as much as possible. Unexpectedly, Grandma told him it was her mission as a grandparent to take care of him, especially after he had done so for her; and he felt too humbled to respond anything against that. Isara more or less told him the same, saying it was normal for friends to help each other and that they needed to do so anyway, that he didn’t mind. The amused smirk on this man’s lips as he said that more or less indicated that he had gotten some amusement out of the situation. As soon as he got noticed, though, Isara told him he had been worried and that it was good to see a buddy go back to normalcy. They agreed on that statement.

Still, how could he thank Anzu for all of her services? She had done a ton for him and he had no real way to get back to her on that. She had spent a lot of her precious time trying to fix his mistakes and didn’t spare her words when it came to convincing him that resting was what he truly needed and that it was okay for him not to force himself out of bed this quickly. It really didn’t help that his feelings were having a rave party in the back of his mind…

 “You don’t have to thank me or pay me back,” Anzu responded. “At least, don’t feel forced to do so. I was just happy to take care of a friend!”

The pink on her cheeks was back. Did he happen to still have some fever lingering and playing with his senses?

“I’m just glad you’re alright now. You really scared me when you collapsed like that, you know?”

“I’m pretty sure I do.”

“You better do! I don’t want to see that happen to you again, so I hope you’ve learnt the lesson… You’ll be fine from now on, right?”

“I should be. Thank you very much again, Anzu.”

“And you’re still welcome, it’s the third time you thank me in five minutes! Take care, okay? I’d hate to see you this sick again. See you soon!”

“See you soon.”

On that she left, her smile and her perfume leaving the premise of his previously fatigue-riddled flat. It made up for ideal circumstances to realize something: Hokuto was afraid he’d have to soon deal with a whole other kind of sickness.

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Nurse Café - Chapter 4/6: “Questions Aren‘t the Aspirin of the Soul”

PREVIOUS CHAPTER / NEXT CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary: Hokuto has too many questions and Anzu only has one answer to all of them.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.6K words

Chapter Notes: Well that was a quick update. My inspiration is a trickster, I swear. I forgot to make it clear in this chapter, but it's set the same day as the previous one, albeit in the evening. But also, *more pining*, because I've been in a pining mood lmao, I hope y'all appreciate it

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As soon as he stepped in his flat, Hokuto wondered why he had been so rejoiced to go back to it.

Truth be told, he only vaguely remembered what had been happening around him before his eventual collapse in a coffeeshop. He absolutely didn’t think his place would be in such a miserable state: papers were scattered around the floor, his bed was unmade (but why would he have remade it in the first place? It wasn’t like he had been using it much, these past few days), there were empty cups of coffee piling on his desk and he was certain he had forgotten to do the dishes at some point. Better be starting to clean up now if he wanted to take a nap…

 “Wait, what are you doing?” Anzu asked as she grabbed his wrist, reeling him back.

“I can’t let you see my place like this,” he replied, hands twitching to clean. “Not after what you’ve done for me.”

“Have you forgotten you were sick in the first place? I’ll take care of it, you just go lie down…” Her eyes drifted to the bed, then across the room, and her face started to contort in confusion, “wherever you can…”

He sighed, knowing this was a battle he couldn’t win, not now at least. His head was spinning enough as it was.

“I’ll just… quickly fix that mess. I’ll clean up later.”

“That’s already better.”

 He clearly didn’t remember making a bed being this draining. Even then, he was in luck: only the sheet of the mattress and pillow were unmade, making it less work that he had expected. It still didn’t prevent him from pathetically dropping dead on it when he was finished, dizziness overcoming him, as he realized he really couldn’t have cleaned the entire flat from the state he had left it in. Too bad Anzu was the one who had to see it like this, he’d have much preferred it to be Akehoshi or Yuuki… even if they’d have been right to call him out on it.

Despite what he had been busy doing the day before, he still felt awkward at the idea of sleeping here and there when he, technically, had a guest. He was being a terrible host for sure and, in a way, he was trying to be less terrible at it, albeit in vain and with very little improvements. Moving felt like a chore and yet, and yet, he couldn’t bear seeing her on the floor picking up papers he didn’t remember printing, let alone reading.

 “Do you always work this much on your presentations, Hokuto?” She mused as she read some of them, glancing at him with what may have been a mix of concern and… awe? It wasn’t clear.

“Not all… That one was the main grade for that course, so I wanted to put more work into it…”

“On what was it? For what course?”

“Hah…” Damn. “I… don’t remember.”

“You… don’t remember…?”

“I’m… I’m blanking out. I think it was for the history course, but that’s all I can remember…”

Anzu was staring at him, dumbfounded, disgusted.

“It’s worse than I thought.”

 She then fell into silence, quickly gathering the last few papers left on the floor and making them into a neat pile on his desk, right before throwing away the empty cups. He couldn’t quite see her face from where he was, head trying to bury itself in his pillow, yet the tension remained. He had disappointed her, hadn’t he? In their group of friends, he had always liked thinking of himself as the level-headed one, who could be relied on with no problem, and yet he was the one who had fainted right in front of her because he had let his life tangle into a nightmare of knots. Talk about being a hypocrite.

