A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Twelve: Part One

I stared at the choices that lie before my eyes. A thin wall of clear glass was the only thing that separated me from what I awaited for Seika Academy’s lunch period.

“Hotaru, did you choose your food yet?” Amanatsu began, ambling towards me with a modest dish clutched in his hands.

“Wait,” I murmured, skimming my gaze through the millions of choices that sat before me. What sat behind the windows that I stared at were plates that held thick, perfectly roasted chicken. Before the dishes were miniature signs the size of index cards. In printed calligraphy, the signs specifically labeled which chicken was which.

I peered at the signs of the dozens of full, roasted chickens that sat before me.

Roasted Chicken

Teriyaki Chicken

Orange Chicken

I knitted my eyebrows together in bemusement. Every chicken dish looked almost exactly identical. It was peculiar how every name I scrolled my gaze onto was different from the last.

I took a few steps to my right. Now the choices that sat before me were fancy, fresh slabs of steaks.

Filet Steak

Rare Steak

Medium Rare Steak

“Um . . .” I glanced from the left to the right, peering at the steaks in agony.

I hurried far down the aisle of displays. It seemed as if the row of countertops continued on forever and ever and ever.

I peered at what I had ended up in front of to see millions of choices of cakes that sat before me. They were perfectly frosted, along with the miniature signs that sat before them.

Red Velvet Cake

Chocolate/Caramel Cake

Chocolate Cake

Caramel Cake

Caramel/Almond Cake

I felt my lips curl as I progressed my view onto the next portion of displays.

Banana Crème Pie

Chocolate Pie

Apple Pie

I felt a strange, nauseating pain in my stomach and I grasped it with a groan. I had never been surrounded by so many choices of food just for lunch. When I had inhabited the old apartment, I always had up to three choices of food—and the food choices were indefinitely imperfect.

My head had never given me an excruciating amount of aching over food before.

“Too many choices . . .” I squeaked, lowering myself towards the ground by bending my knees. I rolled into a ball without anything but the soles of my shoes touching the floor. I held my hands against the temples of my head.

A shadow crossed the neatly tiled floors and I peered up at the figure before me. Amanatsu nervously smiled as he held the plate in his hands towards me.

“Here. Have this one.”

I glimpsed at the plate. What sat on the perfectly engraved dish were three neatly designed rice balls.

I took the plate into my hands and peered at it with my mouth slightly opened ajar. There was only one choice of food that sat on this dish, and it was no where as formal as the difficultly roasted steaks or chickens that sat several feet away.