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It's a peaceful day at Leblanc. Sojiro has a couple customers in his shop, both sipping coffee, one eating a curry. Mellow music is playing, the lighting is cozy, and the coffee is as good as ever.
He nods a greeting as Akira enters the shop on her way home from school.
"Horrible taste, dizziness, brief light-headedness, headache, stomachache, mild nausea."
She grabs a few bottles from a shelf, measures out portions of each into a beaker, mixes carefully, and sets it on a hot pad with a magnetic agitator. Then she bustles over to the fridge in her office to grab more bottles and continues mixing.
Takemi nods, and keeps working. She adds precise amounts at various times while the mixture cooks, then finally takes it off. It's candy-red, as she pours it into a little paper cup.
"Give it a minute to cool, then bottoms up."
"Alright."
Akira pauses for a little longer than necessary. It's one thing to say she'll do it, another to hold the actual cup in her hands.
... Joker, help me out with this?
It tastes like liquid rot. It's beyond putrid. It's got a vaguely fishy, oily underflavour which only makes it worse. It clings to her teeth and her mouth and her tongue.
It takes all her willpower to swallow.
When it hits her stomach, a few moments later, she's briefly nauseous, then dizzy. Suddenly she has to burp, and then her vision starts to darken around the edges.
"Vision's... going..."
She tries to make her collapse graceful. She doesn't quite succeed.
An indeterminate time later, she wakes up on the bed in Takemi's exam room. A blood pressure cuff is wrapped around her arm, and another sensor is around her wrist.
Takemi spins her chair back around to face her and leans close. "Welcome back. How are you feeling?"
Akira considers for a moment.
The taste is still in her mouth, but she doesn't seem to be in any pain. She tries a couple experimental motions.
"... I seem to be fine," she reports. "But I could really use something to get the taste out of my mouth."
Takemi nods. "It's been about forty minutes. Your reaction seems to have been caused by one of the components interacting with your gastric acid."
She sets two paper cups in front of Akira. One contains water, the other gatorade. "You can rinse your mouth out in the sink there, and then cleanse your palate."
"Thank you."
She gets up, takes off the sensors, rinses, and has the gatorade. It helps. It helps a lot, actually.
"... Those unknown unknowns, huh." She rubs the back of her head. "I'm glad it wasn't anything more severe."
"Me too. Can't let anything too terrible happen to my little guinea pig, can I?", she teases.
She smiles. "Got it. Now you've got no excuse not to let me know the second you have any other symptoms."
She laughs. "You're free to go. I got enough data while you were out to be reasonably sure you won't have any more side effects, and certainly to develop the formula further. And I'm sure you've got better things to do than stay here. Off with you, guinea pig."
Akira smiles. "Alright. I'll make sure to call you back if anything's an issue."
And she gives Takemi a final wave, and heads back on home.
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