He felt another kind of sick as he continued watching her, helpless. Of course he’d have fallen for someone like her, who shone much brighter than he did, eyes sparkling even while she did his dirty work, washing dishes that weren’t hers without a complaint. She’d probably be gone by the afternoon, and he’d be left alone again, and it was better this way, he knew it; yet the capricious part of him wanted her to remain, as if she didn’t have a life of her own, realizing how near yet faraway she was from him.

He honestly didn’t deserve her.

 Deep in thoughts and getting taken over by lethargy, he almost didn’t hear her leave the main room and come back, empty boxes in her hands to dispose of them. She seemed not angry, like he had expected, but still bothered by something. Him, he then supposed, before realizing that was quite the egocentric thought. He couldn’t read her mind and he needed to get over that as soon as possible.

“Your bathroom was kind of… disorganized,” she suddenly said as she walked up to him, soon sitting on the chair she had picked from the table and put by the bed. “You had medicine boxes scattered around, all of them empty. How many of these headache pills did you take a day?”

“…I lost track…”

“I suppose you’ve not overdosed on them, considering you’re still here, but it’s still worrisome to hear you say that. Please, never do that again.”

“Wasn’t planning on to, frankly.”

It got a smile out of her.

“Good.”

 He could barely look at her, chest tightening every time he tried to, either out of shame or of something else he still wouldn’t admit to feeling. His face was burning, half from the fever that didn’t want to disappear and half from his own heart being set on fire. Her smile soothed and worsened the pain at the same time, alternating from beat to beat. He wanted to take her hand in his and feel its relaxing coldness against his entire being who felt too warm.

He still couldn’t get his head wrapped around the idea that Anzu had wanted to do this all on her own. He was annoyed and disappointed with himself already, tired of being this sluggish and this much of a mess, how could she do something like this for someone else? Well, stupid question if he tried to revert it, because he’d give up on almost everything to take care of her if she ever needed an aide by her side, but it didn’t help the interrogation from festering in his mind.

 The question annoyed him so much that he ended acting upon it.

“Anzu?”

She rose her head from the book she was reading, most likely a handbook for class.

“Yes?”

“Why are you doing all this…?”

Her hands immediately shut the book without making sure the bookmark was still in place.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

 Her answer shut him down immediately. His brain was still too tired to process even getting responded like this, beyond uncertain of what he was supposed to expect or say back, or if he was expected to give feedback to begin with.

Why wouldn’t she? That made so little sense, even if he reversed the question. He’d undoubtedly help her because, well, every fibre of his being wouldn’t have borne leaving her to an illness (or any ill, in fact). Why would she do that? Even as his friend, perhaps his closest, she’d have looked at least a bit annoyed by it. Maybe she felt obligated because he had fainted in the coffeeshop she worked in specifically? Maybe she felt bad because he did look pathetic. Maybe not helping him out was considered a crime for not coming to the aid of someone needing it.

Thinking without getting any answer out of it about it was giving him a migraine, yet her eyes didn’t stop looking directly into his, and he felt like he could have melted right here and there.

 “It’s nothing complicated, Hokuto, really,” she sighed. “I didn’t even think about it twice.”

“Aren’t you even… bothered?”

“I’m honestly more bothered about how little you cared about yourself during that time than by doing all of this.”

He didn’t have anything to say nor add, instead sinking into his covers. Did she care this much to do all of this without even minding any drawback?

“It’ll be fine, I promise. Just rest, okay? We can talk about all these things once you’re back to your usual self,” she told him, smiling softly, hand brushing against the one he hadn’t buried under the blanket. That was, until her fingers stopped moving and her smile dropped. “Wait, are you crying?”

“It’s… nothing. I just get… emotional when I’m… sick.” His voice was too hesitant to his own tastes. He had always been a terrible actor, but this wasn’t the moment for the Masked Pervert’s words to be proven right. It really wasn’t.

 She handed him not any tissue, but her handkerchief. He took it without hesitating for long, even if it stayed in his hand for a little moment before she nodded in agreement to what he was about to do with it.

“I feel like there’s something more to it, but for now, it’s fine. I wish you a steady recovery from now on.”

“You’re leaving…?”

“Not yet, but soon. I have work tomorrow morning, but I’ll make sure to come by when I’m done there. Is it fine with you?”

He nodded before handing her back her handkerchief. With a simple move, she declined.

“Keep it for now. I need it less than you do.”

A wordless acceptance, then a whispered “thank you”. Her smile was brighter than ever.

“You’re welcome.”

 This love thing would be the end of him, that much was sure, but he’d comply for now, if it meant bathing in this comfortable warmth, beamed on by the sun, even if it worsened the fire already ignited inside his chest.

It may have happened not to look this one-sided either, even if he wouldn’t get his hopes very high.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Nurse Café - Chapter 1/6: “You’re Not Supposed to Drink Coffee This Late, Sir”

NEXT CHAPTER

Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There's, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

Wordcount: 1.5K words

Notes: C'mon, the occasion was too tempting for me not to title this fic after the real banger that is Susumu Hirasawa's masterpiece, "Nurse Café".

