Chapter Text
In this extraordinary, yet perfectly ordinary world, impressive and magical abilities were nothing but legendary talk.
People were born with abilities, sure. But not teleportation or time travel or mind reading. Minimal and quite ridiculous abilities that never made sense or followed a pattern. For reference, Ivan was born with the ability to turn any drink he touches into room temperature water.
Twenty two, fresh out of the Academy, having used up every last cent of his first salary to buy a fancy suit because having instant noodles for breakfast and lunch and dinner everyday was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Ivan looked at the world with big curious eyes and the magnificent sounding title of a detective. He had a case, an actual case, to investigate. An actual licence. An actual office with a desk and a spinning chair. Ivan was living the life. For as long as oblivion and early twenties last.
What was he investigating? Good question. Ivan also didn't know.
For now, he only knew that his workplace was in the same street as the ruler of my heart bakery.
Tucked in the quiet corner right beside the florist shop, ran by its own founder and practically only employee, Luka.
See, that's the issue. Luka didn't even have a name tag. Ivan's first investigation was actually finding Luka’s name. And he did, because he was the best detective in the world.
(How the investigation went: Ivan looked at Luka like a kicked puppy until Luka told him his name.)
Maybe Ivan just had a lot to discover in the world still.
Luka's bakery was almost always empty, half because their part of the city was deserted and possibly haunted, and half because Luka didn't do much advertising. Ivan guessed his only marketing strategy was to exist. And it was damn effective. Marketing degrees could die. They didn't have blond curls and golden eyes.
On his first Monday, in his preppy suit and polished shoes, Ivan walked in to get an espresso. Now don't get him wrong – he wasn't too into the act of his new detective life that he decided to make the bitter coffee of the devil his only personality – he was just broke, wearing his net worth on his face. Luka’s coffee was cheap enough, which would've also saved him the devastation of accidentally turning it into water had it not been swaddled tightly enough in carton. Anyways, he walked in to get an espresso. And an angel from the great heavens greeted him at the counter.
There was no other explanation. The espresso machine whirred, and Luka made small talk with him in the ease of a seasoned soldier, well accustomed to being loved, being wanted. Ivan giggled about it hours later into his computer screen, kicking his feet under his desk. And then returned the next day.
He wanted to taste the pastries. So bad. Imagining Luka baking them with flour on his cheek and the signature pink apron fastened around his waist reinforced the belief that these golden crusts and strawberry-topped cream cones were equally from the great heavens. But as small business obliged, especially with a clientele that small, Luka’s pastries were quite pricey. They were heavenly delicacies to buy only once throughout your entire life, to remember the taste for the rest of it.
Ivan was broke, but still had a shy sliver of pride. So he didn't blatantly ask for one in spite of his empty pockets. He just puffed his chest and walked in and got a coffee that accidentally turned into flat, warm water. He, however, did look at the rows at the display case like a poor Victorian orphan.
Luka did swaddle the coffee carefully, not only doubling but tripling the carton cups. It was Ivan who stumbled and stuttered and gripped it too tightly by accident and the rest was history. Luka, angelic as he was, offered a refund, but Ivan, with that one sliver of pride standing strong, refused fiercely, even explaining his ridiculous ability to Luka to convince him it wasn't his fault.
That made a part of him want to die on second thought. He really looked at the man of his dreams and went yeah, I turn any drink into lukewarm water. Wouldn't I be so fun at parties. Possibly alternated his gaze between Luka and the display case, eyes still following the pastries, maybe with enough pitiful desperation that Luka stifled a little laugh and then offered one of them as an “apology” for what Ivan wasted away his only three braincells explaining why it wasn't a problem.
“Come on,” Luka insisted sweetly, voice like dripping honey. “Which one would you like?”
“The,” Ivan froze. What the fuck was that. He already guessed it had a fancy two word long French name. But he would be lying if he said he was interested in finding out about it, not when Luka tilted his head in that adorable way. “...This, please.”
“Ah, the éclairs,” Luka waved the tongs excitedly around the batch. Ivan stared, lovestruck, wishing more than ever that he could spontaneously transform into a pair of metal tongs. “My favorite. Chocolate or caramel covered, Mr. Ivan?”
