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This was not Barou’s first choice.
He feels that this is especially important to make clear. This was not Barou’s first choice.
In fact, if you’d asked Barou ten years ago what he thought he’d be doing now, running a maid cafe probably wouldn’t even rank in the top ten possibilities—no, not even in the top hundred. Hell, he’d be surprised if it was on the list at all.
But the economy is rough. And as much as it pains Barou to admit, he’s good at this. There’s a reason he can make a living off of this, after all.
Is it an ideal situation? Obviously not. It works, though. He has a relatively steady flow of customers, which means he has a relatively steady flow of cash. It helps that he’s the only employee, so there’s not much he has to pay in terms of worker costs—except to himself. Is it a lot of work to do himself? Sure, but it’s never been too much to manage—
—until now. One of his customers must have praised his services highly, because when the season changes, Barou’s cafe is flooded. He manages, at least for the first week, but by the end of it, Barou is completely wiped out. By the looks of the number of hits on his website, this tempest isn’t calming down any time soon, and Barou finally has to admit to himself that he might be a little in over his head. Reluctantly, he puts out an advert for an open position at the cafe.
Realistically, he knows he can’t be picky. He doubts there are many guys out there willing to put on an outfit and a show even for the competitive wage Barou will force himself to offer. He lists a few traits that he guesses would be helpful for the job—empathetic, a good listener, experience with customer service—but really only highlights one: ex-athletes preferred. Barou has the feeling that the reason his cafe is such a success is the dichotomy of his build with the dress he shoves himself into every morning, and if he absolutely had to hire someone else, he thinks it would be helpful to have a cohesive contrast across the employees of the cafe.
Sometimes, Barou listens to his own thoughts and wonders if he’s gone fucking insane.
The job posting goes unanswered for a few days, but just as Barou begins to lose hope, he gets a notification for a singular application submission—and from an ex-athlete, at that! Barou barely skims over the written submissions before emailing to schedule an interview. He doesn’t want to look too desperate, but he kind of is.
The applicant’s name is Seishiro Nagi. Barou really only deigns to read the written portions of the application the night before the interview, and he finds himself a bit unimpressed by the lackluster answers. Under Reason for Applying, Nagi’s simply written im unemployed.
But it’s not like Barou has the freedom to be picky with this—plus, he didn’t need Nagi to be a particularly effective writer, as long as he could decently hold a conversation. Hopefully, Nagi would be a bit more charismatic in person than he was over the computer.
“So,” Barou says. “If a customer said they were having a bad day, what would you say?”
“Um…” Nagi trails off into a shrug. “I dunno.”
Barou stares at his computer. This is the sixth question Barou has asked him. This is the sixth time Nagi has answered in the exact same way. The only notes he has on his computer at the moment are I’m going to fucking kill myself and I’m going to fucking kill this guy.
Barou flexes his fingers, once, twice.
“Do you have any experience,” Barou pulls out with great effort, “interacting with. People.” Because there’s absolutely no way this guy has experience in a customer service setting, but Barou is now also seriously questioning whether this guy knows how to interact in any social setting at all. When Nagi stares at him blankly in response, Barou rephrases. “Do you have any friends?”
Nagi scratches his arm. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t offer anything else. Barou gives him an incredulous look.
“I had one,” Nagi finally deigns to specify. Not that it makes Barou feel much better. One friend, and that, too—past tense?
Actually, Barou’s not that surprised. He’s only been around Nagi for about fifteen minutes, but he can basically understand why Nagi doesn’t have any friends—or apparently lost the only one he had.
“Right,” Barou says after a pause. He closes his computer. There isn’t much he has to add to his notes. “I will…” He clears his throat. “Let you know when I’ve made a decision, then.”
“Yay,” Nagi says dully before he stands up and leaves
Good fucking riddance, Barou thinks.
Nagi is the only person to apply for the position.
With a deep heaviness in his heart, Barou gives him the job.
Here’s the awful thing: they like him.
For some strange, strange reason, they like him. What the hell are they seeing in this guy? Barou certainly can’t tell.
