10 - A few dates later

Michela blinked, feeling taken aback. A designer for a luxury brand, then? An artist? Really? ... why was she even surprised, Hypnos looked exactly the brand of weird that artists usually were. Carleen was probably the normal-est designer there was around, and she could be a little weird sometimes too. "Wow. Doesn't Hades make very high-brand, exclusive stuff? Must be tough to get to those standards. And administration is a bore. Good on you for those holidays." She stared at her phone screen for a little while before sighing. God, why did her messages always sound so awkward all the time- "Look, I'm... really not great at small talk, especially not via texts. This is going to be awkward, but. You'd offered me coffee last time, right? Is that still valid?"

Michela almost recoiled when she read the word 'date', straightening up in alarm from her slouched position on the couch. Oh no, no no no, this was going way too fast for her tastes! "Wait no wait a minute", she quickly typed, before reminding herself to calm down. "It's just a meeting. Don't get ahead of yourself, we barely even know each other." There. Level-headed and straight on. That should settle the line. ... maybe a little too rude? Hypnos was a little invadent maybe, but he didn't sound like he was a sleaze or anything. "è-é", she added to make it sound less rejecting and a little more friendly. She smacked her face as soon as she had sent that mess of a message (haha).
"Call it as you want. I like my coffee strong but I usually add milk to it."
She was so bad at this.

Michela let out a sigh of relief - she hadn't even noticed she had briefly stopped breathing for a second there. It made her feel a little more at ease, though, to see that Hypnos was neither offended nor discouraged by her frankness.
Sure, it meant that this awkward 'super secret meeting of interest' was still to take place, but.
What the hell. She could make one effort for the week - and then call quits if she didn't enjoy herself. Wouldn't have been the first time. "I'll have you know that I am the reigning champion of 'awkwardly occupying a two-person table alone'", she countered to humor him. "But I guess looking like I am sociable for once won't be the end of me." She stared at her phone screen in thought. "Would Monday morning be ok with you? I'll bring Lucia to school at 8, then I have a couple hours free before I get to work." Michela hesitated. Should she write it? No. No, it was stupid. She wouldn't.
She shouldn't.
"Where are we going, agent H?"
Maybe her natural lack of sleep was starting to hinder her ability to be socially distant and unpersonable. Not good.

Michela went through the review link Hypnos had just sent to her, decided that the place looked both unassuming and decent enough (she didn't have a particularly sweet tooth on her, but those pastries did admittedly look pretty good) and typed an answer back to him. "Sounds good to me. 8.30 in front of the place?" It wasn't too difficult to reach from Lucia's school. The only issue would have been parking, but she guessed half an hour was more than enough to make it on time.

Michela had just answered him one las time with a simple "K" before abandoning her cellphone at her side and fetching her laptop to put it back on her knees again, to keep on watching that random serie she had just begun.

---

Honestly if Hypnos hadn't really gone through any kind of effort to look any different from how he usually did, the same could be said for Michela.
She walked down the sidewalk of the city centre while slouching a little, as per her usual, after dropping her sister at school and fighting to find a damn parking spot close enough to the café. Under her long, black coat (that did give her a certain 'old-vampire-movie' type of flair) she wore a simple grey worn out hoodie, its round (and stretched by the time) neckline showing off pale skin stretched over collarbones, and a pair of dark blue jeans. With her bag dangling at her side, black, old combat boots stomping rhythmically on the humid concrete and a stone-cold frown etched onto her face, it was easy for her to make her way in the middle of the morning crowd of people heading off to their offices or daily commissions. Really,the only thing that looked cared for about her was the precise and carefully application of black lipstick and glossy, dark purple nailpolish on sharp looking nails.

All in all, Michela looked like someone who hadn't slept well for the past twenty years, and like someone who would stab a man not in retaliation, but as a warning.

She caught sight of Hypnos from afar - that absolute mess of white curls couldn't be missed even if she had tried to - and she sighed, stepping closer to him, fighting against the nervousness of having to sit down with a stranger to a coffee table for at least half an hour or so. "Hey", she awkwardly greeted him, trying to get his attention.

Michela scoffed lightly and just rolled her eyes a little bit when Hypnos referred to her as 'Agent M', but didn't comment on it and merely followed him inside the café. "Yeah, I guess that's one way to put it", she answered, flopping unelegantly on the seat in front of Hypnos. "Monday's hard. But I'll get through." She looked at him, narrowing her eyes a little. "While you're... on holiday, right? What do you do, all day long?", she asked awkwardly. Well, he didn't look very rested to her - so maybe he had the same bad sleeping habits as she did.

