... Tada!
So I find myself in the law library again. Ironic, for me.
The only time I'm ever driven to post on this thing is usually during finals, as a way to escape my stressful state for a few 20-minute intervals (that usually turn into 3-hour ones). I don't know what's wrong with me, but its engineering finals that make me want to become an English major, or at least one of those writers that you find in the paperback aisle. Oye.
You know, most girls just succumb to the urge to excel in the soft sciences. They win Pulitzers and Newberries and whatnot, because they were born with it. And though I don't claim to be one of those girls, I am good at my words, despite my ESL history. Learned my English properly, from a book, that's how you learn language. I heard my English properly, from CNN. And I spoke English properly, in California (haha). Because let's face it, colloquial English (especially in the south) is pretty awful to grow up with. For one thing, it renders you horrible in spelling. And it's just better to learn vocab from an entity that you know can pass the SAT verbal section, like The Hobbit for example. Unfortunately, I just happened to be one of those girls who dream of the Nobel Prize instead... sad thing for me, because being a minority will not help... unlike in getting a $70K starting job. I mean sure, the money's good. But I dream of curing cancer for crying out loud!
Ah I'm not making much sense.
Here's a treat. Just for you. Because you've waited so long for one.
Title: Coffee tumblers (kind of a sequel to my last coffee story)
Pairing: KxK (not one for experimentation when it comes to literature)
Summary: First snow fall of the year and it also happens to be dead day. With two exams to perfect, she knew it was going to be one rough afternoon so she brought her own mug, that was neither a tall or a grande.
She looked out the window from her loft and saw tiny snowflakes falling as if the wrath of God was bleached. It was pretty but nevertheless intimidating, especially when she suddenly realized how wonderfully warm her toes were in her new fuzzy socks. Kaoru must not wake up, she thought to herself, once again slipping into the very bad habit of narrating her life in third person, as she sank to a near unconscious state.
Yet when her slightly insane roommate opened their window, her plans to sleep in became less achievable.
"Megumi. What. The. He-"
"Smells like fish and ramen. This needs to happen."
Knowing that there was no possible way she could change her cold-blooded roommate's mind, she proceeded with her morning routine at the lovely temperature of 15 degrees F. Murderous thoughts filtered through her mind as she wrapped her tackiest scarf all over her head, it's bright magenta color screaming fashion faux pas against her brown coat.
Grabbing her empty (unwashed) coffee tumbler (eww, thinks Megumi), she left the room, the dorm, and that side of the campus in a grumpy state. The cold weather, failing to cool her temper down, continued on with strong gusts of wind that once or twice almost unwrapped her scarf.
The coffee shop had changed little. A table was added near the counter for the addicts who ordered coffee every 15 minutes, and a small shelf of worn old books was placed in one corner for the public to read. Sano looked happy. Everyone seemed happy. It irked her that everyone was so happy on dead day. Christmas music was playing, an incorruptable manifestation of joy and love that at a different time might have lightened Kaoru's mood. But this was not so, and Sano did not even think it possible that Christmas music could ever fail on an irritated Kaoru.
Kaoru placed her tumbler on the register, giving Sano a well-arranged look that said "Peppermint mocha extra whip cream soy milk with chocolate drizzle. Please" Sano nodded mutely, the silent exchange, a game between them since three semesters ago, had been practiced millions of times with little change in the order. A small quirk on the left of her mouth meant peppermint instead of raspberry, furrowed eyebrows meant lots and lots of whip cream but always with soymilk, and as always, the only hot beverage Kaoru would ever drink is at 1000 degrees. Unthinkingly he went through the motions, the tumbler slipping from one hand to the other as if it were baseball and he was playing catch.
Sano smiled at her as he handed her the order, once again thinking "sucess, one very satisfied customer and not one word." But he was wrong.
"It's bitter."
She had that tone. That vaguely veiled criticizing tone of a Kaoru, unamused. Sano placed both hands slowly on the counter and leaned on it, all the while looking at the coffee tumbler as if for the first time that morning. He took the seemingly offending thing from her hands and sized it in his hands.
"Ah, its a size in between. Must have put too much syrup in it. Oh well. Better luck next time." Never one to redo an order he already deemed successful, he went back to polishing the the espresso machine to gleam. Kaoru on the other hand went unblinking to Sano's side of the counter and threw her coffee down the sink and flushed her tumbler with water.
"HEY!"