Ah, so Luka’s favorites were the… Those. Yeah, Ivan could definitely remember the name. No doubt. But was Mr. Ivan really necessary?
He felt his face grow hot. Mr Ivan. What the fuck was he supposed to do with it, what effect was that supposed to have on him? He wasn't made for this. He wasn't made to have crushes.
“I think we're the same age, no need for honorifics.” Ivan choked on the words as they left his mouth. Cleared his throat, choking on nothing this time. “Chocolate. I mean, caramel. Whichever. As long as you're the one who baked…”
“This one it is, then,” Luka tonged a caramel éclair into a paper bag, and Ivan made another choked noise. Luka’s golden eyes flicked as if he understood the essence of it and quickly switched the paper bag into a tiny heart shaped plate and a metal fork with a matching little knife. “Ah, eating here?”
Ivan called soulmatism. Decided that he might just die inside the bakery. Too much for being a detective, they could investigate his sudden death for decades and it would all point to this angel behind the counter. Ivan decided that if Luka had ever murdered, full intent bare hands, he would let him off free.
Too soon.
The voice of the narrator was yet to break through the fourth wall, so we shall return to Ivan’s disorganized and heavily infatuated line of thoughts. That he wanted Luka to murder him with those eyes and that honey voice. And a caramel eclkihfd on a heart plate.
Luka’s gaze flicked for a moment. He looked backwards, promptly putting on oven mitts, gently pushing the pastry plate towards Ivan and disappearing for a few seconds. He returned with what Ivan recognized was a mug cake. One of those Ivan attempted the entirety of his dorm years and screwed over without fail. Except that this one smelled like a real, legitimate pastry, rather than a struggle dessert.
“Did the..” Ivan blinked. He was pretty sure he heard nothing. “... Oven go off?”
“Microwave,” Luka corrected kindly.
“Microwave.” Ivan was even more confused, now. “When did it…”
Luka tilted his head, and smiled. Gently. Like this was a no brainer, because making a personal snack during work hours was beyond the point. “My ability.”
Ivan blinked. Looked over at the flat water cup in his hand, then up again at those golden eyes. He didn't understand what Luka was trying to say. Or what his ridiculous ability was. He didn't know if he should have understood by now, if there were any implications he was missing, the switch in the air settling heavily in his stomach. So he smiled back and nodded, awkwardness tingling at his thick brows. “That's an interesting one.”
“Yeah,” Luka’s angelic smile lost a bit of its destabilizing shine. “Down to the second.”
Huh, Ivan thought. Down to the second.
Whatever that meant, Luka talked to him, and that was enough.
***
The sudden, mysterious series of bombings all across the city was actually Ivan’s area of investigation.
It followed no pattern and showed no signs of a certain animosity or revenge. Usually, it left around a dozen injured, only a couple casualties. The numbers and dates and locations didn't match anything. As if the bomber, mysterious as they were, also had no goal to achieve through such miniature massacres. As if they were constantly threatening something worse.
Now, let's get it right, Ivan was a good person. In fact very passionate about being one. That was one of the main reasons he enrolled into the Academy and studied himself into chronic eye dryness and lucid forensics dreams. He wasn't the brightest when it came to brute analytical prowess, but he had an unshakable sense of justice, and he was, simply as is, a good person.
So when the coffee wore off and the taste of the caramel éclair (he might have had to google that name) left his mouth, he stared at the paperwork he absently filled like he was looking at it for the first time. Which he was. Luka’s angelic beauty and vaguely uncomfortable words left room for the terrified and even more confused realization of everything. The case, the way he had human lives at stake now, in a way or another.
But they didn't leave for long. Ivan was a detective now, not a shy, excluded intern. It didn't take him long to roll the papers into a plastic folder and hop out of his office outside and into the ruler of my heart bakery.
“Rough day today?”
Luka asked from behind the counter, stopping Ivan in his tracks. Because, obviously, Ivan came for a sobering coffee, the cheapest one, sure, caffeine whatsoever. Not a sobering gay panic.
“That shows?” he laughed, though it sounded like a wheeze. “A... An espresso, please.”
