"Almost Green"

"My Kind Of Woman"

A chilly breeze passing by brought with itself a gentle smell of cinnamon and freshly brewed coffee. Sweet words sang all around the battered framework of a person as he sat back in his garden chair, enjoying the pleasantries that came with the Yanese autumn. It was a peaceful afternoon, spent in the patio of some fancy cafe where all the busiest personalities of Lungmen would gather for a quick break in their packed schedules.

"Whew... And you just outran that search party?"

Andy blinked. Once, twice. An overwhelming feeling of deja-vu struck him like a lead pipe to the head.

"Andy...?" Her chirpy voice woke him from the daze straight away, as her head tilted in slight confusion. A tiny smile played on her lips, enough to send his heart nose diving into a pit of nervous half-beats.

"Y-Yeah, I just thought... I had a feeling like this moment, uh... Like it happened before."

"Happened before? I haven't seen you in seven years, so that's very unlikely, silly~." Her smirk developed even further, sending his heart on a rampaging flurry of palpitations. He still couldn't get used to seeing her up close, to her actually being real and not some feverish daydream.

"I know! It's just a thing that happens." He couldn't help but smile back, feeling a tinge of red crawling onto his cheeks. "It's like... It has a name, I think."

"Deja-vu?"

"Deja-vu, yeah."

"See, had you stayed at home and finished school..." She started, her grin growing smug, eyelids drooping.

"Oh, shut up."

"You shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

Hands flew. Andy reached over the tiny table to poke her in the face. Her giggles turned to a high-pitched squeal as she jerked back in her chair, almost falling over. A few Feline suits by their table looked away from their coffees and graphs to glare at the two adult-children in confusion and disgust. It didn't stop them from poking one another amidst seas of giggles and playful insults.

"F-... Hey, no tickling!" Andy kicked his chair away from the table as Lemuel reached out to assault his exposed sides. With a gleeful cackle, her fingers dug into his sweater, biting his skin and sending waves of pleasant warmth all throughout his body. Tears welled in his eyes, as his own hands desperately tried pushing hers off of himself, to no avail.

"No tickling? There's seven years worth of tickling you've missed, you can forget about that~!" She spewed out in between giggles, gathering the attention of a few more customers sitting by. Andy kept squirming in his chair, a wide, shit-eating grin plastered over his face. He really, really did not want to move away, at all.

"... Ahem."

Both of them stopped, immediately dropping the smiles. Their eyes navigated towards the Oni waitress standing by their table, her face clad in nothing but boredom. She flicked a tiny notepad open, clicking a pen.

"... Ready to order? Or should I just call security?" Her monotone voice sobered the two up right away.

"Ah, order, yeah... Right, right, I'll take an..." A mischievous glint shimmered in her eyes as she shot Andy a knowing smirk. "You guessed it, an apple pi-!"

"We don't do apple pies." The waitress cut in, eyes-half lidded.

"Oh." Her smile dropped in an instant. "... What DO you do, then?"

"Sesame tarts, almond mooncakes, Draco beard, ninety-nine LMD whippy's, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, mango, peach pudding..." Her bored voice dragged on and on, soothing Andy to sleep. "... Peach cobbler, peach s-..."