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

мay 16тн

Five times, she thought as she set down her bag on top of the wooden circular table, her usual spot. It had been the fifth Saturday ever since she started coming to the almost isolated place, with the first being an eventful experience.

Recalling what happened that time, her eyes wandered to the counter then around the cafe's pleasant interior and saw no sign of the light-haired male, which planted a tiny seed of disappointment in her chest. She was expecting him, she realized. He wasn't there when she ordered for a frappe and a cheesecake, and she was instead entertained by a good-looking male who seemed to be in his early twenties, the same person from the first day.

She was at least thirty minutes early, though, but it still fell into the period of time she'd like to refer to as the lazy hours--it was technically afternoon but not exactly afternoon. People's idea of afternoon, she assumed, was that pleasantly temperate time of the day when the sun's starting to paint the sky's blue canvas in deep crimson and tangerine hues with dashes of purple and pink. The afternoon she was referring to, however, was literally after noon, when people would feel extremely drowsy--in her personal experience, that is. It would also be the time when the sun's heat would be at its peak, making people prefer to stay indoors instead. And, apparently, her long break after her Saturday morning class and before her (cooler) afternoon class fell in those lazy hours.

Her gaze fell on her slightly open bag revealing a small part of her shiny laptop of a pleasant wisteria hue as her head rested on the palm of her open hand, her lips narrowing into a thin line. No, she still wasn't ready to give the writing thing another go. Just reading the first word of her rejected manuscript would fill her up with a bitter feeling, since all that time she thought she was good enough. She overestimated her capabilities, and this was where it got her.

Giving up on planning to do something productive during her free time, she turned to the glass walls in front of the cafe and was welcomed with the peaceful view of the trees dancing with the wind and the shades they casted following their movements, the small breaks of sunlight appearing and disappearing. Through the greenery beside the narrow road, a few students from the same university could be seen loitering around. Among those was a couple, and she was reminded of her now three-week-long dilemma. She released a sigh and was about to turn back to her table when a streak of light blue from outside caught her attention, her heart rate increasing considerably.

Her immediate guess was right; it was him. 

Wearing a university's white and indigo long-sleeved jacket and jogging pants, he was walking at a quick pace towards the cafe with his dark sports bag slinging carelessly on his shoulder. For once, she could see the tiniest pint of exhaustion gracing his usual inexpressive features, the beads of sweat forming on his forehead and rolling down his cheeks serving as further proof. He was late for his shift.

Interest and satisfaction bubbled within her, her eyes trailing his sweaty figure as it rushed towards what she thought to be the café's employee's back entrance since he gave the current cashier an acknowledging nod. With just a few seconds, she was able to make likely assumptions regarding the ghost-like male: one, he's also a student her age at the same university; two, he's a member of one of the university's prominent sports clubs; and three, he's a part-timer. Of course, all of these could be wrong, but they're what she wanted to believe in at the moment.

But then, she suddenly asked herself: why did she care so much?