blackbox | kirishima eijirou

13 | sweet smiles

Sakura wonders how coffee really taste like, as in how good coffee was supposed to taste like.

The freshly brewed warm beverage sitting in a porcelain cup as the strong aroma fills one's nostrils, waking them up like it's some kind of an ether that clears the drowsy look in their eyes, and the small cloud of steam forming above the brownish surface like an ashtray's cigarette's smoke.

People say that coffee's the healing potion to a dying soul as soon as the sun ascends from the horizon, its rays touching every surface as the light wakes them up. Some say coffee's the love potion that lasts only for a limited time as they dedicate themselves to the people they meet, before parting ways to move on from the broken trance. Some say coffee's the special potion that we all need when we're burning the midnight oil in hopes the caffeine running in our veins was all for something.

In someone's description of coffee—the taste of coffee was that a cup of basic coffee is sharp and sour. Now, Sakura finds that odd—is coffee sour? Well, maybe. She never drinks coffee. She was told coffee has a crisp and bright flavour, lingering its pleasant bitterness on the slick of a tongue and the back of one's throat while it runs as fuel for their brains to work early in the morning.

That's someone's perspective.

Her perspective?

The taste of coffee's bitter as fuck it makes her gag.

Yeah, she doesn't drink coffee mainly because of that.

Its dark bitter taste reminds her of the words she forced to leave her mouth whenever someone asks if she's fine and she guessed that that was one of the reasons why she doesn't drink coffee.

"Sakura, you okay?" Yui asked as her ocean blue eyes scanned her face, masked with a smile with brows lifted in wonder.

"I'm fine, why?"

"You have shitty eyebags."

"Oh—wow. Thanks for that but really, I'm fine. It's the lack of sleep again."

Funny how she's saying all that while drinking a bottle of warm coffee her mother forced her to bring to school because she thought her daughter studied all night after what happened previously.

Sakura could just pour the whole coffee down the girls' bathroom sink or on some grass, but she's someone who hates wasting food. Sure, she could just ask Yui, Sora or Riku to drink it, but none of them didn't want any.

And the more she drinks down the torturous taste of its venom lingering the walls of her throat, she feels shittier by the second.

Oh, the irony of her working in a coffee shop as a barista who actually hates coffee. All she ever drink in that café was the usual Chocolate Mocha Frappe because all she taste was the bittersweet chocolate sauce within the ice blend beverage. It's the kind of bitter she'd rather drink.

Sakura started the day with the usual cloudy mood she's in every time she ends a night with tears dripping off her chin, adorning the bedsheets and pillows, letting herself weep helplessly. Earlier that morning, her parents surprisingly haven't left for work yet since they'd always go off without a word. So when she strolled into the kitchen to see both of them having breakfast, a bolt of lightning suddenly struck in the raincloud above her.

They casually started asking questions like how she slept, how she studied and how she's going to do well in school, when sometimes from the back of her mind she wished they'd ask how she was instead.

Painstakingly taking the last sip of the tart drink, she closed the bottle with the cap and settled it down on the cafeteria table.

"Yui," Sora said as he took a bite of his onigiri. "What did you get for Literature's test?"