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Yujin is accustomed to being the first one awake in the mornings of 221B Baker Street, and conducting his morning routine alone in the quiet of the building is just another feature of his day-to-day in the apartment. Even after a decade of distance from his England home, this much is true.
In this new era of life, however, it appears that his mornings are no longer conducted alone. When he goes to make tea in the kitchen, he finds Susato already there, searching the cabinets. In Japan, their morning routine would be tea together in the morning, and whoever awoke first would have the privilege of making and serving it. It seems that his daughter has already beaten him to it, today.
She smiles brightly when she sees him approach. “Good morning, Father,” she greets as she puts the kettle on the stove. “I’m making tea with one of Iris’ newest blends today! I had the privilege of testing it yesterday, and I must say it truly is wonderful.”
“Then I’m looking forward to it,” he greets her in return, patting her shoulder affectionately. “Here, let me help you.” He opens the cupboards where he knows the teacups are and finds them in their usual place — even if their collection of teacups has multiplied, they still haven’t been moved from where Yujin had first placed their teacups all those years ago.
Perhaps there’s a few of his favorites in the back. Sholmes never used the ones Yujin often used, and Iris may have never reached for them as a result…
He was right! Yujin triumphantly - and carefully - pulls out one of his favorite teacups, clean but clearly never used. He sets it down on the counter where Susato has the rest of the tea compliments laid out: honey, sugar cubes, and milk, and watches her lay out teacups for the rest of the house’s residents.
“Are you usually the one making tea in the mornings?” Yujin asks Susato, who nods and begins explaining her daily routine of waking up and setting the morning tea.
“Iris is usually awake in about half an hour, so I always pour hers first. She prefers her tea plain, like Mr. Sholmes does, so it doesn’t take much time to prepare. Mr. Naruhodo likes his tea warm, but not lukewarm - with an excessive amount of sugar cubes, if I’m being honest - so I usually prepare his last. He usually wakes up in about an hour or so, which is plenty of time for the tea to go warm, and I usually place it near the heating so it doesn’t become lukewarm. Mr. Sholmes wakes up last, and you never know whether it’ll be in two hours or in four, so it’s usually not until he’s awake that I make him tea — if I’m in the apartment, that is. I’m usually out on an errand by the time he’s awake…”
Meticulous as always, his Susato. He tells her as much and watches her grin bashfully at the praise, bowing her head to hide her joy at being appreciated. Humble as always as well, his Susato.
Yujin made morning tea, too, when he lived here. Like Susato, he would be the first awake (albeit the first of only two residents instead of four), and he would brew tea for himself and his partner, who would stumble into the kitchen before drinking nearly an entire pot’s worth of tea on his own. Yujin usually drank tea only for the ritual of it, Sholmes was the avid tea drinker of the both of them, so he never minded drinking the one cup while the other repeatedly poured water over the leaves until the brew was almost clear.
Hm. Susato is boiling just the one kettle, so… “Do you use the one kettle of water for everybody?”
“Hm? Oh, yes,” she gestures to the teacups. “Iris’ kettle is just large enough for four cups of tea exactly, so I usually just reheat the water when Mr. Sholmes wakes up- oh dear! I’ve nearly forgotten about water for your portion, Father!”
She looks genuinely panicked at the mistake, so Yujin lets himself laugh to ease her distress. “Don’t worry about it, Susato. I’ll take Sholmes’ portion of the water, and we can heat another kettle of water for him later.”
Susato frowns. “That… seems like an awful waste of gas to heat just a teacup’s worth of water for Mr. Sholmes, Father.”
Ah, so she doesn’t know. “Don’t worry. Just brew the full kettle of water and Sholmes will have it empty in an hour.”
“Will he?” Susato looks surprised at the revelation. “Does he not mind re-using his tea leaves?”
“Not at all, Susato,” Yujin chuckles. “As long as there’s water out, he’ll brew the tea ‘til the water’s clear.”
Her expression turns thoughtful before she frowns again. “Oh. Does that mean I’ve been brewing too little tea for Mr. Sholmes this whole time?”
“Not at all, my dear,” he reassures her once more. “If he wanted more tea, he’d boil another kettle of water himself.” He’d done so a few times, when the kettle had run out of water and he was still in the mood for more tea. Usually, he’d finish that kettle, too.
Susato’s frown becomes less extreme. “Alright then. I’ll keep that in mind, though. I’ll brew some more water for Mr. Sholmes next time.”
The kettle whistles with boiling water, so the father and daughter go about preparing Iris and Ryuunosuke’s teas. Iris doesn’t add anything to her tea, so Yujin pours the water for the two cups while Susato adds and mixes in Ryuunosuke’s sugars. As Susato moves Ryuunosuke’s teacup closer to the heater, Yujin pours his own tea alongside Susato’s: plain for the both of them. Sometimes he takes his teas with honey or milk depending on the blend, which he presumes is why Susato had laid them out, but he’s never had an original Iris blend and he’d like to try it as is.
