Empress of Time

Chapter 5: His Stare

Kisa

I felt as if the world around us had slowed down with people passing in blurs. Then suddenly, Ryan let go, pulling out his wallet. "I'm... hungry," he smiled. "What do you want to eat? They have burgers (I love burgers) and French fries, or pizza, Chinese food, barbeque, Mexican, Greek gyros, fast food, ice cream-"

"Ice cream!" I cried out, half in question and excitement. I don't know why I sounded excited or why I blurted out like that. Do I really love ice cream that much?

"Really?!" Ryan shouted, flinging his arms in the air with enthusiasm. "Let's go, let's go!" he tugged on my arm.

"Wait!" I pulled on his shirt. "I-It was an accident," I blushed.

"Food is never an accident! If you crave it, you eat it!" he declared.

"I see..."

He grasped my wrist, lunging me forward. We took the escalator to the second floor, dashing towards the food court. "We don't need to rush," I assured him.

"It's just been a while since I last ate something," he shrugged.

"Yeah, like twenty minutes," I muttered under my breath. We shoved through the massive crowd, making our way towards the ice cream stand. We stood in line behind two young girls who suddenly turned to look at us. At first, I thought they were staring at me, but their eyes rolled up to the top of their eyelids. Ryan smiled, looking around excitedly. The blonde whispered to the brunette with the pink streak. They giggled and wave to get his attention. "Hey!" the blonde fluttered her eyes.

Ryan looked confused but weakly smiled back. "Uh, Hi!"

"Do you live around here?" the pink-streak asked. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, eyeing him desperately.

"Um, yeah. On the hill back in the market place," he replied. The girls exchanged satisfied glances.

"So you're a caster?" the blonde leaned in closer.

"Y-Yes," Ryan stepped back.

"Aw, don't be shy! We just wanted to get to know you better," the pink-streak rubbed his arm, grabbing it lightly. Ryan, who looked quite uncomfortable, gently pushed her hand away and brushed his hair back, sighing.

"The line is moving," he pointed out. Suddenly uninterested (or maybe disappointed), the girls turned their backs and walked out of line. Ryan let out a breath of relief. "Phew."

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yup! Line is shorter now!" he cheered. Eventually, it was our turn to order. Ryan decided to get six scoops for himself and ordered one for me (I can't eat that much).

"Can you really eat all of that?"

"Well, it's just frozen cream. I would order more but the ice cream guy was giving me some weird looks," he laughed. We walked over to a table in the middle of the food court. Before I sat down, he pulled the chair back for me.

"Oh, thank you," I sat down slowly.

"You're welcome," he responded. I avoided eye contact the whole time we ate, eating slowly to refrain from getting some embarrassing brain freeze. Ryan placed his cup down, empty.

"You're already done?!"

"Yeah! As I said, it's just frozen cream, not solid meat." I ate my last few spoonfuls.

"Oh that reminds me!" He checked the time on his phone. "We need to get you a nice dress." I coughed.

"W-what for?"