Elbowing Sano out of the way, she ignored the querying looks of the people in the shop and started to fix herself up a grande of her order. Her motions impressively smoother and faster than that of Sano's. Sano was a little put off, but never one to lose his head when he smelled hormones--ahem, a mad woman--he drummed his fingers quietly on the marble surface of the counter and watched her technique. When she got to the part where she started to pour the coffee she made in the grande-size cup into her tumbler, he smiled widely. Only a four-fifths of the coffee fitted. Kaoru frowned.
"Told you."
"But, yesterday, it was perfect! Someone made me my coffee in this tumbler--"
"It must have been someone else, I wasn't in town yesterday."
"It's neither a tall or a grande?!"
"Kaoru, get over it."
Sano knew what was about to happen. Kaoru the perfectionist... the girl who had an insatiable appetite for the exact... was about to embark on one long quest to determine the right proportion of syrup/milk/topping for her tumbler. And it was going to be hell.
"It's okay Sano." said a man emerging from the back. Placing the inventory chart he held down on the counter, he took Kaoru's tumbler. He poured out some of the coffee back into the mixing glass and proceeded with the routine of adding the soy milk. Kaoru's eyebrows shot up when he saw him reaching for the heavy whipping cream rather than the ready-made stuff, but before she could voice her protest he locked his amethyst eyes on hers and said smartly, "Trust me, it'll be good." He took a bit of the coffee and made a coffee whip cream to top her beverage of, and with a rubber spatula, he expertly swirled a beautiful top of cream with such ease and eloquence of movement, that when she saw the final product, she released a withheld breath in a sigh of adoration. Seeing her smile, the man proceeded to make a lattice pattern with the chocolate syrup on top of the dome of cream.
He handed her, her tumbler. "Here you go, Miss...uh?"
"Kaoru."
"My name's Kenshin."
"Have we met before."
"A year ago yes."
"You asked me out to coffee didn't you?"
"Well..." the red-head smiled, "better late than never."
Five minutes, a tall mocha, and a heartfelt apology later, Kaoru finally found something to look forward to after exam week.
----
1/20/2012 Edits.
I originally started this story two years ago. And now, graduated, working, and no longer dragged down by exams, I seem to be picking up the whole writing gig again.
What a mind trip to have just read and finished this story. I had apparently left it at where Kenshin came out of the back of the storage. I must have started studying for real hahahaha.
Additionally, those dreams of curing cancer is on hiatus for the 70k annual salary ;) Turned out rather well, though the dreams are still there and will be picked up again.
The only time I'm ever driven to post on this thing is usually during finals, as a way to escape my stressful state for a few 20-minute intervals (that usually turn into 3-hour ones). I don't know what's wrong with me, but its engineering finals that make me want to become an English major, or at least one of those writers that you find in the paperback aisle. Oye.
You know, most girls just succumb to the urge to excel in the soft sciences. They win Pulitzers and Newberries and whatnot, because they were born with it. And though I don't claim to be one of those girls, I am good at my words, despite my ESL history. Learned my English properly, from a book, that's how you learn language. I heard my English properly, from CNN. And I spoke English properly, in California (haha). Because let's face it, colloquial English (especially in the south) is pretty awful to grow up with. For one thing, it renders you horrible in spelling. And it's just better to learn vocab from an entity that you know can pass the SAT verbal section, like The Hobbit for example. Unfortunately, I just happened to be one of those girls who dream of the Nobel Prize instead... sad thing for me, because being a minority will not help... unlike in getting a $70K starting job. I mean sure, the money's good. But I dream of curing cancer for crying out loud!
Ah I'm not making much sense.
Here's a treat. Just for you. Because you've waited so long for one.
Title: Coffee tumblers (kind of a sequel to my last coffee story)
Pairing: KxK (not one for experimentation when it comes to literature)
Summary: First snow fall of the year and it also happens to be dead day. With two exams to perfect, she knew it was going to be one rough afternoon so she brought her own mug, that was neither a tall or a grande.
She looked out the window from her loft and saw tiny snowflakes falling as if the wrath of God was bleached. It was pretty but nevertheless intimidating, especially when she suddenly realized how wonderfully warm her toes were in her new fuzzy socks. Kaoru must not wake up, she thought to herself, once again slipping into the very bad habit of narrating her life in third person, as she sank to a near unconscious state.
Yet when her slightly insane roommate opened their window, her plans to sleep in became less achievable.
"Megumi. What. The. He-"
"Smells like fish and ramen. This needs to happen."
Knowing that there was no possible way she could change her cold-blooded roommate's mind, she proceeded with her morning routine at the lovely temperature of 15 degrees F. Murderous thoughts filtered through her mind as she wrapped her tackiest scarf all over her head, it's bright magenta color screaming fashion faux pas against her brown coat.
