Chapter Text
Jean doesn't need to look at the caller ID to know who it is. He quickly answers his cellphone with one hand, straightening the last pile of papers on his desk with the other.
"Work held me up, sorry," he says.
"Are you on your way home?" Nino asks on the other end of the line.
"About to leave."
"What's kept you there an hour over?"
Jean stands up and walks to Knot's desk, cradling the stack of paper one-armed. "Paperwork. I feel a little bad for all the trees cut down to keep bureaucracy going. There have to be better ways for them to die."
The phone can't capture the exact timbre and warmth of Nino's laugh, but what Jean hears still makes him smile.
"Make sure you hurry," Nino says. "Otherwise Lotta and I are going to eat everything."
He hears the tinny sound of the phone being shuffled. "The macarons turned out great and I will definitely eat them all if you're not here in twenty minutes!" says Lotta.
He leaves the papers neatly on Knot's desk, smiling politely at him, and heads back to his office. "I'm going," he speaks into the phone, swinging his jacket and briefcase over his shoulder. He pushes his chair into his desk with his knee. "Don't eat my-"
"Sir, wait!" squeals Atori, briskly walking over to him.
"-share. Hold on a moment." He presses the phone to his chest. "What is it?"
"I know you're always very private about your life, which I understand, but you're not seeing anyone right now, are you?"
"Um..." He looks between her and the phone. He lightly places the phone by his ear. "I have to go," he says, and hangs up before he gets a reply. He shifts his weight, uncomfortable. "Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, it's not for me!" Atori says, wildly shaking her hands. "It's just that I have a friend."
"A friend."
"She's pretty, smart, and sweet!" She claps her hands. "Best of all, you two would look super cute together!"
"What makes you say that?"
"Call it a hunch. What do ya say, sir? Just one date?"
Jean had already been looking forward to going home. Now he really wants to leave. He can't without giving Atori an answer, though. He doesn't want to be set up, but he has a feeling Atori is sure to persist if he turns down the offer. He sighs.
"Just one," he says.
"Yay! Thank you so much, sir! Here's her number," she says, and hands him a slip of paper. "Her name's Rita. Sorry to keep you! See you tomorrow!" With a wave, she leaves.
Jean glances at the scribbled number on the paper. "She had it ready," he mumbles to himself.
On the subway ride home, he mulls contacting the woman, tracing the edges of his phone with his finger. I said I'd meet her, he thinks. The prospect doesn't exactly excite him, but he doesn't want to go back on his word. I can do one date.
Stuck on what tone to use, it takes him a while to think of how to write his message. He's letting out a sigh of relief at having sent her anything at all when she answers:
Hi Jean. Atori told me about you too. I'd like to meet. Would Wednesday at 4 be okay?
I don't think I have plans with Nino then, he thinks, trying to recall what his upcoming week looks like. Nothing sticks out besides their usual day devoted to drinks, and that week it'll be on Friday. He tells her – what was her name again? Rita? – that it's fine. He looks at what he typed for a moment and then adds a suggestion for a restaurant, guessing that it was his job as the one who contacted her first. He sends it.
She agrees.
I guess that's that, he thinks, putting his phone up. Just in time, too; this is his stop. A short walk later, he's inside his building, traveling up the elevator. Soon he's opening his apartment door, the scent of baked sweets enveloping him immediately.
"I'm home," he announces.
"You made it under the twenty minute mark," Lotta says from the kitchen, "so you luckily get to eat what Nino and I made!"
"I'm glad," he says with a smile, closing the door. He puts his jacket and briefcase on a sofa and joins Nino in the dining room, slumping into his chair.
"Someone's tired," Nino says, biting into a macaron.
Jean folds his arms on the table and rests his head on them.
Lotta walks in and puts down his drink and food. "Nino made this, and I was in charge of dessert, as you know."
He sits up. "Thanks."
She leaves for her room.
Jean brings a forkful of the food – some chicken dish – to his mouth. "Tastes as good as it smells."
"Happy to hear," Nino says with a small smile. He reaches for another macaron, eyeing it. "Did something happen at work?"
"Hmm?" Jean swallows his food. "What do you mean? I told you about the paperwork."
"After that." His eyes flit to Jean. "I heard someone talk to you, then you hung up on me."
"Oh. Yeah, sorry about that." Jean purses his lips. "Atori approached me suddenly." He twists his fork back and forth, watching the food get squished. "I have a date with one of her friends."
It takes a few seconds for Nino to speak. "A date?"
"Wednesday at four."
"That's..." Nino puts the macaron down uneaten. "That's nice."
"I guess."
"You guess?"
Jean nods, swallowing another bite of food. "I didn't really want to say yes, but it would have been more trouble if I'd refused. Maybe I'll get along with her," he adds as a halfhearted afterthought.