To be clear, it doesn’t work on everyone. A lot of customers, for good reason, seem to be unnerved by Nagi’s constant apathy and lack of any visible emotion. But there’s a small, oddly persistent group of people that seem drawn to Nagi for the same reason—and, most importantly to Barou, they pay well. So Barou stops trying to correct Nagi’s personality and lets him do his own thing. As long as Barou’s workload decreases and the cash flow keeps coming, Barou won’t yell at Nagi that much. Even if he is a disgusting slob that leaves his shit everywhere for Barou to pick up.
Today is a particularly slow day—there are only a few customers in the cafe, and none of them are Nagi’s regulars, so he’s just sort of milling about near the front door. Barou squeezes out a heart on top of his customer’s omurice with ketchup, keeping an eye on the door all the while. He doesn’t especially like having Nagi near the front, mostly because Nagi is awful at greeting new customers. So far, he hasn’t managed to turn away too many people, but Barou still likes to be cautious when his other employee is at the front. After squinting at the door for a few moments, he turns back to the plate in front of him—
—and of course, that’s when the bell hanging just above the door jingles cheerily to announce the arrival of a new customer. Barou turns, ready to chew out Nagi for not even offering a “welcome,” but he pauses when he sees who’s at the door.
He’s familiar. He’s very familiar. Where has Barou seen this guy before? Surely he doesn’t know that many people with purple hair.
The new customer is harder to recognize because of how pale his face has gone. He’s all but gaping at Nagi. Nagi isn’t doing much better, staring with wide eyes at the person at the door.
“...Reo?”
Reo. Barou knows that name. He squints at the purple-haired man at the door. Reo, Reo, Reo… Reo Mikage?
Barou’s eyes widen. Reo Mikage? Like, heir of the Mikage corporation, Reo Mikage?
Oh, he cannot let Nagi fumble this. He has no idea what the Mikage heir is doing at a cafe like this, but he’ll be damned if he lets Nagi turn such a high value client away. Nagi’s not off to a great start, either—what the hell does he think he’s doing, addressing the businessman by his first name with no honorifics?
Barou begins to sidle towards the door, hoping his urgency isn’t obvious. Reo is still gaping at Nagi, and Barou can just see the money disappearing down the drain with every second that passes.
“Hello,” Barou says when he’s close enough with as much courtesy as he can manage. “Welcome to—”
“Nagi,” Reo interrupts, his eyes still on Nagi, “what the fuck are you wearing?”
Barou is slightly miffed at being interrupted, but the irritation quickly dissipates when he registers Reo’s words. Nagi isn’t wearing a nametag—never does, even though Barou tells him to every morning—and yet Reo had just…
Does Reo know Nagi?
Nagi looks down at his outfit. It’s more wrinkled than Barou would like, but he refuses to iron Nagi’s clothes for him, and Nagi’s regulars seem to be into the more disheveled look, anyway. Nagi looks back up.
“Um,” is his insightful answer before he falls silent again.
Barou’s eye twitches.
“Hello,” he tries again, and Reo’s gaze finally trails over to Barou. “Welcome. Would you like to take a seat?”
Reo’s mouth flaps open and closed a few times. His gaze keeps darting back to Nagi. Barou waits.
“Yeah…?” Reo eventually says. “Er, yes.”
He looks vaguely bewildered. Barou isn’t actually sure what he’s doing here, but he’s definitely not letting this opportunity slip away. He grabs a menu and leads Reo to the nicest table in the cafe with only a slightly strained smile.
“I’ll be with you in just a minute,” he tells Reo genially, before immediately grabbing Nagi’s arm and dragging him away to the back of the cafe.
Nagi seems too out of it to protest. This won’t do.
“Hey.” Nagi doesn’t react. Barou shakes him a little. “Hey.”
Nagi blinks. “Huh?”
Barou juts his head in the direction of the cafe. “You know him?”
“Um,” Nagi says. “Yeah, that’s Reo.”
Barou is going to kill this guy one day. Maybe even today.
“I know,” Barou hisses, “I know that that’s Reo Mikage, I’m asking if you know him.”
“Yeah,” Nagi says after a pause. “He was my…” He trails off. A vaguely wistful expression crosses his face.
Holy shit. The friend—the one friend Nagi had at some point—that friend was Reo Mikage?