Your boi is working on his big-ass Arc-V fic project, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and writing a nice little sickfic. AKA: I'm bursting that fandoms's door like I've always done, which is with a sickfic nobody wanted but me (and maybe my friend @nehamerchant123 who got me into this mess in the first place) (btw go check her cake business, she’s working on her cardd page for it)

I've been into this game's characters for a whole three weeks but I am not giving a shit I am doing this. I also don't know anything about colleges at all in any part of the world, I don't even know the Sorbonne because I've been there like thrice and it's always been in the same parts anyway (to be fair, I'm not even attending it yet lmao) It's very self-indulgent so it's short and split in two, I dunno, I may combine the two chapters some other day. It's probably also OOC, but whatever yeet

AO3 version available here.

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On second thought, his life may have been a mess, lately. For someone who liked organization, keeping a pace and thinking everything thoroughly to reach as much perfection as possible, he sure had allowed things to get messy without meaning to. To be fair to himself, problems had started piling up suddenly and at an incredible speed, to the point he didn’t know in what order he should have attempted fixing them: should he prioritize taking care of his grandmother who broke her leg not too long ago, his studies increasing in volume or his club duties, even if his leader was getting on his nerves with his weird, nonsensical shenanigans?

At first, he tried managing everything at once, but after some weeks of pulling almost-all-nighters, he decided to seek alternatives. It didn’t quite work out as planned, but at least, he had found a way to survive the storm for now: the local coffeeshop’s espressos. For someone who used to be so on-the-nose with his health, that was a strange choice, sure, but being friends with people like Subaru Ahehoshi made one adaptable and needing to find solutions quickly, if just temporary.

Not that he didn’t hate relying on coffee in the first place.

 His new routine, solidified by a couple months spent tuning it to maximize time use and task efficiency (albeit it was still a bit stiff, like he had always been), consisted of doing the most he can, not fall onto his bed and immediately find sleep before getting woken up by his own anxiety, and continue on his day by getting a cup of coffee in the same café, each time, to the same cashier. It was always the same order in the same place at similar hours of the evening, which gave it a sense of comfort he wasn’t against in times where he wasn’t sure how he should have asked for help. All of what he was doing is stuff he was supposed to be doing by himself, after all: he shouldn’t have needed someone else’s help for that, didn’t need to bring them through the mud with him (even if Isara had offered to help him, he had always declined: Isara may have very well been the only man he knew that had constantly been busier than him).

His grandma has told him before to lay it off, to let her do her thing and for him to focus on himself. While he intended on forcing himself not to barge into her life constantly, he quickly found himself doing it again even after her scolding: he just couldn’t not worry over it, he had to check if she was doing fine and if she was getting the hang of things. Ah, how thick-headed he’s been!

(In a way, maybe he put himself in that mess to begin with. Should have applied his own advice and tasted his own medicine).

 With a presentation dooming over his head for the next week and more drama club shenanigans, he had gotten backed in a corner: it was either researching for the entire night or risk getting an awful grade that’d sink his results to the bottom of the sea. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, he had gone for the first option, albeit he was starting to think this may not have been the greatest idea he had ever had. (Actually, far from it). Still, that presentation wouldn’t write itself on its own, so he went for it and spent a night or two working on that while occupying his daytime with taking care of his grandma (who’s soon out of having her feet stuck in some cast, thank God for that) and club business and other college-related catastrophes strolling around in his life.

It was with a pounding headache and stumbling feet that he made it out of his flat and into the campus, heading straight for the café he always got his precious cup of coffee in (he was hesitating to put aspirin in the cup itself, but that sounded like a terrible idea, and he had left his aspirin tablets in his flat anyway), ignoring the gazes around him (it was easier to do when his sight is half-blurry to begin with). Once he was done with that necessary loss of time, he’d be able to come back to his actual work and that until he’d be finished with it. If he was productive enough, he should have been done with that presentation’s slideshow by the time 5AM hits.

 He entered the café, heard an unfamiliar bell ring immediately as he opened and closed the door, and went straight for the counter like a drunkard entering a tavern. He didn’t care about it in the slighest: he pulls out his yens from his pocket, slams them on the counter and asks, in a groggy voice he doesn’t like to hear to himself, “hello, I’d like an espresso, please”, with the least charisma he could have mustered because he was that tired and he just wanted to be over with that damn presentation already.

It was only when he rose his eyes to face the barista that he realized he had entered the wrong café, right as he faced a high school classmate, friend, and probably something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on, whom had never worked at his usual café. He didn’t say anything, but gulped and swallowed his pride back in, and payed for his espresso by pushing the coins anyway (Ahehoshi would have jumped on the counter to get them: they were undeniably shinier than they should have been).

 “Good evening, sir, thank you for com…”

Silence.

“Hokuto, is that you?!”

That voice was no mistake: this was Anzu, from the Management course. This was going to be painful…

“Ah… Yeah…?” Oh God. What was he supposed to tell her? That he didn’t even know where he was walking anymore? That this was all a giant misunderstanding on his part?  “Yeah.”

“I’m not used to seeing you around here? How are you?”

