For the first time, a week or so later, Yuri didn't enter The Otabakery after a yoga class, passing under the striped, red, strangely clean and cheerful awning following a trip to the library. He normally went there to work on weekends, not wanting to tarnish his view of his newly-purchased house with negative, frustrating associations, but today the atmosphere had seemed too quiet. Normally, silence worked well to help Yuri focus, but he soon realized that, at least for today, some background noise was a must-- and, as it was lunchtime and he'd been craving something sweet, the softly bustling bakery seemed like the perfect place.

It took Yuri all of thirty seconds to notice that Beka wasn't there when he arrived. Which wasn't a surprise, as he was actively looking for him. Well, not looking for him, but looking around to find him in the purpose of checking if avoiding him after their last awkward encounter was at all possible.

And it was, it turned out, for Yuri ordered from the ponytailed guy at the counter, had his food and coffee (decaf, fucking Mila) brought to him by the same, and settled down into a quiet, corner table to begin working.

For a while, things went quite well, Yuri cozy in the large, billowy jacket he wore and a baggier pair of jeans. They weren't part of his selection of new clothes, purchased only recently when he could put it off no longer, but an older pair, thoroughly worn in and with a forgiving enough waistband that he could still finagle some use out of them, changed though he was.

As he sat there, nestled into his little table, coat blousing around him, Yuri found, with delight, that the bakery seemed the perfect environment to work. After several hours too long at the library, he had gotten done twice the work he had there, here, in just over half the time. Plus, there was cake readily available for his consumption, here, and the sun warmed his back and shoulder in just the right way as he leaned over his laptop, reading yet another form filled with time-consuming tedium. Was he glad that he had a secure, well-paying job for the company, still? Yes, he was. Ecstatic, even. But did he like that it was so, mind-numbingly dull? Well, that seemed not to need an answer. Or explanation, honestly. Because who the hell would enjoy sifting through piles and piles of bureaucratic shit, day in and day out?

Didn't matter, though, because Yuri was finally nearing the end of his stack of papers, his allotment of work this close to being complete, for the day.

And then the worst happened. The absolute, unrivaled worst nightmare of anyone who possessed electronics.

Someone walked by.

Except they didn't. They did not merely walk, they tripped, right next to Yuri's table. Carrying three too large drinks.

"Fuck!" The expletive reached Yuri's ears moments before the coffee reached his laptop.

"No!" The shout was automatic, as was Yuri's immediate, desperate grab for his computer and then phone, lifting them out of harm's way and out of reach of the flood of brown liquid currently taking over the tabletop at an alarming speed.

Yuri stood from his chair, moving back and out of the way so as to avoid getting his jeans wetter than they already were, and put his laptop hurriedly down on the next table over -- thankfully unoccupied --, grabbing napkins from the little dispenser there and dabbing them over the keyboard of his computer. It didn't look too bad, from what he could see, but who knew how much had already soaked in under the keys?

"Oh no. I'm so sorry," Yuri spared the person one glance over his shoulder as he continued with his damage control, and found, because of course, this was his life, it to be Beka, looking thoroughly horrified. Fucking warranted! "How bad is it?" He asked, paying absolutely no attention to the mess of coffee and broken mugs still on what had been Yuri's safe haven for work. The coffee began dripping onto the floor.

Yuri didn't answer for a moment, still dabbing, but, once he could identify no more outwardly wet patches of keyboard and was only succeeding in getting pieces of napkin stuck to the now-sticky keys, he gave up his efforts, sighing.

"I don't know," Yuri glanced at his phone and found it to be dry; apparently he'd gotten it out of the way in time. "It didn't look like much got on it, but there might be a lot under the keys that I can't see." He huffed, more in frustration than anything else. If he lost all of his work to this, he was going to die. And take Beka with him.

No matter how desperately repentant he looked.

Honestly, it was probably the most emotion Yuri had ever seen on the guy's face. "I'm so sorry," he repeated, looking helplessly at the screen of Yuri's laptop. It still showed the document he had been trying to read, but flickered black after a moment, disuse triggering its sleep mode. They both stared at it for a moment. "Is there anything I can do?" Beka asked.

"Pay for its replacement?" Yuri muttered, cutting, before deflating, huffing a breath and running a hand through his hair, left untied and hanging around his shoulders. He recoiled when he realized that his fingers were still covered in dried coffee, sticky, and sighed. "No," Yuri muttered, "sorry. It's old, anyway; I needed a new one soon. It's just that it has all of my work on it." He gestured to it, defeated, feeling himself on the brink of tears. In his opinion, the reaction was pretty fair, but he also cursed the hormones circulating through his body and actualizing it.

He scrubbed a hand over his face in a vain attempt to disperse the recalcitrant products of emotion, but, going by the way Beka's eyes widened slightly and he looked even more horrified, Yuri guessed he hadn't been too successful.

