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The days had passed languidly, bringing with them a small variety of ups and downs. Ups in the time spent with Baikou and the comfort in no longer having to face decisions alone, downs in the fact the shop had been discouragingly slow after its promising first day.

Slow, that is, until this evening when he had been about to shut the door a bit early in favor of getting dinner together at a decent hour, and had been interrupted by a young human woman and her, from the look of it, quite-harried father.

She, they explained after taking a moment to browse his shelves, had a wedding in a week's time. And it was of utmost importance to the bride that she have perfume to give her bridesmaids as their favors for attending. She had, in fact, visited several other better-known perfume merchants in both the Port of Gambino and Barton before finally noticing his advertisement on the board of another shop and they felt Hitsuga may be their last hope on the matter.

What they wanted were twenty-five bottles of a gardenia-and-lily fragrance. Small, easily carried in a purse, and decorated according to the wedding's colors of vanilla and leaf-green (which the bride had happily provided color slips of). And they absolutely needed them in five days.

The perfume itself was not a complex request....he could finish the product in an evening. The time constraint and the decorating, though....

After fiddling with the numbers and tentatively presenting them the figure for what he would charge them for such a job, the young lady's father had snorted and scribbled it out, writing beside it what he was prepared to pay if the young man could just make it happen.

Clearly he was simply tired of being dragged from place to place and wanted to be done with it, but the motivation had its desired effect. Having forgotten dinner entirely after they'd left, he was now in the back, already working.

He'd, at first, been alarmed by the dramatic entrance as he looked up from where he was huddled over his desk with wide eyes.

And then....is unable to keep from first grinning and then chuckling as she makes her zombie-like approach. whee

He is sorry, he'd forgotten when he'd gotten all wrapped up in this. But...

"Look." he says, a glimmer of excitement hovering about him as he fishes the paper off of the edge of the desk to show it to her. "If I can finish this in five days," and he knows that he can "we should be set for expenses for at least a month."

He....well, he hadn't wanted to say it... sweatdrop

When Rika had allotted him some funds to get things started, he'd planned them first around the supplies he'd need, and the remainder around the cost of his own living.

....and then someone had crossed planes looking for this one, he adds with a smile, both it and the projection offering only warmth.

This would give them some breathing room. And, it is his hope, future customers as well. And if she likes, once he figures out how, exactly, he's going to decorate the bottles its to be put in, she can help him with that if it will not hurt her hands.

It can wait for a bit, though, he adds as he rises from the table to stand and stretch. What would Baikou like to eat?

He is certain, especially if he has some help, that the five days allowed will end up being more than enough time.

....surely nothing that taking an hour aside for dinner will effect, at least. So, that established, what would she like?, he needles playfully, giving her shoulder a nudge.

He can make them a salad, he could try his own hand at soup, if Kan has not eaten it all, he could try to make something with the chicken slices he'd gotten last time he'd visited the market (what they had called chicken, anyway...despite the fact it smelled and tasted differently from what he knew it to be).

......and since when, exactly, has staying up all night been a concern of hers in recent days...?

He can do that, he says, blushing a bit and rubbing at where she'd poked him.

....the salad and chicken, he means.

.......not that he doesn't mean he wouldn't--

Deciding to stop before he paints himself into a corner, he shakes his head, leaning in to affectionately nuzzle her brow before breaking away to head for the kitchen.

And for the record, he adds, he's yet to fall asleep immediately. ....and other things he's still working on. sweatdrop

It occurs to him these are not things that, even a week ago, he'd have discussed openly with anyone, Baikou included. Then again, they'd both been acting more than a little silly around one another lately...

Fetching down a bowl large enough to mix the greens in, and a knife to cut them with, he retraces his steps back to the workroom to open the fridge door, rummaging the greens and chicken out of the bottom drawer where the food would not spoil the flowers occupying the shelves.

His brows shoot up in immediate interest.

"Really?" he asks, fishing a small cucumber out of the tangle of foliage to wash it under the faucet. He's certain more than a few people will be happy to hear that.

And that means, also...

"I hope Eikou hasn't worried too much..." he murmurs, beginning to slice the vegetable on the countertop.

At this he falls silent, the only sound being the rhythmic thunk of the knife's blade as it meets the countertop repeatedly.

He's....not sure, he ventures. He does, certainly, want to at least assure his little sister and Kitsuo that he is still alive and well. And he would prefer to do that face-to-face. They've done so much for him, and offered such support these last few years, that he owes them more than a handed down message across planes.

And he wants to assure that his shop in the Chemists' tower is still intact.

.....however....

The knife stops mid-cut as he allows himself to succumb to thought for a moment on the matter, chewing his lip a bit.

The silence in the kitchen seems enormous and to last forever before he, at last, breaks it with more slicing as he continues to work on their dinner.

He....if Baikou wishes it, will go with her to get Matsuto. He is not precisely sure what it is, exactly, that her arrangement has been with Yuuto, but...