Cafe A La Mode

(3) Confession

It was late at night, soft grey clouds blotted out the stars but beneath them the city lights glimmered mesmerically. The four girls were walking along the side path along a street that ran alongside the park. There weren't too many people around; this part of the city usually wasn't very busy at night, unlike the rest of Tokyo.

They had just come back from a very action packed afternoon of laser tag. Arisa had a comfortable victory, a combination of experience at similar sorts of video games and her sneaky tactics won the game. Meru and Emiko didn't do so bad either, however Juri hadn't done quite so well, and most of the game consisted of her squealing, running, and getting lost in the dark maze - much to her friends' amusement.

To add to their amusement, Emiko and Juri performed their invented 'soldier march', a little routine that involved the wildest imaginations and pretending to pull on helmets, before marching with their fake guns, shoulders hunched like a hunter, and an exaggerated, and rather silly, march.

Emiko and Juri had just finished another 'soldier march' as they were walking alongside the park, giddily giggling and talking excitedly about the game when it started snowing.

"Snow!" cheered Juri, dashing into the park and promptly throwing herself onto the soft, snow covered ground and began making a snow angel. Looking at each other, an unspoken unanimous decision was made between them and the other girls bounded after their friend.

It had been a long time since Arisa, Meru, Emiko and Juri had played in the snow as they did now. After becoming bored of making snow angels, they began attempting to construct igloos, most of which failed and crumpled into a wet pile of snow.

After a long while, finally Emiko stood up and brushed off the snow that dusted her thick black jacket. "Alright, come on guys, we better head back -" Emiko had barely finished her sentence when a ball of snow pounded into her back, knocking her breath from her.

She turned, her eyes searching her friends accusingly and Arisa immediately pointed to Juri, despite the cheeky grin she couldn't hide. Juri made a small sound of protest, holding her hands in front of her as Emiko slowly gathered up a handful of snow and patting it into a hard ball of ice.

Then Emiko paused, looking up and smiling at her friends, before directing her gaze to Arisa. "This means war!"

Arisa ducked as the hard ball of ice was tossed in her direction and hit the tree behind her, exploding upon impact. Wasting no time at all, Arisa threw another snowball from behind her miserable wall of snow in Emiko's general direction, only to hear a yelp from Juri as she got hit.

Meru snuck along the wall to Arisa, carrying a small pile of ammunition and stored them beside her teammate. They both snickered evilly; both girls knew that they were queens at snowball fights, and together, they would make the ultimate team.

Meanwhile, on the other side, hiding behind a park bench, Emiko and Juri were quietly talking tactics, whilst making as many snowballs as quickly as they could.

"Let's make a barrage," Emiko suggested quietly. She had the most experience at snowball fighting out of the two of them.  "And then we'll surprise them and suddenly stop."

"Yeah! And when they look over the wall to see why we stopped, we'll pelt them again!" Juri whispered excitedly. "And then we'll win!"

Emiko and Juri giggled excitedly and suddenly their laughter was cut short by a snowball slamming into the back of the seat, snow showering over them.

Maniacal laughter came from behind the wall of snow opposing them. Before Arisa and Meru had finished their cackle, snowballs rained down on them, as Emiko and Juri threw as many snowballs as they could blindly in their direction.