The afternoon rush at Café Bean had finally died down, leaving behind the lingering scent of coffee and the quiet hum of scattered conversations. Ashley mechanically wiped down the counter for the third time in five minutes. Her mind constantly went back to the Mrs. Brook’s English project and how it’s already been a week and she still has not convinced Arek to help her and do his part. It was so infuriating. If he was here she would use this rag to not only erase the stains on the table but Arek’s entire smug jerk face.

"You're going to wear a hole in the counter."

Ashley startled at Lucien's soft voice. She hadn't heard him approach – then again, she rarely did. For someone so tall, he moved with remarkable quietness, like he was perpetually trying not to disturb the air around him.

"Sorry," She pulled the rag off the table, clearly the surface was clean now. "Just thinking."

Lucien fidgeted with his apron strings, a habit she'd noticed emerged whenever he initiated conversation. "You seem... stressed? I mean, more than usual? Not that you're usually stressed, I just—" He took a breath, steadying himself. "Is everything okay?"

Through him finding his words, she knew what he meant but it was cute watching him fumble, "School stuff. I got paired with someone for this huge project, and he's..." she trailed off, searching for a diplomatic way to describe Arek.

"Difficult?" Lucien offered, leaning against the counter in a way that somehow made him look both more comfortable and more nervous.

"That's one way to put it." Ashley sighed, dropping her cleaning cloth. "It's for Creative Writing – we're supposed to write about identities and true self and speak in front of the class, but my partner won't even acknowledge the project exists."

"Oh." She didn’t know what he was thinking but one moment he lit up and the next he looked away from her, "That sounds... interesting, actually. The topic, I mean. Not the partner situation."

Ashley tilted her head, really looking at him. Isn’t Lucien homeschooled? At least she remembered his parents telling her that when they hired her. She clearly remembers his parents embarrassing him by explaining to her how great their son was in academics. He probably has amazing writing skills. "I wish I'd been paired with you instead," she said without thinking.

Suddenly Lucien made a small sound that she didn’t understand but when she looked at him, he turned away from her. All she could see was his dark brown curls and the red tips of his ears. "I... that would... I mean..." He finally turned back to her after he adjusted himself. "You probably wouldn't want that. I'm not great at... presenting things. In front of people."

"Right, the presentation part." Ashley slumped against the counter. "We have to present it together, so even if I wrote the whole thing myself, I'd still need Arek to actually show up and participate."

Ashley looked away from the nervous Lucien to look around the cafe, turning back to him when she heard his voice once more. "Maybe... maybe you could find a way to make him want to participate?" 

"How? He doesn't seem to want anything except to be left alone."

"Everyone wants something," Lucien said quietly, then looked surprised at his own certainty. "I mean, maybe he just... needs a different approach?"

Ashley straightened, reaching for her bag under the counter. She pulled out her notebook and her favorite pen – a purple one with a little daisy on top that bobbed when she wrote. She only used it for note taking. At work it was distracting just like it was at school so private notes or lists was what it was used for. "Okay, help me brainstorm. What would make someone like Arek actually want to work on this?"

She started writing ideas. She could stalk him and if she did it well enough, he would be so creeped out he would have to participate to get her to stop. As long as he doesn’t call the police on her and get a restraining order. 

The flower bobbed cheerfully as she wrote more. 

Maybe she could get Luca to help her kidnap him and force him to do the work but would he even speak at presentation time after being tortured? When she glanced up, she caught Lucien staring at her pen with an expression of gentle delight.

Ashley looked down at her pen before looking back up at him "Do you like it?" she asked, wiggling the pen so the daisy danced.

"Ah.. uh.. It's... cute. The flower, it... moves."

She found herself softening at his comment. Goodness, he was so precious. "Here," she held it out to him. "You can have it."

"What? No, I couldn't—" He backed away slightly, hands raised. "It's yours, and you're using it, and—"

"I have others at home," she insisted, still holding it out. "Consider it a thank you for helping me figure this out. Besides," she added with a grin, "You clearly appreciate its dance more than I do."

