Saturdays at Café L'Amour (Kuroko no Basket - Kuroko Tetsuya Fan Fiction)

мay 2nd

A dictionary's definition of a four-letter word has never been so vague despite the large amount of space it occupied in the page.

Her hands flew to her temples then pressed circles on it, her face scrunching up in frustration. As her gaze flickered back and forth from the same two-week old email, which almost made her drop her dreams of becoming a great authoress if not for the tissue paper notes she received from a certain stranger, to the small handy dictionary laid on top of her legs, her conviction of providing a remedy to her shortcomings wavered.

"Your concept is interesting," said the email, "but it lacked the most essential part: the feeling of romantic love. If this aspect could be improved, you aremore than welcome to submit the updated manuscript."

But what exactly is love? How does one fall in love? Realize it? Remain in it? Nurture it? Fall out of it?

A sigh leaving her lips, she took her phone out of an hourly habit, where a message was waiting to be read. It turned out, much to her slight excitement, that it was her friend who claimed to be in love with the same person since middle school. She asked the same query that was perturbing her thoughts for a week now even when she had something more important to take care of. Take writing that essay due next week for example.

"Well, love is that fluttery feeling you get when you're with him! Or when you just see his really handsome face! (๑•́ ω •̀๑) It's like your heart going ba-thump ba-thump really quickly with even just the thought of him! It's actually really a fluffy and fuzzy feeling that's really nice~ Why did you ask? Are you in love? ♥(✿ฺ´∀'✿ฺ)ﾉ"

The reply made one of her eyebrows arch and her lips curl into a small incredulous smile. In all honesty, it wasn't really helpful. Though she did revel in the idea of her pretty friend lovingly holding hands with the kind male she spoke so highly of with their hearts 'going ba-thump ba-thump really quickly' the whole time, she still could not comprehend the whole concept. It was actually a basic technique in the novels she had read where the protagonist's heart would skip beats when they get into a scene with their love interest. She just wanted to do something different and less obvious, something less cliche.

As she was in the middle of composing her response, a terrified shriek broke the peaceful atmosphere enraptured by the cafe's customers. She looked up out of sheer curiosity, and found a grown man cowering in front of the person in charge of the counter at the moment, the silent and unreadable Kuroko. He simply blinked then nodded apologetically.

"I apologize for startling you, sir, but I've been here all this time."

"H-HAH?!" The man stepped back, his wide eyes almost falling out of their sockets. He scanned the room and realized that he was making a scene, so he straightened up and cleared his throat. "Er... I'll have an espresso..." 

The scene made her laugh silently, relieving her of her love stress. As she covered her lips and tried to stifle her guffaw and amusement, a pair of cerulean eyes met hers, which made her stop in surprise. Was she too loud that he heard her even from afar? The next second, she swore she was dreaming.

For the shortest of moments, an almost unnoticeable smile tugged at his lips before he, with the usual look of indifference, turned back to the flustered customer.