Michela hummed in understanding. Then maybe Hypnos' tired, sleepy face was only due to oversleeping, rather than insomnia. She almost envied him - but then again, she liked the freedom that came with late-night serie bingewatching, or gazing outside the window early at dawn with a hot mug of tea. She grimaced a little bit when she was asked about her job, already anticipating the awkwardness and/or disgust that would've likely followed her answer. Well. Maybe that meeting would have been cut shorter than she had thought. "I..." She hesitated. "I work part-time in a vet studio, as an assistant to an older practicioner." She hesitated again. "But I'm specializing, on the side. As a medical examiner." Silence. "I, uh. Do autopsies." Surely sounded better than 'I cut people open to see what killed them for a living, ain't that something', but it wasn't much better, let's face it. No matter how much she liked it, no matter how interesting she thought it was, people always fled after that.

Michela definitely wasn't what anyone would call easy to read, what with the bored, annoyed expression she sported during the majority of her waking moments - but that made the shift of her expression from a deadpan one to one of abject stupor even funnier, probably. She blinked repeatedly at Hypnos, clearly not used to get that kind of reaction. "... you... think it's cool?", she asked, nervously swiping her hair out of the way for a brief second - uselessly, seeing how it fell right back in place. "I mean", she immediately added, trying to get back in control. She cleared her throat. "It is cool, but people don't usually think it is. I'm still waiting to be confirmed as one, though", she added, trying hard not to sound too enthusiastic.

Michela was honestly so flabbergasted still about this open acceptance- no, not just acceptance, but what seemed like genuine interest and admiration, that she actually let a little smile linger on her lips for a second before answering. "Yeah. yeah, people are stupid", she confirmed, leaning back against her chair and crossing her arms on her chest. She remembered she still had her coat on, so she carelessly shrugged it off. "I did some practice already, yeah. They've called me for a couple of jobs. Nothing super exciting or book worthy, but it feels good to work with the goal of bringing peace to someone through someone who already got it." She shrugged. "I guess that liking to be elbows deep in gross stuff also helps."

Michela snorted. "Sounds good to me", she muttered, lifting her own menu to take a look. She answered Hypnos questions about her tastes confessing that she didn't really like super sweet things, at least drinking wise - but that she wasn't nearly masochistic or hardcore enough to take her coffee completely black like some people did. I'm looking at you Charon- She'd follow his suggestions anyway, since he had already come here before and he probably knew what he was talking about.

Michela threw a quick glance to her phone, letting out a surprised sound. Strange - it never happened to her, to be so engrossed in a conversation to completely forget she had places to be and things to do. "Wow, it's late", she observed. Thankfully enough she was still largely on time to get to work. "We should definitely go." She slowly got up, the sweet of the pastry she had eaten (carefully, as to not ruin her lipstick) still clinging to her mouth. She seemed hesitant, and it definitely didn't look entirely natural on her face, but she did smiled a little, tentative smile to Hypnos. "I had fun too. It was, uh. Nice."

Michela awkwardly thanked Hypnos for paying for her breakfast and silently followed him out of the café after shrugging her coat back on. Out, yes. Where she proceeded to stare at Hypnos for an uncomfortable amount of time, clearly trying to come to some revelation. "Look", she started then, grimacing a little to herself for always starting in a way that let people imagine 'Oh no, she's going to say something bad'. "I didn't really expect to enjoy myself, but... it was nice, talking with you." It really was. Hypnos had not once discouraged her from trying to speak about the job she loved so much but that seemed to gross oit so many people, he had tried his hardest to joke with her even if she had mostly rolled her eyes or scoffed, and... not once had he asked the invasive question number one. That was a definite plus. "I don't despise you, which is more than I can say about many other people I've met. You're..." She seemed to look for a word. "... nice." It would have sounded like an actual compliment if she hadn't worded it almost like it was a question. She shrugged a little. It was worth the awkwardness, if she got to have one more decent person around who she'd get to call at the very least 'friend'. "What I'm trying to say is- I guess we could meet again. I wouldn't be opposed to it."
She completely failed to mention whether their next meeting could have been considered a date.