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Chocol - no. He shook his head, still trying every bit to be spine-stiff polite. "Thanks, but no thanks. I still have this to finish." He gestures at the bento. Not going to finish it in one sitting, then. All the more easier for food thievery. "Perhaps next time."

Of course a first date was important. How to not muck it up, however, was higher on his priority list than how to prevent people from ruining it. Looks like he was going in backwards. "As long as you're happy, I hope. And..." Ah, hold it there. Encouraging violence is never a good thing, even if said potential targets happen to not mind said violence. And was a bad example to be setting on a first date. "... And if anything happens I'll try to get it rectified as soon as possible," he finishes, with a slight nod to himself. Not by rendering them unconscious for the next few hours, possibly, or letting loose wave after wave of zombies and crowning Amarante as queen and herald of the apocalypse. That should solve most of the problems in that situation, but...

Oh yeah. That one singular problem. That was going to be a little more difficult. He should go look up 'how to stifle self in case of emergency'. "... Is it possible to do the reverse? Suppress instead of amplify?" A question more for himself than Amarante, of course. But still worrisome enough to bug him.

"Oh, yes. Anything you'd like in particular?" Aha! A question so often thrown at him, and now a perfect chance to give it back. "Other than all of the above, of course. Or any certain flavor in mind?" Sweet, sweet, sweet... Was there not going to be anything else in that menu? And of course he still has no idea what she was thinking of for her main course.

"Um.... Anything sweet goes, I suppose." That meant milk and white then. "And I guess the sweetness wouldn't go well with a sour tomato." He would know. Someone had to be able to attest to having downed batch after batch of failed chocolate and tomato mix, if the shy glance to the table corner meant anything. Casualties in the name of desserts, however, those he was willing to give. So he had better not say anything about wilted sugar petals, ahaha! Not like anyone would want to eat pestilence-touched chocolates. Hey, that's probably one food that there would be no thievery of! Now shelf that budding plan aside, he could work on poisoning all the food thieves in the pantry later. Or not. He would need the staff if he was going to be working, not matter how annoying they could be. Okay, maybe poison the non-staff. At least the difference was that the staff had quick access to medicine.

Her words rung true. It was better to both be on the same side rather than against, or alone, for that ma - Anyway! "Never mind about him. Perhaps it's merely a different thought process. Or something." He was second-guessing. Since whe - ack! Nonono! He made her sad! Shameful! Uh, uh, right, encourage! "You could use it for yourself, I mean, um, it's yours, right? And... um..." Yeah, easier said than done, and of course a ton more difficult than pulling words out of his mouth and stabbing himself with them. To say that she did scare him on the first encounter? That would make guilt. To spar with her once and lose? Would wound pride. So the answer he now learnt was to not bring up that particular topic, seeing as now it was not only being a randomly appearing spot of trouble, it was also a bad point with the both of them. Well then!

Eggs? Ah, he has just the person to ask! And frying pans over the head were no difficulty when it came to - hey, getting ahead of himself there. But strange, it was not the usual joke about the unsaid. "Eggs... Duly noted." Better to find something he could learn while needing a lot of restraint than being unable to learn anything at all! She might not be that partial to tomato omelettes though, so... "Scrambled, fried, boiled or...?"

Don't poke her cheeks. No. Just no. Even if the person puffing her cheeks looks too adorable to not. He might just freeze her head over. Sit. Concentrate on her words instead. "I don't blame you. A bit hard to be making friends over death threats." Yeah, right. Who's the duo in this little conversation that made the first death threat? Can't say any better.

"If it's simple to cook, doesn't that make it better?" Still not grasping what exactly 'childish' is, huh. "You could just prepare some whenever you felt hungry. Or turn it into a cake." The frown probably meant that he was blind to whatever seemed to be wrong with liking eggs. But then again this was a person who would eat his favourite food with everything, sometimes disregarding appropriateness.

Yeah, he should check. A quick turn around in his seat, go on, and nope, no peepers detected. Good thing, for their sake. And just in case there were any - nibble on a cheesecake slice, if there were any to lure out. Oh yeah, suppose he should try and send away the nearly-forgotten person at the door? An exercise that would end in the usual defeat, but she was pretty wary still. A point to be taken very seriously later. Such things, and it was only because someone broke that line of personal defense. He might have remarked that it was getting a little cramped but nah. The one in the best position to do a little backstabbing was, after all, himself.

A question repeated over and over. No, he was not tired of it. But instead of affirming it as usual, why not this? He picked up a second cheesecake slice and offered it to her. "Okay, so would you like to eat some?" Perfect blank question. No ulterior motive whatsoever, just merely out of curiosity for a path less taken.

"... Isn't tomato sweet? Sour mostly, and egg yolks are sweet, egg whites don't have much taste unless it's salt on sunny-side ups..." Cue the audience burying their faces in their hands in shame. So much for actually trying to grasp that concept.

Eh? So why was he stingy again? Eh.....? Confusing, confusing. And where was she going with that? Ah, not that he knew. So just nod and say, "Yeah, it's nice. Thanks for making them." So this was what they meant when he was going to have to brush up on understanding later on, huh.

