An Englishman in the Glocken

Chapter 3 - The Girl in the Coffee Shop

Boring was good.

That was the conclusion that Michael had come to, after the past two nights of being shot at, stabbed at, strangled and the VR equivalent of breaking his hand on a 7-foot-tall behemoth of a man. Honestly, he wondered how Koharu put up with their misadventures sometimes – it was aging him something rotten (he was sure ginger hair wasn't supposed to go grey, but he could've sworn he'd gotten grey hairs... at the age of 21.), so lord only knew how stressed she was about it!

Anyway, those had been the past two nights, and tonight, he wasn't planning on logging in, but rather taking his amazing girlfriend to a nice restaurant, having a nice meal, going home and doing what couples do when they have the house to themselves...

Playing games and sleeping mostly.

Still, that was the future, as right now, it was 08:08 in the morning, and Michael found himself in the middle of a routine he so often did:

Wake up at 07:00, shower and wash, have breakfast, head down to the coffee shop at the end of the street to get a small cappuccino, then head back to the flat to start work by 09:00.

He'd been doing this for months now, and so he'd almost got the timings down to the minute for everything – he was so sure of it that he reckoned he could set his watch by it now. Given it was now 08:09, that meant he was waiting for his coffee in a small queue, and despite how impatient he may have been in Aincrad, he'd made an important distinction between Jet and himself; Jet was this almost comically exaggerated character he fell into when the need arose.

He was far more muted in his expressions, and although he was equally as blunt and snarky as his alter ego, that alter ego did his best to be a hero; he did his best to live a somewhat peaceful life. The two personalities were almost diametrically opposed at times, but both were a part of him – one forged in fire, the other forged by the school of hard knocks.

Rubbing his eyes to remove some sleep, he noticed a girl staring at him, a look of disbelief on her face. With long, light brown hair tied back into a ponytail, almost porcelain coloured skin and piercing red eyes, she looked remarkably familiar... yet he couldn't place her at all. It was like his mind had the details of this girl, yet was deliberately skipping over them for some reason... "It's you! You're real!" She almost gasped, and he raised an eyebrow.

Three years of dating had led him to be somewhat less dense than he had been once upon a time – his density now resembled a block of lead, rather than a black hole – but he wasn't sure that the man with an answer for everything that was Cody would know how to respond to this situation!

"I hope so, else I'm wondering how I just ordered coffee?" He joked awkwardly, trying to break the ice.

"No, I saw you in my dreams..." She said excitedly, before realising that people were looking at her strangely. "God, I must sound insane!" The girl shrunk into her shoulders slightly, a flush coming to her cheeks.

Honestly, if he had to say anything, he didn't think she was insane, so much as abysmal at flirting, but that didn't do much for the awkwardness he was now experiencing; the tapping against his leg having sped up significantly in a vain hope that it would accelerate the passage of time and end this encounter... or speed up the coffee machine.

Either or.

"Just a little bit, yeah." He said quietly.

Despite the embarrassment on her face, the girl didn't hide from it and carried on talking. "Heh, sorry. I'm Edith, by the way. Bet you don't get many guys or girls telling you they've seen you in their dreams, do you? Hell of a way to start a conversation!" She joked, clearly trying to recover the situation.