“We can start with a glass of water.” Luka joked, golden hair held back with the cutest hairclips Ivan had ever seen, apron-less, sleeveless. “One good thing about your ability is that it keeps you hydrated.”
“A coffee, please,” Ivan repeated gently, reining in the gay panic right before the intrusive thoughts had him jumping over the counter and licking Luka. To the point of no return. Of forceful stress relief, and a potential restraining order. “If I accidentally turn it into water this time, I might cry.”
Luka’s objectively illegal arms reached out to the coffee machine, his beautiful features drawn in an understanding smile. “In that case, it will be on the house, Mr. Ivan.”
Before Ivan could complain about the honorifics again, Luka’s eyes flicked. A soft ding came from behind him immediately. But he didn't move yet, not until fragrant espresso filled a real mug this time, no extra waste of carton cups. Ivan thought he deserved a generous tip for that alone, as if he wouldn't dig into the crumbling leather of his vacant wallet and give his last five bucks to Luka just for existing.
Only then did Luka slip into the shadows with a pair of oven mitts. A sequence of events Ivan recognized at this point.
Down to the second.
What even was that?
“Are microwaves this practical?” Ivan finally groaned, determined to complain anyways, the Luka-withdrawal seeping into his sad sugar-free coffee.
“If you want them to be,” Luka returned, a tiny mold between his mittened hands, a curl having fallen over his right eye. “Nothing in this world has one singular way of being useful.”
“Oh.” Ivan took a careful sip. He was still in the clear, hot coffee rippling under his breath. It took a moment to register what Luka said, and the coffee rippled in his throat too. “The microwave??”
“Yeah.” Not a single ounce of doubt in these angelic golden eyes. “After all, even medication is conditioned poison.”
“You sound like my superiors.” Like Unsha, specifically. At this point, Ivan made peace with the fact that he was in that mood. His remaining brain cells only generated complaints and whines.
And the perpetual yearning for Luka. That one would stay even if he was dying in a ditch.
“Oh, you're a detective?” In perfectly staged awe, Luka flicked his gaze up. The oven mitts ended at the lowest part of his wrists and left smooth, unblemished skin running all the way up into the straps of his shirt, lime green and tight around the waist, and that was not the point, but Ivan forgot. Coffee, éclair, and sleeveless shirt aside, warning bells finally rung in his head. How did Luka know he was a detective when he was positive he never mentioned it before?
It was almost like Luka was pretending to be surprised at it, reading the turmoil behind his eyes in that cursed moment. His smile nearly made something curl at the end of Ivan’s back. A vague feeling of apprehension.
“Come on, drink up,” Luka then insisted in the sweetest tone like nothing happened just now. “You're a special customer, Mr. Ivan. Had I not been a baker, you would find me worming my way through the scientific police bureaucracies. It's rather interesting.”
For a moment, Ivan wondered if he was imagining things. If The Mood™ made him dramatic, or if the late night K-drama binges toyed with his head.
The apprehension didn't leave his body yet, though it didn't match the gigantic cartwheel his heart just landed in the constraints of his chest. Maybe a detective job was the logical conclusion behind his suit and possible workplace, and Luka didn't know how else to word it. Maybe he was more popular than he thought. Maybe he accidentally mentioned it before in their roughly four meetings so far.
A breath. “Luka?”
“Yes, Mr. Ivan?”
Ivan let the name slide off the ends of his mind. “Have you heard about the recent bombings?”
“Ivanie,”
Now this one wouldn't slide off even if he forced it down with both hands and his entire body weight. The sudden nickname, coated in Luka’s sweet voice, threw off all the guards he just managed to put up. Destabilized the growing apprehension. His fucking survival instinct.
“I’m just a baker,” Luka continued, tapping his oven mitts as if they were evidence. “What do I know about that? I just sincerely hope it doesn't affect this store that I love so much.”
Why wouldn't that be true?
And why would Ivan, for one split of a second, doubt it? Even he didn't know.
“I figured.” He finished the rest of the coffee, placing the mug on the counter with the generous tip he intended underneath. “Thank you for your time, Luka.”
“Anytime,” Luka's eyes were made of gold, and a chilling omniscience. “Ivanie.”