There’s no fucking way.
“Listen to me.” Barou puts his hands on Nagi’s shoulders and shakes him again. “Listen to me.” He gives him another shake for good measure. “You cannot mess this up. You hear me?”
Nagi’s mouth opens. Nagi’s mouth closes. He nods.
Barou cannot believe he’s giving the highest net-worth customer he’s ever had to this guy—and it is a bit of a gamble, as well. Nagi said they used to be friends, and maybe it would have been safer for Barou to handle Reo as a customer, but if Reo had been Nagi’s friend at some point, that must mean that there was something about Nagi that he liked, right?
Either way, Barou will be keeping a very close eye on their interactions.
Barou is really tired of watching these interactions.
These guys are weird. Barou doesn’t know how else to put it. They’re weird.
There’s just something off-putting about their interactions that Barou can’t place. After watching them for a week straight, Barou can’t help but feel like Nagi was lying about being friends with Reo in the past. He’s never seen friends act quite like this before. They don’t act like strangers, either—more like something in between.
Reo’s first time at the cafe is so terribly awkward that Barou is convinced he’ll never visit again. The two of them barely speak to each other, instead just throwing each other furtive glances and immediately looking away when their gazes meet. Reo orders an omurice, and when Nagi delivers it, he draws the most awful looking heart Barou’s ever seen with ketchup on top. Reo stares at it for quite a while, then stares at Nagi for quite a while. Barou had intended to hurry over and offer another cafe item on the house to apologize for Nagi’s incompetence, but in the time that he attends to another customer, Reo manages to disappear without a word. Barou’s eyes nearly fall out of his head when he sees how much money Reo leaves as payment on the table.
So he decides not to yell at Nagi too much—evidently even his incompetence impressed Reo enough for a generous tip, and even if Reo never visits again, this is enough money to keep the cafe afloat for at least another month.
But to Barou’s surprise, Reo does come again—and again, and again, and again. In fact, he comes every day for the next week at the exact same time like clockwork. The second time he visits, Barou is the first to greet Reo, but Reo barely gives him a nod as acknowledgement before his eyes skip over to Nagi. Barou can take a hint, so he leaves Reo to Nagi, observing in the background all the while—not that there ends up being much to observe. Nagi just stares at Reo. All the time. Without saying a word. Barou has no idea how Reo isn’t creeped out by this yet.
But he pays, so Barou keeps his mouth shut.
One day, Barou’s curiosity gets the better of him. It’s a few minutes until Reo typically stops by, so Nagi is milling about the front door. After delivering a drink to a customer, Barou makes his way next to Nagi.
“So,” he says. “You and that Mikage guy.”
“Reo,” Nagi corrects. Barou resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“You and Reo. What’s your deal?”
Nagi blinks at him slowly. “Huh?”
“Why do you guys act like…” Barou waves a hand in the air, “that?”
Nagi continues staring at him blankly. Barou sighs.
“You said you were friends. What happened?”
“Oh,” Nagi says. A pause. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” Barou repeats flatly.
“I think… it was my fault,” Nagi murmurs. “I don’t know what I did. But I think I did something to make Reo mad, and…” Nagi trails off. “I couldn’t reach him after that.” He fiddles with a ruffle on his skirt. “I miss him.”
Barou thinks that sounds a little pathetic. He tells Nagi as much, and Nagi frowns.
“I mean, come on,” Barou huffs. “How can you miss him? You see him every day now.”
“Yeah,” Nagi says after a pause, “but…”
When he trails off, Barou rolls his eyes. “Hey dipshit, have you considered talking to him when he comes here?”
Nagi stares at him. “Oh,” he says.
This guy cannot be for real. Barou wishes he could fire him already.
A shiny black limousine pulls up outside the cafe. There’s only one person that could be, so Barou makes himself scarce. As he attends to the other customers in the cafe, he keeps an eye on Nagi and Reo. It looks like Nagi is actually making an attempt at conversation, but about what, Barou’s too far to actually make out. Reo cracks a smile at one point, though, so that’s probably a good sign. Barou can’t believe there are actually people in this world that find Nagi funny. No wonder this guy was his only friend.