It’s in the middle of setting the teacups on the table that he hears a door open and close, then a sleepy “Good morning, Susie!” from Iris followed by Susato’s “Good morning!” in return. The padding of feet make it from her bedroom to the kitchen, where she notices another person alongside her sister: “Oh! And good morning to you, Professor Mickey.”
The nickname she’s given him is wonderfully endearing, and he feels his heart melt at the sound of it. “Good morning, Iris. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, please! Thank you for helping Susie prepare this morning. I always try to get up earlier and help, but she always manages to wake up right before I do!”
“None of that, Iris,” Susato chides as she sits at the table. “It’s one of my greatest pleasures to make everyone tea in the morning, and then to drink it with you when it’s done. Father’s just used to waking up early like me, so it’s normal for us to be making tea together.”
“Susato did most of the work, anyway,” Yujin offers, to which Susato counters with “it wasn’t much work to begin with!” — and their morning tea continues with Yujin giving his daughter as much credit as he possibly can while said daughter denies it while becoming increasingly embarrassed at the praise. Iris is still freshly awake, so she sips at her tea while she watches them debate with an amused look in her eyes.
Ryuunosuke comes down not long after. The heater is closer to the kitchen than it is the stairs, so by the time Ryuunosuke is settled in his chair, shaking the sleep off himself, Susato has moved the cup in front of him. He thanks her, clearly used to this routine (and perhaps debated her a few times over who should be moving the teacup, too), and takes grateful sips of his tea.
The rest of the morning passes by in pleasant discussion, with Iris excusing herself to her typewriter to work on another of her manuscripts, and Susato excusing herself to her room to avoid being spoiled (“I like reading the published versions,” she’d explained once, “without the context of the original story, and then asking Iris for the original - well, your - renditions of the case to see what’s changed.”) on the newest update to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Ryunosuke excuses himself after a little while of peaceful sitting with Iris’ typewriter clicking in the background, citing some work to be done for the day, and Yujin is left alone as he sits at Iris’ tea table.
It’s not for long that he sits on his own, reading over the newspaper, though, before a different door opens and shuts and Herlock Sholmes stumbles sleepily into the kitchen. “Good morning, Iris,” he mumbles, moving almost on autopilot to drop a kiss on her head, and his daughter chirps back “Good morning!” without stopping her typing.
Susato had retired to her room after entrusting the task of Sholmes’ tea to him, so Yujin gets up and puts the filled kettle on the stove for the half-asleep detective already seated at the tea table.
“Good morning, Sholmes,” he throws aimlessly at his partner - who jolts awake at the sound of Yujin’s voice.
“Mikotoba!” he exclaims, voice ecstatic and full of wonder. “However and whenever did you get here?”
“I arrived here last night after sailing across the ocean from Japan,” Yujin re-informs him. “I stayed the night here, and woke up early to have tea.”
“Did you really?” Sholmes… seems to be convinced he’s dreaming up Yujin’s current presence in 221B.
“I did, really,” Yujin says, waving at the teacup in the seat next to Sholmes’, then the coat he’d hung next to the entrance to the apartment.
“Why, it’s your favorite teacup,” Sholmes observes. “Nobody’s used it in quite a while, but Iris cleans out the teacups every once in a while even if it’s been unused. Clean as a whistle, I say! Iris is quite proficient at cleaning.”
“Anyone’s proficient at cleaning when you’re the other person in the house,” Yujin sighs, glancing at the disastrous state of Sholmes’ work area.
“You’re quite right, Mikotoba! I’m wonderfully inept at cleaning. Ha ha ha!”
Yujin snorts at the acknowledgement, and the kettle whistles to announce the water is boiled. He takes it off the stove and brews Sholmes’ first cup of the day, setting it in front of him when it’s done.
“Wonderful work from Iris as always,” Sholmes smiles as he sips at the tea. He doesn’t put the cup down until he’s drank it all, and he sighs contentedly as he does. Yujin hardly thinks about it as he pours another cup for Sholmes, but when he glances back his partner is staring intensely at the new cup of tea with a… look, on his face.
“Sholmes?” he decides to prod.
“Hm? Oh!” the detective smiles up at Yujin, but not in the way he does when he’s about to say something ridiculous or crack a joke in his direction. The way Sholmes is smiling, Yujin can only find to describe as “heartwarmingly sweet.”
“Nothing, nothing. Just…” he goes back to stare at the cup of tea Yujin’s brewed, and- oh.
Susato’s always boiled just enough water for the four of them, and morning tea wasn’t really a routine with Iris. It’d been a while since Yujin had made tea in 221B, so it’d also been a while since Sholmes had someone to boil him a kettle of water to overbrew tea with. Since someone who’d known him inside out shared this space, this routine, with him.
The realization both tugs at Yujin’s heart and warms him, the pain of an ocean’s distance settled in his bones alongside the warmth of sitting next to the man he knows best, and knows him deeply in return.
It’s been a while since his partner was last home.