vaishlo: the formening 🤯

Chapter 2: The rizzening

Somehow, Vaish had found herself in the supermarket.

At four in the morning.

During closing hours.

She knew not what purpose she was serving to society by being in the cereal aisle in the ungodly hours of the morning, but here she was: alone. She didn't remember the last time her head had hit a pillow. Perhaps she was dreaming at this very moment, and she had no way to tell. Delirious, she reached for a box of cereal. She dimly registered them as cocoa puffs: her blurred eyes could vaguely make out the shape of the hyperactive toucan on the box, which was slurping up the brown, spherical cereal like there was no tomorrow. The cereal was a nice shade of brown, she supposed. They reminded her of something. Or someone, perhaps. Someone's eyes.

By some impulse that she was far too tired to fight, she brought the box of cocoa puffs up to eye level, and leaned in closer. Her lips gently grazed the cartoon bird's face, which stared back at her in unblinking joy. Or perhaps horror. Considering it was frozen in print, there was no way to tell.

Vaishnavi, in some sort of deranged fever, kissed the box. She felt the brown orbs of puffed grain stared back at her lovingly. Butterflies rose in her stomach, dynamite exploded in her head, Obama was there-

"...Pardon me, miss, but what on earth are you doing?"

Vaish flung the box of Cocoa Puffs at the opposing shelves and stumbled backwards in horror.

"PRESIDENT OBAMA??? I AM SO SORR-"

Before she could finish her sentence, however, she collided into the shelf behind her. Boxes of cereal tumbled down around her, burying her in grain and muffling her pleas for help.

Arlo watched on, perplexed, as Vaishnavi continued to be entombed in boxes of cereal, all while yelling out pleas of forgiveness directed to Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States of America.

"Miss Vaish, would you perhaps... require some assistance to get out of your predicament?" He inquired, once her cries for help had faded out.

An extremely muffed "Yes please, Mr. Obama" emanated from the hill of cereal. Arlo sighed and made his way towards the grainy death trap to pull out the lady in a predicament. Chivalry wasn't dead, not on his watch.

He mildly regretted his decision, however, when after several minutes of hard work, he'd excavated Vaish's head- only to be met by wide eyes and a nervous stutter of:

"Y-You're not B-barack Obama!"

Alas.

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*after Arlo pulls Vaish out of the cereal pile and the cereal is somehow magically put back into place*

Vaish stood with her arms crossed defensively in front of her.

"Look, dude, the only reason I was kissing the cocoa puffs was because I thought the toucan looked hot."

Arlo cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her in response.

"It's a cuckoo, Miss, not a toucan. Nonetheless, I had no idea you felt so... strongly... about cereal mascots."

Vaish flushed red: whether the embarrassment came with mislabelling the bird or kissing it, no one could tell.

"Yeah, Arlo, dude, I uhm- I gotta go. What were you doing here so early anyways?"

"I woke up at an unfortunate hour and realised I had run out of milk. I needed some to ward off my friend, so I broke in here to get some before he arrived. I thought I'd get some cereal to go along with the remainder, but-"

"Ward off?" Vaish cut across. "Dude, is your friend a milk vampire or something???"

Arlo winced.

"Not a milk vampire, miss. Just lactose intolerant. I have my... reasons for warding him off."

Vaishnavi rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, what's he gonna do?," She scoffed. "Suck your blood in the witching hour?"

"Well, no. Like I said at our last meeting, Miss Vaish, there is some information I cannot tell you today. Nor tomorrow, not the day after. Perhaps if we were to grow our acquaintanceship further, you may be privy to such information."

Vaish sighed. This guy and his Edwardian-ass language.

"Therefore, for that very thing to occur, we must spend more time with each other, no?," He continued, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Miss Vaish, if it doesn't inconvenience you too much, I would like to invite you to come to the aquarium with me this Thursday morning."

Vaish froze stock-still. No way.

She managed to unglue her jaw enough to mumble out a garbled "I'd love to, thanks" before freezing back into total shock.

Arlo smiled at her and gently pressed a folded scrap of paper into her hand.

"Well then Miss, I hope to see you in two days. Stay in touch, will you?"

And once again, before Vaish could get another word in, he ambled off into the distance.

Shakily, she unfolded the folded scrap of paper.

On it was a neatly scrawled set of digits.

His phone number.

She could've cried of joy at the sight.

A/N warren cameo yay, also vaish im very sorry  abt the cocoa puffs

p.s. arlo if ur reading this im so sorry for how much i massacred ur character