“Shit!”

Aidan jumped back. The carton of milk he was holding now lay defeated on the counter, its contents quickly forming a white puddle that began dripping onto the floor. Nikki popped the neon yellow bubble she was blowing and resumed chewing her gum with an obligatory eye roll.

“Did nobody ever tell you not to curse over spilled milk?” she picked up a rag with the tip of her finger and handed it to him. Aidan narrowed his eyes at her for a moment before clicking his tongue and snatching it. 

“You should really get your brain checked out.”

“My brain is fine Nikki.” It was just… a little preoccupied. Last night was a blur, though a very different kind than the one before it. After breaking down he was left drained, exhausted, and somehow still endlessly anxious about the cafe. Maybe that was why, when Chris sat him down on the couch back at his apartment and asked him what happened, it was easy to put all the other stuff aside, to pretend it didn’t happen for just a moment and tell him everything.

He listened quietly as Aidan stumbled his way through explaining the loan and the debt, nodded here and there when he mentioned how long it all had been going on and how, no matter how he looked at it, there was no way to get the numbers right. Then, for a long minute, he thought. He knew he did because he had that expression he always had while he was concentrating, where his eyes seemed to focus on some invisible spot in the air and his lips moved as he softly mouthed things he could never make out. Though, unlike most times, he didn’t resurface with some answer or conclusion.

Aidan leaned against the milk-soaked rag, furrowing his brow. “Is he avoiding me?”

“Who’s avoiding you?”

Aidan jolted and looked back past his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if he was more surprised by the sound of Nikki popping yet another bubble or his own stupidity.

“...No one.”

“Did you finally start seeing someone? Is he ghosting you?”

“Nobody’s ghosting me Nikki.”

“It doesn’t sound like it.”

“It’s…” Aidan let out a heavy sigh. His shoulders slumped and he turned to look at her. “So… hypothetically… let’s say you were… having a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“A… personal problem.”

“Is this a sex thing?” She eyed him up and down. “Because you know, some people think being boring isn’t a real issue, but-”

“It’s not this kind of problem! Besides I’m not boring!”

She looked at him from head to toe again, raising a questioning eyebrow. “I thought it wasn’t that kind of problem.”

“It’s not! It’s…ugh,” he groaned and rubbed his face with his clean hand. “So, okay, let’s say you have a problem, and you tell… someone about it. And then they say they’ll think about it, but that it’s late so you should go to sleep and talk about it tomorrow. But then when you wake up they’re not there even though it’s their own house and they didn’t even leave a note or anything and you know they never get up this early because he sucks at sleeping and-”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a sex thing.”

“It isn’t!”

“Then what were you doing spending the night at their place?”

“I-”

“Look, I hate to break this to you, but if they say they have to think about it then disappear the next morning it probably wasn’t good. Maybe you should try getting it checked out or not bring up whatever weird fetish you have so soon with your next hot date.”

“Who's next hot date?”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck. Oh god, maybe his hearing went bad. Maybe he was just thinking he knew this voice. Please Lord, let it be his hearing. Aidan had to gather every last ounce of will in his body to turn around, and when he did he nearly flung himself back the other way. Chris was standing on the other side of the counter, one of his hands in his pocket, tilting his head at him.

“Nobody’s.” Heat rushed to his cheeks. Aidan could only pray Nikki won’t say anything too embarrassing to a customer she didn’t know. “What are you doing here?”

Chris looked back and forth between them for a moment before his gaze settled on Aidan again. “I was hoping we could talk. With Eleanor too. Is she here?”

“Oh, um, yeah. Let’s… let’s go to the office.”

Chris simply nodded. He didn’t look mad or somber but… he did seem a little more serious than usual. It made Aidan’s stomach heavy again as he led him to his mother’s office. At least today the door was open.

“Chris!” As soon as she saw him, Eleanor jumped up from her chair with a wide smile. She was quick to circle her desk and pull him down into a hug.

“Hi Mrs. Park. How’ve you been?”

“Oh you know, pretty much the same. And I already told you it’s Eleanor. You’re too well-behaved for this house.”

“Sorry.” Aidan could have sworn those soft, nearly bashful smiles were ones he only ever saw Chris give his mother and Hermann.

“There’s nothing to apologize for. Come, sit down. How are you? What brings you over here?”

“Well…” he glanced over at Aidan. “I was wondering if we could talk. Aidan told me. About the cafe.”

A look of understanding crossed Eleanor’s face, followed by a glimpse of sadness.

“I see.”

“I think I might have an idea.”

Oh? Aidan’s gaze snapped up to Chris. Why didn’t he mention anything earlier at home? Did he really have to be somewhere so early he couldn’t even stay in the apartment long enough to at least tell him that? 

“That’s…” at the very least, his mother looked just as shocked as he felt. She blinked at Chris from across her desk, though a moment later she shook her head, then nodded it briefly. “Alright, let me call Ben. I’d like him to hear what you have to say as well considering he’s been virtually running the kitchen for me. Take a seat, I’ll be right back.”

The silence she left behind her was one Aidan was unfamiliar with. It was nothing like the comfortable silences they had over the years, nor the comforting ones from last night or the tense, heavy ones from the previous morning. It was strange, uneasy. Perhaps because for a change, Chris did nothing to break it. Any second now, his gut told him. There was bound to be a comment or an explanation from his side, something that’ll make him turn his attention to the presence he could feel all too well sitting right next to him. Yet by the time his mother returned to the office along with Ben, it never arrived.