Lucien's hand hesitated as he reached for the pen, taking it gently, treating it like it was made of glass instead of plastic. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." She watched as he carefully tucked it into his apron pocket, the daisy peeking out like it had found a new garden to bloom in.

Lucien’s smile was one she wasn’t expecting from a simple flower pen. It reminded her of when she first started working here and helped Lucien pick up and organize the coffee cups after some angry customer knocked them all down. He was so scared when that happened but when they got it cleaned up. He gave her that smile. What she did was a simple gesture of kindness. Something people should do for others. But those simple gestures always made Lucien smile the same. Such an easy guy to please. A breath of fresh air. She didn’t have to run the mile when it came to Lucien. Just coming to work everyday seemed to make him happy enough.

She quickly looked back at her notebook, now writing with a regular blue pen. The same one she uses to take orders, "So, about Arek..."

"Right." Lucien seemed to gather himself, though his hand kept drifting to the daisy pen in his pocket. "What if... what if you could show him you see past his mask? The project's about identity, so maybe..."

"Maybe I need to prove I'm willing to be real too," Ashley finished, the idea taking shape. "But how?"

Lucien was quiet for a moment, probably thinking. "Food," he said finally.

"Food?"

"When I first started working here, everything was... overwhelming." He gestured vaguely at the café. "But making food, preparing things for others... it helped. It's like offering a piece of yourself, but safer somehow."

Ashley's eyes widened. "Lucien, you're brilliant! We could make him lunch!"

"We?"

"Well, I could use some help." She gave him her best pleading look. "You're way better at food prep than I am, and if we make it here in the café kitchen..."

Lucien stared at her for a moment, tightening his shoulders before relaxing, "Okay," he said softly. "I'll help."

They spent the next hour between customers planning the perfect lunch. Lucien suggested foods that were comforting but not obvious about it – nothing that screamed "we're trying to win you over" but rather "we put thought into this." Ashley took notes, watching how Lucien grew more animated when discussing food combinations, though he still spoke barely above a whisper.

"Is he like you? Should we not add lettuce to anything?" he mentioned. "I've noticed you always pull it out of any sandwich that comes with it."

Ashley looked up, surprised. "You notice things like that?"

Lucien immediately retreated into himself. "I notice lots of things. It's easier than... participating."

The simple honesty of his statement struck her. Here was someone else who wore a mask, who understood what it meant to hide, blend into their surroundings. Maybe that's why his suggestion about reaching out to Arek felt so right. Maybe Lucien needed food too and that’s why he suggested it. She did hear that the way to someone's heart is through their stomach. Does it bring out their true self too?

Lucien turned to her, “Shall we get started? I’ll get everything prepared while you finish cleaning the lobby and close up.”

Ashley agreed and quickly went back to work cleaning tables. It didn’t take long for her to finish and lock the doors for the night. She went back to the kitchen finding Lucien setting temperatures on the stove with ingredients meticulously arranged on the prep counter like an art installation.

"Please tell me you didn't alphabetize the vegetables," she teased, tying on her apron.

Lucien jumped slightly, then relaxed when he saw it was her. "No, that would be..." He paused for a moment, "That would be ridiculous. They're arranged by cooking time."

Ashley bit back a smile. "Of course. Much more logical."

"It is," he insisted softly, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. The flower pen bobbed from his apron pocket as he moved to the cutting board. "Everything needs to be prepared in the right order or the timing will be off."

"Okay, Chef Lucien." She stepped up beside him. "What's my first task?"

He handed her a cucumber. "Dice this? Please? Into quarter-inch cubes?"

"Quarter-inch specifically?"

"It... affects the texture ratio." He demonstrated with precise cuts. "See? Too big and it overpowers the other ingredients. Too small and it gets lost."

Ashley tried to copy his technique, but her first few cuts were decidedly uneven. "I'm pretty sure my cucumber just committed geometry crimes."

