Suit of Crows

Chapter 04

Kat had decided that she loved Marty's. She had enjoyed the aesthetic as soon as she walked in, but Marty-not-the-owner was the deciding factor. Despite obviously not liking Kat, he didn't shortchange her on the ice cream scoops or the toppings. In fact, he even seemed to overload it as if he was hoping she'd have a heart attack from the resulting sugar high.

As Aaron ordered, Kat ogled her concoction with a sort of crazed predatory gaze, half concerned that she really would have a heart attack and half excited at the possibility. Consuming sugar was not worth it unless it more or less put her in the emergency room. Aaron rolled his eyes at her usual sugar-induced behavior and continued as if nothing had happened, "I'll take two scoops of green tea ice cream with marshmallow drizzle."

Figures he'd order something like that, Kat mused to herself. Plain with just a hint of something not quite normal underneath. Aaron never indulged in himself, it was one of the things Kat complained to him about most, he never had fun just for himself, it was always for something else, had some other purpose. Kat was different, her purpose was to have fun and for no other reason, anything productive that came from that was secondary at best. It just so happened that she liked to drag Aaron along with her, so he could pretend that he was having fun so she would have fun and Kat got the added bonus of hanging with her best friend while she was having fun which resulted in double the amount of solo fun. Sugar brain logic.

As Marty drizzled marshmallow sauce over the green ice cream, Kat inquired, "so, how'd you come to work here?" Completely ignored. "Do you know the other Marty?" Ignored. "Is this about the comment from earlier? Because I assure you, it was an honest mistake." Marty hummed. Progress! "What do you do when you're not working?"

"I'm a psychology grad student at Keywest University, before you ask, yes I like my classes." Psychology huh, that was unexpected. He didn't seem like a people person, but that could have just been the reaction from Kat provoking him earlier.

Marty moved the two cups down to the cashier counter and pushed a couple buttons before tilting the screen back to show them the amount confirmation screen. Aaron paid the twelve dollars and added an eight-dollar tip, probably for Marty dealing with Kat, whose interactions tended to come off as tedious to others if not properly compensated.

Kat grabbed both of the ice cream cups and Aaron pulled her away from the counter and deposited her at the most secluded of the booths to let the poor worker be before going back to grab spoons. Aaron settled himself into the opposite side of the booth and stuck Kat's spoon directly into her ice cream. "Do you even know how much sugar that is?" He questioned.

"When have I ever been one to restrain myself?" Kat countered immediately, mouth already half-full of ice cream.

Aaron deadpanned, "that's a heart attack in a cup, KitKat." Health-nut say what?

"You just stole my opportunity to name it." Kat grumbled, half annoyed and half thankful-adjacent, whats that word? Relieved maybe? No, not quite, it would come later. Though, to be fair, he was probably better at naming things than she was, she had named a crow Corvus after all, that was like naming a cat Gato.

Aaron's response was to shrug and say, "well, now I'm stealing something else." He stuck his spoon in Kat's monstrously sweet concoction and scooped some into his mouth.

Kat's jaw dropped at the blatant disrespect. "You broke the rule!"

"I am the rule," Aaron shot back, licking the spoon clean with a disgusted grimace. He should have known better than to try what Kat had ordered, unlike her, he wasn't a fan of overdose amounts of sugar. "How can you eat that? I can feel my teeth rotting just looking at it."

"Excuse me, Satan, dont disrespect my ice cream!" Kat grabbed her spoon and knocked his away. "Hands off or I'm staging a rebellion and crowning myself the new king."

"Don't you worry, I regret that one bite enough that I'll never be touching that eyesore again. And here I thought that candy floss was bad."

Kat gasped in mock outrage at the insult to the candy floss, of course she knew why Aaron didnt like it, which was for the simple fact that it was pure sugar spun into clumps of cloud consistent candy that made his best friend lose all sense of impulse control and anything remotely unhealthy went against his religion. "You are so lucky that we are on friendly terms right now or I would stab you with my spoon!" She waved it at him in a threatening manner.

"It's plastic," Aaron deadpanned. "If you're going to threaten me, you should at least put some effort into it."

"I am wounded!" Kat exclaimed in mock outrage, hand over her chest as if to shield her heart. "And here I thought we were friends."

Aaron smiled teasingly from behind his own cup of ice cream. "Only an idiot would be friends with you."

"Well, jokes on you then cause youre stuck with me now. Ill kneecap you if you try to escape."

"You can certainly try."

"Don't challenge me. That's not a good thing, you know I'll do it if you do."

"You shouldn't threaten things you're not willing to follow through on."

"Duly noted. Now shut up and eat your ice cream or I'll go bug Marty and make him refund you so I can pay the bill. How's that for threats?" Aaron smiled and shook his head, indulging Kat's sugar craze.

Kat polished off the last spoonful of her super sugar-coma ice cream and sighed in contentment. Aaron had finished his off when she was only halfway through hers and had briefly gotten hiccups from eating too fast. The sugar had kicked in and worn off for Kat and now she was dead tired. Not wanting to speak, she made a circling motion in the air with her finger and Aaron snorted upon receiving the message. He got up, cleared off their garbage, and hauled her out of the booth, catching sight of a bit of mischief Kat had been carefully concealing. While they had been bantering back and forth, she had carved a cartoonish cat into the wall. "Really, Kat? That's vandalism." He sounded so much like a disappointed dad that she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"I claimed my spot, now my name is always on the chair." Kat smirked smugly. Aaron sighed in disappointment and made sure to put an extra twenty dollars in the tip box with a note about the vandalism. "Bye Marty!" Kat called over her shoulder as Aaron dragged her back to the door. "That was fun, let's do it again sometime."

"Sure, but give it a few days for Marty to cool off, yeah? And make sure you compensate the owner for defacing their property."

Kat smiled discreetly as if from an inside joke, curled her fingers into claws, and meowed a long drawn out, "fine."

That made it worse. Aaron sighing in exasperation, "come on, I'll walk you home." Ever the gentleman.