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The bell over the café door jingles when it swings open. Miklan glimpses up from his iPad, taking one of his AirPods out, Van Halen blasting from the little speaker. He's here for a quiet hour before he has to meet his brother, a rare moment of peace he refuses to have interrupted. The peace shatters anyway when a calm voice says his brother's name.
"Sylvain?" He glances up, ready to tell whoever it is that he's not his brother's keeper, but the words die in his throat. A woman with deep, steady eyes is standing by his table, a small, curious smile on her face. "It's Byleth. The pictures you sent? You’re… a little shorter than I imagined."
Before Miklan can correct her and say “I’m not Sylvain, girly. And since when is 5’7 short? I’m even wearin’ a pair of Hokas”, he suddenly feels like he’s been submerged in ice water. He's being mistaken for Sylvain. By this woman, who is looking at him with an expression that's both intrigued and faintly amused. He should say something. He should scoff and tell her that she has the wrong Irish Twin. Miklan is only five years older than Sylvain, but it still feels awkward to be talking to what he presumes to be his brother’s date.
But all he can do is stare, his mouth slightly agape as her smile widens just a little. She takes his stunned silence as an invitation and slides into the empty chair, her movements graceful and unhurried. "So," she says, leaning forward slightly, "your profile said your hobbies include 'making questionable life choices' and 'annoying my brother'. How's that going for you so far today?"
“Uh… well… I’m actually—” Miklan says, but quickly cuts himself off. “Fine, actually.”
What am I getting myself into?
“Fine?” Byleth inquires, tilting her head to the side curiously. “You told me how you swapped your brother’s toothpaste for mayonnaise. I think that’s more than ‘fine’.”
Ugh. He remembers that incident perfectly. He remembers the taste of mint-flavored Hellman’s and the week he spent gargling mouthwash just to feel clean again. Sylvain had paraded that story around to anyone who would listen, conveniently leaving out the part where Miklan had put his fist through Sylvain’s bedroom door immediately after.
And now this woman—Byleth—is looking at him like he’s the criminal mastermind behind it all, and she seems… impressed.
He forces a tight-lipped grin that feels more like a grimace. “Ah, yeah. That,” he manages, his voice a low murmur. “He had it coming.” He braces himself for another question, another story he’ll have to lie his way through, but she just laughs. It’s a soft, pleasant sound that does something strange to the knot of anxiety in his stomach.
“I believe it,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “It’s nice to finally meet the man behind the chaos.” The man behind the chaos is currently on his fifth date this week and is probably trying to get a free drink from the barista. And Miklan? This is his first… he doesn’t know what to call it. Miklan has never been on a date. Nor has he ever spoken to a girl that wasn’t his grandma or his landlady, Edelgard.
Miklan just nods, praying she doesn’t ask for details. He fiddles with the single AirPod between his fingers, the next song even more louder than the previous. Byleth perks up. “Is that… Slipknot? Your profile said you liked Sabrina Carpenter and complained about how heavy metal was ‘trashy’ and your lawn mower makes better music.”
“Um…” Miklan begins to sweat a little, cheeks flushing a little. “I… had a change of... heart.”
“You updated your profile forty-five minutes ago.”
The silence that follows is deafening, broken only by the faint, tiny screaming of a Slipknot song from the AirPod still clutched in Miklan’s hand. He feels like a cornered animal. His mind is a frantic, blank slate, utterly devoid of the kind of smooth, charming lie Sylvain could pull from thin air. He is well and truly caught. He opens his mouth, then closes it.
This is it. This is where she gets up and leaves, rightfully weirded out.
But she doesn't. Instead, a little smile plays on her lips, a look of genuine amusement dancing in her eyes. "Alright, I'll play along," she says, her voice low and playful. "So, is this the new you? The brooding, heavy metal fan? It's a bold choice. Does it come with a leather jacket?" She's not calling him a liar. At least, she doesn’t seem to be suspicious… yet.
Miklan can only stare, his mind struggling to process this new, unexpected escape route. He's not lying, he's just... improvising.
Thank the Goddess his grandma was an avid watcher of The Bold and the Beautiful.
“Let’s just say looks can be deceiving… dollface.” Miklan tries to smile, an awkward, toothy grin.
He immediately wants to take it back. Dollface? Did he really just say dollface to a living, breathing woman? His grandma's daytime television dramas have rotted him. He braces for impact, fully expecting her to stand up, throw her drink in his face (even though she doesn't have one yet), and walk out. The grin on his face feels frozen, a painful mask of social incompetence.
But the horrified disgust he's anticipating never comes. Instead, Byleth's eyes widen for a split second before she lets out a genuine, surprised laugh. It’s not mocking; it's a sound of pure delight, and it sends another strange, warm jolt through Miklan’s system.
She covers her mouth for a moment, composing herself, but the sparkle in her eyes is brighter than ever. "Okay," she says, the amusement clear in her voice. "Okay, dollface. I'm starting to like this new you." She just used his own terrible word back at him, and it sounded… cute. How is that possible? He feels a dizzying sense of relief so profound it almost makes him lightheaded. He didn't fail.
