The Afternoon Tea Club

An encounter with the twin-tailed princess

"Good morning Mashiro," Aunt Namie tells me, as I walk in the dining room for breakfast.
"Good morning," I say back, still tired from the other day.
"Sorry I had to leave early for work yesterday," she tells me, as she puts breakfast on the table.
"It's okay," I answer, "you're already doing a huge favor letting me stay here."
"Don't mention it," she replies, "I owe your parents one."
Breakfast today was the usual grilled fish, but with another plate holding a poached egg. Aunt Namie's cooking is still the best.
"How was your day yesterday," she asks me, as she takes a seat on the chair in front of me.
"It was okay," I reply, as I finish up on my food.
"Really," she says, "it looks like something happened yesterday."
"It's nothing, really," I answer, as I get my bag and ready myself to leave.
"Okay," Aunt Namie says with a smile, "have a nice day!"
As I say goodbye, I open the door. The sun is shining bright and the trees sway quietly in the gentle spring breeze. I hear someone approaching my house. When I looked to see who it was, it was no other than my lovely yet talkative brunette friend Michio.
"Hey Mashiro," the brunette asks, "good morning!"
I give him a smile and greet him good morning as well.
After a short pause, Michio asks me, "Do you live here?"
"Yeah," I answer him, "I live with my aunt at the moment."
"Ohh," Michio replies, "I live just right around the corner then! We can walk to school together, how about it?"
I find nothing wrong with it, so I give him the yes.
"Alright," Michio tells me, as his face suddenly brightens up, "let's go!"
Michio doesn't stop talking the entire trip toward the busy street. He went on and on about some noodle place and the video games he just bought the other day. I suddenly remembered my promise to Misaki that I would help her revive the club. Just as I was about to open my mouth to speak, I hear footsteps behind me. There seemed to be someone running behind me.
"Get out of the way!," she says, as she hits my shoulder.
I watch her run off and I decide to shrug it off.
"That was rude," Michio says, interrupted from his long tangent.
We went walking for a few more steps until I finally decide to ask him about the club.
"Hey, Michio," I tell him, "do you have time after school for a club?"
He thinks for a while and answers, "Hmm, I guess I do.... Anything you want me to do?"
I stutter a bit and reply, "Yeah, you see, my friend has a club that's low on people and I was hoping that you could join...."
"Oh really," Mashiro looks at me with a surprised look, "what's the club called?"
"The Afternoon Tea Club," I answer, as Michio and I turn the corner of the school's street.
"Sounds interesting," he tells me, "I'll think about it.... When's the next meeting?"
"This afternoon," I answer, "the club president and I will be waiting for you there."
Right after I finish my sentence, we enter school grounds. Michio and I go to our respective shoe lockers and exchange shoes. We go up the stairs and to our classroom of 2-C. The room is brightly sunlit and people are off in their respective social circles and chatting. The bell rings and class starts. It was just an ordinary day full of lecture notes and annoying Michio a bit with my delicious lunch.
"Chicken karaage today, huh," Michio tells me, as he looks over my food and seems to envy it.
"Yeah," I joke, "jealous?"
He looks at his strange, purple-colored curry and back at my food.
He makes his hilarious pufferfish-like face and says, "Hey that isn't funny!"
"I'm joking, I'm joking," I answer, as I take another bite of my food.
Right in the corner of my eye, I see a quiet, black-haired girl. Her deep, blue eyes seem stare to stare out into oblivion. She looked to be thinking deeply about something. I shrug it off as none of my business and I continue on with lunch. After lunch, the rest of the school day was as normal as could possibly be. I constantly stare at the clock and wait for the end of the day. Finally, the bell rings and everyone quickly leaves the room.
"Umm, hey," Michio tells me, as we both take our bags and walk out of the room together, "I'm sorry but I just remembered that I had newspaper club I wanted to join and today's their first meeting...."
"It's okay," I answer, "did you always want to join newspaper?"
"Yeah, but I just didn't have enough time last year," he tells me, "I had to take care of my little siblings...."
"How many siblings do you have," I ask him.
He tells me that he's the second eldest out of four. His older sister makes the terrible bentos for him and he takes care of his younger siblings.
"Luckily," he tells me, "I don't have to worry about it that much anymore this year because my older sister promised she would stop spending too much time with her friends and split having to babysit our younger siblings."
"Good to know things are going better for you now," I tell him.
We go our own ways after our conversation: Michio heads down the hallway and I head up the stairs. 3-E is just right around the corner. When I open the door and say hi, I was surprised to see not only Misaki there, but this one other girl sitting on the other side of the table whose twin-tailed blonde hair seemed somewhat familiar. This was the girl who bumped into me earlier! They looked like they were having a great time with hot tea freshly brewed by Misaki and newly made scones.
"Well this is the other member of the club as I was talking about," Misaki tells the blonde, as she gets up and walks over to me, "Alice, meet Mashiro."
The blonde was quiet at first and took a sip of the hot tea. She then turned her head toward me and looked at me very hard. The girl then looked at me disgustingly.
"Misaki, I thought this club was only for high class people, not beggars from the dumpster who can't get out of the way."
She's holding a grudge for that?
I already begun to hate the blonde.
"Hey," I tell the rude girl, "watch it!"
She turns her head toward the windows and says, "Hmph, whatever. I would leave but this tea is quite swell."
I told myself to suck it up and I place my handbag to the side of the couch Misaki was sitting on. Misaki gave me the same ornate tea cup and poured some tea in it for me.
"Calm down you two," Misaki says, "just treat yourselves with some nice, hot tea."
I slowly take the tea cup from the small plate it was on and I take a small sip. I absolutely couldn't stand this "Alice" girl's attitude. Putting the hate all aside, however, I begin to talk to her.
"Hey, your name is Alice, right?"
Surprised, she suddenly puts her cup down and replies, "Yes it is. Yours is Mashiro, right?"
"Yes," I reply, "how are you?"
"It's none of your business," she tells me, "but since it seems like you absolutely NEED to know, I'll tell you that today was very dull and that this tea is very soothing.... How's yours?"
I get annoyed but tell her, "Mine went pretty well. I also think this club is a great way to end the day...."
"Eww, we agree on something," Alice tells me, "that's disgusting."
Excuse me? The nerve of this girl!
Alice takes a scone from the plate between us and eats it slowly. For such an obnoxious girl, she eats it with such grace. She then takes another sip of the tea and gets up.
"Okay, I need to leave now," Alice says, as she takes her hand bag and turns toward the door. On her way out, she says goodbye only to Misaki and gives me a cold stare with her light, gray eyes. I was angry.
"I'm so sorry about that, Mashiro," Misaki tells me.
"What is it with that girl," I ask, "I only bumped in to her once and she's so rude to me!"
I thought about how Misaki seriously needs members in the club and decide not to talk about Alice anymore. Misaki gave a small, faint laugh and I ask her what it was about.
"Nothing," she says, as she picks up her cup and takes another sip.