“See?” Barou says to Nagi as he counts Reo’s contribution for the day after he’s left. “Was that so hard?” Barou finishes counting—Reo’s been especially generous today—and glances at Nagi. “What’s wrong with your face?”
“I’m in love with him,” Nagi blurts out.
“Oh, fuck off,” Barou mutters.
So that’s a thing.
To be honest, Barou is a little surprised he didn’t see it earlier. At the very least, it explained all the staring. It’s just kind of odd to imagine Nagi romantically interested in anyone, never mind the literal heir to a massive conglomerate. Reo Mikage couldn’t possibly be more out of Nagi’s league.
But at the same time…
Barou’s spent most of the last week watching how odd Nagi acts around Reo—this week, though, he begins to realize just how strange Reo acts around Nagi, too.
First, there’s the matter of physical affection. In the course of a week, Reo goes from lingering touches to Nagi’s wrist to full on head pats. When Barou brings this up to Nagi, he just looks vaguely confused.
“So?” is all he has to say after Barou explains that he’s basically just been cuddling with Reo for the past half hour. To that, Barou has no response at all.
Reo’s also starting to have more… visceral reactions to Nagi’s attention, for lack of a better word. He always seemed a little flustered when Nagi drew a lopsided heart on his typical order of omurice, but nowadays, he’s positively blushing every time Nagi delivers his order. Barou, with no small sense of horror, begins to wonder if Reo might not be so far out of Nagi’s league after all.
Barou’s suspicions are confirmed when one day, as he brings out a drink to another customer, he notices Reo and Nagi acting strange—well, stranger than usual.
See, the job at a maid cafe, ultimately, is simple. Put on a dress, put on a show—make casual conversation with customers, lend them a listening ear if they need it, and pour them some coffee or draw a heart on their food. It’s easy: service the customer with these tiny actions, and get paid a ridiculous amount of money.
So then why the fuck is Reo feeding Nagi right now?
“Say ‘ahh,’” Barou hears the purple-haired heir say. He watches with vague disgust as Nagi dutifully opens his mouth and Reo feeds him a spoonful of omurice with a terribly fond look on his face. Barou shudders. He has half a mind to kick them out—both of them—but Reo pays too well every day for Barou to take any real action.
“So,” Barou says later that evening as he and Nagi clean up for closing. “You told him, then?”
Nagi stops from where he’s been barely pushing a broom around to stare at Barou. “Huh?”
“Mikage—I mean, Reo,” Barou corrects himself with a heavy sigh. “You told him?”
Nagi blinks at him. “Told him what?”
“That you’re…” Barou scowls. “In love with him or whatever.”
Nagi tilts his head to the side. “Huh?” he says again. “No, I didn’t.”
Barou’s eyebrows raise. “You didn’t?” He shakes his head. “So you’re… not together?”
“...no?”
“So you guys are just like that? All the time?” Barou blurts out, gesturing to Reo’s usual table. “The—the feeding, the… the cuddling—” He throws his hands in the air. “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”
Nagi’s eyes narrow. “There’s nothing wrong with Reo.”
Barou doesn’t even have it in him to be surprised with Nagi’s response. He scoffs and throws a rag at Nagi’s head. Nagi looks less than pleased when he catches it.
“Just hurry up, would you? I want to get out of this outfit already,” Barou huffs.
At least with that, Nagi can agree.
“Where’s Nagi?” is Reo’s first question as soon as he finds Barou standing by the door. Barou resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“I’m afraid he’s out ill today,” Barou says carefully. Reo’s eyes begin to widen with something like panic, and Barou quickly rushes to clarify. “I believe it’s just a cold, nothing too serious.”
“Oh,” Reo says. “Okay. That’s good.”
He continues standing. Barou waits. After a few moments, he clears his throat.
“Would you care to come inside?”
Something hesitant flickers across Reo’s face. God, Barou cannot believe that their most valuable client is only drawn here because of Nagi.
“I can prepare something for you on the house,” Barou offers with hopes that it would entice Reo enough to stay. After another moment of scrutiny, Reo agrees with a nod.