A small laugh escaped him – the first she'd ever heard – and it was surprisingly warm. "Here," he moved behind her, carefully adjusting her grip on the knife. "Like this. Gentle but firm."

She tried not to notice how his hands hesitated before he guided hers, or how he stepped back quickly once she had the motion down.

"So," she said, focusing on her cutting, "is this a special talent of yours? Cooking?"

"It's... methodical." He was preparing some kind of marinade, measuring ingredients with scientific precision. "Like chemistry, but less likely to explode. Usually."

"Usually?"

"There was an incident with a pressure cooker once. We don't talk about it."

Ashley laughed, then immediately messed up her cucumber spacing. "Now look what you did. My perfect quarter-inch cubes are ruined."

"Oh?" He peered at her cutting board for a second before focusing back on what he was doing. "They were already more rhombuses than they were cubes."

"Excuse you, don’t judge my cucumbers by their looks." She waved a piece of cucumber at him threateningly. "Not all of us can be cooking prodigies."

"I'm not—" he started, then caught her teasing smile. "Oh. You're joking."

"Am I? These cucumbers might disagree." She held up a particularly mangled piece. "This one looks kind of like a seahorse."

Lucien leaned in to inspect it, his curls falling forward. "I see it. Though it's a rather angular seahorse." Ashley’s eyes met his before he quickly looked away with flushed cheeks, "Maybe we should stick to regular shapes for now."

Ashley scoffed dramatically, "You're such a perfectionist." But she started cutting more carefully, trying to match his precise measurements.

"Don’t you color-code your homework folders?"

"That's different! That's... organizational efficiency."

"Mhmm." He was expertly rolling something now, his hands quick and sure in a way they never were during regular café tasks. "And I suppose your perfectly aligned notebook margins are just 'spatial optimization'?"

Ashley gasped in mock offense. "Have you been spying on my study habits?"

"I notice things," he reminded her softly, but his small smile remained. "Like how you tap your pen three times before starting any list."

"I do not!" She paused. "Do I?"

"The daisy bobbed quite enthusiastically each time."

She glanced at the flower pen in his pocket. "Traitor. You acted like you never seen my daisy pen before. And here I thought we were friends."

His hands stilled for a moment, then resumed their careful work. "Friends..." he let out a small breath “Friends are… nice.”

The way he said it almost sounded like she said something wrong, like they weren’t friends or something but his last comment allowed her body to rest from the tight state it was in for a split second, "Yeah," she agreed. "They are."

They worked in comfortable silence for a while, broken only by Lucien's quiet directions and Ashley's occasional commentary on the shapes her vegetables accidentally formed.

"Do you think he'll like it?" Lucien asked suddenly, carefully arranging their creation in a takeout container.

"If he doesn't, he has no taste." Ashley admired their work – or rather, Lucien's work with her chaotic assistance. "This looks amazing. Although..." She tilted her head. "Did you just arrange the vegetables in a gradient pattern?"

Lucien sucked in his lips before speaking, "I-It's more visually appealing."

"You're such a perfectionist."

"Me? You spent five minutes aligning the cucumber seahorse just right."

"It needed to be properly displayed! It's art, Lucien. Art."

He laughed again, that same warm sound that seemed to surprise himself every time it escaped but she liked it. The sound was comforting.

Looking at their finished creation – the perfectly balanced flavors, the artfully arranged components, even her somewhat abstract cucumber contributions – Ashley felt a surge of hope. Maybe this would work. Maybe food really was a language of its own, a way of saying things that words couldn't quite manage.

"Thank you," she said, meaning more than just the cooking help.

Lucien ducked his head, but she caught his smile. "The cucumber seahorse thanks you for its moment of glory."

"We should name it."

"We don’t need to–."

"Too late. I'm thinking Herbert."

He laughed at the name choice which caused a giggle to escape her lips.

"Perfect right?"

Lucien nods looking over at Ashley with those big brown soft eyes. “Yeah. Perfect.”