“…Fine.” Something was missing. “I hope you’re doing well too.”

That wasn’t really good dialogue. Not that Anzu picked up in it: she was probably too busy trying to do her job.

“Here you go, Hokuto…” She put his cup on the counter and picked his coins. “You’re sure you should be drinking that at this time of the day? It’s late and you’ll have a hard time sleeping if you drink that now.” Then she muttered to herself: “looks like you’d benefit from a good night’s sleep too…”

“Thank you, have a goodnight.”

 He picked his cup and went to a table, legs feeling faint. There was nobody still around in the café: clearly, unlike his usual 24/7 place where there always was someone living in the night (the Sakuma brothers trying to avoid each other but finding themselves in the same place and Hajime taking part-time jobs were the firsts to come to his mind), this was a daytime place and he was all aone, stuck with his pounding headache and Anzu cleaning before closing. He had something like fifteen minutes to drink his fuming coffee and get out of there, but even his hands felt sluggish and unresponsive.

Maybe he really wanted to throw that presentation out of the window and just sleep for the next three days. He didn’t even know what he was doing anymore anyway.

 After a few moments, he watched with bleary eyes and eyelids closing on their own Anzu walked to him and sit on the opposite side of the table, staring at him with an expression he couldn’t really read, before her hand arrived on his forehead. It was cold, unnaturally so, and he wondered if she didn’t have blood circulation problems like he was worried he could have had before. Yet, despite his rising concerns, he still let himself lean into it, too tired to really pay attention to how he was behaving. That was bad, awful even. He needed to gulp his coffee, so he did, burnt his tongue and throat, and was about to pack it when he noticed she was still staring at him.

“I… I need to go, is there something wrong?” He asked, hoping this would be enough.

“You…”

Huh. Okay.

“I’m leaving now, I’ll let you close the sh—”

 Black dots appeared in his sight as soon as he got up and he felt his body plunge forward, hand slipping instead of grabbing at the table, vision blurring until all he could feel was hands wrapping themselves around him and faint, muffled sounds resonating in the distance.

It was all over, wasn’t it? He couldn’t move nor feel anymore, right? What a way to end his rush… What way to finish the evening that he was supposed to finish his presentation on… That was his way to go? Huh… Not like he could resist against his own body finally turning on him.

 He had failed in a dramatic fashion, that was for sure.

And, to be honest, he kind of hated it.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Nurse Café - Chapter 2/6: “Of Fogged-Up Screens and Downgraded Sensors“

PREVIOUS CHAPTER / NEXT CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary: Waking up in someone else's bed with no real recollection of previous events is bound to confuse everyone out of their already confused mind.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.5K words

Chapter Notes: Ya boi's bacc after working for like 2 days in a row non-stop on not-so-secret-anymore project BWI, please excuse me for the late update. But hey, it's HokuAn fluff and a visit to my roots so! hell yeah! This is frankly cheesy but hey what more can I say? I just really like shippy, simple sickfics dude lmao Also was I supposed to find out on my own that Subaru's surname is "Akehoshi" and not "Ahehoshi"? I even transliterated it in the Greek alphabet wrong because of that, peak dumbassery

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Despite the lack of clear memories, he knew something was weird the moment it all felt fuzzy around him as soon as he woke up. It just wasn’t something that happened to him often: usually, getting up in the morning was merely a task to accomplish, a minor thing he wouldn’t have thought even once about and, clearly, wouldn’t have had any difficulty handling said task.

It wasn’t limited to just a weird case of short-term amnesia. As it stood, his entire surroundings were unfamiliar: through his slightly clogged nose, he could tell the sent around him was familiar, but not his flat’s, not even his grandma’s. His visuals were blurry and inexact, but he could still swear under the oath that it was unlike anything he had ever seen, let alone slept in. Where was he, exactly, and why?

 Right as he thought about sitting up and sightseeing the room for himself to determine where he could possibly be, a pounding headache came back with all of his previously lost memories. Oh, right, he had gone out to get a coffee, got mistaken in his cafés, and Anzu had asked him if he was fine. After that, nothing: in the end, had he drunk his coffee? Presumably not, considering he was waking up and not working on this presentation he had sworn to finish tonight. Mission failed there. He’d have to retry next time, perhaps now, even if…

He had to admit defeat there. His entire body felt like lead. In fact, on second thought, he wasn’t even sure if he could hold a pencil or even sit up. If a tight-knit schedule, a mile-long of obligations and excessive amounts of caffeine of a questionable quality had managed to keep him afloat for a short while, the inevitable happened: he was experiencing an exhaustion crash leaving him to be even less productive than a broken computer whose keyboard had been smashed into a wall, bearing an interface that had gotten corrupted during a forced shutdown.

 He could continue on the metaphor for a while, considering he wasn’t feeling able to even lift a finger, with his head as the only part he could tilt. It had felt like a shutdown because he had run out of battery, completely cessing to function until he could recover what he had lost in great quantities over an extended period of time. Not that anyone could have been able to do something against the issue that wouldn’t have taken time: in these moments, he was finally understanding how much people were frustrated when their phone was discharged.