“So,” the moment she sat down, the shift in her was visible. She was no longer his mother, but the owner and manager of Park’s. Aidan did his best to focus on her laced fingers on the desk in front of her and not the second presence he felt, this time on his right, where Ben hovered just behind him. “I don’t know how much Aidan told you, but the way we see it now, there’s no way to make all the numbers work. At least not fast enough.”

From the corner of his eye Aidan could see Chris nodding, though he quickly turned his gaze forward again when he felt Ben’s hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

“The truth is we discussed it earlier. We were thinking about telling the staff by the end of the week –” now it was Ben’s turn to nod. “But tell us what you’re thinking. Is there anything we missed, or maybe a way to buy some more time we didn’t think about..?”

This time, Aidan couldn’t help himself. He turned to look at Chris, though annoyingly, he didn’t look back. In fact, he seemed particularly interested in the scratch on the floor he left that one time while opening some boxes with a utility knife.

“Well,” he said slowly. “Yes and no. From what you’ve told me I agree. Realistically there’s no way that the current revenues you’re seeing will be enough to cover this debt fast enough. But there might be a way that can buy you more time and also cover a big part of the loan almost immediately.”

There was? Aidan straightened up. His mother leaned forward in her chair and Ben’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “What is it?” he asked softly.

“The way I see it, your best option right now that doesn’t involve selling or declaring bankruptcy is getting a partner.”

“Absolutely not.”

All three pairs of eyes turned to look at Aidan, though he was too busy furiously staring at Chris to notice. “We are not selling this place to some rich asshole just for the money. No way.”

“That’s not what it means.” Chris said patiently. “You won’t be selling. You’ll bring someone else in and you’ll be able to use the earnings from the deal to start covering the loan. Then we can make a plan to increase sales and up the revenues so that you work faster towards paying off the rest of what’s left.”

“No. No, there’s absolutely no way we’re doing this. We’re not just letting some stranger walk in here and start changing everything up just because they had some spare cash to throw around. It’s… no. We can’t do this.”

There was no chance in hell they could, or would agree to that. Ben, his mother – they both knew what the cafe meant, how insane it would be to bring in an outsider, how they could never understand just how much more than just a business it was…

But if they did, why were they conspicuously quiet? Aidan turned to look at his mother. She seemed to be deep in thought, though it didn’t seem to be what he said that she was contemplating.

“No.” Betrayal and disbelief battled for dominance over his expression. “Mom, come on. You can't seriously be thinking about it.”

“It’s not a bad option Aidan,” she said softly. 

“Not a bad option?! Are you really saying you’re fine with letting some stranger take everything we built – everything dad wanted – and just do whatever they want with it?!”

“Of course that’s not what I’m saying, but sometimes you have to make compromises. It’s not always a bad thing to try a new direction.”

“We don’t need a new direction. We might as well just sell if we’re going to change everything. I mean, what’s even the point?!”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.” Chris interjected softly. “No one can force you to take them on as a partner. You get a say in who you choose to let in. If someone comes along that isn’t right, you just don’t do it. You find somebody else.”

“And it’s not like they’ll get the final word and make all the decisions right?” Ben chimed in. Aidan turned just in time to see him lifting a hopeful gaze to Chris, who hummed in confirmation. His lips curved into a gentle smile as he turned his eyes to him. “So… wouldn’t this be better than selling? It’ll help cover up the loan and you’ll get to keep it. Isn’t that a good thing?”

A good thing? No, Aidan couldn't say that it was. There was nothing good about the situation they were in. No matter how he looked at it, they were about to lose the cafe, at least in the way it was now. The way it was meant to be. This place wasn’t just a business, wasn’t just a venture or a way to make money. It was a living thing, something that encapsulated a precious fragment of their universe and allowed it to keep existing. Changing its DNA would turn it into something else entirely, and completely transform the essence of what it was.

But… that wasn’t all that it was, wasn’t it? It didn’t take more than a single look at Ben’s expression to figure out what he was thinking. The hope, that silent plea there, was a reminder that this was so much bigger than just their family. That there were other people invested in it, people he cared about, deeply, who will suffer should they have to shut down permanently. 

Besides, even if he couldn’t agree with Ben about it being a good thing, he also knew that deep down he couldn’t deny his first argument. He could go on and on about how changing would be just as bad as giving up, about how they might as well if they were about to lose the very heart and spirit that was Park’s, but the truth was he was lying. Because deep down he knew he wasn’t ready to let go. Even if holding on came with a price.

“Would that even work?” he sighed, turning his attention to Chris. At long last, he turned to look at him back. Silently, for a moment, closely examining his expression in a way that made Aidan want to shift in his seat. The blue of his eyes was like the very bottom of the ocean – dark and unreadable, guarding something he could barely see swirling in their depths but not make out. It was gone almost as soon as he noticed it.

“I think so,” he finally said. Aidan tried capturing his gaze again but it had already turned to his mother, who smiled at him from across the desk.

“Then I think we have to at least try.” There was a renewed sense of confidence in her voice, one that Ben, who leaned in closer to him and placed his other hand on his shoulder, seemed to echo.

“It’s going to be a good thing.” He gave him a light squeeze. “You’ll find the right person. You’ll make it work.”

Aidan looked up to Chris. He was looking at the floor again, but gave him a short nod. Across from him his mother was nodding too, offering him an encouraging smile. As for Aidan… all he could do was deflate a little more under the weight.

He really hoped they were right.