"Maybe," Nino agrees, although not immediately.
He sips his water. "We'll see." He shifts the topic by asking about Nino's own day, and the easy conviviality they have returns, this conversation one they know.
"Thanks again for cooking," he tells Nino, later, when Nino's at the door about to leave.
"Any time."
"Sometimes I think you and Lotta should open up a restaurant."
Nino raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Where would that leave you?"
"I could wait tables or something."
"I think you'd forget where to deliver what," Nino teases.
Jean crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. "I think so, too."
Nino laughs.
"But I'd try before you fired me."
"I don't know that I'd fire you. I think you'd wash dishes instead."
"I can do that."
"Great, then you're set to work in my hypothetical restaurant."
Jean smiles. "I look forward to it."
Nino returns it. "See you, Jean."
"Bye."
"Isn't today your date?" Lotta asks him over breakfast.
Jean's toast doesn't make it to his mouth. "Huh. Yeah, it is."
"You forgot?!"
"You reminded me."
"That's not the kind of thing you're supposed to forget, Jean." She quickly eyes him up and down. "Are you coming home after work?"
He frowns. "No, why would I? I get out at three, so I can get to the restaurant I'm supposed to meet her at right after."
"You're going on a date... in your work uniform?"
"Yes?" Jean answers, not knowing what flaw Lotta sees in this.
She sighs heavily. "Don't do that. Come home and change. I'll pick your clothes for you."
"Why can't I go in my work uniform?"
"Because you're meeting someone!"
"I wear my uniform pretty much every time Nino and I go drinking, since that's after work, too."
"Nino's different."
He wipes the crumbs from his fingers with a napkin. "I still don't see why it's so bad, but whatever. I'll come back. Why do you have to choose my outfit?"
"You have to make a good first impression, and while you don't dress bad, I need to take charge here so you look your best from the start!"
He runs a hand through his hair. "This is too complicated."
She gathers his empty plate, as well as hers. "It really isn't," she says, smiling. "Oh, since your date isn't too long after lunchtime, I didn't make you a lunch. Do you want a snack to take, though?"
His mouth turns slightly downward. He looked forward to Lotta's lunches. "It's fine," he says, standing up and pushing his chair in. "We had a big breakfast. I can make it through the day."
"Okay. Bye, have a good day at work!"
"And you at school. Bye." He grabs his briefcase and heads out.
It's not busy at the office. The only unusual things are the knowing winks Atori occasionally gives him, which no one else has noticed, surprisingly. The girls love to gossip; he was certain Atori would have happily shared her achievement to the others.
Evidently not, he thinks, signing off on some papers for Mozu. Thankfully.
His lunch break rolls around. He's not hungry, so he excuses himself to go out for a smoke. He savors it, taking his time, holding in the smoke longer than usual, letting it out in thin, careful streams.
I wonder if Rina will mind that I smoke, he thinks, and then pauses. Was that her name? He gently bites down on the cigarette, digging for his phone. He checks his recently sent messages.
"Rita," he says, taking the cigarette from his teeth. Lotta would have scolded him for that mishap.
Right beneath that conversation is one with Nino. Jean sends him a new text:
I got my date's name wrong.
He gets a reply fairly quick.
Nice going. But I thought that wasn't until 4?
It is. I got her name wrong in my own thoughts.
It takes Nino a bit to respond, and Jean is absolutely sure that it's because, wherever he is, he's laughing at him. It doesn't bother him, though. His own lips are quirked upwards.
Better than getting it wrong in person.
He stubs out his cigarette and tosses it into the trash, taking a seat on a bench and typing his reply.
Yeah.
Too short. He sends another message to keep the conversation going:
I'm on my lunch break.
I figured. Shouldn't you be talking to your coworkers, though? Slouched over a phone when they're all eating and chatting might be rude.
I'm not inside. I went to smoke.
Avoiding eating until the date?
Lotta's idea. This dating stuff is kind of annoying. I can see why you've always turned down dates.
There's more to it than that.
Like what?
One, two, three, four, five minutes pass with no reply. Jean eyes the time. He needs to go back to work. Normally, Jean would send Nino a brief goodbye, but something about the silence on his end bothers him.
He puts his phone away and walks inside.
Over his remaining shift, thrice he feels his phone buzz, and he checks it every time. Thrice it ends up being phantom vibrations.
At 2:57 pm, he packs up. At three on the dot, he announces he's off to a cheery chorus of goodbyes, Atori's the cheeriest.
When he gets home, Lotta's handpicked outfit is neatly laid out on his bed. She's chosen a long-sleeved light blue button-down shirt, chinos, and chukka boots.
"I could have picked this," he says, to no one in particular.
"Maybe, but not for the first date," Lotta says, peering inside his room. "You wanted to wear your work clothes! I couldn't leave anything to chance."