Barou realizes a few moments later that this is kind of an awful deal—the only reason Barou wanted Reo to stay was so that he could pay, but he’d just gone and offered Reo a free visit. It’s a bit too late to take it back now, though, and anyway, Barou figures Reo’s paid more than enough over the course of the past few weeks to warrant a free meal.
Reo orders his typical meal of omurice, but he seems vacant as he orders. When Barou eventually returns to his table with the order, he finds Reo staring listlessly outside the window. Barou has to clear his throat multiple times for Reo to notice him there at all, and he stays absolutely silent and absolutely unmoved as Barou draws a heart on the omurice. Barou is mildly peeved at this—he took pride on how even and symmetrical the hearts he drew were, and it’s annoying to know that Nagi’s haphazard hearts are more valued than his own. But he digresses.
“Forgive me,” Barou says eventually, because even if the meal is on the house, maybe Reo might feel inclined to tip if Barou offered some of his other services. “But is there anything that’s bothering you?”
Reo looks mildly startled at this. Barou suspects Nagi has never extended the same offer, even though it is quite literally in his job description.
“You don’t need to say anything if you don’t want to,” Barou says. “But if you’d like to talk, I would be happy to listen.”
He’s lying. He really, really, really, really does not want to hear about Reo’s troubles—if only because Barou had the strong suspicion they would all relate to his useless, obnoxious coworker.
“Um,” Reo says. “No, I’m… I’m alright.”
And thank god for that, Barou thinks. He stands up, ready to make his way back to the rear of the cafe, when Reo speaks up again.
“I mean, it’s… it’s not like it’s important or anything.”
With a sigh, Barou sits back down. He folds his hands on the tabletop and pastes on a polite smile.
“What do you think isn’t important?”
Reo begins to fidget a bit in his seat. “You’re… you’re not going to say any of this to Nagi, are you?”
“Of course not,” Barou says. “Anything you tell me is strictly confidential.”
This is not necessarily true. Still, Barou doubts he’ll feel motivated to convey anything Reo tells him to Nagi, unless—
“I’m in love with Nagi and it’s ruining my life,” Reo blurts out.
Barou’s smile twitches.
“I see,” he says after a pause. “How… is it ruining your life, do you think?”
In his opinion, he’s pretty sure falling in love with Nagi would ruin anyone’s life. But maybe he’s biased.
“Because I’m not supposed to—this can’t—” Reo struggles with his words for a few moments before he cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “I can’t be doing this again!”
Barou has to try very hard not to let surprise show on his face. “Again,” he repeats carefully. “So, this isn’t the first time you’ve—”
“Of course it’s not,” Reo interrupts miserably. “Of course it’s not, how could I—how could I ever not be in love with him?”
Barou personally thinks this would be quite easy. He elects not to say this out loud.
“Could you not… tell him about these feelings of yours?” he asks instead. Reo shakes his head immediately.
“Of course not,” Reo says. “He doesn’t care about me. Not like that.” His gaze drops. “I thought I’d made peace with that fact, but…” He trails off with a quiet laugh. “I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”
Well, Barou thinks, maybe a little.
Barou debates whether or not it would be too crass to tell Reo that he can probably—definitely—do better than Nagi. Fish in the sea, and all that.
With great effort, he resists the urge.
“You’re not pathetic,” Barou says. “I can imagine this is a difficult time for you. Still, I…” He trails off. “I would urge you,” he says carefully, “to consider… communicating with him. In regards to this. It may be that—”
“No,” Reo says abruptly. “I can’t.”
Well. Looks like Barou will have to take this into his own hands.
“Hey, Nagi,” Barou says as they close up for the day. “Reo’s in love with you, by the way.”
There’s a loud clatter in the back. Nagi’s definitely broken something. Barou’s taking that out of his paycheck.
Nagi sticks his head out from the back, his eyes wide.
“Reo’s what?”
Truth be told, Barou doesn’t know what compelled him to do that. Between a Nagi and a Reo that were hopelessly pining and a Nagi and a Reo that were sickeningly in love, he would probably have been better off with the former. But here he is now, stuck with the latter.
Well. Call it an investment.
And this investment, he’ll bet, is one that’s going to pay off quite nicely in the end.