Chapter Text
It’s late, and it’s a Tuesday, and Binghe is sweeping the floor like it’s not already spotless, wishing he was excited about closing early. He would rather stay open than be alone with his thoughts, but it’s the deadest night he’s had in weeks and it makes his skin itch to see so many empty seats and have to pretend like everything is fine.
He doesn’t like the post bar-crawl crowd that makes up the unfortunate bulk of his customers, but he’d welcome even them right now. At least they always ordered enough to make up for their obnoxiousness, too drunk to add up prices.
Binghe is snapped out of his sulking when the door swings open and nearly smacks him in the face. The guy coming in doesn’t even have the decency to notice. Binghe is halfway through constructing a stunning mental image of snapping his broom in half and stabbing it through the man’s back when he finally turns around to face him.
Binghe is annoyed to find his anger trickling away when he gets a good look at the man. He seems more worn out than Binghe feels, which is saying something, if the eyebags caught under his glasses are any indication. His suit is rumpled, and his hair is a windswept mess—though Binghe gets the impression that it wasn’t styled that well to begin with. He’s lucky his hair is straight, because if it was anything like Binghe’s own curls, neglecting it like that would just be asking for a buzz cut once it got too matted to retame.
Binghe used to keep his hair short. It was professional. Not that he would ever let a hair fall into what he cooked, regardless, but he had an image to maintain. Now, though, who was there to care if he grew it out? Who was he trying to impress? Certainly not the man in front of him, who seemed like he was maybe two minutes away from keeling over onto Binghe’s nice clean floor and forcing him to hide a body he didn’t even get to kill. Binghe rubs a hand down his face. He needs to stop letting himself get so homicidal when he’s tired, or he’s actually going to follow through with it someday.
The current victim-to-be blinks at him a couple of times before he looks around blearily and lets out a little ‘oh’.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were closed,” he says, and turns to leave. Binghe knows this area, and there’s not much else at this time of night if you’re looking for more to eat than bar snacks.
Binghe has dealt with enough jerks in suits who come in right as he’s flipping the sign to closed after a long day, the type who sit down and spout off the most complicated order imaginable, just to watch him suffer. So maybe he can give the guy a break for having the decency to take a hint, even if he did look like exactly the kind of prick that would try to do that sort of thing.
“It’s fine, I’m open,” Binghe sighs, putting down his broom and tugging off his apron.
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” the man says, and Binghe can see the doubtful way his eyes track the tables and chairs stacked neatly by the wall. Binghe has to bite down a less-than-kind laugh. The guy looked like he was marching to his death, going back to the empty streets, and now he was acting all uppity?
“Too good for the bar?” he drawls, rapping his knuckles against one of the stools he passes before looping around to get to the kitchen, the swinging door creaking loudly as he pushes through it.
He puts a new apron on—one for cleaning, one for cooking—and the man gingerly sits down, setting his briefcase on the stool next to him. The man, in turn, sets his sharp eyes to observing Binghe as he clicks the stove on. He hates having to be in view of customers when he cooks like some kind of circus performer, but when you’re the sole employee in the building you have to be able to keep an eye on things.
Also, it wasn’t like he'd gotten much choice in the first place. There were only so many real estate options when you were still young enough to be treated like a child and had no references to back you up.
He sets a pan on the flame to preheat and considers what to make. He’s got a bit of pork belly left over from earlier in the week…
The man coughs behind him. And then again, louder, more pointedly, when Binghe ignores him the first time.
“What,” Binghe says, distracted. He’s running low on anything fresh. He’s going to have to go to the market in the morning.
“Look, if you don’t want me here, I can leave.”
“What?”
The man shifts awkwardly in his seat when they make eye contact.
“It’s just—could I get a menu, or something?” he asks. Binghe can feel the judgement in those words. Too bad the only menu is a chalkboard up on the wall that has already been wiped clean for the day.
“No,” Binghe says shortly. No one recommended Xin Mo for its service. The man’s eyes flicker one last time to the door, where rain has begun to pelt down against the glass. “Do you have allergies?” Binghe asks, annoyed. The man shakes his head, then stops, considering.