Grabbing her empty (unwashed) coffee tumbler (eww, thinks Megumi), she left the room, the dorm, and that side of the campus in a grumpy state. The cold weather, failing to cool her temper down, continued on with strong gusts of wind that once or twice almost unwrapped her scarf.
The coffee shop had changed little. A table was added near the counter for the addicts who ordered coffee every 15 minutes, and a small shelf of worn old books was placed in one corner for the public to read. Sano looked happy. Everyone seemed happy. It irked her that everyone was so happy on dead day. Christmas music was playing, an incorruptable manifestation of joy and love that at a different time might have lightened Kaoru's mood. But this was not so, and Sano did not even think it possible that Christmas music could ever fail on an irritated Kaoru.
Kaoru placed her tumbler on the register, giving Sano a well-arranged look that said "Peppermint mocha extra whip cream soy milk with chocolate drizzle. Please" Sano nodded mutely, the silent exchange, a game between them since three semesters ago, had been practiced millions of times with little change in the order. A small quirk on the left of her mouth meant peppermint instead of raspberry, furrowed eyebrows meant lots and lots of whip cream but always with soymilk, and as always, the only hot beverage Kaoru would ever drink is at 1000 degrees. Unthinkingly he went through the motions, the tumbler slipping from one hand to the other as if it were baseball and he was playing catch.
Sano smiled at her as he handed her the order, once again thinking "sucess, one very satisfied customer and not one word." But he was wrong.
"It's bitter."
She had that tone. That vaguely veiled criticizing tone of a Kaoru, unamused. Sano placed both hands slowly on the counter and leaned on it, all the while looking at the coffee tumbler as if for the first time that morning. He took the seemingly offending thing from her hands and sized it in his hands.
"Ah, its a size in between. Must have put too much syrup in it. Oh well. Better luck next time." Never one to redo an order he already deemed successful, he went back to polishing the the espresso machine to gleam. Kaoru on the other hand went unblinking to Sano's side of the counter and threw her coffee down the sink and flushed her tumbler with water.
"HEY!"
Elbowing Sano out of the way, she ignored the querying looks of the people in the shop and started to fix herself up a grande of her order. Her motions impressively smoother and faster than that of Sano's. Sano was a little put off, but never one to lose his head when he smelled hormones--ahem, a mad woman--he drummed his fingers quietly on the marble surface of the counter and watched her technique. When she got to the part where she started to pour the coffee she made in the grande-size cup into her tumbler, he smiled widely. Only a four-fifths of the coffee fitted. Kaoru frowned.
"Told you."
"But, yesterday, it was perfect! Someone made me my coffee in this tumbler--"
"It must have been someone else, I wasn't in town yesterday."
"It's neither a tall or a grande?!"
"Kaoru, get over it."
Sano knew what was about to happen. Kaoru the perfectionist... the girl who had an insatiable appetite for the exact... was about to embark on one long quest to determine the right proportion of syrup/milk/topping for her tumbler. And it was going to be hell.
"It's okay Sano." said a man emerging from the back. Placing the inventory chart he held down on the counter, he took Kaoru's tumbler. He poured out some of the coffee back into the mixing glass and proceeded with the routine of adding the soy milk. Kaoru's eyebrows shot up when he saw him reaching for the heavy whipping cream rather than the ready-made stuff, but before she could voice her protest he locked his amethyst eyes on hers and said smartly, "Trust me, it'll be good." He took a bit of the coffee and made a coffee whip cream to top her beverage of, and with a rubber spatula, he expertly swirled a beautiful top of cream with such ease and eloquence of movement, that when she saw the final product, she released a withheld breath in a sigh of adoration. Seeing her smile, the man proceeded to make a lattice pattern with the chocolate syrup on top of the dome of cream.
He handed her, her tumbler. "Here you go, Miss...uh?"
"Kaoru."
"My name's Kenshin."
"Have we met before."
"A year ago yes."
"You asked me out to coffee didn't you?"
"Well..." the red-head smiled, "better late than never."
Five minutes, a tall mocha, and a heartfelt apology later, Kaoru finally found something to look forward to after exam week.
----
1/20/2012 Edits.
I originally started this story two years ago. And now, graduated, working, and no longer dragged down by exams, I seem to be picking up the whole writing gig again.
What a mind trip to have just read and finished this story. I had apparently left it at where Kenshin came out of the back of the storage. I must have started studying for real hahahaha.
Additionally, those dreams of curing cancer is on hiatus for the 70k annual salary ;) Turned out rather well, though the dreams are still there and will be picked up again.