He somehow, inexplicably, succeeded.
Miklan Gautier, the irritable, cynical, sharp-tongued brother to Sylvain, can actually speak to girls.
"So," Byleth says, her smile still teasing at the corners of her mouth. "Does this new, shorter, heavy-metal Sylvain still drink that monstrosity with all the caramel and whipped cream?" The question snaps him back to reality with the force of a physical blow. The coffee. The terrible, tooth-achingly sweet coffee Sylvain calls his 'usual'. He has to say yes. He has to drink it. It's a trial by fire, a test of his commitment to this ridiculous, accidental charade.
Miklan gives a single, slow nod, a gesture he hopes looks mysterious and not like he's a man on death row accepting his fate. "Wouldn't have it any other way," he mutters, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth.
"I'll go get them," Byleth offers, already starting to stand. "My treat. Consider it a welcome gift for the 'new you'."
She winks, and the casual, flirty gesture sends another confusing shockwave through his system before she turns and heads for the counter—leaving Miklan all alone to contemplate the fact that this very pretty woman is about to buy him liquid candy as a reward for being a shorter, cooler version of his idiot brother.
I’m so glad I wore my Hokas.
Unfortunately for Miklan though, his Hokas won’t save him from the disaster Byleth purchases. A sickening dread coils in his stomach. Why is he doing this? He could have stopped her. He could have said, "Wrong guy," and gone back to his book.
But then he remembers the way she laughed, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when he said "dollface," the way she looked at him not with pity or annoyance, but with genuine, sparkling interest. No one has ever looked at him like that. He’s going along with it because, for a few terrifying, exhilarating minutes, he gets to be the kind of guy someone this incredible would agree to meet for coffee.
The moment of truth arrives. Byleth returns, balancing two drinks. One is a simple, elegant black coffee. The other is a crime against nature. It's a mountain of whipped cream drowning in a sticky web of caramel, glistening under the cafe lights. She sets the monstrosity down in front of him with a cheerful smile.
"One caramel catastrophe, for the man of chaos, Sylvain himself," she says, taking a sip of her own coffee. Miklan stares at the drink. It stares back, daring him. He has to drink it. He has to lift this cup of pure, liquid sugar to his lips and pretend he enjoys it. He wraps a hand around the cup, forces a smile that feels like it might crack his face, and takes a sip. The syrupy sweetness that coats his tongue is so overwhelming he thinks his teeth might fall out on the spot.
"Perfect," he chokes out, his soul quietly leaving his body. “Definitely doesn’t taste like NyQuil at all!”
The moment the words are out, Miklan wants to physically retract them, to snatch them from the air and swallow them whole. NyQuil? Of all the stupid, nonsensical things to say, he chose to compare the drink she bought him to cherry-flavored cough syrup.
His face burns with a fresh wave of humiliation. He just sits there, rigid, waiting for the inevitable bewildered stare that will precede her polite, but firm, departure.
But Byleth just blinks at him, her own cup paused halfway to her lips. The silence stretches for a beat, and Miklan’s heart hammers against his ribs. Then, the corner of her mouth quirks up. "Well," she says, her tone impossibly dry and amused, "I've never had anyone describe my coffee choice as medicinal before. Does it help you sleep?"
She's not laughing at him; she's bantering. She's taking his catastrophic social fumble and volleying it back like it's a clever opening line. He is so far out of his depth he might as well be on the ocean floor.
All he can do is take another defiant, disgusting sip of the caramel monstrosity and pray he doesn't go into shock. Or even cardiac arrest. "Knocks me right out," he mutters, deciding honesty is the only path left for that particular disaster. He scrubs a hand over his face, feeling the sticky residue of sugar on his palm.
Byleth laughs again, that easy, pleasant sound that makes his stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with the copious amount of syrup he just ingested. "So, about that brother you love to annoy," she says, leaning her chin on her hand, her expression genuinely curious. "Is he really as bad as you make him out to be?"
Oh, great. Now he has to describe himself from his brother’s point of view. What would Sylvain say? Probably that he’s a moody, anti-social hermit who listens to depressing music and hates fun. He decides to lean into it. "Worse," Miklan says, trying to sound nonchalant. "Total buzzkill. Never wants to go out. Thinks fun is a four-letter word."
He's about to elaborate on his own terrible personality when the little bell above the door chimes again, loud and cheerful this time. "Mika! There you are!" a familiar, boisterous voice calls out. Miklan's blood turns to ice.
It's Sylvain. Of course it's Sylvain. "Sorry I'm late, some old lady at the grocery store was telling me the most fascinating story about her pet ferret and I lost track of—"
Sylvain stops dead. His gaze flickers from Miklan, to the very pretty woman sitting across from him, to the two coffee cups on the table—one of which is his signature caramel monstrosity. A slow, wicked, absolutely delighted grin spreads across his face. He doesn't look angry. He looks like he's just been handed the best birthday present of his entire life.