“Uh. Pollen?” His sole customer looks very offended by the snort Binghe lets out at that, but Binghe turns his back to him before he can say anything about it, going back to the fridge. Pollen, huh? And what do you know, there’s a bundle of chive flowers sitting pretty in the back of the bottom shelf.
They had been all but forced on him by the grandma who lives next door. She managed to cram a garden into the tiny patio each shoddy little building in this block got, and she only ever planted things that grew like weeds. Every few weeks she ended up with a harvest big enough that she could never reasonably use it all before it went bad, so most of it ended up in Binghe’s fridge. It’s a bit like those fine dining spots with seasonal menus made using the ingredients grown in the garden you get to tour before your several hundred dollar meal, except more shit and he has no control over it.
Still, it gives him the inspiration he needs right now.
“Do I get to order?”
Binghe doesn’t bother answering. He rifles around for a couple more things and gets to work. He’s going to be quick about it, because a glance back shows him that the man now looks to be on the verge of falling asleep sitting up, despite all his earlier impatience.
Fifteen minutes later he places a plate of chive flower tempura on the bar, accompanied by a bowl of noodles he’s topped with the leftover pork and some scallions. It's simpler than he usually tends to go, but he is technically closed. At least the broth is from scratch, since he always maintained a good few tubs of stock.
The man doesn’t seem to mind the homeliness of it all, judging by the slightly awed expression he wears as he stares down at the food. His skin has warmed up from the chill outside, cheeks flushed. The steam from the soup curls up around his face, fogging his glasses. He’s… drooling? Just a little, but Binghe has to bite down another laugh at the man’s expense.
“Are you planning on eating that?” He asks after a solid minute passes of the guy staring down at his bowl. He breaks out of his stupor and grimaces at Binghe for his teasing. Cute.
He picks up a piece of tempura with his chopsticks and dips it into the broth, looking down at it with a truly adoring gaze. It makes Binghe wish he'd made something more deserving of such an expression. The back of his brain starts sparking with long-forgotten ideas, watching the man with a critical eye as he draws in a breath and then finally takes a bite. Around the crunch of the batter, the man lets out a noise that is shockingly close to a moan.
Binghe can’t help but startle at the sound, but the man takes no notice of him as he begins to eat in earnest, making little appreciative—moans, they’re clearly moans, all the while. It’s obscene, frankly, shockingly loud even over the slurp of the noodles. Binghe is conflicted. He thinks he should be disgusted, but that isn’t what he’s feeling at all.
He hadn’t even hand-pulled the noodles. Not that he’d had the time, but still. Binghe knows he’s a good cook, but this meal isn't a great showing of his abilities, and yet the man's expression is so genuine. He isn’t looking for attention, doesn’t even seem to remember that Binghe is in the room with him, he’s so focused on eating. It’s earnest, and open, and honest. It’s remarkably unlike the professional critics who would sniff at the simplicity of the food he makes now in the same tone they used to fault his creativity. Nothing close to how his regulars acted, the ones who come in just so they don't have to buy a microwave meal from a convenience store on their way home.
It ends too soon, this weird, intimate moment of watching someone look like they’re all but getting off to his cooking. It’s…
It has been a long time since he’s seen someone this happy over his food. The man tips the bowl up to drink the last dregs of soup straight from it. A drop leaks out of his mouth, and Binghe’s eyes track it as it rolls over his lips before sinking down the exposed column of his throat and disappearing beneath the stiff white collar of his shirt.
He’s brought back to the present at the clink of the bowl being put back down, and the clack of the chopsticks being settled neatly on top of it.
“Thank you for the meal,” the man says, sounding horribly sincere, and then he smiles, a soft little thing that transforms his tired eyes into something warm and comforting, and Binghe is—he doesn’t—
“Hngh,” he tries, then clears his throat and says, “You’re welcome. It was…” He watches, helpless, as the man wipes the remaining moisture from his lips and then licks it off his palm in one long, broad stroke.
“It was my pleasure,” he finishes faintly.