Cupids Arrow

Cupids Arrow: Chapter 3

There comes a time in every woman's life when she feels inexplicably compelled to crawl under the table and slit her wrists.

Incidentally, Shoko's time had come.

"Hello, how are you all today?" the waitress asked, smiling politely as she distributed menus between them.

Shoko could think of any number of responses, none of them socially acceptable.

"G-good, thank you," she forced out, and Len and Kahoko did much the same.

"Can I get you anything to drink while you decide?"

A chorus of "Just water, please," and the waitress was off. A not entirely comfortable silence fell over the table, and Shoko twisted off the corner of the paper napkin on her lap while staring intently at the table edge. Not that it would give her any more answers than her cereal had, but a girl could try.

Kahoko, seemingly oblivious to the discomfort radiating from her companions, happily picked up the menu. She tapped Shoko's menu lightly, and grinned at the other girl, who started and looked up in confusion.

"Prepare yourself, for something wonderful."

In spite of her pain, Shoko gave a shaky laugh and picked up her menu as Kahoko nodded in satisfaction and went on to scour her own for the perfect choice.

Len, of course, already had his open, not that he was really focused on it.

She resisted the urge to slump into her chair, and dragged her own thoughts back to the menu.

Her mood lifted slightly when she saw there was a little section for pie. She liked cake well enough, but her usual choice of dessert, when she ate it, was pie. More specifically, she adored pie crust, but most people didn't really serve it sans filling.

She quietly shut her menu, and went back to clutching the mutilated napkin.

A couple of minutes later, Kahoko did the same, and Len followed suit, returning to the dual surveillance of his water glass and Kahoko's lovely face.

Shoko looked at her own water glass and considered trying to drown herself in it.

'Further Adventures of Sogginess, compliments of Shoko Fuuyumi,' she thought in wry misery. She was being rather morbid today, she noted. Not to mention that appalling vulgarity from earlier, the recollection of which had her turning red in shame.

Naturally, given the inherently quiet natures of her two companions, Kahoko was left to try and carry the conversation.

"Ah . . . what are you guys going to get?" the question disrupted the silence like a pebble skipping into the water, and Len and Shoko slowly came out of their individual reveries to process the question.

"Cherry pie," she murmured quietly, and returned to her napkin instead of having to watch as Len valiantly tried to make his dessert order sound clever and engaging.

But alas, he was a mere mortal man, and his final answer was simply, "The Dark Castle Cake," in reference to an astonishing arrangement of chocolate cake topped and trimmed with any number of dark chocolate features. "What about you, Hino-san?"

But Kahoko was looking at him in amazement, with good reason. Even Shoko had stopped in surprise. Neither girl could imagine the cold, refined young man next to them consuming the hefty confection he had just described.

Shoko, in fact, felt intrigued, like she was about to witness a strange phenomenon that few people had or ever would see.

"Er, I'm getting the Strawberry Tango . . . I didn't know you liked chocolate, Tsukimori-kun," Kahoko stumbled over the words, still recovering from the shock, but the disbelief was evident in her voice. Shoko looked up briefly, a little curious herself, and her heart wavered a little at the flush dusting his cheeks.