Time sure seemed like a nice thing to have and not just endlessly run out of, huh…

 Voices in the distance. Echoing footsteps from far, far away, perhaps from a corridor nearby. Like everything else, they felt distorted and unfamiliar, until they weren’t: once the distance had reduced between him and the rest of the world, he could distinguish Isara and Anzu’s voices chatting about something, tone impossible to identify. He wasn’t even sure if those actually were their voices or someone else’s, albeit Anzu’s voice had left an important-enough impact on his mind for him to be certain he wasn’t getting mistaken there.

Trying to grasp onto the last of his memories and the few clear thoughts he could produce, Hokuto realized one thing: if he wasn’t at his place, he had to go back there, no matter what crazy and improbable situation he had found himself in. Akehoshi and Yuuki had dragged him in enough weird affairs for him to know exactly what could happen: in a way, this is just yet another wacky situation his friends had gotten him in.

But, when he tried to get up and get moving, his body didn’t bulge from a centimetre, his arms having failed him, his head having become too heavy for his neck to transport across the campus. Wherever he was, he was there for a while. Now if that wasn’t just amazing.

 “You’re awake!” Anzu’s voice had suddenly teleported right next to his ear, almost making him jump (or, at least, making him bob his head in surprise. It was weird to jump from getting scared when your body couldn’t otherwise move).

She put a cold hand on his forehead, brushing loose strands of hair aside. It was one of the oddest feelings to get: when he’d have the occasion to touch her skin, for any reason, she’d have the warmer fingers of them both. He had always been told to have been born a cold-blooded person, quite literally so: was this what Anzu felt every time he worried about his blood circulation? It had no right to have felt this soothing.

 “A… Anzu…?” His voice sounded groggy. Awful. Dry. The shadow of its own self, truly. He was almost ashamed to speak in such a fatigued, slowed-down tone. It sounded no better than absolute trash. “Where’m I…?” His words were slurring too, how delightful.

“At my place. I guess it must be confusing you to wake up in someone else’s bed…” She shone him a timid smile, shoulders rising a little with a nervous twitch. “How are you feeling?”

“…t’rble…”

“I’d have guessed… You really have Mao and me a scare! He told me you should be all good in a few days, but as your friends, we can’t help but worry, you know?”

“I… Isara was…?”

“Mao was passing by the café right after you passed out. He helped me get you to my place. He’s just left though and gave me some advice, so you should be fine!”

To be fair, Anzu was the one he trusted the most after his grandmother about anything serious. Better be vulnerable in front of her than in front of anyone else. He guessed he should have felt lucky he hadn’t stepped in his usual café, then, if it was to lose consciousness like that…

 “Can you say “aaaah” for me for a bit, Hokuto? I promise it won’t be for long.”

Not like he had any other choice than do as she said, allowing her to put a thermometer under his tongue. Needless to say, it still wasn’t a pleasing feeling. Fortunately (or unfortunately, he’d decide about that when the fog in his brain would have finally let out) for him, the thing beeped quickly after she had first inserted it in. The face she made (from what he could see of it, at least) when reading the result wasn’t exactly conveying him a great feeling about it all, putting her hand back onto his forehead as her eyes stared at the numbers.

“This fever’s no joke, how were you even up running such a temperature?!” Oh God, she sounded angry and worried all the same.

Not that he had any explanation to give about it or justification as to how it had gotten this bad. He didn’t know what number it was. He tried looking it up from the stick directly, but his eyes could only read something finishing in “9.7”. That wasn’t very useful to say the… Oh. Oh.

 “I-I mean, you’ll be fine if you just rest for a couple days! I didn’t have fever reducers anymore, but Mao gave me some from his flat, so it should be just fine… Can you swallow anything? You need to down the pills with a glass of something, so I’ve brought you just that!”

Gathering all his forces, he pushed his upper half with feeble arms against the wall behind him, the back of his head hitting the hard material. That lethargy poisoning his entire body was no joke either. At least, he could now take the glass of water and pills Anzu was handing him. How was he supposed to resist against her bright smile and concern, huh? Not that reducing what had to be the prime source of his discomfort, especially now that the chills were knocking at the door, was bothering him in the slightest.

Downing the glass had been painful. It seemed like he hadn’t just worked himself to complete exhaustion: in the process, his immune system had weakened considerably. This whole situation kept adding on points onto his internal list of why he should never try doing such a thing ever again.

 As usual, Anzu had come all prepared to a fight, putting shortly thereafter a wet washcloth on his forehead and gently pushing him back into her own bed, hands on his shoulders and opposing no opposition whatsoever from his side of the equation.

“Wait, n’zu…” He managed to squeeze out of his pained airways. “Wher’re you goin’ t’sleep…?”

“I’ve got a futon prepared on the floor; I’ll be fine. Just rest, okay? We’ll see if you’re good enough to go back to your flat tomorrow. You’ll only get better if you sleep.”

He merely nodded, sinking back into the covers. Their scent was nice, soothing even. It made the endeavour a bit more enjoyable, even if the word suddenly sounded too strong on his tongue.

“G’dnight then, I s’pose…”

Through his blurred vision turning to black, her smile shone again.