"Really, it's fine," Yuri wasn't quite sure why he was trying to reassure the dude he'd seen twice and who had just destroyed his laptop, but there he was. Maybe he just wanted to seem marginally saner and distract from his less than adult reaction. Maybe he was being the bigger person after so long stuck in anger-management. Maybe he just didn't like to see that look on Beka's face. "You tripped, it wasn't your fault."

"Is there anything I can do?" He asked, looking from Yuri's laptop to its owner, giving a strong appearance of a lost, guilty puppy.

"A lifetime supply of free food?" Yuri joked, though he had to admit it sounded weak-- even to his own ears.

There was a pause.

"How about a year?" Beka replied, eventually, appearing to have re-emerged from strenuous mental math and regarding Yuri semi-hopefully. "We haven't been open too long-- I doubt a lifetime guarantee is feasible, from a financial standpoint, but a year--"

"No, no, that was just a joke--" Yuri had grown up poor. Dirt poor. The kind of poor that ensured you always feel guilty when buying name-brand items, dismiss things like a new sweater or pair of shoes as a luxury, and made the concept of 'treating yourself' absolutely foreign. That last one was something Yuri was actively combatting in coming to the bakery, but, when it came down to it, he knew intimately, deeply, painfully how tight finances could be. He would never seriously ask for a year's free consumption of anything, let alone a lifetime's. "You don't have to--"

"I insist," Beka replied, immediately. Surprisingly earnestly. "Besides," he gave a little shrug, "how else can I maintain your patronage? Offer to ruin another valuable possession for you?"

Reluctantly, Yuri gave a small chuckle.

***

In the end, Beka succeeded in talking Yuri into taking the sticky note upon which he'd scribbled a proclamation for a year's worth of free products, though Yuri knew he'd never use it. Indeed, the next time he came in (only a week or so later), he conveniently forgot about his 'gift card' (really, the sticky note was kind of sad, but he would honor its intention mentally, if not actually) when paying. Fortunately, Beka seemed not to have mentioned to his register worker (and his name tag had some kind of L in it? The rest was obscured by the ponytail perpetually on his shoulder) that Yuri didn't have to pay for his goods, for his credit card was accepted just as casually as it always was, now accompanied by a friendly smile of recognition each time the transaction occurred.

Yuri did see Beka on that trip back to the bakery, though, for, emerging from a back room (an office? The kitchen?) about half an hour into Yuri's pile of physical paperwork, the man made an appearance in the store part of his business. Upon seeing Yuri, he made a beeline for him, any awkwardness long absent in his need to speak to him, apparently.

"How's the laptop?" Beka asked, no smalltalk, as he reached him, eyeing the stack of papers Yuri found himself wading through dubiously, his brow wrinkled in what Yuri thought was concern.

"It'll live," Yuri replied, more at ease, too, in light of the Coffee/Computer Catastrophe™. "I took it to a friend of mine who's good with technology-- it took replacing a few things and a new battery, but it has made a full recovery," and, eyeing Beka eyeing his papers and pen, "I'm just using physical copies because I had to sign stuff, and get other people to sign it-- online signatures are not as easy as they're made out to be." Yuri chuckled.

Beka echoed it, seemingly relieved. "Well, I'm glad I didn't inadvertently lose you $500 dollars."

Yuri quirked an eyebrow.

"For a new laptop, I mean." Beka elaborated.

"Oh, yeah." Yuri returned Beka's small smile.

***

From then on, their interactions were easy. As easy as was reasonable, anyway. No, Yuri was not telling this man he'd known for just over a month all of his deepest, darkest secrets. But, yes, he was making fluid conversation with him, exchanging a few comments (great cake!) or complaints (WHY does this need to be checked by six different people?! Why am I one of them?!) with him whenever he passed his table, and occasionally came to sit with him when Yuri dropped his head onto the top of it and groaned, which, to Beka, said that he needed a break. And, apparently, Beka's real breaks fell at the same time as Yuri's fake ones, though he highly doubted that they were always limited to fifteen minutes long.

Another wonderful thing about the bakery, Yuri discovered, not too long after these impromptu breaks started: at his little corner table, no one gave a shit about what he looked like. On the few occasions Yuri had gone into work, he'd made an effort to dress up and look relatively professional; whenever he was called to sit in on practices, he went to great lengths to look put together in front of the company and, *quiver*, Lilia; even when he ran errands, he put on at least a touch of makeup so as not to look completely zombified; but at the bakery? No one gave a shit. Smushed into the corner table he often occupied, hidden behind his laptop and in baggy, oversized sweaters (some of them were not hoodies and instead were of socially acceptable designs, just huge; he was not a complete heathen), no one could see him, to begin with.