"You said yourself I don't dress badly."
"I couldn't leave anything to chance," Lotta repeats, closing the door.
He changes quickly and is out of the apartment earlier than he imagined, so he takes the longer way to the restaurant, going over all possible scenarios that could play out. He gets there, but she's late, or way early, or never shows. He gets there, and forgets how to make conversation, so she leaves with a flimsy excuse. He gets there, and says something she doesn't like, so she leaves with a flimsy excuse.
From the corner of his eye, he sees the happy yellow of the restaurant's name. With a glance at his watch, he sees he's fifteen minutes early.
That's fine, he figures, walking inside. Here goes nothing.
The hostess greets Jean and asks if it'll just be him, and he shakes his head.
"No, party of two. I'm waiting for my, uh. Date." The word feels odd to say.
The hostess smiles. "Okay! Right this way, please."
He gets seated by a window and texts Rina – Rita, he mentally corrects himself – where he's at. While he waits, ignoring the empty chair across from him, he looks through the window, lost in aimless thoughts.
His thoughts are broken by someone lightly clearing their throat. He looks up and sees a woman he doesn't know smiling at him.
"Hi, you're Jean, right?" she says.
Right. He went out for a date. This is Rita- no, Rina. Wait, was it Rita? Crap. "Yeah, I am."
"So, obviously I'm Rita," she says, sliding in the seat in front of him.
I'm so bad with names, Jean thinks. And then he notices her hair. She wears it straight and long, but it's almost exactly the same shade as Nino's.
A waiter comes with the menus and takes his leave as they eye them.
"I've never been to this restaurant before," Rita continues. "How's the food?"
He blinks quickly, meeting her eyes, finding them light green, not deep blue. "The food's good," he says. "Though the reason I chose this place is for their desserts. It's not a wide selection but what they have is great."
"...I see."
Jean doesn't know what to make of this reaction. "I have a sweet tooth," he says, explaining himself.
"Ah!" Rita flips a page in the menu. "Can't say the same for me."
What, how? Jean almost asks, but instead goes with, "Really?"
"I'm a dentist. There's some really bad things out there for your teeth, and the things people do to the poor things! I hope you floss, at least, to keep the cavities out."
Jean hides behind his menu. I should definitely not mention that I smoke.
"Hmm, I think I'll have the lemon rosemary salmon," Rita says, and puts her menu down. "Anyway. How about you, what do you do?"
"I work for ACCA; it's how I know Atori." He places his menu down, having decided on flank steak, and catches their waiter's attention.
"Well, keeping society functioning is, um, good," Rita says after the waiter's left with their orders.
"Yeah," Jean says. His fingers twitch as he tries not to tap them.
What do people who don't know each other talk about?
"Your outfit's nice," Rita says, but it sounds more like it's to break the awkward pause than because she means it.
"Thank you," Jean replies. I am also definitely not going to mention my younger sister picked this for me. "I, um, like your hair." He should return a compliment with a compliment, right? And he wasn't lying, either.
"Oh, thank you! I just dyed it recently and was kind of worried it might look bad on me."
So. It's not natural. "Don't worry. It's nice."
The conversation falters again. Really, what do people that don't know each other talk about? Small, shallow things to test the waters, right? They've already mentioned their jobs. The weather, maybe?
Fortunately, Rita comes up with something. A small, shallow thing, sure, but she's doing something about it. And Jean tries to converse, giving longer answers than he normally would, but it's difficult. He's a man of few words – not because he doesn't care, he just doesn't always have something to say. It's never been a problem in his life, but that's because she isn't familiar to him, isn't part of his life. Short replies would sound terse, but if they're too long he'll come across as selfish. His head hurts attempting to keep the balance.
The arrival of the food saves him; he can't talk with his mouth full, after all. Metal cutlery clinks on ceramic dishes. Polite inquires and replies are dashed here and there. The atmosphere feels less like it is a chance to meet someone he could happily spend the rest of his life with and more like it's an interview for a job he doesn't want.
"The portions were so generous," Rita says eventually, her plate not empty. "I don't think I can have any more."
An outlet. Even Jean can see this. So he tells a small lie. "Me either."
They pay, get boxes for their food, and stand awkwardly outside the restaurant. If it was difficult to find something to talk about before, it's even worse now.
I don't want another date with her, Jean thinks, lips pursed, but how do I say that nicely? And do I just say 'bye'?
"Um," Rita says, "Thank you for agreeing to meet me." She gives him a brief smile. "But I think we can both agree we're not really suited for each other."
Oh, thank God. He sighs, but not without a bit of guilt. "Yeah..."
"The food really was good, though. Anyway, um, good luck out there; I hope you find someone. Have a nice rest of the day."
"You, too."
She's off.