“Goodnight, Hokuto.”

[flyswhumpcenter]

Nurse Café - Chapter 3/6: “Brain in a Daze, Stars in Your Eyes“

PREVIOUS CHAPTER / NEXT CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary: In a haze, Hokuto realizes a few things and makes a few conclusions based on said things.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.5K words

Chapter Notes: Yes, this contains that good shit we're all here for: pinning Hokke. Kind out of nowhere too, but hey, I really wanted to write about that for some reason lol. I'll blame it on the absolute goodness that is "sir, you're buying too many flowers". That'll do, yeah. This fic was meant to end with chapter 3 and, while I do have the final chapter already in the works, I decided to add shippier chunks like this one and the next chapter. I guess Enstars came back for my inspiration, haha. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this unplanned chapter of Nurse Café, and come around for more! I promise I know where I'm going with this, lol.

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A vague memory reached in his brain in a moment of half-consciousness. A vague, hazy memory of childhood times, of a past illness. His parents’ muffled voices, his grandmother’s smile warming back his heart left shivering. A day spent in bed, because getting up was impossible and he just felt too dizzy as soon as he tried looking up. Dad was there a lot more than usual, so was Mom, and it was weird and odd: he wasn’t used to having them near his bed so much, their hands cold against his skin, their words here to soothe him. For once, he hadn’t felt alone. The vague memory was sweet, despite its bitter undertones.

A tear was falling down Hokuto’s cheek when he eventually woke up from the daze.

 Growing back to consciousness was like reaching the surface and emerging out of the water after a long, comatose dive into a warm pool. It wasn’t exactly the worst feeling in the world, even if his head felt hot and stuffed, heavy on his neck. Even then, he still felt slightly less terrible than before, as he could actually sit up, yawning. Not the most gracious way to go about with it, but that’d have to do: he could honestly not stir more energy inside of him to be less disgraceful than that.

The place was still less than familiar, but now, he could at least put a name on it: Anzu’s flat, in the college dorms. Quickly glancing around, almost getting himself dizzy from the sudden move, she was nowhere to be found: most likely gone to attend class, like a model student. Like he should have been doing, in fact, if he wasn’t stuck there with an unfinished presentation waiting for him in his flat and… wait. Those weren’t his clothes.

 Confused yet again, he started looking around even more for answers. The curtains of the window were closed, but sunlight still sipped through them: it was daytime. On the bedside table right next to him, the precise answer figured on her alarm clock: it was already past eleven in the morning. The class he had the presentation in? Eight o’clock. Not only had he not completed his slideshow for it, he had actually somehow missed the entire thing altogether.

He glanced at his clothing. Those were cute pyjamas, sure, but they clearly didn’t belong to him. Not to mention, considering how they stuck to his skin, he’d have to wash them and give them to whomever they belonged to: Isara, he presumed, considering Anzu had been with him when he had almost woken up enough to go back home.

 Go back home. That was what he needed to do.

Too bad his legs didn’t agree and let him fall pitifully on the floor after a long moment spent contemplating his own predicament.

 Still, he rose back to his feet thanks to a chair that happened to be nearby and sat down on the bed, blinking away black spots. Okay, bad idea, he got it: there was no way he’d be able to drag himself out of this without the threat of passing out in the middle of the campus. He was also just realizing he didn’t have his phone on him: he had, in fact, left it before getting his cup of coffee on the day before. Talk about a terrible decision. Well, not that the migraine he was currently afflicted with was going to make it any easy to actually read something on said phone’s screen.

Maybe he should go take a shower… but he needed to ask for Anzu’s permission before doing so, didn’t he? He was already sleeping in her bed, that was more than enough amenities of hers he was using more or less against his will. Ah, that was inconvenient… At least, there was one relief to be found: there was still a glass, a bottle of water and some pills on the bedside table, left there, catching his stinging eye.

 This was the one thing he could do, now. Even then, his limbs were still heavily lethargic, so he was slow and clumsy with his hands. Downing a couple pills was absurdly difficult for him, despite how simplistic the gesture seemed in his mind. He was pathetic, this much was clear, but falling back on the bed after just drinking a glass of water was absolutely pitiful for someone his age and constitution. He may have just woken up and tried doing something with his day, and yet, all he wanted to do was going back to sleep…

Still, he should get moving… He felt uneasy staying here for much longer, as close as he was to giving up and falling back asleep. The bitter aftertaste lingering in his mouth made him miss konpeito and, at this point, he’d rather have passed out than having to bear tears coming to his eyes. Why was he feeling so lonely, all of a sudden? He had been alone for so long, he didn’t need to cry like a child over being left on his own for legitimate reasons and—

“Ah, good morning, Hokuto! Are you feeling any better?”

 His throat immediately went dry, knotting. He wiped his eyes as quickly as possible and went back to sitting somewhat properly.

“G-good morning, Anzu,” barely managed to make it out of his throat.

He observed her, vaguely following along, when the world was spinning all around her smiling self as she went to pick some things from another room (the bathroom, he assumed. He had never been to her place before this whole fiasco happened, it was difficult to tell which room was which or even how many rooms there were). Her presence made his mind feel better, soothing the sudden affliction he got hit with merely minutes before.