There's a knock on the door. Ohhh. He froze mid-bite of another sandwich. Small talk! Tact! Juggling more than one person in a conversation without automatically silencing one of them! What to do?!

One day, he should sit down and sort those out. Later. If he has the time now, with that kind of schedule and making time for Amarante. Worth it?

Answer that later.

Tomato meringue....? He knew what lemon meringue was, and it was sour, so.... His hand was already scribbling it down onto the nearest piece of scrap paper. Except that his entire desk had not a single piece of scrap paper. Good job, taking notes on your work reports.

"Um, never mind that," he started, noticing her glance at the door. "It's nothing important." Yeah, right. The firm voice on the other side of the door had its own agenda.
"Twenty minutes."

The doctor blinked. One, two, three. Then a mad scramble for his schedule. In the next twenty minutes - no, nineteen - let's see, a procedure op in Room 3, but the briefing was going to take at least fifteen minutes, that left a little less than three minutes to get moving. Yeah, should have kept better track of time there.

".... Okay, maybe it is something important," he mumbles, starting to gather his records and notes.

What's the matter, kitty got his tongue? Or maybe just embarrassed enough to feel the questions pressing themselves against the door and tangling his fingers in papers? The bundle - messy one, made out of most of the papers scooped off the desk - tied tight and hasty, still enough time for words, right? Shuffling papers did wonders for attention spans, anyway. But true - ah, wait a minute! She is not booking an appointment for her next checkup, so put away the schedule and decide, for once!

"... Would you like a library to be the venue for that?" Icicle humor, as usual, who wants their date to start at a place of quiet solidarity? Unless it's a study session? Yep, classic thoughts, who takes a first date as a study session?! How glad he was that Amarante was not a mind-reader.... uh, right? And what if she decided to choose somewhere in the sun, really crowded, and noise everywhere? Oh, quit it with the embarrassing paranoia!

"I... I-I can escort you back outside, if you'd like," he says, even with the seconds poking into the back of his head, one by one. "In case of um, volatile floorplans." Had he warned her about that? Maybe. Better remind her, just because.

"Okay. Then in that case..." Well, he did try to put in effort to clean up. Try. If he could stop thinking about her hands on his. Cold, aren't they? Any longer and the food, no matter how thick the box is, would be cold to the touch. He boxed it back up anyway. Hm, this place was as close to a literal fridge as it could get, so leaving it here was just about as dangerous as leaving it in the pantry fridge upstairs. Nope, food thieves still everywhere. Better put it in a drawer just in case. That done, he went to the door and opened it, just enough for the shadow of a person waiting outside to fall in. "... I'll be there in a bit. Hold on," he said quietly. The questions can come later. Especially the more curious ones. Or those for poking fun. They did that sometimes.

Say, did he need to give the box back? Yeah, would be real rude if he took it and did not return it. It could be reused. Would she want it back? A specially selected box. Oh, wait. He could make stuff to put in it. Like tomato meringue. That was a good idea. "Maybe, yeah. Just an elevator's ride from the cafe, right? Or maybe I should find you at the counter, as usual?" At least the book talk might be a little more comfortable for people to hear, but the expected 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude upon your hospitality' was nowhere to be heard. That, or did he look a little more cheery about seeing her again than the usual stone-face?

"Come on then," and he's already holding the door open for her, taking no mind that there's someone already outside, or the fact that there's going to be a lecture the moment he finally steps into the operation theatre. "Let's get going. I'm sure the temperature has pinched you enough, sunlight's going to feel a lot more better now, isn't it?"

Okay, so maybe if he just hurriedly took her by the hand and dragged - no, gently ushered! - her out the corridor, she won't notice an extra person standing beside the boxes stacked outside, watching them from behind dark lenses. And he won't notice that she was not in fact, a patient. And she won't feel apprehensive because even he knew that standing outside someone's door to wait and listen was creepy.

So just who was he kidding? Deluding himself into trying to believe that they can all get along... With that glare drilling into the back of his head, now? Not so much. Explanations for a better time, work's first, Amarante's safety most important. At least they were only being followed at a relatively safe distance, but followed anyway. "I h-hope your colleagues don't mind me walking in again, even the boss has to pull their weight around sometime," he mumbles as a half-hearted attempt to distract her. "Or anyone else, for that matter." They had run into enough hostility together for him to put a marker on that paranoia. "Any um, specifics?" Like not over-dressing. Not again. But not under-dressing either. Shame!

But before he lets her out the door.
Do it.
No.
She might not have patience to last forever.
They're being watched by a figurative hawk.
And she has not stoked that rebellious trait numerous times already?

"...." Well? He turns back around, and this time takes both her hands of his own accord with chilling determination. Or defiance? One of them, depends on who's watching, perhaps.

"A promise is a promise. I'll come around the next time there's an empty slot that isn't in the middle of the night. Or with anything pending." Tempting to say that he'd leave out emergencies and party crashers, but unless he could either string them all up as paper lanterns or get a miracle of a non-emergency duration, nope.