It was nice, the sense of anonymity he rarely got to experience, anymore, the knowledge that no one was watching him to see what he was wearing, eating, and doing. Which was not to say that he hadn't gotten caught on the street by crazy fans with cell phone cameras several times, that was just part of life for him, but that the bakery, a hole-in-the-wall place despite doing good business, was an easy place to disappear. And Beka, who very obviously knew nothing about ballet, was easy to disappear with.

Except when he caught Yuri paying for his food at the end of one of his days, there, and became Very Indignant.

"No!"

Yuri, halfway out of the shop, looked back to find Beka standing behind the counter, obviously just having emerged from his office (Yuri was fairly sure that it was an office, now), a receipt clutched in his hand. Leo, for his part (Yuri had finally learned the cashier's name!), looked thoroughly confused, and on the brink of questioning.

"You paid!" Beka cried.

Yuri, who had been inching backward towards the door the entire time, simply shot him a smile, gave a small wave, and disappeared into the highstreet. Beka's overdramatic wail, called after his retreating back, made him smile.

***
In hindsight, Yuri probably should've realized that he wouldn't just get away with that. When he returned to the bakery a few days later, it took him until he began to fish through his bag for his wallet to realize that Leo was shaking his head.

"What?" Yuri asked.

"You're not allowed to pay," he replied instantly, his lips curling around the words. The smug fucking bastard.

Yuri rolled his eyes, about to protest, when Beka appeared behind the counter. The ears of a... hawk(?), that one. "Oh, come on, just let me pay!" But Yuri's coercion was ill-received.

"Nope." Beka gave him a wry, amused smile that Yuri Did Not Appreciate. "Are you trying the apple twist? It's a new addition-- you'll have to give me your thoughts on it."

"You're trying to distract me," Yuri glared, "and it's working because I'm hungry, but dammit, Altin, I am going to pay."

"No idea what you're talking about," but he was already guiding Yuri to his usual table, his slice of the mentioned dessert in hand, thoroughly too comfortable in his belief that Yuri wouldn't be fairly purchasing the food.

"Are you just going to sit there and watch me eat?" Yuri raised an eyebrow as Beka took the chair opposite his, gazing at him intently.

"Well, I have to see your genuine reaction-- it's always better than your words." He leaned forward, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on them to further the effect. Ass.

"Ha-ha, you're very funny," Yuri replied, stabbing his fork into the twist with more intent than was probably necessary, but felt good, nonetheless.

"Thank you, I like to think so." Beka didn't miss a beat.

Thoroughly fed up with this man, Yuri didn't respond, only putting the fork in his mouth and swallowing before he had really had a chance to taste the apple and flaky pastry riding on it.

Almost instantaneously, he realized his mistake. His stomach had calmed, in recent weeks, but most food was still tricky, though Yuri had, in his path eating his way through the menu, never encountered something from the bakery that made him ill. Evidently, that luck had run out.

Otabek's eyebrows creased as Yuri's eyes widened slightly, feeling the bile rise in his throat, and looked both shocked and horrified as Yuri stood abruptly, almost running over to the little bathroom on the other side of the room.

Yuri, hand pressed over his mouth, wasted no time in such trivial matters as locking the door when he reached the safe haven of the singular, unisex lavatory. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet bowl, his thick, knitted cardigan bunching, and let his head dip beneath the rim as he retched. Tears came to his eyes as the stomach acid burned his sinuses, feeling helpless as his stomach convulsed and his diaphragm forced what had been his breakfast and recently-consumed lunch from his body.

It didn't continue for too long, unlike the results of many of his other run-ins with Problem Foods had done, but by the time Yuri had slumped over the toilet, grasping for the toilet paper he knew to be beside it, he was exhausted, enough so that his disgust and revulsion at puking in a bathroom that was used by the general public had yet to set in.

The toilet paper he was searching for was pushed into his hand, and, after a second, so was a water bottle. "That bad, huh?" Beka asked, weakly, "No one else had such a strong reaction..."

"No," Yuri shook his head, his voice as firm as he could make it following his stomach's recent rebellion, "the food was fine-- I think I've just finally found the one dish served here that I can't eat," he gave a hollow laugh, "shame, it was such a good run."

"What?" When Yuri looked up at him, Beka's face was extremely confused, concern not hidden in his expression.

Yuri shrugged tiredly, "I'm pregnant-- some foods just randomly make me sick," then, "what?" Beka's expression had changed. Significantly. But he got it back under control so quickly, and Yuri wasn't an expert at reading his face, yet, so he couldn't say what the emotion that had temporarily made a home in his features was.

"Nothing," Otabek replied, belatedly. "Just glad I didn't poison you."

Yuri gave a weak chuckle, and accepted Otabek's hand to get up. He didn't miss the way Otabek's eyes lingered on his abdomen, where his sweater had ridden up and, just for a moment, a glimpse of his rounded belly had been visible.

**A/N**

Poor Beka. :(

Thank you for reading! If you feel so inclined, kudos and especially comments are wonderful to receive and feed my little writer's soul! ♥