 Time’s course was also severely disturbed and hindered by the heat in his head, so he couldn’t truly give an estimate of how little time she had spent in another room before coming back, sitting on the chair while humming a familiar song. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have assumed she found this stuff fun. That made no sense, though, considering he was noting but disgusting at the moment, so he brushed it off as his fever messing up with him.

Which, in itself, was a convenient thought to have right as she took it again, putting a hand under his bangs. Her palm was cold, like Grandma’s had been all those years ago; and, just like Grandma, Anzu didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by how soaked they were. Just realizing this made him want to bawl in his grandmother’s arms again, but he needed to keep at least a tiny bit of his dignity and, as such, opted to swallow his pride instead.

 “Thirty-nine point one…” Anzu whispered to herself as she stared at the thermometer. “You’re far less warm than yesterday, but it’s still not good either. At least, your fever’s broken, that’s a relief already.”

He missed her hand as soon as it was gone from his forehead, yet didn’t feel like adding anything to the conversation: he had, honestly, very little energy to begin with and didn’t feel like wasting her time listening to some feverish rambling about whatever his brain was still in a decent condition to emit.

“You should stay here for another day, don’t you think? Maybe just this evening, if you get better during the day. You still look really tired.”

It was odd to let her do all the talking, considering how quiet she usually was, but this he didn’t mind: in fact, her voice was the one sound that didn’t grate against his pounding head, not unlike a cushion whenever everything else was there to worsen it. To be fair, she was purposely keeping it low; or so she seemed, to him, at least.

“Mao had the idea yesterday, but we still wanted to ask you. Can I go to your place and get some of your stuff? I’m sure you’d like to have your own clothes around!”

“Sure…”

 Anzu went back to her feet, grabbing something lying on a nearby table. Most likely his flat key, but his unfocused eyes couldn’t really tell from this distance. At least, the world had stopped spinning all around him, it was enough of a satisfaction for now.

“Ah, before I leave you for a couple minutes,” she turned back to him, still smiling, “do yourself a home. I’ll be at work this afternoon, but I should be back by six. See you later, Hokuto.”

“I…” In the end, his resolve to leave had crumbled away again. “See you later…”

 As the door closed behind her, he was left dumbfounded. The balm on his heart had started to go cold once again, leaving him melancholic and teary-eyed. He knew about how moody he could get whenever he was tired or sick, but being both at the same time was making nothing easier, and he decided he’d finally give this shower a shot.

It was that or falling back into bed and contemplating his own boggling, confused feelings anyway; and he wasn’t ready just yet to admit to have fallen for someone this way.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Spilled Coffee [Whumptober 2019 - Day 10: Unconscious]

Summary: Anzu's evening gets turned upside down when someone familiar passes out right in front of her.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars (coffeeshop/college AU) Relationships: platonic Anzu & Mao friendship, implied pre-rel Anzu/Hokuto

Wordcount: 1,374 words

Content Warnings: None.

Notes: Finally catching up on my lateness with an Enstars fic! It's a missing scene from my only other Enstars fic at the moment, Nurse Café. It's a Hokuto-centric HokuAn sickfic in case you've *somehow* not heard of it while lurking around their tag lol (and it's like 4-chapter-long, albeit said chapters are short). I'm afraid I did write this story with the idea that the reader would have read Nurse Café first, or at least its first chapter, as it provides the context and implied conversations taking place here between Anzu and Hokuto. Anyway. I'm not sure of how much I've actually filled the "Unconscious" prompt, but do I ever properly fulfill a prompt, especially for challenges like this? Technically someone's unconscious here, so that has to make up for it, right? Riiiight? Also how do you write Mao? I feel like I've gotten him very, very wrong in this story lol. It's my first time actually writing him, though, so there's that I guess. woops.

Event hosted by @whumptober2019

AO3 version available here.

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It had been a normal evening shift at the coffeeshop. The regulars had bought their usual drink, some new faces discovered the shop, some people changed from their habits, others continued discovering the other drinks they had never dipped a tongue into. Things were calm, almost soothingly so, making for a comfortable after-class shift where she had managed to squeeze in some college work too. Reading a book between clients was a way to both earn some precious money and advance in her school business.

Alas, Anzu hadn’t gotten to closing the shop yet when things drastically changed.

 The atmosphere until then had been of a cosy coffeeshop right before closure. The radio played softly the latest hit songs in the background, all chairs were empty and having been cleaned, her workmate had left already because his shift was ending before hers. Anzu had always appreciated this specific mood the shop could slip into once the sun was setting down, cleaning her counter before closing for the night. She had ten minutes left before shutting the lights off, a time that seemed very short compared to the rest of the day…

…and yet that had left the time for an unusual client to come in.

 The bells ringing surprised her out of her cleaning affairs, making her rise her head to the doorway, only for her to notice the client was already right in front of her face. Her eyes then directly met with a long-time friend, perhaps someone that was just a bit more than that: second-year literature major Hokuto, whom she could swear she had never seen even looking through her shop’s windows. It was odd for someone like him, who usually prided himself in his stricter living style compared to their friend group (Subaru being his favourite person to tease), taught to him by his grandmother, to step into her shop at such an hour of the night, at almost eleven o’clock.