Before Miklan can even form a thought, Sylvain strides over, clapping a hand on his shoulder with entirely too much force. "Well, well, well," he says, his voice dripping with theatrical amusement. He winks at Byleth. "Fancy meeting you here! My brother didn't tell me he was meeting someone so lovely."
He then turns his grin, now impossibly wider, back to Miklan. "And you! Stealing my coffee order? I'm flattered, Mik, truly. Never took you for a sweet tooth." Sylvain pulls up a chair from another table, sits down backwards, and leans his chin on the chair back, looking between the two of them like he's watching the finale of his favorite soap opera.
"So," he says cheerfully to Byleth, "how's my buzzkill of a brother treating you?"
Byleth blinks, slowly. “Pardon? Who is Miklan? Are you twins?”
"Miklan's my bro—"
"It's my secondary name!” Miklan quickly interjects, a bit too louder than he’d like, glaring at Sylvain. "I'm Irish so it's a... a cultural thing."
The silence that descends upon the table is thick enough to be a physical weight. Sylvain freezes, his mouth slightly open, the theatrical joy on his face momentarily replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated shock. It's the face of a man who has just witnessed a car crash in slow motion and is marveling at the sheer spectacle of the disaster.
He recovers in record time, a single, sharp cough escaping him that sounds suspiciously like a smothered laugh. He smoothly drapes an arm around Miklan’s rigid shoulders.
"Ah, yes. Our... secondary names," Sylvain says, his voice unnervingly sincere. He gives Miklan's shoulder a patronizing squeeze. "Our dear grandmother would be so proud you're finally embracing our deep, traditional Scots-Irish roots." He leans in toward Byleth, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "He gets very emotional about our heritage. Thinks we should’ve won EuroVision last year."
But Byleth isn't looking at Sylvain anymore. Her gaze is fixed on Miklan, her head tilted slightly. The amusement is still there, but it's different now. It's sharper, more calculating. It's the look of someone who’s going all Scooby-Doo— someone who just had every single strange piece of a puzzle click satisfyingly into place.
The comment about his height. The sudden switch from Sabrina Carpenter to Slipknot. The way he looked at the caramel drink like it was a cup of poison. The disastrous "dollface." The NyQuil comment.
And now? A passionate, out-of-character devotion to a continental singing competition. It all makes a sudden, terrible kind of sense.
"I see," she says. And in those two simple, devastatingly calm words, Miklan knows.
The game is over. He is so, so screwed.
Or as the Irish like to say: Fecked.
The words just sit there between them. Pathetic.. Miklan sinks a little lower in his chair, bracing for the inevitable explosion. He fully expects Sylvain to burst out laughing, for Byleth to sigh in exasperation and leave, for the floor to open up and swallow him whole.
Byleth still isn't giving Sylvain a hint of attention. She doesn't even acknowledge his brother's stunned, gleeful face. Her eyes are locked on Miklan. "So, Miklan," she says, her voice still impossibly, beautifully calm, "do you actually like Slipknot, or was that just part of the act?"
The use of his real name hits the table with the force of a physical object. Miklan flinches, as if struck. Sylvain’s smug grin evaporates so fast it might have left a vacuum in its place. He looks from Byleth's knowing smile to his brother's deer-in-the-headlights expression. He thought he was the puppet master. Turns out, he was just part of the stage crew, and Byleth was directing the whole damn play.
Byleth reaches out, her fingers gently sliding the caramel catastrophe away from Miklan and towards the center of the table, like she's disarming a bomb. "I'm guessing this isn't your usual, either," she says. She gestures to her own simple black coffee. "Let me get you one of these. On me. A welcome gift for the real you."
Miklan is still frozen. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. A sound that’s half-grunt, half-word tries to escape, but he can't quite manage it. He just stares at the simple, black coffee she offered him, then back at her calm, smiling face. He gives a short, jerky nod, the only response his malfunctioning body can produce. "Okay," he finally manages to say, the word barely a whisper.
Seeing her chance to make a graceful exit, Byleth stands. "I'll be right back," she says, her eyes lingering on Miklan for a moment before she heads to the counter.
The moment she's gone, Sylvain leans in, his voice a low, excited hiss. "Holy shit, Mik. You actually pulled it off. I mean, you crashed and burned in spectacular fashion, but you pulled it off. She likes you!" He ruffles Miklan's hair, an infuriatingly fond gesture. "Alright, alright, I can take a hint. This is clearly my cue to leave you two alone." He stands, grabbing the half-drunk caramel monstrosity from the table. "Don't want this to go to waste," he says with a grin. He leans down one last time and whispers, "Don't talk her ear off about... uh... EuroVision. Or Sabrina’s latest album."
With a final, triumphant wink, he saunters away, leaving Miklan alone at the table, his heart still beating a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Byleth returns a minute later, placing a fresh, steaming mug of black coffee in front of him. The bitter, familiar scent is the most grounding thing he's experienced all day. She sits back down, takes a sip of her own coffee, and gives him a small, genuine smile—not the teasing one from before, but something softer, more open. The silence isn't awkward anymore. It’s patient.
"So, Miklan," she says, her voice gentle. "Tell me about yourself. The real you."