He sighs again, deeper, leaning against the brick wall. He glances down at his box of food. Honestly, he's still hungry, but not for the rest of this meal.
Without a second thought, he digs through his pocket for his phone and makes a call.
He gets a cautious, "Hello?"
"Hey, Nino, do you want to get some cheesecake?"
"What? What about your date?"
"I'll tell you about it later. I'm at the restaurant on Fifth and Main."
"I don't know what this is about, but I'll be there."
Even though Nino can't see it, Jean smiles. "Great. I'll be outside."
"Okay, see you."
They hang up, and Jean looks at his phone's screen a moment, reading Nino's name. 'I don't know what this is about, but I'll be there.' He puts his phone up. That's Nino for you.
Jean's mind wanders as he waits but is tethered back to the ground when he spots a familiar figure in black a block away.
"So what happened?" Nino asks, walking up to him.
"You know how sociable I am."
Nino laughs. "Come on, did you try?"
"Yeah, and we didn't have anything in common except that we both know Atori. Talking was painful."
"And is cheesecake your reward for making it out alive?"
"It's what I wanted to eat here in the first place. But she didn't like dessert, and I didn't want to stay any longer than I needed. Don't give me that look," Jean half-scolds him with a smile.
"Sorry, sorry." Nino jabs his thumb in the direction of the restaurant. "Shall we go in, or are you going to air your grievances to me out here?"
"I'm going to air my grievances to you inside over cheesecake."
They go in, and the same hostess from before greets them. Her eyebrows go up the slightest bit when she sees Jean again, but otherwise she doesn't mention anything, leading them to their seats. At least the waiter who's serving them is different. They already know what they want, and he leaves quickly.
"Was it just me," Nino says, folding his arms on the table, "or did the hostess look at you a little funny?"
"No, she did," Jean says. "She was here when I came earlier, so-" He cuts himself off, realizing something. It had been a party of two earlier. For a date, as he'd said himself. Here he is again, with another person.
"So...?" Nino prompts.
"So she recognized me," Jean says quickly.
Nino smiles. "She's probably wondering what sort of weirdo goes inside a restaurant, leaves, and comes back just for dessert."
And with someone else. "Probably."
"Anyway," Nino says, "are you going to tell me how the date went?"
Jean grimaces. "Calling it a date is too generous a term..."
It embarrasses him, so openly admitting how little he knows about relationships, but because this is Nino he's talking to, he can laugh at himself along with his friend.
Food and company. This is how it should be.
"You're hopeless," Nino says, finishing the last of his cheesecake.
Jean can't even argue that.
After they pay and are heading out, Nino thanks Jean for having invited him out.
"Sure thing," Jean replies. "No one else appreciates desserts like you."
Nino smiles thinly. "Thanks for the compliment, but I'm basically your only friend. You didn't have a whole lot of options."
"Even if I had a hundred friends, I would have called you first."
"Oh," Nino says.
"Are we still on for Friday?"
"Hm? Right, yeah. Yes, Friday drinking is still happening. Unless you changed your mind?"
"No, I thought since we went out to eat today you might not want-"
Nino lightly flicks him on the forehead, eyes crinkled. "You thought wrong."
Jean smiles. "Did you have to flick my head, though?"
"Yup."
Since they live in the same general direction, they walk home together until they come to the street where Jean goes left and Nino right. They share a brief goodbye and go their respective ways.
The rest of Jean's walk home is quiet, broken only by Lotta as he opens their apartment's door.
"Hey! How was the date?!"
He purses his mouth.
Lotta's excited expression withers. "Jeaaan..."
"What? I didn't say anything."
"That face was enough!"
He plops himself down on the sofa, leaning his head back. "We were incompatible."
Lotta sits next to him, cross-legged. "How so?"
"She was a dentist."
Lotta's mouth turns into a small 'o' shape.
"Right?"
"I take it back," she says, "even if you had been on your best behavior, this was going to lead nowhere. Why did Atori think it'd be a good idea to set you up?"
"Wish I knew." He turns to face her. "But it wasn't all so bad. I asked Nino to come after she left and we got cheesecake, which is why I chose that restaurant anyway." He hands her his to-go box. "I got you a slice, but if you wanna try what I got for actual food, feel free."
"Nino, huh?" she says, smiling. "And thank you! I'll put this all in the fridge."
The rest of his day passes as normal. He's almost forgotten he had a date, disastrous as it was, by the time he goes to sleep.
"Rita told me about your date. I'm sorry you two didn't click!" Atori tells Jean the next day at work.
"It's not your fault. It's hard for me to get along with people."
"Ah, but it would have been so cute!" Atori says, clasping her hands and holding them by her cheek. "I don't know why, but it would have!"
He suddenly remembers her hair, an ocean blue.
He shrugs.