The state his face was in didn’t ring any better bell. She had almost not been able to recognize him: a low and raspy voice, fluttering eyelids, glassy eyes with deep dark bags under them, swaying on his feet and words half-making sense. Clearly, this man needs a good night of sleep; and yet he orders an espresso of all things. If not having seem him for almost two weeks wasn’t rising enough red flags, then seeing him this obviously sleep-deprived could only have made her worry even further.

 Still, here, Anzu wasn’t Hokuto’s friend: she was an employee, a seller, a barista. She served him his cup, let him sit wherever he wanted, got his money. The full price wasn’t there: in fact, there was a chunk of the cost that he’d have usually noticed was missing. Still, she decided to brush it aside: it was the end of the day and some leftover coffee, it wasn’t a big deal, she’d pay the rest herself with some tip money. She could at least do that for him.

As she finished cleaning the counter, she noticed eleven was very near. Closing hour was coming next and she absolutely had to lock the door, prompting her to walk up to and inform him of the situation. He barely lifted his head from the hand barely holding it up. Concern and curiosity mixed together and, unable to help herself, Anzu put a careful hand on his forehead. He didn’t flinch, nearly didn’t blink, almost relishing in her palm; it felt like putting her hand on a stove that hadn’t fully gone cold yet.

She didn’t like it in the slightest.

 What followed was a confusing mess. As if he had regained back the energy he missed, Hokuto jerked away and gulped his cup in a couple swallows, most likely parching his throat in burning coffee, before trying to get up, giving her nonsensical mumbles. Despite the signs she had noticed that kept piling up, she got astonished to see his body pitch forward, his eyes rolling in the back of his skull, without a word more comprehensible than a grunt. Her arms almost failed catching him in his fall, nearly sending him crashing onto the floor; instead, she managed to put him softly to the ground, using her lap as a pillow for his head before she had taken off her apron to do so.

Okay, now that she had an unconscious friend and a shop to close on her hands, what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t leave either of them like that, so she ran to get her phone from her purse, until she spotted something, or rather someone, interesting in the corner of her eye through the main window: Mao, a common friend of them. Anzu immediately began waving her arms in his direction, trying to get his attention.

 To her relief, her friend immediately got the signal, running to her shop with a smile until it disappeared from his face as soon as he realized what was happening.

“W-wait…” He told her, face twisting in disbelief. “Is that really…?”

“Yeah…” She quickly replied before kneeling back.

“Quick question: how did you end up with a knocked-out Hokuto in your shop?”

“I… don’t really know. He stumbled here and ordered an espresso, but when I went to tell him I needed to close the shop, he got to his feet and fainted right here and there. All I know is that he looks severely sleep-deprived and that he’s running hot.”

Mao peered from above, crouching next to her, putting his own hand to make sure.

“Ah, yeah, I confirm, he’s burning up,” he shook his hand almost as soon as he had put it on their friend’s forehead. “He’s wasted for sure. How the hell did that even happen… I wouldn’t be surprised if that was me, but Hokuto? That’s a whole other puzzle!”

 Anzu didn’t take her eyes off the unconscious boy in front of her, instead mechanically brushing his bangs from his forehead. Her fingers were wet from the gesture, but her brain was blanking out from how weird the situation was and how worried she was getting.

“Should we call an ambulance?” She eventually mused out loud.

“Honestly? I’d have if it wasn’t Hokuto we’re talking about. If we do, his parents will know about it, and his grandma too, and he’ll scold us for having indirectly told his parents…” A nervous giggle. “What I’m trying to say is that, if you ask me, Hokuto is the kind of person who doesn’t like suddenly waking up in the hospital with four people looking over him.”

She hummed as a reply.

“Still, I wouldn’t let him alone in his place either. If he’s passed out right here and there, he probably can’t even stand properly, so taking care of himself is out of the question until he’s slept for something like three days. How the hell did that happen…”

“Then, let’s bring him to my place.”

 Mao froze for a solid thirty seconds.

“…huh?”

“Don’t you usually bring Ritsu to your place whenever he falls asleep in public?”

“I do, but we’re childhood friends, that’s not the same thing!” His face suddenly brightened up. “Heh, if you see it that way, I suppose it’s not too bad. I’d even say Hokuto would like waking up at your place!”

“What do you mean by that?” Her face felt a bit warmer, weird.

“Ah, nothing,” his smile was kind of going against that statement. “Let’s bring this guy to your flat then. Help me get him on my back so you can close the shop.”

“Got it,” she said as she rose to her feet, doing as she was tasked to do, and recovering both her apron and the keys inside its pocket.

 A couple minutes later, Anzu had left the shop in its optimal closing state: all clean, lights switched off, door locked behind her. Once that was said and done, glancing at both of her friends, she let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Mao.”

“You’re welcome! Now, that was nothing, let’s get him home, shall we?”

Glancing one last time at the unconscious Hokuto propped on Mao’s back, she nodded.

“Yeah, let’s go.”