A Load Of Melodrama [/closed]

[SHIMAMOTO SHINTAMA]

Perhaps save for a multitude of evidently wrinkled posters of various paintings by Pablo Picasso, the Spring Pepper Café was anything but impressive. Squished rather melancholically between two little jewellery shops – both which attracted more customers than the often ignored business to the left of one and the right of another, its appearance was hardly inviting – just one lonely employee, five tiny tables, each holding two creaking chairs, and music – elevator music – played too faintly for even the sharpest of ears to grasp half-heartedly. Just beside a sad print-out of Jacqueline with the Flowers hung an even sadder menu – a piece of blackboard, decorated by the shaky hand of an amateur hobbyist (or perhaps, though definitely not hopefully, the hobbyist’s six year-old daughter); the drinks laced in baby blue cursive, and every thing else scribbled out in an eye-clawing peach-orange – scones, sandwiches, mini parfait, the like; anything to get a starving man craving even harder, even stronger, and with much more fierce determination he ever thought the last nooks and crannies of his circulatory system could provide.

Nevertheless, it was quite the shame, just as much as the death date of William Shakespeare was a shame as well – both the food and the beverages of such a – er, unsophisticated business was more than celestial, and if this particular word is incorrectly used, let’s just pretend it was never used in this certain context and say that said beverages and food was more wonderful than that of Jamie Oliver’s cooking. Or not. Either way, whatever ordered would surely guarantee a few herds of customers every single day, but reality is reality, and reality is also the epitome of cruel, and thus, solely due to its appearance, this café, this minuscule shack was most likely about to enter the doomed world of bankruptcy.

Thank the lord, or heaven, or fate, or even the Easter Bunny, bankruptcy had not yet knocked upon the Spring Pepper Café’s door, and Shimamoto Shintama was blessed with another Sunday afternoon filled to the brim with elevator music (…Liszt, right? Someone please say no), boiled water, and caramel apple parfait. Shoved into a dark corner, often which the solitary employee overlooked, or barely bothered to survey, Shintama’s eyes squeezed shut as yet another spoonful of whipped cream, warm caramel, and the flavour of apple spilled onto her tongue – and right when the trio of deliciousness cascaded down her throat like a waterfall of sweet dessert, her lips parted once more to release a long, greatly satisfied sigh.

Parfait was simply a round aspect of the world; nothing more, nothing less. Parfait was inevitable. Parfait was divine. Parfait was immortal, and shall live long, long, long until the sun exploded in a fit of weighty age and took along the world with it.

In other words, Shintama’s hunger was becoming fulfilled, and often such fulfilment invoked a new, yet not unfamiliar, sort of longing within her – the longing for a playmate (translation: just someone to share sweet snacks with, and maybe even pay for the ride home, herp derp). And what pulled her away from fulfilling that longing as well? After all, it was only Sunday afternoon – a good amount of her homework had been complete, and she had no tests or quizzes (although a pop quiz could never be predicted) within the next five days – so why not? A wider grin etched into her skin as she pulled out her cell phone, its normally white surface a glossy veneer of green beneath her tinted, Godzilla-sized shades.

“Fuyuka-nee, pick up, pick up…!”